A Rehearsal for Revolution: The Hybrid Persona of the Graduate Student Teacher

Abstract

This mixed-form essay examines the graduate student teacher (GST) by utilizing Augusto Boal’s concept of the spect-actor. This theatre concept is used to illuminate two distinct aspects of the graduate student-teachers’ persona: first their initiation into theoretical literacy, and second, their opportunity for vigorous critical, even revolutionary activism. An embedded graduate student essay explores the author’s personal GST experience within a larger frame of current U.S. university employment trends and against the author’s current university experiences and performances. This work asks: What kinds of power do GSTs command? What kinds of power are they bound by, in their simultaneous, hybrid performance of students and teachers? And, in light of the growing numbers of part-time and temporary faculty teaching at U.S. institutions, what are the ramifications of a shrinking minority of university faculty (the tenured) wielding primacy in institutional policy making and the creation and maintenance of the social and workplace culture? The essay concludes by exploring these issues at the author’s institution, the University of Guam.