'Privilege' Exercises

PAGE 5 OF 5

Following the thread on how to help students both think and feel about
privilege, I wanted to alert those who may not know about it to my book,
Privilege, Power, and Difference (Mayfield 2001) which has been very well
received for its ability to do just that.

For more information, go to http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/allanjohnson

Allan Johnson
Sociology & Women's Studies
Hartford College for Women of the University of Hartford

> This is precisely what's wrong with the entire exercise. The person with a
> "markedly different" privilege factor is a real live human being, one of
our
> students, and the teacher who imposes this exercise on students is messing
> with his/her head. Some may call it "consciousness raising" but that
doesn't
> make it better.  It is not our job to intentionally mess with our
students'
> 'consciousness' (psyche, emotions, soul-- whatever one wants to call it)
in
> this sense.  There's a world of difference between discussing these issues
> at a certain level of abstraction and driving them home to our students in
> their own skin (not an accidental metaphor).

If I have understood your point of view, then you would support
teaching about privilege using texts that outline historical and
sociological factors. I think what you are missing is that reading
such texts, even if they are very abstract, can still result in
students realizing their own positions in society and how they have
been privileged.  This often "messes with his/her head" or affects
him/her emotionally.  In fact, I don't really see how a student
could learn about how privilege works without being upset to some
degree, no matter how "abstractly" it was presented to them.

Although I don't endorse the "take a step back" privilege exercise
that was presented on the list, I do understand why instructors
wants to teach the concept of privilege in a variety of ways, some
of them abstract and historically contextualized, and some of them
more personalized.  Not every student is as quick to process and
understand abstract ideas.  It is a skill some students need to
improve.  Some of those same students, however, may excell at
drawing conclusions, and understanding abstract ideas if they are
presented in a personal context.  Why teach on only "one
wavelength"?  It would be like restricting oneself from using visual
aids (charts, diagrams, maps, pictures, film) in the classroom....

In my classes I often ask students to analyze the university they
are attending. (The school I teach at was physically built mostly by
African American slaves, was late in admitting women in more than
miniscule numbers, and has a distribution of white vs people of
color that does not reflect the distribution of the general populace
now, and has very few "non-traditional" students.) It is an example
that "students take personally" (it is part of their lived daily
experience), but it is not about them individually.  I find they
understand the institutional aspects of racism, sexism, and classism
pretty quickly this way. They also start thinking about how they are
part of some of those institution. Students are often horrified to
learn that the people who built the building they live and study in
were slaves, and who were never allowed even a basic education...
etc.  They apply what they learn to their "embodied experience" and
think and talk about the various types of privilege they have or
lack, and their experiences with different types of institutions and
privilege. Should I tell my students to shut up if they use a
personal example?  Are published "facts" and numbers the only
information allowed in the classroom?  I think it is ludicrous to
believe that students are not making personal connections between
"abstract" material and their own personal lives.  So why punish
students who learn well by connecting the personal with the
political?

If we avoid teaching a topic because it is potentially upsetting or because
someone might share an experience of how their personal is political,
how could we teach about any aspect of our society that is inequitable,
exploitative, controversial??

Brenda Risch
brisch  @  mindspring.com

Brenda, you wrote:

"I think what you are missing is that reading such texts, even if
they are very abstract, can still result in students realizing their
own positions in society and how they have been privileged.  This
often "messes with his/her head" or affects him/her emotionally."

I am not sure how many different ways I can explain this.  OF COURSE
education of any kind can "mess with someone's head," even less to save them
from any "discomfort" while at university.

What I object to is professorial orchestration of emotionally-charged
experiences to fulfill the professor's particular political aims.  Period.
If students want to sign up (with NO pressure) for a workshop on unlearning
racism or coming to grips with their inner demons, I have no objection. But
in the context of the classroom, above all in general education courses or
others that meet university requirements and are not pure electives,
professors should not have their pedagogy driven by their politics.  There
IS such a thing as intellectual integrity and there's also such a thing as
propaganda.   This is reducing to that tiresome discussion about whether all
education is political.  Most education may have some political
implications, but in my view that's a very LONG way from intentionally
aiming at inculcating in students' the professor's own attitude.

