Lessons from the Staff Side: Faculty and Customer Service

Something I have been thinking more and more about since working in a cutomer-serving department, and in a training department that teaches--and requires--customer service--is the idea that faculty should consider what customer service actually means.  I do come from an academic background--a background to which I am still dearly attached, and I would love to bring it to the foreground if I could.  So I know how faculty bristle--how I used to bristle--at the suggestion that faculty are in any way providing customer service, or at the idea that students are in any way customers or consumers.

The first problem is that the "customer service" model is often misunderstood both by those promoting it for political reasons and those who are resisting it.  Students and their parents see a "customer service" model as meaning that education exists, and is provided to the student/customer, to serve the purpose designated by the student.  This is seriously misguided.  The customer, if customer they would be, must assess the service provider first to determine whether the service being offered meets his or her needs, and whether the service provider, in fact, is capable of delivering the product needed, particularly when there are other providers available.  The informed consumer does not go to a vegetarian restaurant and order steak, or to McDonald's and order Kobe beef or sushi.  If she shops for auto parts at Target or Kroger, she must be prepared to find their offerings severely limited.  If she goes to a hospital to get a pedicure, or to a salon to have an appendectomy, she will necessarily be disappointed.  The first step, then, is knowing what institutions of higher education claim to offer, and for what reason.  What are they, in fact, trying to do for the individual in general?  Individual professors support their own reserach missions and pedagogical theories, putting those in the service of the departmental mission, which in turn serves the overall mission of the institution, which might advance a statewide goal that is somehow tied to the legislature's goals for development of citizens in the case of a state university.  They are thus charged with delivering the product and service deemed appropriate by their institution, and they are given some freedom in how they interpret the delivery.  To drill down and say that a professor should not be burdoning students with nonultilitarian information because the student is a customer, and the professor should be giving the customer only what he needs is ludicrous.  Being a smart consumer means understanding what you are buying.

On the other hand, professors (used broadly here, because I think academics of all stripes, and lecturers, and faculty of universities and colleges alike take issue) balk at the idea that there is a "customer service model" of education.** And it is possible that I am not strictly speaking about a model of education, but an attitude.  So what does a faculty member hear when someone suggests that education should be seen in terms of customer service?  I would suggest, first, that they interpret the phrase in much the same way as the students, or else they recognize the students' and parents' assumptions and react against those.  Customer-service oriented education might seem inherently utilitarian, designed to prepare students in a very practical, focused way, for "real life," which usually translates into "getting a job."  Whatever the failings of educational curricula, putting education in the service of employment is not something I want to advocate--or even to address here.  The other implication is that "service" means slavish devotion to students.  Providing multiple opportunities to make the grade.  Extra extra credit.  Perhaps even certain types of lectures and exams.  As far as that goes, there are already huge initiatives to understand how students learn and to make efforts to design curricula, courses, assignments and even to restructure classrooms and redefine the teacher in order to maximize student learning.  This is everywhere.  Sometimes, it actually benefits the professor by removing the pressure for them to perform.  They become mediators and mentors--not at all a bad role, unless they become superfluous, replaced by monitors and mediators who are less expensive and require less maintenance.  There is some anxiety about this as tenure track disappears and adjuncts abound.  So in terms of methodology, "student centered" might as well mean "customer-service oriented."  The basic approach--taking the needs of those who are on the receiving end of the product or service into account--is the same.  Do students see this as customer service?  Not necessarily.  Will they make unreasonable demands in the name of customer service?  Absolutely.

