Feminist Pedagogy

The following discussion began with a question about whether feminist
pedagogy is compatible with giving failing grades.  It also considers
how to implement feminist pedagogy in large classes and what we mean by
the term "feminist pedagogy": is it more than just a synonym for good
teaching practices?  The discussion took place on WMST-L in December 2001.
For additional WMST-L files available on the Web, including a whole section
devoted to Pedagogical Issues and Strategies, see the
WMST-L File Collection.

PAGE 1 OF 2

Hello!
I am a new Women's Studies teacher with a background in English.  I teach
an introductory course in women's studies at a small community college.   I
have no formal training in feminist pedagogy; whatever I know is by
intuition, or what I've learned from reading journals like Feminist Teacher
and the Feminist Teacher Anthology; Barbara Scott Winkler and Carolyn
DiPalma's Teaching Introduction to Women's Studies: Expectations and
Strategies (Bergin and Garvey, 1999) provided wonderfully practical
suggestions as well.

I have tried as much as possible to democratize the classroom and decentre
the instructor; I gave a wide variety of assignments that allowed students
to do what they were best at, e.g, original dramatic monologue performance,
web site creation, oral presentation, artistic bulletin board display, etc.
Students chose their assignments and signed a contract with me detailing
the work they would do.

This semester I had 12 students (11 women, 1 man). I assigned a research
paper that was worth 25 per cent of the grade.  A colleague from the
English Department asked about the results, that is, how were the papers I
received this semester.  I said there were a few very good ones, many
average papers, and one to which I had given a failing grade because
although the student had made some effort, the writing was at about a grade
nine level.  At no time during the semester did this student ask for extra
help even though I mentioned frequently to the class, if you have any
problems, please come see me, ask for help if you need it, etc.

My colleague seemed surprised by my having given a failing grade, and asked
if that didn't bring into question my feminist pedagogy.  Shouldn't effort
be rewarded? Might not this unduly discourage this student (who is in a
Social Work Diploma Program; WMST 100 is a required course.)  By the way,
because of the way the marks were distributed and the variety of
assignments, this student will end up with a final course grade of B-,
which does not truly reflect the student's poor writing skills.

So my question concerns the theory and practice of feminist pedagogy.  I am
aware that in the past, charges have been made against Women's Studies
programs for not having rigourous academic standards.  In fairness to the
rest of the students, some of whom did an excellent job on their research
papers, I could not see myself in good conscience giving a higher mark.
Should effort be rewarded even if the student is not (at this point,
anyway) capable of first-year university level writing?  The student
probably did work hard on the paper, but the results did not show clear
thinking and writing and organization, strong thesis, sources properly
cited, etc.  Maybe I am being unduly influenced by my English studies
background!

I know the people on this list collectively have a few thousand years of
teaching experience among them, and so if you could suggest strategies you
have successfully used in assigning marks, or books or articles I could
learn from about this very practical aspect of teaching Women's Studies, I
would really appreciate it!

Sincerely,
Pamela

Pamela den Ouden
English and Women's Studies
Northern Lights College
Fort St. John, BC Canada
Tel.: (250) 785-6981
Fax: (250) 787-6227
E-mail: pdenoudn  @  nlc.bc.ca

Hi Pamela,
As someone who tries hard to practice feminist pedagogy, I do think that
grading enters into the discussion, but I certainly do not agree with your
colleague that giving a student a failing grade calls your feminist
pedagogy (or any part of feminist anything) into question.  In fact, I get
very frustrated by the suggestion that feminists wouldn't fail a student,
that effort is all that counts.  Although I do think that effort should be
rewarded, I don't think we do students any favors by ignoring the kinds of
problems you saw in your students research paper; better this student
understands now that this is a problem area.  I look at this very
differently; I see the emphasis for feminist teachers as being, not on
WHAT grades are given, but on HOW grades are given, whether the
assignments reflect criteria that are clearly understood by the students
(and by me!), and whether the students have satisfied the goals of the
assignment/course.   I guess my bottom line is that I feel that a major
component of my teaching is teaching skills and teaching for mastery, so
to that end I try a lot of different techniques to strengthen students'
critical thinking and writing skills and to ensure that they learn what
kind of writing is necessary to succeed in college, including having
students rewrite papers, requiring students to use tutoring centers, and
assigning different styles of writing (critical essays, creative essays,
double entry notebooks, etc.).  (Incidentally, allowing students to revise
essays for a higher grade is one way to reward effort; they don't
automatically get a higher grade just for writing a revision, but almost
always their second attempt is much better and deserves a better grade
than the initial paper.)

