From TEACHING AS A SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITY

On Languaging

It turns out…that language is far from being neutral in the process of perceiving, as well as in the process of evaluating perceptions.  We have been accustomed to thinking that language’ expresses’ thought & that it ‘reflects  ‘ what we see. We now know that this belief is naïve & simplistic, that our languaging process is fully implicated in any & all of our attempts to assess reality
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Proposals for action in the classroom

1.  Declare a 5-year moratorium on the use of all textbooks.  (If it is impossible to function without textbooks, provide every student with a notebook filled with blank pages & have (them) compose (their) own text)

2. Have English teachers teach maths, maths teachers English, social studies teachers science, science teachers art, & so on.

3. transfer all the elementary school teachers to high school & vice versa.

4. Require every teacher who thinks he knows his subject well to write a book on it. (In this way he will be relieved of the necessity of inflicting his knowledge on other people, particularly his students).

5. Dissolve all subjects, courses, & especially course requirements. (This proposal, all by itself, would wreck every existing educational bureaucracy. The result would be to deprive teachers of the excuses presently given for their failures & to free them to concentrate on their learners).

6. Limit each teacher to three declarative sentences per class, & fifteen interrogatives. (Every sentence above the limit would be subject to a … fine. The students can do the counting & collecting).

7. Prohibit teachers from asking any questions they already know the answers to. (This proposal would not only force teachers to perceive learning from the learner’s perspective, it would help them to learn how to ask questions that produce knowledge).

8. Declare a moratorium on all tests & grades. (This would remove from the hands of teachers their major weapons of coercion & would eliminate two of the major obstacles to their students’ learning anything significant).

9. Require all teachers to undergo some for of psychotherapy as part of their in-service training. (…Its purpose: to give teachers an opportunity to gain insight into themselves, particularly into the reasons they became teachers).

10. Classify all teachers according to their ability & make the lists public.

11. Require all teachers to take a test prepared by students on what the students know. (Only if a teacher passes this test should he be permitted to teach).

12. Make every class an elective & withhold a teacher’s monthly cheque if his students do not show any interest in going to next month’s classes.  (This test would simply put teachers on a par with other professionals, e.g. doctors, dentists, lawyers etc….)

13. Require every teacher to take a one-year leave of absence every fourth year to work in some field other than education. (Such an experience can be taken as evidence, albeit shaky, that the teacher has been in contact with reality at some point in his life…)

14. Require each teacher to provide some sort of evidence that he or she has had a loving relationship with at least one other human being. (If the teacher can get someone to say, ‘I love her (or him)’, she should be retained. If she can get two people to say it, she should get a raise…)

15. Require that all the graffiti accumulated in the school toilets be reproduced on large paper & be hung in the school halls.  (Graffiti that concern teachers & administrators should be chiselled into the stone at the front entrance of the school)

16. There should be a general prohibition against the use of the following words & phrases: teach, syllabus, covering ground, IQ, make-up, test, disadvantaged, gifted, accelerated, enhancement, course, grade, score, human nature, dumb, college material, & administrative necessity)

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‘What’s Worth Knowing?’ [2.]

What do you hear if you are in a car & it is raining outside?

Describe the odor of gasoline.

What sounds do you hear if you are walking with heavy boots in deep snow?  (Don’t use the word ‘crunch’)

What does hair feel like?

Describe the texture of skin.  Feel it.

How would you describe fear?

Describe the odor of freshly cut grass.

Describe the sensation of placing an ice cube against your lips.

Is there a particular odor in the air before a rainfall?  Describe it.

Is there a particular odor in the air after a rainfall?  Describe it.

If your hand slides across a piece of silk, what sensation do you feel?

If you were to walk barefoot along a beach of pebbles, what would you feel?

What does your hand feel like?

What does someone else’s hand feel like?

Describe the taste of salt.

Describe the flight of a seagull.

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Well, if you got this far, you’re a teacher, a student or someone who shares my conviction that if there exists a forum wherein the revolution might be fomented, it’s the school.

Thank you, folks, for your indulgence.  I shall now climb down from my hobbyhorse & resume my customary diet of piss-takes, polemic, poems + pics…