September 2006 Archives

My students really wanted to go home early on Thursday. (I think it's because they liked my sub better than me! sniffle sniffle, "She," [they said] "is an unstoppable force of awesome." I know this, but did they have to rub it in?!)

I did have a lesson plan, though, even if I couldn't quite hold it all in my head on a consistent basis. We're trying to sort out the differences among position, argument, and identity.

We used Henry Jenkins' piece, Complete Freedom of Movement, as our example. If I had had more energy, I would have become apoplectic at the perception of half the class that Jenkins' did not include any of "the negatives" of videogaming. Instead, all I could do was tell them I was trying not to lose my mind. The next day, Friday, I met with several students for individual consultations. One of them cracked me up with her description and self-reflection on the discussion: "[One of the students] used misogynistic in a sentence! Do people really talk like that?!" The humor does me as much good as the hugs. :-)

~ Rev. Bruce Jacobs, 25 September 2006

Danah Zohar, The Quantum Self (1990:34)

"I thought that I was doomed at first, but now I realize that I can possibly do okay in this course." A student in an introductory course on interpersonal communication wrote this during an early check-in of a class I taught one winter session. Were students in the writing course I'm teaching now feeling "doomed" on our second wiki day? It was definitely worse than the first (read the student critique). My brain is churning over alternative configurations to improve the flow of wiki days. Hopefully, the amount of activity in the wiki - despite a few technical glitches (of both the inevitable and inept kind, sigh) - demonstrates that most students are getting the hang of it. I trust that those who are still struggling will persevere.

Next wiki day, I'll try divvying the students up into small groups and rotate them among the various tasks. For Day 4, I tried to take us through each activity chronologically and simultaneously, like one usually does in a face-to-face setting. Some students, for instance, lost posts to the online brainstorm "Compar[ing] what you learned about a classmate from the oral interview and what you learned about about another classmate from an analysis of their writing" and therefore had to repost them later. Most students are still learning the syntax (the commands) that tell the wiki what to do with each bit of writing. It took only a few minutes for everyone to be in their own bubble of struggle. Different people reacted differently: one student exclaimed,

I opened with a strike. It counted for Lava though, contributing to his high score of 160. I bowled as if I was him because Elodie, one of the first-time bowlers, needed a lesson and Lava was off getting a beverage. By the time Spare Man (formerly Little Brother, but who needs endearments when they have a cat?) and Hot Stuff finally arrived we were well along in the first game. Maria led her lane through the fifth frame, proclaiming, “I should play with them – they are my team!” She scored went on to score a personal best. :-)

I had not intended to blog about bowling because I taught earlier and thought that would be my post-of-the-day. I’m still going to write class up (because the students are awesome), but after ten minutes I knew it was going to be a good night on the lanes. So I handed out my new business cards (much simpler than the cumbersome informed consent form…although I may still have to get to that eventually…or not…)…

Despite Spare Man’s disparagement (“That’s not how you relate to people!”), I added five more people to Reflexivity’s zone-of-something: Ivan, Shaun, Insa, Elodie, and Silja. We always have quite the diverse mix, but this was like international night: Romania (2), Germany (2), US (2), France (1), Columbia (1), Nepal (1), Guatemala (1). In no particular order. :-) (If I remembered inaccurately or am otherwise misinformed, please correct me.)

Conversation flowed as freely as the bowling balls – in and out of the gutter. :-) I fielded a couple of questions about the blog and my work…it only took 45 seconds for Silja to tell me, “It’s getting complicated.” Yes yes yes! Awful how my character just keeps on doing that! Insa tolerated me for awhile longer but I have a suspicion she was just humoring me. :-) Juan kept trying to jinx my ball into the gutter but it backfired on him every single time: “Who’s going to tease who?” he queried. Speaking of which, the mysterious email I received in Spanish this summer was attributed to a jug of sangria: “I was a little happy when I sent it.” Meanwhile, Lava worked to get his spin back, Shaun showed no mercy, Spare Man and Spare Woman battled it out to the last frame of the last game, I received two (count them, 1, 2!) “gay fives”, and was challenged by a (diminutive) public interest group about the integrity of this blog in the public sphere: would someone’s high score of 175 appear or not?

“Two more,” I hollered at Spare Man as he tried to close a 30-pin gap in Game 2. Gutter Girl thought I was talking to her, as if two more pins would make a difference. :-o Who knows? Sometime they might!

Why should we worry about farmers in India?

Blow or hug?" Zeynep wondered out loud while the birthday candles melted onto her rich chocolate cake. It was past 1 a.m. in Amherst. Not exactly the time one would expect a party, especially having just completed a cross-country flight. "Welcome back!" she said to me and Little Brother. (We spent our summers in Turkey and Romania, respectively.)

