Giving up control in class discussions

I've been having this problem in class discussions that my supervisor, the Head of School, first pointed out last semester when she observed my class: often the kids talk to me, not to each other. She suspected it's because I  respond to them - I nod, and make generally affirming "Hmm" and "Ahh" noises.  I  also generally facilitate class discussions and call on people, so it sort of makes sense that the kids direct their thoughts to the Boss Lady who stands at the head of the class. 

It's not ideal though - I could see other kids checking out because they weren't involved in conversations. I had been meaning to try a method Derrick Jensen describes, in Walking on Water, of having groups of students take turns facilitating discussions. 

But today we stumbled into another model. We'd just taken in a whirlwind of information on masculinity, violence, and feminism, including brainstorms the kids had generated. I told them I'd noticed this phenomenon where they talk to me and not to each other, and suggested we try an experiment. 

I called on M, she said her bit, and then she called on someone else. Once that person was done they called on someone else, etc. People raised their hands when they wanted to speak, and I occasionally reminded them all to be aware of how long people had had their hands up, and to invite those who hadn't contributed to speak. But mostly they ran the discussion themselves, talked to each other and looked at each other. They even called on each other if they new someone had particular thoughts or opinions. I raised my hand at one point to, and when an intern TA tried to defer time to them, they insisted he contribute. 

And we made our way like that. It was amazing. Nearly everybody talked, and nearly everybody kept track of who was wanting to speak. We didn't talk explicitly about what feminism is and why we're learning about gender, masculinity and feminism all together - but they did talk a lot about sexual politics and consent, and the relevance of gender conversations to their own lives. 

At the end of class I congratulated them on a thoughtful, respectful and well facilitated discussion. 

M said: "That conversation never would have happened in a public high school." 

Amen. 

BFFLs

We couldn't run school without the young men and women who are interns here. They take major leadership in the kitchen and garden, TA classes, help with homework, do tuck-in most nights, and are a vital part "holding the container." The kids also LOVE and WORSHIP them. 

Case in point, while settling in for class yesterday: 

Student (to intern-TA): "Sit by me, we're besties." 

Someone else: "Besties?" 

Student: "Best friends. We're also BFFLs. Best. Friends. For. Life." 

Intern (without missing a beat, and only sort of kidding): "Well, as your BFFL, I want to tell you that those hip hop lyrics you were just singing were unbecoming."

Maybe you had to be there to get how sweet it was. It was sweet.  

What's a "real man"? What's a "real woman"?

We started our unit on gender power yesterday, and to get the ball rolling I assigned the first chapter of Kate Bornstein's My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely. It's an introduction to gender studies and self-examination from the perspective that 1) gender is something that's performed and formed in relationship and is not biologically ingrained, and 2) There are, perhaps, way more than two genders.

I thought the book would be extra fun because throughout the chapter there are various pieces of a "Gender Aptitude" quiz, which asks multiple choice questions like:

1. If youfell in love with a heterosexual man, you'd be:
A. Reassuring yourself that the old Greeks had friendships like that
B. Pleased as punch
C. Nervous as hell
D. Curious, curious, curious

2. Are there things you can't do in the world because of your gender that others can?
A. No. Well, maybe I can't have a baby, but who wants to?
B. Well, duh. Of course!
C. I used to think it was because of my gender, yeah.
D. Maybe a long time ago, back before I met the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion.

Then tallies them and tells you what your gender aptitude is, all the way from Gender Freak (read: totally liberated) to Captain James T. Kirk ("Ah, Captain, you finally get to truly go where no man has gone before.")

I thought it would be just like those quizzes in Seventeen Magazine only radical and edgy and....actually substantive. And funny, and infuriating. It would give them a lot to respond to. And, because the author has been trans and now identifies as genderless, it would give us a place to start from that wasn't based in a binary, even though much of the rest of the unit is about men, women, masculinity and feminism.

We started class with the writing prompt (I've stopped calling them free writes): "Describe gender as if to an alien from another planet who has no concept of it."

As they went in a circle and read their descriptions aloud there were a range of answers, but everything we needed was there: a vague sense that biological sex and gender are in conversation but are not the same thing, many manifestations of the all-to-familiar gender binary (including some that were positively Gone With the Wind-ish), and a lot of confusion and "Um...I don't know...but..."

Then I gave them some definitions:

Sex: Biological, involving genitalia and hormones

Gender: 1) "Neither natural nor essential, but rather the performance of self expression within dynamic relationships" (Bornstein)
2) " State of being male or female, in reference to social and cultural differences rather than biology" (Dictionary)
3) About identity, not physicality. (Angelina)

Then I said, "So what do you think about all this, what did you think about the Workbook.......?" and all hell broke loose. Turns out the questions were two restrictive! Clearly the writer had an agenda!

