Sign-Up

Anyone can follow a course on P2PU. Participating is the next level of engagement. The sign-up is a space where interested individuals can express their interest and background in the topic and commit to working with the rest of the participants. Please answer the following set(s) of questions if you want to become a participant or organizer.

Standard Set

This set of signup questions is common to all study groups, courses, ... in P2PU. The answers to these questions will be public once you get accepted.

Public Custom Set

This set of signup questions is particular to this course. The answers to these questions will be public once you get accepted.

Answers

• 
  lisa   May 6, 2012, 8:13 p.m.

  Bio:

  just your average teacher hoping to learn and grow and change the world one conversation at a time

  Location:

  Standard Set Answer:

   

  i am a queer educator who teaches foundations of education with an emphasis on intersections of race and sexuality

   

  i want to learn more about queer pedagogy in theory and practice from others working in various contexts

   

  i don't feel qualified to help with the course organization yet.   perhaps in the future :)

   

  Public Set Answer:

  these are awesome questions!

   

  i tend to use queer as a verb and as an adjective.  in the first sense i try to focus on queering as the activity of troubling, disorienting or destabilizing some "thing" or "being" or act.  the adjective works similarly; such as "that movie explores queerness" - practices, actions, experiences that are destabilized/destabilizing, especially around issues of gender and sexuality.

   

  pedagogy i use to describe the processes of teaching and learning that can be formal and informal, which involve cognitive, affective and physical dimensions of experience.

   

  queer pedagogy is a lovely (yet vexing) term. its analytic strengths and limitations is that it connotes uncertainty, elasticity and excessive meanings.... working to constantly undo the stability of a situation or context.  this is quite a challenge to the project of Education and Identity - two discursive formations that seek to secure wholeness and stability.

• 
  sdahmes   Dec. 13, 2011, 8:57 a.m.

  Bio:

  I am a Curriculum and Instruction PhD student at the University of Minnesota doing an unofficial concentration in queer and sexuality studies. I am very interested in queer pedagogy and what that might mean.

  Location: Minneapolis MN

  Standard Set Answer:

  I am interested in imagining how queer pedgagogy might be applied to k12 settings, in particular how it might help teachers to take a critical stance within schools which are hyper regulated by neoliberal discourses.

  I hope to develop a sense of the existing literature in the area of queer pedagogy so that I can move forward with future research in a grounded way.

  I am unable to help with course organization.

  Public Set Answer:
• 
  Johnnie Terry   Dec. 12, 2011, 9:41 a.m.

  Bio:

  I am a professor of philosophy at Sierra College in Rocklin, California, just outside of Sacramento. I'm also the faculty advisor for or college Rainbow Alliance and the chair of our SPECTRUM Committee, a standing committee of our Academic Senate focused on the retention and success of our LGBTQ student population. In addition to my philosophy classes, I am also the author of and professor for our Introduction to LGBT/Queer Theory course. At Sierra College, I've served as Academic Senate President, Curriculum Committee Chair, Equivalency Chair and facilitated several flex activities. A colleague from our Women and Gender Studies department and I taught a semester long, flex class for our faculty on Feminist Teaching Methodologies.  I am also vice-president of our local PFLAG.

  Location: Citrus Heights, CA

  Standard Set Answer:

  • What made you interested in this topic?

  My Master's Thesis at San Diego State University in the Philosophy Department was on Michel Foucault and the social construction of sexual identity. As a professor of Philosophy and Queer Theory at Sierra College, I'm interested in practical application of queer theory.

  • What do you hope to achieve by participating?

  I'm hoping to learn both from course materials and from interactions with my colleagues and peers in Queer Theory.

  • Are you interested in helping with the course organization?

  I received the invitation to participate through a Queer listserv and this is my first introduction to P2PU. I'm not sure what a "yes" to this question would mean. I'll get back to you. :-)

  Public Set Answer:

  "Queer" refers to an approach to theory that begins at the margins. Whereas Modern epistemologies seek to construct overarching and universal narratives that coherently explain everything (thereby creating freaks and abnormalities), Queer epistemologies begin with these "abnormalities" and seek to foster difference, diversity and the freedom to self-construct.

  "Pedagogy" refers to techniques of teaching in the promotion of learning.

