my pedagogy

When I was in high school, I taught a Sunday school class for a year. I sat on the back of a pew and a half dozen junior high students sat in the pew behind. We had a text, but none of us were all that eager to look at it. We began each class by talking about whatever and sometimes we never got out of the mode. One Sunday, we talked about drug use. In our small Iowa town in 1972, the topic was pretty much a hypothetical one, gleaned from TV. To put it in context, we compared drug use to booze. Which was worse? How did addiction happen? How did a person become a victim?

One of the parishioners was listening to our conversation. Bruce Lee was an alcoholic. He was an usher who didn’t drink anymore, but he still attended AA meetings. He invited us to one. A few nights later, my class and I sat in folding chairs in front of a group of adults. The group talk was followed by a question and answer session. The only thing I remember about what was said that night was Mr. Lee’s comment—“Good question”—when I asked my mine. I have no clue what the question was that I asked or the particular story that prompted it. No, I do remember one other thing--the bodily sensation of being nervous as hell.

That year of teaching Sunday school constitutes my formal teaching experience. On the surface, not much would seem relevant to teaching freshman composition in an academic setting. We were a largely homogonous group—white, mostly farm kids. Ethics was a fairly cut and dry matter of getting good grades and doing your chores. We all had a sense of the benevolent old man sitting on a cloud looking down even if we didn’t know exactly what He wanted of us. However, at least in the world of comp theory, I do see some parallels.

Maybe it was Dr. Souder’s syllabus, but I gleaned a definite sense of “mission” from the early readings about Hopkins running himself into the ground with his concern for student writing. Wendy Bishop’s “burnout” sounded like something from Kierkegaard—“Sickness Unto Current-Tradition.” Even that apparent apostate Bartholomae had a sense of some mysterious power taking over his charges, filling them with dark misunderstandings from which they need to be enlightened.

I few weeks into the semester, the deity changed genders. She seemed to be behind the talk of “world views” and questions of authorship. She informed her ministers to encourage collaboration and the creation of “social artifacts” that would be pleasing to her sight.

I don’t have a problem imagining god as female. It still makes me nervous, of course. I mean, She can get as pissed off as He ever could. Maybe, it’s the monotheism involved. But then, I feel just as a nervous when I contemplate a pagan’s two deities and a Hindu’s hermaphroditic one gives me the willies, too.

I think the problem lies in the word “god” and whatever reality is constituted by it. The word was never mentioned in class, but I heard echoes of it in the theory/practice dichotomy that was a very central issue to our discussions. Listening to the disparity between the experience of teachers and pedagogical theory, between what went on in the classroom and the ideals it was supposed to uphold, I heard something that reminded of nothing so much as the talk heaven and earth.

In that respect, maybe I can take something from my early experience as a teacher and have it mean something in relation to modern theory. The goal of my pedagogy would be to enable my students to ask a good question when they are outside the classroom.