Pedagogy of the Depressed
First published in 1997 in Adult Basic Education, An
Interdisciplinary Journal for Adult Literacy Educators, a double-bind, peer review, scholarly journal with a practical intent devoted to improving the efforts of adult educators working with low-
literate, educationally disadvantaged, and
educationally oppressed people.
Abstract
This is a revised written narrative based on an oral
presentation where learner-centered curriculum is
stood on its head. The paper/presentation challenges
(a) conventional teaching methods, (b) the lack of
real books and ideas in the classroom, and (c) the
invasion of corporatism in adult education initiatives.
The following written account is based on my oral
presentation titled Pedagogy of the Depressed at the
1996 national conference of the Commission of Adult
Basic Education held in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The
session was tape-recorded on May 16, 1996 at the
Doubletree Hotel and this written account is based on
the recording. About 50 people attended the
presentation. The 10 or so professional educators who
spoke out during the discussion period represent for
me a crystalline cultural artifact of rare insight
into the concerns and philosophical underpinnings of
adult education in the United States.
Since the title of the presentation struck some at the
conference as inappropriate, I would just add this
note of defense. For a number of years I have been
disturbed by U.S educators' misapplication of Paulo
Freire's educational philosophy. The idea that the
educationally disadvantaged need empowering is a
position to which I wholeheartedly subscribe. The
issue is how best to do that. The approach that has
too often taken, a la Freire, is the one articulated
by questioner number two in the transcript, that is,
having students study, write, and think about their
own problems. I believe this to be too simplistic a
method for empowerment in a society as complicated,
fast paced, and culturally noisy ours. Much more
knowledge is needed. It is the responsibility of the
teacher to codify the knowledge base of the culture,
and then explain the code to the student. This is a
very tall order. I don't pretend to have mastered it
and it is easy to understand why so many teachers,
particularly in adult education, have opted for the
much easier learner-centered approach. Many teachers
are simply not well enough educated themselves to
teach the history of human culture.
Furthermore, most teachers and students in the U.S.
are so ignorant of the structural critiques of
capitalism that might be found in the worrks of C.
Wright Mills or Noam Chomsky, for example, that they
are simply not capable of any kind of meaningful
discussion of the word "opression." Questioner number
two, just mentioned, is a noteworthy exception.
On the other hand, we all seem to instinctively
understand what it means to be depressed. For most of
us nothing is more depressing than being lonely,
broke, anxiety-ridden and unemployed. Sadly, this
seems to describe a large segment of students enrolled
in adult basic education programs. In the music world
it's called the blues. Intending to to gently rib my
Freirean colleagues, I decided to call my presentation
Pedagogy of the Depressed. My solution to human
misery is neither psychopharmacology, social
revolution, nor fatalism, though these might sometimes
help. Instead, I believe in education. And I believe
that with effort one can learn to understand the
social, biological and inorganic forces that shape
human culture. Sometimes a good teacher can help.
The Transcript
Larry L. Dill: I want to get down to some specifics.
When I started teaching adult education at Austin
Community College, my first assignment was in the
county jail. I started in the county jail. When I
went out there I asked [the jails educational
coordinators] "What are we supposed to do here?" They
showed me a stack of Steck-Vaughn GED books and said,
"Well, you bring he students in and you help them pass
the GED test"
So I started doing that for a while and I would take
the book home and study it and I would take it in and
read the passages in the practice books. Then I would
take them to class and sometimes copy them, pass them
out, and let the students work on them. Then the
students would take practice tests and so on.
One day, I found a Pre-GED practice book with a
passage from Langston Hughes. It was a short passage
that was broken into about 15 sections. The
instructions required the teacher to read three lines
and then the teacher is to pause and ask specific
questions. I rebelled and said: "This is crazy to
talk about a story written by Langston Hughes in this
way!" I decided to take a different approach.
So I went home that night before I made the
presentation and went to the library and checked out a
bunch of bunch of Langston Hughes books, found a
little short play by Hughes and went in the next day
and put the play on in class. It only had two or
three characters. One of them was the mother. The
story, basically , is of a little boy who is killed on
the streets in New York...and his mother is
grieving...and the little boy is laid out on a table
there for the wake...and the mother grieves...and the
people come and carry the little boy away. at a
certain point in the story...he sits up and
speaks...talks///as if having come back as a ghost.
