ReScattered

Broccoli

2010-03-30T13:39:00.002-05:00

I have a reputation of being a teacher who is constantly eating in class. Usually it's something "weird" (translation: healthy, unfamiliar, and unprocessed). I've found out from older siblings of current students that my eating habits are strange enough for kids to discuss outside of class. Teaching a unit on the U.S. industrial food system has amplified this to a great degree. My sharing of baby carrots, hummus and pita, fruit, etc. has a whole new meaning now that I've positioned myself as an environmentally aware eater. Today I was munching on broccoli out of a bag clearly marked organic. J. happily took one, dipped it in some baba ghanoush, and then nearly spit it out in surprise. It was the first time he'd eaten raw broccoli and the texture alarmed him. However, after the initial shock and a few more dips in some yummy baba, he was hooked.

P.S. The backdrop of this photo is a bulletin board where we all responded to the question, "If people are what they eat, I am..." I think J. put that he was a Burger King Whopper with a side of ketchup-smothered fries. Raw broccoli is a big departure.

Shitty First Drafts

2010-01-09T10:28:00.002-05:00

Thursday I walked into one of my afternoon classes--the class that collectively hates to write the most--and realized that none of my students were prepared for the peer review workshop I had planned. I asked them do a bit of silent reading while I regrouped and then I headed to the back of the classroom and picked up the copy of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird that I had eyed. I opened to a chapter I'd read with my creative writing students last year--a chapter I love called "Shitty First Drafts." In it Lamott details the gory, self-loathing, not at all glamorous fits-and-starts writing life of most writers--the anxiety of getting started and verbal garbage that too often flows from our pens on the first try until we somehow begin writing the really good stuff, the stuff someone else might actually want to read.

I read aloud to students and watched as they giggled when I read "shitty," shocking their little 15-year old minds that their teacher would read profanity at the front of the room. (Nevermind, I'm regularly asking many of them to reduce the number of F bombs they drop in my room.) Regardless, they seemed kind of into it. Shock value helps. But you never really know when you're reading aloud whether they're paying attention or daydreaming or, more likely, a little of both. However, when I finished reading, I said, okay, start writing. And you know what, they did. They just wrote--they decided to trust the process. Somehow hearing in beautiful detail that they didn't have to (and probably weren't going to) create stunning prose the first time, they just went with it.

One student quickly filled a page with a mess or words and then handed it to me and said, "Here read this. It's terrible but read it." As I read through his rapid, hurried, at times nonsensical prose, I found bits and pieces of greatness. I said, "Wow, I like this part. And this inspires me too. And oh wow, yep, this part totally represents you." I walked away saying, "Why don't you do the same thing on the other half of the page focusing on one of these parts that sings?" He gave me the "but I already..." look and then he started to write. And you know what, the second page was even better. Two whole pages from a kid who barely writes two sentences on the regular. Even more, the words had more heart and soul than most student writing I read. It was a good day--better even than if they'd actually been prepared.

Yet the story gets more exciting. This morning I opened my inbox to an email with the following subject line: "My Shitty Draft........ Tell Me More About What I Need To Do ....." It was from another kiddo who more or less abhors writing. His story was a brilliant recounting of learning to cook at age 9 or 10 by boiling hot dogs with hot sauce and spices in the water. His kicky, smart prose had nodes of self-deprecation and gave way to a rather funny story of family love ad frozen entrees. I haven't responded to his email because I don't know what to tell him to do next except dig down somewhere deep and find more of the same honest, lively stories to spill onto the page. His writing was real and unselfconscious and moving.

Teachers don't always have days like this.

What Happened to the Techy Teacher?

2009-12-04T09:39:00.006-05:00

When I came back to my school in September, it felt like a foreign place. I schlepped my stuff down the hall to a new classroom and felt displaced. I plundered a teacher desk from another room, jammed boxes of my belongings and old student work in the closets because I don't know how to toss anything out, and then sat down and let myself be maudlin for 10 minutes because my closest teacher friends left and my students had graduated.

On the second day of school I found out that 10th graders throw markers at each other. And spit balls. Really. It's kinda hell. When 6th graders do it, it's annoying. When 10th graders do it, it's infuriating. I started throwing them back--the markers, not the spit balls. I aimed for desks, not heads, but only because I didn't want to get fired.

Amid my highly intellectual musings about how to stop my students from throwing markers at one another (throwing them back doesn't particularly work, by the way), I have been pretending to write a dissertation on technology in the classroom and teaching a graduate class on the social aspects of internet ICTS. Yet, I didn't wheel the laptop cart into my room until December. We were doing test prep. A lot of it. When you live in a state where high stakes tests determine student graduation and prevented some of your beloved former students from graduating and going on to colleges that had admitted them, you worry about the tests--in the sleepless nights sorta way. You teach the test. So that's what we did--September thru December. My students now hate my class and, I'm pretty sure, want to bludgeon me with markers. But, dammit, they can more or less write Critical Lens essays, persuasive listening responses, and can even make a decent pass at literary response though I'm a horrid teacher of literary analysis, mostly because I hate it. (English major rebellion, methinks.)

Anyway, the computers are back in the classroom...4 days a week now and we're all much happier. Students are making CDs of their favorite music accompanied by written sales pitches and personal essays, They might still be groaning that I'm "making them" write a whopping 6 paragraphs, but they're smiling as they select and organize the best songs and design well-thought out album covers to persuade audiences to buy their "mix tapes." More on why this is working later...well, more on whether it works...old assignment for me, new kids to try it out.

When Tenuous Feelings of Hope Start Slipping Away

2009-10-18T10:17:00.012-05:00

Today is one of those day in which the weather perfectly matches my mood. It's cold and rainy and the heater in my NYC apartment has yet to be turned on. I'd rather crawl back under my down blanket. I feel hopeless, like staying in my pajamas and hiding from the world outside. The only thing I'm feeling hopeful about is that my relationship with my grumpy roommate is improving. He made extra coffee this morning and offered me some. Sounds little, but it matters. It's a measure of hope. We're informally starting to take turns make each other coffee in the mornings and it's helping, cup by cup, little by little. It's hope and it's human.

At the beginning of this school year, I felt some simple little moments of hope with colleagues. I found unexpected common ground and even professional friendship with an entirely new grade level team. I had some fun co-planning and curriculum sharing time with departmental colleagues. I began feeling like we could deepen our work together and I'd have interested folks with whom to share ideas with and create curriculum with. Last year the two colleagues I'd worked most closely with left my school and I'd been really unsure about how things would be without them. They were my sounding boards, they were the ones with whom I had real, deep conversations about teaching and learning. When they left, I feared that I'd be alone in terms of that deep learning that helps me grow as an educator.

I was wrong. I'm not alone. In fact, I have brilliant colleagues who love students as much as I do and are full of great ideas. From a distance last year, I thought the person who just became my team leader was a cold fish. Looking a little more closely, I found that he's warm, funny, compassionate and, really, one of the most thoughtful and effective teachers I've ever worked with, not to mention one of the most organized. A new addition to our school, my CTT (collaborative team teaching) colleague has reflected with me about my overall curriculum planning and helped me build some pretty exciting classroom habits that support our students even more. My grade-level teammate in the Math Dept, also new, is incredibly generous and committed to community-building in productive, exciting ways. I could learn a lot from/with these teachers and, on a personal level, I really like them. I shouldn't be glum, but I am.

There are two hours each week set aside for me to talk with the brilliant folks on my grade-level team and another two hours set aside for me to reflect with my equally wise, innovative and kind departmental team. So why I am I so glum? Partly because our meetings are stifled by protocols and procedures we were handed that don't at all reflect what we think we need to be doing/working on. Our meetings are structured for us and must be thoroughly documented with meeting notes emailed out to all participants and all three administrators. It's also not uncommon to have one or all of these administrators stop by to "check up" on our progress on their goals. Last time I checked this isn't how teachers learn.

Furthermore, this year, I've been told exactly how my room should be set up (particular labels for everything on the walls), how my class periods should be structured, and I must have each one of my learning goals approved by an administrator who is ideologically in a very different space than I am. I have someone in my room at least weekly, sometimes more, toting a clipboard and rating my teaching with a checklist that includes such pedagogical criteria as "System for Addressing Late Students," "Clean Up," and "Orderly Dismissal." What I'm really learning: how to turn my kids into robots, to structure things the same way every day so that they know exactly what to do if an outsider walks in. I agree that there's something to "classroom rituals and routines" that I believe can be effective, but this is a bureaucratic twist on the teacher knowledge, expertise and autonomy that usually drives effective classroom routines. These are not my or our "rituals and routines;" they're mechanical structures from on high. It's the factory model and I'm wondering why no one has handed me a hard hat. It's possible to get everyone doing the same thing at the same time; Ford Auto has assembly line workers do it all the time, but it makes me feel more than a little uneasy for teachers and students to be put in this position, particularly with a lack of pedagogical conversation and innovation.

Couple this with learning a new, clunky online grading program that is supposed to be "empowering to students" but feels a lot like "big brother" and I'm feeling tired, hopeless, and alone. I'm getting "Proficient" evaluations on the classroom checklist for my little student robots and informational wall decor, but I got my hands slapped for not translating my paper-based grade book into the online system according to the calendar outlined in one of the 20 or so bureaucratic emails I get every week. I'm exhausted, harried, and demoralized. It's October and I'm starving for a real teaching and learning conversation. I'm also anxious and full of fear about whether I'm meeting all of the "accountability" protocols dropped off by school leaders.

Even given all of this frustration, I don't for a moment doubt that my school leaders are doing the best that they can, that all of these protocols and procedures and new systems come from with the best of intentions. Frankly, they're terrified of all of the city and state-based accountability measures put on their heads and the anxiety is getting disseminated like handouts warm off the photocopier. My school is preparing for it's annual School Quality Review (SQR) and those tend to cause everyone worry and strife--principals and teachers alike. One of the teachers in my school is hosting a Halloween-themed "SQR Stress Relief" party at her home, where she lives with two teachers from other schools, who are also feeling suffocated by dramatic accountability measures being implemented in their schools. What I write about above is happening all over NYC and, I suspect, NY state and the US at large.

As schools work to demonstrate that they have good systems, the really good stuff, the reason we all do this, slips away, right along with the feelings of hope I so desperately want to have for public education. It's getting harder and harder for me to imagine how we're going to sit down over coffee and have a real conversation about what teachers think they need to make schools better.

PSAT Proctoring

2009-10-14T09:16:00.008-05:00

I sit here proctoring an exam. Twenty-one young people--all about fifteen years old--sit before me utterly silent, calculators and #2 pencils in hand, bubbling in empty holes on their PSAT answer sheets. Many of them were particularly exuberant and playful when they walked into the school early this morning--teasing and joking with one another, gently pushing and slugging, scowling and name-calling, smiling and laughing at one another. I'm chalking it up to anxiety--right alongside the handful of headaches and tummy aches--because I never see them so rowdy this early in the day. After they'd all found their room assignments and the handful of little test-takers under my charge had sauntered in from the hallways and settled in to the classroom a minute or two beyond the 9:00am start time, I passed out the 39-page test booklets and fold-over, purple printed answer/info. sheets. I then stood at the front of the room deconstructing how to bubble the 2 full pages of info. sheets right along with them, puzzling through the questions that were at times utterly confusing even to me--a seasoned test bubbler.

As we worked together completing this form for 40 mins, students grumbled, sighed and got confused but stuck with it, figuring it out right along with me. They asked the usual, "Do I have to mark my race? Can I mark more than one?" And, of course, cried out in exasperation over forgotten social security numbers and zip codes. As we worked through the blanks, my mind raced through all the high-stakes, stardardized tests I've taken--this one--the PSAT, the real SAT, the ACT, the GRE--a couple of times, the GRE English,three teacher certification exams in Missouri and, when I moved, three more teacher certification exams in NYC. As I recall all of these exams that were requirements of my career in one way or another, it does not escape me that I'm teaching students a valuable skill as we work our way through the seemingly endless circles with our #2 pencils--that impersonal, computer-assessed exams will be part and parcel of the rest of their academic existence. From the SATs they will sit for--likely more than once, the Scantron exams they'll take in over-sized psychology and science courses at large public universities where they'll be number 787 on the quiz clicker to the myriad of professional certification exams they'll take for their respective fields.

I never really feel good on these standardized exam days. I feel like we've all gotten short-changed. And I think we have. This isn't what education is supposed to be, but it's also what education has become. If my students want to move on to careers where their talent, intellect, and innovation is truly valued, they have to learn to bubble effectively, erase completely, and read and understand directions that sometimes confound this teacher.

At the end of the each of the 5 sections, which I logged on the white board up front, I wrote silly things like, "Woot, woot! Wer're over half way done. :)" and then, "We're 80% thru! Yay! Hip Hip Horray." They rolled their eyes and shook their heads at me as they stifled smiles. When the test was through, I was the dragon lady teacher. I checked over each answer sheet and helped them correct errors. They sorta wanted to bludgeon me, because their friends from other classrooms were already in the hallways whooping it up. Yet, instead of letting them enter the mayhem of the hallways without reflecting on what they'd just accomplished, I quieted them down once again and quite simply said, "Congratulations, you've taken your first step to going to college. You should be very proud." As they filed out of the classroom, bumping into one another, pushing to get out of testing zone relatively unscathed and into freedom, I patted them on the backs, smiled, and congratulated them again. Then, I went and sat at my desk and let a few tears fall for the pride I feel for these children I'm growing to love and frustration at yet another injustice of our educational system.

