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Male teacher female students: a novice teacher reflects
Review
Male teacher female students: a novice teacher reflects Gerard Kenny This paper seeks to explore the gender dynamics of being a novice male teacher working with female nursing students. Using a reflective framework it examines the gender dynamics within the classroom setting. Educational, social, feminist and political theory are discussed to give some insight into teaching and learning strategies that can perpetuate or circumvent unhelpful gender dynamics. Implications for learning and teaching are evaluated, and further topics for investigation are acknowledged. & 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Gerard Kenny RGN, RN (child), BA (Hons) Lecturer School of Child and Maternal Health, UWE Bristol. 50 Coomb Paddock, Westbury on Trym, Bristol, BS9 4UQ, UK. Tel.: 44 117 344 8486, E-mail address: gerard.kenny@ uwe.ac.uk (G. Kenny). (Requests for offprints to GK), Manuscript accepted: 15 April 2002
Introduction
Stage one
The transition from nurse in the clinical environment to teacher within higher education has been described as a process of losing one's identity and entering a personal and professional limbo (MacNeil 1997). Removed from the clinical environment but not yet part of the educational establishment means that the transition phase for a novice teacher can be fraught with anxiety and insecurity. The uncomfortable feelings and thoughts generated by this process make it ripe for exploration through the use of reflection (Atkins & Murphy 1993). Scanlan and Chernomas (1997) argue that if nurse educators are to encourage reflective thinking and practice they must also engage in it themselves. The model they advocate is a three-stage process. The first stage is awareness of a situation in which the individual's knowledge is sufficient to explain what is happening. Stage two involves developing a new perspective of the situation. Stage three involves the application of this new information to the experience. The issue that has generated most concern within the context of my teaching practice is the gender dynamics of being a male teacher teaching to female students.
To what extent does my personal presence within the classroom represent wider social and cultural dynamics? Evans (1997) suggests that patriarchal institutions such as healthcare create and perpetuate male advantage. This is reflected by the fact that a disproportionate number of men are placed in elite and speciality positions within the health service. Such a dynamic within the health service is in turn indicative of wider society which continues to value all that is masculine (David 2000). It is argued that education, like health colludes with the cultural narrative, which advances men and continues to covertly oppress women (Freshwater 2000). This is illustrated in the feminist perspective and experience that men within education devalue women's work. Their argumentative, competitive and impersonal teaching styles are in opposition to the collaborative and relational ways of learning that women favour (Giarrantano et al. 1999). Mountford and Rogers (1996) feel that the accumulative consequence of oppressive teaching styles is women's academic self-concept is damaged. The creation of an environment where female students have low self-confidence and
0260-6917/02/$ - see front matter & 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1054/nedt.2002.0776, available online at http: // www.idealibrary.com on
1
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Male teacher female students: a novice teacher reflects
self esteem makes it increasingly difficult for women to assert their needs (Gordon & Wimpenny 1997). It has become part of nursing academic dialogue to perceive female nurses and students as taking on the characteristics of an oppressed group (Freire 1972). Unable to challenge the existing order they internalize the values of their oppressors and strive to be like them. This manifests itself in behaviour whereby women collude in the advancement of men, thereby perpetuating their oppression (Evans 1997). In response to this feminist scholars have argued that curriculum design and teaching within nurse education must reflect its overwhelming female population (Chapman 1997). Acknowledgement of my personal discomfort in my teaching role allowed me to recognize that it was not just related to being a novice teacher. The issue of gender and power was also contributing to my experience. Further reading provided me with some insight into the fact that my presence within the classroom carried with it the potential of adding a further layer of oppression to an already oppressed group. The micro power imbalance of the classroom was mirrored in the macro level of education, healthcare and society. While I had been mindful of this in the past I was now faced with confronting my part in contributing to that oppression when delivering education to a female class. This raised the question for me; how do I situate myself and my teaching, in relation to female students? It was necessary to take self-awareness of the first stage of reflection into critical analysis of the second stage.