  "Queer Pedagogy" seems to suggest an approach to instructional methodology that would emphasize difference and diversity in the learning situation that would resist approaching the classroom as a monolithic whole where some are "appropriately successful" while others are "inadequately set up to benefit." With regards to sexual orientation and, gender identity and expression," queer pedagogy would work to undermine their exclusion from or enforced invisibility in an assumed heteronormative classroom.

• 
  ginger   Nov. 29, 2011, 4:43 p.m.

  Bio:

  I'm thrilled that queerpedagogue invited me to collaborate on the course Queer Pedagogy: Queering Our Teaching, Queering our Learning, running from Dec. 5 - Mar 26.

  Thanks to the AERA Queer Studies SIG for putting the opportunity out there among our members.

  I'm approaching this course as an ally who has been deeply touched by the work of the late Eve Sedgwick, though my academic specialization is Educational Leadership and Administration. I'm nearing the end of my doctoral studies and they've given me a huge appetite for qualitative research as well as an insaitable interest in equity activism.

  Here in Canada, we're fortunate that same-sex marriage is the law of the land, but homophobia still runs rampant and in may guises. Our public school systems are toxic with official policies that strongly discourage and in some cases prohibit staff and students from disclosing LGBT identities. Anti-homophobic training is scarce in PD circles, and most school leaders ignore LGBT bullying, harassment, and exclusion.

  My hope in collaborating with everyone in this course is to deepen my understanding of how traditional, post-colonial curriculum and pedagogy re/produce LGBT disentitlement. I also want to learn as much as I can about how to challenge and transform homophobic behaviour at every level of society.

  My dream job will combine university teaching, hopefully in preservice teacher education and graduate studies, qualitative research, and senior administration. We'll see what happens!

  Location: Toronto, ON, Canada

  Standard Set Answer:

  Through researching and writing my Ed.D. dissertation I have become sensitized to the inequities embedded in much of what passes as queer pedagogy and alterted to the urgent need to eliminate homophobia from teaching praxis and learning environments.

  I started my career in education as a classroom teacher and have since taught every grade from K-12, served as the chair of a 23-person Social Studies Dept. and held senior leadership positions with several professional associations such as the American Educational Research Association (http://aera.net) and the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (http://csse.ca). I have spent the last three years on my research and am totally ready to work with students and colleagues again in the magnificent art of academic instruction and mentoring. I'm also close to finishing my doctorate and want to have some state of the art online teaching experience before I try to put my new credentials to work.

  I look forward to getting to know everyone and to offering what insights I have as the course evolves.

  Public Set Answer:

  My own definition of "queer" is still incubating :) but my thinking is underpinned by the incomparable work of a fellow ally, though sadly she is deceased, Eve Sedgwick. In her "AXIOMS (FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE CLOSET)" (http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60A/handouts/axioms.html) Segwick provides a wonderful foundation for the discussion of queer theory. My brief responses to each axiom are added in [square brackets]. 

  First, a definition . . . 

  axiom: 1. a self-evident or universally recognized truth; maxim. 2. a principle that is accepted as true without proof; postulate. (American Heritage Dictionary)

   And now, the seven axioms: 

  1. People are different from each other (22). [and they change over time]

  2. The study of sexuality is not coextensive with the study of gender; correspondingly, antihomophobic inquiry is not coextensive with feminist inquiry [nor with masculinist inquiry]. But we can't know in advance how they will be different (27).

  3. There can't be an a priori decision about how far it will make sense to conceptualize lesbian and gay male identities together. Or separately (36). [This will varygreatly  with context.]

  4. The immemorial, seemingly ritualized debates on nature versus nurture take place against a very unstable background of tacit assumptions and fantasies about both nature and nurture (40). [unstable and desctructive and this is a good reminder about setting boundaries around the kinds of discussion, language, and topics this course will explore.]

  5. The historical search for a Great Paradigm Shift may obscure the present conditions of sexual identity (44). [Indeed. Obscurity is inevitable given the queerless conceptualization of the Paradigm's starting point, not to mention its potentially limitless new locations.]