I think that in terms of pedagogy, a customer-service orientation might mean focusing on the journey or process rather than the product.  In an age of measurable objectives, we focus on testing, testing, testing...  But those who train, or teach classes to blue-collar professions realize that not everyone tests well, and that sometimes the artificiality of a test is not the best indicator of skill, knowledge, or mastery.  There are ways to evaluate during the process of learning.  In a training environment, where there are no tests, and yet where we have to try to deliver courses that help people learn, we need to develop exercises that allow people to try out what they have learned in an environment where they can ask questions and receive feedback and instruction.  Some people come and do not want to learn, and since it is their time, I can't really do too much about that lack of motivation.  If they sit through my class, it goes on their transcript, and they might receive a higher yearly evaluation because of it.  I can't help that situation.  I'm not going to report to the boss that they were shopping for shoes for the entire 6 hours.  But when they return to their desks, unless they already had the skills I taught, they will not have those skills at their disposal in their daily life.  Because there is little real-world consequence, except perhaps if a doctor sleeps during Biology, education requires tests.

When I think about the process, though, I think about what leads up to the grades.  Where are the opportunities for professors to monitor the learning process to see what is happening with a student before the test or paper due date?  There are precious few in the models with which I am familiar, and all are student-intitiated.  The reason they are few and student-initiated is that 1) the professor doesn't necessarily have the time or tools to get to know the student(s), and 2) there is an underlying assumption that forcing someone to ask for help has something to do with growing up.  On a level, it does.  But being open and available is important as well, and paving the way for someone to ask for help.

Let me describe two situations.  One semseter when I was teaching Freshman composition, I had a student who came to class every day.  She was very quiet, but listened attentively.  She participated in daily activities.  However, she never submitted a paper.  I might have mentioned that to her casually in class once or twice, and she nodded.  So she knew that she was behind, and hadn't turned in the work. Clearly, the burden was on her shoulders.  It was easy to shrug it off--that meant one less paper to grade, however much I pitied her.

Consider another situation--a rigidly enforced departmental policy on word count.  The students are warned that if their papers do not meet that word count--even if they are lacking only 2 words--the paper will not be graded.  In the case of the final paper, it will not be read, though earlier papers--the finished, failed product--will receive feedback.  Having already failed, how many of us will want the feedback?  Even when I teach, if I feel that I have failed to deliver a class to my ability or my standards, I do not go looking for student feedback to tell me what I've done wrong.  I already have a sense of my own inadequacy, thank you very much.  So do students learn from that level of failure?  We are told that if they don't fail, success will not be meaningful.  But what is a meaningful failure?  How does a teacher make failure meaningful?  I'm not sure.  But I don't think being beaten down and then invited in for more beating is going to do it.  But when grading is as onorous as it is, and the students don't seem to care about our rules or our standards, it is easy to let the cynacism win.  Let's face it, too--not all students are really interested in learning or playing the game.  Motivations for being in school are much more complex than motivations for working.  Working has a tangible result--a paycheck--even if it produces nothing else for the individual.

In a customer-serving department, we measure contact hours--how many hours we spend teaching multiplied by how many students we teach.  It is important to have people value what we are doing, and they come to value our classes becuase they can see the progress they are making.  So we try to facilitate that progress.  They tell other people.  We maintain our contact hours or increase them.  We do operate on supply and demand, but so do academic departments.  Courses that no one takes are not offered frequently, if at all.  In the offices, advisors are interested in retaining majors--those numbers are good, too.  But advisors are staff, and they are customer-serving positions.  Faculty are different.  Who cares if a faculty member pisses off a student?  No one.  Who cares if a staff member does?  Everyone, including the faculty who happen to be involved with that student.  Faculty are definitely a protected class, though I know that this varies, and not all faculty strive to piss off or offend students--though there are some who definitely do.  They offend in order to make a point--I heard it from the Dean of Faculties recently, as he defended faculty methods to a group of staff members.  But that's methodological.  What about individual students?

Being in a staff position, or a customer-serving position, means that every time you are in contact with others, you are trying to facilitate matters to make certain that the customer feels good about the result.  This has to do with equity as well as attitude.  Most people who come to our department for training understand who we are and what our product is.  They don't have to personally pay, so perhaps some of it is gratitiude for the opportunity (or the ability to escape work, though not all WANT to escape work), but they understand that we have guidelines to follow, and by and large, they respect those guidelines.  There are certainly exceptions.

