How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Banking Model (Sort of)

I read Paolo Friere as part of my graduate composition pedagogy course that taught me much more about research methodology and writing about pedagogy than it actually taught me about teaching.  The idea is that traditional models of education commodify knowledge (go figure) and create a system by which the teacher makes deposits into the student (who is an empty shell), and the students must then provide a return on what has been deposited.  There are any number of ways that this metaphor could be modified.  The idea is that this is bad because the student is a passive recipient and does not actually process the information (cash?) received (except that the student would have to do something with it in order to make a return, which implies interest, but that's not really the point).  Freire is used as one more theorist supporting the student-centered classroom, where the focus is on student engagement and involvement and not so much what the instructor has to offer by way of information.  Now, as the student who wanted to sit at the feet of someone wise and learn the ways of the world, the model proposed by my professor in grad school was not one that I would have found appealing as an undergraduate.  As someone who lacked confidence in my own persona as a teacher, however, it had a lot of currency (haha) because it shifted the burden from me to the students--I didn't have to give them the knowledge, they had to discover the knowledge, and all I had to do was to set up the right conditions!  And that, my friends, is much easier.  Ten years later, I'm quite adapt at orchestrating and arranging; I can really impress in a job demo (when everything goes as it should) and I can pedagogy with the best of them, and though I do sometimes give a lecture, they are not my forte by any means, especially in literature courses.  Because, in part, I teach required courses--at least for now.

Herein lies the problem.  I teach required courses.  Some students enter my courses with a real need of the skills in analysis and writing that I offer.  Most if not all have not thought of literary genres or rhetorical concepts in the ways in which I present them.  All have had some experience with literature and writing--for better or worse.  Some have all of the necessary writing and analytical skills, but still seek to learn something from the required course, because they will learn from all available situations.  Some have many to most of the necessary writing and analytical skills, and are completely unable to learn from the required course which is, as far as they can see, a waste of their time.  In the current model of university education, I can not simply take these students who see my efforts as a waste of their time by the scruff of the neck and shove them down some hallway to a person who is qualified to test or interview them to give them credit for what they already know.  I can not reprogram them to think that what I say and do has value--yes, even for them.  And while I can not teach them, I at least must put up with them.  If my syllabus is designed for maximum student initiative in the creation of knowledge--if their major grades are paper and presentation grades--they may in fact not need me in order to get the grades they desire.  Drawing only loosely on half-heard course concepts, they can finesse their major grades--even with a hardass grader like me--and get a "B" pretty easily.  Will they learn anything?  No.  They will merely pair their own preexisting notions with what knowledge they already possess and complete busywork.  My course will, quite literally, have been a waste of their time.  These students do not so much need to be taught the information; they need to be taught how to learn.

Every undergraduate course must have a bit of the banking model present.  Students must have some incentive to pay attention to concepts introduced, and the instructor and student must both acknowledge that the instructor does, indeed, have something to add that is valuable, otherwise, why do requirements exist?  Why are Ph.D.s granted and those who have them employed?  And why does higher education continue to exist in the age of Wikipedia and Google?  Those may be valuable questions in themselves, but I am not the one to answer them.  The banking model does have value, though students are not empty shells for the deposit.  Perhaps we can think in terms of the building and combination of assets.  The funds should be available for withdrawal at any time, but what counts should be the interest from the instructor's--and students'--investment of time, effort, and attention.

Why I'm Not Giving Up Dr. Pepper for Lent

I’m stealing a few minutes in the parking garage to write.  I has occurred to me lately that I am focusing quite a bit on others’ writing—college student writing and the writing of students that I tutor through an online homeschooling service—to the exclusion of my own.  But today I want to write a little something for Lent.

I find myself rather excited today—on Ash Wednesday--and it’s because of what I have decided to “give up”--to put aside. . .  I wrote a message to a friend this morning that ended with my asserting that I would not give up Dr. Pepper this year, because it would simply make me think about Dr. Pepper—all the time.  I felt a bit shallow for this; Dr. Pepper is something that I really love, and why wouldn’t I give it up for God?  But then I wondered why I should give it up for God.  Not whether or not God deserved a sacrifice from me, but what sacrifice would it be, really?  Not having something I want.  So that every time I wanted a Dr. Pepper I could think that I was doing it for God.  Uh huh.  Really.

This, I think, is why the Church has shifted emphasis from “sacrifice”—decontextualized, “I’m doing it for God because it’s Lent” kind of sacrifice—or “I’m doing it to lose weight and Lent is an excuse” sacrifice—to conversion, re-orienting one’s self toward God and away from those things that distract us from God.  Dr. Pepper has never come between me and God.  Not ever.  So—I’m keeping it.

I have decided, instead, to “give up” two things for Lent:  Worry, and about 4 hours of computer and internet time a night, from 4-8 P.M. or 5-9 P.M.  The second is easier to explain.  These are key family hours, and I spend them glued to the computer for one reason or another (ostensibly, for work) most of the time.  If I remove this distraction, I will do all of the things that I need to do to make the household run more efficiently between school/work time and bed time, which will be serving my family in the way that I should, and seeing God present in our time together.  Theoretically.  It could work!

The more radical of the two “sacrifices” is worry.  If you have read this blog in the past, you will know that worry was my primary source of creativity—or my primary use for my creative energy, depending on your perspective.  Worry is, on the one hand, a response to practical concerns.  On the other hand, it is a turning away from God that I have struggled with—a refusal to trust and let go of myself in moments of stress and frustration.  And I do have some cause for worry right now—about jobs. There are some possibilities for my future that were not there previously.  The very presence of these possibilities makes me think that, you know, maybe God is looking out for me after all--that maybe He knows how low I was feeling and that some part of me—something that He created that makes me distinctly me—was in danger of dying.  And so an opportunity that I thought I lost came back.  Maybe. I admit that seeing God in all of the events in my life as they are happening is very alien to me.  I am not one to think that God found that job or apartment for me, or helped me get that loan.  But something is telling me that I should give up worry for Lent, and not indulge in that particular bit of narcissism.  And you know what?  I have noticed what a phenomenally beautiful day it is today, on this lovely Ash Wednesday.

Have a Blessed Lenten Season!

Literacy-Chic is Incapable of Keeping Her Mouth Shut About NFP *sigh*

And not always to defend.  So in response to this post by the recognized authority on the subject, Janet Smith:

I abandoned hormonal contraceptives long before converting to Catholicism because it just didn't feel right to be doing such unnatural things to my body.  There are several points here that should be addressed, because while I agree with most of the points made about the pill, there *are* hormonal contraceptives (depo-provera) that can increase sex drive, though that one has several unpleasant possible side effects in addition to making your uterus "like a desert," as my OB said.  Also, while some pregnant women certainly experience decreased libido, I believe there are almost as many who experience a heightened desire--not for any evolutionary purpose, but certainly for bonding with the father of their child(ren), a closeness that prepares for birth. 

I do agree that there are many career decisions that interfere with couple intimacy, but to set up the dichotomy of career woman and earthy, holy, domestic mother-type is to commit an error that is perpetuated in a lot of the literature geared toward Catholic women, and to potentially alienate those of us who are doing our best to fulfill our vocation as mothers and wives while using the other talents God has given us to pursue careers--sometimes careers we chose before conversion.  There doesn't have to be a contradiction, though of course our dignity as women does not depend on work, and there may be some confusion about that on an unconscious level because of the messages that society sends to women.  I take comfort in something that was told to me in RCIA and echoes other things I've read:  That God only wants us to be, to the fully extent possible, the people that we are meant to be.  And for some, our trials might involve navigating multiple difficult pursuits simultaneously.

I resemble the "fifth couple" of Smith's anecdote in my marriage, except for only having 3 children, but I disagree that the reproductive capability that we share is a source of joy for my husband and I, who are navigating a difficult sibling dynamic with very strong personalities in our current parenting.  I *have* felt that thrill in being a parent with my husband, but usually when I was newly pregnant, when the awe of it all was fresh.  I take issue with the "baby-making power of the sexual act" as energizing, etc.  When one is already a parent, x1, x2, x3, etc., there are times when the sexual act is a refuge for the parents--an affirmation that, for the moment, does not include children, which is why humans, unlike other animals, do engage in intercourse when they are not fertile, or when the woman has already conceived.  Theology of the Body allows that sexual act, performed during infertile periods, does not necessarily mark an exclusion of God from the relationship.

This statement in Smith's article is also deeply flawed in how it is articulated, though it may be theologically sound on some levels:  "While couples who use contraception may in fact love one another deeply, contracepted sex expresses a willingness only to engage in a momentary physical pleasure and thus expresses neither love nor commitment."  And yet, this is a given, an important element of persuasion, a rallying cry, in most discussions of NFP.  However that may be, the argument denies the potential of humans to cultivate an emotional bond in spite of physiology.  By the same rationale that informs this statement, barren couples should not be able to affirm commitment to one another in the sexual act because their bodies are not joined in a potentially fruitful act during intercourse.  While it is true that the psychology and physiology of contracepted sex is different, it is possible to overstate this in a way that diminishes the dignity of the individuals involved.

