I Have Been... (Pt. 2)

This middle part is brief, and probably not as interesting as the first and last parts, but here is part two of my update (continued from Monday):

I have been...

Watching

I don't watch much TV.  Or at any rate, I don't watch much TV that feels like separate shows.  We frequently watch How It's Made, Restaurant Impossible (but not as frequently since it's all about the drama), Chopped (a great show), Phineas and Ferb (great children's programming!!)  But there's nothing that I have to see.  In fact, shows that require a commitment on my part (like Downton Abbey) simply don't work for me.  Especially dramas.  If I want a continuous plot, I'll take a book.  They wait for me.

Looking

At a computer screen.  10 hours a day.

Feeling

Caught between two worlds--university staff who used to be university faculty.  Full-time worker who would rather be home more with her kiddos.  Trainer who would rather be a teacher.

Conflicted about remaining in my current job vs. re-entering that abyss of misery, false-hope, and despair that is the academic job market, especially since I feel out-of-step with my discipline.  I don't think I share many values, visions, or ideals with academia--or at least, not the upper echelons.  But maybe what we do share is what's important...  Inquiry.  Desire to contribute to knowledge.

Also feeling like seeing myself as a seamless whole made of many different roles, threads, interests, and creative impulses is fine, but to base a blog on that concept is not possible because blogs need to have more focus, at least in my opinion.  There at least needs to be one aspect of identity ("Catholic," "Mother," "Academic," or "Catholic Mom") that shapes the other parts.  And I think that's why "Words, Words" has given over to other blog concepts.

I Have Been... (Pt. 1)

I have been watching this blog languish as I work on two others:  Booknotes from Literacy-chic and Teaching, Training, Blogging, but I still have some real affection for this, my first entry into blogging.  Most of the people who know me as a blogger know me through this blog, though I'm not sure whether it's listed with search engines any more.  I suspect not...  So while I don't know that I'll blog regularly here, I do want to stop by--perhaps monthly--to post a little update.  This was always my introspective blog, so it feels appropriate.  My friend Chris gave me the idea, but I'm going to make mine a 3-part series.

I have been...

Writing

Oh so many things lately!  Nothing creative right at this moment, except insofar as criticism is creative (and I think it is!  In fact, I feel like everything I write has an element of the creative, which is why I love it.)

First, I am writing on what is now my primary blog, Booknotes from Literacy-chic.  I am blogging my way through Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, and I am working on book 3, Voyager.  This is not a book review project, but a "notable moments" project.   Rather than discuss any one particular thread, theme, or issue, or the book as a whole, in a "big picture" way, providing lots of examples to illustrate my point, I am isolating scenes, moments, paragraphs or lines that resonate--with me, or with the work as a whole.  Sometimes these "notable moments" posts connect, suggesting ways in which they might form a whole literary argument, but...  I'm not ready to go there yet.

More recently, I created the blog Teaching, Training, Blogging in order to have a place to blog the connections between university teaching as I learned to practice it, and training, which I am doing now.  Although training makes a big issue of the needs of adults, the ways in which training literature seeks to engage the adult learner resemble the ways in which university instructors talk about engaging the undergraduate learner. However, training has a biased and unfavorable view of university teaching, while higher education sees only utilitarian aims in training.  I want to bring these together, if for nothing else, to help me stay connected to the higher education classroom and learn from my present situation.

Finally, I have been volunteer-blogging new updates for Marc Gunn on his blog, and occasionally on Celtic Music Magazine.  Marc is a Celtic musician, promoter of Celtic music, and producer of numerous podcasts including my favorite (and really, the only one I listen to regularly), The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast.  I have loved his podcast for years, and it's fun connecting with Marc's efforts to promote Celtic music while developing my "blogging for others" and "blogging for promotion" skills.

Reading

Blogs, for one.  I have taken to perusing my feeds in Google Reader again, taking a look at the blog circle that I once thought of as home.

Series, for another.  I am enjoying reading fiction series in a way that I haven't in years (if you count The Chronicles of Narnia and the Little House books).  I am conflicted about this.  It's one thing to read a series when the author is dead.  There's no waiting involved.  But living authors just keep writing, which keeps me reading.  I enjoy Rick Riordan, Gail Carriger, Cassandra Clare (well, mostly), and Diana Gabaldon in particular, each of whom has one or more series on the go.

