…or one reason to give your department for why teaching blogs and blogging while teaching is really important for the future of the discipline/feminist education

This week in my Feminist Pedagogies class we are reading various articles that critically reflect on the value of social media in the feminist classroom (see schedule–10.27–for more information). In her essay, “Techno-Mindfulness and Critical Pedagogic Praxis in Third Wave Feminist Classroom Spaces,” Jennifer Lynne Musto offers the following reason for why Gender, Women and Sexuality studies instructors need to learn and teach about/with online technologies:

in addition to teaching students’ much-needed critical thinking skills, Women’s and Gender Studies instructors likewise enhance students’ technological competency, and media literacy, skills which prove invaluable in a competitive, globalized work environment (102).

I would add that we (as feminist educators) are not only able to teach those skills which are valuable for making students effective workers (well, maybe we should problematize that), but we also have the opportunity to teach the skills which are essential for encouraging students to be effective/responsible/just citizens. There are all sorts of spaces where students can learn digital literacy, many of which aren’t feminist or invested in anti-oppressive education. It seems to me that an important part of our mission should be to promote feminist/critical/anti-oppressive digital literacy (and promote being diablogical too!).

This essay comes from a book, Teaching with the Third Wave. You can read the entire book online here.

Not sure if I articulated my argument effectively here; I think we should incorporate this discussion into our manifesto article.