Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 18:38:13 +1000 (EST)
From: Mr Christopher McMahon <Christopher.McMahon-AT-jcu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Educational Practice & Nomad Philosophy


Dear Bryan,
You suggested that grading is decoding. I take the point. Still,
it
seems to me that grades function in the workplace as codings (initatory?),
even though grading is, i agree, a
deterritorialisation/reterritorialisation of the
product. The grade it seems to me, functions in the workplace like one of
those recodings that take place with one hand while a capitalist decoding
takes place with another (cf: AO on Capitalism). Hence the way various
qualifications are coded, decoded, recoded, revalorised in the market. On
grading, I can also relate a recent experience.
	We set a course with core texts of variously diverse "origins".
One such text was Maxine Hong kingston's The Woman Warrior. The assessment
task was an essay. Many students read this ONE book and proceeded to
China-Bash (fascism too is part of the rhizome). In my scoring I did not 
deduct marks for ethnocentric/orientalist reponses, but I did write back 
- the whole idea of the course was to undermine ethnocentricity, not to
encourage it (me on behalf of the State). My wife (who is Chinese
suggested that the essays were offensive because the students had not read
enough Chinese American writing to get the novel in any sort of context.
Now it stikes me that the probelm was with the course. What we could have
done was set say 5 core texts, and essays on each. But say, if the student
wanted to write on "Chinese culture" etc. he/she would also have to read,
say 4 other "Chinese" texts from a list of say 12. The list would have
been set by the person (not me) who was going to mark (an expert). As
such, possible sites of desire could proliferate. Not a rhizome, but a
bushy tree, with redundancies opening up to less disciplinary assemblages.
Still productive, but more open to antiproduction of an acceptable (non
China bashing) sort. Still no room for non-production. In other words,
departments should get their people talking about ways of combining their
energies and expertise to create courses with many choices and
possibilities for following a line to somewhere farther. 
	This practical suggestion which would both maintain
Statist/disciplinary regulation while maximising possibilities for
obesession and perversion is do-able  INSIDE A DEPARTMENT. But the dept.
as it stands would probably object. Would yours? Too many little empires
to defend. Too much danger of loss of control when you put your students
under the pen of another? Too much effort to organise. PROBABLY..... Lets
just keep doing things status quo. The probelm, after all, is not one of
the rhizome, but one of the State. Not enough State here to get something
as maximally organised, and prolifically redundant  as a bushy tree going.
Here I am taliking like a YOUNG DOG?
	Quasi-rhizomatic courses are, after all, "netlike"  or "webbish" -
trace systems with an eye to a certain degree of iteration (in both
senses). Maximal planning and organisation is needed. The most effortless
thing in the world is to continue business as usual. In short, anarchic
course structures will produce rhizomes, and bring what used to be
anti-production and non-production into production (how then will we
antiproduce in this postmodern ed-carnival? .... SAD - all my excrement
has been recouperated......) but the sort of negotiation of student desire
with academic discipline which I think is currently workable requires a
strange combo of a highly developed organisational sense and an eye to
constructing possibilities for student's conections and flows.
	In my experience, the teachers who use negotiated syllabus,
projects, and produce a wide range of options are MORE ORGANISED but
ORGANISED DIFFERENTLY to the teachers who rely on a I SAY - YOU REPRODUCE
structuration. Here are 3:

Mr God: Obsessive compulsive. Chalk and talk. Neat Mark-Book. Discipline
and Punish by RULE of LAW AND TRANGRESSION, not by rule of Disciplinary
Rehabilitation. Closed off to any student generated idea and most of the
ideas of other staff members. A Traditionalist. Organised himself
immaculately in 1952 and never had to do it again.

Mr Slob: What time is it? Two minutes to class. Lets see what will we do
today? I know, lets have a student driven discussion on .... whatever they
want to discuss..... Cool. Hey this is a rhizome. HIGs dominate! No
disciplinary "sound grounding" here. Education by osmosis. Why do the
other teachers think I'm a lazy bastard? They just don't recognise talent
when they see it. Discipline by whatever, but probably forgeyts to carry
through. Would rather not notice student X cheating in row 3. Who needs
the paperwork?

Ms Plurality: Heavily organised. Less obsessive than Mr G. Negotiator.
Encourager. Basket weaver. Insists, however, on certain minimum standards
being met. Bandys about words like "empowerment", "student centred",
"negotiated" and even, at times, Mr G's fave: "excellence" - but designs
courses that can be approached by all students no matter what their
"cababilities". Probably has favourite students, but is blind to the
twists in her own utopian meritocracy. No time for non-production.
Producing crap is better than producing nothing. Punishes via heart to
heart talks. Works harder than either G or S, even though the students are
doing most of the work.

Do you know these teachers?  

- Chris