Anyway, place yourself in a room with what we all
imagine to be hardened criminals...actually, most of
them were just kids [like the one in the play] who'd
gotten into trouble. I said, "Okay, we need somebody
to be the mother. The mother is really the star of
the show." Naturally, nobody volunteered...so I
became the mother...and I just happened to bring a
dress [and some fake boobs]. I created the image of
this grieving mother and read the part. [Of course
they loved seeing their male teacher dressed up like a
woman but they also became more engaged with the story
than I'd ever seen them].
It was a moment of truth for me and I suddenly
realized, "You know, you don't have to teach GED out
of a GED practice book. You can do it in a different
way. And so I have been building a curriculum ever
since and while I was teaching in the jail, my
colleagues, who had much more experience than I did in
adult education, kept telling me, "Yeah, yeah, yeah,
but you have a captive audience there. Out in the
real world, people walk on you."
But this past year (in the real world) I tried the
curriculum and it has succeeded. I'm very excited
about it. And I'm just in the middle of this huge
process of developing a curriculum that is essentially
a college preparatory curriculum with a slant here and
there toward the needs of the population that you all
know so well.
Some of the things that I taught included:
Highlights of Shakespeare and Company GED 1995-96
Austin Community College Department of Adult Basic
Education
Fall Semester
Larry L. Dill, Instructor
Studies in the History of Ideas: "St Joan" by George
Bernard Shaw. A month long seminar and rehearsal of
the play followed by a special screening of the film
version starring Ingrid Bergman.
Studies in Greek Theater: Sophocles, "Oedipus Rex." A
full in-class reading and seminar on the play was
followed by a screening of the BBC television version
of the play in modern dress.
Studies in the History of Science: "The Dragons of
Eden" the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Carl Sagan.
We explored the evolution of the human brain. A month
long study of the book including the development of
The History Project which was the making of a mural
designed and executed by the students illustrating the
origin of the universe and the evolution of human
life. The project was climaxed by the screening of
the segment of Sagan's PBS documentary series
"Cosmos" dealing with the evolution of the human
brain.
Studies in Hispanic Culture: "Spain in America" by
Charles Gibson. This is a study of Spanishculture in
the development of the new world. The study was
enhanced by the special guest appearance of Blas
Zenteno, a native of Chile, who spoke on Latin
American history and culture and by the presentation
of a special screening of the historical film "The
Mission" starring Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro.
Studies in American Culture: The class undertook a
month long study of W.E.B Dubois's history of
African-American culture, "Souls of Black Folk." The
study was enhanced by a field trip to the University
of Texas Law School to hear a lecture on racial
identity by Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of
African-American Studies and Philosophy at Harvard
University.
Awards Night and End of Semester Celebration: The
fall semester culminated in an awadrs ceremony in
which certificates of completion were awarded to
students for hours of class participation. A holiday
party and open house were given the next evening at
the home of the instructor.
Spring Semester
Hamlet: A month long study of the Shakespeare text
followed by the screening of the Franco Zeffirelli
film of the play.
Studies in American Art History: Field trip to the
Elizabeth Ney Museum.
Studies in the History of Ideas: The Bible. The book
of Genesis was studied for a month and included a
special screening of the PBS documentary film, "Who
Wrote the Bible?"
Studies in African Culture: Educator Awad Abdelgadir,
a native of the Nile river region of the Sudan spoke
to the class.
Greco/Roman Mythology: Ovid's epic poem
"Metamorphosis" was studied for a month enhanced by a
poetry reading by bookseller and poet Jennifer Schell.
Studies in the History of Science: Evolution. Amonth
long study of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" was
conducted including special screenings of segments of
the PBS documentaries "Cosmos" and the Nature series
documentary called "The Nature of Sex. The study was
enhanced by a field trip to the Wild Basin Nature
Preserve in Western Travis County.
Introduction to Computer Assisted Learning: Our
studies included use of the Novanet computer
laboratory to enhance basic reading, writing and math
skills and study for GED examinations. Students
received training in word processing, desktop
publishing, computerized portfolio management,
Internet research and business communications.