Anuj (creative visionary and primary organizer) wasn't there for the pre-party, playing chauffer while we discussed (among other things) the differences between "simply connected surfaces" (no holes) and non-simply connected surfaces (has holes). (Did you know that mathematicians begin by ignoring 3D space, collapsing everything into 2 dimensions?)

[What comes next is an exercise in mathematical metaphorics. I am probably stretching them completely out-of-shape.] [[Oh well.]] ;-) Anuj will be pleased (?) to learn that he has no holes. [Steph has a few about the size of cannonballs but that's another story!] He is not a torus (Steph, btw, is a Taurus but oh-so-close to Gemini).

Once Zeynep arrived the party rollicked on! Rajiv took pictures but I bet he didn't get one of Alenka's gift of a beaker filled with flowers. I am so jealous! I want one!!! Jake is back to being sleep-deprived. John and I compared political notes on Turkey. Tate jumped in (and was just getting ready to tell me how wonderful commutable matrices are when Zeynep arrived - next time?)

Lava looks totally manly. Ricardo spoiled Anuj's golf swing by taking video. Sue (sp?) and Clara (?) kept to themselves in the kitchen but I did walk in on some kind of bizarro knife play - I ducked into the bathroom fast. Did I miss anyone?

My evening didn't end when I left. Just to add some more excitement, someone (who is learning how to drive) decided to weave over the center yellow line. What are those flashing lights behind us? Sigh. Fortunately, the cop bought my explanation that he weaved, "Probably just because we were talking." It didn't hurt that my registration and driver's license were current. And that LB didn't say "We just left a party!" Instead he said we were going to "Amherst" and coming from "Amherst." I added, when the cop pressed, that we were at an apartment on Pleasant St. Unbelievably, the cop accepted the most ragged learner's permit you've ever seen and issued only a verbal warning. Whew!

This article, Mahatma Gandhi: A Century of Peaceful Protest complements and expands on the post I made on 9/11.

Chief Seattle was a leader of Gandhi's type. This dirge for his people makes me cry. The paddle sweep: quote of the day (copied from a bumpersticker in Earthfoods) comes from a revised version written as fiction some years later.

Interestingly - having filled out a questionnaire for non-Muslims who might be interested in reading the Qu'ran earlier this morning - I'm not sure the "fictional" quote is out of context. I suppose this could be just because I've heard it in this form so often.

Or don't, but know you're often making decisions before you're conscious of the factors influencing them.

I bought the book Friday night because I took it as a sign. This review by the enlightened librarian finds a problem with its "lack of forthcomingness" but I'm not sure harder evidence will do more to convince people than the stories he tells? I guess this book didn't become as popular as his previous one, The Tipping Point.

I was out with half of Drunk-with-Power and Cautiously-Concerned-with-Confidentiality. We had a wondrous meal in honor of Robin, who is still getting settled at the University of Chicago (and planning her birthday party).

It was a sign because I wavered between titling a poem I wrote last week "Wink" or "Blink". The content/effect of the poem (both in its conception, writing, and hopefully reception) is along the precise lines of Gladwell's book: "Blink is concerned with the very smallest components of our everyday lives - the content and origin of those instantaneous impressions and conclusions that spontaneously arise whenever we meet a new person or confront a complex situation or have to make a decision under conditions of stress" (2005:16).

I don't recall that I'd heard of this book before seeing it on the table in Raven.

:-)

Gladwell goes on to ask, "What would happen if we took our instincts seriously?" (17). I've been asking this of myself for awhile now. He argues a kind of unconsciousness (not Freudian), called the adaptive unconscious.

It's fallible, of course, subject to betrayal, being "thwarted" (14), "thrown off, distracted, and disabled" (15). Hence, one must practice reading and applying it. Been there and still doing that!

ps. I really need to figure out how to add audio because reading this is not complete without hearing Marvin Gaye kicking it as I type.

Wow - Turkish has been identified as a "critical language" and Fulbright is offering scholarships to learn it in-country!

The Graduate Student Grant Service assists with certain grant applications, and the Office of National Scholarship Advisement assists with others, including:

“That’s such a good rule!” She might be the only one of my students who thinks so (?) but she did say it out loud after I passed out the daily lesson plan in yesterday’s class (having just discussed the grading policies). :-) We had several different activities as I try to move us on several elements simultaneously. The first was a debriefing of the process of generating two-to-three pages based on their viewing of Pink Floyd's The Wall.

