In response to the fourth question, I find this concept of dealing with ideology in the classroom incredibly difficult, and I couldn’t agree more with the concept of knowledge being an arena for ideological conflict, not only between my students, but between my students and myself. As Berlin states “there are no arguments from transcendent truth since all arguments arise in ideology,” however, trying to force my students to understand this concept when it comes to their own writing is daunting. If they haven’t experienced something themselves, they tend to not have an opinion on it, and just shut down. If they do have an opinion, that is the only opinion and there is no seeing something from another perspective, as their own personal ideologies are rock solid. When a student of mine does have an opinion, I always try to dig deeper into discovering why they have that opinion, and along this journey, the more I ask them “why,” the more I find I am imparting my own ideological assumptions onto them.
Rather than have the next essay focus strictly on bullying, I am opening the prompt up to involve social change on a number of levels, from racism, sexism, the poverty rate, and so on. I am finding that the topics they choose to discuss reveal their own ideologies surrounding what is most important to them, which will lead to a better paper. Also, in the drafting process, I find the points that I ask them to analyze more reveal my own personal ideologies surrounding their topic, and the whole process becomes an ideological interrogation, which can either be productive, forcing them to think outside of their box, or detrimental, as they just parrot what I say and the paper then becomes a reflection of my own ideologies.
Good point, Danielle. Because of the assessment system and the power we’re perceived to have, sometimes students feel as if it is advantageous to agree with whatever we say.