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Classroom “objectivity”?

From Eden Torres, Chicana Without Apology: The New Chicana Cultural Studies:

Like any teacher, I bring a specific subject position into the classroom (albeit a shifting and fluid one in many ways). This means I can teach certain topics with more than words, texts, or carefully memorized facts. When I speak about oppression, I teach with emotion, personal stories, body language, and fluctuating tones of voice that indicate some visceral response on my part. All of this grows out of my history (both personal and communal), as well as my day-to-day experiences in the contemporary world. I do not hide behind false objectivity because I want my students to understand the toll of racism, classism, sexism, and compulsory heterosexuality on real people. I want them to see the way in which intertwining, overlapping, intersecting, or simultaneously occurring forms of prejudice, and exploitation actually wound people. I want to show them my scars, to disrupt the socialization processes that have made it so easy for them to disconnect from the ways people are harmed by various oppressive systems. I want them to understand the difference between and the sameness of the physical devastation and the psychological damage caused by the increasing disparity between the wealthy and the poor.

This does not mean that I have to pretend to be objective. Being mainstream and expressing the norms of the dominant society is not being objective either. One of my favorite fortune cookie messages—one of very few I have saved—says, “Do not practice moderation to excess.” Part of what makes me an effective teacher is that I am open about my passions and politics. My agenda is not hidden. I own it. While I believe in much of what postmodern theory has to offer, I could never transmit the relativist assumptions that often come with it. Like most Freirean practitioners, I see teaching as a political act. Anyone who pretends otherwise is lying. Again, this does not mean I expect to convert all students to my way of thinking. My only objective is to teach them to be politically conscious, critical thinkers. If this means that conservative, mainstream students become acutely aware of power differentials and the meaning of their own social locations, and then decide to own that space and take responsibility for working diligently to maintain their power and privilege then I’ll be sad. But at least I’ll know that they are doing so consciously. Such an enemy is much easier to fight than the apathetic, well intentioned, but still supremacist student who claims to see (or do) no evil. What I do expect IS to be able to enter into discussions with them in which we will all test our assumptions and ideas. (82-83)