Conflict in the Classroom, and the "Chanciness" of Learning

Last Friday (Feb. 29) was the first time we offered the "Conflict in the Classroom" workshop in the Arts TA Development Program. It raised a lot of issues: some recurring themes, including general questions of power and authority implicit in academic teaching and the TA role, as well as some emergent discussions about anti-oppression pedagogies, about particular dynamics of talking at/talking past in classroom discussion (read, in this context, "opining" or "asserting belief", and about the difficult TA negotiation of balancing classroom specifics with broader academic, humanistic, and social perspectives. We all agreed that there were "hot button" issues, and that there were many ways--individually and collectively, among ourselves as TAs or with our students--that we can work towards resolution (whatever that means).

One issue that got me thinking was that of risk in the classroom: how, for example, can we be sure that eliminating classroom risk (e.g. by imposing rules of appropriate/academic conduct) will foster better learning? Certainly there's something to be said for classroom safety, and recognizing participant's varying levels of comfort with a "hot-button" issue; but does a safe classroom constitute a meaningful classroom?

Somehow I got thinking of the metaphor of gambling as it goes on in the classroom: we often take chances on the things we say, not quite knowing the outcome that will result of things being said. Silence can be seen by some, to continue the metaphor, as a recognition that the stakes are too high--the outcome too uncertain, and the potential "bet" too great a gamble.

It's not a perfect metaphor for sure, but it does allow me to drop the name of one of my all time favourite movies: Baie des anges (Bay of Angels; 1963) by Jacques Demy (about roulette, isolation, and commitment, set on the French Riviera) - http://imdb.com/title/tt0056846/. And it does allow me to highlight what's important to me about discussion: commitment. This is a critical concept to consider, and a critical skill to develop, yet it is hardly discussed in a society where being non-committal is so much more cool (and economically viable). What enabling a certain amount of classroom conflict can do is balance a sense of personal commitment (to our own individual thoughts and ideas) with a sense of collective social or cultural commitment (to those of others, and to the processes and media that enable such sharing in the first place).

On that note, I'll sign off with two passages from Erving Goffman, from a piece called "Where the Action Is" from Interaction Ritual -http://innopac.lib.ryerson.ca/record=b1744342
I hope you find some meaningfulness in my selection.

"In the degree to which a play is a means of acquiring a prize, it is an opportunity; in the degree to which it is a threat to one's bet, it is a risk." (151)

"For chanciness to be present, the individual must ensure he is in a position (or be forced into one) to let go of his hold and control on the situation, to make, in Schelling's sense, a commitment. No commitment, no chance-taking." (152)