DP

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

What this all makes me think of is one of my favorite novels, Muriel Sparks'
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.  Jean Brodie is compelling preciely because
she is a great teacher, and a terrible teacher; her influence over students,
both wonderful and destructive.  And the sources of that greatness and
destruction are precisely the same.  She is unconventional, passionate,
committed, dictatorial, insightful, blind, giving, self-centered, and truly
extraordinary.

I don't think Sparks wrote the book so that anyone could pronounce a final
judgment on Jean Brodie.  The book ends, as I'm sure many of you know, on a
note of total ambiguity.  The student who destroys Brodie's career by
telling the headmistress Brodie is a Facist (Brodie had influenced a student
to the point that the girl runs off to Civil War Spain and is killed--as for
the Facism, this is the late 30's, so that accusation had clout), is also
the most brilliant and accomplished student, who, when asked in later life
by a newspaperman for her chief influences, says: "There was a Miss Jean
Brodie in her prime."

In other words, there is no easy solution for *any* question of the nature
of teacherly influence--whether it is a positive force or covert
Facism--because teaching is always both.  Excuse me for being honest, and I
know I just let myself open for attack on all sides, but so what.  Patai is
right (gulp) about messing with students' minds'--but Patai is also
wrong--because teaching is *always* messing with students' minds.  To claim
you can run a classroom without so doing is disingenuous to the point of
abnegating the very responsibility we teachers have to make education as
much as possible about our students' growth and well-being rather than our
personal agendas.  We have to know that the destruction and growth are both
there in what we do before we can choose well about how to avoid one and
encourage the other.

However, Patai's strategy of choosing growth by sticking only to ideas is
not viable.  Changing a student's intellectual horizon is always also
changing her emotional horizon, and we'd better cop to that fact if we are
to act responsibly.  It is simply not possible for ideas to be *just* ideas,
apart from values and emotions.  Last time I looked, I was still one being
with interconnected aspects, not an intellect totally separate from feeling
and action, and so were my students.

On the other hand, it is also not possible to use emotionally-laden material
or exercises without taking on the fearful responsibility those carry.  Any
teacher using such material had better be aware and ready to take the
consequences, and not just *say* they are so doing.  Talk is cheap, and the
longer I live, the more I dislike people of any political persuasion who
have all the words of caring down but are actually highly destructive.
(BTW, I am NOT saying any of the posters here who use such exercises are
simply 'talkers'--I was venting about some people I personally know.  I
don't know any of you personally, and I think it's safe to assume that you
are all thinking seriously about the subject or you wouldn't be posting.)
The fact that the Right is even more glib-but-destructive than the Left is
why I am still what I guess you would call 'progressive.'

Enough for one day.


Janice McLane

Dept. of Philosophy and Religious Studies
Morgan State University
1700 E. Cold Spring Lane
Baltimore, MD 21251

jmclane  @  morgan.edu
433/855-1804

"This life is a thump-ripe melon,
So sweet and such a mess."
                        --Greg Brown

It seems to me that underlying Daphne's objections is a rejection of
the very idea of experiential learning.

I am not sure I endorse the particular exercise that sparked this
discussion, and I personally (and pedagogically) reject the practice
of *required* personal disclosure, regardless of the context.

Nonetheless, Daphne's proclamations that teachers should focus on
abstract concepts separate from people's personal experience leave me
dumbfounded. The conventional educational practice has been to exclude
personal experience from the learning process, as if the academic
world and the worlds in which we live our lives have no bearing upon
each other.