And finally, eBooks.  I have a Kindle Paperwhite now.  I thought long and hard about it, but I do love the immediacy of always having--or being able to acquire easily--a book that I want.  It makes for a different kind of reading experience, especially since I like to write about what I read.  And I do still like physical books--of course--but they only occupy one location at a time, which means that if you leave the book at home, it's at home, and you can't get to it if you're not at home.  With my Kindle books, I have them on my iPod, my Kindle, my work computer, and my home computer--oh! and on Google Chrome!--and each of those locations can come in handy.  But I sometimes make poor reading choices based on free or $0.99 books.  Ugh.  I'll never get those hours back...

Listening

Mainly, I listen to the sound of my my keyboard clicking, or the deafening silence of my office.  But in the car, to and from work, I listen to the The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast, my Celtic playlist (largely comprised of songs I discovered through the podcast) and my Alternative playlist.  This morning, I was listening to Cake.

This meme has 9 items, so I'll be posting again on Wednesday and Friday!  Hope you've still got me in a feed reader!

Unpacking a Workshop Activity: "Last Man Standing," Communication Styles, and Resistance

On Friday, I participated in a Professional Development workshop conducted by the "soft skills" side of our department.  I belong to the technology side.  My side teaches tech skills; the "soft skills" people teach people and personal skills.  The workshop title was "Interpersonal Communication."

I decided to take this workshop for a couple of basic reasons.  Once a week (or less often, if we're lucky), we have "Huddles"--meetings with the whole group, which includes both groups of trainers, people who design online training, administrative support, and directors.  Unfortunately, because our main director is on the "soft skills" side of things, the emphasis tends to be on things that really don't concern the tech trainers, which is irritating, and frequently, there are unexplained references to things taught by the soft skills people.  So, for example, different members of the department were being referred to as "dove" or "peacock" in order to explain certain traits that the exhibited.  Eventually, I learned that the birds were representative of communication styles as taught in the "Interpersonal Communication" class, so I signed up for the 3-hour class (which our director has since made mandatory).

On the other hand, communication is sort of what I do.  For years, I taught composition and rhetoric, until I had a pretty good command of key rhetorical concepts like "appeal" and "resistance."  Audience has been an interest of mine since long before graduate school--specifically, the ways in which fiction authors place their readers in certain roles using narrative clues like direct address.  One of the things I want to return to is audience engagement by way of open-ended questions or lack of resolution in fictional narratives.  I am pretty adept at written communication.  So on the one hand, a class on "Interpersonal Communication" simply provides a new vocabulary to discuss something that already interests me.

Finally, I am painfully introspective and enjoy considering categories.  So personality types and communication types are a lot of fun--as long as they don't result in typing and stereotyping.  I can "own" the INFP label that Meyers-Briggs assigns, but if people are given advice on how to circumvent my most "peacock" tendencies, or if I stand to be brushed aside in meetings because I'm a "peacock" (thing "persuader"--not my term--rather than flashy and arrogant, though that implication is impossible to avoid), then I have a problem with the categories.  But figuring that I could learn something useful, I signed up.

I see immediate applications for personality types and communication styles in undergraduate education, as I do believe that raising--and shaping--self-awareness in students is a valuable part of humanities education, but more on that later.  Right now, I want to focus on one particular activity, which we learned as a group when an outside trainer came last July to teach us how to be better facilitators (not really something that was useful for tech trainers, who simply show-and-tell).  It is called "Last Man Standing"--though shouldn't it be "Last Person Standing," or "Last Group Standing"?

In the context of the particular class, we were asked about barriers to communication.  Each table (a group of 3 or 4) was asked to brainstorm as many possible barriers to communication as they could, writing each one on a post-it note.  When the time (about 4-6 minutes) was up, we were asked to arrange our post-its into groups.  Then, each group picked a representative to go to the front of the class and take turns placing a post-it on the board.  Duplicates were not permitted, so if one team had "technology," another team could not get credit for having "technology" as well--or a term that was judged as too close to "technology," eg. "technophobia" or "technological innovation."  As the game progressed, team after team will run out of unique contributions, and the game is over when one team is left standing with additional unique ideas.

