The Difficult Questions - Nonacademic to Academic Career Recovery

Against my better judgment, I emailed my former mentor.  I think he sees me as very needy, and so has been really reluctant to reach out at all since I graduated.  I think he just wants to move on--perhaps because he can't account for my failure.  I'm not sure.  But anyway, I sent him an email, and asked about the "shelf life" of a Ph.D., and about whether he might have any strategies for reintegration into academia.  In the past, he has helped his male students and former students with their careers when they didn't follow the usual straight-into-tenure-track path.  But maybe he's just tired now.  I can understand that.

I am feeling stale and unfulfilled.  Stale, because I have no connection to anything that relates to my degree.  And that's not a good place to be.  I understand why there is a shelf-life for Ph.D.s. While you're in a graduate program, you're caught up in the currents of what everyone is talking about.  There's something vital about that environment, even when you sort of hate the things that people are talking about--still, there's an intellectual energy.  And teaching!  Ideas come from teaching.  And there is also energy in helping someone to see something new, or to be able to figure something out for the first time.  There is an energy that comes with being around people who are young--who are becoming--who are not yet there, and not yet in a holding pattern (because I know working adults are not yet there, but they are where they have to be; like I am).  Teaching is helping someone to move forward.  Training is helping someone to make the most of where they are now--at least, the kind of training I do.  Professional development has more to do with moving forward, but even so--they're moving forward on a much more limited trajectory.  I want to be in the realm of open possibility, not of settling, or of stasis, or of closed doors and glass ceilings.

So I emailed.  And I got a very stock response--keep trying, spin your work experience as positive.  As I said, I think he is tired.  *sigh*  So am I.

So I emailed back, because I know that my first questions were nebulous.  And I asked three big questions:

1) Teaching - can you lose it?
2) Intellectual community - how do you find it?
3) Strategies I've considered - are they worth it?

The first two are crucial.  I am in such a different world.  In training, we don't ask probing questions.  Even in the "soft skills" classes, in which they seem to ask big questions about diversity, for example--they really don't.  The questions are designed to help people accept the answers that the strategists have already set forth.  I'm in technology training, which means the answers are always closed:  "How would you make use of this in your job?"  "Have you ever hit 'Enter' in Microsoft Word, only to have all of your formatting change?  Well, I can help you with that."  There's no creation or discovery; only demonstration and repetition.  So I worry that I am losing the ability to ask the probing questions--to make people think.

I'm also worried that I am losing the knowledge that I used to possess--that it's tucked so far back into my head that it's increasingly inaccessible.  I see my boxes of books that I haven't unpacked, and when I look in them, I see books that I love--that I used to love--with which I have no connection currently.  I could read them again, but why?  Some books are for me, and some books are for jumping into conversation, and inspiring others.  I'm not going to revisit the History of British Literature on my own behalf.  There's simply no point.  Or is there?  No... I really don't think there is.

And then, there's the fact that the current is leaving me behind.  I don't know how people on the inside are talking about things any more because I'm not there.  And reading it in a journal is simply not the same.  It's the teaching.  How are we presenting these authors?  What are we highlighting?  And even if I go against the grain, it's stimulating to be able to borrow from or work against what other people are doing.  Instead, I'm rereading Harry Potter.  And I'm pretty tired of it.  But I have to keep reading, because Voldemort isn't dead yet.  If I worked fairly hard, I could probably make that into a career metaphor.  But I won't just yet, because I'm feeling lazy.

So...  How do you find intellectual community?  Or intellectual validation?  I have a small community, for which I am very grateful.  If you are reading this--thank you.  You keep me going.  Literally.  But I have always hungered for more--for publication.  To have my ideas out there--influencing... someone.  And right now, I just have no idea how to get there.  My most recent abstract, which I thought was very good, was rejected, but part of me isn't surprised--every time I have an idea, the academically trained side of my brain can see what's laughable about it.  I was accepted to a conference that sounded fabulous, but a conference right now is no more than an expensive vacation, and I don't like to travel alone.  I have never found community at a conference--not really.  Once or twice I came close. Generally, I feel very alone--a complete wallflower.  So no community there.  But I need the community for stimulus, for support, and for resources.  What makes a good book?  Who might be interested in the half-baked ideas I do have?  And most of all, why should I write them down if there is no guarantee of an audience, of publication, or of a change in career?

