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GADGETRY, MAGIC, STORYTELLING AND TEACHING: Elizabeth Yeoman
Angela Carter sees technological 'gadgetry' as offering the possibility of a continuation, or even a transformation, of storytelling (1990, pp. xxi-xxii). In this article, I use Freirian and Bakhtinian theories of dialogue to examine some of the pedagogical possibilities of computer conferencing for dialogue, storytelling and other imaginative acts. Bakhtin (1986) sees all life as situated within dialogue, while Freire (1970) argues that dialogue is something we must come to through a process of conscientisation, facilitated by his pedagogical method of 'problem posing' education. I suggest that computer conferencing can enable a form of collective storytelling that is dialogic in both the Freirian and the Bakhtinian senses of the word. Author's note I wrote this article several years ago when using online discussion as a course assignment was still a fairly novel idea and many of our students had never even used email. I still believe online discussions have the kind of potential I describe here and yet I rarely use them any more in my teaching. This is for two reasons: 1) in my experience, to use them effectively usually requires a great deal of time and involvement on the part of the instructor - considerably more than traditional classroom teaching does - and I have not had the time; 2) email is now used so extensively, and so many courses have an online discussion assignment, that I find students are often jaded. There certainly isn't the kind of excitement the students express in this article. I still think the article is worth sharing because of the intrinsic interest of the students' online stories quoted here, and the discussion of a particular kind of online discussion, probably not the kind most commonly used as a course assignment. Gadgetry, magic, storytelling and teaching: The computer conference as writerly text
In a review of cultural critics' views on the impact of the media and the Internet, Weaver, Slattery and Daspit (1998) describe a vision of 'a compressed, fragmented world where certainty of progressive causes no longer exist[s]' (p. 25). In more popular forums, several violent crimes including the Littleton massacre have been ascribed, in part, to the killers' engagement with the Internet. Angela Carter presents a more optimistic view of the possibilities inherent in technology: Within that 'video gadgetry' might lie the source of a continuation, even a transformation, of storytelling and story-performance. The human imagination is infinitely resilient, surviving colonization, transportation, involuntary servitude, imprisonment, bans on language, the oppression of women (1990, pp. xxi-xxii). Storytelling, magic and the enhancement of the human imagination have always seemed to me to be a very big part of what teaching should be about. At the same time, most teaching situations impose all sorts of constraints on such activities. In this article, I explore some of the possibilities of 'gadgetry' for telling stories, performing magic and other imaginative acts. More specifically, I examine what happened when a group of students were asked to participate in a listserv as a means of extending and enriching class discussion in ED4005, a basic teaching methods course for students in a one year post graduate secondary B.Ed. program in our faculty. My analysis of this assignment is based on the writings of Paulo Freire (1970) and Mikhail Bakhtin (in Morson, Ed., 1986). Both writers are concerned with notions of pedagogy and dialogue. However, Bakhtin sees all life as situated within dialogue, while Freire suggests that dialogue is something we must come to through a process of conscientisation, facilitated by his pedagogical method of 'problem posing' education. The writings of both are useful as ways of illuminating what happened on the listserv and why it matters. The students in ED4005 had considerable knowledge of their subject areas but were just beginning their teacher education. This course was supposed to provide practical information on lesson and unit planning, teaching strategies, and so on. While I understood their need to learn these things, I wanted also to provide a forum for a more philosophical and imaginative discussion of teaching. I chose to use a listserv because some students were unfamiliar with any computer applications and the list seemed the least intimidating way to teach them basic use of email and conferencing skills - skills which are almost essential for new teachers these days. Each year I find there are fewer students in our faculty who are "computer phobic" and now I might choose a more flexible and sophisticated conferencing forum. However, the forum itself is not the focus of this article. Rather, it is the conversation which took place there. Borrowing an idea from Sumara and Luce-Kapler (1996), I put together a 'writerly text' (Barthes, 1974, in Sumara and Luce-Kapler, 1996) designed to require active participation on the part of the reader and to raise questions on a variety of topics. The students' assignment was to contribute three substantial entries to the listserv, in which they would comment on aspects of the writerly text or other education related issues. These entries would count for ten percent of their final mark. In the writerly text, I included excerpts from provincial department