So when you want to actually maintain a relationship with your customers, you do things differently.  Students are disposable, and they are a renewable resource.  Different ones keep coming back, so there is no fear that faculty will become obsolete becaus students will choose not to come to classes.  If your purpose is to fill someone with your subject or shape them in your own image, you don't actually have to care about how the process goes--especially if you're not held accountable.  Where I am now, if someone is coming up to the time limit of a program, I can't just let them go and shrug.  Of course I could.  It is completely on their shoulders whether they finish a program or not.  But what does it do to our contact hours if I let someone slip through the cracks?  It's only one person.  And the people that they don't tell about our wonderful programs and customer service.  I'm working for word of mouth here.  So I email.  And I ask if they need any help or have any questions.  And while some still don't answer, others will tell me what's going on. Some--working adults, older than me--confess that they were afraid to speak up.  These are not children who need to be taught a lesson about growing up.  These are people who think they know the constraints of our program, and don't want to impose.  And I'm not nearly as intimidating as some professors I've had.  And not nearly as scary as some grad students I've known.  And Freshmen--let's face it--are 18.  And have radically different personalities.  They are people.  And sometimes, they can't cope.  Other times, they're just jerks.  But you know?  You can give them the benefit of the doubt, too.  I have to.  And customer service techniques teach you how to manage the jerks, too.  Just watch the next time you're a jerk--they try to manipulate you with the same techniques I've learned.  It's all rhetoric.

But the curious thing is that when you start considering the process, and how you can intervene and facilitate the success of a person or a situation, it becomes a habit, and requires much less effort.  Granted, I'm tied to an office for 40 hours, so I have to send these emails, but really, it doesn't take very long.  Thinking of a student as a customer simply in order to reorient you're thinking so that you make every reasonable effort to facilitate their success--THAT is what faculty customer service would look like.  It's not the same as spoon feeding them.  I'm not saying that you have to break the rules.  Just start by asking, after you tell them what they need to do, "How can I help with this process?"  Many times, they won't ask for anything.  But I think, with students, many times we try to avoid contact hours rather than seeking them out.  It's part of the institution.

**I forgot to mention that at the root of faculty resistance to customer service is that "service" sounds menial.  Ego and the relative importance of faculty to the university are definitely factors.

Why I Can't Write

I don't write on this blog any more.  I have my Booknotes blog, my family blog, my teaching and training blog, my NaNoWriMo blog (except that I seem to have given up this year), and my sewing blog, but this is the blog that started it all.  I don't write in it any more because it was very confessional and very unfocused.  It was about my reactions to everything, and my need to put those reactions into words.  But tonight, I'm writing, because it fills a need--and a part of myself that I have tried to keep inside, or suppress, or channel into other places, or mostly to condense into angsty statuses on Facebook.  Sometimes I cry a lot, too, but that has become less frequent.  I can't catch up here.  If you are reading this, you might already know something of my story--grad school, academic job market, regular job market, trying to cope with not being where I wanted to be, trying to cope with the fact that I both desire and scorn academia, and scorn it in part (but not wholly) because I feel the sting of rejection.  The coping does not end.  The sting is still raw, though it hurts less and becomes more a normal part of life--as grieving does, I guess.  And sometimes, I just can't handle it.  And so here I am.

I read tonight a beautiful article posted on Tor.com.   It is about Neville Longbottom, and how he is the most important character in the Harry Potter series.  Simply reading the title, I agreed, and reading the article, I not only agreed--I admired the ease and symmetry with which the author made her case.  It was beautiful.  Go read it--it will inspire you.  And it is just what I think literary criticism should do.  It is almost painful to see someone else doing it so very well, when it is exactly what I always wanted to do--to direct people to read in such a way that the literature expands their view of the world.  I wanted to do this both in teaching and in criticism, and I now do neither.  I could still write, certainly.  And I have--on my Booknotes blog.  But I don't care so much about hanging out on others' blogs attracting readers. I don't have the time and energy to cultivate a readership--something I never consciously tried to do when I started this blog.  At the time, I simply seemed to be saying things that people found intereting.  And I was gratified, because they were smart people.  And some of those people remain friends, for which I am also grateful.