I still struggle with NFP--failing more often than not to be faithful to the spirit of Church teaching--and I think I always will.  Discourses on NFP do not satisfy, because however sophisticated my understanding of theology, there are elements that seem to me to be expressed without understanding, and that certainly do not fit with my experience.  I will never return to artificial contraception, and I think that the culture of contraception is a dangerous thing, but I think generalizing about couples who contracept is ungenerous.  And sometimes, restating how the couple that is willing to conceive is superior in their lovemaking because it is so much more meaningful is off-putting.

Book Review Link

Read my review of Regina Dolman's The Shadow of the Bear, here.

Marriage and Knowing God

My semi-anonymity shattered, I nevertheless have no other suitable venue for the idea that has popped into my head.  So if you are inclined to think that ruminations about the nature of our relationship with God are corny, I invite you to read on anyway, or you may choose click the "back" button.  If you know me in "real life" your opinion of me may be altered--or not!

Last week, my husband was on a business trip in Mexico.  He left on Sunday in the early afternoon, and returned on Friday--again, in the early afternoon.  This is the longest we have been apart in our near-thirteen years of marriage.  For my part, I think I handled it well.  There were times during the week when I thought about emailing him at work about some casual event or thought and receiving a quick response, only to realize with a sinking feeling that that would not happen.  I had to be much more proactive with daily household matters, since there was only one of me, and I depend on my husband greatly when he is home.  I had to be the last person awake at night, and to turn out the lights, leaving empty rooms behind me as I made my way to the bedroom that he & I share with our two girls (yes, you read that right!), but the girls made sure that I never suffered from too much extra space in bed!

On Friday, I was the only person who was there to meet him at the airport--a rare treat to have two hours alone with my husband.  Just like when he Skyped with me from abroad, I was unable to suppress a smile of almost giddy happiness on the way to the airport, and the reunion--just seeing him again--was euphoric.  The waitress at Red Lobster must have thought we were newlyweds from the look on my face.  As I told my husband tonight, I wasn't crazy about the travel, but to be able to have that euphoric reunion was amazing, and I would welcome the opportunity to experience that feeling--a feeling that lasted for several hours at least--again.

I confessed this emotion--the eagerness for joy after separation--to my husband tonight, and in doing so, stumbled upon the word "euphoria."  I speculated that there is likely a chemical component to such a feeling, since it is a very physical kind of joy.  But the biological does not subtract from the spiritual nature of the (re)union, and I was reminded of the nature of marriage as a Sacrament, the purpose of which is to teach us truths about God.

Thinking about the chemistry of long-term marriage reminded me, after the connection with my own experience, of my grandmother, who seemed to lose a spark after my grandfather died.  I thought of how it would be for her if loved ones are reunited in heaven.  But then I considered--isn't the Christian notion of heaven poised to be the greatest possible reunion of love?  And the euphoria of reunion of spouses only a shadow of what we must feel when united with God?

There are things that I believe that I do not fully grasp--such is the nature of belief:  to accept and strive to understand in a limited way without always feeling the reality of the tenet.  But we want that fuller knowledge.  I pray, "Thy Kingdom Come," and "wait in joyful hope for the coming of Your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ," but it is something I have struggled with--to what extent do I really mean this?  I fear death.  On the ladder of faith, I am not at a high enough rung to embrace the idea of departing this life to meet God.  And C. S. Lewis's portrayal of heaven in The Last Battle warms my earthly, materialistic heart because it contains what is good in both Narnia and England--in very physical form.  Dante's luminous spheres don't move me so much.

So in the memory of the unrestrained joy, the giddy happiness with which I greeted my husband on Friday, enjoying every moment because I was once again in his company, I received this grace:  a shadow of an understanding--a feeling! a knowing!--of what it must mean to (re)unite ourselves with God--and that is not a finite joy.

Retired--and a new Blog

I am retiring this blog for a while, which anyone who would be interested has probably noticed. I'm sorry for not giving any notice. Like the One Ring, it was growing on my mind, and developing a controlling force of its own, so while I had the strength, I decided to let it go. Although I do not anticipate frequent blogging, you will be most likely to see me on one of my two other public blogs: my Booknotes blog, or my new one, Sewing PhD. :) I do hope to resume posting to my family blog someday, too, though uploading photos was weighing me down.

So maybe we'll meet again soon.

~Literacy-chic

Electronic Media & Me

Lately, I've been feeling like a defensive, embittered, insecure kind of person. I know that all you have to do is look through the archives of this blog to see the evidence of this, so why is it bothering me now, you ask? Frankly, because I don't like it. And I've been trying to get away from it. I stepped away from the blogosphere largely because I found myself embroiled in debates on web sites with unknown people who were bringing who knows what baggage from their own lives to bear on whatever issue was at hand. It was not contributing to my understanding of the issue or how other people think--which is primarily what I think I try to do when approaching these debates--and I was not contributing anything beyond fruitlessly defending my own perspective, since it was often painfully clear that I was not contributing to others' understanding of the issue or how other people think. After too many days of checking back again and again to see if anyone responded, I stepped away, and it was good. And I found Facebook, and it was a new kind of interaction, and allowed me to connect with people with whom I had lost touch for years or with family whom I never see, and it even allowed me (like the blog) to meet people whom I would not otherwise have met--all very good. It was and is still a significant time sink, but I put it down to "recreation" and "maintaining sanity" and let it go. But the nature of Facebook is that it allows you to record and publish a passing, sometimes half-formed thought. This is appealing because of my tendency to go on at length about things that I want to say, taking an hour or more and closing off discussion more often than not, whether because of my thoroughness or tediousness or whatever. But it also allows a kind of intellectual irresponsibility--the bumper sticker approach to the world of ideas. So I find myself hopping on the same kinds of debatable threads, trying to explain myself to those who disagree and often becoming frustrated by the feeling that I am being grossly misunderstood. And I wonder why--why I am being misunderstood, but more importantly, why it matters, and why, if it matters, and if I fear being misunderstood, I can't just step away. It makes it worse in a way that Facebook is not anonymous. So while on the blog, being misunderstood by someone who was writing under an assumed name and assuming a persona could be easily dismissed, the public, non-anonymous arguing on Facebook leaves me feeling a little empty and insecure. The electronic medium makes me feel comfortable enough to make observations (often with some attempt at witticism) that I would not make directly in person, but the fear of being misunderstood, ostracized because of viewpoints, or at least regarded as an oddity for thinking the way I do persists, accompanied by questions about the people who are debating me: Are they "friends"? If we disagree so strongly, why are they interested in what I have to say? What are they saying about my opinions on their end? Do I look like a freak for deviating from my intellectual coterie? How do personal opinions expressed behind the cover of keyboards and monitors affect professional relationships? Part of me wants badly not to care, and wonders what happened to the hard shell I used to possess, but part of me keeps wanting to press things--at least periodically--why? Perhaps in the hopes of being understood. I think we all need some validation from those around us--the more the merrier. And maybe I'm not looking for agreement so much as an acknowledgment that my way of thinking about things is a smart way of thinking about them after all. By voicing the opinions I do, I try to remove some of the stigma from those opinions--articulating why others who may be less well-educated might feel the way they do. Giving a stereotypical point of view a human face. However, I fear that what really happens is that the stigma is transferred to me, and I myself become subject to the stereotype. Some would say that I'm asking for it. Maybe I am. But what, then, is the alternative? To stay silent? Not to try to validate like-minded others and raise my opinions to intellectual status? That is what I did in the years before the blog and Facebook, and I may have been happier. It allowed me to find work-arounds that permitted me to write intellectually about things that *I* cared about, and so the "clamming up in public" may have been more productive. And perhaps the "intellectual work-around" is what I'm seeking in composition--the let's not talk in public about the specific things about which we vehemently disagree. Instead, let's hone our skills on more general, abstract ideas and leave politics to the dinner table. Let's talk about art & immortality instead, shall we?

Is Composition Student-Centered?

When I started college, there were a number of things I would have liked to write about--literature, history, language, culture--specific literature, languages, cultures. . . As it turns out, the university I attended had a few Great-Books-y dinosaurs on the faculty, and the Honors program coupled a course on the Literature and Thought of Ancient Greece (team taught by rotating faculty members) with writing courses appropriate to the level of the incoming students. Had you asked me to list all possible writing topics, this would have been close to the top. Though I debated in high school, raw politics (not political ideas, mind you, but "issues" and actual things people voted on) would be somewhere near the bottom, below bacteriology somewhere. In fact, I was that mixture of idealism and cynicism who didn't want her literature "polluted" by politics, in part because I had not been introduced to the idea that literary works may be considered as responses to the social and political contexts, as well as the intellectual currents, of the time period in which they were produced. (I was all over intellectual currents--which weren't the same as politics, mind you!)

So I wonder. . . If we asked the incoming Freshmen at a given college or university what topics they would prefer to write about, what answers do you think we would get? If we asked them what topics they expected to write about in first-year composition, do you think the answers would be different? And what if we said, "According to your goals for your education, what topics do you think you would like to write about in first-year composition?" What then? I suspect that some students in the first batch might answer politics--mostly those who already had some kind of cause to fight for. The problem, then, becomes that these students already have a set agenda, and they would not be writing to learn. They would be learning to write, however, which is presumably the goal of first-year composition. I'm not sure what the expectation of students entering first-year composition would be. Maybe I'll survey my own students this semester and see. If they have purchased the text, that will define their answers, surely. But if we asked the third question, the answers would not only be more varied, they would have more depth and be the product of real thought and consideration--that is, if taken seriously. And serious answers to this serious question would be more valuable to the student and to the instructor or those who designed the curriculum.