of education documents, the media, student teacher journals and philosophers of education - choosing pieces I thought students would either identify with or react strongly to. I prefaced these excerpts with an explanation of the notion of a writerly text, the idea that all texts are constructions, and a request to respond to any part of the text that 'moved, touched, angered, puzzled or delighted' them, or to add other quotations and comments if nothing in my original entry did seem relevant to them. I sent this document as the initial entry to the conference. The following are representative examples of quotations used in my initial entry: As you well know, I have found this term rather difficult. There were even times that I considered giving up. However, when I look over the past term, I remember the words of my mother, 'God does not give us a cross that we cannot bear' and, of course, 'What does not kill you will only make you stronger'. However, I believe there are times in our lives when that cross appears unbearable... (a student teacher reflecting on her internship) What a WONDERFUL experience this has been...! (another student teacher, also reflecting on her internship) Wedded to child-centered nostrums and 'metabolic' curriculums, elementary teachers have pressed for small class sizes (and more teachers) in the name of 'quality education'. Yet behind the rhetoric lies this ugly truth: It's far easier to watch 18 individuals frolic in a sandbox than it is to direct 30 kids to high achievement. (Andrew Nikiforuk, in the Toronto Globe and Mail) What is it that guarantees the internal connection between the elements of personality? Only the unity of responsibility. For what I have experienced and understood... I answer with my life. (Mikhail Bakhtin) The overriding objective in all of our attempts to reform the system is to transform this society from one of persistent under-achievement to one whose achievement ranks with the best in the nation. (Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Education document, 1994) I used the same writerly text with two different sections of the course. In one section, the first responses comprised a passionate and angry reaction to the government document describing our own province as 'a society... of persistent underachievement'. The discussion soon branched off to respond to other quotations and bring in new topics of discussion. In the other section, initial entries took the form of a discussion of what it might mean to be a good teacher, and whether a good teacher was the same thing as an 'effective' teacher. The students in this group told stories of people - often their own parents - who had been influential teachers in their lives. In both cases it seems that sections of the writerly text that students were able to relate to their own lives and experience enabled them to begin a conversation and go on to challenge and extend their own knowledge and understanding of issues. Of course, it is also possible for this to happen through class discussions, films, written materials and so on but, as I outline later, the listserv did, in fact, have some advantages over traditional class discussions. In addition, because of the nature of this particular course, which was somewhat technical and practical, and had a large number of students, it was difficult to have extended discussions during class time. Freire (1970) uses the term 'generative theme' in reference to themes which are somehow central to the consciousness of a people and which will, therefore, lead to meaningful and ultimately liberatory discussion and education. I had this notion of generative themes in mind when I chose the items for the 'writerly text' with which I began the computer conference. Just as Freire found that students did not always go where he had anticipated in their responses to generative themes, I also discovered that the students soon began using the listserv for their own ends. Although they did a considerable amount of analytical and theoretical writing, their main interest seemed to be storytelling. They obviously did not consider this part of their actual assignment but simply did it for the pleasure of it. For instance, a number of students contributed stories in which they recounted experiences of waiting anxiously to see if they had been accepted into the program. These stories were long and detailed in many cases, using modern technology to do a very traditional form of storytelling in which there was humour, drama, a strong sense of audience and loving attention to detail. I have shortened the following example considerably but I think it gives a sense of this aspect of the list. The reason why I am writing tonight… is that I just finished reading Terry's letter about receiving the dreaded envelope from the faculty. This was my third time applying for the program… My parents had gone away for the summer leaving me home alone. Every morning I would go to the post and see if the letter was there. Meanwhile my mom would phone every second day to ask "Did the letter come yet? You got to phone in and see, my son, what the problem is." I was having no part of that. So the day finally came… I got up, got dressed, hopped in my truck and went out the road to the post. I… waited until she got the mail and suddenly I saw it - the envelope marked "Faculty of Education." I started to shake, literally. I stumbled back out to the