But the blog took up too much of my life.  It consumed my time because everything I say, I want to say at length, and in great detail.  In order to graduate, I had to let it go--the blogging lifestyle.  Which was, in fact, the only public writing life I have ever enjoyed.  I will never recapture that.

My "official" vision of the writing life was the academic writing life.  The problems there were that I wanted to say things that were often considered banal and mundane.  I had to repackage them so that the veneer was impressive.  I could do it.  I even enjoyed it.  But I became burned out, and feared that I could not write to achieve tenure, though I always thought that I would be able to when the time came. The time never came.  So now I can't write academic prose.  I can't  do literary criticism.  Because it is too much effort for too little reward.

When my eyes stray across something I could write--that I should write--it wounds me, because it is ultimately a defeat.  It is a self-defeat, and a defeat born of circumstance.  Without a context that requires and allows me to write, how can I write?  Without an audience, how can I motivate myself to say anything of consequence?  My overwhelming sense is that without the job that supports it, what I write is ultimately worthless.  If the tree falls in the forest and no one hears it... I do not actually think it has the courage to make a sound.  I didn't think I could be broken, but I think I have been.

Business Writing and... Business Writing

So my big news at work recently has been that I've been given the "Better Business Writing" or "Business Writing Essentials" class.  It's a 2-day, 6 hour class, which is far removed from the 15-week format I had been used to in my former life.  The class is geared toward staff members at the university and who work for the university system, which is far removed from teaching undergraduates--and oh, there's no grading.  I have the opportunity to revise our current materials if I so choose, and to make small changes to the course if I wish.  Right now, I'm just glad to be teaching writing in addition to software--which means that for two glorious afternoons every couple of months, I will be teaching writing instead of software.

Now, you might not be able to tell from the blog, which can be wordy and indirect, but I am a good business writer--however, teaching business writing is not my forte.  Which is to say, I haven't really done it.  I've taught composition.  And I've taught what we were calling at the time "technical writing," which, frankly, doesn't say anything about what you're writing, how you'll be doing it, or in what context.  Instead, it presented a smattering of genres--reports, proposals, letters, resumes--and an overall approach, which was to consider who the audience is and what they would be doing with whatever it is you are writing for them.  But on a level, teaching writing is teaching writing, and there are simply different contexts to consider, different purposes and audiences--in short, in teaching writing, as in writing, you have to consider rhetorical situation.

So to teach this class, I want to do a little bit of research.  Finding that our department's books were out-dated (over a decade old), I consulted a former colleague of mine who teaches business writing for the business school at the university.  He offered books, approaches, rubrics, and we just chatted a bit about what he does vs. what I do.  And there's a BIG difference there.

He teaches MBAs.  He teaches executives.  These are the guys who are already in business, or who at the least already have a B.A. and some work experience.  They are communicating on a whole different level, for a whole different audience, than the people I teach.  Because my audience will be staff members.  Not members of the upper administration, but their assistants, bookkepers, accountants.  The people I teach need to know how to send an informative email that will not embarrass or irritate the others in the department, to write effective recommendations for employees to get raises--in short, they need to execute standard business correspondance with competance.  And I'm going to be giving them tips. They don't need to propose or report on a merger, or write business or financial plans.  And that's good.  Because I don't want to teach the Haliburtons.  Not. Even. A. Little.

What I will be teaching is, in some ways, more humble than academic writing.  It will certainly be more practical.  In many cases, however, the students will be in the same place as the freshman I used to teach, except that they will have been out of school for longer in most cases, their confidence might be lower to begin with than many (but not all) undergraduates.  But they will know why they are there, because if they are there, it will mean that writing is in some way important to their jobs.