I think for a moment about the dissertation I'm writing on literacy and technology in education and dream of all the wonderfully creative design projects we'll do this year with laptops on our desks, all the books we'll read and share with one another sitting on our bean bags, and all the interesting topics we'll discuss and probably even heatedly debate. Alongside these exciting valuable learning activities, I also resolve not to forget to teach my students the code too--to teach them to be good little test bubblers so that they have access to the really good stuff in the world of education. I can wish these tests didn't matter, don't have real consequences, but they do and kids need to know how to be good little test-takers right along side being designers, composers, and dreamers of new worlds. Perhaps it will be their over-tested generation that creates the new way of doing things that we so desperately need.

UAMA SlideShow for Graduation

2009-06-26T23:28:00.000-05:00

Regents--the DJ Pep Talk

2009-06-18T16:04:00.005-05:00

The Day of the English Language Arts Regents

On Tuesday morning, I grabbed hold of all of the 12th graders I saw entering my school building and flung my arms around their stiff bodies. Then I pulled back, still clinging to them, looked each one in the eye individually and said something like, "You can do this. I know your work. If you just do your best, you're going to pass this thing. There is no doubt in my mind. You're gonna be fine, just stick with it." I was fighting back tears and anger, trying to demonstrate only the hope and love in me. As I looked at their anxious faces, all the beautiful papers and projects they'd written for my class turned pages in my mind--proof of my words. I repeated, "I've seen your work. I know you can do this." I believe in my students. I believe that they're smart and capable and can pass this exam. But I also don't believe that their getting a diploma on June 26 should depend on the first draft of an essay undoubtedly on a topic they could care less about. In short, I think the test is a sham. I think they can do it, but only if they're in the right emotional space.

After the hallway hug attack, I dragged all four of them into Room 709 and gave a fierce but sincere pep talk. It went something like this: "Take it slow. You have plenty of time. Write as much as you can. The more words you get on the page, the more we have to work with when we grade these. If you skip anything, I'm personally gonna come find you and take it up with you. You can do it. Just write complete answers and do you best. I know what you can do. There is no doubt in my mind that you can all pass. No doubt." Followed by more hugs.

Then we all marched upstairs to the testing room. Inside I found more of "my" 12th graders and a couple of 11th graders to hug and then I decided to try out my speech on the large scale. About 15 more kids got the DJ pep talk. "Okay, listen up. You need to know this. Write a lot. Answer thoroughly. Take your time. The English test is an endurance test. It's like running a marathon: finish the race. If you skip an essay question, it will be very hard for you to pass. No matter what you write, I can usually give you 2-3 points and that could make all difference. Write as much as you can. Do you best. And if you don't write enough, Mr. R is going to hand it back to you and make you write more." Mr. R nodded in agreement. And then I walked them through the various parts of the exam, giving a quick tip on how to conquer each one. In closing, I said, "What's the most important thing I've told you?" One person responded, "Write a lot?" Yep, even if you're uncertain. It won't hurt.

I popped my head in an hour later to give encouraging hugs and back rubs. Kids looked up, moaned, shook their tired hands, stretched, "Deeeejaaaaaay, this sucks" and one pulled me over and innocently asked, "DJ, do you think I wrote enough for this one?" I nodded, smiled, "Yes and keep going. You got this."

Bread...Yeasty

2009-05-08T16:14:00.004-05:00

This is the bread I'm gonna try baking this weekend, recipe courtesy my friend Tara:

In a large storage container (tupperware, pyrex, etc) or bowl, mix together 1 1/2 TBSP of yeast, 1 1/2 TBSP of salt, and 3 cups of warm water. Add 6 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour. Mix until all of the flour is incorporated. Let this mixture rise for 2-5 hours.

This is enough dough to make 3-4 loaves of bread. At this point, you can make a loaf right away by taking out 1/3 or 1/4 of the dough, shaping it into a round disc, and putting it on a pan (I like to put olive oil & cracked pepper on top). Preheat the oven to 450, and (**most important part**) put a pan filled with 1 cup of water on the lower shelf of the oven. When the oven is preheated, put the bread on the upper shelf and bake for 30 minutes. The steam from the water below is what makes the bread rise and the crust get crispy.

The rest of the dough can be refrigerated for up to two weeks. When you'd like to bake another loaf, take out a piece, let it warm up for an hour, and then bake as above. That's it - so easy!

Seriously, I think I might actually bake this bread to honor the metaphor of having a "yeasty" dissertation. Thank you Ellen and elemveee for helping make that adjective stick... It's giving me flashbacks to my years as a Subway sandwich artist--I've lost track of the days I smelled of proofing footlong loaves of bread.

Alvin Ailey at the Apollo

2009-05-08T15:13:00.004-05:00

Despite my dance obsession and my commitment to conquering something unfamiliar, I'm pretty sure I will never be able to raise my legs quite like that. Certainly not with such grace. Imitation was not my goal in this one. Alvin Ailey...and at the Apollo no less. Haven't figured out how to write about it, because I'm just stuck with a smattering of adjectives: serene, disturbing; elegant, awkward; graceful, calculated; blended, hybrid smattering of awesomeness! I pretty much loved it. In a word, POWERFUL.

Here's an account of the event from another lovely lady in attendance. Perhaps her description will sum up what mine fails to convey.

Blog

2009-05-03T19:09:00.005-05:00

I love blogging, really I do. I love writing in my various blogs (though I've been a little behind on my entries too). But most of all, I love reading blogs. I read so many things that I liked today:

--Found out that I have an awesome poet in my class. Had no idea! What powerful stuff.

--Or how much my students love to sleep...or how tired they are...

Outrageous

2009-03-30T12:06:00.009-05:00

Scanning. My school building got scanned for "electronics/technology" today. My principal waved me toward the staff entrance as I was walking in. I asked if I could instead enter through the student entrance. He shook his head no; I had to go in the "special" entrance, the one that was staffed by only one school safety officer, the one without metal detectors, the one where I wasn't treated like a criminal. Instead I walked in the staff entrance with my cell phone in my pocket without anyone taking even a glance in my direction; apparently I didn't "look" like a security threat. I spent my first period class simply observing the spectacle taking place in the lobby of my building. Did my best to interview the one officer who would talk with me to find out how this works in the overall system.

I'd noticed the effects of the scanning before I even got to school. I was sitting in the back of the B75 bus with 3 high school students--from my building but not my school. They had gotten word of the scanning via their cell phones. As the bus passed by the subway station most students in our building use, we looked at the window to see the hoards of students getting on the train, not off of it. The students on the bus said, "Look, everyone's just going home." They recognized peers getting back on the train and heading home. Attendance was low. Spirits were down. I'd expected it since last night when I got the note from my principal. I'm still wading through the data I collected this morning as I stood in the lobby during my planning period to watch the searches.

Here are some initial thoughts/details that stick out:

*There were about 40 officers on duty; the same 40 go from school to school and do this every day. School administration must support the set-up of the detectors and manage the confiscation and return of the technology. We had several additional staff away from their posts and in the lobby dealing with the show.

*I was told that the purpose of the scanning is "safety"--to find guns/knives, but I only noticed attention to technology. Ahh, safety theater. My favorite moment was watching one kid get pushed into the "doesn't have tech" line and walk upstairs with his headphones hanging out of his pocket. Not one officer noticed. Must have been my ethnographer's eye...

*One officer's role was to keep a tally of the number of ipods, phones, MP3 players, and other items (like glass bottles) that were confiscated. Wish I had that count.

*School administrators and guests were talking on their cell phones while collecting student cell phones. (Thankfully, they weren't from my school.)

*By about 9:40am, our school had filled a medium sized storage bin with name-labeled technology in plastic baggies and was moving on to the next bin. Our office manager was making her way through a book of claim receipts for the technology collected.

*The entire lobby erupted in laughter over a cell phone sandwich--one student's attempt at hanging on to her technology. A few of my girls told me they tried to get their technology in by putting it down their pants. That didn't work either.

*Some people in my school were excited because of the searching because it would mean at least one day without text messaging in their classes.

*Report from student: "A lot of people still got through with technology. Some girls put their cell phones in their bras and said it was the underwire. I had my cell phone and ipod in my bag and they only found my cell phone." There were 5 other students who she knew of who had made it through the detectors with their technology; I'm sure there were more.

More later...

Salseras de Mi Corazon: GREEN ME

2009-03-22T19:25:00.003-05:00

An unassailably rough week. Not much went as planned, hoped, or expected and it was painful just to keep stepping though the days. Nothing dramatic, just a long week for us students and teachers in NYC...we're ALL ready for April break. All I felt was pure, undeniable exhaustion. I spent the majority of my Saturday dillydallying around my apartment, doing almost nothing. By evening, I was stir crazy and glad to get out and check out O's dance team.

Oh my, there are parts in the choreography of the song where I have to dip all the way back and drop my head. I had meant to stretch for 20 mins. before class and didn't, especially since the stress of my week had left me stiff and crackly. Wish I had stretched. My body didn't want to do everything asked, because the steps called for a flexibility I don't usually need in my regular group classes. Nonetheless, my dance partner for the night very sweetly and compassionately taught me complicated moves to, I don't know, 15-20 seconds of the song! I coveted his "mejor" and "mucho mejor" and the one or two exclamations of "perfecto." Validation. Teacher approval. I need it so much when I'm putting myself out there like this. I constantly need feedback, validation, and the safety to make mistakes. O also made fun of my attempts to work on my Spanish with my partner. He's a small soft spoken Guatemalan guy who would ever so gently correct and give me additional hand signals to keep my feet, arms, head and body going in the right direction.

My comfort zone was pressed, which is likely why I learned so much. Some parts of the choreographed dance felt familiar (a smidge) and those I loved because I didn't feel silly. When we got to the body roll though, I sort of wanted to run away. My curvy little teacher demonstrated and then instructed, "Head, chest, stomach...then pull back like you've been punched in the stomach." I couldn't imagine what the roll was supposed to look like on my frame. I still look like a comic frog stretching its neck out. A little Kermit-like if that comparison works for you. You can also imagine the little Gieco gecko trying to dance super smooth if that works for you. I felt gawky and awkward and green. Newbie. After a valiant effort that felt fruitless, I insisted on moving beyond the body roll and promised to practice in the mirrors I've hung up in my bedroom at home solely for this purpose--trying out the moves in a space where I feel safe enough to look as gangly as a angular little green critter with a funny voice.

[For more on my dancing adventures check out Salseras de Mi Corazon--the blog where I'm gonna try to locate all of my salsa stuff. This blog is getting a little scattered and rescattered, which is making it feel unfocused, even though part of me thinks that's fine for a blog. Yes, still trying to figure out what I think of this whole blogging genre and how I want to use it.]

Cafe y Guatemala

2009-03-09T12:15:00.004-05:00

One of my lovely students brought me some coffee from Starbucks, just because. He can because he works there, but mostly, just because. Anyway, he asked what I liked in terms of coffee and these were my only 2 specifications: medium-bodied, french press grind. Here's what he brought me: Casi Cielo (trans. Almost Heaven). I was already smiling and enjoying my coffee and his nice note on my One-A-Day Spanish Calendar when I realized that I was drinking Guatemalan coffee--and no less, coffee from the highlands near Antigua. Ahhh, memories.

One of my favorite parts of my trip to Guatemala last summer was my trip to Finco la Azotea, a coffee farm and museum in Jocotenango. It was a bumpy ride to the farm--my first trip on a local bus (or chicken bus). And at the museum I had the good fortune of attaining a private tour in slow, careful Spanish with a kind teenage boy, who spent an hour explaining the coffee production process on the farm and letting me taste the sweetness of a fresh-picked coffee bean. That trip was not only an education on coffee in Guatemala, but it marked the precise moment that I had begun really working hard on relearning and improving my Spanish. It was like a private language lesson only with much better surroundings--a walk around a coffee farm!

So it feels like it all came full circle when my coffee-gifting student asked if I was working on my Spanish and offered to help me with any phrases if I needed support.

Lil' DJ

2009-03-03T20:31:00.006-05:00

first birthday. fat baby, skinny momma.

cake or death? um, cake... death to cake!

always preferred trikes to bikes.

oh the red bikini. how i've heard the stories.

Beloved 12th graders: If you have not given me your photos yet (and you have access to some), you are dead meat. I just taught my mom how to use a scanner tonight to get these.
XOXO, DJ

I'm not dizzy but my head is spinning...

2009-03-02T09:59:00.003-05:00

Before I forget, let me tell you about my super freaking awesome day yesterday. What did it involve? Oh, yes, the obvious. Salsa! My Sunday's are neighborhood-based loveliness in my sweet little dance studio that is by week an actual hair salon. I started taking a private salsa class at 11:00am on Sundays, because I felt like I wasn't progressing in a few areas during my group class. Some things are hard to get right when you're only dance partners are friends who are learning to dance themselves. So an hour to dance with the instructor (whose prices are insanely low) has seemed like a good investment. And it's paying off. I am learning to spin like, I dunno, like a top. It's mad cool. I think she spun me at least 5 times in a row yesterday though it might have been more--it was a little blurry. Sometimes I like to kid myself that the whole spinning in salsa thing is like fighter pilot training, because I am less and less prone to getting dizzy. This is a huge benefit when you come from an ilk of women with vertigo (inner ear-related dizziness issues). Not sexy, I know. But mad cool to be fighting off the dizzy bug.