Studies in Hispanic Culture: "Blood Wedding" by
Federico Garcia Lorca. We studied the literary and
cultural meanings of the play as well as did hands-on
production exercises involving the planning of an
actual production of the play.
Studies in African-American culture: "Jazz" We read
the novel by the Nobel Prize winning author Toni
Morrison.
Studies in Mathematics: Daily classes in the
fundamentals of algebra and GED preparation.
So this is the kind of thing I have been doing in the
class which some of you may be doing too. I'm very
interested in talking now with you about the
difference in what might be called the skill-based
approach to teaching in adult education and GED versus
the knowledge-based approach. I have tended to call
it the skill-based versus the knowledge-based
approach. I'm starting to change the word "knowledge"
to "ideas" because I think that what makes a person
literate in our culture is not necessarily reading,
writing and math skills, but the understanding of
certain ideas that drive our culture. (A few people
in the audience nodded their heads in agreement with
my interpretation.)
Questioner One: I'm really curious. When you are
talking about all these books, do they read them in
class as a group or do they go off on their own and
read and then come back to class for discussion?
Dill: All of the above.What I do is tell them in
advance what we're going to read. I encourage them to
go out and get the books. I depends on the books.
Some books I copy. Some books we've been able to
scrape up a few dollars and put them in the library
and they check them out. Some of the books I ask them
to just go out and buy. some people rush eagerly out
to get the materials. As you all know, in any given
class you'll have people who are there for the first
time...so, you start over every time. But you don't
let that stop you from going in-depth into the
subject. It's as if I could start right now and we
could have a discussion just about the theory of
evolution right here today and I could give you
assignments to read and if you came back tomorrow we'd
get more, but if you didn't come back tomorrow you
would get what you have gotten today. So... I don't
know if I've answered you're question. I choose a
book. I often read...particularly the dramatic,
literary ones...I read. I read a lot in class. I
just read to them. And so the ones who are not going
out on their own and reading at home, they're getting
read to in class. My idea of that is that is what
educated people do with their kids. They read to them
a lot. So I read to my students at what ever age and
there are all levels of involvement. Some of them are
very involved...very engaged...and some of them are
not so engaged. But they are there listening, so they
get the input.
Questioner Two: This sounds really fascinating and a
lot of fun. But I guess the title of your workshop
seemed to be a play on Freire's book, Pedagogy of the
Oppressed.
Dill: That is correct.. Are you asking me what is
the connection?
Questioner Two: I'm asking where is the structural
critique or the learner-generated or learner-grounded
reading the world into the word? I guess what I've
seen is that this sounds great, especially if you're
college bound...
Dill: I don't think it makes any difference. I think
the idea of being college bound or not college bound
is a false dichotomy.
Questioner Two: Alright but what I think is the idea
of saying, "this is literature" to the students and
they need to read it...I think Freire critiqued that.
That was one of the ...that you can't come in and
...you know...bring...put down on people. But that's
what we've done in southern New York is have them
write stories.
Dill: Right. Well, this is why I'm...
Questioner Two: I mean if you can have...
Dlll: Well, I just...I don't agree with Freire. I
don't think it's appropriate. I think what's
happening is that people are talking to themselves
about themselves and they're not learning anything
about the world. Their talking about the things they
already know about. and that's okay for a beginning.
I mean we have a class and we are talking about
something we know about. That always goes on. But
what I like to see is a cultural document that is the
centerpiece of the discussion, and then everybody can
go in all directions if they want to. The papers I
get back are by no means anything like college
material or even high school material. They are often
bad. But! They're talking about the stuff and
they're getting an idea about some of these things.
Questioner Three: The purpose of your class. Is the
end result for students to get a GED or is it just a
general broadening of their education?
Dill: Well...that's a good question. People come in
wanting a GED because in this culture we tell people
that certification means you're smart.
Questioner Three: No, you need certification to get a
job. I meet a lot of smart clients who just don't
have the paperwork.
