Progressive change is resisted when it unsettles classroom authority and safe harmony

Evidence

Many of our colleagues were initially reluctant participants in this change. Many folks found that as they tried to respect “cultural diversity” they had to con front the limitations of their training and knowledge, as well as a possible loss of “authority.” Indeed, exposing certain truths and biases in the classroom often created chaos and confusion. The idea that the classroom should always be a “safe,” harmonious place was challenged. It was hard for individuals to fully grasp the idea that recognition of difference might also require of us a willingness to see the classroom change, to allow for shifts in relations between students. A lot of people panicked. What they saw happening was not the comforting “melting pot” idea of cultural diversity, the rainbow coalition where we would all be grouped together in our difference, but everyone wearing the same have-a-nice-day smile. This was the stuff of colonizing fantasy, a perversion of the progressive vision of cultural diversity. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 73

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Generating classroom excitement requires abandoning fixed agendas and fixed authority — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 24; Professors’ fear of losing control blocks any class critique in the classroom — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 377; Systemic dual-pressures drive the best liberatory teachers out of classrooms — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 1461 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Professors’ fear of losing control blocks any class critique in the classroom #exemplifies (0.85) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 377
• Systemic dual-pressures drive the best liberatory teachers out of classrooms #exemplifies (0.78) — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1461