Anyway, I'm gaining some confidence in this dance thing. This doesn't mean that I don't mess up on a regular basis. Believe me, I do. It just means that I am gaining some speed and grace. I am also learning to "follow," a word I still shy away from given my feminist predilections. Nonetheless, following is a tough skill. To learn subtle signals--signals that are given in ways I'm not used to reading and responding to in quite such structured ways. A glance. A hand on my shoulder or raised in the air or on the small of my back. A "whip" signal in one direction or another that somehow says "spin" and barely leads the spinning. A foot moved forward to pull me into step after a dizzying triple spin. A forearm on the neck to tell me to duck. It's beautiful and amazing. To attain fluidity while improvising--or more accurately, following someone else's improvising--is pretty freaking cool.

I offer this "progress note" on my salsa obsession because something mad cool happened on Sunday. In the middle of our dance class together Omaira (my instructor) asked me if I had any interest in joining her dance team. I guess she's been leading up to it for a couple of weeks now, because she's been passing along compliments from others about "how much I'm improving." Yet those praises have at times been tied to "back when you used to trip over your feet" so I didn't think too much of them. Also I shy away from compliments on things like this, as we know. I just giggled and thought "okay, so I don't completely suck anymore." I'd also noticed that I was happy to dance with some guys [from her crew] who are far better than me and not freak out. I just danced and, when I messed up, we laughed, kept going and tried the turn pattern again. There have been a few other changes that are not so subtle. Like I yell back (even more aggressively) at my learning friend who likes to "correct mistakes" and tells me kind of obnoxiously when I've done something wrong. I say, "let's try it again" and "it would help if YOU did this to LEAD ME BETTER." I'm not bitter, really.

I feel like this blog is all over the place but it's merely a draft, I suppose. I have to finish documenting the dance team story, if only for myself. I didn't immediately accept Omaira's invitation--even though I'd been secretly coveting one for weeks--as I was afraid I wouldn't be in town for all of the performances over the summer. I'm hoping to be in Central America (where they dance salsa On1 not On2) for most of it. Mind you, these are just student performances meant to promote her studio. Nonetheless, I didn't want her to invest in training me and let her down. By the end of our group class together later that day, she'd decided that my travel plans wouldn't interfere too much and that I should join.

SNOW DAY

2009-03-02T09:51:00.004-05:00

So apparently I lied. My students and I are not talking about blogs and how to somehow imbue them with more meaning on this happy happy Monday because it is a SNOW DAY. I wished and hoped and (along with students and colleagues across this city) willed the snow goddesses to give us a snow day. We got it. And I'm soooo happy. I made myself stay up this morning after a lovely student's text message woke me up to confirm that there was, in fact, "no school." Text message confirmation. Gmail chat exclamations with colleagues digitally confirming, cheering and celebrating. Fabulous. The NYC DOE actually canceled school. Unbelievably cool.

So what am I doing with the day? Well, even though a colleague extolled us on Facebook to "hit the park, hit the slopes, hit the bed..." I've been fighting sleep like nobody's business. If only I can deny the carnal urge to sleep on this blessed day, I, my dear friends, have a dissertation to write! And so far, I'm winning the battle against the bed, though I must confess the carrot for my writing work: a morning nap.

Peace.

Words on Blogging

2009-03-02T09:42:00.007-05:00

Hey there ducklings,

I guess I like to post when I'm happy though I'm a bit ashamed of my absence in the blogosphere. A student texted this message yesterday:

Heyy Ms D...iits [name]..How was ure weekend?..ii wanted to ask u..are we still doing blogs..bcuz no one are doin them.and iim not either && ii dont wanna faiil ure class..

My response:

LOL. We'll talk about them tomorrow. I know folks are blogging. Me either. ;) we'll keep blogging but maybe in a different way. Xoxo

Of course, she expressed relief though I felt a pang of guilt both for not blogging personally and for not talking about blogs in class for the last few weeks. Our blogs have been on my mind. I've been reading and commenting on them (and noticing that the number of posts has been dwindling). I've also thinking about how writing needs a "purpose" and blogs are no different. This is part of why I've held my tongue and the state of our blogosphere. The writing we do on here has to be valuable in some way...or else why do it? For the first semester, I believed that "blogging as flexing our writing muscles" was enough. I think the workout metaphor is valid, but I no longer think it's "enough."

Now I'm off to binge blogging because I have so much to say.

xo,
DJ

Blogging about Blogging (Metablogging?)

2009-02-22T18:24:00.004-05:00

Just bumped into Torill Morensen's definition of blogging and think it's pretty rad:

A true-born child of the computer medium, the weblog may have its roots in the research journal, the ship’s log, the private diary and the newspapers, all at the same time. But like a mongrel hunting the dark alleys of the digital city, the weblog is nothing if not adaptive and unique at the same time. No fancy thoroughbred this ... but a bastard child of all personal writing, breeding wildly as it meets others of its ilk online.

It's from A Handbook of New Literacies Research , just thought I'd share. I mean, I like to think of my ramblings on here as if I am a ship captain: Ahoy Maties, today the sea was rough. Outran a pirate ship in the wee hours of the morning out of sheer wit and determination. (to be continued...)

My Writing Process

2009-02-17T11:34:00.004-05:00

Sometimes my most apt descriptions come out in AIM/gmail chat conversations. I was just debriefing on my writing process (for academic writing). It's like an emotional arc, which I can break down into stages below (not unlike the 5 stages of grief). I managed to fully distract myself from my impending writing deadline all weekend. That wasn't hard; almost every minute was scheduled and, for the moments that weren't, I went shopping. Cliche but true. As for Monday, I cleaned--my whole apartment. Every dish is clean, every bit of laundry done, the floor swept and vigorously mopped. I also hung some stuff on the walls, reorganized all of my paperwork, and managed to chat on AIM and download music from Lime Wire pretty much all day. I thought I'd start blogging as a part of pulling myself from stage three fully into stage four below.

The 5 stages of MY writing process:
1) Distract self socially.
(Shop if friends figure out that I'm procrastinating and lovingly refuse to hang out with me. The sales guy is friendly and doesn't know/doesn't care.)
(2) Clean. In a rage. Anything and everything that can be washed, scrubbed, sorted, filed, rearranged, etc. Also, pluck eyebrows, clip fingernails and toenails, wax, whatever. Purification ritual?
(3) Rabid Procrastination & Self-Loathing. In short: Throw internal temper tantrums, which can be visually conjured up. Usually results in "I want my mommy feelings."
(4) Overcome Maudlin, Begin Writing. Inner adult quells temper tantrums of whiney, annoying inner child. Inner child acquiesces because she too is tired of hearing herself bemoan the unavoidable.
(5) Runner's High. Once I actually start, I'm good. Unorganized in my thinking. Disastrously rambling, but still fingers moving, progress being made.

art as a social force, cont.

2009-02-10T15:25:00.003-05:00

another jem of a pic from that art show. and kh picked out a song to post on here to turn it into a tear jerker. sniff...

Bad Day.mp3 - Daniel Powter

Art as a Social Force

2009-02-10T08:40:00.005-05:00

i like the kind of art shows where you can touch the art and the alarm doesn't sound. the kind where you get to talk to the artists about what inspired their work. the kind where families and friends show up to talk and laugh and break a little bread while gazing around at the art. the kind where mixed media is the rule rather than the exception. the kind where i leave feeling compelled to make art, to dig a little deeper, to seek out the answers to my questions. to find my truth, to work to understand our truths a little better.

that's how i left the uama art as a social force show feeling. like the world was a little more defined, perhaps like it was sharpened into focus for a moment. like i had a greater sense of my students' identities, intellectual curiosities, and selves.

i also left feeling like i wanted more, like i wanted to see a clearer description of our collectives selves--who we are together, who we are apart--what makes us tick, how our various versions of our interwoven "selves" are shaped.

Accomplishment!

2009-01-30T18:13:00.002-05:00

This might seem like a little thing to some people but to me it's not. I submitted a fellowship/grant application today a full three and a half hours before the deadline. Usually, it's not even a full three minutes, sometimes hardly three seconds. I'm a deadline hound. I need them. I write for them and meet them. I have to have them. I crave them like people crave caffeine and chocolate. Deadlines help me focus. They create priorities. They create of a sense of what I have to do at that moment, so I actually sit down and direct all of my energy one way. It's pretty awesome. I mean, I develop aches and pains and put my body through hell for a short period of time, but when I finally meet that deadline, it is sweet. To be so harried and frustrated but then calm--all at once.

Today was something new. I didn't have that roller coaster ride thrill. I didn't submit a patchwork disaster salvaged only by the clock and inhumane working hours. I actually submitted a piece of writing--like 12 pages--of which I was proud. Writing that involved research and restructing. Writing that my peers gave me feedback on. Writing that I don't feel afraid to read myself or embarrassed for someone else to read. That feeling of peace might just beat the thrill of the impending deadline. Yeah, so it was only three and a half hours, but, people, that's progress. That's what we're going for.

Where's the Payoff for the Learning?! Part II

2009-01-19T01:38:00.004-05:00

So...I feel like I just had a therapy session on the tiny sofa in my kitchen. One of my friends came over and asked me to show her what we had learned in the salsa class she missed. That would have involved me dancing alone, demonstrating. I melted. In front of my friend. I said, "I can't, not now." Her response: "Okay, I know you, and I know that you think you are not good with dancing. The more I get to know you, the more I see how deep this is. What happened? What's the story?" I was angry, her words knocked me off balance for a second. We were supposed to be watching a film together, not talk about my dance fears and frustrations. But she was relentless. She has children and was keying into something, partly from her perspective as a parent: this belief that I can't dance goes back to my childhood and it's painful, unbearably so at times.

Without giving a play by play of our conversation, let me say this. I didn't want to have the conversation. It hurt. It was not my idea of a relaxing Sunday night. It involved me talking about my parents, my brother, my aunts, and a few friends who'd teased me. It involved retelling and reliving (sometimes just reliving in my head, because I couldn't bear to tell some of the stories). I felt tears welling up under my eyelids, blinked them back many times. I remember being laughed at. I remember internalizing the supposedly innocent teasing, pulling it in, feeling ashamed that I couldn't move to the beat better. This dancing thing that I'm learning is no ordinary learning. It cuts me to the core. I feel vulnerable, even to talk about my salsa learning. I can't share it with my family and get a response I want, even today.

I was telling my dad a few days ago that pushing myself outside of my "comfort zone," as I called it, and doing salsa was good for me as a teacher, because it reminds me of where students struggle and what I'm asking them to do when I ask them to try out a new genre or form of writing, especially if they already have negative emotions, frustrations regarding writing. His response: "Yeah, so even if it takes you several years to learn what someone else can learn in 5 minutes, it's about trying to learn something new." I changed the topic and tried to banish the toxic words from my mind.

When I saw my professional dancer friend, who sometimes dances salsa with me, I asked her how long it would be before I could be good at salsa, that is, comfortable and confident in my abilities on the dance floor. Her response: "Oh, you'll be amazing in a year, you're learning fast because you practice so much!" I was just like anyone else, a capable learner. Practica, Practica, Practica!

I'm still learning. Every step I take on the dance floor is my therapy. I can think about it all day long, but until I take those dance steps, I'm doing nothing to overcome those doubting emotions. My observant friend generously agreed not to bring up my dancing fears again, as long as I kept on dancing!

In the back of my mind, I'm humming my dancer friend's voice, sing-songing in her Bulgarian accent, "Step, step, step...step, step, step" followed with "1, 2, 3eee, 5, 6, 7."

Peace.

Where's the Payoff for the Learning?!

2009-01-18T11:53:00.002-05:00

So it's no surprise to anyone who reads my blog or even skims it that I've taken up salsa. And I have no dance background at all. So it's hard. Ridiculously so. I've been doing it for like 6 months and I still feel uncomfortable when I'm out dancing. I worry that I'm offbeat, like my timing is shit. It's difficult to see the progress I've made and that's sort of frustrating. I can objectively see improvement, but when I step onto the dance floor in someplace other than the dance studio where I practice with my friends/co-learners, it's so damn hard. I'm embarrassed, I'm off-beat, I spin out of control on my spins sometimes (read: most of the time). I feel like I don't know a thing. But the truth is that sometimes I get it right. I get it wrong more than I get it right, mind you. But that shining moment when my feet happen (of their own free will) to land with a measure of elegance and my partner and I are dancing along to what feels like the beat, it's amazing. Just another of my incomplete ramblings on LEARNING. Learning is about getting better, about improving, not getting it perfect but trying to get better. Right? Then how come learning for it's own sake doesn't always have that magic twinkle, that bright shining moment where you feel like you've progressed. Because you haven't progressed enough and you're still terrible. And that's not terribly fun.

