Classroom and Power -- Sitting in the Student's Seat

In my overview, I briefly noted some perspectives that students examine as they walk into the classroom. As I observe in the community college, most students come already displaced, already disenfranchised. All that means, is that most the students I encounter don't come with much social and intellectual power, and don't know how to strengthen their own power in their college experience. We first observe that robbed power as silent in the seat.

Mednyánszky, Téli Csend (Winter Silence)

I ran into a colleague from my writing and rhetoric program and she explained her development of a writing program in TDCJ via Lee College. In no way do I want to see parallels in classroom and being in prison, but together she and I do agree that both populations don't understand power in a writing classroom. One observation she emphasizes is that her students (remember, these are in prison) don't understand when to ask help with their writing professor. It's starts with the simple asking help, and we don't be surprised. Because of our secondary schools, classrooms and disenfranchised communities, our students are disciplined to be quiet and often to use the banking model for school -- where the professor does most of the talking, lacking student experiences, lacking student perceptive. We start with sitting in silence.

Educational technologists Merilee Hameleck and Norm Friesen have researched and talked about student silence in the classroom and both the causes of student silence and their frustration in classrooms where professors don't listen to student voices. One student reflects:

Class ends. I sit motionless and pull my thoughts into the present. My mind buzzes as fractured images collide, bounce and skitter in all directions and a mist of thoughts swirl,refusing structure. Pushing through the cold plate glass door, I see my car at the end of the parking lot. Slowly I wade past the other cars dragging a mind full of chaos. My forehead briefly rests on the cool backs of my hands before I reach forward and turn the ignition key. My pale fingers clench and unclench the steering wheel as the car moves toward home. Gradually my mind quiets as thoughts coalesce. My chest muscles relax and my breathing returns to a rhythmic in...out...in...out. I am now ready to speak!Unfortunately, the class has ended long ago and the opportunity to speak has passed. I remain alone with my thoughts. (Hameleck and Friesen 4)

Frankly, I've been like that, too. I was in several undergraduate classes and too many graduate seminars where the professor's voice drowned any of my own ideas. I get that. 

So, sitting in the seat, the student can make choices. Of course, everyone needs to respect everyone else -- professors must respect students, and students must deserve respect from the professor and other students (we'll talk more about mutual respect, in future posts).

1. When you can't find time to be actively engaged, take the time to write, even at that moment in class, to write connections with the course discussion and your immediate situation -- your community, your time, your resources, your needs. Even if studying 18th century history, write connections about power, abuse, language in your situation.
2. Find immediate positive voice after classroom. As you walk out of class, in the hallways, in the public spaces, use positive connections of the course lecture and your connections. Help avoid negative criticisms of professors. I believe that positive connections builds energy and a mental force for good in the future.
3. Meet with your professor. Early and often. Try to meet with your professor within your first two weeks of your semester and discuss those connections I mentioned. Sometimes a professor (underpaid, overworked = UPOW) finds himself drowning in a hundred student faces, and you can proactively build power with relationships, building trust, and stronger understanding of the professor's expectations and resources
4. Once you meet with your professor, use your building social skills to start conversations in the classroom. After practicing the above steps (#1-3), you will have more intellectual and social power to bring your inquiry and experiences in the classroom. I have found with a critical mass of students who bring constructive preparation for the classroom, professors change their responses, and other students are grateful for more open space. 

Now, having said that, some professors will still not want to open a liberatory instruction. I had a former professor who simply would never look for student voices and dominated each time together (I took three seminars with him; I should ask why I would sit on my butt for so many hours, but he's a world-famous expert on our topic, and I still maintain my respect with him, years later). When you are still sitting in that seat, white-knuckled through the time, go back to step #1, and we'll discuss more ways to build your power. But now, start here.

Student Learning Involvement

1. I'm interested in students' choices to maintain silence. Reflect on your previous silences and how you feel about that. When you've wanted to be more participatory in the classroom, what choices do you make? Write about that, and make a short list of being more empowered through choices.
2. Observe other students who make language power in classrooms and make a list how others make choices. When observing powerful students, make a short list, note what are effective in their learning and classroom relations, and make a choice to pattern those choices. 

Professor Learning Involvement

1. We need more understanding students coming into our college -- those classroom practices from Aldine and Spring, for example, and a) how to replicate empowered classrooms there, and b) what we can bridge those powerful learning into college. When do we start practices that encourage student silence?
2. Similarly, we need to understand about professional training that replicates "banking model" classroom. I'm not impressed with a college environment promises extinguishes banking, but on the other hand, I find training that uses an echo chamber to support banking. We need understanding why we permit this.

Resources

Hameleck, Merilee and Norm Friesen. "One Student’s Experience of Silence in the Classroom." Academia.edu. 2012. Web. 4 January 2016.

Mednyánszky, Ladislav. "Téli Csend (Winter Silence)." Gallery of Judit Virág, Budapest. Before 1915. Painting.