Feminist Pedagogy: Teacher as Facilitator

Susan C. Jarratt’s article on feminist pedagogy shows feminism’s “relentless capacity for dialogue and self-critique” (117) both in the content of a course and the way a teacher structures or de-centers her classroom. One of the most interesting parts of Jarratt’s essay is her discussion of the role of a female teacher based on Susan Stanford Friedman’s essay. On one hand, a female teacher may “adopt masculine authority” to reproduce existing hierarchies of educational institutions or she may adopt a female facilitator role, thereby reproducing the “patriarchal denial of the mind to women” (119).

Here, Friedman claims that facilitating promotes the old patriarchal stereotype that women do not have the same intellectual capacity or ability as men. Examining the role of teacher as facilitator through the lens of critical pedagogy, a facilitator is a teacher who empowers his or her students, promoting the idea of a counter-hegemony. While most feminists claim to not desire a counter-hegemony, both feminist and critical pedagogies encourage students to raise a critical consciousness about how “norms” (whether democratic, social, or gender) are formed. Why then is there such a stark difference in the merits of teacher as facilitator?

Friedman suggests a possible answer is to adopt multiple perspectives with a “both/and” model rather than an “either/or.” But does this solution of combining a “masculine authority” and a “female facilitator role” cut the Gordian knot for feminist female teachers, or is Friedman suggesting a combination of teaching styles that most educators would consider to be “common sense”? Variety in the classroom is a necessary facet of student engagement. If a teacher, male or female, were to simply lecture all the time, sustaining student engagement everyday would become a daunting task. Shouldn’t student engagement be a priority in the classroom rather than the “bonus package” of a convenient feminist theory?

In the true spirit of “relentless capacity for self-critique,” I believe this issue reveals a weakness of the study of feminist pedagogy: FM is more concerned with the role of the teacher than the education of the student. Feminist pedagogy focuses on a teacher’s role in the classroom through the lens of gender politics rather than focusing on the teacher’s role through the lenses of successful students.