TEACHING QUEER
The first time that I remember I heard about the word Queer was the last semester in my ID 601 class. At that time, I got the idea fo that concept because of the context of the conversation. However, I didn't pay much attention to it. Likewise, it was curious to see that professors asked students to write or tell which pronouns they would like to go by when called or mentioned in any way. This curiosity was because in my country, or at least at my university, we didn't tend to do that. The first time I was asked to give my pronouns, I thought it was ridiculous. Why should I give my pronouns when everybody is supposed to notice which ones I would adopt by just looking at my appearance?
Yet, as we moved on in that class and approached that topic deeply, I understood how important it is for us to recognize people by how they identify themselves and not only by our perception of who they are. Even though I am a Christian person, I have always tended to respect and accept people as they are, and this respect embodies people's self-identities. How should I approach a student who physically looks like what I conceive as a girl, but was genetically born as a boy?
Questions like this aroused while reading DiGrazia and Boucher, and Waite's essays.
I consider that implementing a queer pedagogy in a composition class would be very interesting. I think this would allow students to face themselves with their own reality, this means that they would have to think of some aspects that they have probably never thought of. Writing under this approach would make them think of the audience in a more critical sense. Many of the topics that seem common or usually addressed would come to a second-place. Students who classify themselves as queer might experience more trouble and a deeper reflection than other students considering that they might expect more judgment from the audience depending on the topics.
For instance, if the class is asked to write about gender, sex or topics alike, queer students might feel pressured to take either a position that sounds more acceptable for the majority of their classmates or one that challenges everybody but they might not know how to defend. Additionally, writing about those topics might be a good way for all the students to get into topics that they have just approached from the surface.
Then, more than a learning experience, these readings have been an important source of reflection for me. Moreover, I understand why the concept of inclusion jumps from mouth to mouth, but its real application doesn't look that easy. Although this may sound a little bit off the topic, I feel that one of the problems of inclusion is that by including some, we are somehow excluding others. Nevertheless, this type of readings helps us reflect from our dichotomy as instructors/students and try to find a way to include more every day if including all were not possible yet.
Yet, as we moved on in that class and approached that topic deeply, I understood how important it is for us to recognize people by how they identify themselves and not only by our perception of who they are. Even though I am a Christian person, I have always tended to respect and accept people as they are, and this respect embodies people's self-identities. How should I approach a student who physically looks like what I conceive as a girl, but was genetically born as a boy?
Questions like this aroused while reading DiGrazia and Boucher, and Waite's essays.
I consider that implementing a queer pedagogy in a composition class would be very interesting. I think this would allow students to face themselves with their own reality, this means that they would have to think of some aspects that they have probably never thought of. Writing under this approach would make them think of the audience in a more critical sense. Many of the topics that seem common or usually addressed would come to a second-place. Students who classify themselves as queer might experience more trouble and a deeper reflection than other students considering that they might expect more judgment from the audience depending on the topics.
For instance, if the class is asked to write about gender, sex or topics alike, queer students might feel pressured to take either a position that sounds more acceptable for the majority of their classmates or one that challenges everybody but they might not know how to defend. Additionally, writing about those topics might be a good way for all the students to get into topics that they have just approached from the surface.
Then, more than a learning experience, these readings have been an important source of reflection for me. Moreover, I understand why the concept of inclusion jumps from mouth to mouth, but its real application doesn't look that easy. Although this may sound a little bit off the topic, I feel that one of the problems of inclusion is that by including some, we are somehow excluding others. Nevertheless, this type of readings helps us reflect from our dichotomy as instructors/students and try to find a way to include more every day if including all were not possible yet.
Hello Cristian! Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that implementing a queer pedagogy would be a very interesting practice to take up in a first year composition course. Even, it could be more broadly thought of as an exploration of identities and how these are shaped. This particularly is something that really interests me and I think that it would be an incredibly interesting thing to explore in a class like this. There are so many other issues that could be brought up in a class themed on identity. How we are perceived and how we perceive others, for one. A lot of stuff could then be brought in about our perceptions of immigrants or people from different (sub)cultures as us, or even how it is that we came to see ourselves as we currently do.
I was interested by the point you brought up about if someone was queer in a classroom, they may feel like they can’t speak up or that they may be ostracized if they speak their minds and reveal their true identities. However, this could be an interesting thing to try to turn on it’s head throughout the course of the semester (though difficult). It would be gratifying to come to the end of the semester with students realizing that none of us are “normal,” that all identities are shaped through various means and that the way we are perceived matters. (There’s a whole power thing in there too.)
We could even relate this to writing in a concrete way by thinking through how our writing is perceived. Is it perceived this way because of who the reader thinks the writer is as a person? Is there some way to manipulate these assumptions to suit our purposes? I could go on…
I definitely want to talk about your point that whenever we exclude some, we are excluding others. This is one of those conundrums that we discussed in my undergrad anthropology classes. It’s true. Whenever we take some kind of action to be inclusive, then we are running the risk of excluding others. I don’t even know if it’s possible to be all-inclusive. However, what I do know is that sometimes the best thing to do is be inclusive of those who are often excluded (according to popular culture). I think it’s just a matter of taking whatever opportunities we have available to us to expose our students to something they may not have experienced before. One of the best ways to learn something is to be exposed to something you have been blind to up until that point. I see it as giving a voice to those who are silenced. (Of course, that brings up a whole thing about who is being silenced in the classroom and whether the instructor is the only one who is really being heard. I could go real deep into all this….)
Thoughts? Disagreements? Anyone want to poke holes in my ideas?
Hi Cristian,
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting reading your blog. You know what, I had the same feelings like you when we were asked to share our pronouns. Though I used to acknowledge all people and their identities before coming here, but never thought about this that way. I used to respect everyone regardless of their age, class, gender. But never thought like this before that I'm not even allowed to perceive someone's identity from their outer look. It's really up to them which identity they wanna hold and I should ask before acknowledging someone's identity.
This place is more likely to accept all the people regardless of any differences. But even then there's some thing everyone should be exposed to. However, I think your idea of implementing this concept in first year composition class can turn in something great. Being a facilitator, this is somewhat our responsibilities to take care of the inclusion of diverse students and expose them to these concepts. Probably that may help others to acknowledge the very normal thing and people whom they consider as "NOT NORMAL". And obviously those who are dealing with these (The nonacceptance ) throughout their lives would be able to come in light and share their experiences and knowledge with others.
To some extent, this is very great to introduce and again I'm wondering how that can be done and what if this get to trigger those students in name of inclusion.
Hey Christian, I appreciate you exploring something that you are new to and even perhaps a little uncomfortable implementing in this blog post. I have some small experience with queer theory in the literature classroom, but have such an apprehension to implementing queer pedagogy for the fact that I do not want to mess it up! You raise some really good points when you say you don't want to single people out in your act of teaching queerly.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I think that there is something to be said about your willingness to try this idea, even though it is not something you are completely versed in or comfortable. As teachers, I think we all want to model for our students the ways that we want them to function and achieve in the classroom. That being said, modelling is difficult if what we are modelling is not natural or familiar to us....but consider for a moment that queer pedagogy is about challenging the structures that are in place that favor hetero-normative (& typically white) ideals and successes. By implementing queer pedagogy to challenge ourselves, modelling that discomfort and disruption that it may cause, and modelling how to navigate that new and uncharted space authentically it will not only give your students a model to follow, but help all of you grow together. It seems to me that leaning into that discomfort and learning curve might be an important part of practicing queer pedagogy. Just some food for thought.