The question of "what students want" in a writing course is as difficult to answer as "what children want" from children's literature. They want to learn to write--we hope. They don't want to be bored. Not only will the answer vary from student to student, the answer, if proposed by a professor of English, is based on a generalization of students--we define what "the student" is, then we attempt to fulfill the needs of that theoretical student. Or, we start from what "the student" should be, then we design our classes according to that conception of the potential student. We generalize from what students have done in the past, and we try to shape the future students to avoid what we see as the shortcomings of those previous students. All of this is very dehumanizing. The question of "what students (or children) need" is even worse than the "want" question, since we are imposing some kind of lack, and forgetting to articulate the rest of the equation: "What do children need in order to become X" "What do students need in order to become X" and "X" remains the unknown--or the unarticulated variable.

Some colleges and universities articulate the "X." Their goal is to educate the whole student and produce well-rounded citizens. Sometimes it is even articulated further, according to the school's guiding worldview. There is still room for interpretation, but at least you can use this to guide curriculum development. The question then becomes the method by which we produce well-rounded citizens.

I have represented it in broad caricature in the past, but I think that the rationale behind the composition class "themes" that focus on political "hot button" issues is the idea that while we're teaching writing, we should be 1) keeping them from being bored by introducing controversy and 2) educating them into better/more responsible citizens by forcing them to confront votable issues. #2 is particularly relevant to college students, who will be voting for the first time. (As an aside, I was not voting age until 6 semesters into my college career, including summers--so there's that. . .) So the answer to "what they need" is "engagement with current controversies" and the answer to "what develops students into better citizens" is "ability to vote responsibly." There are other possible variations on this, and other possible answers that also involve social/political issues: they need to be taught about prejudice in order to avoid it and so be better citizens or repair the wrongs done in the past, etc. These are top-down conclusions. They do not derive from the students themselves. And that is why composition courses, or courses that address X in this manner, are considered by many outside of academia, and some within, to be indoctrination, especially in the cases when "voting responsibly" is conflated with voting according to a certain worldview. It is a fundamental disagreement on the role of college coursework in the formation of the student. Whether the student is being formed into a good citizen, a good scholar, a well-rounded human being, whatever the term of choice might be, there is plenty of room for disagreement on how to get from point A to point "X."

What about students themselves? Do they come to college to be "formed into better citizens"? I doubt that many would articulate that as a goal of education. We have moved a long way in the student-centeredness of the classroom. There are few courses in college that allow for student-centeredness in subject matter, except that there can be consideration of what knowledge within the discipline will serve "the student"--generalized, stereotyped, idealized or caricatured--best. Composition does allow for student-centeredness in subject matter, as it is very difficult to write about nothing, unless you are Edward Lear, or unless "nothingess" itself is your subject, which would make you a philosopher. Given that fact, one could either tend to the less substantial, to the "entertainment value" of the subject, though that could be made substantial if the entertaining subject were made the subject of serious academic inquiry in the context of the course, or the more substantial, focusing on what education on the college level is about. I like having students reflect on education itself, actually, as it is something that is very real to them, but that's not what I mean. What are their goals? Often, to get a job--or a better job--or whatever. That's fine. But in order to do so, they have chosen to learn, and learn in a particular direction, following their interests, or their perception of what is practical, or their parents' mandates. So we should either allow them to learn in their chosen direction from the beginning, allowing them to write about the subjects they have chosen to pursue academically, or we should bring them in our direction, showing them what our discipline has to offer and teaching them to write about aspects of language and literature. Some will argue that that's what rhetoric does, and on a higher level, I would agree. But not many first-year composition papers take rhetoric as a subject, and teaching students to employ rhetoric in writing about politics? I don't see it happening in 15 weeks. Especially when the heated nature of the topic obscures the techniques being taught, and alienates the students who did not come to college to write about politics--not to mention the instructors who feel the same.

Starting Over Again. . .

One of the things that I like about teaching is the ability to create ourselves anew each semester. This does translate into more work, but it keeps me motivated--for a while at least. By midterm, I am generally ready to move along to the next thing.

This semester is a new start for a number of reasons. Being in a new space after the recent move makes everything feel a little fresher. It's a slightly smaller space, but it feels cozy. More of the space is usable, too, which is a nice thing. We have boxes everywhere that I have no interest in unpacking, but I don't feel the same sense of clutter here. My husband would likely disagree. We have a great washer/dryer. The old one took 8+ hours to dry a batch of clothes. Seriously. In spite of having maintenance look at it every 6 months or so. Needless to say, laundry is much more pleasant. Cooking is nicer, too. It has its problems, but for now, the good things are outweighing the bad.

The girls have been watching a lot of Veggie tales lately--they call it "Pickle and Tomato," or, as Doodle would say, "Tickle and Homato." I find myself randomly singing Veggie Tales songs like the "Happy Heart" song from "Madame Blueberry" throughout the day. With that one in particular, I usually find myself singing it at the oddest moments, which makes me stop & think
and acknowledge the truth in the sentiment. Not a bad thing at all.

I set up my sewing machine much earlier than I really should have, thinking responsibly. I was sewing in the midst of the boxes & clutter, but I'm using up some of my older fabric and trying to make things for the girls for the cooler weather and for myself for the start of school. I have finally reached a level of proficiency with sewing that makes me feel comfortable wearing things that I have made. There's a lot of satisfaction there. Plus, I'm too broke right now to buy clothes to start the semester, so being able to make myself a few things is great! Admittedly, I have bought a few new pieces of fabric. And an Ottobre or two. . .

I am not really ready for the semester to start, but I will be--by Monday night! I have been working on my syllabi for weeks, but nothing ever quite gets finished. I have my first day handouts finished for my classes--two composition and one British Lit. The Brit Lit Survey (second half) gave me some anxiety, but I think I resolved it. We're doing a lot of poetry and some philosophical and political writings to give intellectual contexts. I hope the class responds well. I am rearranging comp some, too, to include more of the philosophical essay readings and less of the newspaper editorial readings. We'll see! My classes start Tuesday of next week--kind of late.

The kids are already back to school. My son is in 7th grade (wow) and I think he will be challenged this year. He already has homework, which has been in short supply the past 7 years! He is in advanced Math and English, and has some challenging pieces in orchestra. I am hopeful! Doodle started last (yesterday), which vexed her greatly. She wanted to start Monday!! She is trying to write. She discovered a week or two ago that she could write an "H." Then, she realized that "O" was a circle. So now, papers, boxes, etc. have "HOHOHO" written all over them! :) She found an old book from my son's montessori days, Words I Use When I Write, and has fun writing in that book, which has lines to allow the student to add words that s/he frequently uses but are not included in the book. I bought her a Crayola pad with letters she can trace and practice. She's pretty much in heaven. I hope they cultivate that interest at her school!! It's montessori. They should. She's not quite 4 yet, and I'm very proud.

Chiclette started on Tuesday at our local parish Child Development Center. I was pleased both by her reaction and by the staff. Her "teacher" is very nice, very matronly, caring and responsive. I watched her carry and comfort a crying toddler the first day, and I was impressed by the genuineness of her concern for him. She is older than most of the kids (it's an 18 month class, but she misses the cut off for the 2s), but that seems O.K. I was worried about her being bullied, but that seems unlikely. She communicates well, and seems to have fun and have little anxiety. I am told that she is very independent (unusually so, I wonder?). Unfortunately, after only 2 days, she has a bad runny nose and is rubbing her ears. Off we go to the doctor's today! Chiclette is also interested in potty training--at 21 months!--which is exciting. Chiclette goes Tuesday and Thursday and Doodle goes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. My sister will be watching them on Mondays until she moves in November, which is also nice.

My husband has recently been moved around in his job, meaning that he answers to a new, male, and less micromanaging boss and has more technical job duties. These are welcome changes, and he is much happier since the switch. This changes things, because he was very ready to leave his job before--now, not so much. And anticipating the job search again, I am worried about having him leave a stable, satisfying position to go who-knows-what and look for a job, or take a job he doesn't want. I have mixed feelings about my own prospects, and I really just want to stay here. I started out 10 years ago as an outsider, but now we are part of a community--our kids go to good schools, have good doctors, and we have friends who are not transient graduate students (though we have some of that type of friend, too!). I'm not looking forward to leaving this behind. I found a job recently that seemed the answer to all of my prayers--though it was 40 hours--but it required an MLS "or equivalent," and Ph.D. in a related field didn't count as the "equivalent." Very disappointing. I just pray that when the right opportunity comes, it is apparent, and the pieces will just fall into place.

FAMILIA reconsidered

So I had resolved myself, on the excellent advice of my online friends, to give FAMILIA a try. But recently, I received an email letting us know that the cost of babysitting for the program was going to be $30, raising the total cost to $80. Now, when I signed up, we were told that babysitting would be provided--as it was for the initial meeting. There was no mention of cost for babysitting, or more of us would have thought about the times more carefully, or considered other help. I've already expressed my other hang-ups about the program. Now the cost was getting prohibitive, and I *still* didn't feel good about the year one curriculum on "authentic feminism." So I emailed the coordinator and backed out. She mentioned in an email another group that was meeting to discuss the second year curriculum, "Called to Prayer," but it was at a time that didn't work.