The educational world in which I grew up (from kindergarten through
graduate school) was oppressive precisely because it demanded that one
*NOT* discuss personal experience -- indeed, insisted that personal
experience was irrelevent -- and that one sit rigidly in rows merely
absorbing what the professor had to say. In my more than 20 years of
teaching, regardless of the subject, nothing was more effective in
getting students excited about and engaged in learning than the
experiential and cooperative learning strategies I developed. That
applied to everything from teaching students how to write an inverted
pyramid in basic journalism to helping them to understand the
significance of social structures as they bear upon communication
processes.

---
Georgia NeSmith, Ph.D.
Rochester, NY
georgia_nesmith  @  lycos.com
http://georgia_nesmith.tripod.com

          Hello,
          I find myself becoming increasingly confused by this
"conversation.
          DP says:

>What I object to is professorial orchestration of emotionally-charged
>experiences to fulfill the professor's particular political aims.  Period.

Don't we, as people who teach women's studies, have a particular political
aim?  I find that much of what I teach is upsetting to people, often
especially men.  And I do have a political aim, that I make quite
explicit--that of participating towards making women equal to men.

Beyond teaching women's studies, I also teach a writing class specifically
for students who have difficulty writing "academically."  They are mostly
working class, raised poor, of color, and/or foreign students.  Many of them
tell me, in my office, how upsetting most of their classes are--wherein
professors don't talk about their life (the students') experiences.  Foreign
students tell me they've had profs tell them not to expect an A, because
their writing will never be adequate.  This is privilege, isn't it?  And so
upsetting to many students they drop out of college.  How can it be wrong to
upset students in the opposite direction?

Thank you,
Isbel Ingham
           ingham  @  pdx.edu

>I need to point out that the purpose of the power
>shuffle is NOT "to create disharmony and fractiousness" -- whether it's
>practiced in the corporate setting or the academic. The purpose is to
>illuminate the ways in which each of us shuttles through moments of
>ideological and institutional power, to identify the ways we build allies
>and coalitions.

Perhaps that isn't the *intended* purpose of "the power shuffle";I don't know.
I do know that pedagogical strategies are to be judged by the fruit and not
the root, and the fruit of this one doesn't look too good.

As for "the ways we build allies and coalitions," the tendency of this
exercise would seem to disfavor any alliances and coalitions across the lines
of difference.

>I also underscore thoroughly the postings by WMSTL-ers who
>have discussed the need to construct this exercise carefully - it should
>never be undertaken lightly and personal choice and privacy are to be
>respected. Don't teach the exercise unless you've undergone it yourself,
>don't teach it unless you've talked with those experienced in leading the
>exercise. Context -- how the exercise fits in the class, pre- and
>post-exercise materials and discussions -- are all critical.

But the whole approach is just inherently hamfisted. I find it tough to
imagine what a sensitive enactment of "the power shuffle" would consist of.

Cliff Doerksen

cdoerkse  @  uic.edu

Once again what I said is being misinterpreted:  I did not say that teachers
should focus on  abstract concepts separate from people's personal
experience.

Personal experiences in the broad sense are obviously everywhere in any
humanistic or social science discipline or course.  My objection was to
making the particular students in one's course the SUBJECT of the exercise
in a personal way, relating to their personal selves, for the purpose of
getting them to understand the professor's analysis of oppression, etc.  I
used the word "abstract" to mean a less personal, more intellectual, focus
in the classroom.  Here is the precise paragraph I wrote:

"There's a world of difference between discussing these issues
at a certain level of abstraction and driving them home to our students in
their own skin (not an accidental metaphor). it takes a lot of arrogance for
a teacher to think their role is to do the latter, and it takes a lot of
dennial to not see this as an abuse of the teacher's position and
potentially of real harm to the students."

It has been most interesting to see that my objections are always met with
distortions and absurd extrapolations.  To repeat: My argument is that our
students are not there for us to initiate them into our politics. That is
not why universities exist or why they enrolled and it is an abuse of our
position to treat them as if they were.  They are there to learn, in a broad
sense, and without being required to disclose ANY personal info, attitudes,
or experiences. Our arena is the intellectual one,, however murky that
concept evidently is to many on this list.   While personal and therapeutic
classrooms certainly go on in many feminist courses,  what started this
discussion was not those general practices but the *particular* exercises
designed to make students aware of their privilege.

