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  • Rolling Dung and Feeling Privileged to Do So
  • Anniina Suominen

A while ago, a pre-service student in my class, Amy, used dung beetle as the conceptual and literal inspiration for her high school lesson plan. I have since been inspired by “rolling dung” as a metaphor for my practice as I have also been fascinated with the deep sense of grounded connectedness this metaphor evokes in me. My work focuses on developing meaning from the perspective of the assumed and inherent relationality of people, experiences, and concepts. These developed understandings emphasize the (in)between spaces of personal, interpersonal, and broader socio-cultural/educational phenomena (Bhabha 1997; Ellsworth, 2005).

The English word “dung” (in comparison, to shit, crap, and scat) was first explained to me in relation to Chris Ofili’s work included in the Saatchi collection exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999. The use of dung in Ofili’s paintings carries complex symbolism while evoking strong emotional and embodied reactions. In a sense, the fact that the elephant dung in Ofili’s paintings is genuine makes the message more personal. The substance of education is real too: deeply and personally felt, smelt, and experienced.

As I have progressed with my academic career, I have felt that the further I get, the more purified my dung ought to get. While I do my best to teach the students in my classes to critically engage in societal issues that stink and prevent true equity, my performance, including deeply wounding disappointments, problematic and scary situations with colleagues and students, are presumed odorless and virus-less. We all know educational experiences are not all comprised of sweet fragrances and non-problematic encounters during which art is happily co-created. Yet, very few published texts and other accounts truly lay out the stink. [End Page 135] As I read teacher-narratives or scholarship on “good teaching,” I silently pray that the author will share some dirt and unresolved imperfections to create a feeling of “real-ness” and relatability. Time after time I hope to read texts colored by curse words, agony, and an honest struggle to “do good.” Aoki’s (2008) “Teaching as Killing the Self or Why Professors Deserve to be Beaten” comes close, but I writhe to find texts where the author does fall face first and does not re-emerge too easily renewed and committed to serving his/her profession.

When I was a Ph.D student, Lauren Richardson had a profound impact on my thinking and scholarly self-esteem. Her presence as a teacher and a scholar, her unspoken and spoken validation of my presence changed how I perceived myself. More importantly she wrote either about things that would not please people or that would put her at risk of being judged. Her writing recognizes the institutional injustice most scholars willingly assign to or are seduced to tolerate. What I learned from her is that writing about understandings and knowledge that are painful does impose vulnerability that will not create immediate resolutions or bring comfort. Instead, educational scars are permanent, and the pain related to educational experiences real. These experiences are not, nor should they, be resolvable or easily aired out, but acknowledged for their potential for transformativity. To this date, I have not been able to come to terms with the smears and pain that seem unavoidable and inherent to my practice. However, I have learned to anticipate the next stink as I continue to roll the dung toward a perhaps more realistic performance of education.

Dung beetles have tactile intelligence about poo; I do not. However, I have repeatedly experienced the incredible complicatedness of educational encounters that is not always pretty and odorless, but might just simply stink. Unlike the dung beetle, my goal is not to bury myself in a deep, smelly mass/mess but to redefine language for a praxis that helps me renew the “living and breathing teacher” (Benson, 2006). My intention is to have and formulate “wise companionship[s]” with others on their journey as students of currere (Pinar, 1975, p. 412). I hope my short text will be read as an attempt to explore the potential for a “creative solidarity...

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