Action Plan - Take 2

Take 2 – 1:00-2:30am
I think this story starts with my family. To give you some context I grew up in a large family with 7 siblings, that makes 8 children, and a grand total of 10 people. We moved around a lot and were quite an independent unit. I didn’t see relatives very often, so family was pretty much ‘just’ the 10 of us. I am near the lower end of the line, I have twin brothers who are younger than me; everyone else is older. While we eventually became scattered around the globe (at one point spanning four continents and five countries) it is still the basis, or starting point, for my view of what home and relationships can look like. While we mostly love each other, my family seems to be an anomaly when it comes to fighting and arguing. Now most families have their share of fights, but in my family it all takes such an intellectual character that most people either laugh or legitimately don’t understand it. I think at its most basic level we just want to be right, and we want others to acknowledge our intellectual prowess and superiority. But nearer the surface we realize that we also love each other, and we recognize that that is the function and role of the family. So when one of us comes up with some way of explaining things, or argues a point of view, it immediately becomes contentious. Someone will inevitable take a different stance in an effort to see what such a dialogue will expose and reveal. It can get loud, and it can get heated. But at the end of the day we still recognize that we are who we are, foibles and all, and that love is better than alienation. Don’t take this to mean that we all agree and just argue for the fun of it. We disagree and hold to vastly different conceptions of many spheres of life. It is just that our views are not fundamentally about competition. Which is why, in the end, I think we can find a way to love each other. That’s just how a family is supposed to be.
It should be obvious at this point why exactly I’d be studying at Pitt in a PhD program. I thrive in a world where ideas are put on the table to be contested, examined, and held critically. Academia has been this place for me, a home away from home. Except there is a problem; the environment has changed and no one has mentioned that the “rules of the game” have taken on a different character. Because ideas are now the point of contact with others who we are and who others are gets muddled. What happens often time is that we see others ideas as coming out of their identity, which in the world of academia is not the role of sibling, a family member, or loved one, rather it is one of ideas contested in order to win, for the use of power, who we are is how strong and persuasive our view are, or how tightly we hold them. When we get loud it implies we are ‘more’ right. Academia is a place of competition. Somehow we have come to a place, a classroom where our ideas and arguments are not part of a dialogue, but are rather just another voice attempting to have it take the day. So, far in Core I have felt this tangibly. And I have lost a home.
But the story doesn’t end there. For the previous two years, I have been at Geneva College studying higher education, and my colleagues and I were able to make a classroom a home. Ideas were exchanged, people talked and people listened, and we may have even loved each other- wanting the good of another. It was more of a family than a rat race of competition. It felt like home. So, I continue the search, as I navigate this precarious journey that seems to be Core- one month in.
But I have forgotten something. It is the hardest thing to discuss, admit, and live with. That is my own fear. I’ll be honest: I am afraid. The homesickness is setting in. Most of my fears are passing phases; “I’m not good enough,” “What am I doing here?” “What do others think of me?” But others are deeper. One of the most fundamental fears I have is that the relationships needed to have the core classroom become home are not possible. It seems realistic to think that with 50 people trust will be a hard thing to develop, only meeting for a few hours a week. On the other hand, our study groups have potential, but that requires a course of action (which is a current struggle for me to grasp and make sense of, see my think piece about dwelling with the texts) and I remain confused about how to do that in love rather by hurting others by challenging them to be something they are not. How can I allow others to be themselves and yet occupy a place of contested ideas and intellectual arguments? Can we really listen and be heard, or are we just “adding to the noise.” Part of the Core experience is struggling with the questions of what trust and love look like in this sort of classroom.
The question of trust is a big one. To use an analogy: when learning a new skill like swimming we trust those that are teaching us. If we don’t our fear is magnified and we can become paralyzed. This will ultimately hinder our learning. Core seems to be similar, it is an experience that has faculty as guides; signpost along the way. And this requires a great amount of trust. Trust that I don’t think I have. Part of this lies in my reflection on the texts being used and how they relate to the discourse of the discipline at large. And while it is a destination I hope to get to, I am having a hard time seeing the road, and the several turn offs that I may or may not have missed.
The one thing I do trust, and remains the framework for my ability to be successful in core, is that the process of learning works. That reading, writing and thinking, dialoguing and arguing, even if in a less than ideal way, will change who I am. I’ve been in school long enough now to know that this is true. At the end of Core I will be different. This is where my confusion over the action plan comes in. I have never accurately predicted where I would be after a time of learning, even in the short term, not to mention over the course of a semester. It has been the major obstacle for an articulate action plan.
So, what of the goals set out for this course? I hope that in my pursuit of the goals that I will once again see glimpses of home; a place where I can learn and love at the same time. It is a place still in the distance. In the meantime I will continue to write my thoughts and engage the deliberative process that is inherent in the set up of the course. I hope to develop the “Dwelling with the texts” think piece into a useful and scholarly paper. I also hope to work with my study group through dialogue and feedback toward writing a paper about each of the three themes of core: (1 ) Globalization, (2) Democracy and the Need for Civic Engagement, and (3) Educators as Intellectuals. I will also be using the blog as a journal space for thoughts that are generated through class as well as my activities outside of class. Having been through the learning process many times, I think the harder task will be in assessing how the goals for this course have shaped me. I have already seen how I have been able to engage in the goals and have been changed.
Concerning the final goal of developing as a scholar/practitioner/citizen, I see this as…