truck and sat down trying to open the envelope… Then when I opened it, it was like I had a new lease on life. I practically cried on the way home. I told my dog first, cat second and then I phoned all of my family. My dad is hard of hearing and when he realized what I had said he just filled up along with my mom and the rest of my family. So as you can see I never had no pressure on me to succeed, not a bit. Martha Ritter (1998) argues that plain storytelling without analysis or theorizing can play a key role in students' learning process and that we underestimate its power. Students using this listserv shared stories that, while often humorous, also clearly helped them elaborate their histories and their hopes, and develop a sense of solidarity and shared experience. My original intention had been for the listserv to foster informal yet analytical debate and discussion. However, it seemed to be in the telling of stories that the students were most deeply engaged. Mikhail Bakhtin, in his discussion of carnival, suggested that 'seriousness and folly enter into an open dialogue, which changes both sides, as real dialogue does' (Morson, 1986, p.13). Much of the discussion on the list exemplified the Bakhtinian idea of carnival. As in the excerpt above, the students frequently used humour to discuss serious issues in their lives. In an article in College English, Marilyn Cooper and Cynthia Selfe argued that 'the irreverence of the entries is not only a mark of the egalitarian nature of computer conferences but is also central to their success' (Cooper and Selfe 1990, p. 857). The informal and humorous nature of the list also enabled students to make light of their own weaknesses and mistakes, unlike traditional classes where students are often paralysed by the fear of appearing stupid. In the following example, a student mocks her own technical inadequacy: This is my second attempt at sending a message to the class. About two weeks ago I was cruising along with an interesting and insightful message, feeling a little like Bill Gates (minus all that money) when all of a sudden the message somehow got interrupted and I did not know how to reconnect. I was so traumatized and did not return to the computer until today and that's only because everyone else was doing the listserv thing. Anyway, enough about my phobias. At the same time, the discussion was not always humorous and the carnivalesque nature of the conversation was sometimes tempered by discouragement, critique and even anger. Aoki, Bassett and Pridmore (1997) argue that with the use of a listserv the relation of students to professor is transformed since the list is a kind of 'virtual symposium [that] by the nature of its own artifice… tends to… open up an alternative discursive space, even in the face of determined policing to the contrary' (p. 166) thus working 'against the discourse of the Master' (p. 167). It was as if the students had forgotten that I was also a participant in the discussion. They criticized the program and other courses and professors in ways that I found impossible to respond to. There were numerous comments like the following: According to the workload some of these profs drop on us you would think we are superhuman. I cannot believe the amount of reading we are required to do for [a course]. Is this man just a wee bit CRAZY? We only have 5 weeks of classes left, not five years!
Take, for instance, yesterday when [a professor] came to class... to tell us that the marks we received last week were not even really ours. God what is this? I don't know about the rest of you, but I was severely frustrated!!! Then you have [another professor] to just write bullshit for notes again. What the hell is that supposed to say to me? Despite my sense of obligation to moderate, I waited. There seemed to be no point of entry for me and I felt extremely uncomfortable. The conference had indeed 'opened up an alternative discursive space'. However, the space provided its own response, with the words of another student: Will I be shunned and looked at as a freak (or more of a freak) if I suggest that what we are going through now is maybe a little closer to what university education ought to be like than what we are used to? I may be way out to lunch here, but perhaps the reason we're all so disoriented by the supposed lack of organization and structure is that for the past twenty years we have been organized and structured to death and we are just not accustomed to this type of learning. Now, I am not saying that there are no problems with the program. And I would be infinitely more comfortable if the profs would just tell us what to do and when it was due and how much it was worth and how to go about getting it done. But I'm beginning to see this semester as a time of reflecting on the… issues and philosophies of education rather than a strict preparation for the classroom. I have found myself considering issues and ideas re education and the teacher's role which had never occurred to me before. And so we are left with more questions than answers. Is this not also one of the purposes of education, to cause us to ask these questions? At one point students began discussing the merits of the list. Many of them contributed comments about how useful they had found it, both because it forced them to become comfortable with using computers (something they saw as an advantage for prospective teachers) and