These, my friends, are the questions I need to answer.

Representing the Training Department

Last week, there was a call for volunteers to sit at our "booth" or table at the university benefits fair.  I imagined sitting at a table in a large conference and meeting space that we have in our building, handing out information to the people who would drift by in ones and twos, answering questions that they might have.  I was going to be working with one of my fellow-trainers, who has a similarly wry sense of humor.  And it would be okay, although I knew that this was not my preferred situation.

Earlier this week, I learned that my table partner--let's call him Jim--had switched to the afternoon because no one else had signed up for that spot, which left me alone at the "table."  Fast forward to this morning.  I dress carefully, professionally, and express some anxiety to co-workers, one of whom is kind enough to check to see whether I will be alone.  I won't be, as it turns out.  But she tells me that there was some strategizing done on the previous day, and briefs me--briefly--on the situation.

Rather than occupying the entire meeting space, our benefits fair occupies half of the area, which is divided to allow for the retiree fair on the other side of the partition.  Enter the complication.  First, we are giving out tote bags.  So people are coming to our booth to get a tote bag because they need it to put their stuff in.  But they are not particularly interested in talking to us in the meantime.  So now they have to talk to us to get a tote bag.  Ugh.  Selective distribution of swag.  Second, our services are only available to active employees.  Retirees are not eligible, though they are likely to be interested.  So now I have to make small talk to determine whether someone is eligible for our services, small talk to make sure they are really interested, and then use my judgment about who gets a tote bag and when.  So I'm a gatekeeper for the swag, and I have to disappoint people.  And I am opposed to both of those things.  In fact, I'm the person who has to force myself to talk to the people at the tables to GET the swag, and all the while, I'm trying to sneak away.  Why did I think it was a good idea to volunteer?  Oh yes.  I thought it would look good.  Trying to play the game. These things are important.

When I go downstairs, the room--half the size I expected--is lined with tables, with tables in the middle, and people EVERYWHERE.  I have to look through the people (okay, maybe it wasn't so dense--not like Mardi Gras or anything) to find our booth.  Then, I have to walk around the room to get to it.  I realize, to my utter dismay, that there is a huge project-board--like the social studies fair type--on the table.  Our materials--flyers, brochures, coaster--are on the table in front of the board.  So I have no place to hide.  When I walk up, my co-table person is occupied, so I have to stand awkwardly, watching her engage with others, with nothing to hide behind.  I am mortified.  The next person walks up, and I hear her say, "Our classes are for active employees."  The retiree she addresses laughs and makes a joke about being active, but not an employee, and being more active now that she is not an employee.  And I am greatly relieved, because to my mind, this is a social blunder.  I do not like distinguishing between people, or assuming things about them (retirement status) because of what I observe (that they look older than X age).  This is not what I do.  Then I notice that my co-table person is not wearing her name badge.  Neither am I.  I mention it, and she suggests that we take turns getting the badges.  I may talk to one person--a few whole sentences!--about what we do, and I might let two more pass by as I try to judge their ages and work status.  When it is my turn to get my badge, I mention that I might not be back down if I can find a replacement.  My intended repalcement, however, does not bite.  I return downstairs, completely agitated.  This whole process has taken perhaps 10 minutes.  Perhaps less.

So what's the point, you ask?  Well, the head of our department is a complete extrovert.  She thrives on performance.  And frankly, I have my moments, but they are better-defined moments that do not require unstructured interaction.  And even then, I overthink and obsess about small mistakes.  It's what I do.  I spy her going in to the benefits fair as I return.  I confess my unease, my anxiety, and I know that my expression and manner conveys my level of discomfort.  She is sympathetic--but asks, "Even though you teach?"  Even though I teach I have this anxiety?  Indeed.  Teaching is different.  And she has no idea how I beat myself up when I teach, but that is a different story.  When I teach, I know who I am supposed to be.  It is about persona. And yet, in some ways, I'm not who I should be when I teach (when I train).  I am not an expert.  And as a trainer, that's what I'm expected to be.  But when I stand at a table (not behind) and hand out materials, my role is less clear.  I want to help people, and I can answer questions.  But I do not want to foist myself upon them, and I certainly don't want to be in a gatekeeper position, assessing who they are.  I'm not even crazy about greeting them first.  I like to give people space--because I would like them to give me space.  But selling our services is not at all about giving people space--and it's not about anything like teaching.  A teaching (or training) persona will not help in this situation.  Nor will being myself, because myself would never do the things required of me.

