--- Spoiler Alert If
You Haven’t Finished The Wednesday Wars ---
It was great reading all your thoughtful posts. I noticed how a lot of you reflected on
constructionist versus authoritative paradigms.
As I was reading your reflections, I realized that Mrs. Baker is (like
Nancy) both constructivist and authoritative.
For example, she discusses the plays with Holling in a way that seems to
allow for some constructionist learning to happen, and they engage in
exploratory talk (at least he does), but her tests and her proclamations that “comedy isn’t about
being funny,” (she’s right in the Shakespearian sense…but language is a living
thing and humor is a widely accepted part of the mainstream American English
definition of comedy) and “there is a lot more to the Tempest than a list of
colorful curses” (I mean…if, according to Macbeth, life is “a tale told by an
idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” than that may render all
literary works, including the Tempest,
essentially a mere list of colorful curses) rang a little authoritative to
me.
Another part of Smagorinsky that we seemed to be especially
interested in is the metaphor of the Procrustean bed. I think this metaphor doesn’t only apply to
instruction and assessment, but the classroom culture (and the larger cultures
that the classroom culture exists in) also.
I thought of how Maryl Lee seemed a confident, straightforward girl (she
had told Holling that she’d fallen in love with him when she first laid eyes on
him back in the third grade…that takes some guts!)…but ultimately it was still
up to Holling (as the male) to be the one to ask her on a date, and the one to
figure out what they would do and how he would pay for it. Gender roles remain
a powerful (and, for many, often constrictive) force in our classrooms. Meryl Lee and Holling seemed to survive their respective Procrustean amputation and stretching, but I think the larger cultural forces the novel
evokes (the same forces that caused Holling unnecessary stress and relegated
Meryl Lee to having little say in the date decisions) will be with us in that
classroom everyday we teach.
In fairness to Smagorinsky’s test-borrowing colleague, we don’t
know whether or not s/he ended up adapting the material s/he received.
One thing I’m interested to chat about with you folks in
class is whether or not you’d teach The
Wednesday Wars (and where/when). I absolutely love the book, but I wonder
whether it would be more appropriate for certain student demographics than
others. Of course, any good book can be
made relevant to anyone (I suppose) with enough creativity (isn’t that what The Wednesday Wars suggests?), but I
find myself wondering whether the energy spent making this book (in which one
major conflict includes an overbearing, patriarchal father obsessed with
bread-winning) seem relevant to a class with many students who would love to have that kind of father around
(for both emotional and economic reasons) would be better spent elsewhere.
In reading your commentary about the gender roles in TWW I was reminded of an article I read a while back called, Swedish School’s Big Lesson Begins With Dropping Personal Pronouns. The article is about Swedish schools/daycare centers that have made an attempt to challenge conventional gender roles by addressing their students using gender-neutral pronouns, the students’ names, or simply as “friends.” These facilities have taken a progressive step towards equality; they treat the children the same, regardless of gender. At first I was skeptical of the notion, although noble, I began to wonder exactly how difficult would it be to create a gender-neutral classroom community? In pondering this question I began to reflect on all the ways in which the hegemonic gender norms are established.
ReplyDelete1. Who or what determines gender?
2. How do we (the royal “we” of educators) contribute/ uphold these gender norms?
3. How can we promote gender equality? And how will that function in our classroom?
First, I think it is important to consider how these gender roles established and why? Hegemonic gender roles are the result of a dominant system of oppression that are viewed as “the standard” customs and behaviors of the people in a society. The media, and the people & institutions in power have long established these norms. These “norms” are often wrongly attributed as inherent features of each sex, when in reality they are socially constructed. It is interesting how gender is portrayed in all aspects of life, especially literature geared towards children. The article mentions that the Swedish schools stocked their libraries with “non-conventional” books. “Conventional” stories that come to mind are Cinderella and Rapunzel; unfortunately the vast majority of fairytales contain circumscribed gender roles. This goes back to your observation about Holling and Meryl Lee’s traditional courtship gender-norms.
Next, in order for teachers to promote a gender-neutral classroom they need to reflect on all the ways in which they might contribute to the problem. I thought it was interesting how the educators/ daycare workers reflected on their own behavior by recording their interactions with the children. Needless to say, they found that many of their practices were biased. I must admit that I, too, have contributed to this gender-norm inequality. For my niece’s birthday I bought her “girl toys.” I read another interesting article titled, “How to Talk to Little Girls,” which was eye-opening. The article talks about resisting the, “you look so cute today,” approach for little girls because it carries the message that what is first admired and valued is physical appearance. The author opts for an approach that values the child’s brain. I have since tried to implement these newfound practices in my daily life.
As for the last question, I will leave that open for debate.
(Thanks for your insightful post Aaron!)
~Estela
Articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/world/europe/swedish-school-de-emphasizes-gender-lines.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-little-gir_b_882510.html
Aaron,
ReplyDeleteThere's so much here! I like how you synthesized concepts from Smagorinsky's text with some in Schmidt's novel. That's the kind of work I often find most valuable from working with other teachers--it's not so much that they just have various insights that I can glean from, but they call attention to things like methods or ways of thinking that I value or wonder more about. Here, I like the troubling you do.
So what would it mean to critically engage questions about perceptions of gender and gender roles in a classroom where the teacher sought to interest students via this inquiry? That is, is it necessary to imagine that relevancy first starts with the kind of personal response you're talking about? I think your question is a good one, especially when we still teach novels, often canonical, simply because they're canonical. Is there a way to take angles, or push the envelopes, so to speak, so that we consider how we choose our approaches as much as we do our textual choices?
Another way to look at this might be to take the gender roles bit in *The Wednesday Wars* and start with students about questions regarding first love, about normative behaviors, and especially about the historical framing. What's the outcome? What does the novel privilege? Is the novel's content sexist? Or is the view historically accurate? What's the different? How then, do these play out (which you ask) in our lives? What does this mean? What doesn't it mean? I would argue that these questions, and questions about father and family, are probably of interest to students in many regards--how do I call attention to what I know about students, because of and in spite of their demographics, and design curriculum that doesn't *seem* relevant to them, but rather asks students (here, I'm thinking along the lines of the Beach, et al "literacy practices" angle) how these notions and concepts take shape in the world.
Thanks for an interesting post!