The Demystification of Knowledge Acquisition: Pedagogical Methodologies of Language Instruction Applied to the Teaching of Literature

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Intellectual knowledge appears to be innate and privy to the few, but in fact, access to information, development of intellectual work skills, time investment, and the maintenance of intellectual appearances are key to being perceived as an intellectual.
To make education more equitable, professors must go beyond knowledge transmission and instruct students in the concrete skills of knowledge acquisition and knowledge presentation. Instruction in intellectual skills-acquisition implies the breakdown of the traditional professor-student relationship and of the academic intellectual hierarchy and professors must learn to cope with the consequences of adopting new pedagogies. If we wish to share the secrets of our professions, how do we prepare our students for such a democratic approach and at the same time maintain our professional status?
The speaker, a professor of Spanish language and literature, will present strategies for democratizing education and demystifying intellectual work through the application of skills-based language pedagogical methodologies to the teaching of literature. The implications that these strategies have for a new type of learning and the impact that they have on social stratification will also be discussed.

Stream: Curriculum and Pedagogy; Student Learning, Learner Experiences, Learner Diversity

Paper: Demystification of Knowledge Acquisition, The

Sandra María Benedet is an Assistant Professor of Spanish. She holds a Masters Degree and a Ph.D. from Stanford University and has taught at Roosevelt University, Northwestern University, The University of Iowa, and Stanford University. Professor Benedet teaches a wide range of courses, including language, composition, and literature and culture courses on such subjects as women and the Mexican Revolution, Mexican national identity, urban imaginaries, and literary utopias and dystopias. Her principal area of interest is Mexico and she has worked extensively on the Estridentistas, a Mexican avant-garde movement of the 1920s. Benedet has published in La palabra y el hombre, Contratiempo, Estos Tiempos, and in a special edition of Revista Iberoamericana that is devoted to the avant-garde. Her latest work, soon to be published, is an interview with her uncle, a Trotskyist who participated in the Spanish Civil War. In her free time, Professor Benedet practices yoga.