"She refers to a phenomenon of movie going which I have called certification. Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it become possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere." – Walker Percy, The Moviegoer, p. 63.

Take 2½ - 2:16pm
Using the framework of loving the neighbor I think this gives a good context to pursue the goal of developing as a scholar/practitioner/citizen. Writing, dialogue in the class, as well as relating the class material to life outside, will be a labor of love. As a scholar you have to care for the subjects. Problematizing ideas and perspectives is a way to have an engaged response rather than the non-response of indifference. It is the scholar’s work to find a creative way to bring these problems to light and give insight into seeing things anew. My study group is a testing ground of interaction with colleagues as scholars. As a practitioner, my role in core is to continue to work toward the collision of practice and theory. To find the legs of the theory, to see where ideas can take me, my community, and society. The practitioner has to continually see their own fear and continue anyway. It is the pursuit of eradicating a life of hypocrisy. My experience becomes the frame in which I inhabit the class. Love of neighbor manifests itself well in the role of the practitioner. As a citizen, love of neighbor is moving past oneself and giving up oneself to another. This has been incredible hard for me in the Core experience so far. It seems that each student is suppose to get what they came for, even if it is at the expense of others. I find myself drawn into this way of thinking, and I dislike the person I may become if I am not made conscious of this fact.
If Core becomes a place to play the game of competition, then love, community, and true learning are impossible. It would be an unrealistic goal to have Core become a family, that takes a lifetime, but maybe a home can be made out of the community that happens as students see their gifts and needs in relation to their fellow colleagues. Maybe, in my search, I can find home, or at least a place to be myself.

Core Folder
Today I see the folder looking like this:
1. Think piece on dwelling with the texts (in publishable form).
2. Three essays framing the three themes of Core as I have come to understand them.
3. Journal entries that reflect on my experience in Core
4. A group project with my study group is still in the planning stage.
5. A changed and more articulate self.