So she called me on Wednesday, when I was at the library trying to get some work done. I asked about a Friday class, which wouldn't be taking away from my Monday/Wednesday class prep/grading time. There are classes on Friday morning, but they are the second year curriculum. That would be okay, though, because you don't have to do the years in order. I have since been told by the friend who invited me to the informational meeting that in the first year, the participants "bond," and I might feel left out. Looking closer at "Called to Prayer," it is better than "Authentic Feminism," but still simplistic. And I don't do "bonding." The person who got me involved with this whole question is sticking with Monday mornings, as she has 3 *other* friends who are in that group. I just don't have many friends locally who are practicing Catholics, so recruiting my own support group isn't an option.

So here I am, back to square one. I feel like I could use the enrichment, and while $80 should probably seem like a small investment for my faith, I'm not sure they're offering what I need, and part of me feels like there should be programs with no cost that achieve the same goals, or goals more suited to my need. This, in part, is a symptom of my being in a RICH family parish rather than a student parish. The student parish offers many enrichment opportunities at no cost to the participants. And some of them feel like they have more substance and weight rather than being a Catholic primer for Moms. There needs to be something more than teaching adults what they missed in catechism, or validating their roles as Catholic wives/mothers and husbands/fathers. But if I don't find it here, where the Church has a real vital presence, what will I find whenever/wherever we move? One of the schools that interviewed me (by phone) is in an area that boasts "more than 200" Catholics. And I thought I was in the Bible Belt here!!

Back-to-school reflections. . .

Another summer is coming to an end. It has been a summer with a number of ups and downs, and I have found myself more than once completely overwhelmed with having the three children in the house almost 24/7. Except for the week in July when Doodle was in Vacation Bible School, that is. I got quite a bit of reading done, mostly in June, battled exhaustion from heat and occasional anemia, but found online teaching to be, in general, a break from the usual routine. Especially since the materials for the course were pretty much canned. I am looking forward to teaching in the fall--making some changes to the comp course and also teaching a new course: survey of Brit Lit, though I suddenly feel like I don't really know how to teach it. I managed to take the kids swimming many times throughout the summer, and even made it to a park once or twice--no, I'm pretty sure it was just once. It has been brutally hot, and I don't do outside well. At all. But I even managed to get something like a tan (I tan easily).

As the summer winds down, though, I want to get back into the schedule I hate. I want to feel like I'm doing something out of the house, without children, to have something approaching a routine. To be fair, I have been working on this a bit anyway, with mixed success. Both girls now take naps at the same time when I'm home (on days when my sister is watching them--Tuesday and Wednesday, things tend to get a little "off"), and take them either at 1 P.M. or 2 P.M. Bedtime is much less of a struggle overall, though the timing is never really good. But I try to have them in the bedroom brushing teeth & such by 10:30. Before nap and before bed, we read a book. They have been enjoying the My First Little House books and The Berenstein Bears and the Spooky Old Tree with a hearty helping of Seuss also. On good days, I really feel like I know and enjoy my girls. But other days, I don't know who I am or what I'm doing and why I can't enjoy the family that I love a little bit more. But then, I'm my worst critic.

The questions that haunt me as I transition from the summer, which is supposed to be the time families spend together, to the fall, which is back to business as usual, is what I ever really do that's just for my children--you know, for their enjoyment alone. And the answer is, sadly, very little. I can't motivate myself to sit outside with them, and I can't kid myself that this would be different if I had a backyard. We don't go on outings or playdates, and we have never, ever been on a vacation that was just that. We have turned travel opportunities into vacations--in the old days, but never have we set aside time and money (both of which in perpetual short supply) to just do something fun together. And that didn't seem to matter before. But now it seems a symptom of growing older, or having more children to manage, and more personalities in the house to negotiate, that we need to take time out to really appreciate each other, and especially as parents, to appreciate the children, and what it means to have them around really being themselves, without having their exploration of the world cause us any angst. Because really, that's how it ends up feeling in my world of too many people and too much stuff in too small an apartment.

The fact was really driven home when my husband put in his leave request for 5 days off--to move. Wow. Vacation time--to move. A move I don't really want to make, to an equally cramped space (we're actually losing 56 sq. ft, but who's counting?--and a bath tub), with less lighting, that nevertheless costs $200/month less than we're paying now--$300 less than what it would cost us to renew our current lease. That time off is so precious, and it is spent doing something laborious that we don't really want to be doing anyway. The girls are getting to ages where it would be possible to take them places and have them enjoy the experience. I'd really like to take them to Disney World. And my son is not quite at the age where his angst shadows everything--maybe he won't get to that stage at all. He might still enjoy that campiness. It's a pipe dream, at least until the season of interviews and campus visits is over. And that extra $200/month? Yeah, goes to mother's day out for my youngest. It seems that I have avoided it too long already, according to professional standards of productivity, and even having Doodle in school 2 half and 2 full days, and Chiclette in two full days (full day = 2:30, 3 for Doodle) will not give me the time I need to accomplish the things I need to accomplish. But it will help. And maybe I will feel more sane, and more appreciative of the children. Or I might feel more stressed and take it out on the family all the more. Who can say? But maybe I can revisit this post and strive for the former.

'Cause I've got to say--my babies are wonderful, and brilliant, and amazing. And I've got to do something--everything, really--for them. Including getting this job. You know I wouldn't have finished the Ph.D. if I didn't think it would help me make a better life for us all, right? Truly. However unlikely that seems now.

Familia: To go, or not to go. . .

I've tentatively signed up for Familia in the fall. For those not familiar with it, Familia is a Catholic lay apostolate focused on the family. That doesn't help? No, I didn't think so. It's a program that invites women and men to get together in groups by gender and discuss topics based in encyclicals that relate specifically to the family. Given that the groups are gender-based, you might assume that the topics are predetermined based on gender. You would be right. And therein lies much of my hesitation. Part of the description from the Familia web site reads, "The unique and complementary roles of a husband and wife can be the source of joy or confusion as the two individuals work together to become one." What worries me about this is that "the unique and complementary roles of a husband and wife" could be read either broadly or narrowly, and I fear a narrow interpretation. Though they claim to want to "support every aspect of each person's vocation," I fear that what "every aspect of each person's vocation" entails will be narrowly defined. Case in point: when I looked at the materials on the web site, the men's program begins with a discussion of the dignity of work. The women's program is about femininity--and they use the rather reprehensible term, "authentic feminism." I object to the term for several reasons, but let's just start by saying that this is a rhetorical move that is designed to contradict feminism by re-appropriating the use of the term and turning it to Catholic-based purposes. So really, it muddles things by suggesting that the two things--feminism and Catholic conceptions of femininity--are equivalent, or at least complimentary, which they aren't. And it is intended to appeal to women who wish to see themselves as feminist, as a kind of "lure" into the Catholic conception of femininity. I should say "a" Catholic conception of femininity, because there is not a unified Catholic conception of femininity--there is no "official" description of Catholic gender, even within marriage. Equally disturbing to me is this: the men's program talks about what men do; the women's program talks about what women are.

I fear that this program, if not specifically designed for women who do not work, is at least designed for women whose jobs are secondary--to family life, or more specifically, to their husbands' jobs. I think of it in terms of primary and secondary careers. While a couple of the women at the informational meeting who had been participating in Familia for a while had jobs, the implication was that the balance between work and home had needed adjustment, and this program pointed that out. My family is of the utmost importance to me, but I also have, for better or worse, whether I like it or not (and depending on my mood it can go either way), the primary career right now. Or I will when I get a permanent position, so right now I have the task of diligently preparing to have the primary career. This is not to say that I devalue my husband's work, but right now, his position--while enjoyable to him at times, on a level--is not what he wants to be doing long-term. I hope that when I do find a position, he finds a position that is equally agreeable to him. That is the ideal goal. So I seek a balance, and I do not particularly want to be sent messages through the materials and discussions that suggest that I am not doing right by my family by devoting effort to work. It is a delicate balance, and I don't always manage it well, but will hearing about the "true nature" of woman help? Not sure. And it the program frustrates me so that I am thinking and pondering and arguing about it for hours afterward, that surely won't lend itself to professional productivity or domestic tranquility.

Clarification: I've been thinking about the terms "primary" and "secondary" career, and they don't set well with me. I might prefer the term"supporting career" to denote the career that might--if necessary--be abandoned or changed for one reason or another, or by choice of the person who holds that particular job. Right now, as I indicated (but not strongly enough) I don't have a career, I have a potential career. My husband's current career path, which it might be if he wanted to stay in this position or if we weren't planning to move on from here, is "supporting" only in the sense that it allows my potential career path to exist. It has facilitated the completion of my degree and is the steadier of our two sources of income--a real, full-time job, not dependent on the budget cycle or departmental funding from one academic year to the next. But it is also not the career goal we have both been working toward--the one that will carry us into a (hopefully) more permanent location, with greater earning power for the two of us combined and the family overall. Come to think of it, I'm not crazy about the term "career," as it implies living to work rather than working to live, but that's a different topic. . .

