A teacher can model graceful failure and cancellation without punitive affect

Evidence

Culpabilization, obligation, and verification are the series of power relations exercised by the typical professor.’ But, as Foucault points out, at the College de France, courses are open to anyone who wishes to attend: “If it interests him, he comes; if it doesn’t interest him, he doesn’t come.”* At the College a professor is paid to present his work, and “it 1s up to the audience to say or to show whether or not it is interested” — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 12 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Guswa labored at the chalkboard that morning. True to Schlichtmann’s prediction, Guswa had groundwater flowing deep into the bedrock, a hundred feet down, three hundred feet, a thousand feet, in all directions along cracks and fissures that existed only in hypothesis. He culled dozens of numbers, changing gradients and permeability, multiplying and dividing numbers in an effort to salvage his theory. He stood at the board in front of the jury box and muttered numbers to himself, punching them into his calculator. “Now, how am I going to do this here?” he said under his breath at one point. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 2198 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: An exposed expert improvises untestable mechanisms rather than concede error — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 2198; Pedagogical power operates through guilt, obligation, and verification — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 12

Broader Connections

• Pedagogical power operates through guilt, obligation, and verification #complicates (0.74) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 12
• An exposed expert improvises untestable mechanisms rather than concede error #complicates (0.72) — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 2198