The Butter Avenger

2009-01-12T19:47:00.006-05:00

Incriminating shot of a student who created drawing capturing her work

Incriminating shot of yet another student creating the Butter Avenger

>

2 Questions: Whose idea was this? Does the drawing actually capture her rage?

1 Lesson: Don't steal butter from the staff refrigerator. If you're not 110% sure that the butter is leftover from a school event, just leave it. Let it rot. Let some poor soul clean it out in June when school is out and it has spoiled. Just don't touch it. Listen to your gut. Don't steal butter. Not for students. Not even for insanely rad students who would otherwise have to eat butter-less popcorn.

1 Disclaimer: If you don't understand this blog entry, don't worry about it. You're probably not the intended audience.

in peace and (un)buttered harmony,
DJ

Third Time is a Charm

2009-01-11T01:49:00.003-05:00

Yes, this is a photo of the best cable guy ever. And yes, this picture is posed, which makes it even better. I came back to the world of home internet access Friday afternoon after a painful week without it. I was super frustrated because I was having so much trouble getting all of my work done in at school where I have fairly reliable internet access. I spent the week staying at school until 6:00 or 6:30pm trying to get done what I needed to get done. Sucked. I was also coming in earlier than my usual sprint up the stairs at 8:22am, just to get in a few precious minutes with technology. I know. Oh, poor me, life is rough. Stop whining. Still, despite my awareness that one can live without being online most of her waking hours, not having internet access had me in tears, begging the largely unsympathetic Time Warner representatives to please, please get someone to my home soon. In five months in my apartment, this is the third time I'd been without internet for a week or more.

Anyway, here's a shout out to the person photographed above, who not only climbed that ladder to fix my internet connection, but more importantly returned to my house, waited for me, and in general, worked his schedule around my schedule so that I could have a Time Warner service call on Friday afternoon (the only available time slot--or I would have had to wait around 'til the following weekend). I might have died in that week of waiting and hanging out at dimly lit internet cafes that close way before my usual working hours. Some people have a soft spot for techy teachers in whose voices they can hear the tears coming. Apparently, my begging on the phone with the cable guy was not only pathetic, but also polite, respectful, and persuasive on the phone. That or he is just a very nice guy, who made my life functional again, "all in a day's work."

Anyway, I asked to take this photo and conceived of this blog post not solely for the pathos and gratefulness factor or to explain my absence in online communities. Rather, I want to talk for a minute about how struck I was by just how much it affected my life to not have internet. It was actually more than an small irritation. Here are the things I missed out on last week: witty gmail chats with friends, funny and/or academic/college-related chats on AIM with students (ahem, procrastinators!), paying my bills, checking my bank account balance, participating in web chats on a pedagogy issue for a grant, online researching for a different grant I'm writing, looking up books and other stuff on Amazon.com, spending my Teachers Choice $$ on Newegg.com, watching YouTube videos my friends send, actually responding to anyone's email thoughtfully (and not from my phone), sending important emails related to a new job, making a donation to the inauguration that might have gotten me a ticket (not likely, but still!), and planning lessons for class that included web information and resources.

That's a pretty long list. Those are all of the things I was trying fiercely to fit into my "connected" school day that I usually do at home. Ahhh, access in all its complicated definitions. What I missed most in my offine time: my goofy friends and students, saying hello and telling about their days for a few seconds every night. Wasn't such a big deal not to lesson plan or pay my bills...

Holi-daze

2009-01-05T12:18:00.005-05:00

So I've been a little absent from the blogosphere. The holidays have left me more than a little in a daze. I went to Missouri to visit the family but playing the "child" for a smidge over a week was pretty much exhausting. I felt like the kid who just wanted to go hide in her room and pretend she was living her life. It's not like I didn't have tech access, I did, I was online--chatting, finding solace in the similar frustrations of my single friends who had descended upon their family homes for a few days of "togetherness."

Truth is, I love my family. I can handle them in small doses, but when I'm there I start feeling claustrophobic, like I can't breathe, can't think. I'm totally out of my element. The home that once felt familiar doesn't feel familiar in the same ways any more. It feels like I'm a guest in someone else's home, and I am. From the smallest choices every day to that overwhelming feeling that I have no space of my own. Ahhhh, holi-daze. Struggle breathing.

Right Now...

2008-12-28T00:59:00.002-05:00

My hot friend made this. Tell her she should move to the BK.

Planned Parenthood or, We All Have Work To Do

2008-12-18T18:53:00.004-05:00

I'm pissed. I can't even fully post. Tears in my eyes, angry. Low income women and families just get fucked in so many ways. The right to information on sexual health isn't even guaranteed these days. Please support Planned Parenthood. Women's healthcare is in a state of crisis. Help!

PJ Day

2008-12-17T12:03:00.005-05:00

Today is PJ day. For 12th grade engaged folks, it's all about me and Jennifer...and maybe Samantha who is heading off to change into her pajamas. We're freaking adorable if I do say some myself. I'll post more photos of our cute selves later. The 9th grade though, that's another story. Super super cute. My digital media darlings put the seniors to shame. Nejmie and Ant-Honey were all poppin' from head to toe. And, of course, we got photos to back it up. If only I could find the right size USB cable...

xo,
Dj

It's been a while...

2008-12-11T23:16:00.010-05:00

This blogging thing is torture sometimes, I know. Some of my students moaned when I told them that I was requiring 12 blogs for the 3 marking period of the semester--the one we just started. I kicked that off by having them do one of their blogs in class. We currently working on annotated bibliographies on social issues that interest us. I'm writing and researching on the juvenile justice system in NYC, a topic I passionately care about. I care about this topic because I spent about a year going out to Rikers Island to work on a special writing and publication project surrounding the life stories of incarcerated youth in a maximum security facility there. I was always struck by the realness of these young men who were taking GED classes while in jail; their rough, gentleness; their motivations, tenacity and skeptical, tempered hope. Almost every time I left, I'd felt like listened to the stories of a man who'd never gotten the chance to be a boy. Always reminds me of that word "juvenile" that gets so glossed over when we're talking about the "juvenile justice system".

I had the pleasure on Tuesday night of attending a staged reading by some young people from CASES, an alternative to incarceration program here in NYC. Several of my high school students who have been investigating injustices in the justice system agreed to see the performance with me. It WAS awesome. Reminds me so much of Langston Hughes' "Dreams Deferred," which I feel compelled to post here. I can't sum up my feelings about unjust incarceration practices any other way.

Dreams Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes

Despite the hard realities that the performance brought out--the truth of locked up lives whose deferred dreams are festering--there was also a sense of hope in the play and even its existence. Tuesday I saw young men and women advocating for each other, starting a conversation, a dialogue about how things could be. I wish I could some up my thoughts with a certain wisdom, but all I can say is that there is power in talking, imagining, and re-imagining how to make more dreams into reality. It's a beginning...

Beware the Blogger-Bots & the Tum Tum Tree...

2008-11-26T18:02:00.007-05:00

So I was just sitting here thinking I should post something new to my blog. But I couldn't figure out what. Then, I remembered my beautiful 12th grade students who modeled the kind of writing I recommended all week. That is, they modeled the kind of writing you just do, the kind that happens when you put hands to keyboard and just write. Everyone asked, "So really, I can write about whatever I want? Okay. [Moment of breath] But why? Why are we doing this?" My response is to keep explaining (read preaching) that blogging is like going to gym and lifting weights. It works those writing muscles. A dorky, imperfect metaphor, I know, but a useful one.

So here's what happens when I write about my day...

Today was an interesting day. We did college prep work and lots of students made up work from days/weeks/projects they'd missed. I was struck by how little work I was grading students on for the second Marking Period. It feels like the weeks flew by and I'm wondering how we can accomplish more in our time together for the next 6 weeks. Now that a good chunk of the college applications are out of the way, I'm hoping we'll be able to pull of more research and writing.

One of the things that sticks out in my mind about today is the number of lost passwords (and usernames...) and frustration over blocked blogger.com accounts. I'm learning that the teacherly instructions, "Write however you want, in whatever style you want. Just write." have ramifications beyond this liberal, linguistically-minded teacher's intentions. I just wanted to see thinking typed on the screen. And in the process I wanted to start building a writing community. The blogs did get many of us writing as a community more and, I think, reduced some of the stress and constriction of the blank page. Pretty cool. But "Write however...in whatever style/language" got a more than a couple of accounts blocked by the ever-watchful blogger-bots. Oh, little robots we mean no harm. Cuz we writ3 161 [knowledge] of Lyfe? Come on blogger-bots, lighten up. Sheesh. Just cuz we spell with numbers and do in non-traditionally! I thought that's what blogs were for--a place to "represent" or doodle however you want. And then publish it. Guess there are limitations.

Thankfully we figured out how to get those accounts "reviewed" so that we didn't have to start over like we feared. Still, a lot of frustrated people. I'm kinda okay with that though. 'Cause we learn through it. Who knew there were blogger-bots ? Okay, so a lot of my readers knew that. No jokes out how I should not be enrolled in a grad school program with technology in the title. No laughing. We learned together. And I wouldn't have asked them to write in Standard English, even knowing what I now know. I think a break from it does a writer good. We'll save the "proper" stuff for the "proper" place. Don't get me wrong, there is a "proper" place for formal discourse, and I want students to learn it, I'm just pretty sure it's not on here. I mean, I was getting ready to post a photo of my new hair style...until I realized I have big bags under my eyes and I don't want to snap my photo! LOL

Nite and happy early Thanksgiving. I, for one, can't wait for the pumpkin pie.

DJ

Rethinking Classroom Learning

2008-11-22T15:12:00.006-05:00

People keep finding this video I made with a friend on media and education. Thought it was time to make it public for those who don't actually stalk me on Google like my Grandma does. This video shares the spirit of a video I have linked to before called A Vision of Students Today. Ours didn't get as many hits. Sorry, Brian...we're only up to 89 views on YouTube. Today I'm thinking deeply about how education should look in today's society and wanted to share this out, because it holds many of my thoughts on learning and literacy in the 21st Century.

Also, I just reread this important quotation and wanted to reflect on it again:
"Today's [student] is bewildered when [s]he enters the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns subjects, and schedules." --Marshall McLuhan

I'm doing my best to make my classroom into a place where "real" learning happens but the structures I have to work within make this a daily, minute-by-minute challenge. How do we make learning relevant yet live within the structures of schooling we're currently stuck with?

Dissertation Station

2008-11-22T13:57:00.006-05:00

Sometimes I like to blog my intentions publicly. Usually, that's a bad idea 'cause it kicks me in the pah-tooty. But alas, today my hope is to get the writing juices flowing by posting my hopes on here. I'm headed out the door to work on my dissertation proposal at a coffee shop until time for dinner at home with the roomie! That gives me roughly 4 hours to work and even leaves an hour to go shoe shopping at the store I'll inevitably have to stop by on my way to the coffee shop.

Woo Hoo. I'm kinda excited. I sat with MonMon (she hates that I call her that) last night and told her exactly how my dissertation was gonna to be structured and gonna take shape. She threatened to make me start using my digital voice recorder because she argued that I'd articulated everything I needed to articulate in order to get the puppy done. And yet none of the (supposedly complete and good) thoughts were on paper. A writing center sin I was told. In addition to her encouragement, I feel pretty deeply like my research questions are clear and solid in a way they haven't ever been before and the project, for once, feels like something doable--something I can reasonably accomplish in a year (or maybe less...is is possible?). Perhaps even despite my propensity for overcommitment.

Since I'm posting this now, I'm going to hold off on writing out those questions or the orchestration of this project, but this I will say: I have figured out how I want to study 21st Century writing and literacy and think I might just have something small to contribute to the awesome field of adolescent literacies. Plus, I've fallen in love with the idea of teacher research and believe that my small study will matter...because I'm pretty sure it will matter to me, my students, and the awesome literacy colleagues at my school. If it matters to a research community or teachers elsewhere, that's just gravy.

Several things got me excited yesterday: (1) Sitting with super-fun students (the few who are are waaaaay behind) all day helping them get started on their blogs; (2) one of my favorite teacher at our school asking if she can join our "blog network"; (3) yet another uplifting, supercharged, collaborative English department meeting where my colleagues and I reflected and shared our hopes, dreams, successes and challenges; and most importantly, (4) spending time catching up on students' dynamic, powerful, and diverse blogs. To be enveloped in such an extended and supportive learning community is a dream that's made its way into reality.

Writing Centers...ahem, Studios!

2008-11-19T04:10:00.004-05:00

Just wanted to put a little shout out to the Writing Center crew on here. I have recently been reconnecting to one of my favorite groups of people...those writerly writing center people. They're my favorite sort of folk because, as a group, they manage to do smart, sophisticated scholarly things AND stay grounded in day-to-day realities. Praxis. Yep, I see 'em gettin' it. A new blog called AntiRacist Writing Centers has been added to my blog roll and seems like it's gonna be pretty rad. It was just one of the products of a recent trip to Vegas for the joint International Writing Center/National Peer Tutoring of Writing Conference. Good stuff.

The conference theme was "new directions." What struck me with the metaphor was that no matter how many times you turn, you still pretty much keep going forward (with the occasional backing up, of course). In my life that means that I'm continuing this writing center/peer education work in a new context. Teaching high school English doesn't keep me busy enough...so I thought I'd work on opening a Writing Studio in my school. So excited about that and so excited by our budding collaboration with the FIT Writing Studio. I'm pretty sure Brian nor I knew we'd end up at art and design schools. Well, maybe he did.