Summer Reading

I suppose I should post this to my "Booknotes" blog,* but I wanted to post it here to give a bit of an update on what I have been thinking about lately. I have actually been motivated to read more in the past few weeks/months, which has its good points and bad--good, because I have been feeling that I should read more (or at all), bad because when I read, other things are pushed aside. It started with the campus visit. On the trip, I brought as reading material the student essays and creative writing that the school had provided for me, and also Bernard Schlink's The Reader. The appeal should be obvious: as I tell my students (sometimes, when I feel like mentioning my scholarly interests will help the rapport), when a novel portrays someone reading or writing, that's when I become interested. And there were so many other interesting things going on. I became interested in the book when I saw a commercial on TV for the film--which I saw afterwards (watched it on DVD with my mom), and was vastly disappointed. The book, however, is brilliantly complex and suggests some interesting ideas about literacy that I plan to form into a new chapter of my (conceptually) evolving (finished) dissertation. I have yet to read the other contemporary work that I plan to pair it with but Oprah would be proud (unfortunately, I think both books are Oprah Book Club selections, though for the life of me, I can't understand why she liked The Reader, unless she misread it or someone else selected it).

After that, my reading didn't pick up the way I wanted it to for one reason or another. I think the primary reason may have been a lack of direction--I have been feeling it for a while. So much is out there that I'm just not sure where to turn next. One writer in particular has kept creeping into my peripheral vision, however. Many of you have read him, I'm sure--Graham Greene, England's premier twentieth century Catholic novelist (well, I guess G. K. Chesterton could contend for that position from the opposite end of the political spectrum!). I didn't quite know what to read by him, and had no particular motivation to seek him out, except that the position I desperately wanted (yes, there was ONE that I knew I wanted) that was cancelled (hopefully to be reopened) was a position to teach 20th Century Catholic writers, and Greene was one specifically named. But he kept coming up. So when I accidently found myself reading an article about his file with the Vatican, I made up my mind to read The Power and the Glory, and did so during a recent drive to New Orleans (we were there 2 nights and a day). It is nothing short of brilliant. It captures with poignancy the struggle of the believer who recognizes his/her sinfulness, but even more than that, it captures the coexistence of hope and despair, and the contrast between the office of the priesthood and the fallible humans who are ordained to that office. I find it hard to consider it a work of British literature, since it is set in Mexico and focuses on Mexicans rather than the foreigners who live there, but even in that there is a curious Englishness, and I may be inclined to investigate in the future the strange draw that English writers have to Mexico, or more interestingly (to me), to Catholic culture(s). I am eager to read more of Greene, but I do not find that any of his novels sound as compelling as The Power and the Glory. I checked out a couple, though--Monsignor Quixote and The Heart of the Matter--so they're on the "to read" list.

A few days ago, I was in a local book/media store looking for more Graham Greene, and in the classics section I stumbled across a work by W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil. The summary sounded intriguing, and it occurred to me that Maugham is in my time period, but another whose works I had never read. So when I went to the library to get the aforementioned Greene, I also grabbed The Painted Veil and another by Maugham, The Magician. On the way out, as I was thinking that I should look up some Walker Percy (another name on the list of Catholic authors desired by that coveted Assistant Professor position), I glanced to the side and found--the Walker Percy shelves! It was uncanny. So I have The Thanatos Syndrome and Love in the Ruins to read also.

I am currently reading The Magician by Maugham, and it is turning out to be your basic fin de siècle novel, and would pair nicely with The Picture of Dorian Grey, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Walter Pater and Baudelaire. I have yet to see that it does anything incredibly interesting, and some of its invocation of the occult is disturbing. There is a passage that evokes artworks and artists with which (and whom) I was previously unacquainted: this one by Juan Valdés de Leal, who seems rather generally extraordinary, Jusepe (or José) de Ribera, whose "dwarfs" don't seem to be well represented online (I only found this one), and a Pygmalion by Bronzino, which is the only one that seems to fit Maugham's description. Maugham's works and Greene's seem to suffer from a lack of footnotes that I attribute to a more general lack of critical attention--and yet, both names are well-known.

The Painted Veil is intriguing, and I may require it in the course I am teaching in the fall. It raises some interesting questions about depictions of women, includes some elements of the society novel that would not be out of place in Henry James or Edith Wharton, depicts the sexual act in a way that that would have seemed bold for Lawrence (who was generally more subtle), and contains lots & lots of colonialism. Of particular interest to me is Maugham's depiction of a convent of French missionary nuns in China, situated literally in the middle of a cholera epidemic. The nuns are easily the most noble characters in the novel, both in terms of bloodline and lineage (the Mother Superior is descended from nobility) and in terms of their bearing, serenity, closeness to the divine (though this is not quite how the characters in the novel or the narrator articulate it). It is interesting here to see the contrast between how the English speak of clergy of the Church of England, or how dismissive the characters are of the Anglican Church, and how the French nuns are portrayed. I'm not sure I have much to say about it beyond that, but I'm collecting data! ;)

So I am engaged in filling in a few less-than-apparent gaps in my reading of early- to mid-20th-century British fiction, asking along the way why I have not encountered these authors before, and whether it will matter at all, after I have read them, that I have read them--matter professionally, that is. I am already glad that I am reading them, and still believe in the inherent value of the act of reading--yes, I really do.

*Okay, I cross-posted it because my Booknotes blog is so very sad and neglected!

Here Comes Summer!

So here we are at the last week of school for my older two. My son is wrapping up 6th grade with a picnic tomorrow and a pool party field trip on Friday. Recent highlights have included an orchestra concert for the parents (pictures to be posted soon on the family blog) and a competition at the Pride of Texas Festival in Austin, where his school's orchestra received the highest scores possible. The students were also able to play games at the festival for only the cost of the field trip, part of which was offset by the candle fundraiser earlier in the year. He tried out today for the Varsity orchestra at the Middle School, which would mean that he was in 8th grade orchestra as a 7th grader. We have hopes for next year that perhaps the Middle School curriculum will be a bit more challenging. I remain disappointed by how little writing they do. By 4th grade, I was writing book reports. In 6th grade, he has only had the most basic writing assignments, usually composed of answers to specific questions. His final book project was a powerpoint (UGH), and this was ADVANCED English. I understand why the college students' writing skills are so poor, as this is a very good school district by all accounts. He scored well on the benchmark standardized tests (UGH UGH UGH), receiving commended in Language Arts and Math, and scoring 100% correct on the reading section. This reminds me of all of the papers my honors students wrote in the fall condemning standardized tests. Moving on now. . .

Doodle had her last day of montessori preschool today. It was water day and a half day. Unfortunately, she was not in top form. She had a slight fever later in the day that I did not realize earlier. But she still seems to have had fun. The year was good for her, though punctuated by frequent illness from November through March. April was her first full month at school without missing multiple days since the fall. When she finally was able to return to school, she had many mornings when she did not want to leave me and there were tears. While I hated to see her upset, I knew that she would have a good day, and that the staff were caring and competent. It is wonderful to have her somewhere where I can trust the staff implicitly. Of course, Phelan spent 5 years there, from 4yo to 3rd grade, so I know the owner of the school and many of the teachers. I finally figured out that giving her allergy medicine at night allowed her to sleep and she was happy in the morning--no more tears. She had her end-of-the year program on Monday night, which was a treat, and the Mother's Day tea a few weeks ago, which is the nicest event of the year. Doodle will be attending the same school in the fall, even though the tuition has gone up by $100 and it is considerably more expensive than our parish child development center. Unfortunately, I am not as comfortable with the curriculum, methods, or director of the parish child development center, which is where Chiclette will be in the fall.

While Doodle attends 2 full days and 2 half days in the fall, Chiclette will be in mother's day out in our parish 2 days, from 9-2:30. I am not crazy about the idea, since I think closer to 3 years is ideal for beginning any kind of "school"/daycare situation, but it will be necessary. She will be turning 2 years in the fall, and will be in the toddler class (18-24 months), which is one of the issues I have with the parish child care center. They measure every child, from 6 weeks to Pre-K, by the ages they will be according to the public school cut off date. So Doodle would have been in the 2 year class with children a full year and more younger than her, most of whom would have been in diapers. She needed to move on, and it was an excellent decision for us (though hard in the making, as the potty training was stressful!). At Chiclette's age, I do not think it will be as crucial. And since she is over a month past the "cut off" for birthdays, the case is harder to make than with Doodle's 4 days. I do think we will end up having issues with Chiclette's birthday holding her back in school, though. . . She is able to comprehend most of what is said to her, and communicate her response in a way that can be understood, and she is only 18 months.

Next semester, I will be teaching 3 classes for the first time, so child care is a necessity for me at last. It probably would have made my life easier this semester, but I wanted to delay having her in the care of strangers and exposed to more illnesses than she was exposed to already through her sister and brother. Not to mention the behaviors of other children. I simply can not believe that unrelated children under a certain age--and that age is variable and may well be over 4--benefit from each others' company for hours on end and on consecutive days. At the very least, you might convince me that it does no harm. But I don't want to belabor the point. This semester, my sister watched both girls while I taught, but I was always conscious that she didn't want to stay much past my class, which meant that I was away from home only 3 hours at a time, twice a week. All of my work still had to be accomplished at home, which was not always ideal. At any rate, there was a lot of balancing. There will still be a lot of balancing, but perhaps a few things might make it easier. . .