I do prefer teaching people to write as a means of communicating, discovering, and synthesizing their ideas.  I do ultimately want to teach people to engage with and analyze the written word, however they encounter it, and ultimately to apply that same analysis to spoken language and the world around them.  I believe that by having writing at our disposal, we are in command of a lot, whether it's important to anyone else or not.  This is why I have four blogs.  Or five.  Whatever.  And I believe that writing gives us access to our own thoughts in unique ways, even as it opens us up to others around us, for good or ill.  BUT...

This does not mean that I don't relish the opportunity to teach practical writing to people who need it.  Just that awareness on the part of the student--that writing is significant--validates what I am doing, and what I can do. But what is really important is helping people communicate--and making writing a bit easier, and a bit less intimidating.  And along the way, what I have taught them might get someone else a raise, award or promiotion.  It might help people understand one another.  It might mean that someone reading an email feels a little less irritation in a day.  And those are all good reasons to teach writing.  In fact, there are no bad  reasons to teach writing.  Well, maybe to train minions for world domination.... But if I had to deal with executives?  *sigh*  I'd have to think twice.

Let's Communicate like Adults: Styles and Types

I have been fascinated by personality styles for a while now, owing in large part to my own introspection and the abundance of online "tests" for this or that.  While I am working on how personality types can help us to understand our own reading preferences, including what narrative strategies of engagement we prefer, on my Booknotes blog, I am also interested in other ways in which personality types and communication styles might speak across the teaching-training divide.

I would argue that the most prominent classification system for personality types is the Meyers-Briggs classification system, which relies on the categories of Introversion/Extroversion, Intuitive/Sensing  Feeling/Thinking, Perceiving/Judging.  From these categories, we get 16 "types":

• INFP
• INTP
• INFJ
• INTJ
• ISFP
• ISTP
• ISFJ
• ISTJ
• ENFP
• ENTP
• ENFJ
• ENTJ
• ESFP
• ESTP
• ESFJ
• ESTJ

And each of these types are handily linked to explanations of the interactions between the traits measured by the four categories.  Here is a good description for the Wikipedia-adverse, or if you prefer Wikipedia, their descriptions are also acceptable.  (If you would like to take the test to find out where you stand, here is an online version of the test.)

In my training department, rather than talking about personality types, which are more the realm of psychology, we talk about communication styles.  And communication intersects neatly with teaching, training, and rhetoric.  Not only does our department (but not me personally) teach these communication styles so that people who take the class can learn how to communicate more effectively with others in their offices, communication is intrinsic to training and to teaching--and, well, rhetoric (an erstwhile specialty of mine) is communication, and knowing how to communicate to/with an audience.  Adding a self-reflective layer and a way to understand one's intended audience can only be helpful, particularly for Freshman comp and for students who do not already have a knack for targeting a specific audience effectively.  The communication styles that we discuss in our training department are called  "the four bird mode" or, quite ridiculously, "DOPE," which stands for

• Dove
• Owl
• Peacock
• Eagle

The bird designation is both useful and very annoying, because the classification system attempts both to use and to distance itself from the traditional associations with the birds.  Dove does, in fact, mean peacemaker; Owl does not precicely mean wise, though it does have to do with collecting information; Peacock isn't really supposed to mean a strutting performer--except that it sort of does, and Eagle isn't actually a bird of prey, just an ultra-direct leader type.  Sadly, the one I find the most offensive, with the least explanatory power at face value, is my own: Peacock.  More on that in a minute...