Stage two The first part of my inquiry in stage two led me to consider an issue that had concerned me during class discussions. Verbal contributions from students were confined to a small minority with the majority silent. Gawelek (1994) argues that because of the way that gender is socially constructed women are socialized into believing that their voice is of less worth. This results in women being silent on issues that are of concern to them. Within the classroom setting this may manifest as
572 Nurse EducationToday (2002) 22, 571±577
opening statements with self depreciating comments, ``I'm not sure about this, but . . . '', that invalidate the speaker and the spoken. Or it can be seen in closing statements with upward voice inflections, which have the effect of turning a statement into a pseudo-question (Holmes 1992). Luke (1994) feels that both these linguistic traits are a sign of women looking for confirmation and signals insecurity. David (2000) sees this as evidence that through language women and nurses participate and perpetuate in the nature of their oppression. For this reason there has been a call for learning environments where students can overcome the oppression inherent within gender and the profession (Hastie 1995). The work of Habermas (1979) has provided scholars with insight as to how to transform the harmful effects of language into a force for personal and social change. Habermas claims that within ordinary speech the seeds of liberation and autonomy can be discovered. The importance of naming an experience that includes internal and external forces, which have contributed to that experience will in turn create the conditions for action. By engaging in such activity feminist nurse scholars have argued that nurses can become collective social agents seeking to reframe their sociopolitical reality (David 2000). To the novice teacher this appears to be a very enticing solution. Naming the experience of gender oppression and reframing it could circumvent the insidious nature of gender dynamics. Caution begins to temper enthusiasm when the assumptions of such a viewpoint are critically analysed. The success of such a viewpoint depends on seeing student nurses as a homogenous group. While the student group may all be female it does not make them all the same. This `essentialist' position assumes that by virtue of being female the student's experience will be common, which in turn will lead to common action. Weiler (1994) challenges the unitary category of `women' as negating diversity and difference. For the novice teacher this highlights the danger that ideologically constructed categories while striving for emancipation can hold within them seeds of further oppression.
& 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Male teacher female students: a novice teacher reflects
Boutain (1999) explores the theme of diversity in the content of discourse. While she acknowledges the relationship between language and action, Boutain rejects the notion that experience and expression of that experience can be monolithic. Many discourses can be identified within society at a given time. Consequently there becomes a plurality of communicative sites from which people speak. As a result of this Boutain (1999) feels that discourses have multiple social meanings which are not considered as representing a coherent whole. This has obvious implications for trying to locate female student discourse under the universal umbrellas of oppression and emancipation. Luke (1994) challenges a second assumption behind `giving voice' to women. She argues that women's silence far from being symptomatic of their subjugated status is an expression of political resistance. Silence can be perceived as a refusal of the individual to `confess' or `expose' the self to the critical gaze of the male teacher (Foucault 1973). Creating a space for classroom encounters and prompting women who may not wish to speak focuses an inquisitional spotlight on women who may not wish to contribute. Public `confessional' may be a painful emotional experience that exacerbates their oppression rather than promotes their liberation. Granting spaces for discourse may be ideologically desirable but may potentially create further oppression (Luke 1994). For the novice teacher such an analysis can be disquieting. Rather than discovering a solution to the issue of gender dynamics what is presented is a picture of greater complexity. The challenge appears to present the teacher with the task of keeping the classroom open to multiple perspectives and dialogue. Acknowledging that part of that `dialogue' may actually be silence. This raises questions as to what contribution such a perspective can make to the other element of `emancipating classrooms' that of empowerment.
Empowerment The most influential theorist of liberatory education is Paulo Friere (1972). Frierean
& 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
pedagogy rests upon a vision of social transformation. This transformation comes about through a process of conscious raising defined by Friere as `conscientisation'. Through this process awareness is generated of the power structures that maintain and perpetuate social situations (Friere 1972). The personal becomes linked to the political, `conscientisation' involves seeing oneself not as an asocial individual but as a consequence of ones experience as a member of an oppressed group (Cheek & Rudge 1994). This awareness empowers individuals to change the social strictures that create personal experience. Such a vision of transformatory education has been called for as a model in nurse education (Freshwater 2000). Identifying oppression of nurses and their propensity to horizontal violence has become part of a modern nursing discourse (Leap 1997, Glass 1997). What is missing from this discourse is what Weiler (1994) describes as `simultaneous contradictory positions of oppression and dominance' (p. 132). This allows for the wider perspective of not just seeing the oppression but recognising our own potential to be oppressors. This multiple perspective means that as a teacher I have the role of making the student's cognisant not only of their experience of oppression but also as oppressors. It also calls for me to look not only at my own role as oppressor but also my experience of being oppressed. Empowerment may lead to liberation. It may also lead to painful hard work on the part of the individual students. Changing one's consciousness requires close examination of values, attitudes and choices made in one's life (Wellard & Belhune 1996). This dynamic within the classroom has the potential to turn the teacher into a role of counsellor/therapist and the students into clients (Andrew 1996). For the novice teacher this raises serious practical and ethical issues. Morally, do I have the right to encourage students to engage in this work without knowing about their past experiences and possible unresolved conflicts? Clearly I do not. Not least because of the absence of my own skills to deal with these issues, but also because of the lack of institutional support for the
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Male teacher female students: a novice teacher reflects
student and teacher in terms of supervision outside of the classroom (Rich & Parker 1995). To engage in this work the aims would have to be explicit prior to enrolment on courses. Consent and commitment would be required from individuals and institutions. Without this there is a danger of self-awareness and conscious raising becoming the new orthodoxy. Rather than liberating it becomes another layer of oppression as education is imposed upon students (Purdy 1997). Excessive expectations for personal growth applied during the education process has been cited as contributing to `dropping out' figures among nurses (Ingram et al. 1994). The universal goals embraced by empowerment of justice and liberation pose very real questions for teachers and students when transferred to the specificity of our lives and experiences (Weiler 1994). Failure to reflect critically on what is being asked of us can have the potential of exacerbating oppression rather than liberating it. This does not negate the importance of such work. Rather it stresses the importance of accommodating these contradictory viewpoints within an emerging educational philosophy. Adopting such a stance it was important to look at the nature of my own power and that of the students within the classroom setting.
