Constructing Kasun, Educator

The  headbands and feathers as curriculum about Native Americans drama continues–suffice it to say the principal (she’s actually called CEO, reflective of our turn toward privatizing education in the U.S.) at the elementary school is now involved.  That’s about all I can say; I’ve entered the political waters of not being able to bring this out publicly.  More silences.  But if you’d like some good information about why the use of headbands and feathers as curriculum is a bad idea, try this article from the journal Equity & Excellence, or a website specifically about teaching about Native Americans (with a specific section about why not to use headbands and feathers).

Speaking of privatizing–a small victory.  The federal government has decided charter schools (run by private entities, not the government) will play a smaller role in helping turn around failing schools.  This is good news to me because I believe democracies need to have schools which are not run by private companies.  That’s not to say I hate charters, but the increasing phenomenon of privatization makes me nervous about our notions of the public good.  The disconnect here is I have so little say about the process regarding the massive stimulus package being offered by the federal government, the largest in many years.  How is it I am a PhD student and have so little to say about something so important?

A final disconnection, but a good one–I had my final evaluation meeting with one student teacher and her cooperating teacher today.  It was inspiring to see the way these teachers worked together and to join in the generative work they did with students.  It was validating to be thanked by the cooperating teacher for the feedback I provided her student teacher and how much she enjoyed working with me.  I’m kind of sad about having to stop the work, but the student teacher is ready to fly.

Dinner with a former student from China (who I taught in China and is currently in the business school here at UT for a semester from her master’s program in Switzerland).  ”So do teachers make much money in the US?”  Well, no.  ”But professors make good money, right?”  Well, if you’re in the law school, or the business school, or the “hard” sciences.  Me:  ”Your profs have great suits, right?”  Former student:  ”Yeah, they are all pressed and have those, what do you call them?”  Cuff links.  I gesture at my given-as-a-gift-seven-years-ago sweater and jeans–”I can teach in this.”

I can teach in it now as an assistant instructor (assistant? but that’s the title despite my designing, teaching, grading etc.).  I’m not complaining as much as fretting over when and if I can even get a job when I finish this program.  But these practical concerns aren’t what’s driving the next sip of the beverage beside me (though they’re always lurking).

It’s the feathers and the headbands I mentioned last post.  No one in critical pedagogy seems to think it’s good, least of all Native Americans.  But I am in a dogfight that has turned into emails written by the cooperating teacher, CCing the elementary school principal (and others), over my position on this.  It has turned into, “my social justice is as valid as yours.”  And it’s utterly complicated.  And not cute or nice and doesn’t feel (Elizabeth Ellsworth) a damn bit empowering to be on this end.

See, I like the teacher who sent the latest email.  I do think he has a mind for social justice.  I don’t think I’ve cornered the market on what’s right.  It’s not about good vs. evil, bad guys vs. good guys (cowboys and Indians, if you will).  Can’t I just have a cup of coffee with him instead?  Can’t we have our own version of Thanksgiving?  Instead I fear I have two student teachers who may now be dismissive of all this semester’s feedback.  I fear I’m creating a pushback against the wacky language of critical pedagogy.  What if I’m alienating them from the language of social justice as I know it?  And how can I know?  Yes, I have talked with them face-to-face, emailed them, tried to sort it out.  It’s more complicated than this, but who has the patience on a blog anyway?

The supervising professor of the student tells me from her conference in California [because this is WHAT academics do--we go to conferences], “You have to be the adult in the room on this.”   Not so glamorous.  Complicated.

I was at McKinney Falls State Park this weekend and desperately looking for signs of change of color in the leaves–anything that resembled a change of season beyond a drop in temperature.

Taking my bike with the 25 mph chilly gusts to the elementary school inspires today’s post.  Abundant sunshine, air, and the mess I see.

