I’ve been awfully quiet about my coursework thus far. I’m three weeks in now, so I’d better give some impressions. Later, a quick update on advisory.
Three great classes. Three great professors. My favorite is probably the most personal. I’m taking an advanced qualitative methods course called narrative and oral traditions (in layterms, it’s a course on how people express themselves, their life stories, and how to research them through various methods like interviews, being in community among the people with you research, etc.). We talk a lot about bridging the (artificial?) divide between the academy and daily life. We read an great article for this week’s class (along with four others… the reading load here is intense… so much for my illusions of spending extra hours in the library doing cross-references in my reading just because I wanted to “dig deeper”). The article was about sacred research. The author is a Native American who researched among healers in the community where she lived for forty-two years. She struggled about perhaps leaving the academy but learned in an intense dream that she needed to stay… and she connected to the community, was healed by the women with whom she worked, and then published her work, based upon the research questions they wanted to have answered. Several students in the class found it difficult to imagine doing that–connecting the personal and spiritual side of self to the researcher side. I think that if I do not attempt to do this (and, yes, it may be difficult to convince the research community that this is “valid,” and it will likely limit my possibilities in terms of where I may be able to work), I will not be able to make it as a scholar. This author maintains her writing within the style and framework of academic writing, but she is steadfast in demonstrating the personal, spiritual, and subjective selves that are part of her work as well. I’m also learning Chicana feminist epistemology… and it is an intense and helpful lens for me to understand experiences. More on that, later. Our professor is hopefully about to make tenure at UT… and I hope he does, because I need him here!
Another class in American Immigrant Experiences is taught by an anthropologist who has done a lot of research in the field. We’ve looked at the historic policies and court cases in the US which have helped institutionalize the racializing of our country to the benefit of people who are now considered “white.” The class members share an antipathy toward the history we’re learning–this isn’t your classroom notion of the melting pot. It’s more about how Asians were legally considered not fit to become Americans, how Mexicans, through decades of second-class status in workers’ programs, have had to fight for legal recognition in terms of immigration and citizenship policy.
My final class just started Monday… about the cultural knowledge of teachers. This one will be very helpful if I decide to research with teachers. The professor knows a lot of theory, uses highly interactive methods, and is gentle in creating a safe learning environment. She was obviously a great teacher (she used to teach fourth grade), and I’m looking forward to learning a lot more from her as well as the vast knowledge and backgrounds of students in the class.
Advisory Update
Advisory is going well. I gave a training on the parameters of what advisory has been built to look like ten times on Wednesday (in rotating sessions). Most teachers seem willing to try it. Their big concern is that this will take away too much “instructional time.” They know as well as I do that the content of advisory is also instructive, but we’ve all been disciplined into believed that only the four core disciplines taught here (math, science, language arts, and social studies) are real instruction (that’s where the testing is, after all). I was humbled by the co-presenting that staff members who participated in the two-day planning sessions did. They spoke with deep knowledge, ownership, and hope, about where the program is going. I will facilitate another training on Monday after school with the staff as well.
Balance
I keep trying to balance it all, including another move with my husband which we made over the weekend. Luckily my husband in pinch-hitting in terms of unpacking, cooking, and overall patience with me (he is also still adjusting to a new job, new city). I also keep an eye toward a hurricane that has already been devastating and will hit Texas tomorrow morning and eventually bring some of its rain toward Austin. We have evacuees at shelters from Galveston and Houston here. It’s a strange new phenomenon for me.
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