Dill: That's true. and those who are capable of
getting a GED get it very quickly in my classes. I
don't hold anybody up. What I try to do is
provide...Well, just to give you a time frame...in the
daytime class I have a 4 hour a day, 4 day a week
class. The first hour is in the computer laboratory,
the second hour I call humanities where we do the
things I've talked about, the third hour is math, and
the fourth hour is what I call library time but it's
really the independent study time whenever people take
practice test, get individual tutoring and so on. So
I actually have not kicked the old system, if you can
call it that,, out of my pedagogy; I've just
marginalized it. And so people come to me and ay,
"You know I want to take my GED test." Others come in
and they're with me for months and they never even
mention the GED. They just come to class. And then
one day they say.." I need to start... my mother told
me I need to get my GED." And I say, "Okay,
Well...let's see how you're doing." And so I kind of
work it in like that. Now there are people who just
want to come in and get some quick and dirty help here
and there, and I try to give them that too. I'm
trying, though, to put on a real program that people
can get involved in and recognize that
this process of learning and knowledge is very
complicated. It's not just picking up a workbook down
at the local Barnes and Noble bookstore. You can do
that but I don't believe that's the way to get
educated in the culture.
Questioner Four: Just to sound as the devil's
advocate, I appreciate what you are doing, but in my
state we are funded based on outcomes. I'd like to
hear you talk a little bit more about what you've seen
in how his has impacted
retention/motivation/attendance and real time...more
people getting the GED, because that's the kind of
question I have.
Deborah Gaddy (Director of Adult Education at Austin
Community College): Could I answer that? Our program
is also outcome based.
Questioner Four: Sure.
Gaddy: I had a lot of concerns about his approach
too. But because we endorse academic freedom, I
decided to give him a chance. Mr. Dill has really
shaken a lot of the foundations of my belief in adult
education. But what happened in an incarcerated
situation has happened this year in the free classes.
But the way I should mention that when Mr. Dill left
the jail he had the most graduates that they had ever
had in that amount of time. And he had marginalized
the GED during that program. He taught reading using
real books and writing doing real writing. He taught
knowledge, ideas. They had lively discussions in
there. Students got the knowledge and the GED was
just something they had to go through. Prior to his
teaching in the jail, it was and educational mill.
You know, they'd come in, they'd take practice tests,
they'd go out. When I became director, I wouldn't
have any part of that. You know, we're not here to
teach people how to pass a test. That's not what
adult education is about. I can tell you that. But
since he has gotten out of the captive audience
business it has worked at ACC's adult education
program. He has students who came in writing rather
poorly. I've seen some of these papers. I've been very
interested in this process. And now those students
have gotten jobs, they've gotten promotions, or
they've entered college, and they're still coming to
class. They're coming back to class to supplement.
He has one student who leaves early so she can go to
her college class. But she is there every night,
doing the assignments and handing in her papers.
Adults are getting their diplomas. Furthermore, in
our adult education program we are doing pre- and
post-testing. We use the Test of Adult Basic Education
(TABE), we use the Comprehensive Adult Student
Assessment System (CASAS), we use the GED practice
tests, we have a high school diploma program. And
also we use the college assessments. So there are all
kinds of real things that have worked.
Dill: But in fairness to the Questioner, it's a
little harder to assess this because I'm not very good
about following people around and retesting them with
standardized tests. I believe that your test scores
go up if you are using a real-live and not just some
phony kind of holistic thing, but a real-live holistic
approach to education. Let me read something I wrote:
What I do with GED is make the tests , and the test
preparation itself, marginal to a rich, continuing
educational experience. This is what is done by the
best schools with regard to state exams. The
traditional GED test preparation approach is a second
rate pedagogy that contributes to an educational caste
system already strongly entrenched. No time line or
accomplishment level is necessary or particularly
desirable in my system because the longer you stay,
the more you learn.
It's just like going to church! Are you a saint
because you attend? Do you quit? No! The idea is you
keep going because you keep learning. The model is us
as adult educators, trying to learn more and more.