A week later…
After getting some feedback on this piece from Dr. Gunzenhauser, he raised three questions that I think I will have to wrestle with for the rest of the core experience.
1. How do we go about trying to “really” know others so that learning can happen?
2. What risks am I willing to take to challenge myself and others so that we can become trustworthy colleagues?
3. What is the important difference between “finding home” and “making home?”
All of these questions find their connection with the challenge to “imagine things differently.” These questions present the challenge of learning in the Core experience for me, and I hope that this experience and wrestling will help me reflect on how I have come to further search and stretch out how learning can be.

reflections on "democratic classroom"

The panel discussion in last nights class was helpful in bringing to light some new insight into pedagogy and classroom dynamics. (I would be interested in hearing a critique of democracy as an ideal for a classroom, there is bound to be one out there?) My thoughts focused around the idea of apathy and the meaning of silence in the classroom. Julie proposed that silence in response to the teachers questions, may be related to socialized apathy that American students grow up into. While I would agree that this is a distinct possibility, I would add that I think there is also a sense of overwhelming that happens when asked a question (especially a broad open-ended one) by a faculty member. In our current info-glut culture, which is getting more obese by globalization it might be hard to say anything that trivializes or does justice to the topic discussed. The best word I can think of for this is cacophony. Wikipedia defines it this way:

(from the Greek word kakophonia - kakos (bad) + phoni (voice, sound)) refers to sound that is harsh and unpleasant-sounding. The opposite of cacophony is euphony, meaning musical and pleasant. The closely related term dissonance implies a combination of sounds which clash; its antonym, harmony, suggests sounds that fit together well. Dissonance and harmony have musical connotations whereas cacophony and euphony more often refer to speech.

This seems to accurately describe what it is like to be a student (even for me as a grad student, not to mention college freshman and sophomores). It seems that part of what a democratic classroom is points to cacophony as a good tool for learning. This may be the case, but I wonder where does the music come from? Or, is there any possibility of coherence, for students to actually make sense of the world, rather than just being asked to inhabit a space that is forever contested? Some of the responses Matt is hearing that sound unoriginal seem to be students mechanism to cope with the cacophony of mass media, current politics, and their worldviews that have developed up to that point. It seems harsh (even "violence to the other") to ask students to abandon a place to stand, even if a critique of that place can be made.
Added to this is Garrison's idea of democratic listening which says that we can't help but stand somewhere. Each place has its own sort of biases, prejudices and assumptions, but it is a real place, rather that the "no place" (utopia) that is the pursuit of objectivity. So, in a true Gandhian sense, how do we bring about a classroom that is non-violent while also allowing each person to be respected, heard, critiqued, and questioned?
On a final note, my response to Katrina is mostly silence. I would hope that this is not socialized apathy. Rather I think that it goes to my sense of the magnitude of a reality that is bigger than the language I have at my disposal. It is likely to turn something big into a small problem that can be solved mentally and stored away (This is the sort of response you get in the headline news- Hotel Rwanda and Ben Harper's song "Please Don't Talk About Murder While I'm Eating" speak well to this). A great example of this is Kanye West's national response that "Bush hates black people." While this may be the case, it in someway trivializes and invalidate those that have experience Katrina first hand. It does more violence, rather than trying to work toward healing and restoration. Maybe apathy, stoicism, and numbness are the only real responses to the cacophony of the world we live in. I hope not, but I understand it- it is part of the milieu that I move through on a daily basis. The democratic classroom ought to be a place where we find out how things connect, how to make sense of the fragments that we are left holding. If not, then maybe the only human response is-----silence.

dialectic and religion

Question: How did you come to understand dialectic?

While I was a philosophy major I first heard about the process(?) of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in the context of Hegel. Although I have found since that this description has come up more in conversations about religion (primarily Christianity) than anywhere else (educational theory being a big one). I was reminded of this while reading Maxine Greene, where she brings up the idea of obstacles overcome as part of the dialectic of freedom. Basically I am interested in seeing if religion helped Hegel, or whether religion borrowed (transformed) the idea. In Christianity you have creation (defined by different groups as, natural law, normative structure, design, original order, conception, formation, foundation, generation inception, birth) which works as the thesis, antithesis is developed as: sin, brokenness, direction, obstacles, social distortion, death, the fall, chaos, reductionism, or any other "ism" (again different depending on the group), and finally synthesis as the resolution of this dialectic- redemption, freedom, life, sanctification, deliverance, liberation, regeneration, rebirth, restitution. You can see this similar sort of story arc in a lot of religions (Judaism, Christianity, New Age, Scientology).

