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Response: Scholarly Personal Narratives as a New Direction for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Stephen Brookfield A powerful scholarship of teaching and learning may well be one of the best counters to the instrumentalist and reductionist impulses in the educational reform movement today. I believe an opening exists in the conversation on the scholarship of teaching and learn- ing that is mentioned only in passing by Killen and Gallagher. About a third of the way through the piece, they write “Memoir and tip sharing, while useful, do not fit general understandings of scholarship, though they are published and widely read.” I would like to argue that the first of these – memoir, story, and personal narrative – can indeed be a crucial element of the scholarship of teaching and learning. In recent years, Robert Nash has pioneered a form of doctoral dissertation he calls a Scholarly Personal Narrative or SPN (2004, 2011). An SPN places the writer’s narrative of her experience as the content of the dissertation. The writer tells a story that she feels is rich with insight, and that can illuminate the complex dynamics behind the particular case studied. The typical narratives that SPNs document are activist attempts to fix a broken humanity. Although SPNs do deal with the kinds of technical problems empha- sized by the Carnegie Foundation, these are always understood within the writer’s broader story of civic and personal transformation. Two specific elements make an SPN an example of scholarship. The first is the fre- quent use of research and theoretical literature to illuminate the particularities of the narrative, to amplify and critique, and to offer multiple interpretations, many of which are not embedded in the writer’s own telling of the story. So an SPN moves back and forth between individual narrative exposition and theoretical commentary. The second is the continuous attempt to theorize generalizable elements of particular events, contradic- tions, and actions. The particular events in a narrative may be unique to the individual but they often contain universal elements. A good example of an SPN (though written before Nash introduced that term) is Cale’s (2001) analysis of his attempt to work critically and democratically in a com- munity college freshman composition class. Cale spent a semester teaching writing through the analysis of race, class, and gender in contemporary America. His narrative illustrates how his attempt to teach resistance became an instance of ideological repro- duction. Despite giving lectures critiquing the concept of meritocracy and outlining capitalism’s deliberate creation of an underclass, Cale notes, “Once I allowed the ‘common sense’ of the dominant ideology to be voiced, nothing could disarm it” (2001, 16). It did not matter that a disproportionately large amount of time was spent in criticism of the dominant ideologies of capitalism and White supremacy. As long as Cale permitted his White students (the majority in the class) to voice their own opinions regarding racism, the focus was continually shifted away from White privi- lege and toward discussions of reverse discrimination and Black “problems.” Cale refreshingly and courageously admits that his efforts to work democratically by respecting all voices and encouraging the equal participation of all learners “actually helped to silence some of my students, to reinforce the dominance of the status quo, and to diminish my own ability to combat racism, sexism, and classism” (2001, 17). He concludes that his use of “democratic” discussion achieved little effect other than to provide “opportunities for students to attack and silence oppositional thinkers, including myself” (2001, 17). Response © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 127

Scholarly Personal Narratives as a New Direction for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

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Page 1: Scholarly Personal Narratives as a New Direction for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Response: Scholarly Personal Narratives as a New Direction for the Scholarship ofTeaching and LearningStephen Brookfield

A powerful scholarship of teaching and learning may well be one of the best counters tothe instrumentalist and reductionist impulses in the educational reform movement today.I believe an opening exists in the conversation on the scholarship of teaching and learn-ing that is mentioned only in passing by Killen and Gallagher. About a third of the waythrough the piece, they write “Memoir and tip sharing, while useful, do not fit generalunderstandings of scholarship, though they are published and widely read.” I would liketo argue that the first of these – memoir, story, and personal narrative – can indeed be acrucial element of the scholarship of teaching and learning.

In recent years, Robert Nash has pioneered a form of doctoral dissertation he calls aScholarly Personal Narrative or SPN (2004, 2011). An SPN places the writer’s narrativeof her experience as the content of the dissertation. The writer tells a story that she feelsis rich with insight, and that can illuminate the complex dynamics behind the particularcase studied. The typical narratives that SPNs document are activist attempts to fix abroken humanity. Although SPNs do deal with the kinds of technical problems empha-sized by the Carnegie Foundation, these are always understood within the writer’sbroader story of civic and personal transformation.

Two specific elements make an SPN an example of scholarship. The first is the fre-quent use of research and theoretical literature to illuminate the particularities of thenarrative, to amplify and critique, and to offer multiple interpretations, many of whichare not embedded in the writer’s own telling of the story. So an SPN moves back andforth between individual narrative exposition and theoretical commentary. The second isthe continuous attempt to theorize generalizable elements of particular events, contradic-tions, and actions. The particular events in a narrative may be unique to the individualbut they often contain universal elements.

