During the last fifteen years I have had the opportunity to pay attention to Gramsci with my graduate students in a variety of "small" ways. In these classes I have sometimes devoted perhaps an hour or two to some of his ideas. Sporadically, I have been able to give them a few pages to read and to use those pages as a basis for discussion. Sometimes a few members of the class have been able to arrive at the university before the hour the class began, and we have met to consider his ideas. At other times, I have used some of his thinking to provide a framework for beginning to understand the realities of social class and their impact on American education. The two graduate classes I have taught over the years--"Social Forces and Education" and "Crucial Issues in American Education"--both focus on the social, political, economic, and cultural context of education in the United States, but using Gramsci has been an eye-opener for some of my students as well as for me in other ways.
By the end of the first class period (ca. 1982) that I had referred to him it was already clear that I could use him not only to provide the useful ideas he offers about the world and education but also to gain insight into the mentality and social position of my own students. I hoped that through Gramsci some students would begin to see some of the social conditions which shaped them to view him in a particular way. What follows are the reactions of some students put into certain cohort categories which could be of some interest to Gramscians.
One of the first things that struck me about some students was their taking it for granted that his interpretation obviously made sense. Among others there were various forms of rejection. Still others appeared to be absolutely devoid of understanding. The first group was almost invariably composed of black women, with ages running from late thirties to middle fifties. They were almost all experienced teachers, having worked in public schools for anywhere from ten to twenty-eight years. The overwhelming majority worked professionally in schools where most students were African-American and poor. Often such teachers themselves had come from families which were economically exploited. While they acknowledged that economic and social reality, they invariably perceived their lives and those of people close to them as emotionally and culturally [END PAGE 42] rich. So, in many respects, they were living with perspectives about themselves which were not those of most whites, who either looked at them, or at all Afro-Americans, as deprived and alien. They often had not only a great and deeply rooted love for their family members, but also an ability to see life virtues in them. This was something that many whites were unable to do, including some who shared the same classroom during our semester together. The women were able to see weaknesses and failings and, at the same time, to recognize life strengths. They saw themselves as being strong, and were often able to describe the specific situations in which that strength manifested itself. I believe they also saw some of Gramsci's ideas as demanding the development of strength and that that may have been part of his appeal. It may have been a confirmation of their own view of themselves. If I offered some quotations, they often prompted strong reactions by some of the women. For example, they sometimes read that teaching the standard spoken and written forms of a language "requires an unyielding struggle against habits of dilettantism, of improvisation . . . The work has to be done particularly in written form, just as it is in written form that criticisms have to be made. . ." The older Afro-American women saw the need for young students in their schools to learn "correct English" and were, for the most part, committed to such work. Yet, they also had a strong sense of the need to recognize what they themselves and their students saw as the special heritage of American blacks. Now, some statements by the older black women were made during the regular class hours. This meant that they were being heard and reacted to by some younger black women who identified with their situation, older white women who often lived with a radically different perspective, by younger white women, and by both younger and older white men. Given the social and psychological dynamics of the situation, the frankness of some of the black women "had to be" dealt with by some whites. Still, the Gramsci remarks about the need for disciplined work were not the most threatening to some whites. Suggestions about the nature of hegemony disturbed them quite often, whereas the same presentation was congenial to the older black women. The notion that there is a system for maintaining order and control and that coercion need not be in the most obvious overt forms, they found to be an echo of their own personal group reality. They did not have to be taught that there were multiple means for maintaining control, for stifling dissent, or for ruling groups to have those under their control absorbing the ideas of the dominant group. That schools were instruments of hegemony within a power system was perfectly clear to them. The agents of that domination might be principals, other teachers (acting "as individuals" or within groups), or organizations such as PTAs and unions. The idea of rule by consent would be challenged by women who understood that the nature of consent had to be analyzed.
