Chappelle Show
Greetings,
Today in my TE class we watched a selection of Dave Chappelle in “Inside the Actors Studio”. We were told to respond to these three questions.
“I wasn’t crazy, but it’s incredibly stressful. And I felt like in a lot of instances I was deliberately being put through stress because, when you’re a guy that generates money, people have a vested interest in controlling you. And I feel like the people that were trying to control me were putting me through stressful situations.”
- Dave Chappelle
1. Substitute “knowledge” for “money”. Do people have a vested interest in controlling teachers? If so…who are they? If not, what is the difference/where does this analogy fail?
Overall, I believe this would be a reasonably accurate analogy to teaching. People do have a vested interested in controlling the teachers, especially of controversial topics, such as Social Studies. This is evidenced in the rules, curriculums, and laws that are put in place to control what are taught and how they are taught. These would represent the stress that would be put on those who generates knowledge. In these terms, I think it would actually be more stressful than what Chappelle describes, since instead of the one or two groups that attempt to control Chappelle, SS teachers have several groups attempting to influence how and what knowledge is generated in the classrooms. Through the laws, such as NCLB, rules and norms in the districts that we may teach in, various viewpoints on history and social studies are forced on us, not to mention our own framework with which we believe to be the “correct” paradigm.
2. Was this an appropriate piece to watch in a social studies methods course? why or why not? what did this offer you in terms of your thinking about social studies? OR..why did this have nothing to do with social studies education?
This was as much connected to social studies education as you want it to be. To Briarthorn, this was incredibly linked to SS, and to the casual observer, there might be a tenuous link. To me, I found that there was a link. With the proper structuring, as Briarthorn provided, I was able to bridge the gap and understand how the main theoretical themes that Chappelle talks about to the main themes that Briarthorn has been talking about in the TE class. One thing that I found interesting was Chappelle’s monologue about “being crazy”. Indeed, Chappelle states that when people put the label of crazy on someone or something, it is a dismissive term, and little or no attempt is made come to an understanding. Also, if any understanding is come to, it rarely includes how the environment played a part in how the ‘crazy’ issue came to be that way. Another, which has been talked about before in the class, was the difference in African American vernacular language, and what is commonly referred to as ‘proper English’. Chappelle states that African Americans are “bilingual by nature”, as they have an understanding of both dialects. This would tie into TE class, because someone, somewhere had to teach them the ‘proper English,’ and more than likely, it was a teacher in some shape.
3. What pedagogical issues does Dave Chappelle highlight for you? In other words, what issues/topics does his interview make necessary if education is going to be deemed, for him, succesfull?
Probably the most obvious is the last comment we heard, was that “America needs an honest discourse with itself” on “Who we are,” “What we are,” and “Where do we want to go.” This would not happen, I believe, in how the current system works, as there are often people who attempt to have this discourse, but are label “traitors,” or “unpatriotic”. By making this label, it often has the same effect in that circle as labeling someone as “crazy,” as Chappelle describes earlier.