In Peace and Writing,
DJ

Subway Advisory: Obama Wins!!!

2008-11-09T17:11:00.007-05:00

A friend emailed and asked what it was like to be in a blue state after an historic election such as this. She is a liberal Democrat living in a college town right at the border of Georgia and Alabama. She's sick of all the drawn faces she sees walking around her town, while I'm daily, gloriously, reminded of what this country just accomplished by the New Yorkers around me. The photo above summarizes this well--it's a subway information sign, being used by station workers as a note of celebration. People's open joy has encompassed the subway every day since the election, put smiles on people's facing walking down the street, provoked joyful commentary at concerts I've attended from performers are well as organizers, appropriate hoopla from responsive audiences at these events, and a plethora of conversations cataloging responses to the "Where Were You When they Called the Election?" question.

I was in Brooklyn at a friend's apartment, leaning my head out her 10 story window to hear young people hooting and hollering in the streets. A colleague recalls unspeakable energy and enthusiasm in Harlem--at 125th & Adam Clayton Powell--tears streaming down faces everywhere. I cried at that moment and have sobbed several times since (mostly when watching BarackTV or his press conference). Mostly, however, "where I was" that night is less significant in my memory than where I was the next day. At my school my 12th graders and I made collaborative signs that read, "On Nov. 5, 2008, I feel..." I was struck by entries such as "EQUAL," written in all capitals. Equality didn't happen over night and the realist in me knows that racism still exists, but, it is inspiring to see that we've gotten this far, to let the cynic in me die down a little. My own sense of purpose in the world and my own commitment political action and activism has been renewed and revived. Obama's election will, I hope, make us ask harder questions, seek deeper answers, and pull us together to rebuild brokenness bit by bit.

This Really Happened in America

2008-11-05T18:38:00.009-05:00

I'm proud of my country at the moment. This really happened. We really elected a candidate for the people and for the world last night. We might still have some things to accomplish (read: Prop 8) but I'm pretty darn happy.

Being in a blue state right now is a pretty glorious thing. I am surrounded by mostly happy people. On Wednesday morning, people were quite literally walking around smiling on their way to work. The energy was contagious and heart-warming. I had to wonder, "What if we all felt like this every day?"

We were plenty happy enough to overcome would-be kill joys. Last night, I was on train with some stodgy, rigid Wall Street jug heads who were openly discussing their fears of the President-Elect. It was clear that the rest of us on the packed train were listening to them with a mixture of surprise and slight annoyance, wondering why they were on the train not riding around in their town cars. But it didn't even make a dent in our joy. It just brought it out more. I leaned over to the older lady next to me, who'd been sweetly eyeing me as I commented on student papers. I said, "Are there really Republicans on the train?" She giggled back and said, "Yeah, there is still work to do..." And then we spent the next 20 minutes enjoying each other, talking about that work, and talking about the young people who were telling us that they now felt that they could "Do anything in American because a black man had been elected president of America"

HOPE HOPE HOPE

2008-11-04T11:33:00.004-05:00

I have been really anxious for the last few days about the election. I've been feeling frustrated about the status of my absentee ballot. Feeling disenfranchised. Feeling foolish. Feeling like I wish there was more I could do...not just vote, but get voters out. My tiny little donation to MoveOn, just doesn't feel like enough.

But, alas, this morning when I woke up, the metaphorical birds were singing and I felt overjoyed. I was quite simply happy. And certainly for no other reason than that today is election day. I somehow have a good feeling. I have HOPE, which is something I don't have all that often in terms of the political process. Happy happy happy, joy joy joy. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I was walking down the street humming "I've got sunshi-i-ine on a cloudy day...when it's cold outside."

Then, when I stopped for a cup of coffee, the attendant and I were smiling, laughing and chit-chatting about how excited we were about Obama and just how hopeful we were. My coffee tasted extra good.

Peace & Hope, DJ

Meet the Parents

2008-11-03T20:54:00.007-05:00

This post feels really unfinished, but I want to put it up anyway. I've been reflecting on how much our families influence us lately, especially given the election today and my differences with my family. We probably won't talk today, it's too uncomfortable. Only my grandparents will be voting for Obama. My parents and I can't even talk about politics anymore. It's just too painful, we're just too different and too invested and emotional about our own ideas.

Anyway...what I write about below was prompted when I met the grandparents of the little one below--the parents of a good friend of mine. The significance of "Meet(ing) the Parents" much more than a silly movie trick to promote awkward situations, it's actually pretty intense in real life and not just in dating relationships. Meeting someone's parents tells you a lot about them. It's always so interesting to me what I learn about my friends when I finally meet their families. When you're younger and you and your friends still live at home, it's so much more natural to get to know your friend's parents (at least it was for me). Meeting the parents was much more routine and seemed more like a part of life, than a source of precious information about my friends and what makes them tick. It was just ordinary. I didn't think about it much beyond, Oh, Jess's mom is "just like that" or Ben's dad "won't let him stay out late." The family dynamics were also visible, even if I wasn't openly reflecting on them. I was noticing. As we get older, things change, we build our own families and networks, and we are more detached from those original shaping influences.

Yet evidence of the influence of those original family networks is still visible. When I met my good friend's parents last week, I was overwhelmed by how much more I felt like I knew/understood about her. Her folks were hilarious and charming and politically engaged and interacting with one another in very overt, almost caricatured ways at times, relishing in their interactions with one another. The way her parents interacted with me was also very telling, especially alongside the Yiddish Zeyda (Grandpa) tee-shirt her dad was wearing as well as his role as nurturer and his pride in nurturing the little one.

These musings are also making me think of Open School night at UAMA, about how much I feel like I learned about my students in seeing them with their families and loved ones for a matter of moments. "Meet(ing) the Parents" is certainly complicated than a the Hollywood gimmick, but I'm left with few words that do sufficient justice to explain exactly what I learned, even though I know I learned a lot.

Viva Las Vegas!

2008-11-02T21:28:00.008-05:00

This photo represents the best part of my trip to Sin City. I gambled a total of $9 and spent most of my time ooing and cooing and snuggling this beautiful 3 month old.

There was a fancy dinner involved here.

It's clear which one was the most spectacular.

Devil-ish Etc.

2008-10-29T08:12:00.006-05:00

Good morning, UAMA! I'm feeling a little devilish. Waaahahaaaaaah! Well, I'm dressed as a devil at least. I'm wearing horns, clothes of red and black and I come bearing a pitch fork!

Surrounding me are Michael Jackson, a green-faced witch with a great cackle, an active citizen, a teacher with a big fat fake fro, an Asst. Principal who scarily represents Sarah Palin, a math teach who is rockin' Napoleon Dynamite, lots of Gothic kitty cats, a Gothic zombie, vampires, some Beyonce-like dancers, a decadent 1700s queen, a 1980's Flash dancer, and at least one cute little angel. I'm sure there are are more great costumes I haven't yet seen. I can't wait!

Happy Halloween--2 days early!

And hugs to Ms. B whose glorious photo greets you above. Best part is that she cackled all day and used witchy voice...sometimes with serious intent. Hahahaha. So great.

Husky Voice

2008-10-24T22:47:00.002-05:00

So I'm not really sure what to blog here. I was told all day Thursday that I had a deep, sexy, husky voice by multiple people. LOL I thought I was getting sick, but I also hoped it was from yelling too much. It's not in my nature to be a yeller, but I've lost the ability to deal with my lovely, enthusiastic, talkative students at times without a serious raising of my voice. And I really can't do it. Project my voice, that I can do, make it carry. But talk over everyone, that's harder.

I used to work at a museum and lead tours and I was always on the verge of losing my voice at the end of the day. I was hope hope hoping that was the case with my recent vocal strain, but it fully appears not to be. My glands are the size of golf balls and by today (Sunday) the sexy, husky voice has waned into a goofy growl and I can't even giggle without coughing. My roommate is mocking me too. She keeps doing this sing-song version of "Well, you know, Airborne was created by a teeeeeaaaaaachhhhher." I'm taking my vitamins, I'm sleeping 14 hours a day and I'm pretty sure I sound like a tranny who smokes 2 packs a day. If only I would don a Tina Turner wig...I think I could pull off this voice.

Snuggles

2008-10-19T14:56:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I'm eating my words and almost taking down my previous blog post because I really fell in love with those little babies BUT not until midnight. Weird right, I adored them AFTER they woke up from their sleep and kept me up half the night. Their late night needs and antics made me more aware of their humanness (not that pooping isn't human, those little poop machines). Alex (age 2) had a cough that I kept hearing on the baby monitor and he finally woke himself up about midnight with a mini-meltdown. He wanted his momma and he wanted to be comforted, to be held. Dammit, I feel like being held and comforted sometimes too. Sometimes I also wake up thirsty and freezing cold. It sucks and it'd be great to have someone take care of that for me! Sheesh, yes, sometimes I wish my momma would just come do things for me again. Dinner? Laundry? Our needs change (sometimes) but we all still like to be taken care of sometimes.

The mini-meltdown part woke up a sleeping JoeJoe (age 1) who was fussy for a few minutes and then smiley. Within a half hour, we were all three sacked out on the sofa comfortable, snuggled, bellies full of whole milk (well, and one chamomile tea). When I tried to put JoeJoe back in his crib, he'd wake up and cry out. He was totally playing me, but there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it because I wanted the other 2 to stay sleeping. So he got his way, over and over again. He woke up every time I tried to put him down. He'd whine until I picked him up and then he'd just smile, cause he knew he'd won. It was pretty damn funny, and to be honest, I really liked just holding him on the sofa and dozing off as he slept, spoiled and happy.

What does this mean? I have no idea. I think, for now, I'll stop analyzing.

Poop

2008-10-18T20:42:00.004-05:00

So I'm babysitting right now. Yep, that's right, I'm doing something that reminds me a whole lot of being in high school. I'm babysitting. Not like taking care of my friend's kid or something at my own house or hers, but like full-on hanging out at a stranger's house taking care of 3 kids, only 1 of whom I actually know. It's a favor for a family who's son/brother/uncle is getting married. Taking care of these 3 little munchins has been sweet and fun but mostly irritating. I'm not sure I like small children or ever want to have them. The one who is like family to me is pretty cool. He just turned a year old and is all snuggly, cuddly and stuff. But the other 2 were really just annoying to me, and the truth is that they're actually really adorable, well-mannered kids. I think I'm just not into babies. Also, I don't like poop. And children under the age of 2 make a lot of poop. Poop that someone has to clean up. Ewww.

I always thought I wanted kids in the abstract but now I'm not sure. Now's the time when all of my friends are having them, and um, it's just weird. My best friend is pregnant and I'm the one who is freaked out, she's elated. I always knew I didn't want to be a pre-school or elementary school teacher, but I always thought I wanted to be a mom. The older I get, the less sure I am of that though. I wonder if I'll like babies more if their my own, or if I'm just not ready, or if maybe there are just these social pressures that I'm feeling and maybe I'm really just a person who is not cut out to be a mom. Yet that seems weird because I'm pretty much a mom all the time, just to ages 16 and older. But, then again, I don't have to clearn up their poop, I just have to take their crap from time to time. And that I can handle.

writingwritingwritingwritingwriting

2008-10-16T19:44:00.004-05:00

Today I'm getting a taste of my own medicine. I don't want to be blogging. I really don't. But I've run out of stupid things to do online. More importantly, I don't want to be one of those teachers who says "Do as I say, not as I do." I need to work on making my own writing habit more healthy. And since that means, just do it, I'm going to go all Nike on y'all and "just do it." I know I'm losing readers by the second because this is not the most interesting writing.

Here's what I've been preoccupied with today:

--Thinking about how engaging it was to watch the debate with my students. Gosh, were you all opinionated in smart and interesting (and entertaining) ways.
--Watching and re-watching the Batman/Penguin youtube debate clip I showed in class.
--Reading about Joe the Plumber, who apparently makes pretty good dough and is not a licensed plumber.
--Getting excited that Missouri is still a swing state and only slightly red. I think there's not prayer for the blue crew in the "show me" state, but who knows. I'd be very proud. And I'm still submitting my absentee ballot there. And yet I still feel cynical.
--Processing how to convince my beautiful darlings that they are too smart and interesting (and entertaining) not to go to college! And trying to convince them that we can figure out how to make it not break the bank.
--Wondering if I will ever get through the mountain of grading that I let pile up.
--And wondering why I ate soooo much Thai food that my stomach feels like it might explode. But oh it was good...
--Procrastinating setting up my new wireless router. I don't have the energy or brainpower for it, but I probably just need to get it over with.

Peace out.

Writing is Hard Work

2008-10-14T20:11:00.003-05:00

Yes, writing is hard work, but somehow blogging doesn't really feel like hard work. Right now, I'm starving. I had a reasonable breakfast and only popcorn for lunch. (Yes, the food stash in my desk is running a little low.) After school and a cinnamon snack (thanks Tyrell for the McD's run), I went and had an hour long salsa class where I burned a lot of calories (and oddly, learned some hip hop dance moves too!). My point: I'm starving, one of my favorite shows is on television, and I'm blogging, for no apparent reason, other than that it feels good to get my thoughts out. It's become part of my process of unwinding. Imagine: writing helps me unwind. Uncanny.

