Reflexivity

More blog victims.  Hehehe.

After calling on higher powers, Knightly said it was “like reading my Miranda rights.” Yossarian, Eureko and The Cat in the Hat laughed at Knightly. Welcome to the club!

“My mother didn’t teach me to cook or sew or to do my hair or how to talk to boys. She was more interested in reading difficult books and thinking. As a homemaker, she unworked.

And she pushed me into the world neither a girl or a boy, just a big, awkward, ignorant thing, forcing me to invent myself as I went along.

I am deeply grateful for that.”

~ Gabrielle Bell, Manifestion

Transitionings

We were marking the end of a life phase, the beginning of another; for one of us in particular, and — perhaps — for each of us generally.

a healthy breakfast

Meanwhile, I am receiving splendid treatment in the care of PomoCommie. It feels great to be back in Belgium; Antwerp gives me smiles.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Love comes in all sizes.

I’ll freeze my tropical butt.

Ohmygod this is Bengali music!

Pajama panties?

No wonder I feel bad so often!

Don’t choke on your birthday.

Yep, that’s what she does, spreads herself all over the white stuff!

A Bengali boat song!

Getting set up with 20-year-olds and awkward men.

Thank you for pre-empting my stress!

Ridiculous.

Preceding pithy lines courtesy of Drunk on Power, Cautiously Concerned with Confidentiality, Yossarian (The Multiple), The Cat in the Hat, Deep Fudgslie, and Tapioca.

We regaled the birthday grrl with a hearty rendition of Hey Jude and a bittersweet chocolate espresso cake topped with raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and whipped cream.

Butterfly Restaurant
Hadley, MA

Popularity: 4% [?]

Ben surveys a mile of huge stones carried by a flood

WAS*IS*WILLBE
Boulder, CO

Connecting the Dots

Will WAS*IS live?

Touched by the Weather

The continental United States experiences more sudden, severe weather than anyplace else on the globe. This astonishing fact occurs because of geography and patterns of wind. Less surprising but still fascinating is that most of the participants attending WAS*IS (including the social scientists) experienced a major weather event when they were young. Whether or not you believe humans have anything to do with global warming – or even in global warming itself, chances are increasing that you’ve been exposed to or affected by a recent severe weather event. At least, this is an assumption that social scientists can help assess.

• What are the costs of bad weather?
• Do we measure this in purely economic terms, or do we need to also understand the sociocultural implications as people adapt, grow, or fail to learn lessons from surviving a natural hazard?

The water is rising

Kevin and Bob: Doing Something Technical

The point of the Societal Impacts Program is to bring the social into team science:

SIP serves as a focal point for developing and supporting a closer relationship between weather researchers, operational forecasters, relevant end users,
and social scientists.

According to the veterans, some amazing things have happened during this 10th “summer workshop” exploring “what WAS to what IS the future” of integrated social and physical science. The representation of stakeholders at the 2011 WAS*IS is impressive: roughly half of the participants are professors, students and/or professional researchers from social science disciplines, with the other half including four television weathermen, two employees of for-profit business companies, and several National Weather Service employees, ranging from extensively-trained meteorologists and technicians in Weather Forecast Offices to national policy advisors and top-level agency directors.

We are, however, missing representation from the largest set of end-users, the diversity of publics who care about weather news. Social science is needed to identify

Caitlin and Jay, listening carefully.

• the very different reasons and diversity of needs of interested consumers of weather news;
• failures of education and training in making weather knowledge common – widely shared and collectively understood;
• social interactions of time and the timing of warnings with both short-fuse and long-fuse weather hazards (such as flash floods or hurricanes, respectively).

Did you know that the National Weather Service warning for Hurricane Katrina was the most precise and accurate warning in history? Not only did the official warning provide a very long lead time, it also predicted in acute detail the devastation about to occur.

A new line in the sand

Brittany's Emergency Management Support Statement

Including so many social scientists in the WAS*IS 2011 Summer Workshop raises the bar for organizers and participants too. The diversity of disciplinary backgrounds means the training model has to embrace new interaction capacities and grow. Just like people in other components of the weather enterprise, we are all responsible for keeping the relationships discovered here alive, active, and productive. Collectively, some stances need to be forged on a wider scale to support the emergence of this movement from its exclusive and cozy origins to an institutional force with considerable lateral reach. WAS*IS  is not only about the weather: its revolutionary model is an exemplar for harnessing collective intelligence in the face of our generation’s severe and complicated societal-level challenges.

