Week 7 - Interpellation

 The call to learn a new language…or three.

When I started high school I wanted to learn a different language. In 1989 the world was opening up to more and more international travel and the opportunities to live and work overseas were widening. I decided to learn Japanese because that might in the future lead to possible teaching opportunities in Japan or at international schools. The other options at my school were French (which I also learnt), Latin and German. These languages were considered highly relevant to the international landscape and would be a powerful tool for future endeavours. Being the only ones offered, these languages were seen to have ‘value’. By prioritising these over other languages, the school gave them power. Students were interpellated (Backer, 2019) into believing that these particular languages were of more importance and more purposeful than others. And by others I mean te reo Māori, one of the official languages of Aotearoa.

I found another language fascinating but the chances to use it authentically were very small. Practice happened within the classroom and I could not really make many links between myself and this new language and culture. I had a Japanese student come and stay with me when I was in 5th Form and while I enjoyed the new experience, I still struggled to see my study as anything other than learning some new words. The ‘power’ associated with this language was essentially lost on me.

After School Certificate, I dropped French but continued on with Japanese. In complete honesty, this continuation was more related to the 6th Form trip to Japan than any other reason. I had enjoyed learning new languages so in 6th Form I started learning te reo Māori. I felt that this was something with a closer relation to home and I was starting to understand that it was a taonga to Aotearoa. This was only the beginning of my conscientisation (Freire, 1970) though. Proper understanding happened many decades later.

Because te reo Māori was not actually offered as a subject at my high school I had to do it through the correspondence school. As I was the only one doing it, I had my own little study room where I went to four periods a week to complete the little workbooks that were sent to me from the correspondence school. I still had nowhere to practice it or make any real links to my life - no one I knew spoke it and it definitely wasn’t used at my school at all. I was shut off in a little room to complete tasks independently. As expected, this didn’t last. There was no support given to me, no value shown to the mahi I was doing. The power was held by the other more ‘valuable’ languages that were offered within the school. 

Me as the interpellator…

When my daughter was 16 years old she wanted to leave school. She was struggling with mental health issues, had already moved from one high school to another and was finding the whole aspect of full school days overwhelming and uncomfortable. All through my life there had been a heavy focus on getting an education, needing an education to be a valued member of society and gaining tertiary qualifications (preferably a degree) to then get an ‘accepted’ job or career. This interpellation about sticking within the lines and following the same pathway was strong and one I had followed myself. Because I had been successful on this pathway, I felt that my daughter should follow it too. This caused some friction and tension between us and some disappointment from me. My daughter felt the same way about me, disappointment. Probably related to the fact that I was more interested in what I thought ‘should’ happen rather than thinking about her as an individual and what she needed at that moment. I was convinced that you couldn’t have a happy life if you didn’t finish school, if you didn’t get some kind of qualification. It was her father who sat me down and reminded me that he hadn’t finished school, was now a very successful business owner and doing something he loved. I started to realise that I was the one who needed to change their thinking. I was the one who had this pre-conceived idea of what life would look like. I had been interpellated into conforming to an ideal, perpetuated by my own family, my own portion of society. One month after finishing school she was a completely different, much more relaxed and happy person. Interpellation definitely would not have caused a positive outcome here!

References:

Freire, P. (2005). Education for critical consciousness. Continuum.

Backer, D. I. (2019). The Gold and the Dross: Althusser for Educators. Brill. Chapter One: A beginner's guide to interpellation. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004394698  

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