Constructing Kasun, Educator

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.  

Stings.  You scream like hell.  Call people after you google, “Austin emergency 78702.”  

What does this have to do with my program?  

It’s indicative of how life gets in the way.

I had two recording devices ready to conduct an interview for research I’m doing for a class (and may fold into dissertation work someday).  I was planning to interview a teacher at the middle school regarding his approach to critical pedagogy.  I’m not sure he calls it that, but what I’ve heard about his teaching and my brief interactions indicate he puts theory into practice toward liberatory education with his students.

I had garlic, onion, limes, mole sauce, tomatoes, and cucumbers lining the kitchen counters.  I was going to make chicken mole (a favorite Mexican dish of mine) for him.  As a small offering of my appreciation.  He said he’d be glad to come to my house for the interview.  And after a meal, we’d talk.  With recording devices rolling.

Of course that meant shopping beforehand. I finished unpacking the last of the beer, and I heard, “bzzzzzz, bzzzzzz, bzzzzzzz.”   A bee had gotten stuck inside the blinds of the back window.  I tried to gently shoo him out of the blinds, opening the door to let him free, to no avail.  And twenty minutes later, he had neatly positioned himself beneath my left foot.  I didn’t see him, of course, and he had his way with me.

I screamed.  And yelled, hollered, raised a ruckus.  Tore apart the contents of a basket of toiletries in the bathroom looking for tweezers.  Felt the venom of anger inside me, knowing I’m allergic to bees as I pulled the stinger out.  It hurt worse.  I called people.  No one answered.  One person who did answer heard me yelling because I thought my cell phone hadn’t connected yet.

I live in a new city.  Where’s the hospital?  Google it.  No luck.  Call a stranger in Austin and get advice.  My new cell phone somehow erased all my contacts (including local ones), so I was stuck.  But I have one professor’s cell phone programmed into my new list of 8 or so contacts.  No answer.  Called my mom (a nurse).  Got advice (including a gentle version of “Settle the hell down”).  Called the university nurse.  Consensus:  Go to the hospital.  Googled husband’s work colleague because husband wasn’t picking up the phone.  Colleague quickly assured me she’d find him at all costs.  Husband comes home in a rush, I have canceled my interview and left all the food on the counter, and we leave.

Big crowds. Lots of coughing.  Two separate waiting rooms.  One for the really sick and one for the moderately paranoid.  My swelling never got too bad (was it the Benadryl Mom had prescribed?).  The doctor was nice but said I need to get real allergy tests; maybe I’m not allergic after all (just hysterical?).  My last bee sting over a decade ago was ugly… there was some kind of reaction going on.

No interview.  Haven’t finished the reading I need to for tomorrow.  But my foot is fine, and I’m back at home.  I guess we’ll reschedule.  And the reading will get as finished as it can.  Goodnight. 

It went… well?  Is it safe to say that?  I asked an administrator, and his words were, “It went about as well as the first day of advisory could go.”  I waited for a shoe to fall.  It didn’t.  ”Why are you doing, this advisory work, is it related to your dissertation?”

No.  I told him I wanted to be involved in activism and in scholarship.  I am not a white savior, I told him, but I believe very much in the connection between research and being on the ground in schools.  He can relate, as he already has his PhD.  He said that sometimes it’s “too much,” inside the school building.  That statement was heavy and powerful.

But advisory.  Went. Well.  Students sat in circles.  A couple students said they thought it was fun.  Others thought it was neat they were with their friends.  Teachers thought it went well.  Some expressed good concerns.  What about the Spanish speakers?  (I’m hoping they can get fluent English/Spanish speakers to work with the non-English speaking kids to interpret, but I probably need to be more explicit.)  What about if they didn’t finish the lesson plans that already went out?

The lead guidance counselor and I sent an email to the staff.  We thanked them for expanding their comfort zones–doing something they don’t normally do–working with another adult the entire time inside their classrooms.  And also helping students feel safe, creating a community inside their unique advisory space.

Tomorrow is Day 2.  I’ll be back.  Today a few students from the leadership class and I stuffed the teacher’s boxes with large purple sheets of butcher paper so they can make a contract of norms which all students will sign in their advisories tomorrow.  The students started talking, and I got rich stories from them.  One whose siblings, like me, study at UT.  Law.  Math.  Business.  The students said they were worried about how to manage college, about how to pay for it.  One of the students told me her mom left her dad because of problems the parents were having; she was explicit.  I told her my dad died when I was seven; I was sorry.  The other one said she was teased by her brothers and sisters because she didn’t know her dad.  ”They have a different story every time I ask.”

Working so briefly with students… seeing hope.  Powerful.  I miss the classroom and am glad to have the small connection I do through advisory.