We will be moving in August to a slightly smaller, considerably cheaper place. The idea was either to gain space or money in our overall budget. We will accomplish neither. What we will accomplish is having our overall budget *only* increase by $95/month, though I have added an additional child care cost and the existing tuition has increased by $100. That's pretty good, considering! The place we're moving to is closer to campus, but further away from the girls' preschools. My son will be taking the bus, which will mean one less person who needs to be dropped off & picked up. My husband may take a bus home also, as biking might not be plausible. That's still up for negotiation! My schedule does allow me to have some time during the day on my teaching days for prep & grading. I hope it works out that way. I will be stopping in the middle of the day to pick up the girls, and then resuming my teaching after my husband gets off of work, which may prove to be a challenge. Or it might keep me busy. Who knows? I'm starting to feel like I need to keep busy in order to avoid succumbing to moodiness. Not that I'm not busy now, but it's, well, different. I have too much time to brood--philosophize--whatever.

This may well be a problem this summer. Because I have distance/online classes, and only half of my accustomed salary of the past 9 months, I will not be putting the kids in any summer activities. I was lamenting earlier that today was my last half day of Chiclette-Momma only time for a while. Doodle will be in Vacation Bible School for one week, but that's the extent of our summer activity planning. I don't like outdoor summer heat (confidentially, I don't like outside--never have), but the apartment complex has a pool (which I will miss next summer), and I might be convinced to go to a park in the early-ish morning. I called a friend whom I was going to meet late in the morning at 9:30 last week, and when she remarked that it was early for me, I informed her that that hasn't been the case for 4 years now. Truly, I am not a morning person, but necessity and obscene amounts of Mystic Monk coffee are helping. I will try not to let a relaxed summer be a brooding, morose summer. My sister will be babysitting twice a week so I can get some work done, and with the flexibility of the online class, I should be able to sew and enjoy a bit of free time. I do need to try to write a bit, which always feels like somewhat of a chore. I had some ideas after the campus visit, but they were drowned out in the noise of daily/weekly/end-of-semester concerns.

I am planning a trip to New Orleans at some point, but that's as far as the planning has gotten. I will sew. I should write. I should prepare syllabi (including one for the second survey of British Lit!). First, I should order my textbooks for the fall. . . I will grade, though I'm not sure how much conventional teaching I will be doing. I hope not to think about the job market, though I may be applying for another job or two in the next week or two, as a few have appeared. And finally, we will pack.

I will be updating my family blog more often, for those interested. I have discovered a feature that allows me to email posts to my blog, which allows for a much easier upload of image files. That was the obstacle that was most formidable to my keeping that blog up to date. I can't email images and words, or the images to not show up, so I email the pics and add the narration after. That makes for shorter narration, but again, that might be a good thing.

I know that my writing on this blog is not what it once was. I may still have the occasional weighty post--especially with the email feature enabled. But I have moved a bit away from the semi-essay format, at least for now. But it's comforting to know that a blog is, essentially, wherever you are at a given moment. I'm hoping that I will take an academic turn soon and bring the blog along for the ride.

After the Fallout

Things are settling down here. The semester has ended. Grades are due soon, but I only have final papers to evaluate, which tends to be easier than the papers during the semester, both because the quality is often better and because I don't have to make the extensive comments that I make on earlier papers, since most of the final papers will never be seen or retrieved by students. The children's schools will be winding down also. My son is looking forward to an orchestra competition out-of-town at a festival next Monday, and has his end-of-the-year concert tonight, in which he performs the solo! He had to try out for it, so we are very proud. Doodle is also practicing for an end-of-the-year program, and we had our "Mother's Day Tea" at her school last Friday. It was so neat having her serve me tea just as my son had done for years while he was at the same school. I wish I could send all of them there, but the job search won't permit. We are still looking for housing for the fall--ideally cheaper housing than what we currently have. It's a challenge, but we have some viewings lined up for Saturday, so we'll see. . .

I am recovering from the stress of two weeks ago. I had the dreaded meeting with the advisor, but it was not so bad. Instead, what I think has happened is that he has realized that I do indeed need help with this whole process. I was told that he will work with me on the answers to some anticipated questions to help me to better survive interviews. I had started thinking of some of this anyway, but my preparation may have been off. The random nature of the interview process leaves me very insecure, and I don't take comfort from the fact that it's like this for everyone. I think of myself as someone who thinks well on her feet and can communicate effectively, but I feel like I can't be completely honest in answering or I will jeopardize my chances of getting hired. That is singularly uncomfortable for me. If I conceal my thoughts about something, I feel like I'm being hypocritical and dishonest. I probably come across as smug or judgmental, too (imagine that). Because really, I'm judging them as much as they are judging me--that's too much judging for someone like me. But maybe if I'm not in the kind of "fog" that I was in last time, I will be able to think of responses that work. *sigh*

I have come to realize the depth of my insecurity. I think it has been building during all of the years I was away from coursework. It perhaps had its seeds in coursework, as I realized how different, and in many ways, agenda-driven, most of the scholarship in my field was from what I had imagined myself doing, and tried to fit myself into it. I developed a defensiveness, realizing that I would be judged according to the fact that I was not doing what others were doing. But I have not ever seen literature as a vehicle for social change, and I did not use it to critique society or to lobby for a more enlightened existence. I wonder--had my undergraduate courses been more overwhelmingly political, would I be here now? But I had professors who were contentedly thematic or New Critical in their approaches. Or even subtly New Historicist. I can't think of any who were overtly feminist--and this includes the lesbian poet who once tried to teach me to dance in a bar in New Orleans. I realize that even those professors--one art historian comes to mind--who tried to adopt a feminist perspective failed miserably by most standards, and I was allowed to write a paper refuting the agenda of Eva Keuls' Reign of the Phallus (but not refuting its research, which I found fascinating) in my freshman honors seminar. In those days, I didn't even like literature that was overtly political--Animal Farm, for example--because that's not what I was looking for in literature. Now I adore dystopia, so that has changed drastically, but I'm all about the context of the work. Though I do admit that I see an enduring message in many of the dystopian works I teach! So I was not out of line with my undergraduate professors, who preferred to teach interpretation rather than theory, and who did not structure their courses thematically to promote certain ideologies or worldviews or whatever. Would it shock you to know that I never read "The Yellow Wallpaper" in an undergraduate course? I did read The Awakening in high school, and utterly rejected it. I believe I had to read it again in an American Lit course, but I probably did not repeat the task. And I didn't like Emily Dickenson.

In graduate school, things changed radically. The goal of papers was completely different, and left me rather befuddled as I tried to figure out what, if anything, I had that was worthy according to the different standards I was confronting. My papers were (predictably, perhaps) reactionary. I proposed "different" ways of looking at feminist issues, focused on areas that were less politically charged (to me), and rejected Marxism except in the rare cases when it seemed to fit the author's own agenda. But I became dismayed by it all. Some of the versions of Marxism I encountered in guest speakers, etc., impressed me by their absolute futility, and the selections of texts in my graduate seminars were often uninteresting to me. I have a very short list of courses that I enjoyed, and even fewer texts that inspired me. And then there was the teaching. When I taught literature, I had a considerable amount of freedom, except the limitations imposed by the Intro to Lit anthologies. (Would it surprise you to know that I have never taught "The Yellow Wallpaper"?) In an era when any designated "greatness" of literature is considered suspect, the question of how to introduce literature to non-majors becomes complicated. And as far as I can tell, it comes down to introducing ways of viewing the world, reshaping the way students view the world by introducing, celebrating, or promoting certain perspectives, or using literature to try to make sense of life experiences, which some anthologies do try to do even though this is kind of a universalizing impulse. My problem with both approaches is that presenting literature with such specific purposes imposes a way of reading on the text. This limits the potential for discovery of meaning. I do not believe that there are infinite ways to read a text, but I also do not believe that the critics always have it right. That's why my interpretations of texts in my dissertation are not linked in any way to the criticism of the authors whom I study. That's probably why one of my committee members wrote so many little X's in the margins, though he seemed to like the overall dissertation. I do believe that the greatest literature is universal in a sense, in that it taps into the things that are common to humanity. And I do not think that the idea that there are things common to humanity contradicts the singularity of individual experience. But I'm a very empathetic person, and a very empathetic reader, so perhaps this desire to get inside others' heads and understand them makes me see the question of universality a bit differently. I want to see how we as individuals connect while understanding the differences that we face as individuals or as members of different communities. If there is no universal connection, then literature is pretty much meaningless.

Which I guess brings me to another breaking point of sorts with my discipline. Because I believe in a some kind of universal human experience, albeit mediated by particular circumstances, I think that there is inherent value in reading to seek those connections, to find ourselves in others, to find others in ourselves, and by evaluating ourselves and our experiences through reading, to grow as fully realized individuals. This is very outdated. But I feel that in order to function in a community, which is where the emphasis is these days in teaching and studying literature, we have to know who we are, and that's a complex question. I can't teach this, and I don't try. But I also don't try to stress difference to the point that it annihilates the self. I don't want to change anyone's worldview, but I do want to help students to put their worldview in perspective, and I think literature has infinite potential to give individuals perspective, as long as they are open to it and recognize it for what it is, and in order to accomplish this, we need to be non-threatening, by which I don't mean subtly subverting their worldview while pretending to be sympathetic. Not at all.