As to whether or not you were right to fail that one paper -- it sounds as
if the student was not able to meet the standards of the assignment, and
that you were therefore correct in failing the paper.  I wonder, though,
if your intent in assigning this paper was to have the students
demonstrate their research and writing skills, or if it was instead to
have them demonstrate their mastery of the course material and their
ability to take this knowledge to the next level.  I've begun to question
the validity of a research paper as a diagnostic tool at UB, since most of
my students simply don't know how to do them and perform poorly (but it
sounds as if this is not a problem among your students).  Instead, I will
often assign research projects that can teach some of these skills and
measure the students' mastery of the course material.  I have been told
that I am a fairly tough grader and that my courses are demanding, so I
don't feel that I'm not being rigorous.  I just don't think it's fair to
expect students to perform if they haven't first been taught how to
perform, so I try not to automatically assign research papers unless I am
able to spend significant time during the semester teaching students how
to write them -- and how to do the research, and how to cite it, and so
on.  (When I've taught developmental ed courses on writing the research
paper, and spent a whole semester helping students through each stage of
the process (including asking them to submit sample notes, outlines, and
three drafts of the paper), I've been impressed by the quality of the
research as well as the writing.)

Another issue to consider for the future is whether you were aware of this
student's writing problems prior to the final paper.  You say that you
often told the class to come to you for extra help, but in my experience
only a very few students will actually do this, for whatever reasons.
What has worked much better for me is to ask individual students to meet
with me immediately if their writing isn't up to par.  I explain to them
what the problems are, and then may suggest that they revise the essay
before I grade it (this is usually the first essay of the semester, or the
first critical essay I've assigned).  Sometimes I will require that they
begin meeting with a writing tutor (this is a free service at UB) to go
over their first drafts, and then revise the paper again before handing it
in to me.  I'll even give them specific areas to focus on with the tutor
-- organization or sentence structure or thesis statements.  This does not
solve the problem, but it does result in some improvement, and the
students are at least made aware of their writing problems and of how to
begin to work on them.  Usually students who have writing problems in
college were either never taught how to write earlier in their educations,
or they were taught poorly, or they just never "got it" and are frustrated
by this point and feel they can't do it.  If they can get good instruction
in college, it can really make a difference, both in their ability and in
their academic confidence.

I'm pasting in a list of some of the readings I've taught in my Feminist
Pedagogy course; these talk about student writing and about grading.  I
hope they're helpful to you.

* Omolade, "A Black Feminist Pedagogy," WSQ 21: 3&4, Fall/Winter
1993(31-39)
* Ellsworth, "Situated Response-ability to Student Papers,"Theory into
Practice v. 35, Spring 1996(138-143)
* Sommers, "Responding to Student Writing," The Bedford Guide for College
Writers (25-31)
* Berry and Black, "The Integrative Learning Journal (or Getting Beyond
'True Confessions' and 'Cold Knowledge')," Women's Studies Quarterly 21:
3&4, Fall/Winter 1993 (88-93)
* hooks, ch.11: "Language" (Teaching to Transgress:  Education as the
Practice of Freedom (New York:  Routledge, 1994)

Best,
Jessica Nathanson

Jessica Nathanson
Doctoral Candidate, American Studies
Concentration in Women's Studies
State University of New York at Buffalo
janathanson  @  yahoo.com
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jan3

Pamela,

In her wonderful essay "Claiming an Education," Adrienne Rich states
"Too often, all of us [professors] fail to teach the most important
thing, which is that clear thinking, active discussion, and excellent
writing are all necessary for intellectual freedom, and that these
require *hard work*" (her emphasizes).  Rich stresses the need for
women students to demand to be taken seriously by their professors.
In your case, I don't think that giving a poorly written, poorly
thought-out paper a better grade than it deserves will do this student
any favors in the long run.  To do so would also send the message that
women's studies programs do not have rigourous academic standards, as
you state.

Using feminist pedagogical methods means that you gave this and other
students every opportunity to learn and to ask for extra help.

I think we are in serious trouble when the feminist pedagogy police
step in to correct our teaching methods.  The guilt trip that your
colleague laid on you was unfair and unsisterly, especially since, I
assume, she was not a member of your course and did not witness your
teaching on a regular basis.  Your description of the course evidences
a tremendous amount of care for students' learning, and it clearly does
not replicate the same old, top-down, "banking" system of education
that Freire identified years ago.

I have had to make similar, difficult decisions in the past, so I know
just where you're coming from.

Cheers,
Maria

PS The Rich essay can be found in her collection, ON LIES, SECRETS, AND
SILENCE.  Norton 1979.