Maybe my question should really be is dialectic inherently religious or vice versa?

Born into schools

Over at my film blog, I wrote about the film Born into Brothels. It is an interesting film related to our work in education. It subtly argues that education, especially for disadvantaged kids living in the slums of Calcutta, is of great importance toward hoping for a better life and more opportunity to develop gifts, talents, and knowledge. This seems to be a good example of globalization in action; the kids eventually have a photography gallery in NYC where money is raised for their education. This doesn't seem to be the globalization Friedman has in mind (He doesn't focus very much on the value of culture and it moving around the globe, he is much more concerned with the economics of globalization), but would fit well with Anderson's line of thought (Anderson sees culture mobility as a key part of globalization, in this case it is art from India moving around the world, it is also education and artistic expression from coming from western technology - cameras - given a local flavor).

Action plan - the form

This is my action plan. You are looking at it. In a globalizing world blogs are a good format in which to write thoughts and receive feedback in the form of comments at the bottom of each post. This blog is were journalling and writing meets technology. Trust me my penmanship is hard to read, and a blog allows for a nice aesthetic for the Core project. The posts are dated and sorted sequentially, with the newest post at the top of the page. It also allows words to be linked (words in silver within posts are links) to further resources and sites that may be helpful or contribute to the conversation. Since it is accessible through the Internet I am hoping that I can get feedback from the faculty of Core, my study group, my Core colleagues, as well as mentors and friends (Gideon Strauss, Keith Martel, Chris Klein, Jeff Schooley, Paul Petrovic, Jeff Bouman, etc.) that I think can contribute valuable comments for the deliberative process. This is not really an experiment since I have for the past two years been blogging about film, which has lead to both the reader's and the writer's views changing in the process of conversation. This blog is the form and tangible outworking of my learning through out this first year of the doctoral program.
On a technical note, comments are moderated through my email, so I can avoid getting spam comments. In order to comment, click on the word comment at the bottom of each post. At the maximum, it will take a day for your comment to appear on the site. I will try to post them as soon as I receive the email. Also, if you do not have a blogger user name and password you can still comment. If you would be kind enough to give your name at the bottom that would be appreciated.

Action Plan (II) - content contextualized

While this action plan takes the form of a semi-public web forum (see below), the content is based on the goals and objectives, as well as the texts assigned by the faculty group of the Core course. (note: there are two parts to this course, this action plan covers the first semester of this Core experience. I may continue this into Core II, we'll see).
First, the text that are required reading for this course:
Anderson, W.T. (2003). All connected now: Life in the first global civilization.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education.
Greene, M. (1988). The dialectic of freedom.
Booth, W., Williams, J., & Colomb, G. (2003). The craft of research, 2nd ed.
Smith, M.L., with L. Miller-Kahn, W. Heinecke, & P. Jarvis (2004). Political spectacle and the fate of American schools.
Rose, M. (1989). Lives on the boundary.

These texts are a starting place for deliberation within the current discourses in education. The syllabus (highlights below), additional readings, and my study group will also act as text that promote the deliberative process. The three themes are: Economic Globalization, Democracy and the Need for Civic Engagement, and Educators as Intellectuals. These will be the primary topics that I will engage in my writing about the texts as well as my learning in the Core experience. It is a fluid plan, I do not have a specific number of posts. On the other hand, I will have at least one extended post dealing with each of the themes that we discuss in Core (other post will probably be more reflective on experiences). I hope that at the end of the semester, viewing this blog will show that I have pursued the goals and objectives (one of the goals will have been engaged by me just creating this blog - see goal #4 below) of the course and produced deliberative think pieces and scholarly writing.

Your comments on this action plan are welcome. The action plan is due October 3.