It wasn't particularly well-executed in this workshop for a number of reasons.  First, our instructor (and my co-worker), who tends to be a bit too self-conscious in spite of the fact that he is basically as competent as anyone else, called in another trainer, who designed the course, to be the "judge" and determine whether the particular post-it term was permissible or whether it had already been used.  As she is a very "inside the box," more-restrictive-than-literal-interpretation kind of person, she wound up overturning more possibilities than she should have, closing down rather than opening up the discussion in a number of ways.  For example, the facilitator could not see how "politics" could be a barrier to communication, and interpreted "having an accent" as being indistinguishable from "culture."  Although he didn't think about it--and possibly others didn't either--he rather compromised his own credibility as an instructor by bringing her in as an "expert" rather than facilitating the exercise himself.  By facilitating the exercise himself, he would have made certain that the kind of classroom dynamic he was working to create was preserved.

In a work environment, people are already more deflated and defeated, and more easily accept when their ideas are shot down.  Not so in an undergraduate classroom--or really, in any environment in which inquiry and free-exchange of thought is supposed to be valued.  Closing off possibility breeds resistance because people feel their ideas are not understood or valued.  I can tell you that that is where I was during parts of the activity, and though I have been accused by students (education majors, who had their own reasons for resistance to my children's literature course) of "needing to learn that mine was not the only valid opinion," I am very careful to let literature and composition students give their interpretations, and to respond to them in some way.

The other major flaw in how the activity was facilitated is that although participants were instructed to put terms into groups according to which were similar, the grouping was not exploited at all.  It's a related problem, really.  Instead of shutting people down, the broader categories could be used to shape the game board.  So instead of saying that "having an accent" was the same barrier to communication as "culture," "culture" should have been the broad category (placed at the top of the board) under which "having an accent" or "language" or "respect for elders," etc. would fall.  So "texting" might be a subset of "communication" rather than being thrown out altogether.  The discussion becomes not only more satisfying for all participants, but more comprehensive.

Aside from the problems with its execution, this exercise has great potential as an entry point for discussions of rhetoric, particularly appeal and resistance.  The initial question might be the same: what are barriers to communication?

The game might start with the following instructions:  "Think of a time when you were reading an article/surfing the internet/browsing Facebook/listening to a speech or a commentary, and something made you want to stop listening.  You might have started thinking about counter-arguments rather than focusing on what was being said.  Think about how you felt and why.  This is resistance.  Now, with your group, brainstorm all of the reasons why you or someone else might feel resistant to a particular message, how it was being delivered, or a speaker."

This approach narrows the "barriers to communication" somewhat, rooting it in a particular experience.  This might be good because it creates immediacy.  But it might be bad because it asks students to remember being irritated, and this might not be the best way to get started.  It would depend on the class dynamic and how comfortable the teacher felt with the students.

An alternate scenario might be, "Think of a time when you were having a conversation with someone.  After a while, you realized that you were no longer listening to what they were saying.  What makes someone stop listening or paying attention in conversation?"

I think I might simply leave it at "barriers to communication" to see what would happen.

The rest of the exercise would remain the same:  write each one on a post-it note; group like terms; designate a group leader, and take terms placing the post-it notes on the board.  I would recommend to the groups that they look for broad categories first and place them at the top of the board.  As more specific barriers to communication were mentioned, they could be categorized.  Then, discuss.

As a follow-up, rather than simply reiterating the barriers, we would address how writers anticipate and overcome barriers to communication by considering the rhetorical situation and appeals.  When a writer anticipates a barrier, ignoring the barrier is an option, but not the best strategy, especially for a writer without authority (and all writers start out lacking authority).  So strategies for overcoming a perceived barrier to communication (which we're going to call resistance) include neutralizing the resistance in some way--by citing authorities that the resistant audience will accept, perhaps--or addressing the barriers directly, using the perceived communication barrier ("I may sound like your mom, but..."), explaining it ("Our views are different because they are shaped by our experience. Let me tell you where I'm coming from so that you can relate to my perspective, and realize why you are different."), or proposing common ground ("We have differences, but the similarities are what matter.")  I would likely want to assign a reading that did address difference directly--something like "Serving the Purpose of Education" by Leona Okakok (Harvard Educational Review 1989).

Another possibility would be to prepare a series of mini-prompts with scenarios:  "You are explaining X to someone who thinks Y."  "You are explaining your reasons for wanting to break curfew to a parent."  "You are explaining why a friend who hates fantasy should read Harry Potter."  Etc. Then, have the students either 1) brainstorm ways to convince that particular resistant audience, or 2) write a short paragraph that attempts to overcome resistance.  The prompts might be more or less political or socially relevant, but "Explaining to an white Evangelical Protestant male from Texas why he should support Gay Marriage" just opens up potential for stereotypes, so the situations would have to be extremely well-fleshed out in order to avoid bigotry. I would stick to scenarios that were more or less neutral, like the Harry Potter example, or universals, like parent-child dynamics.  Another good one might be "Convince a die-hard Windows user of the superiority of Mac OS," but that could also get heated...