Maria Bevacqua, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Women's Studies
Minnesota State University
Mankato, Minn.  56001
ph (507) 389-5024
fax (507) 389-6377
maria.bevacqua  @  mnsu.edu

I followed eagerly the items on this string on testing/grading in
gender pedagogy classrooms.  Every year I make new attempts to get
it right:tests clearly reflecting understanding/fair/stimulating and
instructive even while a test/justice in grading/clear criteria
conveyed in advance/percentage worth within the other assignments,
etc. etc.

Since my classes are usually of fair size, could anybody with
similar experience suggest doing things best in a class of 80
(eighty), with minimal opportunities of small group work?

S. Mayer PhD.
Faculty of Education
University of Haifa

Concerning what was said below, my questions are--was this colleague a
female, a feminist, an anti-feminist, part of the backlash? One appropriate
strategy might be to give the curious colleague a list of books and articles
about feminist pedagogy and say you would be happy to meet and discuss the
issue after a basic level of information on the topic of feminist pedagogy
and its goals and proceess has been achieved.

<< A colleague from the
 English Department asked about the results, that is, how were the papers I
 received this semester.  I said there were a few very good ones, many
 average papers, and one to which I had given a failing grade because
 although the student had made some effort, the writing was at about a grade
 nine level.  At no time during the semester did this student ask for extra
 help even though I mentioned frequently to the class, if you have any
 problems, please come see me, ask for help if you need it, etc.

 My colleague seemed surprised by my having given a failing grade, and asked
 if that didn't bring into question my feminist pedagogy. >>

 Batya Weinbaum, Dept of Eng CSU Cleveland OH batyawein  @  aol.com

First, I appreciate the thoughtful and sane discussion of grading
and feminist pedagogy.  I, too, feel that I provide a varied
syllabus, with opportunities to express a range of academic and
creative, skills, talents and interests, and assign research
papers in stages, so that I  can comment on each part and give it
back for revision in the final draft, etc., I feel not only free
but responsible to give grades that reflect the quality of the
students' final efforts.  Part of their "effort" entails taking
responsibility to ask for help and use the help that is offered.

On the topic of large classes, I have not taught sections of 80
(oy!), I  do not see why well-designed small-group projects would be
more difficult in this setting.  In fact, it seems more necessary
in that context, as it is likely that a hefty number of students
in such a huge class will sit back, passively, listening (we hope)
to the lecture/discussion without ever raising a hand or taking
part in class.  Small-group work demands participation of every
member of the group -- and as an extra bene for the teacher,
results in fewer papers, essays, skits, whatever, to grade! 

Amy S. Green
Associate Professor of Speech and Theatre
Chair, Women's Studies
John Jay College of Criminal Justice

I regularly teach classes of 45-100,  some of them lower division introductory
classes and some of them upper division majors courses.  Believe me when I
tell you that organizing creative group projects is a lot of work in classes
of those size.  Ultimately, you do have to give a grade, so you have to
determine mechanisms for this. Just organizing the projects is a huge
undertaking. I am in the arts, so I find that giving a lot of different kinds
of opportunities for independent assignments and/or extra credit, from
visiting museums and galleries and writing reviews, to treasure hunts at
museums (for instance, to locate the works on display by women artists), to
film reviews or filling out questionnaires on field trips, there are ways of
breaking up the large lectures.  But, I have experimented with it all and I
have found that a large class requires work, whether grading papers or
organizing small group projects--it just really depends upon your own
interests as to which you prefer.  I also find that there are leading
questions that you can ask in order to generate classroom discussion and I try
to make sure that I ask at least one of those per lecture, and that I sit back
and let the discussion fly (which is hard to do from an old lecturer like me).
 Even though there are students who don't participate, I hear back later that
small group discussions often take place after class, especially in regard to
controversial topics. Other faculty tell me of discussions in their classrooms
related to something we discussed in my classroom.  I think that we each have
to find a way to teach that is comfortable for us.  I have been teaching at
the college level since 1982, and I am always experimenting.  I never have
solved it exactly, but I like that unbalance; it is what draws me to teaching
in the first place.

