Page 57 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 57
r. šribar ■ study in the virtual class: doings of feminist pedagogy ...
myth of motherhood, which invites force and weakness in mothering.
Immediately after that, we discussed the gendered socio-cultural con-
ditions and the economy which are structural obstacles to the students
emancipating themselves from the family traumas, equally those caused
by structural problems.
The described ethnographic fragment may be provisionally formal-
ised by the “triangulation” in feminist pedagogy with reference to knowl-
edge production. The question of pedagogy is what or who is the central
instance of the teaching and learning process. For the last three decades,
the focus has been on students, as substantially presented by Carolyn M.
Shrewsbury in her highly referential article “What is Feminist Pedagogy”
(1993, p. 10). Schematisation revolving around the embodied focus may ap-
pear narrow in scope when the special subjective characteristics of teachers
are desired, related to their “fundamental beliefs and values about teach-
ing, learning, and knowledge-making” as stated in A Guide to Feminist
Pedagogy (2015, para 2). It is one’s beliefs and values that enable two-way
communication and stimulate students’ interests and inclinations. There
are thus two instances, and in-between there is something which moves
from one to the other and is in the meantime enriched. This moving en-
tity is power which has to be shared. Yet there is no “subject” or charac-
teristic of feminist pedagogy that is explicitly defined as mandatory and
universal (Lawrence, 2016, para 6). One may conclude that there are ideas,
but no strict guidelines. In her brief thematisation in Feminist Pedagogy
in Issues, freely-attainable articles on the GEA – Gender and Education
Association, Emilie Lawrence defines some features, “tenets”, on which
“there is common agreement”: resisting hierarchy presupposed by the job
itself by using experience as a resource, and transformative learning. The
author warns us against reinforcement of the “dominant feminist narra-
tive” by such an approach. Referring to my own praxis, I claim that the
dominance of a selected perspective and discourse of a teacher decon-
structed by referring to the human rights of gendered and other minori-
ties, and to feminist ethics. I constantly try to stimulate discussions where
I put the accent on the freedom to make informed personal decisions on
what to think and how to live.
A fresh challenge regarding the ideas of feminist pedagogy think-
ers and practitioners is detected in a novel aspect of the subject matter,
accompanied by material objects. The concept of “object lesson” is inclu-
sive of the non-conventional artefacts (Grensavitch, 2019, pp. 38–39) the
teacher uses to inspire learning with exemplary materials in hand. In my
appropriation of the concept, materiality is delegated to the body, it is in-
side and not exposed to the five senses of the others; it may be felt anyway.
55
myth of motherhood, which invites force and weakness in mothering.
Immediately after that, we discussed the gendered socio-cultural con-
ditions and the economy which are structural obstacles to the students
emancipating themselves from the family traumas, equally those caused
by structural problems.
The described ethnographic fragment may be provisionally formal-
ised by the “triangulation” in feminist pedagogy with reference to knowl-
edge production. The question of pedagogy is what or who is the central
instance of the teaching and learning process. For the last three decades,
the focus has been on students, as substantially presented by Carolyn M.
Shrewsbury in her highly referential article “What is Feminist Pedagogy”
(1993, p. 10). Schematisation revolving around the embodied focus may ap-
pear narrow in scope when the special subjective characteristics of teachers
are desired, related to their “fundamental beliefs and values about teach-
ing, learning, and knowledge-making” as stated in A Guide to Feminist
Pedagogy (2015, para 2). It is one’s beliefs and values that enable two-way
communication and stimulate students’ interests and inclinations. There
are thus two instances, and in-between there is something which moves
from one to the other and is in the meantime enriched. This moving en-
tity is power which has to be shared. Yet there is no “subject” or charac-
teristic of feminist pedagogy that is explicitly defined as mandatory and
universal (Lawrence, 2016, para 6). One may conclude that there are ideas,
but no strict guidelines. In her brief thematisation in Feminist Pedagogy
in Issues, freely-attainable articles on the GEA – Gender and Education
Association, Emilie Lawrence defines some features, “tenets”, on which
“there is common agreement”: resisting hierarchy presupposed by the job
itself by using experience as a resource, and transformative learning. The
author warns us against reinforcement of the “dominant feminist narra-
tive” by such an approach. Referring to my own praxis, I claim that the
dominance of a selected perspective and discourse of a teacher decon-
structed by referring to the human rights of gendered and other minori-
ties, and to feminist ethics. I constantly try to stimulate discussions where
I put the accent on the freedom to make informed personal decisions on
what to think and how to live.
A fresh challenge regarding the ideas of feminist pedagogy think-
ers and practitioners is detected in a novel aspect of the subject matter,
accompanied by material objects. The concept of “object lesson” is inclu-
sive of the non-conventional artefacts (Grensavitch, 2019, pp. 38–39) the
teacher uses to inspire learning with exemplary materials in hand. In my
appropriation of the concept, materiality is delegated to the body, it is in-
side and not exposed to the five senses of the others; it may be felt anyway.
55
