André Brock

University of Illinois

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Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy begins from the following foundational premises:

1. The goal of education is to produce critical thinkers. Writing allows for reflection, but reflection alone is not enough to encourage critical thought. Therefore, my understanding of the principles of argument based upon the three pisteis of rhetoric: logos, ethos, and pathos is essential in demonstrating how these appeals affect and effect the transmission of meaning through language.
2. Writing is not an inherent communication process. It is a codified form of language with specific rules and localized commonplaces drawing on cultural and social formations.
3. It is my responsibility to understand and disseminate these social and cultural commonplaces. It is also my responsibility to articulate the assumptions behind them and the implications of using (or not using) them to communicate within specific contexts.
4. My students must be willing to employ dialogue, reading, and writing in order to encompass and enact these sociocultural codes. They must also be willing to challenge my texts, their assumptions, and the world in oral discussion and in writing.

I have reached my formulation of these precepts through interactions as a peer, as a peer tutor, and as a writing instructor with basic as well as minority writers. I have learned that difficulties in formulating written discourse are not indicative of deficiencies in neither intellect nor reasoning. I have learned from personal experience that there are many types of discourse, each appropriate to its setting. Finally, I believe that my skills as an educator arise from my use of Socratic dialogue - challenging of assumptions and ideas through discussion and critical thought.

If you were to ask me for an intellectual roadmap, illustrating how my experiences could be subjected to analysis, I would point out landmarks such as DuBois, Bakhtin, Dewey, Bartholomae, Gadamer, Freire, and Walter Ong. From DuBois I draw the concept of "double-consciousness", which describes the mindstate of those who are in a society but not of it, and their struggle to understand themselves in relation to their culture. This stance modifies Dewey's belief that education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race. Thus, part of my pedagogy draws on making the commonplace "strange"; making everyday events subject to inquiry in order to understand their relevance and meaning. In turn, my understanding of Paulo Freire's liberatory pedagogy re-articulates the relationship of the everyday to my students, and offers them control of their informational and social environments through control of the discourses they are subjected to on a regular basis.

Bakhtin's assertion that language is multivocal and dialogic underpin the part of my teaching philosophy which addresses the social and historical foundations of language and language use. The interactional qualities of dialogue reinforce my pedagogical tendencies towards discussion, rather than lecture, as I believe that students must participate and articulate their understanding (or lack of) in order to learn. From Bartholomae, I locate the previously mentioned commonplaces within academia while noting the hazily defined (but real) borders between academia and other communicative situations. I believe that this understanding of the demands of academia is in itself rhetorical, and that my students must master the logical and authorial demands of the discourse in order to succeed.

Gadamer is essential because of my understanding of hermeneutics as he defined it: the interpretation of texts based on historical and social context, rather than as isolated event. Finally, I am indebted to Walter Ong for his explanation of the characteristics of orality and literate thought. I no longer accept them wholeheartedly, but they played a role in my understanding of the social and cognitive possibilities of written communication.

In sum, my role as a teacher is to encourage my students to develop their critical faculties. I believe that these critical faculties will thereby allow my students to engage any number of contextual situations by being in control of the discourses employed therein, rather than participating as passive subjects or unthinking automatons.

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Research Interests

My research interests here at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science stem from my background in rhetoric and critical race theory. The projects that I work on tend to begin with the premise that information technology, like all other technologies, is a socially constructed artifact within which the attitudes, assumptions, and worldviews of the designers are embedded. Therefore, when new technologies encounter lower adoption rates among minorities and disadvantaged communities, it is not always a question of affordability. In many ways, technologies are structured to reflect an "ideal user"; one which subliminally (or even explicitly) bars those users which do not fit into the prescribed template – a template which is often white, male, and middle-class.

I am currently beginning to work with local African-American community organizations, in order to determine cultural usability standards. I conceive of these standards being employed to redress issues of exclusion embedded in Web content, through the design of information databases that contain knowledge relevant to the needs of the African-American community. At some point, these usability standards should be embedded in Web and tech design literature, as a way of emphasizing and codifying diversity interests for a population which has yet to see a significant minority presence.

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