because of the sense of community they found within the list. They wrote comments like, 'I think I've fallen in love with the listserv,' and 'I cannot wait to read the entries from one day to the next. And every time I sit down to the computer and go to Telnet it always comes up, "You have new mail," and I love it!' One student elaborated further: First of all I would like to agree with Nick's comment about the usefulness of this conference. At the beginning of the semester when this idea was mentioned it was met with a degree of apprehension by a lot us. My favorite comment was William's: "I feel like I'm being dragged kicking and screaming into the twentieth century all over again." I could not have said it any better! But here we are, Will. We did it! And I am really glad that we all did. I definitely think that this is something that should be used in other courses! As much as I enjoy reading all of these words of wisdom and all of this cyber-bonding, I think that my favorite part of all of this is the tremendous sense of empathy that seems to be coming through. We are all in this together. This sense of community extended beyond the end of term and the confines of the campus. It must be rare for students to continue with a course assignment after the course is over, but, in fact, this has happened every time I have used a class list (NB A year or two after the writing of this article, this stopped happening, presumably because the students either participated in other online forums or were more familiar with and less excited about this medium of communication.). In this instance, the students left campus for a twelve week practicum. They were scattered around the province and, in some cases, across the country. However, most still had email access and they continued to use the listserv to discuss their experiences and reflections and to seek support. Comments like the following began to appear: My cooperating teacher is somewhat of an authoritarian figure. As he stated in class last week, " In here there is no democracy. It is a dictatorship and I am the dictator!!" I hope and pray I do not be graded based on his way of teaching.
They planned ahead of time exactly what time the whole class would burst into song. I found it amazing that twenty-seven of them could agree on something. Their grade in cooperative skills went up… And here's a little pointer for you. If everyone is sitting in class looking interested before the bell in the morning, something is up. In my case there was a picture of a naked woman taped above my head. Even after completing the course and leaving campus, students continued to use this forum for sharing stories, entertaining each other and seeking support, solidarity and advice. These were not just trivial anecdotes but a shared process of making sense of daily life and future goals. The use of a listserv or another form of asynchronous online conferencing can enable the following things to happen:
Freire (1970) sees education as a dialogue in which participants reflect on their relationship to the world in which they live. Since it is based on the history and experience of the students, it can never be neutral. It is a pedagogy of praxis, an action/reflection model of learning where students reflect on their own lives and come to see themselves as active subjects and agents of social change. Bakhtin writes of 'the word as a tool for pedagogy' (Morson, 1986, p.33) and of humour as 'both the form and the vehicle of popular liberation' (p. 106). Computer conferencing can be understood as a Bakhtinian polyphony of voices, each one having equal validity within the dialogue. This equality of voice and the Freirian dialogue emerging from generative themes and building on the students' own history and experience are the real potential strengths of computer conferencing. At its best it can enable this kind of dialogic experience. It will never be a substitute for other kinds of teaching but, in conjunction with more traditional forms of teaching and learning, I still believe it can enhance a democratic and imaginative educational process. References Aoki, D., Bassett, R. and Pridmore, A. (1997). Virtual sociology: The class list considered by teacher, teaching assistant and student. Canadian Journal of Educational Communication, 26(3), 165-174. Carter, A. (Ed.) (1990). The Virago Book of Fairy Tales. London: Virago Press Ltd. Cooper, M. and Selfe, C. (1990). Computer conferences and learning: Authority, resistance, and internally persuasive discourse. College English, 52(8), 847-869. Freire, P. (1970). The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Morson, G. S. (Ed.) (1986). Bakhtin. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Ritter, M. (1998). Finding a path in the forest: Tracing journeys and meeting in the common. JCT: Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 14(4), 46-51. Sumara, D. and Luce-Kapler, R. (1996). (Un)becoming a teacher: negotiating identities while learning to teach. Canadian Journal of Education, 21(1), 65-83. Weaver, J., Slattery, P. and Daspit, T. (1998). Museums and memories: Towards a critical understanding of the politics of space and time. JCT: Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 14(4), 25-32. Yeoman, E. (1995). Sam's Café: A case study of computer conferencing as a medium for collective journal writing. Canadian Journal of Educational Communication, 24(3), 209-227. |