What I think has been missing--at least where I am--is
a rich educational program going on for these people
who have been our population so that students can
feel comfortable about being involved in something
that doesn't have a stigma. And you can really see
the stigma attached to a GED when you work in an
alternative high school. Particularly, if the
alternative high school has a certified Competency
Based High School Diploma as in Texas where this
program has run into problems. With the result that
counselors are saying to the students, "Maybe you
ought to just get your GED" And the students respond
with an "Oh No!" It's like having a scarlet letter
stamped on them. "Well, if you're going on to college
or whatever, once you get on further beyond, it's not
going to matter so much. So what I'm trying to do is
change the whole image of what a GED program is.
Questioner Five: How do you select your literature?
Do you think about what critical thinking skills are
they going to get from this?
Dill: No I never think about that.
Questioner Five: You just know that things you love are
going to have everything in it that you want?
Dill: Actually I started with the five areas of the
GED as a beginning: Social Studies,
Science, Literature, Writing and Math. But after I
began to think through the connections, I've come up
with three: Art, Science and Religion.
Questioner Six: I agree with the philosophy that
you've expressed. One of the questions I have, I
guess, is about evaluation. You said that in the
beginning a lot of the writing is bad. How do you
respond to individual pieces of writing, for example,
to help students improve their ability to express
themselves and their ability to think more deeply?
Dill: I do it almost exactly the same way I do if I'm
having a conversation with them. I just write back,
Well, that's interesting," or "Is this what you really
mean? or "Do you realize you've said this in this
paragraph and contradicted yourself in the next?" I
just talk to them on the paper and I always praise
them no matter what they've written. I'll say, "This
is really good!...but..." and then I say the other
stuff. I don't know if I'm doing it right or not.
I'm just following my heart...and I don't give grades
except when I like something a lot. I just say, "This
is an A+ if I ever saw one!" I give lots and lots of
assignments and homework...and it just sort of drifts
back in. I don't hold students to time lines. I just
announce them and students will come in with something
and say, "I know this was due last week but is it okay
if I turn it in now?" and I say, "Yeah! Turn it in."
I mark it up and give it back and they correct it and
they give it back to me.
Questioner Six: Do you ever have the students evaluate
each other's work?
Dill: I haven't done that very much but that's a good
idea.
Questioner One: I was really interested in what you
were saying . Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury
of the intense amount of time that you have with your
students. I'm in a workplace situation. I get them
an hour and a half twice a week and it is hard to work
with books that you are using and in the time frame...
Dill: Well, let me just interrupt you for a second.
My night class is 6 hours a week...of which only and
hour and a half twice a week is devoted to these
books...so its not too far off..but anyway go ahead
and then I wan to ask you something about workplace.
Questioner One: I was new to the whole world of Adult
Basic Education. At first I used books that were
written for ABE students and other books that had been
published. When I put boxes of stuff out on the table
and allowed the students free access to all of these
written materials, they went for the Greek mythology,
the anthropology, whatever was available.
Unfortunately, all too little is available at say, a
third grade level, which for some of these people
would be something that they could actually do. The
students weren't going for the traditional texts.
They went for the fantasy. They went for "The Cat
that Cross-Country Skis." They went for all these
things that people kept saying to me, "Oh you know
that's childish stuff. They're not going to want to
do that." But they did! So for me it was a real
awakening, so now I'm bringing in all kinds of reading
material for them to look at.
Dill: I want to talk about two things while we're on
the subject of workplace. One of them is that I think
it is important, whatever you choose to do, to try to
develop some sense of continuity. Because even if
you're the only one who is there for all of it, it
gives you a sense of purpose and direction. What so
often happens is people find something in the
newspaper and they copy it they bring it in and the
students talk about ...whatever...cigarette smoking
one day. Then we write opinion pieces. The next day
we're talking about something else, like dogs, because
that's the interesting thing in the news paper that
somebody found.
So, to me one of the important things you'd be trying
to do is develop some sort of system. And the woman
who asked the question, "How do you decide what to
pick? I don't know the answer to that except that I
have a vision of what I think is important that
people. To me, the fact that... I don't even know
what the percentage is...but it's some ridiculous
number of people in the United States think that the
theory of evolution is still just some sort of a vague
theory that doesn't really have much connection to
anything else. It's just a myth that some scientists
believe. To me it is important to understand that the
foundations of modern science, is the theory of
evolution--almost everything in medicine,
anthropology, psychology...I mean all those fields.