One of two men in the class said he noted - and did not appreciate - that the answers geared at him, a heterosexual man, automatically gave him a lower "gender aptitude." He said he felt comfortable affirming that he was a "real man" because, in his opinion, real men show a range of emotional styles and also feminine charecteristics. His idea of real was not society's, but he felt like Kate Bornstein was assuming that it was. Many of the women concurred - of course they were real women, even if they didn't fit societal expectations.

Then we got off on this amazing discussion of what it means to be "real," and who gets to decide it, especially when, God forbid, we are defining gender for ourselves. Then J, is who somewhat scientifically and impirically minded but also kind of an imp, exclaimed: "If everyone gets to define "real" for themselves, then what's the point of using that word!?"

Apparently several of them had been discussing this in the airport on the way back to school after break. (Hearing this made my day).

Then we talked about the failings of language, and about language, naming and power. Bornstein was nice enough to supply this Rumi quote: "Language is a tailor's shop where nothing fits."

And then we talked about dichotomies, and Starhawk's idea (in Webs of Power) that they are often at the root of violence. We talked about the idea of a gender spectrum (which is maybe just a modified dichotomy) and other ways that we could graph people's identities.... like clusters of related words and meanings (from the TA who is a linguistic genius), constellations of relationships, etc. (I taught them "ontological" and told them to use it while trying to flirt with cute nerdy people at parties).

J especially was in to the idea of clusters. Then M, who had been quiet to this point but who's gears were clearly turning, said: "Do we really even need gender? What's the point?"

We parted ways with several questions in mind. How do we define gender for ourselves, in relation to people and to society? What's it mean to be "real"? What do we think of this idea of there being more than two genders? When we're talking about language, gender, etc, where's the power?

They were still talking about the quiz at dinner.

Kate Bornstein would have been proud.

My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely
by Kate Bornstein

The Garden

A documentary called The Garden is quickly becoming one of my favorite teaching tools for Peace Studies. It's teachable both because it shows good documentary film techniques and because its a recent, compelling example of people organizing and advocating for their rights. And because it connects to food and agriculture and food equity - all big pieces of our program here at Woolman.

The documentary follows Mexican and Mexican-American farmers who worked plots in the largest urban garden in the United States, 14 lush acres in South Central Los Angeles given to the community after the LA Riots. When the "real" owner reasserts his rights to develop the land, the farmers fight, and what emerges in a complex tale about money, local politics, and back room deals - as well as solidarity, strife, and good community organizing.

In Peace Studies class we're in the middle of a unit on social movements , and just getting ready to start filming on student documentaries. The Garden was perfect for curricular movie night tonight.

And even though the copy I had was messed up - no subtitles for the considerable amount of Spanish in the film! - we made it work. We paused it often so the students who speak Spanish could translate for those who don't, and so we could answer each other's questions about the political intricacies we needed to follow. It felt good that way, helping each other along.

The South Central garden itself is ultimately bulldozed. This part of the film is a hard couple minutes of people protesting, crying, and being brutalized by police - not to mention footage of a 10+ year old garden with established plants being plowed under.

There were several wet eyes in the room, mine especially, mostly because while watching that footage I kept thinking: this is why I do what I do. This is what I'm trying to give them. Not the protest tactics so much, though that's part of it, but the kind of identification with others that unmasks the powers of domination all around us, the kind of identification and seeing that leaves them raw and empowered and open to transformation. I want to feed and nourish whatever it is that made my students cry at that movie. I don't fully have the language, but I think human solidarity and equality are something as delicate and precious as that garden, and as worth defending. And I think, in their hearts before their minds, my students get that.

So I teach them about structural violence, domination and power, cultures of resistance, oppositional consciousness, and social movements. I give them big concepts, words for things they may already understand on some level. I assert in each of our units on gender, class and race that none of this is purely theoretical and intellectual for any of us - we all live gender, class and race every day. We all live power, privilege, and violence everyday. We are all experts.

I throw it all at them, and I hope some of it sticks, that they will pick it up some day and use it. And if they find something is not a useful tool, I hope that they will fashion something new from it. I have reason to be hopeful.

Find out more about The Garden here: www.thegardenmovie.com

Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices

Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices, the anthology project I have been involved with for three and a half years (!), is now available for pre-order from QuakerBooks of FGC. Right now there is a %15 discount.

It's amazing to me that it has a cover, that it has pages (all 375 of them), that very soon it will exist in book form and not just on people's computer's and desks. That soon we will release it to the world like those birds on the cover. It feels right and mostly ready - though maybe you never truly finish a book, you just let it go. Here we go!