Response to Giroux's text

I would have to agree with LeMar about Giroux's tendency to put all the challenge on teachers. His constant references to how "teachers of English" are solely responsible for changing the world and imparting meta-knowledge to their students, but not being allowed to influence the students' own voices was particularly outrageous. To some degree, I would agree that it is the responsibility of ANY teacher to bring out critical thinking abilities in their students, but there is also a need for some form of standardization within a culture. Without some commonality in literature, it would be rather difficult to hold any type of intelligent conversation in the subject since individual students or classes would be focusing on "literature of the 'Other'" in order to connect to "the voices of students in the class who generally cannot locate their own histories in the traditional literature that constitutes the official canon" (93); everyone would be reading different literature connected to their own social culture. Even if Giroux's intentions are simply to add more cultural diversity to the currently dominant literature curriculums, it would seem to be an impossible task to perform without losing something significant. I agree that exposure to other cultures and voices is important, but in my experience, college especially has been structured for exposure to diversity. This exposure may still be somewhat segregated to gender or racially specific classes, rather than integrated completely into generic "Literature" classes, but honestly, there are only so many texts that can be covered in one class.

I also agree that his methods of cutting out the "great books" are not only unfair, but also unwise. These books have withstood the test of time and are a vital part of our culture. I was actually a little insulted by Giroux's disregard for the importance of their cultural significance and his insistence on changing our culture. It would seem that one would have to be immersed within the culture first, in order to understand it and then make judgements on what about it needs to be changed, as well as what positive aspects it might already possess. He spends a great deal of time and effort expounding on how "In most English classes, the curriculum reinforces social inequality" (88). I found this to be a rather biased and exaggerated position. Perhaps it is because times have changed significantly since this text was first published, but I have found that in my personal experience, higher education is a far more diverse and engaging environment than what Giroux would have you believe.