The mess being teaching about Native Americans.  Walking into a classroom to observe a teacher and seeing all the children with stereotypical looking headbands complete with feathers.  Ummm… I realize I haven’t seen the logic of the entire unit plan, but, ouch.  And that student teacher is good, but we’re going to talk.  On the upshot, she was doing an interesting and engaging writing activity on legends, using models they had read together. The other upshot–she listens.

Part of the mess includes moments of beauty.  One of the students said to me, “Don’t you wish we had school on the weekend?”  I smiled down at her as she held the door for me and asked why, “Because I just love school!”  Turns out she loves to read–fairy tales.  Second grader.

I write in gratitude, too.  Two good folks at George Mason have emailed me today with groovy requests to collaborate on projects I can’t turn down (one of which is already in motion but had stalled a bit).  How do you thank the universe for good energy with people you like to work with (and miss)?

An update on my project (previous post)–I’ll be doing a meditation on a cyborg body biography (a nod to our class discussion on Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto).  A hybrid of sampling from great poets, my own poetry of the cyborg body, and a concluding moment as yet undetermined.  I’ll use some images of the body I’ve found on the Internet.  Unless it changes.  I leave you with a line from my sampling: “My face became all eyes, and my eyes all hands.”

My silence about my program here is because I feel I have to be silent.  There are too many things I can’t say.  It’s like a novel without an ending, or a deeply unsatisfying one whose characters leave the reader with ambivalence.

But this doesn’t mean I can’t speak about other issues.  So, for anyone subscribing who will see this update, here goes.

I hold two jobs currently, in addition to being a student.  I work as a facilitator of student teachers in an “urban” education program.  I was frustrated at first by the work, disgusted by one too many “Criss cross applesauces” and “One, two, three, eyes on me.”  But now that Harry Wong’s first days of school (which, by the way, last about six weeks as far as I can tell but don’t stop the book from being sold in the millions) are over, more learning takes place.  I like working with student teachers; I like the challenge of trying to apply what I learn to real teaching.  ”So, Judy, do you think you should have a picture of a stereotypical ‘Indian’ on your alphabet chart for the letter I?  Maybe for W we could put a picture of an obese white person eating a Big Mac?” (Yes, for real, and I said it lovingly.)  We could start there.  Or we could go a bit more general and talk about the need to provide challenging and engaging work, and we do, almost every time we talk after I observe their teaching. I work with a great lead professor who I learn from every time I’m around her, and the students in the program are great in unique ways–I just wish they could teach in a better system.

I teach a course–sociocultural influences on learning for undergrads.  It’s not over yet, and I’m afraid to ruin something that feels pretty rewarding by blathering here.  I was surprised to learn from a future student last weekend that she will be in my class in the spring–I was trying to talk her into taking my section, as she mentioned being registered for one of them.  It’s crosslisted again as an African and African American Studies course (which I only learned from her as we pieced together that she’s actually in my course anyway).

A class I’m currently taking is an Actlab course, and right now I find it a bit frightening.  I’m supposed to make something based on the semester’s course.  This is a course outside my program of study with a professor I admire and hope to in some ways emulate.   An idea I’m kicking around is something she said–that when we teach we should be doing poetry–no, not spontaneous freeverse per se, but rather inspired, in-the-moment work.  I’m thinking about a group constructed poem after one of my own and/or reading my own and/or at least a text rendering based on poets who have emerged through my readings related to her course (Rumi, Yeats, Whitman).  Then I think of all these things I’ve lived and cared about and want to integrate them (sea turtles, bike rides, elbowed stomachs in basketball, the people who have taught me to cook, so many things), as my coursework otherwise tends to eclipse the rest of me.  But then I don’t know how that fits the scope of the project, and I find myself with this one opportunity to be expressive and at the same time a little panicked. Sandy (the prof) bases here courses on the hero’s journey (Campbell).  What courage would I have?

Avuxeni, thanks for your comments–I wrote down all the questions from yesterday’s group and asked their permission to include them in this post.  They agreed.