There are some good explanations of this system online.  It has the benefit of being simpler than Meyers-Briggs, and of dealing specifically with one aspect of personality--communication.  Here is a paper-based (PDF) test, which includes descriptions of the birds; this site has a self-assessment questionaire.  Here are two more sites with good explanations of the types:

• "Are you. . . an Eagle, Peacock, Dove or Owl when you communicate?"
• "Team Communcation:  Birds of a Feather"

The latter, in particular, has a comparative chart that tells you how to recognize each of the types and what their strengths, weaknesses, and bottom line are.  I  tested firmly as a Peacock, but I have more than a few Owl traits.  On the whole, I am less happy with this schema than the Meyers-Briggs, which in some ways supports and in some ways contradicts the DOPE classification--the INFP "Idealist" could be an emotional Peacock who gets excited about ideas, and might be a "performer" in some ways, but is not necessarily a pushy attention-seeker...

What is interesting about the birds is the diagram on page 5 of this PDF (also above), which shows how controlling or supportive, direct or indirect each type is.  I like to think I am direct, but also supportive--Peacock.  This model substitutes "Assertiveness" for "Controlling."  And this discussion translates the whole thing into practical terms--what you need to know in order to be able to communicate effectively with each of the types.  Something to remember when doing a self-evaluation is that this schema is geared specifically to the workplace.  So while this chart probably represents how I come across in meetings (as a Peacock):

• The Dove is sympathetic, moderate, people-focused.
• The Owl is technical, analytical, process-focused.
• The Peacock is expressive, persuasive, recognition-focused.
• The Eagle is bold, confident, results-focused.

I have more than a few Dove and Owl characteristics (INFP).

So how is all this useful?  Well, in Training and Organizational Development, teaching people how to communicate effectively in an office environment is simply one of the services we offer.  People don't know how to communicate.  They butt heads.  They misunderstand one another.  They work inefficiently in groups. Aha--wait!  There is the common ground I was looking for.

I think that in teaching, personality types and communication styles could be productively discussed with undergraduate students and employed in the classroom.  Throughout the 1990s and forward, the mode of teaching has been shifting to prefer so-called "active learning," when it is in fact active learning and not simply a search-and-find activity by which the student receives the same information that would be handed out in a lecture.  Active learning can be tricky, and involves more questioning than is typically permitted--at least at the secondary level.  But what active learning means more often than not is more group work--projects and whatnot--which I hated when I was in school.  Loathed.  Because often there was someone else competing with or sabotaging my vision--which meant that I was inclined to take charge and cut the other person out.  The PBS Kids show Arthur actually has a great episode on exactly this topic.  Group work is difficult to manage as an inexperienced student negotiating one's own ego in relation to others.  And it is equally difficult to negotiate as a teacher--at least, as a teacher who is trying to facilitate student success.  And yet, as much as I hate to admit it, it really is a useful skill to be able to work with others on projects.  But all of the group work in the world won't make students better prepared for group projects in the workplace--unless they are taught a little bit about how people work together, group dynamics, and how to negotiate the roles they are required to fill.

Enter communication styles.

With the resources online, it would be simple for a teacher to devote some time at the beginning of a class, or of the first group project, to a discussion of communication styles.  While an Eagle might one day, under the constraints of a job title, be forced to subsume his or her personality in order to placate a boss, it might help a group of students to complete a project on time to have them assign a leadership role to the person who is the clear leader.  Having a group of 4 Doves or 4 Owls (4 Eagles seems unlikely...) working on a project might be ill-advised--or it might be treated as a problem to acknowledge and strategize to overcome. Have the Owl of the group do the research (Owls love information-gathering); let the Peacock exert some creative control.  Working together according to the students' natural inclinations is bound to produce a stronger product, teach them about themselves, and prepare them for the eventuality of higher-stakes group work.  Add a self-reflective writing exercise at the end, and voila!  You have some good pedagogy.  And something to build on:

• From what you have learned about your personality type, discuss your approach to interaction in your classes or your approach to education in general. 
• From what you have learned about your particular communication style, analyze the tone of your first argumentative paper. 

You have now opened new avenues for critical thinking, analysis, and revision, and made the "personal narrative" obsolete as a bonus!

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