I'm starting to love blogging, for the first time. I think part of what I like is that I feel like I've become a part of a blogging/writing community with my students. I like that I have an audience...I'm so vain, I know. Yet I deeply believe that "all writers need readers." (Yes dear students, that's why I ALWAYS require a peer review.) Most importantly though, when I write in my blog, somehow it now feels productive. I like letting my students (and whoever else cares to read this) know what I'm thinking about teaching and learning. It feels productive. I hope that this blog I'm writing might open up some conversations that otherwise might not have happened. But that's not the only reason. The truth is that I just like writing. I like having my fingers on the keyboard and, for once, being able to write about whatever I want to write about. Writing what I want and only what I want is so not often the case.

I'm now off to writing my dissertation...which may be what I was procrastinating after all. No more pontificating on the value, productivity, and fun of blogging for me. Work time. Peace.

Brunch is Lovely

2008-10-12T17:57:00.003-05:00

Today was fabulous. The weather was gorgeous. Gorgeous. Did I say gorgeous? It was absolutely beautiful. Just the right temperature, a nice, soft breeze, and plenty of warm sunlight. A bunch of my lovely friends joined me for brunch on my patio and it was divine in the way that only a special crew of people paired with a spread of food can be. All I need to be truly happy is good food and conversation with loved ones. And there's something extra special about brunch--that rare mid-day meal--that makes it sweet. We had pancakes with blueberries and M&Ms mixed in, muffins, tempeh, brie and french bread, sweet potatoes, strawberries, a freshly cut pineapple, red grapes, a green salad, orange juice, and french pressed coffee all served on my special new, melmac dishes.

Sitting on the patio sipping coffee with my friends (most of them teachers) was quite a treat and rejuvenated me. I think the best part was watching how much my friends who hadn't met each other before ended up liking each other and finding things to talk about without any facilitation on my part. They were mostly teachers (or people used to being stuck in a group of teachers) so finding common ground was pretty easy.

Anyway, so keeping to the theme of this learning blog, I've been thinking a lot about what rejuvenates me and makes me happy. I feel like I'm slowly learning the appropriate ratio of social and alone time for me. Pretty sure I'm going to keep learning that one, because sometimes I isolate and sometimes I let myself get drained by attending too many social events. Ahhh, BALANCE. I think I found you at least for today. Off to dissertation writing...I actually want to write right now. Also, I'm finding that this little bit of personal writing I'm doing on my blog is really good at getting my fingers moving. And now I need to keep these fingers writing on into my schoolwork. Wish me writing luck, dear blog.

A Writing Community

2008-10-06T16:23:00.003-05:00

Something really cool happened in class--at least in my mind. Today our Creative Writing class took its first real step in becoming a writing community. Kitty brought in and shared her short story “When Mary Liptin and I were best friends." We decided to read it together as a class. As her colleague read the story, we all followed along with bated breath as we worried about her characters, were humbled by the realness of the school setting, and started caring more deeply than we could imagine about her character. The short class period (and her long story!) didn't leave us as much discussion time as we'd all have liked but the story stayed in the air for the entire day. The little notes that we wrote to her at the end of class were just the beginning of the conversation about these characters and the world they lived in. Several of us talked with Kitty about her story throughout the day, puzzling through scenes and pondering each character's actions again and again. The conversations felt really alive. As I overhead them (and participated in them!), I understood that something beautiful was happening. We were becoming a writing community--an invested committed group of people, excited to talk about our writing together, excited to give and receive feedback and to live in one another's created worlds. To live within one another's imagination is a exquisitely beautiful.

This feeling of a writing community who really cared for one another struck me and reminded me of the title of this blog, something I wrote about over 2 years ago as my first blog entry:

ReScattered
A site just for my own stuff, named in honor of the women who helped me understand the importance of how we talk about our lives, how much the stories and the ways in which we tell those stories matters. Scattered was the title of a collection of poetry and stories created by a group of exceptional women I once knew who were recovering from life's disappointments.

As I feel this writing community swelling and taking shape, I can't wait to meet with these young women (+one good-natured young man!) again. I'm ready to talk about making a UAMA publication that will help us celebrate our hard writing work in some way. I have all these ideas spinning in my head for the conversations I want all of us to open up with Kitty about her story, about the conversations I want to make a space for in my classroom. And now I am remembering that yet another Fire Drill is scheduled for this coming Wednesday at the exact time of our class and I will have to wait an entire week to meet again with this amazing crew. Graaarrrrrrr!

Learning is Kewl...LOL, or Dulce

2008-10-05T21:29:00.005-05:00

I feel like my whole life is big bucket of learning these days. Today I taught my grandma to chat on gmail (an instant messaging program like AIM, Yahoo, MSN, whatever). It took just a second and she was super excited. As I talked her through it on the phone and messaged her, she asked if my "lol" meant "lots of love" and, well, it sort of did, even though her question created another "lol" in me. I'm always so motivated by my grandma's interest in learning new things in her late-60s. She reads more than anyone else I know and is far more technologically literate than any of her children (my parents and aunts and uncles are scary bad with computers). She's also becoming increasingly liberal and open-minded. Again, cool.

Anyway, so that's my cute story for the day. But my other story involves my own learning with my new interest in (or better, obsession with) SALSA. I never learned to dance as a child...like not at all. I've been made fun of for my bad dance moves and lack of rhythm more times than I can count. I'm currently trying to overcome my feelings that I'll never be a good dancer. And in that process I'm learning a lot about learning. My dance teachers really push me to try new things and they scaffold new steps sometimes more clearly than other times. Let me tell you, I'm very grateful for the times when they walk through the new stuff slowly and patiently and then come over and give me personal assistance when I'm stumbling through. It's humbling but also empowering in a way. But I'm also noticing something else really powerful: the sweet feeling of success, of getting the step right and knowing you've got it. There's also that moment before you totally get it right when you get super-close and you know you're going to get it. The enthusiasm that bubbles up is really rich and, well, dulce! So how does this relate to my life as a teacher? Well, it reminds me that I need to do my best to create opportunities for that sweet feeling of success to bubble up.

Woot! Woot! Digital Media Club

2008-09-26T14:13:00.003-05:00

A lesson on de-centering the classroom. In other words, a lesson on letting my students take over!

The brain has been stormed. The picture says it all. Thank you to the 5 wonderful seniors who LED the digital media club today. I was called away to a meeting and my fabulous 12th graders took the charge and led the group--the first meeting of the group. And you did a better job than I could have imagined. You all absolutely rocked the house and brought an awesome experience to the 9th graders. Can someone say MENTORING? I can't wait to see the awesome films we make together this year. This is such an awesome storm of the brain! ;)

The hand-written notes I was handed after club offer the following ideas for our year: silent movies, skateboarding, video yearbook, underwater movies (really?! hmmm, sad I missed that conversation), open, stand up comedy, skits/acting, modeling, horror, fashion, dancing, true life, imitation, music videos, remakes, documentaries, trips, movies based on books, musicals, series, broadcasting, video time capsule, circle circle dot dot (again, huh?). Anyway, this sounds 'mad' fun.

Next up, planning a Halloween Ball! Films and parties brought to you by the 9th/12th grade digital media club made up of folks with the following aspirations: actress/dancer, music-video producer/lawyer, singer/dancer, model/dancehall queen, photographic journalist, pediatrician, pharmacist, singer/dancer/songwriter/producer/entrepreneur, dunno/actress.

XOXO,

Ms. DJ (the ecstatic 'teacher')

Go 9th Grade/12th Grade Film Club!

2008-09-26T10:08:00.004-05:00

Rain, Rain, Go Away. Come again, just not on a filmy day! So sad that it's raining because my club is starting today!. Nonetheless, I'm happy that everyone is so mellow in the school today and I think the rain has helped chill us all out. Senior breakfast was sooo nice, even if there weren't that many people there. I enjoyed hanging out with my "darlings" this morning and eating bagels, cream cheese and banana bread. Thanks Chelsea and Cadet (chef extraordinaire) for fattening me up!

So anyway I thought I should blog about this rockin' Digital Media Club I'm starting today. I invited every senior I saw today at the breakfast to join my club. Ahem, 1:30pm on Fridays, 2:30pm on Tuesdays. (Talk to me if you can't meet this time, but still want to learn tech stuff, especially editing with iMovie or FinalCut Pro.) Today I learned that a couple of our quieter seniors are AWESOME with the technology, especially the photography element. I found two, who shall remain nameless, who are awesome awesome photographers...one of them (the quietest!) climbed up on the table at breakfast and started snapping awesome yearbook shots. Hmmm. Talented, talented UAMA students. I adore you.

When I Was Puerto Rican

2008-09-17T10:05:00.002-05:00

I started reading Esmeralda Santiago's memoir When I Was Puerto Rican on my way to salsa class last night. By the time I gotten home, I'd read about 40 pages! I loved it and couldn't put it down. For once, I was grateful for a long train ride. The first couple of chapters are so beautiful and lovely, telling stories about her experiences in Puerto Rico as a little girl living in a farming community. The prologue--How to Eat a Guava--was incredibly innocent and pastoral. Esmeralda seemed like such a happy little girl who ate green guavas even before they were ripe and regularly ended up with stomach aches. But as I read on, the tone began to change, Negi (short for Negrita, Esmeralda's nickname signifying her dark skin as a baby) became less innocent. She experienced more of the world and she began to deal with the pain of her parents' constant fighting as well as a lot of moving around--back and forth from city to country. I'm not sure what's up next about Negi's life but I'm looking forward to reading the passionate, beautiful prose, even if it is getting a little bit darker and less light and free. I suppose that means it's more real.

Welcome to 12th Grade Creative Writing

2008-09-15T07:45:00.002-05:00

This is my first post in a long time. I was thinking of starting a new blog--to start fresh, clean, get it together. But then, I thought, naaahhh, doesn't really seem important. The stop and start of this blog parallels the stop and start of my writing life. Like many people, my daily life (i.e. painting my apartment literally ALL weekend, though not for the past several months...) tends to get in the way of my writing. I do a crummy job of really getting it together and recording my thoughts on a regular basis. Generally though, I'm much happier when I'm writing. So 12th grade Creative Writing (perhaps my only readers!), let's try this together. I will blog at least 4 times per week and I ask the same of you. You can write about whatever you want. Experience (from those times when I actually wrote regularly) tells me that regularly flexing my writing muscles is an exercise that's at least as effective for building my writing as the gym is for sculpting and toning those non-metaphorical muscles.

Isn't YouTube Enough?

2007-10-24T09:44:00.000-05:00

I've been working with some youth in the South Bronx in a digital media elective in their school. And we've collaboratively decided what our first project will be this year. It will parody/imitate High School Musical, a made-for-tv Disney film that reminds those of us who are a little older of Grease and Hairspray. The students' film, as it stands, will lovingly critique their own high school experiences. In fact, they will write the script and star in the show, as well as edit and produce it. They're more interested in the writing and performing parts than the post-production pieces at this point, something I'm still sussing out. The point of this entry, however, is not which parts of the media production they're most interested in.

One of my general critiques of youth media film is that it isn't always shaped to have a very wide audience and I'm often concerned that certain enriching learning and advocacy opportunities for/by/with youth have been overlooked. However, my students--some pretty mature high school seniors--reminded me of something I'd forgotten. I asked and asked them, "Who do you want the audience of this to be?" I mentioned school-wide events and parents nights and other possibilities that might help convince their administrators and other teachers that media education should be a core part of the curriculum. But they all just kept looking at me saying "YouTube--we'll put it up on YouTube." I nodded, "Okay, sure, I'm fine with that being your only audience." I nodded and accepted their decision because I really believe in students being in control of their own learning. And, in particular, I believe that they should have a lot of control of this fully elective course. But still, I don't think I was really getting it. I'd forgotten something really important. Putting this film up on YouTube gives these students something that showing it to their peers, parents, teachers, administrators on a big screen does not. It allows them to be a fuller members of a participatory culture. It allows them to be authors, creators, artists, producers, etc. of online digital content. And for youth who are used to watching rather than making YouTube videos, I think this is more than just a little bit important.

Check out this new white paper from MacArthur called Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century for more discussion of youths roles as media-makers, not just consumers.

Join the Anti-Bottled Water Movement

2007-10-23T09:47:00.000-05:00

Drink tap water

A Vision of Students Today

2007-10-19T09:43:00.000-05:00

just watch this. i have to meet this guy. this is great pedagogy.

Baseball in the New Media Age

2007-07-06T21:42:00.000-05:00

My Level

2007-06-07T14:24:00.000-05:00

Whenever I tell an adult that they need to bring the information to my level, they assume I need it dumbed down...but they're missing the point. When I say that I need it at my level, I mean higher, not lower.

A moment of Zen. Just read this in a youth media report from Kellogg available here.

Media that Matters Film Festival!

2007-05-31T07:39:00.000-05:00

Brand new, very cool, very youth focused, available completely online. Watch these videos! The opening at the IFC Center IFC Center last night was quite moving as many of the filmmakers were available to talk about the process of filmmaking and the social justice issues raised in their films--sustainability issues, human rights, economic injustices, and more. What I was most struck by is the diversity of the films, not only in terms topic, but in terms of the creative, experimental filmmaking strategies employed in this year's collection--the juxtaposition of documentary, animation, spoken word, and narrative made for a particularly moving collection. Enjoy!