Just as some of us will experience various emotions as this experience comes to a close, grief is part and parcel of the process of organizational maturity. It is like a phase shift from youth to early adulthood. The success of creating and delivering these great summer workshops leads to responsibility for nurturing the network’s potential to reach beyond scattered pairings and isolated studies. It is time for WAS*IS to become more than random motion in a chaotic system and self-organize into a system with power to lead institutional level change.

We have the technology!

(inspired by  Matt the Bionic Weatherman)

Spinney: Showing Us The Way

Popularity: 3% [?]

Bill Hooke flips the frame from defeat to opportunity

WAS*IS*WILLBE
Boulder, CO

“I’ll have some unleaded”

Alexis Networks argued that everyone should work a service job at some time in their life . . . she was trying to tolerate our waiter the human whirlwind – after all, we just wanted barbecue!  Her strategy was to jump scale: finding the direct interpersonal interaction challenging, she shifted her perspective to larger socioeconomic dynamics. This defused the possibility of unwelcome tension spoiling our meal.

Decisions: Economics and Value (I wonder: What is the price of ethics?)

We were recovering from a day of touring three flash flood scenes. The overall mood of the 2011 WAS*IS seems good – there is much laughter and comraderie despite the emotional undercurrents raised by facing the evidence of unnecessary human death. I am not sure how many of us were deeply contemplating the various roles we play in ‘the weather enterprise,’ but I think it had to be present. Queen Eve kept asking, How do we get people out of their cars and climbing to safety?

My (social science) answer is that we need to cultivate people’s ability to recognize what situation they’re in; more specifically, which timescale is most salient?

Caught in a storm

On Saturday, in turn with all the other social scientists here at WAS*IS, I gave a brief presentation on the methodologies from the discipline of Communication that I use in my work, ending with Bruce Tuckman’s model of the stages of group development:

If prevention is impossible, how do we recalibrate for continual recovery?

• forming
• storming
• norming
• performing

Ben The Curious asked what I’d observed of our group so far. My answer in the moment was positive and optimistic – I still believe! – but the critical discourse analyst in me started wondering: is this group going to engage ‘the storm‘ or skirt right through it? Will we ‘norm’ in ways that avoid the tensions among us or will we recognize the various timescales present and make decisions accordingly – and will we implement these decisions collectively or individually?

Weather and the challenges of forecasting are perfect metaphors for the development of the WAS*IS movement, especially if you take into account all of its participants and nested timescales.

Better Wet Than Dead

A locus for action?

Just like a severe weather event, group dynamics play out on multiple timescales. It is the convergence of trends and factors that generate a storm.  The group development stage of storming plays out, simultaneously, in the course of:

• a single day in the WAS*IS schedule
• the course of the 8-day workshop
• the life cycle of the WAS*IS movement

It seems to me that all of us ‘innocents’ in this year’s WAS*IS are witness and participant to a storm occurring at the higher level of the movement’s life cycle.  Whether we’re willing to get wet (or prefer to stay in our cars) is a collective decision that will have bearing on the future of these summer workshops.

Popularity: 3% [?]

WAS*IS*WILLBE
Boulder, CO

Oh yea. I’m home. Not just back in Colorado, but in the company of ‘my people.’

Dan and Todd at the Weather Forecast Office, David Skaggs Research Center (NOAA), Boulder CO

At least at first glance, most of us appear to share an ethos that gathering in groups to work together for social change can lead to large-scale effects.

Work, by the way, is used here in the physics sense – “the amount of energy transferred by a force acting through a distance in the direction of the force.”  From my disciplinary perspective, the force at our disposal is language; the energy comes from each (and all) of our separate, specialized knowledges. Energy, in the physics sense, is an indirectly observed physical quantity.  In other words, even though energy does not have a form directly observable to human perception or technological detection, parameters can be established that allow the effect of energy to be measured.

Meteorologists are constantly grappling with the indeterminate appearance of energy in weather systems. Based on two and a half days of participant observation, the language of weather forecasting seems to mirror the chaos and uncertainties of severe storm emergence.

Mark Trail and The Weather Enterprise

What's missing?

