Hairston...bleh.

The entire issue about which Hairston is concerned would be irrelevant if not for the assumption that teachers have a major influence on their students. I can’t disagree with this view entirely – if I could I’d probably have to go look for a different profession. Still, I would disagree with some of the things that Hairston proposes about students. I take issue with the way she describes them, and I don't like the way she understands power.

First, it seems as though Hairston reduces the average freshman writer to a mindless receptacle for knowledge. Students, because they are people, have a capacity for reason. They recognize when ideas don’t jive with what they have been previously taught, and any new idea they encounter can be accepted or rejected. Because Hairston claims that teachers will often mock the interests and beliefs of their students in an attempt to imbue social values, she is no position to call these same students “unsophisticated” later on in her essay. I think students deserve more credit. Moreover, I think Hairston’s distrust of ideas is a bit suspect, and maybe even “silly.”

I also take issue with Hairston’s conceptualization of power. She writes, “the real truth about classrooms is that the teacher has all the power” (p. 188). The whole issue of power is far more complicated than this. Power is something that is granted by others, not something that an individual simply possesses. A student or group of students that are really upset with a teacher can render them practically powerless. Sure, that teacher still has the ability to assign a poor grade to those students if she likes, but at that point, assigning grades is really more about vengeance than honest appraisal of a student’s work. In short, power, like everything else is socially and contextually bound. Typically, teachers are granted the power they expect, but communication theory suggests that Hairston is guilty of oversimplification here.

Admittedly, I haven’t necessarily targeted the heart of Hairston’s argument. I just think its important that if one is to accept her point of view, they do so on grounds other than the ones I’ve criticized here. Also, I intentionally wrote this before I read the responses to Hairston, as I anticipate someone will make the same objections as I have here – I just didn’t want my thunder robbed from me so abruptly.