I don’t know if they were so open and comprehensive with their comments because they read the essays critiquing writing on the Junior Writing Class wiki or if all of this would have come out anyway, but I could barely keep up with the first outburst:

The media's emphasis on the five year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon blatantly reveals our cultural penchant for the short-term. I am not speaking of the grief of those who lost family members because that pain is of a different order than the rest of us who look on and talk about the event as if it is the lynchpin upon which the living of this day turns.

What if, instead of spending the day in various ceremonies of remembrance and mourning, we honored and celebrated the beginning of one of the most successful, powerful, and inspirational peace movements of all time? Today, September 11, 2006, is the 100th anniversary of satyagraha: the pursuit of truth initiated by Mahatma Gandhi in Johannesburg, South Africa, thereby launching the first modern movement of nonviolent resistance. An interview with Gandhi's grandson was broadcast on Democracy Now on September 8th (the highlighted text above takes you to written transcript and links to audio).

Puru asks, "are we anywhere close to the truth?" A trailer produced by Arun Gandhi about his grandfather's work introduces some of the resources available from the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence. This cartoon depicts "the elephant" of Gandhi's Passive Resistance Movement as a barrier in the path of the British which they could not move. Arun Gandhi argues that satyagraha is hardly "passive".

I agree.

It takes tremendous effort to turn away from habitual resistances, the mirroring of other/opposing habitual resistances. Gandhi found another way. We must do the same.

A pre-conference workshop for the Conference of Interpreter Trainers.

"'Interpreters of texts' [says Nietzsche via Yalom] 'are always dishonest - not intentionally of course - but they cannot step outside their own historical frame. Nor, for that matter, out of their autobiographical frame.'

'But does not an unwillingness' [responds Breuer via Yalom] 'to pay homage to interpreters make one unpopular in the academic philosophical community?' Breuer felt confident. This consultation was on course. He was well embarked on the process of convincing Nietzsche that he, his new physician, was a kindred spirit with kindred interests. It was not going to be difficult to seduce this Professor Nietzsche - and Breuer viewed it as seduction indeed, as enticing his patient into a relationship he had not sought in order to obtain help he had not requested.

'Unpopular? Without question! I had to resign my professorship three years ago because of illness - the very illness, yet undiagnosed, that brings me to you today. But even were I perfectly healthy I believe my distrust of interpreters would have ultimately made me an unwelcome guest at the academic table.'

'But, Professor Nietzsche, if all interpreters are limited by their autobiographical frame, how do you escape the same limitation in your own work?'

'First,' Nietzsche responded, 'one must identify the limitation. Next, one must learn to see oneself from afar - although sometimes, alas, the severity of my illness impairs my perspective.'"

When Nietzsche Wept, p. 52.

As of approximately 10 am EST, the most active discussions of the The Living Library were:

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UPDATE 11:20 am EST, the most active discussions are:

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According to Erdem, it is a Turkish custom to put a slice of bread under your pillow the first night that you spend in a new place. Supposedly there is a relationship between the bread and the dreams you have: a message about the future in the new place.

I awoke disoriented to the alarm yesterday morning, thinking I was home but knowing it wasn't so. When the confusion settled I knew where I was and felt good about it: I am comfortable here, this next new place will be "home" for some time. I didn't recall any dreams, my sleep was deep and restful. There were some other thoughts right when I awoke: as if I had been somewhere else but was yanked away too fast for memory to function.

Turkey - as a place I was in memory - already seems long ago: life here in the US occurs at such a fast pace in comparison. The stories I have told most since returning have to do with the people I met and the quality of the interactions we had. I was asked how I knew so many people there...the thing is, I didn't! I met people, or - people met me. "I can just imagine Steph on the street going up to strangers, "Hi, I'm Steph!" Some clown-friend of mine concocted this fantasy. :-) In fact, I was approached much more often than I approached others. I think, in part, that I connected with so many people because I was open to being connected with, but there is a deeper cultural element as well. It has something to do with collectivity ~ perhaps this is a characteristic of the "Asianness" of Turkey?

My temporary roommate bachelor buddies quizzed me about this as something distinctive from the US. Their initial experience and continuing observations as international students from India regard the loneliness of US culture. Lee and Donna also commented on this based on their own travels, that one just wouldn't be taken in by Americans like I was by so many Turks. Such openness and reaching out, making sure a stranger is ok, doesn't often happen here (certainly not to the same extent, and not on such a personal level).