2007-05-04T15:24:00.000-05:00

The lovely Moira is feeling like posting to her blog these days. Here's what she found that I love. You probably already know about this, but, if not, check it out! (Beware: it may consume hours of your life.)

Theory/Practice+Community

2007-04-18T04:23:00.000-05:00

This last week I had the pleasure of attending the International Writing Center Association's Annual Conference , something that gave me the opportunity, as being with WC people often does, to count the ways in which the unfortunate binary that I often set up within the education world--theory/practice--is best broken apart by one simple thing: community (well, and maybe a little action and reflection). But seriously, it's only in sitting with people--some long-time friends, some new friends, some folks I even disagree with but who still work with and care about students, that I find a moment of peace to let down my guard against the "apractical" educationalists. And perhaps it's because I don't see any of them in the room--all of these folks are sitting together talking quite simply about their students, how to educate better, even if they use Bahktin, Soja and Lefebvre, Family Guy metaphors, Wenger, urban planning discourse, or the not-so-fancy framework of the everyday. Somehow it's a more true community of practice or learning community than I find in some of the other areas of my life: there all participants works in a WC (or used to) and are committed to find a way to get better at this education thing, using whatever theory or model or story or pop culture or geography reference or whatever they can find. And in that digging to find something, that hardworking attempt to fuse that not-too-false-but-perhaps-overstated-by-this-researcher theory/practice binary, we find a kind of salve in our community. I might be romanticizing that community here, but who really cares. It's better than stewing about the theory/practice divide.

I close with a line from a fortune cookie I received at a group dinner (who knew, Houston=amazing Vietnamese cuisine, among other things), mostly because my co-presenters and I laughed until we cried when I read it out loud: "You are more intuitive than logical. You often learn better by doing than by theorizing first." I swear I didn't make this up, though I was accused of it. I think I might like it better this way: "You are intuitive and logical. You learn best by doing, theorizing, and reflecting with your community all at the same time."

More Kiarostami

2007-03-15T21:29:00.000-05:00

How did I not know about Kiarostami before now? Brilliant.

Where is My Friend's Home?

And Life Goes On...
or ...Life and Nothing More

"films have their own kind of truth"--old man after (real) earthquake in Iran reflecting on his role in Where is My Friend's Home?

Double Feature

2007-03-14T23:19:00.000-05:00

Kiarostami at MOMA. Go now. The retrospective ends in a few days. Also, FREE for Columbia folks. Amazing. I saw two films tonight and had only intended to see the first. I was so mesmerized I could not leave and had to stay for the second film. More on Kiarostami here.

Here are the two I saw w/ their attending descriptions:

Avali ha (First-Graders). 1984. An investigation into the education of pupils in one of Tehran's poorest school districts, the film follows first-graders from the start of their school lives. Small but significant gestures between the students reveal the world of children at school—and most scenes, tellingly, take place in either the schoolyard or the principal's office.

Mashq-e shab (Homework). 1989. By including his own role as cinematic interrogator, Kiarostami has created a multilayered documentary that not only gives a picture of education and children's home life in Iran, but also encompasses a questioning of cinema's role and of its potential for manipulation. By interviewing several children and exploring the way they deal with homework, the film reveals their lack of stimulation and exposes the fear and dread that grown-ups can inspire in children's lives.

Here's what I experienced (besides 3 hours where I could not take my eyes off the screen):

First-Graders is so moving. It's all about getting into trouble, lying about what you did wrong, apologizing, and promising to be a good boy. My favorite scene was watching a couple of the little boys explain the spitting game to the principal. But the principal's office is just one context for learning about this boys and the nature of school. The other context is the school yard, a recess-like setting, where the boys must stand equal distance from one other so that they can jump around and move in place, doing simple aerobics. The schoolyard is also the place where boys were honored for good behavior: standing straight, forgiving someone who did not apologize. One thing that sticks with me is the principal's continued words of asking the young boys to speak up, to say their names louder and with more confidence.

Homework is the one that got me. Tears and all. Kiarostami begins by calling the film research, an experiment, rooting it his own experiences helping his son with his homework. Through interviews with boys (1st or 2nd grade) and surveys sent home to parents, Kiarostami paints a picture of homework as a family issue, often a painful one. The boys answer his questions on who helps them with their homework, punishment or encouragement for doing homework, timing of doing homework (in relation to what's on TV--news or cartoons?!), and then brings in the voices of a few parents. Many of the boys say that they like their homework more than cartoons. The looks on their faces when they talk about each tell a different story. What is most important about this film is the questions it raises about family literacy levels (who is qualified to help with homework? if not parents, siblings? neighbors?) and also about the power struggles and frustrations doing homework causes in many households (parents must enforce the task even if they don't understand or agree with it). A parent interviewed describes a picture of education he'd like to see. It involves very little homework if any. And in school kids are engaged in creative activities and use technology, rather than doing dictation or writing and rewriting tasks to improve their handwriting. He thinks that schools in America are creative, innovative places where kids use lots of technology. He thought this in the late 80s.

Dylan Hears a Who!

2007-03-14T14:51:00.000-05:00

This album makes this avid Beatles, Dylan, Suess fan's heart go pitter patter. And if you like that, you'll also like my friend Brian Scary's latest album. Oh, for love of the wonderfully silly.

Cool Hunter Sarah!

2007-03-07T20:08:00.000-05:00

My friend Sarah is hanging out with (well, "researching with"--same diff if you do ethnography, right?) college students these days and has quickly uncovered the mecca of cool new web stuff. "You're the Man Now Dog" just became my favorite study break distraction (so much less fattening than the Girl Scout cookies that just showed up). Oh, and Sarah has more cool, distracting stuff in this recent blog post.

Reflecting on Writing (about) Others

2007-02-23T07:55:00.000-05:00

I am today finishing a presentation to give this weekend on an experience with a young man who participated in an oral storytelling project of which I am a part. I find myself fighting so hard to represent this focal youth well that I can (and do) easily push myself into a debilitating, self-loathing stuper, one where I do not want to represent this youth because I worry about how this reprentation will be received--for its insights into both who he is, the story he has to tell, and for my weak assertions about how his story can help inform educators, researchers, and educational policymakers. And then there's the part that I don't feel ready to write (about) him based on our 2 short experiences of interaction, but he has a story to tell, a story that he told very well. And I know that I should share it, but how? And with my misgivings, I am also wondering, how long is long enough (or how well is well enough) to know someone before a social scientist can/should tell the story?

In my writing procrastination, I stumbled back through old computer files to a presentation where I had done a meta-analysis on my experience writing about recovering women for an academic purpose--a course and then conference presentation. This was the last group I'd tried to represent and what I found was that I hadn't moved an inch in negotiating with myself how to do this.

Here are my words, three years hence about that paper:

"I found that truthfully relating my experiences [in an academic essay] somehow felt like betraying the women I’d worked with, trying to put my experiences on paper with the sort of control and conclusiveness expected was more than a challenge. I struggled to use my personal experiences as evidence in the essay, because these women and their testimonies weren’t “evidence” to me. Most of all, though I worked to speak authoritatively about this new community, in which I had only gained tangential membership—to enter the unfamiliar discourses of psychotherapy and addiction and recovery was difficult to do so quickly. As I wrote, I felt like an outsider pretending to be an insider. And after months of pouring over psychology texts trying to figure out how to write about my experience in light of its true identity—a therapy facility—I acknowledged defeat."

And maybe I'm selling myself short to say that I haven't moved an inch. I have. I've enrolled in a social science doctoral program. After a hiatus, I am presenting at conferences again, and I'm trying (fighting with myself) once again to figure out what it means to represent someone else's story in ways that are honest, in ways that do not reinscribe his life story inappropriately as is so often the case in representations of adolescents; I do this in part by reminding myself that is is important to find a space for his knowledgable, playful, loyal voice to be heard. The story I will share tomorrow is of a young man retelling a deeply personal story, one of goals and passions, the kinds of stories that we don't always ask for or recognize in young people.

Check Out this New Book!!!

2007-02-17T14:18:00.000-05:00

Here's the summary:

Myles Horton, founder and director of Highlander, claimed that Highlander focused not on the world as it is, but always had its "eyes firmly on the ought to be." This book extends Horton's argument by claiming that all educational practice has its eyes on the ought to be, and that what ought to be should be forms a central issue within educational debates.

This book explores tensions surrounding the teaching of literacy practices in three settings of nontraditional adult education: correctional education, vocational education, and the Highlander Folk School. Alternatively tied to rehabilitation and criminality, to becoming a qualified and valuable employee, and to addressing issues of social and racial injustice, what literacy is supposed to do, and thus what it means, varies widely across these discourses. It explores texts as varied as curricular ideas for prison classrooms, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the FBI surveillance files of the Highlander Folk School, and lists of competencies employers want in their employees; at its center is the belief that teachers and scholars must understand the worlds toward which they, and the institutions they teach within, aspire to create through the process of education, and that teachers must necessarily learn to work with morally vexed and sometimes contradictory goals.

"Eyes on the Ought to Be" suggests gaps in which teachers and scholars might have particular agency in reshaping the ends of pedagogy; identifying such agency should be a central project for teachers and scholars in a period of increasing official attempts to control educational discourses and practices at every level.

I'm so excited that this book is finally out and so excited to read it that I can't stand the wait for it to be shipped to me. From what I've heard from those who've already consumed the text, there are insights/data in here on the Highlander Folk School that make significant contributions to our better understanding this place that we talk about so often as a model grassroots organization but really know relatively little about. Kirk Branch is a scholar who does research that is relevant, honest, and rests within what Adrienne Rich calls, "the arts of the possible."

Intermediate User

2007-02-14T14:42:00.000-05:00

I'm laughing so hard at this message to me from a wiki that I had to post it:

"Congratulations on a successful edit!Now you're a PBwiki Intermediate user."

Me? An intermediate user. "Gaaarrn..." she says in the voice of Eliza Doolittle.

Our Civil Rights Questions

2007-02-11T23:02:00.000-05:00

Promo video of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Raises lots of questions about the "war" on drugs and increased incarceration rates in our country, making the argument that legalizing all drugs and bureaucratically regulating them would make them less lucrative, hence doing away with drug-related violence by doing away with $$ incentives. And then we can get around to addressing the number of young minority men in prison... They make an interesting, cogent argument, one that I certainly want on the table.

Thanks for the link, Gus.

Trying to Get Rolling with Web 2.0

2007-02-09T14:05:00.000-05:00

You must see this YouTube video. Why? Oh, cause it sounded like a good reason to post and I had folks in NYC and Kansas forwarding me the link. And since it was created by a K-State prof., I thought the Midwest in me needed some screentime. Oh, and it's really good!

Just Part of the Academic Journey

2007-02-08T17:37:00.000-05:00

A not-so-healthy dose of writer's block seems to have entered my life, not just my blogging life. I thought I'd share my most recent happy teacher moment as a way of getting back on wagon. I bumped into a former student from a GED class on a Metro bus the other day and we had just enough time together as we crossed Central Park to get caught up. He told me all about his life at a community college here in the city and about a cool project involving the UN he has gotten involved in. I encouraged him to follow up with an email to continue the discussion.

Our second email exchange is why I'm writing here. He said, of his UN work that I'd expressed admiration and a smidge of (proud like his mama) jealousy over, "OH, my dear friend: Trust me there is nothing to be jealous; the things that are happening now are just part of my academic journey."

Those words: 'just part of my academic journey" stood out to me. When he was in my class, I don't remember any talk fom him of a journey or a path. It was simply a "gotta get it, gotta get it now or life will end" discourse over passing his GED test. When I was a GED teacher, we teachers/administrators often mused that "GED" itself often clouded students learning. It sounded like a product, a thing to get. It held meaning. It was an end. But that was just talk; there was a continuum even though it wasn't voiced.

This kind student's words reminded me of my own academic journey. And I realized that I look at my dissertation with a "gotta get it, gotta get it now or life will end" language. What if I shrugged my shoulders and said, "OH, my dear bank account, my professional pride and my patience: Trust me, there is nothing to wringe your hands about; the things happening now are just part of your academic journey."

Will it help me overcome my writer's block?

Am I radical?

2006-10-06T08:27:00.000-05:00

Well, probably not. I didn’t have to ask too loudly. Not radical, not doctor, not yet. I had the engaging experience though of hearing Bill Ayers speak last weekend at a conference I attended on Writing Centers and he forced me to ask that question (easily answered) and then the one about what it would mean to actually be radical. As he spoke, I was amused at his pointed jokes toward those of us in the audience from his alma-mater and buoyed by his discussion of K-12 educational initiatives he’d been a part of, the impressive grants he and the Chicago school district had won and implemented. But more than that, he just plain baffled me. What exactly was he talking about when he referenced his memoir Fugitive Days or his time underground? Well, what he meant was this: that he and others blew up buildings as a radical act of civil activism. And, then, he was an elementary school teacher and now education professor.

Here’s a summary of 2002 documentary that documented this radicalism, The Weather Underground:

A sobering documentary about a group of 1960s "committed freedom fighters" known as The Weather Underground. A radical offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society, the Weathermen didn't just march or sit in; they rioted and bombed -- not to change the American political scene but rather to destroy it. The organization was part of a global trend of revolution that sprang from the belief that not acting against violence is violence.

