September 23, 2008

goodness me

Posted by dogpossum on September 23, 2008 6:51 PM in the category teaching

This past week I was teaching psychoanalysis. Or more specifically, a bit of Freud and then a bit of other people using and abusing Freud. This may entertain a few of you who know my feelings about psychoanalysis and Freud. We're not friends. But the reading for the subject was from this neat text by Cranny Francis et al and I liked it - I've even bought the book because it gave such a useful overview of this stuff, especially in reference to gender, and I'm collecting useful resources. For The Future.

Any how, we ended up saying p3nis, vag1na, shit, poo and a few other things quite a lot of times. I was all 'blah blah blah' and 'let's see what the difference between the phallus and the p3nis is' and forgot to remember that firsties are afraid of naked body words. I mean, each semester I realise they're also afraid of body hair on women (not having seen any, ever), and get a bit freaked out when I wear a sleeveless shirt as we move into summer. Any how, it took them a while, but eventually they eased up and could manage to use The Words. Not with much comfort, but use them they did. Eventually.

This is actually a more complicated issue than you might realise, especially in the context of teaching a class that's 80% international or first gen Australian students, many of whom come from families or cultures where it's totally not on to talk about this stuff in public, especially not in mixed-sex settings, across generations and across heirarchies. Part of me was all 'oh come on, when I was a lass and doing gender studies we had to use the c word in my feministah classes'. And sure, we were bad ass (though I have to say, it was a bit rough on some of the private school kiddies who hadn't gone to a rough outer suburbs public high school), but it was a bit challenging at first. I remember being amazed by the thought of 'reclaiming' the word. I was used to it being yelled at me out of bus windows as I rode my bike home. I didn't much care for it, personally, and wasn't really ready to use it, let alone reclaim it.

But I was surprised by the shyness of my stoods. I guess it's an age thing - when you're a teenager sex is all new and weird and freaky. You're busy testing out your preferences (in terms of gender and relationships and what you do in bed and what you wear and ... hell, everything) and you're a bit unsure of most things, and, well, you didn't make it to the end of the reading, so you're not actually sure what everyone's talking about anyway.

And there were moments when I thought 'ok, am I demonstrating sufficient cultural sensitivity?' I can be a blunt object, but I think that this stuff needs to be dealt with just as we would any other topic - clearly, in detail, with discussion and - if possible - looking at google maps. Well, not so much with the google maps. But I was careful to be 'appropriate' in my approach. And I was. Except for that one moment when I noticed that my usually-very-big hand gestures had suddenly taken a turn for the explicit when we discussed the difference between p3nis and phallus. But that was just funny. And, as I said at the time "a little ambitious, even for Freud's neuroses."

So anyway, this bunch of relatively outspoken Young People were quite shy and at first reluctant to talk. But then they relaxed and really got into it. I couldn't believe how many people'd done the reading - numbers'd jumped massively from the week before. And it was a long reading with some quite challenging bits. I mean, Lacan + Freud + Saussere + Cixous and lots of other people, all in one reading? I know it took me a while to get through it all, and I've read this stuff before.
But they were all really into this, they were just interested and excited about the ideas. Freud always polarises students, and it was neat to see them get in their 3-people groups and hack into the Oedipal complex. Who would've thought?

Posted by dogpossum on September 23, 2008 6:51 PM in the category teaching