  I have not heard any convincing defenses of these practices.  Saying we
all bring viewpoints to our classes, or our politics, or our personal
histories, and so do our students, and pointing to the obvious fact that
intellect and emotion are not sealed off from one another in watertight
compartments (who claimed they were?) are not arguments in favor of the
particular practices in question.

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

At 10:45 AM 4/22/2002 -0400, Daphne Patai wrote:
>This is reducing to that tiresome discussion about whether all
>education is political.  Most education may have some political
>implications, but in my view that's a very LONG way from intentionally
>aiming at inculcating in students' the professor's own attitude.


It may be tiresome but "the personal is political" is at the core of
women's studies.

As educators we walk a thin line: We teach what we believe,
acutely conscious of the rejection of our beliefs and experience
by the mainstream.  We teach students to question, particularly
the education that they've had that teaches them that women are
inferior or inconsequential.

We are aware, however, that "...intentionally aiming at inculcating
in students' the professor's own attitude" can be dangerous; students
who suddenly discover their teachers feet of clay  can become
our worst nightmares--I'm sure that somewhere, David Horowitz's
mentors or whoever brought Camile Paglia to feminism are wondering
where they went wrong.  I have always taken _The Prime of Miss
Jean Brody_ to be a cautionary tale: We never know what the ultimate
effect of our teachings will be on students.

Rosie

Dra. Rosa Maria Pegueros, J.D., Ph.D.
Department of History
    & Women's Studies Program
217C Washburn Hall
80 Upper College Road, Suite 3
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881
         E:mail: pegueros  @  uri.edu
         Phone:(401) 874-4092
         Fax  :(401) 874-2595
Web pages:
http://www.uri.edu/personal/rpe2836u/
http://nick.uri.edu/artsci/wms/pegueros.htm
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**
"There are millions of well-to-do children who are suffering
from
the spiritual poverty of affluenza. They've got a whole lot of things,
but they don't have a sense of purpose and a sense of inner core,"
                         ù Marian Wright Edelman
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**

> It has been most interesting to see that my objections are always met with
> distortions and absurd extrapolations.  To repeat: My argument is that our
> students are not there for us to initiate them into our politics. That is
> not why universities exist or why they enrolled and it is an abuse of our
> position to treat them as if they were.  They are there to learn, in a broad
> sense, and without being required to disclose ANY personal info, attitudes,
> or experiences. Our arena is the intellectual one,, however murky that
> concept evidently is to many on this list.   While personal and therapeutic
> classrooms certainly go on in many feminist courses,  what started this
> discussion was not those general practices but the *particular* exercises
> designed to make students aware of their privilege.
>

was written by Daphne Patai

I have been following this discussio0n with interest and care since I,
too, do not wish to impose my point of view (politics, religion, etc,)
on my students and worry and guard against this.  It first came into
my conciousness in the mid 60's when I was teaching mathematics in
high school and moderating a boy's club.  I was anti-Vietnam but felt
I had no right to encourage my students that way.  We certainly
discussed the issue (they were all draft material), and when asked for
my opinion I gave it as well as the best presentation I could of
opposing views.  One of the boys enlisted which made his parents proud
and they thanked me and another was a CO whose family disowned him and
blamed me.  As I now teach feminist theology this experiance remains
with me in the classroom.  And if asked I do give both my opinion and
as fair a presentation of the other side that I can.  I rarely use
'exercises' but do continually point out that the word 'different'
does not neccesarily mean better or worse although it can.

