The Kaleidoscopic "I": Voice(s) Heard
"[The] truthtelling voice speaks, and its rhythms rush and build like the human mind traveling at high speed. Rhythm, rhythm, the best writing depends so much upon it. But as in dancing, you can't get rhythm by giving yourself directions. You must feel the music and let your body take its instructions. Classrooms aren't usually rhythmic places." (Macrorie, K.)
We've talked quite a bit about voice and authentic voice in the class. Royster, J. (1996) states that "[u]sing subject position as a terministic screen in cross-boundary discourse permits analysis to operate kaleidoscopically, thereby permitting interpretation to be richly informed by the converging of dialectical perspectives" (p. 555). But, what happens when the voices that mee for cross-boundary discourse are not genuine? Let's not even think of that. How can we get kaleidoscopic discourse to operate in the classroom when we have Engfish (Macrorie, 1981) spoken as if it were the native tongue. First year composition students respond to the assignments we give them, losing their voice to an imagined language of the academy. Fear takes hold, while young adults reach for that foreign language in an effort to be approved, to receive the grade. What we do in our classes, the ways in which we word our assignments, teach our classes, mark up student work, the assignments we give, what we decide is publishable in the academia, who we grant speech to in the ivory towers, who gets the subject place, all of these reveal what "we" value in the academy--as if I had a vote. When we engage in the work of the academy, the opportunity is always present to reveil a kaleidoscopic understanding of voice.
Yet, as educators we must be careful for ourselves and our students,because the opportunity is always there to commit "spirit murder" (Williams, P., 1987). Spirit murder, according to Royster, J (1996), happens when students' "experiences are not seen, and their voices are not heard," so that they find what we do "alienating and disheartening" (p. 564-5). Defending student voice is a value central to teaching--or it ought to be. Grading papers, writing comments, can have adverse effects, the stifling of voice, a damaging of psyche, if treated as a task without an audience--or with the wrong audience in mind. If we held in our minds that the audience on the otherside was someone quite extraordinary with potential which would surpass the greatest of thinkers, might we respond differently? "Long sentence." "Run-on."
We expect students to trust us, but do we listen? Do we let them really speak? Do we hear them or do we silence their voices? Do we help them navigate what is expected in higher education, while allowing them hear their innervoice and allow that innervoice to live? Or do we encourage students to find their "true calling/true vocation"? (Parker, P.) Are we training students out of creativity as Sir Ken Robinson argues?
And, this is not just happening to students. This happens in what is published or taught by Others about other. "[W]hen the subject matter is me and the voice is not mine, my sense of order and rightness is disrupted" (Royster, J., 1996, p. 564-65). Royster, J. (1996)'s concerns about the academy seem to suggest that this is, in fact, what education does. In an effort to produce knowledge, we are selective and weed out voices we don't want to hear, often becoming deaf to the voices we need to hear most. For Royster, it is of "critical importance [that educators] take on the role of negotiator, someone who can cross boundaries and serve as guide and translator for Others" (p. 566). And, I would argue, that we be able to model and mentor students in the same process of negotiation. As we do, a kaleidoscope of perspectives can give way to a more panaramic understanding of all things: audience, voice, argument, wisdom, knowledge, rhetoric, composition. As we do this, we will have a fuller sense of what "talking" means: "exchang[ing] perspectives, negotiat[ing] meaning, and creat[ing] understanding with the intent of being in a good position to cooperate, when, like now, cooperation is absolutely necessary" (Royster, p. 564).
Student-Centered Movement: An I For An I
Royster, J. (1996) states that "[s]ubjectivity as a defining value pays attention dynamically to context, ways of knowing, language abilities, and experience, and by doing so it has a consequent potential to deepen, broaden, and enrich our interpretive views in dynamic ways as well" (p. 29). Since, we will accept this as true, the implications for
pedagogy1 andragogy are many. Let's focus on a few we've discussed, because these are things that will effect what I do in my workplace (the classroom):
- We should give students more opportunities to:
- Write in their own voice, using "I" (Elbow, Macrorie);
- Freewrite without judgment (Elbow, Ken Macrorie);
- Use "I" in an argumentative paper (De Nora);
- "Talk" with Others (Royster); and
- Be boundary crosser and "negotiator[s]" (Royster).
Ultimately, we need to give students back their "I's," so we can see.
Notes:
1 - Pedagogy - I can't even use, hear, or think about this word right now in positive terms in the context of higher education. I can't get past the idea that we're teaching adults as if they are children. I know we are using pedagogy interchangeably to mean instruction for adults; however, after considering that andragogy exists, it has now become difficult not to be a pharisee of sorts. I'll calm down at some point...just as I did when I finally exorcised my self of "reading [what people say] against the grain" after receiving far too much desconstructionist theory.
References
Elbow, P. (1973). "Freewriting." Writing without teachers. New York: Oxford UP, 1-7.
Royster, J. (Feb., 1996). "When the first voice you hear is not your own."
College Composition and Communication.
Macrorie, K. (1981).
Telling writing. 3rd ed. Hayden.
Palmer, P.J. (1999).
Let your life speak: Listening for the voice of vocation. Jossey-Bass.
Robinson, K. (2006). Do schools kill creativity? TED Talk. Accessed at: https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en
Williams, P. (1987). "Spirit-murdering the messenger: The discourse of fingerpointing as the law 's response to racism." 42 U. Miami L. Rev. 127.
