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Autoethnography on the Discourse of Learning and Educational Experiences

In primary school days, one was taught about abstract concepts that sometimes would

have no relation to one’s reality. I was then taught that my capability to fail or succeed depended

largely on how well-versed I was in understanding and applying those concepts. Due to this, I

would be punished both by my teachers and parents whenever I failed to accomplish such tasks

as accomplishing assignments and homework. If I failed to reach a certain target following

examination, I would be criticized, and the adults in my life would even make deliberate efforts

to embarrass me for my lack of commitment to education and, supposedly, the key to life. In this

manner, societal systems and cultural values set out to define who I am; an identity that I see

now is also based on abstraction. Deep inside and on a personal level, there are knowledge and

skills I resonated with, even if only it was an individual experience. By intuitively following

these interests, it seemed as if I was revolting against what was expected of me by the

educational institution’s system, the curriculum, and even my parents. I knew I was not lost

since, under the guidance of my intuition, I was accessing knowledge and information that was

just what I needed or was looking for and was thus concretely significant to me, unlike the jargon

I was being taught to clam and that had functioned to define my identity, while I had another one

accessible only to my mind and sense of perceptions.

The experience described above comprises what Granger (2011) seems to be exploring in

his work, “Silent Moments in Education”, especially the opening anecdote. This is a discourse

that is exploring ‘individual identity on the one hand, and a relationship on the other…perhaps

between facets of identity, all within the context of education.”(Granger, 9, 2011). The focus is

on the difficulty that can arise in meaning and in learning, such that the individual learner or a

teacher gets stuck or freezes and, in a sense, is rendered silent. One example that Granger offers
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and that resonates with their personal experience is regarding a case where an experienced

educator who is usually at ease and confident in their classroom suddenly feels lost and is cast

adrift by the demands of new technology (Granger, 2011). In my case, the “silent moments”

occurred when the general curriculum prescribed to all students no longer made sense to me, and

I began following personal interests, reading only what interested me, enjoying the experience

solely while on the outside; I seemed lost.

In their work, “Critical Autoethnography as a Method of Choice,” Boylorn and Orbe

(2020) explore the concerns of autoethnography with contexts to culture and power and also with

the construction of cultural identities, intersectionality, and social inequalities. Applying their

approach to “Silent Moments”, cultural identities and social injustices brought about by

educational systems that use a curriculum plan that is designed for the collective mass serves to

suppress the individual. Granger (2011) views such systems as agencies of power that serve to

suppress the individual, a position which would also represent personal stance on the same, and

as such, maintaining it. With regard to intersectionality, the examples he offers, especially

regarding learners’ experiences of having to follow teachers’ instructions even if they find them

disagreeable, would be similar to personal experiences. When it comes to language, it mediates

the personal experience by showcasing that besides the identity that is given by the society and

its culture, an individual could also know themselves in ways surpassing what is observable or

could be defined using the already established standards.

In conclusion, this autoethnographic critique has taught me that there are discourses that

can be in support of or against personal experience. Mostly, discourses that seem to support

personal experience would be against the methods and systems being applied by social

institutions in defining the identities of individuals. My educational experience comprises what

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Granger regards as silent moments, for they are experiences that only the individual and on a

personal level have access to, while the larger society is segregated. Therefore, general cultural

identities and societal systems could fail to offer a voice to personal experiences, and even when

it comes to such fields as education, it occurs to me that the identity forged out of my relation

with the general collective curriculum was doomed to fail. However, by taking time to follow

personal interests, meaning and a sense of identity could be constructed from within, and it is this

which should orient the individual to the society, rather than having their place outwardly

defined in pre-time, which is all unjust.

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Reference

Boylorn, R. M., & Orbe, M. P. (2020). Introduction: Critical autoethnography as method of

choice/choosing critical autoethnography. In Critical Autoethnography (pp. 1-18).

Routledge.

Granger, C. A. (2011). Silent moments in education: An autoethnography of learning, teaching,

and learning to teach. University of Toronto Press.