Classroom: Teaching Utopias, Dystopias, and the American

¶ … Classroom: Teaching Utopias, Dystopias, and the American Dream

This article published in Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice in 2011 examines the advantages and pitfalls of democracy in the classroom. The author, Rebeccah Bechtold, tells of her attempt to create a utopian classroom by enabling students to design and implement their own syllabus. The class was designed so students were included in deciding "a majority of the classroom policies, grading procedures, and assignments" (2).

Bechtold states, "My hope was to create a space where teaching and text crossed, to create a learning space where our class would think about the core issues that the texts had in common and actually experience similar concerns and questions" (3). Initially the author had to address issues of trust between the students and herself. In essence she was asking her students "how would you teach the class?" (5). This question contains profound implications as the teacher must release control while the students must assume control of the content, the assessment, and ultimately the responsibility for their learning. This paradigm shift involved risk and created anxiety, and uncertainty as neither the teacher nor the students had traditionally defined roles.

Ultimately the class created a syllabus that "mirrored the Declaration of Independence" (7) in that it had to be ratified and signed by students and the instructor. This negotiated syllabus contained the caveat that "if the class discovers that the syllabus promotes a long train of abuses and usurpations…it is their right, it is their duty to throw off the syllabus or amend these glaring faults" (7). This process worked to create relationships within the class that would have not formed otherwise. The process pressed the class to their surface expectations for learning and the function of writing and grading within the context of the course as well as the responsibilities placed on student and teacher.

Bechtold reports this utopia was always a 'no place' (hence the title) because it was always in progress, constantly changing form, "We certainly failed to discover the recipe for an excellent literature course but learned instead that it was the messy attempt to create a utopia that made the class successful" (7). This process nourished the development of trust and an unfettered willingness to express divergent desires. A flexible balance developed between authorities, those of the teacher and those of the student.

In the traditional classroom the student is "directed, informed, and led inside the curriculum" (3) by the teacher. Bechtold's experiment in pedagogy was aimed at developing a classroom culture where it is understood that the curriculum contains and displays the idea and the teacher facilitates the bonding of these ideas to the student's brain by creating feelings that enhance the importance of the classroom experience. In other words the teacher must relinquish some of their authority in order for give students a vested interest in the process, thus buttressing the belief that they are a vital force in the learning process.

It is worthy to note that this experiment was done in a class of thirteen instead of the usual thirty-six. This small number most certainly helped to facilitate relationships and build the trust required to ensure that all students were meeting the universities requirement's for the course. As Bechtold states, "My worst fear was…a classroom without student engagement" (5).