Responding to Batya Weinbaum's comments--"was this colleague a
female, a feminist, an anti-feminist, part of the backlash? One appropriate
strategy might be to give the curious colleague a list of books and articles
about feminist pedagogy":

At our small college campus, where I am one of two women among about 15 men
who teach university-transfer (academic) subjects, there is probably not a
lot of understanding about feminist pedagogy.  This colleague was a man whom
I know well and who is definitely sympathetic to feminism if not a feminist.
I would be interested in "a list of books and articles about feminist
pedagogy" to which you refer.  If anyone has any suggestions, please
respond!
Pamela

Pamela den Ouden
English and Women's Studies
Northern Lights College
Fort St. John, BC
pdenoudn  @  nlc.bc.ca

I've been intrigued by this discussion because many of the suggestions
people are sending in not only have a long and distinguished pedigree (in
modern times, from at least the "progressive education promoted byJohn Dewey
onwards), but also seem to me to simply be good pedagogy.

Restricting my comments to this particular discussion only:  Are people
using "feminist" as a stand-in  for "good"?  Doesn't any conscientious
teacher do most all the things Jessica Nathanson enumerated, things such as
considering the needs of the students, varying assignments, devising exams
or other tools of evaluation that allow students to demonstrate what they
know as opposed to what they don't know, clearly articulating course
objectives and expectations, etc.?  I am sure thousands of teachers all
around the country do this without thinking it has anything to do with
feminism.

 So, my question is: what is feminist about the pedagogy currently being
discussed?  (Please don't refer me to the massive literature on feminist
pedagogy; I've read a great deal of it and it doesn't in fact have much to
do with this particular discussion.)

DP
---------------------------------
daphne.patai  @  spanport.umass.edu

This particular discussion has been about how to approach grading as a
feminist pedagogue, and in discussing different approaches to grading the
conversation has actually focused on the area of overlap between feminist
and critical pedagogy.  In other words, these are techniques that are
common to both approaches, but this does not eclipse the interests of
either; feminist pedagogy remains feminist pedagogy, and critical pedagogy
remains critical pedagogy, and they borrow from each other frequently.
Just as many poor teaching techniques are (mistakenly) associated only
with WS -- such as grading based only on effort, or grading based on
political content of a paper, or class discussions in which differing
points of view are silenced -- when they are in fact simply poor teaching
techniques that have nothing to do with feminist pedagogy, so too are many
good teaching techniques not unique to feminist pedagogy.  (And many, for
example "rotating chair", are used in all kinds of pedagogical approaches
but not credited to WS and feminism even though they were developed in
that context.)

So, to answer part of your question:  most if not all of what we've
discussed so far is not unique to feminist pedagogy, and yes, I think we
are using "good" synonymously with "feminist" in this instance.

Re. your other question:  What is feminist about the approaches we've
discussed is the concern for the student, the attempts to acknowledge and
disrupt traditional power dynamics in the classroom, the underlying
assumption that the student will take his/her knowledge from the classroom
and put it into practice in his/her life, and so on.  Just because these
concerns are shared by other pedagogical and political approaches does not
make them any less feminist (in fact, the literature on feminist pedagogy
addresses these concerns in great detail, as well as other concerns that
are unique to feminist pedagogy).  (If what you are asking is why this
discussion of feminist pedagogical approaches has so far not focused on
issues of gender, probably it is because the original question did not
refer to specific gender issues in the classroom.)

Jessica Nathanson


--- Daphne Patai <daphne.patai  @  SPANPORT.UMASS.EDU> wrote:

>  So, my question is: what is feminist about the pedagogy currently being
> discussed?  (Please don't refer me to the massive literature on feminist
> pedagogy; I've read a great deal of it and it doesn't in fact have much
> to do with this particular discussion.)

Jessica Nathanson
Doctoral Candidate, American Studies
Concentration in Women's Studies
State University of New York at Buffalo
janathanson  @  yahoo.com
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jan3

Pamela

You might check out "Without a word : teaching beyond women's silence";
Routledge, 1993, by Magda Lewis. Magda is in the Faculty of Education /
Institute of Women's Studies at Queen's U in Ontario. I really found it
hit "home" however I'm not sure that it entirely addresses the problem
you have described, but it has been a while since I have read it. It
would perhaps be useful for male academics in deconstructing that dead
silence that occurs from women students, in some courses.

Janet Forbes
janetforbes  @  stn.net

re: feminist pedagogy

Lori Goetsch (U. of Maryland) has compiled a bibliography of books on
feminist pedagogy as part of the "Core Lists in Women's Studies" project
of the Women's Studies Section of the American Library Association. It
is mounted at
http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/core/crfemped.htm

There is also a bibliography of books and articles on feminist pedagogy
at http://womenstudy.cla.umn.edu/research/fempedbib.html (The Univ. of
Minnesota Women's Studies Dept.'s website).