Power The potential personal and institutional power that I can wield within a teaching context is great. As already noted this is due to gender, race, career trajectory, my place within a patriarchal and hierarchical institution, my ability to control course content, dictate teaching and communicating styles and finally my power to assign grades. Within the Foucaudian critical perspective I hold the position of a `specific intellectual' (Foucault 1980). This position of influence gives formal and informal power that has the ability to help or hinder the life of another being. The intimate link between power and knowledge produces what Foucault described as `regimes of truth' which serve to defend and perpetuate existing power and knowledge structures (Foucault 1984).
574 Nurse EducationToday (2002) 22, 571±577
Feminist response to this dynamic is to call for an approach which makes explicit the power relations and structural oppression implicit in the nursing educational context (Cheek & Rudge 1994). It has been argued that this can be achieved by creating egalitarian relations between teachers and students (Chally 1992). Teachers are called upon to transfer their institutional power to students thereby empowering them (Boughn 1991). The consequence of sharing power could be the creation of an environment where mutual decision making can occur within the classroom (Boughn & Wang 1994). In the light of previous analysis if I can not `grant' voice or `empower' can I `give' power? Gore (1992) feels that there is an inherent contradiction in believing that this can happen. Giving `power to' the students reaffirms the position of teachers as being powerful and seeking to empower students who are powerless. Wellard and Bethune (1996) highlight the inherent arrogance of such an approach in that the emancipator makes a value judgement on the need of another to be liberated. Rodwell (1996) in her etymological investigation into the word power found that the Latin word `potere' means to be able, and the ability to choose (Labonte 1989). Therefore to talk of giving power as a means to make others more powerful actually strips people of their ability to choose. Power is not therefore a possession that can be given. Rather it is something that is exercised (Foucault 1975). In order to exercise it nurses need to demonstrate an interest in their own freedom and liberation (Fulton 1997). Lack of choice and failure to make a commitment, in relation to power and empowerment creates an environment of coercion. Coercion is a symptom of the exercise of oppressive power. Lack of these important antecedents of choice and commitment means that attempts made to negotiate aspects of the curriculum can be met with suspicion and mistrust. The experience becomes one of seducing the student into ownership of content without giving them more power (Andrew 1996). Likewise the teacher giving up the position as authoritative `knower' (Doll 1993), may be exercising a different form of manipulation
& 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Male teacher female students: a novice teacher reflects
where the teacher withholds experience and information that the student may actually be interested in (Andrew 1996). Rodwell (1996) argues that the process of becoming powerful must include the development of positive self-esteem and recognition of the worth of self and others. Failure to do this creates the conditions whereby the oppressed struggle for power only to become in turn the oppressors of the oppressors (Friere 1972). Without this positive concept of self and others the dehumanizing cycle of oppression continues. The new knowledge I have gained does much to answer why I must seek to make my teaching and curriculum content more gender sensitive. What it fails to do is bring me any closer to the how? I sought to overcome this by embarking on stage three of the reflective framework, application of this new information to my experience.