Kinetic Kenny explained the marketing strategy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) to use the Mark Trail cartoon character (invented, 1946) to promote the use of weather alert radios (1997).  The ‘work’ that Kinetic Kenny and Julie the Jewel did in the opening WAS*IS presentation was to bring the social scientists in the room up to speed with the meteorologists regarding the mission of the National Weather Service. In other words, their energy was intended to transmit their intelligence through space in order to draw us all in to the weather enterprise.
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Merger: physical science and social science

Problematics of definition and control quickly became apparent in the formative stages of the 2011 WAS*IS group’s discourse. Weather Forecasters and Broadcast Meteorologists want people to understand risks to their safety and take proper precautions. These professionals hold themselves to high standards and agonize over fatalities – especially those that are preventable. Why don’t people heed weather warnings?

“This is water and you will drown!”
(attribution credit requested)

Decision Support is a Communication Activity

Bill Hooke should give a TED Talk

When, how, and why people choose risk over safety is social behavior that has more to do with time than space. This is my hypothesis, anyway, and I’ll be grateful to anyone and everyone who shares research and resources on this matter!  Control is a discrete, technological phenomena usually achieved under (please correct me if I’m wrong!) strict constraints of immediacy: as soon as temporality extends beyond the limits of the Here-and-Now, prediction typically begins to weaken – especially if human beings are involved.

Even in the most tightly-circumscribed human process there are “too many factors,” as attested by Gaby Who Reads Minds. These factors are psychological and social: they multiply downstream during the inevitable unfolding of severe weather events. One must begin, therefore, with generalities – the patterns evident from aggregating the entire range of actual behaviors and correlating these directly observable phenomena with indirectly observable sources of influence.

Here’s what I see:

The primary pattern of meteorological communication with the public is confusion.

Lack of intradisciplinary agreement on meaning

The human element: Talk about uncertainty!

Which is worse: a watch, a warning, or an advisory?  The definitions combine spatial and temporal criteria in ways that make your head spin. As social media and other technologies allow the evolution of codes, the infighting over ownership of words and terms is intense (so I’m told). How is the public to be engaged in the co-communicative process of understanding the significance of weather measurements? Comprehension is mutually created – whether this is between individuals, among people with different demographic characteristics, or within hierarchical structures of policy construction, implementation, and enforcement.

Opening Reception: Rainbow over Boulder

Culture Change Underway!

The critique I’m offering of weather service related jargon is not actually a criticism. It is possible only because of the clarity with which the WAS*IS community is engaging the known dilemmas of protecting the public with the scientific tools of weather prediction. More than any other physical science, meteorologists are embracing the work of social scientists in a way that foreshadows the best potentials of team science. The newly-coined science of team science has been established on the precedents of medical/public health and safety research but has been slower to embrace social science because of a fascination with the information-processing capabilities of social networking. It seems to me both are needed in order to address wicked problems.

WAS*IS*WILLBE heralds new intellectual terrain. Let’s keep exciting each other!

Arrival at the National Center on Atmospheric Research

Popularity: 8% [?]

Springfield youth were asked to come up with ONE WORD to describe everyone in their randomly assigned group.

A Taste of College:
Youth Leadership Development Retreat
Amherst MA

Whenever I work in teams, I always mention the significance of following. It is rare, however, to be able to carry that conversation forward. I hope this time is different. Following is something all good leaders do: they understand when to follow someone else’s idea – in other words, effective leaders are highly attuned to time/timing as well as to the content or substance of conversation and group dynamics.

The “Taste of College” Retreat is over, but the dynamics it set in motion are barely begun. Will the emotions raised during those three days become a ripple that soon fades or a wave that builds to a powerful crest? Will all of those emotions simply add to past history, reinforcing understandings and relationships as they are already established within the larger structure of our society? If the emotions grow and build, what shore will the wave crash into and wipe clean?

Filling the Void of “Silence”

Silence (when you're used to constant stimulation - talking, activity, music, etc) can be uncomfortable! (Image borrowed from a tutorial on making a Prezi)

One of the young people who attended the Retreat noticed how hard it is to facilitate when “no one is talking.” Being comfortable with silence, waiting for someone else to think of something to say, is one of the hardest aspects of leadership. Within the planning team for the event, I didn’t always do the best with this myself.

The manager in me was hyper-conscious of timelines for decision-making, as well as how much participation, input and feedback is necessary to create a quality program. In the end, on the surface, we had a successful event. The youth all got along with each other, named something significant that they learned, and many expressed the desire to come back again next year. The “Public Service Announcements” regarding their visions for the future of Springfield are creative and compelling.