So I think it's important to study evolution. In the fall
I'm going to concentrate almost exclusively on the
study of the human brain, because I think it's
important. The name of the course I've been thinking
about is "The Human Brain--A user's Manual".. .
something like that. So we're going to take our
brains out and play with them, you know. That kind of
thing.
The other thing I wanted to say was with workplace.
There is a story about a man, an economist, who went
into a workplace thing during the McCarthy era in
Detroit. He was teaching classical Marxist economic
and the company came down and threw him out. Deborah
Gaddy had this problem when she was teaching a the
Sarah Lee Corporation in North Carolina. She was
using the CASAS test and somebody in the company
reviewed the test and said, "There's a question on
here about labor unions. You have to take that out,
because we don't want to talk about that." To me
there's a problem there and I don't know how...I'm
interested in knowing how some of you who may
be...uh...leftists might have been dealing with that
if you've been teaching in the workplace. Or are you
just trying to avoid it? Are you just trying to teach
people how to read the labels on safety things? Has
anybody had a problem with that? (Some "Yes's", nods
and laughter).
Questioner Seven: What I found working in workplace
literacy programs is that you have to be a very good
negotiator and you have to be free to start a program,
go in and talk to the union (if there is one). Get
them and the management involved. Get everyone
involved, including educators, so you're all around
the same table, and everybody is represented before
you run into the problem with the CASAS test. You
have to know how far you're willing to go to make
adjustments to your philosophy to do the job. And the
other thing I wanted to say is that I think that what
you're doing is really applying the theory of
engagement. You're engaging the learners and it
sounds like rather than focusing on the literature,
you are focusing on the ideas, which gets people to
think. And the level of engagement to me logically
sounds like retention would improve, which then
improves time on task, which then has people reading
more. So if you can build that and keep it going,
it's fantastic. I mean what we need in the country is
lifelong learning.
Questioner Eight: I buy into the critique that you
have of skill-based instruction. But as you've talked
this afternoon, I find myself describing you as
similar to Hirsch's and Bloom's cultural literacy,
where "You need to know this." You say things like
"educated in the culture." I'm assuming then that you
're defining that America should have one culture. I
think that we have seen the enemy in some cases, and
it is us. And I think we have to be very careful to
say in keeping with your question, What does this have
to do with the Pedagogy of the Depressed?" Well, it
has a lot to do with it, because it is saying, "You
need to know the Odyssey, you need to know
Shakespeare, you need to know this, this and that." I
find that to be extremely disturbing from a cultural
point of view. I agree with you entirely that
critical thinking, the development of ideas, the
connection of ideas are important. I think in essence
most good teachers pick what they like in many cases.
I think you have made a concentrated effort to pick
what some other people might like, including the book
Spain in America and Dubois and some other people, but
I think we have to be very careful that we don't fall
into this..."We'll open their heads, pour in the
'great' literature."
Dill: It's a very good point. You are walking a very
fine line. And I don't know what the answer is. I've
read Hirsch and Bloom and I hate most of the thing s
that they think are important, and they probably
wouldn't like what I like. So I don't know how to
resolve that, but I do somehow feel that there is a
knowledge base in the culture that is scientific in
nature, which educated people know and uneducated
people don't know. I'm talking about scientific facts
as science defines it. If we're getting to the point
here where I've got students in the room who are
saying, "Well, I'm not sure whether there is science
or not...or whether there is scientific truth or
not,"...we've got a problem.. And believe me, that
comes out in my classes all the time. We start
talking about evolution in my classes and some
students are saying, "Well, No! God created
everything. So you don't have to understand how the
big bang worked because you know it happened in the
way that we read it when we we're reading Genesis."
But! I'm reading Genesis as well as Charles Darwin.
Questioner Two: First when you talk about things like
a caste in the educational system, the New York
regency is a good example of a caste system. Then,
when you talk about critiques, I guess what I was
getting at was I'm not thinking, "Oh, students should
write poems," but some of our students have written
letters complaining about roads because they can't get
anywhere, and not even knowing or getting the sort of
cultural knowledge we all have that isn't necessarily,
The Oedipus or whatever; but a cultural knowledge of
being able to network and have some savvy and can get
things...get access...