So I didn't really come into this profession to introduce or promote certain ideas, though I have dabbled in and do enjoy ecocriticism and postcolonialism. I don't think that by teaching certain texts in certain ways, that I stand to improve anyone's social condition. And I'm not terribly invested in the idea that everyone needs to tolerate everyone else's beliefs and ideas to the suppression of one's own, because that doesn't lead to understanding of any kind. And frankly, there are a lot of things I'm not interested in talking about with students. And wouldn't you know? Every one of them is represented in the standard composition text. And typically, they are represented in such a way that it is clear what the authors of the book want the student to think. In teaching argument, the arguments presented make a case for a certain worldview. And the students sometimes accept it without opposition, because the claims are so persuasive. Or they get mad because their opinions differ and they don't know how to articulate them. Now, a lot depends on the student and how the materials is presented, but I'm just not interested in negotiating any of this. Perhaps the issue is that while I can find universal experience in art, I can not find any evidence of that same interconnectedness in the diatribes that litter composition texts. So there's no room for sympathy or empathy, and there's no art. Granted, there is some clever use of language, which I can appreciate, but that is not the same as art, because art has an element of beauty or at least awe. Art evokes rather than stating, which is why popular music is not art these days! So this is why teaching comp and resolving to find a job in comp represents such a defeat for me.

And really, friends, I have felt disillusioned for so long, and read so many bleak accounts of the "realities" of the academic job market, and the promotion and tenure process, that the sense of futility has been overwhelming at times. The fact that I did not quit one of the many times I considered doing so is a small miracle. So perhaps I have something to do here before it is all over? Perhaps. I don't know.

But I entered into this meditation because I have been told twice by professors recently--my advisor and then my direct supervisor in Writing Programs--that I needed to work on my self-confidence. Now, when I was in high school, people didn't think I was self-confident, because I had some self-doubt, and some social insecurity. But that didn't mean that I didn't think I was at least as good as the people around me, I just didn't think anyone else was likely to recognize it in any kind of meaningful way. I guess not much has changed. But I felt pretty confident in coursework, and I have always felt that I could at least accomplish whatever I put my mind to. I'm not so sure about that anymore, though I did write what one friend of mine calls "the big book report" (which mine was *not*). I wonder if that is because I don't have sufficient relish for the task before me? And I can't imagine what circumstances could help me regain that relish. So perhaps the problem is that I am unsure of whether I want to put my mind to the task before me. Is that the same as a lack of self confidence? I'm not so sure. But it doesn't matter if I relish the task before me or not. At this point, my options are severely limited, and feeling like I don't have a choice motivates me to inaction--a choice in itself, no?

The Past Year's Postdoc--and its aftermath

I tend to think big when I think of blog posts, which is why they're not coming as frequently as they used to. When I have something that I consider "bloggable," it ends up being not only voluminous, but also an emotional journey of sorts. Lately, rather than commit to the time it is going to take to write down the thoughts, I tend to push them aside, add a quip to Facebook, and go on. But some things can't be contained in a quip, and I'm committed in a way to working out professional issues here--insofar as I can do so. I have been thinking a lot about the past year, first because I was feeling better about my prospects and potential for really following through with getting a tenure-track position and all it entails, now because I am feeling like I'm caught in a downward spiral and wonder where it all went wrong.

For the past year, my position has been a hybrid one. I have had an administrative position of sorts, in Writing Programs, which means working with composition in various ways, and then a teaching load of 2-1. I was approached about this position last Spring by my adviser, who know that he can pretty much talk me into anything. I believe that's what he meant by "versatile" in my letters of recommendation. I may be bitter about this, but I don't want to seem like I blame him, really. He has a number of factors to consider, including the needs of the department and what he considers my best interest in terms of landing a tenure-track job. So he casts it as something that I have been specially selected for because of my ability and something that will help me out because I will not have to spend as many hours actually on campus (a real concern with a baby who was only 6 months or so at the time the assignment was awarded, and who would not yet be a year by the time the appointment began). And I fell for it. I was also coming off of what was supposed to be a similar task, revising a syllabus, or rather, making the syllabus appear to have been revised--but that's another story. So anyway, it didn't sound too bad, and since I was really burned out and just needed a job, I didn't really care.

I started to care, though, when I started thinking about the job market. After I actually had the degree in hand, things started seeming possible. Why shouldn't I get a job teaching literature, I wondered. And what have I done all of this work for if it doesn't mean that I can do something I enjoy? If I have to have a 4-4 load of composition, why didn't I stop with a Master's degree? There were other considerations. I was convinced to agree to a 2-course load in the fall, because the initial job search was easy--just write a perfect letter and a perfect teaching philosophy and send them out! In the spring is when I would have to worry about campus visits, and it is easier to get one course covered by a substitute rather than two. Hah!! Also, because I would be working with composition as "Inquiry," I would have to teach composition. With a new syllabus. To honors students, no doubt. I was originally to be given the Intro to Lit also, which made me very depressed because those were the two courses I had had over, and over, and over, and the point of a postdoc, in part, is to give the recent graduates teaching opportunities in their field. Well, the assistant department head agreed that there was no use putting me in two courses I had already had, so I was placed in Children's Lit, which I had taught with some success in the summer--big mistake, but I didn't find that out until later, and I am only now finding out how bad a mistake that was.

Meanwhile, my Intro-to-Lit-as-Inquiry project was being handed over to someone else at the "assessment" stage. With my Intro to Lit course taken away from me, I was not to be involved at all, and I would be given someone else's pet project, the composition. Working on something I didn't like that I was not really involved with revising was not my cup of tea. For me to be able to work on something, I really have to feel like I'm intellectually or otherwise invested in it in some way--a failing, perhaps, and one that does not suit me for administration! At the same time, I was realizing the dread that I had for administration, and not wanting to be pigeonholed into Writing Programs. But although I had been told that if I had any reservations, I should let my advisor (and department head) know, I wasn't quite sure I could back out at that point.

I should probably mention here that my first encounter with said advisor was one in which I was accused of "not behaving in the spirit of graduate study" because I was "unwilling to learn from any position in which I was placed." I would LOVE to have seen some of the graduate students who came AFTER me told any such thing! It wouldn't have happened. Why was I told this? Because I was assigned to grade for two of the most high-maintenance people who taught large section classes while I have been in this department--and he knew it. Also because I tried to transfer out of a "Feminism and Postmodernism" class that I registered for under "Women in Literature." So I should probably note that for the past 8 years, I felt that my job was to demonstrate that I could do what was asked of me. On a level, it broke my spirit and squelched my creativity. It was an exercise of thinking within the box, or at least, being boxed back up when I tried to think big. Especially when I agreed to stay for the Ph.D. But that's another story.

So because I wasn't comfortable backing out, I spoke to the placement coordinator, specifically about how I kind of felt trapped in this assignment, I knew I was being groomed for Writing Programs, and I didn't want to be. Her advice was that a postdoc is a "little gift from Heaven" (I have the uncomfortable gift of a memory for exact phrasing) and that I should essentially be thankful and take it.

It's hard to describe the implications of the decision to take that advice. But let me say that when I teach, I am aware of what needs to be accomplished when, and I don't really answer to anyone else for my pacing, etc.--except the students. Not so in administration, besides that there is no concrete reason why this or that thing should be accomplished before the other thing over there. So I constantly felt like I couldn't prioritize because everything was pretty much stupid and pointless, except the things I needed to do for my classes, which had to come first. Oh, and the job search, because that had deadlines. It is a terrible feeling to know that there are things that people expect you to be doing, that you have tasks waiting to be completed regardless of what urgently needs to be done now. I always felt like I shoudl be doing something other than what I was doing, which made me miserable. Since most of this was accomplished at home, I felt like work overshadowed all of my interactions with my family. And then, I was probably very anemic, which accounts for the periods when all I could do was sit in front of my computer and click...click...click.... And then there were the grad students in the office, who I'm sure resented me for not having to track hours, for seeming to get little accomplished, and whose work was always infinitely better than mine. Then there was the small matter I raised of whether it was appropriate for us to use abortion as an example on department sanctioned materials, especially when the material in question assumed the enlightened nature of the pro-choice position over pro-life.

Anyway, I was never "in the loop," always feeling lost, always feeling like I was shirking some important duty, and when I had something to say, no one wanted to hear. I had things piled on that I didn't feel qualified to do or able to handle with the constraints I had, though luckily the grad students were willing to take on some things that I didn't feel able to do. Then there were those classes. The honors students got along fine, but my children's lit education majors HATED me--and said so, apparently. I was too demoralized after the semester was over to look at course evaluations. But I must say--for the most part, the feeling was mutual. One student emailed me after the semester was over (yes, after grades were posted) to express her enjoyment of the class, and tell me how much she had learned and how what I taught was relevant to literary study (as opposed to whatever education classes do). She wanted me to end the class on a positive note, since the other students were so uninvolved & hostile. She was one of the few English majors I have EVER taught in my 8 or so years of teaching. So when the search committees ask me how I would teach this or that to English majors, my mental response is, "How the hell would I know?"

