{"id":2198,"date":"2016-06-10T09:44:08","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T17:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/?p=2198"},"modified":"2016-06-10T09:44:08","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T17:44:08","slug":"working-class-in-academe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/2016\/06\/10\/working-class-in-academe\/","title":{"rendered":"Working-class in academe"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Minnesota Review<\/a> changed editors a few years ago,\u00a0the old back issues disappeared from their website.\u00a0Fortunately, one of my favorite essays, Diane Kendig<\/a>‘s “Now I Work In That Factory You Live In<\/a>,” from the 2004 issue on Smart Kids<\/em>, is still available\u00a0through the internet archive.\u00a0As\u00a0one of my recent posts sparked a bit of\u00a0discussion of social class<\/a> in higher education, it occurred to me to look back at\u00a0Kendig’s essay.\u00a0It recounts\u00a0a great moment\u00a0where class status is revealed:<\/p>\n

\n

In 1984 I began full-time teaching in a tenure-track position at a small college in Ohio. One day, walking across campus with one of the most senior members of the faculty, I was discussing with him some classroom difficulty we were both having. He shook his head in resignation and said something I have heard faculty all over the world say so often, as though it explains everything, “Well, you know, most of our students come from working-class backgrounds.”<\/p>\n

This time, for the first time, I did not stand there in shamed silence. Although it was not my most articulate moment, I said, “So what, Richard? So do I!”<\/p>\n

He stopped walking as he threw back his head and laughed. Then threw his arm around me and said, “So do I, Diane. So do I.” I don’t know what that moment meant to Richard, but for me, that moment meant that I was able to say that being working class is not an excuse or a sorrow or a shame. It happens to be where I come from.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There are two kinds of social difference that come in contact here like a short-circuit: the teacher vs the student, the self-that-one-is and the self-that-one-was. The premise of this moment \u2014 two teachers talking about their classroom problems \u2014 is that to be a teacher, one has to\u00a0objectify one’s\u00a0students. But then it becomes obvious \u2014 at least in this story, which is why it’s even a story \u2014 that this kind of objectification depends on a folk sociology. “Well, our students are from XYZ backgrounds…”:\u00a0there’s a horrible potential there\u00a0to slip over the line that separates benign objectification from outright\u00a0essentialism.<\/p>\n

But this time\u00a0when that line gets crossed,\u00a0the\u00a0narrator can’t prevent herself from\u00a0letting her own social identity come out in protest against the\u00a0institutional hierarchy that usually precludes teacherly identification with\u00a0the student masses. And there’s a joy\u00a0and laughter in that moment of\u00a0deconstructed hierarchy.<\/p>\n

I would still observe, though, that one readily stops\u00a0being\u00a0working-class if\u00a0one becomes a tenure-track college teacher. Class origins aren’t everything; they aren’t necessarily identical to\u00a0class destinations<\/em>.\u00a0Which is why Kendig\u00a0can apprehend one’s own\u00a0social origins as something\u00a0deeply rooted\u00a0within her but also as something\u00a0that has become outside and\u00a0thus a bit uncanny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Minnesota Review changed editors a few years ago,\u00a0the old back issues disappeared from their website.\u00a0Fortunately, one of my favorite essays, Diane Kendig‘s “Now I Work In That Factory You Live In,” from the 2004 issue on Smart Kids, is still available\u00a0through the internet archive.\u00a0As\u00a0one of my recent posts sparked a bit of\u00a0discussion of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[485,494,729],"tags":[539,540,592],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2198"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2201,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198\/revisions\/2201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decasia.org\/academic_culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}