Okay, But What Does a Feminist Classroom Look Like?

In my favorite classroom in high school, practically every day was based in class discussion and argument about what we were reading. We were encouraged to sit however we wanted in order to be most comfortable, and run the classroom like a conversation, no raised hands or waiting for permission to speak. If I close my eyes, I can still picture myself slouched in my chair with my feet up on top of my desk, picking arguments with my classmates and, frankly, looking like an asshole. I valued those classes for the way they made me feel everyday when I left the room, powerful or like I was in the midst of an adrenaline rush. There may have been more boys in that class than girls, but that would have been my first class that actually featured feminist-style teaching. We touched everything from modern day political ideas, to philosophy, to Faulkner, and no one was ever criticized for their ideas or shamed into not speaking. It may not have been perfect, but it was freeing. I actually felt like I was a part of something.

“So wait. How exactly is this feminist again?”

Laura R. Micciche wrote an essay entitled “Feminist Pedagogies” in which she discusses the different ways that a feminist classroom should look. Though the feminist pedagogy can take many shapes, some of Micciche defining qualities are that they should allow for expression, collaboration, and confrontation. Basically, the classroom should be a space where women can test new ideas or viewpoints comfortably, as well as share these ideas with others and argue the finer points of them. It is a place where women can begin to form their own opinions and gain confidence in them, without feeling scared or ashamed to say something that other people aren’t going to agree with.

“Yes, but what does that actually look like in a classroom?”

Well, it would look like women free writing or discussing current events or politics and working on discovering who they are and what they believe. They should be collaborating with each other in group discussions in order to come up with new ideas together and practice the ability of sharing their thoughts with others. The classroom should be a space where we don’t shy away from an argument if we don’t agree with what someone else is saying. It is a place for developing who we are as people, as scholars, as women.

Oddly enough, Micciche quotes bell hooks in the section about confrontation and how women have to not be afraid to speak about the unpopular or the uncomfortable. Having read hooks in another class, I saw her so much more in the sections on the importance of collaboration. Hooks writes often about the idea that women struggle to gain more success because of internalized feminism, or the way that the patriarchy keeps women fighting with each other instead of fighting together for more power. When we stand together, we are stronger and working for the betterment of all women, not just ourselves. This is sisterhood. Sisterhood can exist so much in a collaborative classroom because it is reinforcing the idea that we should be relying on one another in order to formulate the final idea. We would be working towards one end goal, trying to find the best solution, instead of just trying to prove that ours is right.

Classroom discussion is such a key in all of these ideas because women have been told for so long that we should be quiet and respect the ideas of the men in the room. When we encourage women to speak their mind and share their ideas out loud, we are encouraging them also to write them down and spread their ideas through pen and paper. Good writers don’t earn their status by trying to please somebody else, they right for themselves. Like Mr. Keating says in Dead Poets Society, “[y]ou must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all.” Granted, he was speaking to privileged private school boys, but I think the lesson remains true for everybody. A feminist classroom may be aimed at gaining women’s participation and growing their potential, but it benefits everybody in the room because it challenges every student in the room. It pushes the need for new ideas and solutions because we’re able to hear more voices and pose new questions to answer. Don’t sleep on the rooms that look rowdy or chaotic with arguments. The best work gets done there.