I dropped an honors seminar after the first meeting; it was the first time I had directly encountered the ideas this thread talks about, but very soon I was seeing the influence everywhere #fallofacademe https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/status/1282933977007849473

We were actually assigned to read the first chapter of Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" for in-class discussion, and a group exercise in summation. It became clear that we were not intended to read the material with any critical distance.

Instead we were railroaded into taking on the author's terminology, and reaching a consensus on how to write about the work *before* we were all sure that we understood it or gave any thoughts about what it all might mean

The real insidious element of the experience, that I now connect to other bad experiences in the classroom is the concept of `flipping` education; a sleight of hand with two parts

part one is the idea that students arrive with knowledge to contribute to the subject, rather than in need of education on the topic of a course.

part two is the turning of the classroom into the workspace, with students doing what usually would be lectured at home, alone

Seeing this thread and the talk of `queering` I now think of these concepts as related, because what both versions of the `flip` do is to invert authority (thus hiding it) and turn the class into a discussion forum where all opinions are "welcome"

Except: all opinions are not welcome. The instructor still leads, supervises, and forms. Only now they claim to have no influence, rather than taking responsibility for what is taught: they're not doing the teaching after all

Instructors using these methods deliberately avoid criticism, and use their obviously superior rhetorical skills to manipulate students into reaching the desired consensus.

In lieu of a good conclusion to this thread, I'll point out how strange it is to hear that "producing activists" is a stated goal of many professors: they don't just want to manipulate minds, they want to move bodies and modify society.