Behind the scenes, however, a few things happened that did not – and still don’t – feel good. The wave – or the ripple – from the Retreat will be influenced more by how the background issues get handled than by the visible surface of shiny videos and memories of fun times.

Diversity: Tensions and Loyalties

Youth brainstorm traits, skills, and examples of leaders & leadership.

Everyone always has their own perceptions of their unique experience (what I called “biography” in the opening presentation). At the same time, people share perceptions of experiences that feel common (the “social identities” part of the opening presentation). These commonalities usually fall along

• the lines of the body (how one feels about the way they are treated by others depending upon how they look) and
• the lines of the mind (how one thinks about the usual ways of talking and making sense of things that happen).

History (things that have happened in the past) is a kind of container for biography. “We all carry our racial identities on our shoulders,” as a friend of mine put it. Or, “Acting white in Springfield will get you killed,” as a youth in the Retreat said during the “fishbowl” activity on code-switching. “What does it mean to act white?” another youth asked in response. As I recall, there was no specific answer provided at the time. Talking about whiteness is a challenge many of the adult staff have been trying to meet for a long time.

Acting White

Since I was in a leadership position before and during the Retreat, most everyone probably noticed some of the things I said or did. In general, it is fair to say that I “acted white” most of the time, during planning (in advance of the event) and during delivery (the three days of the workshop). Let’s break it down from the outside (what could be observed by others) and from the inside (my self-perceptions and conscious reasons).

Distribution of 'agreement' and 'disagreement' activity: Do Leaders follow or challenge norms? (Unasked: Whose norms establish the point of reference?)

First, by virtue of my body (now, as an older white woman) and the socioeconomic class that I grew up in (new middle-class), I am in a position to be a link to the resources of a university. As an activist in a white body, I have assumed personal safety and low risk for most of the social justice causes I have endorsed. Throughout my life, I have exercised the privilege to go wherever I wanted to go, pretty much whenever I wanted to go there. This includes not going to places where I didn’t want to be – both physically (as in, certain neighborhoods) or mentally and emotionally (as in, exposing myself to the suffering of others not as lucky as me).

In counterpoint, I’ve labored hard for some twenty years to un-do the entrained attitudes of privilege and counter the desire to stay safe within the psychological space of what is familiar. Nonetheless, I am still embodied and enculturated as a white American. I tend to prefer structure, order, and predictability – even if only to push against or work around! Leave me in a vacuum long enough, and I’m going to do something! In retrospect, maybe I could have waited longer and/or done less, in order to enable others to step into the empty space and do more.

Structure: Change or the Status Quo

Here’s the thing. Structure pretty much rules. We are all caught up in a system that has roots going back centuries. The way governments, money, the military, science & technology and the arts work today is institutionalized in layers upon layers of law and custom. In practical terms, everything a person does as an individual gets swallowed up by the system. Lots of individuals doing the same kinds of “individual” things (such as, everyone trying to be a leader) is what savvy marketers and politicians exploit: they hook us around selfish needs and desires, things that make me feel good about me.

Lyrics to a rap by youth for the Future of Springfield

The only excuse I have for the design of the Retreat is knowledge. “I’ve been to a lot of retreats,” someone said, betraying (from my perspective) low expectations. I heard through the grapevine about someone else whose expectations were (perhaps!) set too high: that the Retreat would be “a life-transforming experience.”  My ambition was more in line with the latter. There was no reason for this not to be life-changing for everyone involved, except for the absence of adequate planning time before the Retreat, in order to forge more fundamental trust in the agreements we made with each other.

This means the knowledge I applied was riddled with things I did not know. Some of what I didn’t know I could have learned from co-organizers and facilitators in advance. Some of what I didn’t yet know was told to me both before and during the event, but I was not able to understand what it meant until after the fact. There are many more things that I do not know: either I have not yet realized the lesson or have not been exposed to enough variations to recognize the pattern. I still want to learn, so I can follow better and thus improve my own ability to inspire by recognizing when to follow and choosing to follow when following matters most to accomplishing effective leadership.

Acting into the Future – On Purpose

Between these two extremes of expectations that are “too high” or “too low” is the hard (sometimes even boring) work of co-creating new relationships based on the belief (one could call it faith) that humans can break free of the patterns of the past and become better at getting along and sharing the good things of life with each other.  If only it was so easy! I have not yet met anyone who was able to leap into the future without

• regurgitating a bunch of past experiences  (such as, making assumptions about others on the basis of stereotypes,
  

  Harder than it seems: Treating others with Respect & Learning each other's Languages.

  projecting a resemblance from someone else who wasn’t nice, etc.), &/or

• learning that what I know as polite and respectful is not necessarily understood that way by others.