Anyway, the point of the exercise is twofold--to demystify, and to get the conversation started.  Also, there may not be enough "fun" competition in the undergraduate classroom.  Group activities often feel stale and forced, or devolve into opportunities to socialize.  I think the "Last Group Standing" activity has the added potential to increase students' comfort level with each other, and with the active role that they play in the course.

"Ways of Seeing" vs. "Ways of Doing"

I'm not sure this is an insight, necessarily.  But as I think about what Training has to offer to Teaching, I find myself thinking about how I am using the two terms.  The distinction is one that feels a bit arbitrary to me, because I feel like what I am doing now is simply a subset of teaching rather than a different thing altogether.

So what am I doing?

Right now, after 10+ years as a graduate student and postdoc, teaching between 1 and 3 sections of composition and literature courses to undergraduates at an R1 university, I find myself at the same university, teaching technology courses to staff.  See? Teaching.  It's impossible to get around it.  When we talk about what we do in terms of mission/vision statements, it is always "training."  What do we do?  We train.  But when we talk about what we actually are doing when we're in the classroom, it's always teaching.  Where is Mary right now?  Oh, she's teaching.  She's actually teaching HTML.  I don't teach HTML.  I teach Microsoft Word (3 skill levels), Outlook (2 skill levels), PowerPoint (1 skill level), and Adobe Acrobat Pro (1 skill level).  And the kitchen sink, for anyone who's counting.  It's a far cry from "Composition and Rhetoric" and "Introduction to Literature"!

And how is it different, you might ask?

In grad school, when we talked about teaching, it was usually to define our role as teachers--our "classroom personae."  We discussed different types of assignments--ways of "decentering the classroom," of "avoiding the banking model" (which I have discussed before, elsewhere), of promoting inquiry.  We were excited about using technology to create community and to get students engaged with the material.  We learned that it was not actually okay to be an expert in the classroom, and that students should be participants in their own student-centered learning, which meant creating group assignments and other assignments that allowed for investigation and critical thinking.  At least, theoretically.  My most successful experiment in decentering, encouraging active learning, and promoting inquiry involved student blogging.  Hmmm.  Go figure.

In technology training, on the one hand, we have a ready-made, hands-on, participatory situation.  Each participant is in front of a computer.  The are following along with the instructor, trying out the strategies that I introduce, and completing activities either on their own or as I show them on the projector.  On the other hand, though "active learning" is a term that's all over training and professional development literature, I don't see what I'm doing as promoting active learning.  They follow my lead.  They repeat a model.  If we're lucky, they remember something.  If not, they have the book.  Retention really only happens when there is something that registers as the answer to a problem or something that will be particularly useful in their own job contexts.  As each of their contexts is unique, and as my experience with using the programs as support staff would do is limited, they supply the contexts and make the connections.  I am largely unable to do that at this point.

At root, this is the banking model, hands on or not.  I give them a skill (not knowledge--skill), and they give it back by showing that they know how to do it.  Transference is big--how do we know that what they have learned in this 6-hour class will transfer back to the workplace?  Well, we don't.  And we have different skill levels coming in, changing job duties, and many repeat customers (university-affiliated staff--or their departments--don't have to pay) who come back to learn things that they didn't use after the first class, or that they didn't remember.  They don't resent it, which is good.  (Or most don't.)  It is useful in a way that a writing or literature class seldom is, and so most participants are happy with what they can get out of the classes.

At the same time, I am very much expected to be an expert. I am not an expert.  If I am an expert in anything, it is not in Microsoft Office.  I would say that I'm getting there--certainly my comfort level is increasing.  But I don't know the ins and outs of the programs--in part because I don't use them for any real-world applications.  I am learning software for the sake of learning and teaching software.  Hmmm.  It actually feels a bit disingenuous--much more phony than teaching writing, which I definitely practice.  I am, however, expected to be an expert.  "Let's learn together" simply doesn't cut it here.  "Let's try it out" is a little bit better, but there's definitely a bit of skepticism when I can't immediately answer the question, "What does this button do?"  So having been taught absolutely not to lecture, and that the expert persona was rarely if ever the most effective way to teach, I am, in fact, having to lecture.  I am, in fact, filling the role of an expert. (No, I'm actually not.)