Stage three The first emergent theme from this reflection concerns the potential problems of adopting all embracing theories. To the novice teacher they are quite seductive and appear to offer a way out of professional anxiety. What is becoming clear is that in the process of the theory moving off the page it morphs on its journey through society, organization, classroom and individual. In the context of peoples lives and experience there seems to be a danger of adopting one form of control for another. The challenge therefore is to adopt an understanding of different skills and strategies to enable diverse groups of women to learn different things in different ways (Hanson 1994). There is also a danger of becoming an apologist for my gender and professional position. This has the consequence of selfimploding and comes closest to mirroring the behaviour of oppressed groups in self-hate and low self-esteem. Such an activity has implications for my ability to positively recognize the value and worth of others (Rodwell 1996). If I do not value myself how can I value others? Just as the students must demonstrate an interest in their own freedom and empowerment so must I. Otherwise my
& 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
ability to facilitate positive self-esteem in others is seriously compromised if I have not striven for it myself. The theme of choice is another important aspect to this reflection. While I can choose to change and adapt my teaching to acknowledge feminist strategies, I have to respect and honour the right of individuals not to take up the opportunity I strive to seek to create. I do not have the professional or moral right to bring about forced change in anyone. That is something that must be freely chosen (Fulton 1997). While I can not `grant voice' or `give power' I can seek to develop skills and awareness that allow for the safe expression and acquiring of both. Dialogue requires more than just conversation. It necessitates a listening that is engaged and open to a multiplicity of perspectives ( Jewel 1994). I am also a product of a nursing philosophy that advocated reflective practice as an individual and private activity without relating my experience to the wider political, economic and social environment. I can now seek to transfer my private reflection and individual conscious raising about the nature of gender in health and education, into the classroom setting. My linking of self-awareness to the structural dimension is also expressed in the writing of this paper. It would appear from my reflection that what education requires of me in the context of female students is a high level of political awareness, gender and cultural sensitivity, high quality interpersonal and facilitative skills and good self-esteem. My individual striving for these qualities poses a real question for institution that employs me. What is the institutional commitment to these goals? What time and practical resources will be allocated to foster these qualities and encourage their expression? The personal merges once again with the political in that this also asks a question of me, how do I seek to influence the structural dimension to bring about such change? And so the reflective cycle begins once again . . .
Conclusion A man writing about gender issues from a position of situational dominance is always
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going to be fraught with ideological hazards and open to criticism. This reflection is not intended to negate the feminist perspective, rather it is a product of realizing the crucial importance of that perspective. Neither is it intended to situate all male teachers in role of deliberately oppressing their female students. Feminist analysis shows that this process is not only subtle but also a culturally condoned way of conducting education. Giving the subtle form and making the covert explicit may provide some insight into how we liberate ourselves from culturally constructed and constrictive roles.
References Andrew ME 1996 Reflection as infiltration: learning in the experiential domain. Journal of Advanced Nursing 24(2):391±399 Atkins S, Murphy K 1993 Reflection: a review of the literature. Journal of Advanced Nursing 18:1188±1192 Boughn S 1991 Introducing a feminist perspective to nursing curricula. Journal of Nursing Education 33(3):112±117 Boughn S, Wang H 1994 Introducing a feminist perspective to the nursing curricula: a quantitative study. Journal of Nursing Education 33(3):112±117 Boutain D 1999 Critical language and discourse study: their transformative relevance for critical nursing inquiry. Advances in Nursing Science 21(3):1±8 Chally PS 1992 Empowerment through teaching. Journal of Nursing Education 31(3):117±120 Chapman E 1997 Nurse education: a feminist approach. Nurse Education Today 17:209±214 Cheek J, Rudge T 1994 Been there, done that? Consciousness raising, critical theory and nurses. Contemporary Nurse 3(2):58±63 David B 2000 Nursing's gender politics: reformulating the footnotes. Advances in Nursing Science 23(1):83±93 Doll W 1993 A post-modern perspective on curriculum. New York, Teachers College Evans J 1997 Men in nursing: issues of gender segregation and hidden advantage. Journal of Advanced Nursing 26(2):226±231 Foucault M 1975 Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. Pantheon Books, New York Foucault M 1980 Truth and power. In: Gordon C (ed) Power, knowledge, selected interviews and other writings 1972±77. Harvester Press, London, pp. 109±133 Foucault M 1984 Nietzche, genealogy, history. In: Rainbow P (ed) The Foucault reader: an introduction to Foucaults thought. Penguin Press, Harmondsworth, pp. 76±100 Freire P 1972 Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin, Harmondsworth
