Chairs

Do you remember those long days in highschool of squirming and shifting in the hard plastic, metal or fiberglass chair while looking longingly at the teacher's cushy plush chairs? This "chair hierarchy" can be found in most schools including colleges and universities where students will unquestioningly spend hours in discomfort while the teacher or professor lounges in luxury. This is one of the many ways institutions of education teach us to accept authority and hierarchy without question or critique. It also sends a clear message about how students are valued.

For me, things like the chair differential and the authoritarian style of teaching did wonders in getting me to accept, even crave hierarchy and authority. I must admit that when participating in a graduate school program that was supposed to be more student centered and involved lots of sitting in circles and having discussions, i loved my economics class that was almost strictly lecture style. In my post graduate wanderings from job to volunteer program and from city to city I have often longed for a job at a place like McDonalds where they just told me what to do, and i could do it. It frightens me to realize now how much a seek this authority and hierarchy. I feel it when i am in a bookstore looking for the book that is just going to tell me how to save the world, a list of instructions that require no independent or creative thought. Which leads me to the flip side of this. How much have i lost in terms of my own ability to "think outside the box" of instruction and authority? I find myself now having to "unlearn authority" in order to question it and stand against it. This unlearning is proving to be quite the challenge.

As a teacher now I am constantly aware of the way that myself and the school I work at enforce authority. At times it feels like we put more energy into authority than into learning and it frightens me. I am always on the lookout for ways to make space in the curriculum for questioning what goes on at school and in the city outside the school walls. However, this requires the unlearning of my own need for authority. When I am not willing to question or criticize authority, how can i possibly expect the same from my students?