Gaile Pohlhaus, Sr.
gaile.pohlhaus  @  villanova.edu

I am learning a great deal from this riveting discussion of the ethics 
of pedagogy and privilege.  I want to enter in tentatively, without 
misrepresenting Daphne Patai's points, but nevertheless to raise a few 
critical questions.

First, I suspect we all agree that there's no single best way to achieve 
our legitimate pedagogical aims.  There has been plenty of testimony on 
this list to the effect that some have found such exercises highly 
educational (in a largely if not exclusively "intellectual" sense) 
precisely *because* they have been emotionally disturbing on a personal 
level.  Others have spoken of student alienation, etc.  Both seem 
plausible outcomes depending on circumstances, instructor, students, and 
so on; no simple pedagogical formula can substitute for practical 
wisdom.

Moreover, while much controversy seems to center around the matter of 
privacy and personal disclosure, *everyone* so far seems to agree that 
no students should be *required* to reveal sensitive personal 
information if they don't wish to.  (Opponents of "the exercise" don't 
seem satisfied by the opt-out option, but I can't tell whether this is 
because *any* experiential exercise will seem mandatory despite 
assurances to the contrary, or specifically because this sort of 
exercise is thought to have illegitimate political, nonpedagogical aims. 
 I suspect it's the latter.)

The core dispute thus seem to be about what the aims of the privilege 
exercise are and whether these aims are legitimate.  It certainly 
doesn't seem to me charitable to say that those who support something 
like the privilege exercise are simply trying to "initiate students into 
our politics."  So the disagreement isn't (or isn't mainly) between 
those who think of the classroom as a site for political recruitment and 
those who don't. 

Rather, it seems more to be a disagreement about whether a pedagogically 
ideal understanding of privilege (which as I understand it is both 
structural and personal): (a) is intrinsically normative, (b) requires 
the recognition of one's own involvement in systems of privilege, and/or 
(c) is well achieved by means of experiential (often emotionally 
disturbing) exercises that specifically address the students on a 
personal level (i.e., that "intentionally mess with our students' 
consciousnesses").

For this reason, I am both fascinated and troubled by Dr. Patai's claim 
that "Our arena is the intellectual one, however murky that concept 
evidently is to many on this list."  This really seems to me the nub of 
the issue, but I believe that "the intellectual" is not so much a 
*murky* concept as a *contested* one.  Perhaps too it depends to some 
extent on one's discipline.  An embryology course is no place for an 
instructor to tap into students' experiences with abortion or their 
feelings about it or even, I would say, the ethics of it.  The 
intellectual content of such a course is strictly empirical.

On the other end of the spectrum, I teach ethics -- a course whose 
content is inherently evaluative, indeed moral.  Some moral positions 
(e.g., unqualified endorsement of slavery or rape) are simply 
incompatible with the intellectual content of the course.  Someone who 
held such views would appear not to grasp the concepts of morality or 
justice.  Thus, with respect to (a) above, I don't think we can (all) 
draw a simple, across-the-board distinction between the "intellectual" 
and the normative goals of our courses, as if those who lead their 
students toward any normative position whatsoever are guilty of 
recruiting students to a particular political cause.  We needn't assume 
that all normative or political views, by virtue of their normativity, 
are equally partisan and thus equally off-limits.

With respect to (b) above, a student in my course who had a working 
knowledge of the ins and outs of various ethical theories, but developed 
no skills for evaluating her own actions and character would fall short 
of what I regard as the legitimate aims of the course, whether these are 
appropriately regarded as purely "intellectual" aims or not.   But that 
does not mean that students must reach particular pre-determined 
positions on controversial moral questions (responsibilities of 
privilege, animal rights, abortion, etc.) in order to "get it" 
intellectually (and do well in the course), which is what the "political 
indoctrination" aim would involve.  I agree, for instance, that it would 
be illegitimate to try to "indoctrinate" my students into vegetarianism. 
 It is not, however, illegitimate to try to get my students to reflect 
critically and honestly on their own dietary habits in light of their 
own intellectually arrived-at considered moral judgments.  Excelling in 
moral philosophy requires us not only to understand and analyze values 
at the abstract level, but also to see their intimate concrete relevance 
at the personal level.  Thus, a student who arrives at the conclusion on 
the basis of reason and argumentation that 'animals don't have rights 
and thus my meat eating habits are justified' is meeting my course goals 
better than one who concludes 'factory farming is a moral atrocity' but 
also leaves the class believing 'my personal dietary habits are not at 
issue in this course.'

