Received: from acs3.bu.edu (ACS3.BU.EDU [128.197.153.30]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id JAA27872 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 09:24:49 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from conroyt@localhost) by acs3.bu.edu (8.7.6/) id LAA15910; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 11:15:02 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 11:15:02 -0400 (EDT) From: thomas conroy Subject: Re: this to lecture or not to lecture stuff To: Ologygrad@aol.com cc: Sociology Graduate Students -- International In-Reply-To: <960930131855_533686049@emout19.mail.aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 30 Sep 1996 Ologygrad@aol.com wrote: > I'm very surprised by all the responses thus far that have dismissed and/or > ignored Christian's point about the power involved in > teacher-to-student/lecturer-to-learner relationships. Please tell me that > there are more of you out there who recognize this power differential, feel > it's important to identify and address, and find it problematic in at least > some ways. > > Ivy Kennelly Actually, no, I don't recognize a "power differential" here. I strongly disagree with this notion, which has been suggested in a couple of posts. Teacher-student (or lecturer-audience) relations are not exactly about the use of POWER so much as they are about the AUTHORITY of the speaker (a class conceptual distinction examined by Weber, among others).The fact, though, that the teacher is in a position of authority should not necessarily mean that he or she is abusing that authority by oppressing the students. While there may certainly be instances of professors abusing their authority (Professor Newt Gingrich's political donor sponsored "lectures" come to mind), it depresses me to think that those using the language of the Left are essentially feeding into the Right's misrepresentations of higher educational discourse. Besides, if anyone really wants to see where power exists on campus, it certainly is not with faculty groups. You might, instead, try taking a look at trustees, administrations, state governments, and corporate research sponsors, etc. Tom Conroy conroyt@acs.bu.edu