Here are the questions my 12 students asked yesterday about US Public Education–I was hungry to get at the answers to these questions and impressed by the teachers’ thoughtfulness:

How do we assess and evaluate students?

Do high school students experience a lot of pressure as they try to get into college (relative to the massive anxiety Korean students face)?

What kind of extracurricular activities do schools offer?

Do we censor our textbooks, and how are they controlled, in the US? (The teacher who asked this said it was only when she traveled to France and was questioned about communism from the French that she looked into different narratives about North Korea’s and communism’s histories, for example.)

How is inclusion being implemented in the U.S. for special education students in general education classrooms?

Are community college students treated differently by peers and professors when they go to four-year institutions?

What are the requirements to be a teacher?

What is the role of boarding schools in the U.S.?

Are there regulations for student appearance in schools (like the strict ones Korean students must adhere to)?

What is the role of charter schools?

Do we have tracking (”ability level” courses)?

Are teachers allowed to share their political positions as they teach (in Korea teachers must remain neutral–a seemingly objective standard but one that ultimately becomes problematic–as in the case of journalism, for example)?

How do students, especially foreign students, get scholarships to attend college?

The class is only six sessions long–I wish it were longer to be able to offer thorough attention to each of these questions.  It will be interesting to see what Korean teachers actually learn from our course at the end.  I hope they’ll be satisfied.

I’ve taught the Korean Fulbright teachers three times now (two separate groups).  I am impressed at their self-discipline and curiosity.  Despite jetlag and overall fatigue from the rigors of the program, they are in class, on-time, every day.  I find myself enjoying the teaching (and the professionalism and insights of the other staff at the institute) a lot.  

But I struggle with the classic question–what do I teach them?  Before their arrival, I wrote a set of US student identities (including immigrant students as well as black, white, Latino, and Asian students from varying social classes).  Each teacher receives an identity, and each class the teacher learns a bit more about that person’s identity.  This was to solve the question of how to help the teachers understand the diversity of students in US public education as well as the challenges we face in attempting (not so well, oftentimes) to educate all students.  So far the feedback from the teachers is that they like learning these identities; as one put it, “I feel like I’m getting to meet many Americans this way.”  I hope I have not essentialized identities based on race and class, but I have tried to create these personalities based on demographic trends I know in the US.

Yesterday we did the classic K-W-L activity (what do you “K”now about US public education, what do you “W”ant to know, and what have you “L”earned?”).  I wrote down their questions to help me guide the course–including: What is the role of unions? How is curriculum established? What and how are teachers paid, and what is their status in the US? What is homeschooling?

Nonetheless, I still wonder what kind of picture is forming in the minds’ eyes of these teachers of US Public Education.  I’ve had a lot of guidance from a former (and current) teacher of the course, but I can’t help but wonder.

Today, Saturday, I will attend a University of Texas men’s basketball game.  It’s not school pride; it’s an outing with the Korean teachers.  My husband will come along, as will a couple other staff members.  Hook ‘em Horns!

***

I spent most of yesterday morning at the middle school.  I met with those famed counselors I have previously mentioned who do such good work with kids that is empowering and relevant.  We talked about how we could use advisory around several upcoming issues–the Presidential Inauguration and President-Elect Obama’s call for community service, considering love and how we express it as Valentine’s Day approaches as well as thinking about respect (including self-respect) as state standardized tests approach, too.  Meeting with those counselors is always a sort of blessing–they bring such good energy and ideas, and they are so good at caring. 

One very cool moment during that discussion was a graduate school to middle school connection I made.  One of those counselors is developing a unit in working after school with kids in community service about violence and the outcomes of violence.  Part of that project includes having her students discuss films about genocide, including the World War II Holocaust, as well as reading a Guatemalan Civil War testimonio, the famed, “I, Rigoberta,” by Rigoberta Menchu.  Several of the students will go to Houston in March to hear this Nobel Prize winner speak.  We plan to have these kids produce some educational materials they can share during advisory.  But the graduate school connection was related to discussions I had last semester in my Narrative and Oral Traditions class where we talked about Menchu’s work several times and reflected on individual and collective memory.  I shared a bit about that discussion in light of the criticisms Menchu’s work has received.  

