Teaching for Student Change: A Deweyan Alternative to Radical Pedagogy

Foreword

“…Not for distribution our students, and particularly build bridges with what they mean when they use the phrase teacher neutrality or even the term neutrality generally in reference to educational bodies and their missions. Unpacking what we in the field understand neutrality to mean or not mean in a teaching context is a tall task, to be sure, considering its connections and implications to much larger, evergreen conversations in our field, namely student resistance (Anderson 1997;Atwood 1994;Boyd 1999;Phelps 1991;Trimbur 2001;Welsh 2001), institutional critique (Olson and Gale 1991;Sullivan and Porter 1997), disclosure of identity (Baillif 1997;Elliot 1996;Patterson 2016), bodily and discursive performativity (Butler 2000;Kopelson 2003), social justice and civic action (Bizzell 1992;Delpit 1988;Fishman and Parkinson 1996), political theory (Jones 1996), writing assessment (Inoue 2015), epistemologies of writing (Bazerman 1988;Levy 2005), and curriculum design (Lindquist 2004;Welch 1987). We must also consider our own political diversity on an individual level as well as the vastly different contexts, institutions, regions, and student populations we find ourselves working in and with.…”

Research in writing, postsecondary education, 1984-2003

“…The specific view of politics advocated is rarely spelled out in elaborate detail but generally involves an acknowledgement of middle class privilege; a critique of consumerism; an awareness of class, race, and gender discrimination; a willingness to question injustice; and a desire to try to correct inequities (Berlin, 1996;Brodkey, 1996;Fitts & France, 1995;Knoblauch & Brannon, 1993;Shor, 1992Shor, , 1996Sullivan & Qualley, 1994). Other salient politically oriented publications from the 1990's include Mortenson and Kirsch's (1993) examination of authority in writing; Fishman and McCarthy's (1996) presentation of a progressive pedagogy based on Dewey's educational philosophy but applied to critical thinking and learning in college; and Cushman's (1996) discussion of the rhetorician as an agent of social change and the implications of this view for literacy instruction at all levels.…”

Computers, critical literacy, and first-year composition: modestly re-thinking some comfortable thoughts

“…ongoing efforts to further democratize imequal relations in our economy, politics, and culture. I would, however, within the constraints of only one or two semesters of FY Comp, set my sights a bit differently on what Thomas and others, almost always referencing Dewey (Fishman & McCarthy, 1996;Jones, 1996), claim is an equally important outcome-cognitive change: the adoption of a new way of thinking. Indeed, one can argue that without cognitive change, action will never follow.…”

“…Another important and realistic outcome of one or two semesters of FY Comp is the development of skills of critique, described by Fishman and McCarthy (1996) as a powerful pedagogical tool for their ability to assist students to "see their individual and social realities as alterable constructs, not as transcendent or immutable structures. .…”