Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Psychology of War
After reading Chapter 4 in Nelson’s book, I’m beginning to think that tutors and teachers need to have extensive instruction in psychology. Even though she indicates that all it takes is “giving basic writers control of decisions about their work,” practicing patience, and creating safe environments to turn a resistant writer into a good writer, it seems way too simplistic. We just don’t have the luxury of plenty of time to wait for the miracle to happen. When dealing with hostility about being forced to take the “course,” Nelson writes, “Once we saw how often anger interfered with learning, I began to teach coping strategies in the seminar. Relying on anti-terrorist techniques devised by earlier teams and on standard conflict-management approaches, we …” Is anyone else bothered by her term “anti-terrorist”? (117). I’m beginning to feel like I’m in a war zone and in need of a psychologist to help me navigate to avoid being maimed by the explosions.
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3 comments:
If Nelson and her silent partners are correct—and they probably are—it might very well be useful to offer some training to composition instructors. I agree with your assertion that we may not have time to wait for a resistant writer to have a breakthrough in the course of a sixteen week semester. There will be students who do not abandon resistance at all, and there will be students who do not abandon resistance in time. That assertion, however, seems to imply that we cannot help any writer to abandon resistance in the course of sixteen weeks—and that probably is not true. It also seems to imply that one semester was enough time for all of the pseudonymous CAU students to abandon their resistance. It wasn’t. And perhaps most importantly, your assertion implies that we have some better course to choose. If we agree that resistance is an obstacle to learning, though, mustn’t we at least try to help our resistant students abandon their resistance?
While I think that we are more sensitive to references to terrorism than Nelson would have been in 1991, I do think that her choice of words is regrettable. It is not as if the world had not seen enough terrorism by 1991 to make appropriating the term to describe unpleasant behavior in a writing center unwise.
I really wasn't implying that we should not help students become less resistant, but I'm wondering how to do that in the context of a semester composition course.
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