  6. The relation of gay studies to debates on the literary canon is, and had best be, tortuous (48). [as is the relation of gay studies to all pre-queer canonical domains]

  7. The paths of allo-identification are likely to be strange and recalcitrant. So are the paths of auto-identification (59). [And that recalcitrance will also be both extrinsic and intrinsic.]

  To be continued . . .

   

• 
  aWickedRose   Nov. 25, 2011, 8:09 p.m.

  Bio:

  Location:

  Standard Set Answer:

  I'm interested in becoming a special education teacher and I feel that it's important to be flexible and come up with 10 million ways to do the simplest of tasks.

  I'm hoping to gain knowledge that makes me even better able to fulfill my target population's needs.

   

  Not at the moment.

  Public Set Answer:

  Queer is anything different from the stereotypical norm. It's used in a sexual framework but that's not it's only use or meaning. Pedagogy to me means the art form of education. Together I feel they mean an alternative way of teaching. Kind of like painting with your feet or using bunches of leaves for brushes. Something different that provides a similar result.

• 
  Jess   Nov. 21, 2011, 2:33 p.m.

  Bio:

  I'm a queer community organizer/activist in the deep south. I'm also a doctoral candidate in a college of education, focusing on the history of education. I teach history of ed to undergrads, and I write about queer emergence on college campuses in the 1970s.

  Location:

  Standard Set Answer:

  * I'm interested in this topic because I'm a queer person who studies/writes about/teaches queer history. I don't get a lot of institutional support for queering my class, so I want to form connections with other people who do this work. I also am always looking for ways to make my course more anti-oppressive.

  * I've never had any pedagogical training or k-12 experience, so I could actually use some kind of praxis training, but I've never found one I was interested in before.

  * Definitely, although I'm inexperienced in praxis. I know a lot about queer history, though, if that's helpful.

  Public Set Answer:

  I define queer in several ways. I use it as a way of explaining my own identity. I also use it as a blanket "not-straight" term. I like it because I feel it unites me with other queer people - although I am mostly cis, I don't differentiate myself or my life from the trans people in my queer family. I also see queer as a way of disidentfying with heteronormativity and patriarchal/capitalist systems. Queerness isn't always exclusive of heterosexuality if one is disidentifying in this way.

  Pedagogy is, in my mind, teaching/learning. I suppose it can be defined as content delivery, but I like to think of it as a more mutual exchange - hence the "queer pedagogy," where power relations are shifted and differentials are intentionally reduced. I also believe that queer pedagogy, for me, means working against queer invisibility, so it must include active discussions of queerness. And I like Kumashiro's ideas about anti-oppressive pedagogy.

• 
  Anonym   Nov. 21, 2011, 1:01 p.m.

  Bio:

  I am a doctoral student in the student affairs in higher education program at Miami University (OH).  

  Location: Oxford, OH

  Standard Set Answer:

  I am looking to explore and use queer methodology for my dissertation, in which I am hoping to focus on issues of safety for transgender and gender non-conforming students.  I am also hoping to teach in the near future and have become increasingly interested in how I can use queer pedagogy as a way to enhance engagement and investment in one's own educational environment as a way to create transformative educational settings.  

  Public Set Answer:

  When I think of the term "queer", my mind goes immediately to that which exists outside of the cultural norms of heteronormativity and genderism.  Queer to me also implies a sense of political action and investment, with those who identify as queer seeking ways to interrogate, deconstruct, and problematize the negative effects of the gender binary and heteronormativity.  

  In terms of pedagogy, I think of ways of teaching.  In thinking deeper about teaching, I am drawn to notions of teaching that erode the walls of the classroom and see teaching as something that learners and educators do alongside one another throughout all walks of life.  Teaching is not the sole reponsibility of the educator or one imbued with power due to title (ie professor), but happens as a result of a learning partnership (very similar to the Learning Partnership Model that Baxter Magolda (2004) created) in which educator and learner are fused together in a synergistic relationship where knowledge and meaning are co-constructed.  

  Therefore, in terms of queer pedagogy, I think a lot about the ways in which educators and students can work together to interrogate heteronormative and gendered structures that shape institutions and culture.  Taking this a step further, queer pedagogy would look to create a liberatory framework in which those who do not identify as existing within the gender binary or heteronormativity are realized for their full humanity and institutional/structural oppression is reduced through political and social movement/collective action.