For a concise introduction, I usually suggest Caroline Shrewsbury's
article "What is Feminist Pedagogy?" Women's Studies Quarterly 21.3-4
(Fall 93): 8-16 (entire issue is on feminist pedagogy); also in  Women's
Studies Quarterly  25.1-2 (1997): 66-73.

Sincerely,
Phyllis
___________________

Phyllis Holman Weisbard
University of Wisconsin System Women's Studies Librarian
430 Memorial Library, 728 State Street, Madison, WI 53706   USA
(608) 263-5754                    pweisbard  @  library.wisc.edu
http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/

>   Doesn't any conscientious
> teacher do most all the things Jessica Nathanson enumerated, things such as
> considering the needs of the students, varying assignments, devising exams
> or other tools of evaluation that allow students to demonstrate what they
> know as opposed to what they don't know, clearly articulating course
> objectives and expectations, etc.?

In my first year of (prestigious, male-dominated) grad school (mid 80s), I
was told by well-meaning assistant faculty that in order to be taken
seriously, I should never express an interest in pedagogy and should spend
as little time as possible preparing classes. I was pretty darn shocked and
I never forgot it. I was told that if I developed a reputation as a person
who prioritizes and takes pride in teaching, I would be presumed to be less
interested in and less capable of excellence in research. I am glad there
were journals out there like *Feminist Teacher* and *Radical Teacher* to
inspire me to the contrary. I was disconcerted to hear many of my fellow TAs
parrot the line about how "teaching is a waste of time because it distracts
us from our research"--as if teaching and research can't enrich each other.
Some of my most interesting angles for research have come out of classroom
interactions.

In that time and place, faculty and TAs alike took a bizarre pride in
"winging it" in the classroom. Putting in prep time was considered nerdy and
uncool. Tenured faculty would sometimes deliver lectures that came out of
their research but had nothing to do with the course they were teaching.
They would use trendy buzzwords while pretending to think the undergrads had
an inkling what they were talking about.

 Having an alternative political viewpoint (in my case, feminism) helps a
person resist pressure to conform to these kinds of student-unfriendly,
power-trippy, so-called "professional" norms and motivates a person to
persevere in the face of being labeled nerdy and uncool. So I think in that
sense feminism supports good pedagogy. I don't think good pedagogy is the
professional norm.

> I am sure thousands of teachers all
> around the country do this without thinking it has anything to do with
> feminism.
>
>  So, my question is: what is feminist about the pedagogy currently being
> discussed?

Feminists aren't the only ones out there advocating sound, progressive
pedagogy, but gee whiz, I'm certainly proud that we're among them.

Leah Ulansey
leahu  @  earthlink.net

Hi all,
For a wonderful examination of Feminist Pedagogy within a large
course setting, check out Jyl Lynn Felman's new book *Never A Dull
Moment: Teaching and the Art of Performance*.  Although Felman's book
is not specifically about large courses, much of the Feminist
Pedagogy she describes happens in a large (about 70 students) class.
Felman is very clear, in the book, about some of the choices she
makes that work to decenter the authority of her voice, to critique
the patriarchal structures that permeate education, to own her power
in the classroom and work to empower students, etc.  And she is
pretty realistic about the challenges particular to larger classes.
I have taught classes of 350, and I know I could have used her ideas
in those settings.  I also use them in my classes of 35.

A couple of ideas for folks teaching larger classes (these are not
specifically "Feminist," but they may help you to build a dynamic in
which "Feminist Pedagogy" is more possible):

1. rather than "small group" work (which can be made almost painful
when seats are bolted to the ground and students sit in an
amphitheater), try this: give students a question or two and ask them
to "talk it over with your neighbors" for a few minutes.  Of course,
some of them will  talk about what they did this weekend instead, but
that happens in my classes of 20, too.

2. learn as many students' names as you can.  I know this can be
painful, but I have been able to learn the names of most of the
students in classes as large as 90.  It really increases the chances
that students will speak in class in some way.

3. get the students to talk during the first week of class, even if
only to intro themselves.  The earlier they speak for the first time,
the more likely they will be to say something in subsequent weeks.

4. I once had a class of 90 doing small-group (6-7 students)
presentations.  This was a major part of their final grade, and many
of them did amazingly wonderful work.  I scheduled one presentation
each week, beginning in the 4th or 5th week of class.  The
presentation was meant to enhance that week's topic.

Of course, we all know that if administrators were really dedicated
to good pedagogy (much less to Feminist Pedagogy!), all our classes
would be small enough to allow individualized work with each student.
To those of you who are working to provide quality education within a
system that clearly values economics over quality, best of luck, and
I really admire your efforts.

Take care, all,
Jeannie