Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 02:06:15 -0500
From: aden-AT-user1.channel1.com (Aden Evens)
Subject: Re: nomadism


Steve Shaviro critiqued:

>I have to say that I distrust all theories of pedagogy, and think any
>talk of nomadic pedagogy is an oxymoron.
[...]
>And
>I really think the only way academics get any more 'political' than that
>is by their actions, the same as anybody else, in the community or the
>workplace. Supporting a unionizing effort by academic staff or by
>graduate students is political; teaching _Capital_ or _1000 Plateaus_ is
>not, or not any more so than teaching anything else.

>Steven Shaviro shaviro-AT-u.washington.edu

I'm sure you don't intend to draw a distinction as sharp as this one
appears. If I demonstrate to students that there is an alternative model of
learning, which emphasizes creativity over knowledge, they may come to see
the value of this model, and begin to exercise it elsewhere. Of course, I
do not wish to 'take credit' for what the students 'learn', but perhaps
there is something of the nomad in a professor who puts her job on the line
when she exposes students to alternatives.

As a graduate student, and a Teaching Assistant in philosophy, I was denied
further employment when my department discovered that I was marking papers
on a basis which gave more credit for original and genuine responses, than
for 'understanding' the text in question. My one consolation was to feel
that I must have been really threatening to the department. Academics is
not ALWAYS an ivory tower.



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