I worry about this.  A lot.  Because this is not my preferred method of instruction.  I like to be a co-collaborator and journey with my students.  And being forced to seem the expert makes me feel completely incompetent, which is how some of my students (if not all, or even most) perceive me.  And I don't want to learn this new mode at the expense of everything I have ever known about teaching.

So what does the training model offer?

There are some things that do transfer, but they are small things, practical things, approaches, methods, activities.  But they exist within the sphere of training.  Part of me worries about whether that crossover will be viewed askance by teachers in higher education.  As universities are wondering what their roles will be in the changing perception of education, worrying about things like "customer service" and "utilitarian" models of education, I am coming from exactly that place.  It could be that my insights will lend some rejuvenation and a sense of relevance, but I think it is equally likely that they will be dismissed as coming from exactly that threatening place.  We do not want teaching to become training.

And what about the title of the post?

I return to the difference between teaching and training--particularly humanities teaching, which is where my interest lies.  In the humanities, we teach because we are interested in perceptions--in "ways of seeing."  We teach to change perceptions, or raise awareness of perceptions, or to promote new perceptions.  I am thinking primarily of English and History, but the same could be said of Anthropology and Sociology, and perhaps even the soft side of Psychology.  Of course, the groupings change, and I am aware that most of the above would/could be considered Social Sciences rather than, strictly speaking, Humanities.  But perception is still key.  (Some would, no doubt, correct or add that we are interested in "ways of knowing." I'll leave that possibility for now.)  By contrast, training is about "ways of doing."  It is practical.  Applied.  Hands-on.  At least, that's the goal.  It is the "how"--not the "why" or even the "what."  (Well, it's a little bit of the "why," just differently...  More the "what for?" than the "why?")

I'm afraid that by melding the "ways of doing" with the "ways of seeing," I will mark myself as irrevocably practical and applied.  That my way of introducing relevance by way of training techniques, knowledge, and practices will be rejected because it is the Other against which, at this moment, higher education is poised.  I stand to put a utilitarian spin on courses that are already marked as "service" courses, and I understand the politics of that kind of move, even if it is not my intent.  And for a discipline that is struggling between being "unacknowledged legislators" and "mak[ing] nothing happen," it might not be the right moment for my insights.

Another New Literacy-chic Blog

I wanted to pop back over to the blog that started it all and mention that with my blogging taking a more professional-personal slant, I have fragmented still further to create another blog in addition to Booknotes from Literacy-chic, which is going strong as I blog my way through Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels.  The new blog is a bit shakier--I am not sure how much material I will have for posts, or how regularly I will post. With a book blog, it is easy--if I need material, I read another book.  But the new blog, Teaching, Training, Blogging, will be notes on my current job as a software trainer, submerged in professional and organizational development techniques and lingo, and how insights from my current job could potentially influence undergraduate education.  I have a few good ideas to start out with, and after that... who knows?  I know I will be discussing the following topics:

• Classroom communication
• Composition and REALLY using computers/software
• Rhetoric and Communication Styles
• Personality-type reflections
• Collaborative course guidelines/class rules

And hopefully, more things will present themselves so that I don't have to feel guilty about cluttering up the internet.  Yes, this is something I think about!  

Teaching, Training, Blogging: An Introduction

This blog was created in response to a need. It is a personal need, on the one hand--to negotiate the space between teaching composition and literature, which I was trained to do, and working in training and development, which I am paid to do. The difference is an important one--the mode is different; the vocabulary is different; the expectations are different. And while working in the one area, I would like to keep my finger on the pulse of the other--in part, because I am a trainer at a university, which is sometimes a difficult place to be as an almost-but-not-quite-academic.

On the other hand, I believe that it is also a professional need. Training and teaching are, in many ways, not so different, and can learn from one another. I am grateful to my boss, who actually believed that someone with a Ph.D. who had teaching (but not training) experience could do the job--in this case, software training. I have not always been greeted with the expectation that I was good for anything, and that vote of confidence has been very important to me. But I am very much in a world that is separate from humanities teaching, where my insights are not always directly relevant, and where I gain new insights that could very nicely translate back to the undergraduate classroom.  I wonder if they would be accepted in that arena...