A good example of an SPN (though written before Nash introduced that term) isCale’s (2001) analysis of his attempt to work critically and democratically in a com-munity college freshman composition class. Cale spent a semester teaching writingthrough the analysis of race, class, and gender in contemporary America. His narrativeillustrates how his attempt to teach resistance became an instance of ideological repro-duction. Despite giving lectures critiquing the concept of meritocracy and outliningcapitalism’s deliberate creation of an underclass, Cale notes, “Once I allowed the‘common sense’ of the dominant ideology to be voiced, nothing could disarm it”(2001, 16). It did not matter that a disproportionately large amount of time was spentin criticism of the dominant ideologies of capitalism and White supremacy. As longas Cale permitted his White students (the majority in the class) to voice their ownopinions regarding racism, the focus was continually shifted away from White privi-lege and toward discussions of reverse discrimination and Black “problems.” Calerefreshingly and courageously admits that his efforts to work democratically byrespecting all voices and encouraging the equal participation of all learners “actuallyhelped to silence some of my students, to reinforce the dominance of the status quo,and to diminish my own ability to combat racism, sexism, and classism” (2001, 17).He concludes that his use of “democratic” discussion achieved little effect other thanto provide “opportunities for students to attack and silence oppositional thinkers,including myself” (2001, 17).

Response

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 127

Page 2: Scholarly Personal Narratives as a New Direction for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Anyone who has tried to get reluctant students to engage with challenging and diverseperspectives and feels they have only increased those students’ recalcitrance will find uni-versal and recognizable aspects in Cale’s work. He may be dealing with one class at onecommunity college in Michigan in one particular semester, but the demoralizing discov-ery that his attempts to emancipate are only confirming students’ conservatism, and thecontradictory pedagogic dynamics he clarifies, helped me understand a lot of what hashappened in my own classrooms over forty years of trying to do the same thing.

Far from regarding memoir as inherently unscholarly, I believe it offers a rich oppor-tunity for engaging the scholarship of learning and teaching. Mary Hess and I madesome attempt to work with our own, and our colleagues’s narratives in our collectionTeaching Reflectively in Theological Institutions (2008). The contributing authors to thatbook spent two years as members of a pre-tenure group at Luther Seminary in St. Paul(I was the external consultant who joined the group every month) sharing stories of suc-cesses and failures, and searching for generalizable illuminations that helped us under-stand those stories. During our conversations we would always be looking for elementsin each other’s narratives that shed light on the dilemmas we faced with our own stu-dents. Our conversations would constantly move in and out of theoretical analysis,drawing in concepts from our different disciplinary affiliations, providing a new way ofthinking about something that was challenging all of us. Narratives, theorized and gener-alized as they are shared, offer a powerful avenue for the scholarship of teaching andlearning to have a dramatic impact on theological educators’ practice.

Response: A Room for the HumanistsPat Hutchings

For anyone who cares about teaching and learning, these are exciting times, with newideas about pedagogy, course design, and curriculum rising up at every turn, and moreteaching-focused conferences, workshops, books, journals, and online forums than eventhe most dedicated among us can keep up with. There is much to be hopeful about inthis rush of activity. But whether it will make a difference in classroom practice and inthe experience of students will depend on whether faculty members are engaged wherethey live – which is to say in their identity as scholars and teachers of their disciplines.It is around this issue that this essay by Patricia O’Connell Killen and Eugene Gallaghermakes so important a contribution.

Their focus is, of course, the scholarship of teaching and learning in theology andreligion, which, the authors tell us, is “identifiable” though “varied,” and “exhibits stan-dards of excellence recognizable in other forms of scholarship.” Their purpose isdescriptive, in large part, to share what they have learned from the unique perchafforded by their role as editors of this journal, and to identify promising patterns emer-gent in submissions that have crossed their desks over a decade and a half. But it isclearly corrective, as well, aiming to counteract what they see as the hegemony of thesocial and natural sciences in shaping our conception of the scholarship of teaching andlearning today – and to carve out a space more congenial to their disciplinary colleaguesand, presumably, the humanities more generally.

I will confess to a somewhat personal disappointment that this corrective move is stillnecessary. As one of many people in the scholarship of teaching and learning movement

Foster, Brookfield, and Hutchings

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