Recognizing Class in the Classroom | Part 3

A fourth aid for addressing class in the classroom is to have an understanding about how conflict will be addressed. An approach that can be particularly beneficial for theological education is Ryan LaMothe’s distinction between “combative discourse” and “redemptive discourse.” In combative discourse, LaMothe asserts, “… participants omnipotently construct Others as opponents whose beliefs and values … are deemed to be inferior, inane, or fundamentally faulty” (p. 3). Redemptive discourse, by contrast, is rooted in understandings of humans as created in the image of God, in the discipline of kenosis, and the ideals of the “Kingdom of God.” Encountering others as being in the image of God yields not just tolerance, but reverence, which “… liberates us from the bondage of superior-inferior dynamics and the compulsion to maintain superiority by constructing others as inferior” (p. 11). Kenosis (self-emptying) appears as a “poverty of soul” that requires “… setting aside cherished ideas, values, aims, and motivations to create a space for the recognition and treatment of the Other as person” (p. 11). Again, this goes beyond respect or recognition, producing “humility and hospitality.”  The symbol “Kingdom of God” is a “political metaphor.” In this existence not only do people live in harmony, but there is an “absence of acquisitiveness and accumulation of wealth,” and an equalizing of power (pp. 11-12). If fully enacted, these qualities would nurture a society—or a classroom—in which the inequitable distributions of power that constitute classes are dissolved. People live together, and in communion with the earth, based on values that destabilize class power. Proffering such a redemptive discourse at the outset of any course that is expected to address class, given the combative quality of public debates surrounding class today, might be a prudent decision.

Redemptive discourse does not, of course, eliminate conflict. Conflict is always present whenever differences exist, especially when they are cherished. Let’s be clear. No conflict in the classroom means differences are not being allowed to surface. This makes for boredom and an absence of learning. This brings us to a final observation about recognizing class in the classroom. In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks argues that the imposition of bourgeois values in the classroom not only means the capitalist class is not criticized, but also entails that the teacher must “maintain order at all costs” (p. 179). This emphasis on order in the classroom, I hasten to add, mirrors the law-and-order agenda of neoliberalized societies. A certain sort of indecency and disorder in the classroom can disrupt the shroud of silence that cloaks the halls of learning under advanced capitalism. Giving voice to students from the working class would take us in the desired direction. As hooks remarks, regarding her own college experience: “Loudness, anger, emotional outbursts, and even something as seemingly innocent as unrestrained laughter were deemed unacceptable, vulgar disruptions of classroom social order. These traits were also associated with being a member of the lower classes” (p. 178). It would be advantageous, she suggests, if as teachers we learned how “… to facilitate heated discussions that may include useful interruptions and digressions …” (p. 187). 

In this regard, choices of texts can make a difference. For example, pairing an evocative book by an African-American scholar that deftly illustrates the imbrications between class and racism, such as Hill’s Nobody, or Taylor’s From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, with a text underlining the lived experience and the current radicalization of the “white working class,” such as Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land (2016), or Gest’s The New Minority (2016), is sure to cause a stir. This type of conflict can be representative of what the late Rep. John Lewis called “good trouble.” A style of teaching that creatively engages conflict in the classroom, in an effort to achieve understanding and healing, while highlighting the endemic injustice of class, is the epitome of radical care.

References:

Gest, Justin. The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 

Hill, Marc Lamont. (2016). Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond. New York, NY: Atria Books. 

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. New York, NY: The New Press. 

hooks, bell. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York, NY: Routledge. 

LaMothe, Ryan. (2012). Pastoral Care of the Polis: Combative Discourse as Societal Enactment and the Need for Redemptive Discourse. Pastoral Psychology 61(1), 1-14. 

Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. (2016). From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.