The last three weeks of the visit was amazing. I established a home base at the World House Cafe, a hostel I highly recommend. (Tip: providing cookies for the staff is a surefire way into their hearts.) The view of the Galata Tower is amazing:

I had a goof this morning ~ somehow managed to hit "off" instead of "snooze" at 6:15. Didn't think I'd fallen back asleep but wondered at how long it was taking for the alarm to sound again. 7:38! Yikes! I missed my first interpreting job of the day, the first class of the semester, the beginning of this academic year and whatever knowledge the year's experiences will bring. What happens when the interpreter doesn't show up?

So Natalie Goldberg was advised by her Zen teacher. I have come upon this knowledge much less glamorously, discovering through necessity that writing is "a way to help you penetrate your life and become sane." I listened to Side 1 of Writing Down the Bones yesterday morning, which includes periodic commentary by the author updating her own inspired words. She talks about breathing the words by reading them out loud. Goldberg doesn't mean tone, nor is she talking about voice, she means literally giving breath to language, enabling it to move.

I scribbled down some memorable lines, those that might be useful for teaching as well as some that touched me personally. For teaching

43-going-on-17-year-old troublemaker. Interrupter of war; disturber of peace. Loves getting in relational grooves of all kinds, hates leaving them. Questions everything. Mellows quickly if directly addressed. Prefers outdoors to the urban but can be comfortable anywhere. Has become notably quieter in the past two years (still becomes loud when excited). Loves children and cats (dogs tolerable). Cares about just about everything.

It was Gizem's dad who recommended Patrick Kinross' biography of Atatürk to me. I found it compelling, even though this critique by David Fromkin describes "Rebirth of a Nation" as "an uncritical "official" account." There's plenty to dislike about Atatürk the man. Such is discussed in a new biography by Andrew Mango (2000), as described in the aforementioned critique: "It reveals the long suppressed darker aspects of its subject, showing us a far more complex personality than we had seen before. Curiously, however, the main lines of Kemal’s policy and accomplishments emerge as having been much the same as we had believed them to be in the past."

I did not meet a single Turk who had anything bad to say about him, despite the tricks he pulled on them to drag them away from a religious to a secular government. (Granted, I only spent significant time with one devoutly Muslim family, who described themselves - passionately! - as "moderates" who hate Hezbullah, asserting that their version of Islam is "based on lies.")

As I always do, I've been wondering about the "silence" regarding my last few posts/emails regarding the discussion about Lebanon (outlined here.)

Lo and behold Swati walked in the door the other night. No small talk for us! We dove into politics. :-) It was intense: she was jetlagged and I'd just downed a beer. I kept telling myself, "Think, Steph, think! This is serious!"

It seemed to come clear that we were both "missing" or "misinterpreting" something in the other person's talk. The point I gained from our talk was that maybe the concept of "discourse" itself is biased? I'm not sure if this is what Swati was trying to get at, but (it seems?) she was reacting to a certain narrowness (?) in the term. I don't mean to speak for her: I'm publicizing my interpretation for correction and/or confirmation. Hopefully, also expansion! :-)

Swati critiqued my emphasis on discourse as limited only to culture. This isn't my view, but I think I can imagine why it might seem so. I tried to clarify that what I'm really interested in (and trying to talk about) is language. "Discourses" are units of language (I add, now, as further clarification) that make wrapping my mind around the complexity of language somewhat manageable. I think the political and economic count just as much as the cultural, perhaps - in substantive, material terms "more" (although I'm not sure this kind of quantitative hierarchy gains us much theoretically). Language (perhaps only in my imagination?) is a way "in" to understanding and changing these systems, specifically at the level of values and choices that uphold them.

Meanwhile, I was amazed by this story: Hamas Spokesman Blames Palestinians for Gaza Chaos, which came shortly after I challenged my friends to participate in a discourse of self-criticism (August 26th). NYTimes: "In an unusual instance of self-criticism, a well-known Hamas official has deplored the collapse of Gazan life into chaos and has said that much of the blame belongs to Palestinians themselves."

“'I’m not interested in discussing the ugliness and brutality of the occupation because it is not a secret,' [Ghazi Hamad] wrote. 'I prefer self-criticism and self-evaluation. We’re used to blaming our mistakes on others.' Palestinian joy after the Israeli departure 'made us forget the most important question — what is our next step?'”

Now, will my friends reading other sources situate this official for me in some other narrative, some other discourse? Another thread of the argument (!) between me and Swati is the credibility I attribute to the NYTimes (source of the above-linked story). I read a variety of viewpoints in the Times, including political and economic critiques. I'm not entirely convinced the alternative press is saying anything that unique? As a case in point, a student in the intro to mass media class I taught last semester presented on alternative and mainstream press coverage of the May 1 immigration rights protest in Boston last spring. ALL SOURCES USED THE SAME AP ARTICLE, they had simply changed the headline.