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Freshwater D 2000 Crosscurrents: against cultural narration in nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing 32(2):481±484 Fulton Y 1997 Nurses views on empowerment: a critical social theory perspective. Journal of Advanced Nursing 26(3):529±536 Gawelek MA 1994 Women to woman: understanding the needs of our female students. In: Deats SM, Lenker LT (eds) Gender and Academe: feminist pedagogy and politics. Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc. Giarrantano G, Bustamante-Forest R, Pollock C 1999 New pedagogy for maternity nursing education. Journal of Obstetric, Gynaecological and Neonatal Nursing 28(2):127±134 Glass N 1997 Horizontal violence in nursing: celebrating conscious healing strategies. Australian Journal of Holistic Nursing 4:15±23 Gordon F, Wimpenny P 1997 Sex, gender and research supervision in nursing. Nurse Researcher 4(4):63±77 Gore J 1992 What can ``we'' do ``for'' you?: struggling over empowerment in initial and feminist pedagogy. In: Luke C, Gore J (eds) Feminism and critical pedagogy Routledge, New York, pp. 54±73 Habermas J 1979 (Trans McCarthy T) Communication and the evolution of society. Heinemann, London Hanson C 1994 The search for a separate theory of adult learning: Does anyone really need androgogy? In: Edwards R, Hanson A, Raggatt P (eds) Boundaries of Adult Learning. Routledge, London, pp. 99±108 Hastie C 1995 Midwives eat their young don't they? Birth Issues 4:5±9 Holmes J 1992 Women's talk in public contexts. Discourse and Society 3:131±151 Ingram C, Rideout E, Weir R, Brown M, Woodward C, Cook J 1994 The impact of personal and situational variables on career patterns among nurses from three types of educational programs. Journal of Professional Nursing 10:297±306 Jewel ML 1994 Partnership in learning: education as liberation. Nursing and Healthcare 15(7):360±364 Labonte R 1989 Community and professional empowerment. Infirmiere Canadienne 25(3):23±28 Leap N 1997 Making sense of ``horizontal violence'' in midwifery. British Journal of Nursing 5:689±695 Luke C 1994 Women in the academy: the politics of speech and silence. British Journal of Sociology of Education 15(2):211±230 MacNeil M 1997 From nurse to teacher: recognising a status passage. Journal of Advanced Nursing 25(3):634±642 Mountford B, Rogers L 1996 Using individual and group reflection in and on assessment as a tool for effective learning. Journal of Advanced Nursing 24(6):1127±1134 Purdy M 1997 Humanist ideology and nurse education 2. Limitations of humanist educational theory in nurse education. Nurse Education Today 17:196±202 Rich A, Parker D 1995 Reflection and critical incident analysis: ethical and moral implications of their use within nursing and midwifery education. Journal of Advanced Nursing 22(6):1050±1057
& 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Male teacher female students: a novice teacher reflects
Rodwell C 1996 An analysis of the concept of empowerment. Journal of Advanced Nursing 23(2):305±313 Scanlan J, Chernomas W 1997 Developing the reflective teacher. Journal of Advanced Nursing 25(6):1138±1143
& 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Weiler K 1994 Freire and a feminist pedagogy of difference. In: Edwards R, Hanson A, Raggatt P (eds) Boundaries of adult education Routledge, London Wellard SJ, Bethune E 1996 Reflective journal writing in nurse education: whose interests does it serve? Journal of Advanced Nursing 24(5):1077±1082
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Male teacher female students: a novice teacher reflects Gerard Kenny This paper seeks to explore the gender dynamics of being a novice male teacher working with female nursing students. Using a reflective framework it examines the gender dynamics within the classroom setting. Educational, social, feminist and political theory are discussed to give some insight into teaching and learning strategies that can perpetuate or circumvent unhelpful gender dynamics. Implications for learning and teaching are evaluated, and further topics for investigation are acknowledged. & 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Gerard Kenny RGN, RN (child), BA (Hons) Lecturer School of Child and Maternal Health, UWE Bristol. 50 Coomb Paddock, Westbury on Trym, Bristol, BS9 4UQ, UK. Tel.: 44 117 344 8486, E-mail address: gerard.kenny@ uwe.ac.uk (G. Kenny). (Requests for offprints to GK), Manuscript accepted: 15 April 2002
Introduction
Stage one
The transition from nurse in the clinical environment to teacher within higher education has been described as a process of losing one's identity and entering a personal and professional limbo (MacNeil 1997). Removed from the clinical environment but not yet part of the educational establishment means that the transition phase for a novice teacher can be fraught with anxiety and insecurity. The uncomfortable feelings and thoughts generated by this process make it ripe for exploration through the use of reflection (Atkins & Murphy 1993). Scanlan and Chernomas (1997) argue that if nurse educators are to encourage reflective thinking and practice they must also engage in it themselves. The model they advocate is a three-stage process. The first stage is awareness of a situation in which the individual's knowledge is sufficient to explain what is happening. Stage two involves developing a new perspective of the situation. Stage three involves the application of this new information to the experience. The issue that has generated most concern within the context of my teaching practice is the gender dynamics of being a male teacher teaching to female students.