I was able to escape, and I felt immediate relief.  I have never felt quite this level of anxiety in any social situation--possibly because when I have been most uncomfortable, like when attending conferences alone, I was able to slink away and hide out of site.  I was not required to talk to people.  My supervisor's supervisor, probably feeling like she was shielding me, said that she would say I wasn't feeling well.  That's not entirely false--I wasn't feeling well at all.  But I'm not exactly ashamed of feeling the anxiety.  It was a false situation, and I am actually a pretty straightforward person.  I was being put in a position of being impolite, unhospitable--by my rather stringent Southern New Orleans standards; being rude to an older, grand-parently person is not done, and while I wasn't exactly asked to be rude, well, I just wanted to give them a darned bag and answer questions.  *sigh*  Part of me feels that I should have stuck it out.  But that part of me is only able to feel that way now that I'm out of the situation.

So I'm left thinking about the differences.  I do get anxious when I teach sometimes, but I have prepped and prepared.  I have props and crutches.  I know what I know, and what I don't.  I would say that unexpected questions don't phase me, but that depends on what I'm teaching. When I'm teaching Adobe Acrobat Pro, they definitely phase me.  I'm not sure if it's exactly about authority, because I had a kind of authority in the booth.  Maybe the "booth" authority feels more false to me, or more authoritative.  I can deny you a tote bag based on who I think you are; if I'm offering you information or learning, I'm offering it to everyone, and I'm offering everything I have--with no strings attached.

Engaging the Personae--Teacher vs. Trainer

What Training Can Learn from Grading--and vice versa

 I'm actually finding, doing training, that rather than having a sense of freedom because I don't have to grade, we are a bit haphazard in how we decide what we want our participants to learn and how we get there.  I think that more activities and discussion can be used in *school* instead of tests to show that the students are learning; on the other hand, I think in the training arena, we should make certain that we really do know what we're looking for when we do evaluate whether our methods are effective.  The grades/no grades people have the potential for a great conversation--that won't happen, sadly.

But what about the children?

Slate published a piece today titled (or perhaps subtitled?):  "Getting a literature Ph.D will turn you into anemotional trainwreck, not a professor."  The author speaks from experience.  There are several poignant moments, like this:

"So you won’t get a tenure-track job. Why should that stop you? You can cradle your new knowledge close, and just go do something else. Great—are you ready to withstand the open scorn of everyone you know? During graduate school, you will be broken down and reconfigured in the image of the academy. By the time you finish—if you even do—your academic self will be the culmination of your entire self, and thus you will believe, incomprehensibly, that not having a tenure-track job makes you worthless. You will believe this so strongly that when you do not land a job, it will destroy you, and nobody outside of academia will understand why."

And this:

"When this happens to you—after you have mailed, at your own expense, the required 60-page dossiers to satellite campuses of Midwestern or Southern universities of which you have never heard; after you endure a deafening silence from most of these institutions but then receive hope in the form of a paltry few conference interviews; after you fork out $1,000 to spend your Christmas amid thousands of your competitors at the Modern Language Association convention; after said convention, where you endure tribunal-style interviews in hotel suites where you are often made to perch in your ill-fitting suit on the edge of a bed; after, perhaps, being invited to a callback interview at a remote Midwestern or Southern campus where your entire person will be judged on the basis of two meals and one presentation; after, at the end of all this, they give the job to an inside candidate they were planning to hire all along—when this happens, and it will, it will feel as if the entirety of your human self has been rejected because you are no good at whatever branch of literature-ruining you have chosen."