As making connections is what I do, and what I love, I seek to bridge the gap.  I know for certain that there are posts coming on these topics:

• Classroom communication
• REALLY using computers/software in composition classes
• Rhetoric and Communication Styles
• Personality-type reflections
• Collaborative course guidelines/class rules

Resistance

Objectives

Let's Communicate Like Adults, Pt. 2: The Class Contract

Third, what if, instead of a syllabus/class rules, the first day of class was devoted to establishing a contract for the semester with input from the students? Something along the lines of, "What do we NEED for this class to succeed?" And "What are ground rules about respect, &c. that we can all live with?" How would that shift the dynamic of the class immediately?

Computers in Composition - but really, this time

For one, integrating formatting tips and tools using Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and even desktop publishing into writing classes, so that they truly become "writing for" media. Considering what visual and verbal rhetorical choices go into making all types of communication more professional.

Reviving Literacy-chic

For anyone who might still venture this way, I wanted to post that I am reviving Literacy-chic, but only on the Booknotes blog.  "Words, Words" is too nebulous--if I write about EVERYTHING, I will either write all the time (which would be great, except I have a real job now--one of those 8-5 gigs) or I will write NOTHING.  And I had pretty much decided that in order to function in the real world (which is completely overrated, by the way), I would have to opt for nothing.  But the real world doesn't always satisfy, which is where books come in.  And having been ousted from academia by the secret workings of the academic job market, and hence lacking undergraduates, I need a place to get my literary fix--and send it forth into the world.  So I will be posting at Booknotes from Literacy-chic.  Here is my reboot.  Do drop in!

A Lenten Intention

I find myself writing again on the eve of Lent, when last year at this time was very nearly the last time I wrote a blog post.  I write because my mind is full of thoughts for a very dear friend whom I have known for a very short time, and who has a daughter who is very troubled, and who seems to be making all of the wrong decisions with her life.  For some reason, I am drawn to think about this daughter--because my friend seems so little to deserve the treatment she has received, perhaps, but also because there are things that my friend has said about the daughter that draw me to her.  She is very creative, and has been her whole life.  She imagines herself in scenarios that cause her panic--something with which I can relate, and which I think is also a symptom of that creative, artistic temperament.  This daughter is on a very self-destructive path, living away from home in another state with strangers whom she met online; seeking only interracial relationships almost as a way of marking herself--of "Othering" herself, as my academic side would say--because she desires mixed babies.  I look at my friend, and I see it tearing her apart.

And I look at myself, and I think about what has put me on my present path.  I feel like I want to say to my friend, had things gone differently, I have gone down a path that was not too dissimilar.  I was a poet in college and romanticized a bohemian lifestyle.  I was what I can only call agnostic, though I wouldn't have called it that since I was always nominally Christian-esque.  Sexual experimentation--and I mean more promiscuous and more out of the ordinary--would not have been too far away, had I had someone so inclined whom I felt I could trust (friend or romantic other).  I would have pierced *something* hidden had I not been living at home, where such a thing might have been discovered.  I was riddled with responsibility for my family, and once escaping that responsibility, there is no telling where I would have wound up.

I see my friend's daughter as not escaping responsibility--she hasn't had much.  Rather, I think she is imagining a lifestyle for herself that is opposed to what she has had--sort of like my bohemianism.  She is imagining herself being the "Other" with whom she, for whatever reason, is identifying right now.  She feels like she wants to be apart.  That she is the person oppressed.  And so she seeks communion with that oppressed "Other" who, she imagines, is like her.  I don't know this, of course.  I only suspect.

I think of what happened in my case.  Apparently, God saw fit to send me my soulmate--and an unplanned, unwed pregnancy, lest I think about screwing up the best thing that had ever come my way.  I may never have been married otherwise, so He sent me what no mother wishes for her child.  And we made the best of that curveball.  I have made a life for which I am so grateful.  It didn't have to work out for the best, but somehow, I managed to cooperate with Grace.

I don't know what to say to my friend.  I guess what I am mainly thinking is that her daughter has not strayed far from a path on which I could have seen myself.  My self-destruction would have been more literary and educated--grad school was always part of the equation.  But it would have still had its self-destructive--and even self-loathing elements, though I never would have seen that.  And, well, I survived that inclination, so perhaps there is hope?  It may be weak.  But perhaps someone or something will step in her daughter's path, and things will work out for her.  Good, smart people can make poor choices, and are sometimes saved by what seems like chance.  I guess all I can say is that I will be praying for this girl--this young woman who is like the girl I was at 17--during Lent.  And also for my friend, who is hurting inside.

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.