{"id":18755,"date":"2012-10-18T20:55:53","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T01:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=18755"},"modified":"2012-10-18T20:55:53","modified_gmt":"2012-10-19T01:55:53","slug":"inherently-subversive-pedagogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2012\/10\/inherently-subversive-pedagogy\/","title":{"rendered":"Inherently Subversive Pedagogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In 2010 the Arizona legislature created a law<\/a> designed to deter the teaching of a Mexican American Studies course in Tucson schools by cutting State funding to districts with courses that, among other things, \u201cpromote resentment toward a race or class of people.\u201d\u00a0 After a finding by the state court in 2011 and under the threat of a $15 million fine, the Tucson district was forced to stop utilizing a course<\/a> that was available to all students, was effectively closing the achievement gap, and was successful in helping Latino students attend college.\u00a0 One aspect of enforcement that the district decided on was banning the use of many books<\/a> that were a part of the Mexican American Studies program from schools.<\/p>\n

I was introduced to the Tucson curriculum issue in Professor Mazzie\u2019s<\/a> first semester Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing 1 class last fall. \u00a0Our assignment was to write a brief memo on whether the Tucson course was in violation of A.R.S. \u00a7 15-112.\u00a0 The constitutionality of the Arizona law itself has since been called into question under the purview of a federally appointed special master who is overseeing the Tucson School District\u2019s mandated desegregation. \u00a0It was satisfying to see, earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit<\/a> agree with my position in Professor Mazzie\u2019s class that the curriculum was not necessarily a per se violation of A.R.S. \u00a7 15-112 anyway.<\/p>\n

Before the Ninth Circuit ruling, Paulo Freire\u2019s Pedagogy of the Oppressed<\/em><\/a> (Freire is pictured above) was one of the textbooks ordered removed from all classrooms in Tucson.\u00a0 In it, amidst some dialectic jargon, Freire provides an effective critique of the predominant form of education used in the U.S., calling it the \u201cbanking\u201d method whereby students are conceived as receptacles for the knowledge with which educators fill them. \u00a0\u201cBanking education resists dialogue . . . treats students as objects of assistance . . . inhibits creativity . . . .\u201d (83).\u00a0 \u201cThe student records, memorizes, and repeats.\u201d (71).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The alternative to the banking method is what Freire calls \u201cproblem posing,\u201d in the service of helping students develop a critical consciousness<\/a>.\u00a0 Problem posing involves the teacher engaged in a dialogue with<\/em> students, both learning from each other and creatively approaching subjects and problems that surround them in their lives.\u00a0 Students \u201cdevelop their power to perceive critically the way they exist<\/em> in the world with which<\/em> and in which<\/em> they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.\u201d\u00a0 (Id.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Freire\u2019s writings do indeed advocate for the development of a \u201cpraxis,\u201d or curiosity that leads to reflection and, finally, to action addressing the problems the student observes in the world around them.\u00a0 As American writer and educator J. Mitchell Morse observed<\/a>: \u201cTo the extent that the establishment depends on the inarticulacy of the governed, good writing is inherently subversive.\u201d\u00a0 (The Irrelevant English Teacher<\/em>, pg. vii, 1972.)\u00a0 The same may be said of effective education. \u00a0Developing thoughtful, articulate and engaged citizens seems to be a worthy end for public education to serve, but Arizona lawmakers are perhaps more fearful of the prospect.<\/p>\n

It is less clear why other books were banned<\/a>.\u00a0 The House On Mango Street<\/em>, a collection of short vignettes by Mexican\u2013American writer Sandras Cisneros that convey memories of growing up in Chicago, seems to me an incredibly innocuous book.\u00a0 Perhaps the district, under the scrutiny of the new law, was concerned that students not be exposed to the humanity of minority or disenfranchised groups.\u00a0 \u201cDort wo man B\u00fccher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 (Heinrich Heine, Almansor<\/em>, 1823.)<\/p>\n

Returning to my Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research class, these concepts begged for application to the law school experience.\u00a0 Despite the improvements brought by Christopher Columbus Langdell<\/a>, the \u201cbanking\u201d style is still the principal form of legal instruction.\u00a0 Often, it seems, the paper deposits are made by the truckload.\u00a0 This may at first glance seem a necessity since practicing the law today involves digesting and understanding a substantial amount of ideas and vernacular.\u00a0 Freire\u2019s response is simple: \u201cKnowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.\u201d\u00a0 (72).\u00a0 That is, education does not take place by way of stifling students.<\/p>\n

I came upon a more provocative characterization of law school pedagogy in the novel In the Shadow of the Law<\/em> by Kermit Roosevelt III<\/a>.\u00a0 The book is ostensibly a D.C. thriller but mostly explores the experiences of a handful of sophomoric attorneys as their understanding of the profession expands.\u00a0 A poignant passage submits:<\/p>\n

This was the service the law schools gave, witting or no, that they taught their students to follow authority and to believe in a legal reasoning that supplanted their intuitions about justice. \u00a0To use that reasoning in the service of any cause, to argue positions they despised, which had the inevitable result of cutting them loose from the positions they loved. \u00a0Act and it shall produce unbelief. \u00a0The firms provided the training; the firms taught the law. \u00a0Law school just made students ready to accept it.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(155).<\/p>\n

The more general movement toward increasingly standardized education implicates more than just assimilation.\u00a0 To my mind it is closer to suicide.\u00a0 The question can be posed:\u00a0 Is it more destructive to encourage young citizens to engage in critical discourse or to deter them from doing so?\u00a0 The answer will no doubt say something about our disposition toward the status quo and the propriety of education.\u00a0 Is the analysis any different when it comes to the subject of teaching law?\u00a0 In educating young advocates of justice I wonder if we prefer to produce \u201cmore of the same\u201d rather than run the risk of inciting uncomfortably progressive thought?\u00a0 Setting aside preference, in today\u2019s increasingly complex, interdependent and, simultaneously, myopic world, what does civilization actually need?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2010 the Arizona legislature created a law designed to deter the teaching of a Mexican American Studies course in Tucson schools by cutting State funding to districts with courses that, among other things, \u201cpromote resentment toward a race or class of people.\u201d\u00a0 After a finding by the state court in 2011 and under the 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