To what extent does my personal presence within the classroom represent wider social and cultural dynamics? Evans (1997) suggests that patriarchal institutions such as healthcare create and perpetuate male advantage. This is reflected by the fact that a disproportionate number of men are placed in elite and speciality positions within the health service. Such a dynamic within the health service is in turn indicative of wider society which continues to value all that is masculine (David 2000). It is argued that education, like health colludes with the cultural narrative, which advances men and continues to covertly oppress women (Freshwater 2000). This is illustrated in the feminist perspective and experience that men within education devalue women's work. Their argumentative, competitive and impersonal teaching styles are in opposition to the collaborative and relational ways of learning that women favour (Giarrantano et al. 1999). Mountford and Rogers (1996) feel that the accumulative consequence of oppressive teaching styles is women's academic self-concept is damaged. The creation of an environment where female students have low self-confidence and
0260-6917/02/$ - see front matter & 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1054/nedt.2002.0776, available online at http: // www.idealibrary.com on
1
Nurse EducationToday (2002) 22, 571±577 571
Male teacher female students: a novice teacher reflects
self esteem makes it increasingly difficult for women to assert their needs (Gordon & Wimpenny 1997). It has become part of nursing academic dialogue to perceive female nurses and students as taking on the characteristics of an oppressed group (Freire 1972). Unable to challenge the existing order they internalize the values of their oppressors and strive to be like them. This manifests itself in behaviour whereby women collude in the advancement of men, thereby perpetuating their oppression (Evans 1997). In response to this feminist scholars have argued that curriculum design and teaching within nurse education must reflect its overwhelming female population (Chapman 1997). Acknowledgement of my personal discomfort in my teaching role allowed me to recognize that it was not just related to being a novice teacher. The issue of gender and power was also contributing to my experience. Further reading provided me with some insight into the fact that my presence within the classroom carried with it the potential of adding a further layer of oppression to an already oppressed group. The micro power imbalance of the classroom was mirrored in the macro level of education, healthcare and society. While I had been mindful of this in the past I was now faced with confronting my part in contributing to that oppression when delivering education to a female class. This raised the question for me; how do I situate myself and my teaching, in relation to female students? It was necessary to take self-awareness of the first stage of reflection into critical analysis of the second stage.
Stage two The first part of my inquiry in stage two led me to consider an issue that had concerned me during class discussions. Verbal contributions from students were confined to a small minority with the majority silent. Gawelek (1994) argues that because of the way that gender is socially constructed women are socialized into believing that their voice is of less worth. This results in women being silent on issues that are of concern to them. Within the classroom setting this may manifest as
572 Nurse EducationToday (2002) 22, 571±577
opening statements with self depreciating comments, ``I'm not sure about this, but . . . '', that invalidate the speaker and the spoken. Or it can be seen in closing statements with upward voice inflections, which have the effect of turning a statement into a pseudo-question (Holmes 1992). Luke (1994) feels that both these linguistic traits are a sign of women looking for confirmation and signals insecurity. David (2000) sees this as evidence that through language women and nurses participate and perpetuate in the nature of their oppression. For this reason there has been a call for learning environments where students can overcome the oppression inherent within gender and the profession (Hastie 1995). The work of Habermas (1979) has provided scholars with insight as to how to transform the harmful effects of language into a force for personal and social change. Habermas claims that within ordinary speech the seeds of liberation and autonomy can be discovered. The importance of naming an experience that includes internal and external forces, which have contributed to that experience will in turn create the conditions for action. By engaging in such activity feminist nurse scholars have argued that nurses can become collective social agents seeking to reframe their sociopolitical reality (David 2000). To the novice teacher this appears to be a very enticing solution. Naming the experience of gender oppression and reframing it could circumvent the insidious nature of gender dynamics. Caution begins to temper enthusiasm when the assumptions of such a viewpoint are critically analysed. The success of such a viewpoint depends on seeing student nurses as a homogenous group. While the student group may all be female it does not make them all the same. This `essentialist' position assumes that by virtue of being female the student's experience will be common, which in turn will lead to common action. Weiler (1994) challenges the unitary category of `women' as negating diversity and difference. For the novice teacher this highlights the danger that ideologically constructed categories while striving for emancipation can hold within them seeds of further oppression.