So here we come to the end of the term of the postdoc. My students this semester do not hate me, but I have been obliged, because of illness and travel, to miss more than I would have liked. I set up appointments with them at the end, as I think I mentioned, to try to make some fast progress--and I think it worked. Now I just need to grade the papers. The ones who showed me drafts after our meetings looked like they had improved greatly. Last week I had that assessment project for comp to analyze, a report to write, and a presentation to make. All done. We have accomplished very little in terms of making the course "Inquiry," which to me is not a surprise because what we were doing was whitewashing the course rather than working from the inside out. We pile more "stuff" on--more than anyone can accomplish--change the wording and call it done--ummmmm. . . no. Well, I still haven't received anything from the person I worked for to say it was well done. Luckily, I did receive some indication that I had done a good job from a higher up--or I would feel REALLY dejected. I agonized over the project and had no real guidance, but I worked my butt off at the end and got it done--as I usually do. Some time in the middle of the most stressful period of analyzing data, writing a report, and grading papers, I was asked to make an appointment to speak to the assistant department head about my possibilities for next year, including the possibility that I had a job offer. I wondered by what stretch of the imagination anyone thought I would have a job offer, since I pretty much said that I wasn't going to, but that's another story. Immediately after the presentation, I had the meeting.

I was given, apparently, the same spiel that everyone has had. We're letting lecturers go. We're looking after our postdocs. We're $250,000 short in our budget this year. We're opting to run a more expensive department so we can take care of the 8 newbies and the 4 people who we still have kicking around because they didn't get jobs this year. You've had your golden opportunity for us to help you develop your teaching areas, so you get comp next year, no chance of renewal after next year, and oh by the way, you need to publish and your evals sucked from the children's lit course.

Okay, some of this I was prepared for. I was not prepared to have the course from hell thrown back in my face. It took me 2 days to recall the full misery of that course because I had so completely blocked it out. I had nothing to answer for that accusation. They hated me. Yes. I know. Later, I remembered why--I tried to make them think and not intuit fuzzy classroom interaction possibilities. And then there was the implication that I got my chance to be special. I had my opportunity to teach my subject field. Ummmmm. . . No. No I didn't. I got stuck in a crummy position that I didn't want that they needed to fill. I was being groomed and didn't want to be. And I didn't feel like I could say so directly. Except that I did say some of it. And, "Oh, so we prepared you for a job you don't want?" "Pretty much, yes." "Oh, sorry." And there it stayed.

I'm forgetting another facet of the story, in which I intervened in a trashing-the-undergrads-fest on Facebook, which of course was only a joke. A violent, bigoted joke. I defended a student I did not know--and by extension the dignity of all students--and then, by the way, found out how badly my own students from the fall had trashed me. And they were education majors, and prone to the kind of attitude that children need to be filled with life issues so they can be programmed to think correctly--just the kind of attitude that I was fighting in my son's education and in my encounter with FB. But that's all I can say about that. It was horrible. Even people who don't accept my view of things would agree that it was horrible. It represented a serious disrespect for the common dignity of students. I was appalled, and very emotionally involved. I don't compartmentalize well. This series of events happened beginning the Friday before the report presentation, which was a Wednesday.

Well, the next day, my class turned in their papers and completed evals. But before the class, I walked into the office where I needed to turn in materials related to the assessment. I was hoping to fish for a "job well done," but nothing was forthcoming. I waled into the office of a colleague to say hello, was asked how I was doing, and realized that I was going to have a breakdown right on the spot. There was nothing I could focus on to keep from crying, and so I said, "I'm about to have a complete nervous breakdown, apparently," and was told to sit and I pretty much spilled most of the job-related things that I have related here. There was the added pressure that my advisor/dept head thought he had found an admin position that he wanted me to apply for. Thankfully, the search was postponed.

That morning, I had left the house on my normal "bringing people to school and work" routine. I went to the grocery store and came back with $200 in groceries, including 4 bottles of wine. Now, we just don't drink that much wine--or any alcohol, really. I almost bought 6 when I remembered that I could get a 10% discount. I picked up my sister and made jokes about cracking one open for breakfast instead of eating, since I wasn't really hungry. I got things together and went to campus. I thought I was o.k., if a little moody. I thought I had decided to pursue a nonacademic career in writing or publishing. I still like the idea of writing, but I'm not happy with the lack of stability--everyone's a writer, it seems. I spent much of the previous night looking at such jobs and coming to terms with that decision. Why should I want to deal with students, I wondered? It's pretty thankless, after all. And my fate rests in their hands to a large degree, both in terms of evaluations and classroom dynamic. And for what? Do they really learn from me? I was feeling like a poor researcher, and a poor teacher, and a poor mother to boot, but I knew one thing--I'm a good writer. And writing comes easy to me. So writing what people tell me to write shouldn't be so bad. Unless it involves analyzing data. And even then. . .

So I showed up late and a little bleary-eyed for my class, and if they noticed, I don't know. They were very upbeat and very nice. I was to meet someone after picking up the papers, but she couldn't make it and cancelled. So I was sitting, recovered, or so I thought, and my advisor approached me. I'm not even going to go into the weirdness of the relationship, but it fluctuates between friend, professional authority figure, and authoritative male family member. He would probably be hurt if he knew I didn't include "colleague," which probably also adds to the weirdness of it. So he came up suddenly and sat next to me. I clapped my computer shut. And he said we needed to talk. Great, cause I needed a lecture. Not now, but maybe this afternoon? Or make an appointment? Great, so I can get an "official" lecture. About "whether[I] want a job, and what kind of job [I] want." Well, I don't want Writing Programs Administration. I told him I would be dead of a heart attack before 40 if I took such a job. Blah blah blah talents, blah blah blah opportunities I've been given. And then, what kind of a condescending, unprofessional move is it to tell me as I'm trying to recover from the emotional implications of the week from hell that I look like my 12-year-old son when I make an expression like that????? No, thank you very much. HE looks like ME!! I wish I would have thought to say so. Eventually, I had to leave the building to avoid being seen, but not before I walked past the assistant department head and was offered a hug by a friend.

Believe me, had I been able to get a job and out of this department without compromising my integrity, I would have done so. As it was, I didn't even have the opportunity to compromise my integrity.

I think I am back to imagining myself in academia, but I do wonder why. Mostly, I think, because I don't know how to search for a writing job, or because I don't want to settle for an entry-level salary, or because only an academic job search offers sufficient security (possibly) to justify a move across country (or wherever).

So I'm all set for to be lectured on Tuesday (or whenever). This is the only professional support I am to expect from my adviser, since any questions I might have, I should (apparently) know already, and all I receive is a one line response generally. I might still try to get a panel proposal together on Wednesday for a conference next Spring.

I had some conclusions about how to proceed with the job search, but they're about personal integrity rather than selling my soul, so I guess they're irrelevant at this point. I fluctuate between hope and despair, when presumably the correct attitude is stoic resolution masked by false enthusiasm.

So yeah, I have no idea where to go from here. Except to find someplace to live that is cheap enough to allow me to put my youngest in mother's day out 3x a week, and to allow me to spend too much to go to the big meat market for the language professions where all good postdocs go if they want to get jobs. My advisor and my mom would most likely tell me I'm being too negative. But my mom wouldn't say it these days, because she understands my frustrations, so that's apparently why I have an advisor.

Busy Days

I have been busier than usual lately in some ways. I have a project that I need to wrap up before the end of the month, and also my class to whip into shape before the end. This has been a terrible semester for me for teaching because of family illness, mostly, and also travel and other distractions of the job search & whatnot. But I am having my students meet with me during class time instead of having a class meeting. I find that the one-on-one interaction over a paper sometimes does more than any generalized instruction I can provide. These appointments mean that I don't have to prepare for class, but the sessions are intense. I am also thinking more about research, publishing, conferences and other professional activities. Some of this is in response to the campus visit--to show what can be done with literary scholarship so that one does not have to rely on teaching tired versions of feminism, and to connect research and teaching so I can answer those darned questions competently, and so I can get a sense for how long it will take me to turn a dissertation into a book, in case I'm asked, and so perhaps schools that are more suitable to me will find me suitable. But this is not the only reason I have been thinking more. After days of feeling so exhausted that I could barely motivate myself to leave the house, to get the necessary coffee, or to make a meal, my mother suggested that I take some iron. I felt as bad as when I was last pregnant, and I am always seriously anemic when I am pregnant, with the last, I believe, being the worst. I have not felt motivated since Chiclette was only a few months old--since shortly after I finished the dissertation. It has gotten worse rather than better. Except that since I have been taking iron every day, I suddenly seem able to think. I seem better able to accomplish the daily tasks I have and to work on longer term projects. And I have ideas again. So if the campus visit only benefited me by giving me an awareness of my health, that is perhaps enough.

This was intended as a preface to some conclusions about the campus visit experience, but alas! my new-found energy does not carry me much past midnight (waking before 8 on weekdays and before 9 on any given day!) and it is after 1 A.M. now. So I will be back when I can to share some reflections.