I’m a little worried that one of next week’s advisory activities won’t go over very well.  Each advisory is to write a collective poem, one line from each student, based on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  I’ll update later.

Today I have positive energy.  Spirit has moved me, so I’m writing again.

Students are back at the middle school.  I’m not there, but I just talked to the guidance counselor who I work closely with.  Polite as he is, I gathered in our two minutes and eight seconds of conversation that he and the guidance staff were overwhelmed.  ”Kids are showing up just now to register; we have kids coming in from the ALC (alternative learning center); the front office is swamped.”  I kind of felt bad for him, but I also enjoyed the thought of the energy of school (and I’ll be there tomorrow).  I’ve written lesson plans for the next couple of weeks–getting students to reconsider the purpose of advisory, to evaluate their own groups, and also getting them to reflect on Martin Luther King, Jr. (the holiday is coming up soon) and doing collective writing projects in poetry based on MLK’s vision and their own visions for the future.

***

All this good energy may come from meeting the Korean teachers yesterday (ok, and maybe also the days off I took).  It was so exciting to see them facing such an interesting experience.  I enjoyed meeting with several of them over lunch.  Conversations ranged from American standards of beauty (primarily whiteness) to politics in the U.S. to comparing education systems.  We also shared personal stories about marriage, social expectations regarding marriage and children, and our experiences as teachers.  Today is the first day I actually teach them.  I’m so looking forward to the feedback loop of teaching (daunting as it is).  Maybe I’ve really missed the teaching aspect of my life.  

Most of the books I ordered have arrived for my spring classes.  I’m looking forward to reading them and intend to get started now (though I can’t seem to put down the novel I’m reading in my free time–Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz).  I need to read a lot more Pierre Bourdieu–especially for a paper I’m working on… and there he is, author of “Outline of a Theory of Practice,” among the books waiting for me.  

Here is a smattering of observations from last semester’s work here and how it felt.  They’re some final reflections before other activities drive my attention elsewhere (I’m about to go to the Opening Ceremony for the Korean Fulbright teachers I’ll be teaching over the next several weeks, for example).

I never took a day off.  Not. one. day.  That was unwise (I’m being kind to myself).  Yes, we moved during the semester; I went to a friend’s wedding in California; my in-laws visited for ten days; my dog got sick and had emergency surgery, etc.  There were a couple days when I really needed a day, just one.  But I refused to allow it.  It was a sick sort of fear that if I missed just one day, I’d fall behind, and I’d have only myself to blame.  In reality, if I had given myself a day off–even a day a week–I probably would have been more clear-minded about doing my work.

I almost didn’t take time off during this holiday (yes, I still have work–the Korean teachers, the advisory program doesn’t follow the university schedule, unfortunately).  I started to realize I was angry at myself for not getting a break, fantasizing about summer break already.  That was wrong, especially since I was feeling guilty for not working enough during my break.  So I just came off four days of a self-imposed break.  At Pedernales Falls on Rob’s birthday (Saturday), I felt myself having thoughts, the kind I used to have when I wasn’t working and feeling sick about working.  

When I finished writing my last paper at the end of the semester (I wrote forty-five pages in the last couple weeks… this isn’t remarkable for graduate school, but an indicator of how busy I was), I felt not just a sense of relief.  I felt like I had just gotten out of jail.  When did graduate school become prison?  Again, I like what I’m studying; I’m passionate about it.  But I do not want to feel imprisoned.  

So, next semester, I will give myself permission to have breaks.  If I end up feeling constantly shackled, my work will suffer, and I will suffer.

And now it’s off to work.