Self-Disclosure as a Strategic Teaching Tool

## Citation

Tobin, Lad. “Self-Disclosure as a Strategic Teaching Tool: What I Do – and Don’t – Tell My Students. *College English*, vol. 73, no. 2, 2010, pp. 196-206.

## Summary

The similarities and differences between pedagogy and therapy; Tobin describes a group that he is part of, comprised of composition teachers and personal counselors, who meet regularly to discuss a student essay that troubled an instructor, with goal of first figuring out the source of the trouble and second to develop strategic responses. A starting example: A first-year instructor whose student had written about their mother's diagnosis with breast cancer, and the instructor's struggle over whether to tell the student that she was going through the same thing. The answer the group came up with, as almost always: it depends.

But one therapist made the salient point: "'No one can tell you what you should or shouldn't do here; there isn't one definitely right or wrong answer. All I can add is that, since you are feeling so conflicted. you might want to hold off telling her, at least until you feel more sure, since once you tell something like this you can't ever *untell* it.'" (197) Instructor ultimately made the choice to withhold the personal information, since the pedagogical risks seemed to outweigh the potential pedagogical rewards.

To take some of the onus out of conflating goals and methods of teaching and therapy, Tobin proposes another useful and less provocative comparison - how politicians and candidates for office choose to reveal or conceal personal details. Each one is rhetorically situated in the individual's ethos, rather than a universal list of do's and don't's to talk about. Or a similar performative act: crying. While it's generally advised against, there have been rhetorically powerful exceptions to this rule.

"The relevant question is not whether [controversial] topics are inherently inappropriate; instead, the question is whether any particular disclosure on one of those topics helps rather than hinders that teacher's ability to illustrate a particular concept, maintain an effective teaching persona, or establish a more productive relationship with a particular audience of students." In other words, what are the rhetorical effects and pedagogical gains to revealing, and what are the risks? (198)

"All teaching, like all writing, is - to borrow a phrase from Newkirk that he, in turn, borrowed from Erving Goffman - a 'performance of self.' And just as first-year students need to develop and perform a writerly self that works on the page, teachers of first-year students need to develop and perform a teacherly self that works in the classroom, the conference, and the marginal comment." (201)

-Note that this performance of self will also vary depending on the audience - to a class of first-year students, demonstrating oneself as capable, confident, and consistent is more valuable; to a class of graduate students or in teacher training, it may be more important to demonstrate one's own process of becoming. And likewise, when writing or speaking to other audiences. This is not a binary of "professional" versus "confessional" or "authentic" versus "fake." But rather, different performances of the same self - representation!

The extent to which the autobiographical is a part of academic/scholarly discourse and writing... but also its presence in other forms of public discourse, makes for a tension of whether or to what extent to teach students to bring the personal into their own writing. Since it is less part of academic/scholarly discourse, seems like a waste of time to dwell on it. But since it is so prevalent in other forms of public discourse, it seems irresponsible to not address it. For Tobin: "Very few of my students' grades in theri other courses would suffer much if I cut out the units I teach on textual analysis or argument. On the other hand, I am convinced that their experience and range as writers and rhetoricians would be significantly narrower if I were to cut out the unit on the personal narrative." (204)

In conclusion, though Tobin hopes that what he has said here will seem logical and transferable, he is not interested in convincing people to do things the same way he has, or to adopt a set of "best practices." Instead, "I'm more interested in asking whether a particular practice might help a particular teacher become a better version of her own teaching self." (205) As always, it depends.

## Notes

Good stuff, very relevant to the recent departmental conversations around civility and politics in the classroom, as well as the "So that happened" event. Perhaps also of interest to EGSC as a starting point for future workshop or discussion?

The tricky thing, of course, is the insistence on the contingent, particular situation. Even if we're not looking for a theory of self-disclosure or a set of best practices, is "it depends" a satisfying praxis?