I haven't worked out a balance between readings in the assigned texts (which students are required to buy so I better use) and contemporary/current event readings. I know the issues that are covered in the Text-Wrestler are real and relevant, especially those for Unit 1 (self/other identifications in context and the challenges of self-reflection), but there is something about them that reinforces a sense of individual autonomy that troubles me a bit. It is as if identity/identification is only a social phenomenon, not one with political and economic ramifications. [Take me with a grain of salt: I'm "writing out loud."]

Compare the essays in the text with THE FUGITIVE GIRL ACT by Paul Rogat Loeb. He doesn't wrestle with what it means to be a girl (or a boy, for that matter), but with what it means to be an ally.

I guess I'm wondering what students might do with a requirement that asks them, after the critical assessment of self-in-context, to situate their contexted self in the larger political/economic system. Does it add too much complexity? Is the wording confusing or does Loeb's article provide a clear enough example to illustrate the task?

One of the excellent interpreter coordinators I work with recently inquired about my preparedness to teach a science course:

"We're checking in with the various parties (student, teacher, interpreters) for the science course to help ensure that things are set.... what is your experience with [this subject] and interpreting for this kind of course?"

I responded in detail, as I've got the upcoming Conference of Interpreter Trainers on my mind:

"I interpreted a [similar] course some years ago at a local private college; it was heavy. :-) I don't recall the content however, and will definitely ask for clarification if something isn't clear - the teacher ought to be made aware that science in ASL relies heavily on visualization - which means that I, as the interpreter, must be able to "see" in my own mind the process being discussed in order to represent it adequately to the deaf student. If I can't wrap my mind around the way whatever the subject is relates to its context then I'll need help.

Most teachers supply this information automatically - so she/he should not try to do anything different than usual, at least not until we come across some pattern of communication breakdowns. Sometimes style or language or sheer unfamiliarity makes it tough to grasp the knowledge instantaneously; if this occurs, I'd first check with my team interpreter to support me, then - if [Wanda] also didn't get it, or isn't sure which part I'm struggling with, I'll ask the teacher for clarification.

That's the language part. The other part the teacher should be aware of is the relationship she/he is developing with the deaf student and the relationships among the deaf student and other students in the class. It is my full intention NOT to be the deaf student's buddy, but instead to facilitate the student becoming buddies with peers and having a direct learning relationship with the teacher. One particular strategy for this is to move around a lot, instead of staying in one physical location. (Although this depends on whether the teacher moves or not, if s/he plants him/herself and lectures then I wouldn't move.) Ideally, I always put myself in a range of sight where the deaf student sees me AND the person speaking. Sometimes the size or layout of the room won't allow this, and folks are often a bit distracted at first, but I have been amazed at how readily everyone accommodates and what a significant difference it does make in the group dynamic - much more inclusive!!" [email correspondence]

Sangram (one of my five bachelor roommates) asked me to clarify which word I'd said when he inquired about the purpose of my blogging. I had said "consciousness" but he heard another level of what I also meant. I was reminded of this yesterday morning, the last day of the teacher training for the Freshman Writing Program. A friend asked, "Do you have to censor what you write since you know so many people might read it?"

My goal is to be authentic to my experience at the perceptual and analytical level, but I do think about reception and make every effort to say things in a way that is affirming to the other persons involved. It's hard to know how well I pull this off because of the strange silence that occurs in the "space" between reading my writing (occurring elsewhere & elsewhen) and talking with me face-to-face. :-) I usually do not know what meanings are being made by others in response to my observations, interpretations, teases, and other offerings.

Ultimately, I imagine a forum in which we practice combining consciousness and conscience in a collective discourse. This means the first challenge is one of joining: me with others, others with me, us, together. :-)

In that spirit, I received constructive feedback from Mark (whose own choices hinge heavily on what works linguistically), Janel (who reads at the implicational level) and Peggy (who might well be wondering, “did we really hire her?”) about my grading policy. ;-)

During the small group task with Rachel, Sarah, Haesang, and Randall I was struck (again, as I have been at various times all week) with how earnest everyone is about doing a good job. Actually, not just a good job – an excellent one. I feel honored to be part of this high caliber group of knowledgeable and committed personalities.

Not to mention integrity and sharp recall: the pen I loaned to Emily The First was returned!

Brian gave a hilarious presentation on the twiki, including campus geography (everything is north, avoid the big holes) and this link that we're being encouraged to introduce to our students: My CompLab.

Josh's hot tip for dealing with students:

"Assume goodwill."