& 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Male teacher female students: a novice teacher reflects
Boutain (1999) explores the theme of diversity in the content of discourse. While she acknowledges the relationship between language and action, Boutain rejects the notion that experience and expression of that experience can be monolithic. Many discourses can be identified within society at a given time. Consequently there becomes a plurality of communicative sites from which people speak. As a result of this Boutain (1999) feels that discourses have multiple social meanings which are not considered as representing a coherent whole. This has obvious implications for trying to locate female student discourse under the universal umbrellas of oppression and emancipation. Luke (1994) challenges a second assumption behind `giving voice' to women. She argues that women's silence far from being symptomatic of their subjugated status is an expression of political resistance. Silence can be perceived as a refusal of the individual to `confess' or `expose' the self to the critical gaze of the male teacher (Foucault 1973). Creating a space for classroom encounters and prompting women who may not wish to speak focuses an inquisitional spotlight on women who may not wish to contribute. Public `confessional' may be a painful emotional experience that exacerbates their oppression rather than promotes their liberation. Granting spaces for discourse may be ideologically desirable but may potentially create further oppression (Luke 1994). For the novice teacher such an analysis can be disquieting. Rather than discovering a solution to the issue of gender dynamics what is presented is a picture of greater complexity. The challenge appears to present the teacher with the task of keeping the classroom open to multiple perspectives and dialogue. Acknowledging that part of that `dialogue' may actually be silence. This raises questions as to what contribution such a perspective can make to the other element of `emancipating classrooms' that of empowerment.
Empowerment The most influential theorist of liberatory education is Paulo Friere (1972). Frierean
& 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
pedagogy rests upon a vision of social transformation. This transformation comes about through a process of conscious raising defined by Friere as `conscientisation'. Through this process awareness is generated of the power structures that maintain and perpetuate social situations (Friere 1972). The personal becomes linked to the political, `conscientisation' involves seeing oneself not as an asocial individual but as a consequence of ones experience as a member of an oppressed group (Cheek & Rudge 1994). This awareness empowers individuals to change the social strictures that create personal experience. Such a vision of transformatory education has been called for as a model in nurse education (Freshwater 2000). Identifying oppression of nurses and their propensity to horizontal violence has become part of a modern nursing discourse (Leap 1997, Glass 1997). What is missing from this discourse is what Weiler (1994) describes as `simultaneous contradictory positions of oppression and dominance' (p. 132). This allows for the wider perspective of not just seeing the oppression but recognising our own potential to be oppressors. This multiple perspective means that as a teacher I have the role of making the student's cognisant not only of their experience of oppression but also as oppressors. It also calls for me to look not only at my own role as oppressor but also my experience of being oppressed. Empowerment may lead to liberation. It may also lead to painful hard work on the part of the individual students. Changing one's consciousness requires close examination of values, attitudes and choices made in one's life (Wellard & Belhune 1996). This dynamic within the classroom has the potential to turn the teacher into a role of counsellor/therapist and the students into clients (Andrew 1996). For the novice teacher this raises serious practical and ethical issues. Morally, do I have the right to encourage students to engage in this work without knowing about their past experiences and possible unresolved conflicts? Clearly I do not. Not least because of the absence of my own skills to deal with these issues, but also because of the lack of institutional support for the
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student and teacher in terms of supervision outside of the classroom (Rich & Parker 1995). To engage in this work the aims would have to be explicit prior to enrolment on courses. Consent and commitment would be required from individuals and institutions. Without this there is a danger of self-awareness and conscious raising becoming the new orthodoxy. Rather than liberating it becomes another layer of oppression as education is imposed upon students (Purdy 1997). Excessive expectations for personal growth applied during the education process has been cited as contributing to `dropping out' figures among nurses (Ingram et al. 1994). The universal goals embraced by empowerment of justice and liberation pose very real questions for teachers and students when transferred to the specificity of our lives and experiences (Weiler 1994). Failure to reflect critically on what is being asked of us can have the potential of exacerbating oppression rather than liberating it. This does not negate the importance of such work. Rather it stresses the importance of accommodating these contradictory viewpoints within an emerging educational philosophy. Adopting such a stance it was important to look at the nature of my own power and that of the students within the classroom setting.
Power The potential personal and institutional power that I can wield within a teaching context is great. As already noted this is due to gender, race, career trajectory, my place within a patriarchal and hierarchical institution, my ability to control course content, dictate teaching and communicating styles and finally my power to assign grades. Within the Foucaudian critical perspective I hold the position of a `specific intellectual' (Foucault 1980). This position of influence gives formal and informal power that has the ability to help or hinder the life of another being. The intimate link between power and knowledge produces what Foucault described as `regimes of truth' which serve to defend and perpetuate existing power and knowledge structures (Foucault 1984).
