Reflecting on Writing (about) Others

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!!!

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

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

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

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

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?