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On Classroom Communities and Political Prizes

As I am co-facilitating discussion this week I will keep this post briefer than usual. I will make room, however, to note that these readings were very generative; I imagine I will refer back to many of the articles (especially Hall and Giroux) in coming months. These questions may appear in some form during our class presentation so please feel very welcome to leave them until then! 

1. In light of Morley's presentation of Hall as someone cared more about the production of questions than the "production of definitive Answers or Theories" (253) and Kiang's aim to "create community in the classroom" (50) I ask: 

When teaching, how can we build our own classroom communities that value questions above dogmatic theories?  

a. Have you experienced a set of students, like Kiang, who have arrived in the classroom with a premeditated attempt to disrupt? If so, how did you approach resolving the issue without "failing to invest" (58) in other students? 

2. Hall describes the Labour Party as “a prize waiting to be won, if only that transformation, from an Old Left to a New Left party could be brought about” (495). This reminded us of the ongoing struggle within the contemporary Democratic Party to primary centrists and replace them with progressives—do you see any similar parallels? 

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