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Feminist response to this dynamic is to call for an approach which makes explicit the power relations and structural oppression implicit in the nursing educational context (Cheek & Rudge 1994). It has been argued that this can be achieved by creating egalitarian relations between teachers and students (Chally 1992). Teachers are called upon to transfer their institutional power to students thereby empowering them (Boughn 1991). The consequence of sharing power could be the creation of an environment where mutual decision making can occur within the classroom (Boughn & Wang 1994). In the light of previous analysis if I can not `grant' voice or `empower' can I `give' power? Gore (1992) feels that there is an inherent contradiction in believing that this can happen. Giving `power to' the students reaffirms the position of teachers as being powerful and seeking to empower students who are powerless. Wellard and Bethune (1996) highlight the inherent arrogance of such an approach in that the emancipator makes a value judgement on the need of another to be liberated. Rodwell (1996) in her etymological investigation into the word power found that the Latin word `potere' means to be able, and the ability to choose (Labonte 1989). Therefore to talk of giving power as a means to make others more powerful actually strips people of their ability to choose. Power is not therefore a possession that can be given. Rather it is something that is exercised (Foucault 1975). In order to exercise it nurses need to demonstrate an interest in their own freedom and liberation (Fulton 1997). Lack of choice and failure to make a commitment, in relation to power and empowerment creates an environment of coercion. Coercion is a symptom of the exercise of oppressive power. Lack of these important antecedents of choice and commitment means that attempts made to negotiate aspects of the curriculum can be met with suspicion and mistrust. The experience becomes one of seducing the student into ownership of content without giving them more power (Andrew 1996). Likewise the teacher giving up the position as authoritative `knower' (Doll 1993), may be exercising a different form of manipulation
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where the teacher withholds experience and information that the student may actually be interested in (Andrew 1996). Rodwell (1996) argues that the process of becoming powerful must include the development of positive self-esteem and recognition of the worth of self and others. Failure to do this creates the conditions whereby the oppressed struggle for power only to become in turn the oppressors of the oppressors (Friere 1972). Without this positive concept of self and others the dehumanizing cycle of oppression continues. The new knowledge I have gained does much to answer why I must seek to make my teaching and curriculum content more gender sensitive. What it fails to do is bring me any closer to the how? I sought to overcome this by embarking on stage three of the reflective framework, application of this new information to my experience.
Stage three The first emergent theme from this reflection concerns the potential problems of adopting all embracing theories. To the novice teacher they are quite seductive and appear to offer a way out of professional anxiety. What is becoming clear is that in the process of the theory moving off the page it morphs on its journey through society, organization, classroom and individual. In the context of peoples lives and experience there seems to be a danger of adopting one form of control for another. The challenge therefore is to adopt an understanding of different skills and strategies to enable diverse groups of women to learn different things in different ways (Hanson 1994). There is also a danger of becoming an apologist for my gender and professional position. This has the consequence of selfimploding and comes closest to mirroring the behaviour of oppressed groups in self-hate and low self-esteem. Such an activity has implications for my ability to positively recognize the value and worth of others (Rodwell 1996). If I do not value myself how can I value others? Just as the students must demonstrate an interest in their own freedom and empowerment so must I. Otherwise my
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ability to facilitate positive self-esteem in others is seriously compromised if I have not striven for it myself. The theme of choice is another important aspect to this reflection. While I can choose to change and adapt my teaching to acknowledge feminist strategies, I have to respect and honour the right of individuals not to take up the opportunity I strive to seek to create. I do not have the professional or moral right to bring about forced change in anyone. That is something that must be freely chosen (Fulton 1997). While I can not `grant voice' or `give power' I can seek to develop skills and awareness that allow for the safe expression and acquiring of both. Dialogue requires more than just conversation. It necessitates a listening that is engaged and open to a multiplicity of perspectives ( Jewel 1994). I am also a product of a nursing philosophy that advocated reflective practice as an individual and private activity without relating my experience to the wider political, economic and social environment. I can now seek to transfer my private reflection and individual conscious raising about the nature of gender in health and education, into the classroom setting. My linking of self-awareness to the structural dimension is also expressed in the writing of this paper. It would appear from my reflection that what education requires of me in the context of female students is a high level of political awareness, gender and cultural sensitivity, high quality interpersonal and facilitative skills and good self-esteem. My individual striving for these qualities poses a real question for institution that employs me. What is the institutional commitment to these goals? What time and practical resources will be allocated to foster these qualities and encourage their expression? The personal merges once again with the political in that this also asks a question of me, how do I seek to influence the structural dimension to bring about such change? And so the reflective cycle begins once again . . .
Conclusion A man writing about gender issues from a position of situational dominance is always
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going to be fraught with ideological hazards and open to criticism. This reflection is not intended to negate the feminist perspective, rather it is a product of realizing the crucial importance of that perspective. Neither is it intended to situate all male teachers in role of deliberately oppressing their female students. Feminist analysis shows that this process is not only subtle but also a culturally condoned way of conducting education. Giving the subtle form and making the covert explicit may provide some insight into how we liberate ourselves from culturally constructed and constrictive roles.
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