Re (c) above, I'm still undecided about whether I would use the 
privilege exercise, but I take it that it's this latter sort of 
disconnect that it aims to correct.  Dr. Patai seems to think that such 
corrections are the business of personal therapy, not a university 
education.  I guess my position would be that whether this is so depends 
on the course goals, which legitimately vary across disciplines.

Apologies for the long post.

Best,
Jen Everett, Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
University of Alaska Anchorage
3211 Providence Drive
Anchorage, AK 99508
907-786-4459 (ph.)
907-786-4309 (fax)
afjje1  @  uaa.alaska.edu

YOU GUYS
I don't like "you guys" for particular reasons. I find that it is most
often used by someone who is either in a position of power to refer to a
group in their control, or in a service industry situation. In the
former it strikes me that it is somewhat disrespectful, particularly as
academics rarely refer to their colleagues or peers as "you guys"
regardless of the gender component of the group (in my hearing at least,
I know others may have different experiences). I recognize that it's a
part of many vocabularies--including mine--and slips out, but I find it
interesting that it is more likely to slip out in a classroom than at a
conference.

As someone who depended upon waitering and retail sales to get through
school, I also find "you guys" inappropriate in this context. If you're
dependent upon tips or commission, it can be a bad slip around many
women who are uncomfortable with the degree of familiarity it indicates.
This is sometimes on the basis of class, but it also works with age,
posited differences, and expectations of respect and/or distance. Some
see it as a superficial way to attempt to bridge very real differences,
or create camaraderie where it does not exist. Yes, sometimes this is a
result of snobbery, racism, etc., but it can also be a political stance,
or one informed by the realities of privilege, elitism, racism, and
other equally pressing isms.

PRIVILEGE
In some ways, my reluctance to use "you guys" goes back to my original
questioning of the privilege exercise, and how the classroom is
constructed along lines of power. Would a student refer to a group of
professors as "you guys"?

On the privilege exercise: my initial reluctance to physically enact the
exercise is based on the reality that those who are being "enlightened"
about their privilege may owe this experience to the bodies of those at
the back of the room, who are often already very much aware of their own
lack of particular privileges. I would hate to find myself at the back
of the room only to realize I'd been a pawn. When some spoke of the
exercise being painful for students, I'm not sure that there was always
a recognition of the potential for reinscribing already existing and/or
evident inequalities on particular student bodies, and the ways in which
*that* might be painful.

All the best,
Jennifer Harris
Department of English
jharris  @  yorku.ca

I'm a day or so late in responding, but I wanted to say that what Jennifer
says below sounds to me like the best reason yet for at least hesitating
to use such exercises in class.  It reminds me of the title of the famous
80's anthology *This Bridge Called My Back*--one idea there, I take it,
was that we need to be very wary of using less-privileged people as
"bridges" to convey consciousness and awareness to the more privileged.

Rebecca W.

On Thu, 25 Apr 2002, Jennifer Harris wrote:

> On the privilege exercise: my initial reluctance to physically enact the
> exercise is based on the reality that those who are being "enlightened"
> about their privilege may owe this experience to the bodies of those at
> the back of the room, who are often already very much aware of their own
> lack of particular privileges. I would hate to find myself at the back
> of the room only to realize I'd been a pawn. When some spoke of the
> exercise being painful for students, I'm not sure that there was always
> a recognition of the potential for reinscribing already existing and/or
> evident inequalities on particular student bodies, and the ways in which
> *that* might be painful.