I plan to watch the doc this weekend. Review to follow.

But back to this broad notion of radicalism. Looking back at the keynote address that he shared, I re-hear his words (well, his words as best I remember them). He said that anyone portraying the 60’s as glamorous is just looking to sensationalize. Activists then weren’t perfect, didn’t know what the hell they were doing, but they were doing. Didn’t know if their choices were the best ones, but they did what they thought they should in the ways they thought best. He also said that we have to see ourselves as living in political times. And despite the fact that I’d thought about this before, it made me think again about what value my liberal politics have if I don’t act on them. This education thing I do is only a small part of my citizen role.

I’m not going to take on Ayer’s early methods; but his contemporary method—as higher ed faculty researching and influencing K-12—is close to my own politicized career choice and this gives me pause. The association doesn’t make me an extremist or a radical. But what if it did? What if the very fact of being or wanting to be university faculty were constructed as radical? Just because maybe it is. Hmmm. At any rate, I wonder if I rely on this education role and my political view of it too much. It is not radical in and of itself. I’m wondering how I make and remake this role to be radical day-to-day and how my personal life—my general average citizen life—can and should be more radical. How do I act like I’m living in political times? Does this mean actually attending those CodePink protests I signed up to get emails about? Does it mean submitting opinion pieces to my local paper (which doesn’t feel too local when you live in NYC)? In other words, how do I raise a calculated, risky (but not too risky, of course) stink that just might be radical? Can we do that as educators? And if I believe yes (I was reading Freire and Horton yesterday!), then how? This radical thing takes more work than acknowledging that classrooms are political places, ahem, political spaces.

Oh, and then I read articles like this one in the NYTimes this week that make my blood begin to boil. Ironically, the PI on this traditional, not-too-radial, not-so-much-socially-focused (if the Times as given if a fair write-up) project and Ayers teach in the same place. Grrr, just when I was feeling inspired.

Distractions & Stuff

2006-09-07T13:27:00.000-05:00

So I've been away from the blogosphere for a little while. I've been distracted. ;) Thought I'd give an update about what I'm excited about for my semester. Reading old stuff, communication stuff, social justice stuff. And getting to talk about that stuff in small classes with engaged peers. It's really a luxury to have space set aside solely for the purpose of engaging in critical inquiry with others. Just as exciting is the stuff I get to do. Going to be spear-heading the cd-making of the oral storytelling project with the incarcerated youth. It's funny, I know nothing about audio editing but that's what I get to learn (among other things). This project is primarily a writing and publication one; it's funny that I'll be more invested in non-writing parts of the project given that that's the thing I'm supposed to know about. But I like the irony.

Ooooh, and wanted to post this link for you, my 2 faithful readers. Here's where Matt now spends his days. He's going to India in November. So jealous.

A Microcosm of NYC

2006-06-27T10:25:00.000-05:00

Took this with Darren way too early in the morning on the Brooklyn Bridge a month or so ago. His sunrise shots are nice, my pics were mostly trash. :)

Can't Keep Up!

2006-06-24T16:39:00.000-05:00

I'm getting this overwhelming sense that I just can't through all of this social networking stuff fast enough for my research to matter. (I could deconstruct "matter" for several paragraphs but I'll spare you.) Anyway, AyAyAy! I keep finding new stuff--great for my creative juices but stinky for focusing research (whatever that means).

Anyway, before I deconstruct it, check out what I found: IMVU: "the world's greatest instant messanger" supposedly. I wouldn't know, haven't played on it yet but thought I'd share. If it's anything like "the world's greatest cheesecake" you find anyplace that serves cheesecake in NYC, we'll be disappointed. Still...if anyone has insight on this site (I'm rhyming, sorry), please do share.

Also DrJoolz has me laughing wildly and knowingly in her \recent post. Ahh, research, projects, research projects.

Oaxaca Teachers Strike Protests

2006-06-15T10:35:00.000-05:00

My friend Payal sent these out about the Oaxaca Teachers Strike:

Payal's 1st Blog of Oaxaca Protests

And Her 2nd Blog about it

Here's why she started the blogs:

Hi guys, am in Oaxaca, Mexico right now and have found myself in the midst of the teachers strike which is barely covered by the news. So check this out and let me know if any of you have experience/ knowledge of Oaxaca that could lend some light to these recent political events.

I'll try to find news on this later and post it, but, of course, the shortage of news is an issue itself!

Here's a good read for the "news" of it. And more and morenews. And a couple of short videoclips on YouTube from other tourists trying to document this mess a couple of weeks ago and now.

Why are societies just so darn mean to their teachers? Who would want to be a teacher? (she asks herself!)

Photoblogging

2006-06-04T23:04:00.000-05:00

Took this at 125th and Broadway subway stop. Funny enough, it's one of the better photos I've shot in a while and it was with my friend's point and shoot!?!

I'm committed to getting myself on the photoblogosphere soon. And if the rain in NYC would stop, maybe I could shoot more photos. But, heh, at least the rain is making it cooler and I can sleep again in my still window-unit-less-apartment instead of lying awake suffering quietly in the heat. Anyway, here are my two favorite photoblogs at the moment:

Markus Hartel
Travis Ruse

Check 'em out! Also to find more great photoblogs, take a look at the 2006 photobloggie winners.

Applause x 2

2006-06-01T00:46:00.000-05:00

Today I had two great experiences involving youth and storytelling. And I had the pleasure of clapping 'til my palms hurt! Alongside those who were cheering and hollering louder than my little hands could clap.

Here's the two:

If you haven't yet checked out Student Press Initiative, it's a very cool. Lots of projects helping youth become published authors; WAC-based publication projects are integrated in to the core school curriculum. Today I had the unique pleasure of listening in on a celebration that was ultimately the release party for 2 year intergenerational oral storytelling project. I'm quite excited to read and listen to my new copy of Back in the Day II: Speak to Us of Work: Bronx Oral Histories as I've heard only a taste. There's just something about being in print.

And, secondly, another storytelling feast is waiting online at Media that Matters Film Festival. Went to the opening night of the festival tonight at IFC, but you can catch everything and more on the small screen. 16 great films. Much goodness, well much to make you productively outraged--milliary recruitment in schools, fair use in media, reflections on race, human rights and social justice stuff, etc.

Fitting In

2006-05-29T17:47:00.000-05:00

I wasn't cool the first time around (in high school, that is), but today as I first began trying to use my newly created avatar on Habbo Hotel I realized that I hadn't remembered something key: you have to fit in. Today as AlterT (I know the name isn't clever), I visited the rooms of some hip kids and looked out of place. They were talking about me out loud, publicly humiliating! And it hurt, really felt icky.

Now I didn't have tons of choices about how my avatar would look like I would on Second Life. One can only choose hair, facial shape, clothing and shoes as well as the colors of each. I chose a red mohawk, a roundish ordinary face with pale skin similar in tone to my own, a purple tank top, black loose pants, and black flip flops. And my avatar clearly has the "girl" body. Why I chose the red mohawk I'm not quite sure. It was fun to try on something I'd never try in real life and, well, I must confess I thought it was cool. She looked very much like I can imagine my alter-ego would look, hence the name. And I like my/her look. But the other kids made fun of me. One asked the question, "Is she a boy?!" I hadn't really intended to cause a fuss or represent in a transgendered way. I was only reacting to the hairstyles available that looked most like they could be my own that ended up making me look like a cherub. The chubby faces with the spunky blondish styles felt very juvenile, and I, of course, like the time I researched Sconex and, had again had to lie about my age to participate. What strikes me though is that these "kids" as I call them are not kids at all. The avatars look almost like they're in elementary school. It's very juvenile and I'm surprisingly uncomfortable with the limited choices I was given in my own representation. I wonder if I would have felt differently when I was a teen. Something tells me I would not have chosen a red mohawk. Hmmmm.... I'm wondering if I am not embodying this avatar enough, if it was a poor choice to make her too unlike me. I am not naturally conflating her/me in the way I read of folks doing on Second Life. Is it because of the limited affordances, the cherubic babydoll style avatars, or is it that I know I was not born in 1989 and am struggling to participate in a world I feel I don't belong in? Is it that I have not been online as her long enough? I give.

Walkin' On, Walkin' On, Digital Grass...

2006-05-25T21:06:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to figure out, just what does it mean to walk on digital turf? I regularly read Angela Thomas' posts on her time on Second Life, and I'd like to know more about youth literacy practices online, particularly those practices that involve a virtual reality, moreover embodied sense of multimodality. So, tonight, I joined both Second Life and Habbo Hotel. On Second Life, I'll be myself. On Habbo I'll be myself, talking with others, etc. but on a site designed for 13-18 year olds. It's been a while since I met the age requirements there.

Spelling with Flickr Photos--wish they were mine!

2006-05-19T00:00:00.000-05:00

OMG you have to check out this new Flickr spelling with photos thing. It is...

Check it out here.

A Passive Academic

2006-05-18T13:34:00.000-05:00

Today as I quietly and somewhat casually was reading Kozol at a café in my neighborhood, a friend joined me for a quick cup of coffee. My friend was agonizing over a psychology class she was to lead in a couple of hours and worrying, as she sipped her cup of joe, that she might not have mastered the theories as well as she should have. I empathized, affirmed, the usual stuff, told her it would be fine. And then she said, “You’re such a passive academic! Really, you love learning but you’re just sitting here quietly reading.” And then she comically mocked the casual sunny afternoon drawl with which I’d mused, “Oh, I’m just reading Kozol”. I had no pen in my hand, was not trying to master a theory. I was doing just what I had said, just reading Kozol, just reading in the same way I might read a novel, absorbing it, enjoying it (despite all the yucky realities his reflections and assessments always remind us of). In my friend’s animated way she said, “it’s like I try to learn this stuff by dousing myself in it with a big spray can. You, you just wade around.” And then I argued, perhaps to her maniacally, that I thought it was a far better, far more meaningful way to learn. Wading, I think, isn’t really passive at all.

Lalitha suggests that perhaps a good metaphor for reading is wine tasting. If you like her more sophisticated metaphor, the complexity of it, that’s fine, but I’d like to keep wading in a river where the water is cool, the current washes over my legs, and occasionally, some murky, slimy stuff I step languidly into makes me want to walk upstream a little faster where the water is cleaner.

Sit Beside Me

2006-05-11T00:34:00.000-05:00

About four days before my second field observation was due in a course I'm taking on youth literacies and technologies, I solicited the support of one of my peers in building a website. I wanted to push myself to try out a new form of/space for representation. He said, kindly, “Oh, no, you don’t have time to make a website. You seem to have a proficiency with PowerPoint, perhaps you should just create a really nice one.” We continued to talk and I whined a little bit about my lack of technology proficiency, and then I went home and set out to do it on my own. I’m stubborn. I didn’t need support; I thought surely I could make it work all by myself. I’m a big girl, right. I’d just use my .Mac account; there were templates; it would be simple, straightforward.

So…I immediately began doing what I always do when learning a new tech skill. I started pushing buttons, trying stuff, manipulating the tools without realizing that I might be creating something that could not be undone, or at the very least, might be difficult to undo. I ended up creating pages of junk, letting .Mac autolink those pages, and I quite simply deleted them. That should solve it, I thought. Yeah, not so much. I’d created what was for me a train wreck. I tried undoing it, tried getting rid of the autolinks, made new pages, thought I’d gotten it fixed, found out it looked different on my computer than computers elsewhere. .Mac is designed to be so easy a “novice” can use it, but I was failing. And I think I'm going to do an Ed.D. in Communication and Education in a Technology Dept! Impossible. I lost a couple of days on the project uselessly pushing more buttons, reading online manuals about the program that kept reminding me it was “easy to use,” “great for beginners.” Frustration. Losing hope, I created a wiki—I had just learned to use one of those recently—but couldn’t get it to represent my project in the way that I wanted. Ah, another idea, I have lots of photos; what about Flickr?; I don’t know how to use it but it can’t be that tough. But it wasn’t what I wanted.

I wanted to prove I could build a website, even if an elementary version. And I succeeded. But mostly for one simple reason: a friend, someone familiar with the .Mac web publishing system helped me, showed me a couple of things. It took a total of 3 minutes. And I felt better, not just because my site had been “fixed” but because someone had sat down beside me, listened, and offered whatever support he could. Mostly, he just sat beside me.

And then I thought back about the topic of my website, the youth I’ve been hanging out with at the local library, many of them engaged in tasks of online representation. They want to sit beside one another while working on their PCs, collaborate and share ideas and skills, but they aren’t allowed. Sometimes the personal computer is much more than an individual point of access. Social use of communication technology goes far beyond the teaching/support aspect in my story; it is more multi-layered. We want someone sitting beside us or talking to us in meat or virtual space.

And if you're curious, here's that elementary version web site that took me way too long: Digital Literacies Found: In the Library

ReScattered

2006-05-06T00:16:00.000-05:00

A site just for my own stuff, named in honor of the women who helped me understand the importance of how we talk about our lives, how much the stories and the ways in which we tell those stories matters. Scattered was the title of a collection of poetry and stories created by a group of exceptional women I once knew who were recovering from life's disappointments.