And it is published at a time when I find myself in a nice, stable job that pays well and bores me to tears, prevents me from spending time with my children during between-semester and summer breaks, and makes me spend 40-hours a week in an office in front of a computer.  6 hours every week or two, I train people on how to use software.

It is published when I find myself stretching tentative fingers in the direction of academia after a 2-year, unwilling hiatus.  (I did actually publish an article during this time, but they solicited me.)  I am beginning to send out abstracts, and beginning to apply for a handful of jobs.  This article mirrors the horror out of which I have been crawling over the last 10 months.  And it makes me fear being beaten down again.

But what I want to ask now, is what I will tell to my children.  I have been an idealist and a dreamer.  I have believed that what we want to accomplish, we should be able to accomplish with education.  My goal was to do what I loved--to have a job that allowed me to talk about books, just as the author says (though I do think I escaped literary theory relatively unscathed).  And now I find myself (as I was telling my son about an hour before reading this) in a situation in which I have no one with whom to talk about books (though I do write about them, and have a friend or two who follow)  It didn't seem like a huge ambition.  It seemed imminently attainable.  And now I find myself in an office, reading, learning, and repeating motions on Microsoft Office.  It's a good job, but it's not for me.

So what do I tell my children?  I want to tell them to aim high--that they can do anything the put their minds to.  But I don't want to set them up for failure.  I think about the things I love--the things that lied to me.  Like the Muppets.  Remember "Rainbow Connection"?  Remember "Bein' Green"?  They taught us that if we were just the people we were meant to be, everything would turn out right.  If I finally give up believing that, I will not know who I am, so I guess I'm not there yet.  But is it right to build up hope in the next generation?  I have a son who will be entering college.  He's not really thinking about what he wants to do, but he has dangerous liberal arts tendencies, as I like to say.  But to him, and to my daughters, do I say what I want to believe, but which has not at all been fulfilled in my life?  

Or do I tell them to pick something safe--something that they can bear--something that will pay the bills--and move through life like everyone else?

I Have Been... (Pt. 3)

I have been...  (wrapping up.  Read the first parts here and here.)

Anticipating

The continuation of several series that I have been reading.  First, Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger, author of the Parasol Protectorate series.  This one came out in February.  It is the first Young Adult novel by the author, and while I was happy to see that she didn't push the envelope of sexual encounters as so many YA authors do, the story as a whole felt a bit flat. I felt that the author might have felt constrained by the prospect of writing for a  younger audience, and the level of character development, plot development, and wit that I expect from this novelist were not there.  It was the "set up" for a series, if you will, so perhaps the future novels will be better.  It was entertaining enough, and you can get the first 3 chapters free!

 I am anticipating Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Princess this month, and looking waaaay forward to Diana Gabaldon's next Outlander book, Written in My Own Heart's Blood.

I'm not generally a series reader, so this is new for me... 

Wishing

For a job that had more flexible hours and allowed me to practice creative acts of reading and writing as part of my job.  Right now, my job is 40 hours/week--8 to 5.  I teach 6-hour technology courses more or less weekly (less right now), and spend the rest of the time learning more about the software I teach, memorizing the course manuals and activities, correcting projects for our certificate programs (You really should have used tab stops here...), and listening to technology instructional videos.  Yum.

 I would, ideally, like to put in my teaching hours and then have time to spend on professional development activities that make sense to me, that engage me.  Ideally, this would be flexible, though I am getting more used to working at an office.  I would love to have the summers off and a longer break between semesters to spend time with my little ones.  Does any of this sound familiar?

Second on my list (and these two switch places) is a bigger apartment or a house to rent.  3 Bedrooms (right now we have 2 for 5 people) and TWO WHOLE BATHROOMS!  Right now we have 1.5.  Storage would be great, too. 

Loving

That I can read and write again.  My writing is bordering on scholarly/professional at times, and perhaps I'm working up to something.  I submitted an abstract to a real, academic conference on Friday! The benefit of not working as a scholar/teacher is that intellectual activity doesn't have pressure attached.  I can really do what I want to do right now, and I needed this.

And if you're here, check out today's post on Booknotes from Literacy-chic!

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!