Dill: I agree with that. I think that's excellent.
Questioner Two: And I think also that when I think
that everybody should have equal access to this
cultural capital that goes around...I also ask myself:
Why are they here in the first place? Why are they in
your class? I don't see the critique against the
structures that put them there in the first place,
which would be a more Marxist or Gramscian
critique...But this is then preparing people. What
I'm saying is what it sounds like is okay, "You're
going to do better." And that's great, but why are
you here in the first place?"
Dill: Well, I mean one of the ideas of almost any
pedagogical system including Freire's, is for people
to think for themselves. You know, the whole history
of Marxism is shot through with this exact debate. Do
we just get everybody in and room and tell them, by
God what the Marxist line is? Or do we teach them how
to think for themselves and hope that we're right and
they'll go along with us. I want this program to be
able to go into a workplace literacy system or
anywhere else and teach people to think for
themselves.
Questioner Nine: Do you teach algebra?
Dill: Yes, I do the best I can.
Questioner Nine: How do you approach that from a
different perspective?
Dill: From a Marxist perspective?
Questioner Nine: No, you said in your abstract you
turned it on its head. And I'd like to know how you
do that.
Dill: My idea is that there is all this talk about
learner-centered curriculum...and it gets to this idea
of bringing the students in, let them write about
themselves and let them choose what they want to do.
If they want to get a GED, then you help them get a
GED. If they want this, you help them achieve this.
It is like being the keeper of an opium den. You
bring them in, you give them what ever kind of drug
they want and they take a nap. My idea is that you do
what you believe in. And I'm doing what I believe in.
Now, when it comes to algebra, and I had this very
problem...talk about student centered versus teacher
centered...I almost had a rebellion just the other day
because I was trying to explain this plus and minus
thing, how when you subtract in a plus minus
situation, which means you change the sign of the
subtrahend and add. And then when you add a number
that's got a plus and a minus, that means you
actually subtract. The students are saying, "Who's
idea was this?" I said, "It's Arabic." One of the
students said, "Well why don't you come up with some
sort of American math system that we can understand?"
So to me, algebra is there. I'm approaching it just
like I do Shakespeare, and Rachael Carson. I'm
saying, "This is the stuff. Let's look at it and
let's try to learn it if we can." That's my approach.
Questioner Ten: With the writing approach that you
use, when you say that you write notes to students, do
you write notes like, "The whole paper has to be more
than one sentence?" Do you have people write from the
beginning to the end?
Dill: Well, I tell them if it's a run-on.
Questioner Ten: You use the word run-on.
Dill: Right. And what I do about paragraphing. I
very rarely get anybody to the point where we're
actually talking about paragraph structure. I tell
them what I learned in college about the way newspaper
articles are written. The way they put paragraphs in
newspaper columns is by looking at them and if they
look...they shape them...into paragraphs. So you know
that's kind of cheating...
Questioner Ten: Lots of people write very well, but
they don't do it in paragraphs.
Dill: They're writing stream of consciousness or
something like that.
Questioner Ten: That's right...it just goes on and on
and on...
Dill: Well, my idea is that to learn how to write
well, you've got to read for thousands and thousands
of hours and you can't teach somebody how to write
well in 15 minutes... with one little essay. You have
to get the students writing all the time. And after
you've had somebody writing with you for a dozens of
hours, then maybe you talk to them.
Questioner Ten: It's real personal when you go after
their writing, That's why I'm asking.
Dill: Well...Just in closing I just want to say if
you are not already liberated and feel like you can do
whatever you want to do, that's my final word. Just
do your thing. Nothing succeeds like success and you
know...a teacher who is excited about what he or she
is doing translates to students and gets them
interested. You may be interested in a different set
of subjects than I'm interested in, but if you share
what you know and make your interests the beginning
of the foundation in your class, then they'll begin to
work out from you in various directions like spokes
from a hub. But that's what I really mean by the
difference between student-centered versus
teacher-centered. If you make yourself the center of
attraction then they will listen to you and learn from
you.
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