If the older black women were quickest to respond positively to Gramsci, the older white women betrayed their suspiciousness and their resentment. Some of them had to take the offensive. It was their background which can help us to understand why this was so. Montclair [END PAGE 43] State University does not have students who are very well off. That is certainly true on the undergraduate level. On the graduate level it is different to some degree. If, for example, a teacher has been working for twenty-five years, she may be earning a fairly decent salary and if she is in a household where her husband also has a solid income, they may do fairly well financially. As far as my own white "older women" (38-55) are concerned, they are probably rather well off, although their educational autobiographies--which I have been reading for a number of years--make it rather clear that their own parents lived modest lives. This ascent into the more comfortable middle class is a confirmation to them that the hard work of individuals is crucial to whether or not someone "moves ahead" in American society. So they come to Gramsci with a certain kind of life experience, and Gramsci comes to them with their life "in place." Since so much of the American ideology is rooted in a certain type of capitalist individualism, they tend to be defensive and aggressive when a point of view is expressed which highlights something quite different from the individualist ethos. Even when they have some difficulty with the terminology of Gramsci--"hegemony," for example-- they smell a rat, that is, a threat to their way of looking at life, at American society, and to their own individual experiences. The middle-aged black women quite naturally are drawn toward a Gramscian mentality even if they, in their fashion, do not easily identify with the terminology. In both cases, they perceive that it is a serious critique of modern capitalist society and react to that perspective. The white women have been conditioned to believe that everything that might be subsumed under the rubric of "accomplishment" is due to acts of will, specifically acts of individual will. The black women tend to view themselves more readily as participants in the life of a group or groups that weave in and out of one another. They are quick to recognize what family members have done for them and in most cases are consciously grateful for that love and support. This does not mean that their white counterparts in age cohort do not acknowledge loving support that has been given them. There are, however, two striking differences in this matter. The black women are more ready, it seems to me, to consciously acknowledge their indebtedness. Secondly, the awareness of that overt level seems to make it much easier for them to recognize some of Gramsci's important ideas about the force of society. Being black in American society they are inescapably compelled to experience the prejudice and discrimination directed against them. The dominant, hegemonic system provides a relatively consistent way of viewing the world and those who accept it are not aware of its power. The older black women are aware because they have been made sensitive throughout their lives by the negativity, the rejection, the condescension and the hatred. So when some white women speak out of their more favored experience, they often are irritated by the "other" pointing to a different kind of life.
The relationship between the two groups, however, is not perfectly symmetrical. Many of the white women come from families that had to struggle, so they do not want to "be made to feel" [END PAGE 44] guilty by some of the black women's comments about the situation of Afro-Americans. Again, if I think back on the many educational autobiographies that I have read, it is clear that the vast majority of the families described in those writings had all kinds of problems and tragedies in their lives--job loss, alcoholism, divorce, the death of loved ones, the alienation of one member from others. That is often the human story. The white women resent what they believe to be an attack on them when it seems to suggest that they have not suffered and that their paths have been easy. But this common human experience is far from explaining either the specific forms and content of their consciousness or the structure of their society which has moved them in particular directions. The black women are, through their own experience and perspectives, threats to the ideology with which many of the white women have lived. To add to that threat a powerful social analyst such as Antonio Gramsci is to doubly jeopardize the vision with which they have lived.
As a teacher I have had to make judgements about which of Gramsci's ideas might be introduced and which, within the particular political and cultural context of my university, it would make little sense to attempt to deal with in a short period of time. I remind the reader that presenting any of Gramsci to my students is not the same as being able to organize an entire course with him as the focus. That is something I have never been in a position to do. So, I have a teacher's problem-- what to choose when there is little time. Does it make more sense to say nothing about him when there is, perhaps, something between one and three hours during an entire semester when he can be introduced? What if one is able to devote a half hour to him? Should that be done? During most semesters since 1982, I have chosen to introduce him, but that decision brings all sorts of dangers with it. Inevitably there will be distortion, but should a teacher risk that if he or she thinks that students should become aware of the existence of a major thinker? I have personally made that choice, but it has led to a problematic situation as well as considerable personal gratification. It is, of course, delightful when one sees and hears students who "are on the same wave length." That is enormously gratifying. But what of the majority to whom he will either remain forgotten or who sense that Gramsci threatens their way of looking at the world? As a teacher I have lived within those real limits.