Via The Googlization of Everything: Siva Vaidhyanathan makes some great points about the drive toward digitisation in post-secondary education in his lecture “The Classroom is Sacred” at the CUNY Graduate Center.
The point about the heterogeneity of the university is really great. The needs and ways of operating among and between different areas, especially in large universities, are not always served by a one-size-fits-all digitisation strategy. Indeed, as he points out, there is an incredible amount of value in the ambiguities that are present in the classroom. Here, his point about “teachers are liars” is one that I have thought about quite a bit. Coming from a performance background, I have always endeavored to acknowledge the performative aspects of teaching. Teaching (and writing for that matter) can be about provocation; it can be about eliciting responses in dialogue; it doesn’t have to be about simply passing information gleaned from one source, through the larynx or the computer scree, to a willing (or not so willing) receptacle). The point made here about education not being simply a matter of information transfer speaks directly to the issue of the necessary presence of living, contradictory, ambiguous bodies in the process of educating.
A great watch!
@paaitken
Just a thought concerning ‘Teaching (and writing for that matter) can be about provocation’ and ‘education not being simply a matter of information transfer’. More firmly, I insist that teaching and writing are always about provocation and education is not at all a matter of information transfer.
Although axiomatic for us all, the language of ‘information transfer’ suggests, in my opinion, something quite uncharacteristic of humans. Such language should be attributed to objects which have no consciousness, perhaps the electronic structures of banks and the stock market is the best example?
But transference does i think apply to what you’re describing via Siva’s thesis: the transference of values in the way of force, bodily engagement, energy, presence, momentum, ambiguity and so on. I see this kind of transference as plugging right into the language of provocation.
Check out these definitions for that word, as they force it ever so slightly away from the frequent inclination to understand provocation in ‘negative’ terms:
-early 15c., from O.Fr. provocation (12c.), from L. provocationem (nom. provocatio) “a calling forth, challenge,” from provocatus, pp. of provocare “provoke.”
-Legal Dictionary
Main Entry: prov·o·ca·tion
Pronunciation: “prä-v&-’kA-sh&n
Function: noun
1 : the act of provoking
2 : something that provokes, arouses, or stimulates
The ‘negative’ denotation of the word, interestingly, seems to come from the medical definition – the act or process of provoking a nonspecific irritant that brings about provocation of bronchial asthma – and, get ready for this, British judicial language – English criminal law words or conduct that incite a person to attack another.
The way I see it, if Siva and the rest of us want to buy into his thesis, and harness the values he prizes, then we might have to think about abandoning the word teaching. For doesn’t the word too much imply a possession of knowledge, instantiate a hierarchy between ‘teacher’ and ‘pupil’ and all the rest of it? Because I celebrate the fact that Siva’s, and indeed your, reflections on this matter aim to bring about a more productive thinking environment and kind of university setting, this little ‘provocation’ is my offering.
b.