Authority versus authorities: Power in teaching and learning spaces

Friday's [Feb. 1/08] workshop on "Facilitating Discussion" was well attended in spite of a relentless snow-storm that had classes canceled on campus as of noon. I neglected to mention it during the session, but I typically state that I find these workshops to be excellent learning opportunities for me. Although they are TA "training" in the strict sense of the term, and the learning is conventionally supposed to happen on the other end—that is, with the participants rather than with me—I don't see how I could ever conclude that there is nothing left for me to learn during any given session.

On this day I came to think more about authority than I have following other previous sessions. Often by the end of a session we raise the issue of power as something that TAs consider important (or would want to consider important) to their own practices as assistants, even if we don't resolve how it plays out for people doing marking or tutorials, working between professors and students, and negotiating academic research versus professionally-related TA employment. In this session much of what we would have discussed in terms of power came up under a pretty interesting discussion on authority.

Explicitly or implicitly, in one way or another, I believe the following questions were raised:

• What is authority? (By definition, in practice, according to the students, etc.)
• What authority should a TA have in the classroom? over what realm or realms? 
• What authority do and/or should students have over the class, its practices, and the course "terms and conditions"? 
• By whose authority does the class seem to operate? by whose authority does it actually operate?

All this left me thinking about the distinction between a TA's authority over content versus her authority over process and other forms of authority. In my own experiences with first year sociology courses, I have found that process far overshadows content, as students at all levels are typically struggling so profoundly with the processes of university learning that specific course matter becomes largely irrelevant. This is not to say that course content was trivialized or became unimportant. Rather, pretty foundational skills needed for university-level academic success were deeply misunderstood, substantively missing, or systematically withheld. (This is not the place for considering why, though this is certainly an interesting
question.)

In any case, my own experience led me to focus on process, and to highlight the importance of a student's own agency and autonomy over the circumstances of her learning. Little of my knowledge of "sociology" proper was demanded of me, much less evidence of my implied position of authority on the subject. This may not be the case in higher level courses, where authoritative content knowledge is in fact necessary, but I'd still guess that the majority of Arts courses demand an exercise of authority over process (simply given the elective nature of many of the courses, and the interdisciplinary make up of the enrolled student body).

Friday's discussion of this issue made me realize two things: first, that authority can be more precisely defined than a simple orientation towards classroom knowledge production; and secondly, that authority over process, which is exercised in local realms (e.g. lectures, tutorials, office hours), will alwaysprefigure authority over content. While "knowing our stuff" as practicing academics will likely aid our activities as practicing TAs, this is never necessarily enough to determine classroom success. Indeed, it may often the opposite effect, leading to antagonistic and painful classroom experiences, if not for ourselves
then for our students, as tradition rather than experience and dialogue becomes the way knowledge gets defined, and the products rather than the processes of learning become the end goals of situations that are only ever processes—both for students and for their teachers (their TAs) as well.

Anyway, I have no idea whether I'm being clear or meaningful to anyone but myself. Perhaps I'll wrap up by commenting on an image by Eric Drooker entitled "Lockdown Dissent." I had always seen the hands behind the bars as those of my students; until Friday, however, I had never quite aligned myself with the hand locking the door. While I know I'm not alone in the act, and can even convince myself that I am among the forces struggling to unlock and open the gate, I also recognize that I am on the outside of the bars while my students are on the inside.