Revisiting the “commonsense” guidelines shared by youth at the beginning of the Retreat, the example foremost in my mind is about the early curfew on Saturday. I sensed widespread exhaustion in the room, and had observable evidence to support it.  I did what I would want someone to do for me: set a limit so people could get more sleep. Turns out it was the adults who were so tired, not the kids! The “evidence” I observed from them had another cause. Unfortunately, I was not able to interpret their language quickly enough, and even when I became aware of a misjudgment I could not generate a remedy as fast as would have been ideal.

Sure wish I was better at adapting instantly to the need to change me! Finding myself caught up in patterns of behavior that look like the same old white ways truly sucks! I definitely missed a couple of special chances during the Retreat when I could have broken the mold, but they were not within my awareness at the time. Hints and wisps of feedback filtered into mind, but they all required the reinforcement of repetition before they could break through to realization.

It isn’t that learning is hard – our brains are wired for this. What is hard is letting go of what we already think!

The kids kept right on, though, putting what they need and understand into terms designed to show us grown-ups that the path toward a brighter future doesn’t have to be as hard as we sometimes make it out to be:

This equation was designed by a group of youth working exclusively in Spanish.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Society of Automotive Engineers Collegiate Competition
Marshall MI

When the joke is on you….

Zoom-Mass Team Members en route to Registration, Day 1

It might be because of the Canadians (in this case, definitely not the Cubans – nor the Russians!) Or perhaps it’s about J.R?  This story is definitely about a Hobbit and some douchebags, including a few who didn’t come along for the ride. It involves bolts, assorted bodies, and those who actually go to bed at a time calculated backwards from when they want to rise.  (This may or may not be cultural.)

There was a poker game, lake slime, and roadkill. Variable sleep. Some drinks.

“You’re not working now!”
“I kinda am!”

The government was involved (paperwork trouble at the border), as was private business (as sponsors) and charity. No problematic moments (technically speaking) were observed, although there were multiple small- and large-group dynamics. No interpretations were censored. Soul-searching intercultural conversation was initiated.

On the return drive from Coldwater to Detroit’s airport, Dr. J.R. noticed more live deer than the eight carcasses we’d seen going. (Not to mention the four indeterminate raccoon-sized remains, and Lola’s addition of multiple blood-stained splotches sans corporeal evidence.)

Site, Scene, and Sponsor of the Supermileage Vehicle Competition

“Our luck must be changing,” he said, but in fact the team had already managed multiple misfortunes without casualty.

“I wanna see an SMV crash.”

Our driver endured several mishaps including a crash that should have shaken her to the bone. However, Ruta did not hesitate for a second to put herself back out on the track.  In the end, the dreaded DNF (racing version) was avoided, despite periodic speculation about a DNR. The first day’s amazing achievement of being third to pass inspection faded into ancient history as the team teetered on the edge of doom throughout the second day, confronting everything that could possibly go wrong.

“Mass-prepared as usual.”

Competition Day was interrupted by a thunderstorm before any of the twenty-seven supermileage vehicles touched the track. For the UMass College of Engineering’s 2011 SMV Team, the storm was prelude to a serious crash followed in relentless succession by two flat tires,

alignment tools

another thunderstorm, and a second crash. The single successful Zoom-Mass SMV run (six laps around a specified high performance testing track) was accomplished at the very end of a wet and chilly day; the uncomfortable weather enhancing the potential for gloom to crush the team’s spirit.. Although the judges were willing to hold the track open just long enough to allow a second run because “we like UMass so much,” “good karma” intervened to drop the damaged left front wheel off the car at the starting line, just before Ruta began to hurtle again around the track.

“Oh man it stopped raining already?”

Charlie’s quip on the first day (pre-inspection) was echoed by Nick on the second: “At least it’s just drizzling.” The downpour, thunder, and lightning had been predicted for afternoon: every team was rushing to get their vehicles running in advance of the weather.  The forced pause allowed the Zoom-Mass SMV Team some extra fine-tuning of the brakes and more precise wheel alignment.

Balancing: Team Members walked the track during practice laps, discovering & saving an endangered baby bird."There's only three left!"

Then came the first attempt. After four successful test laps the previous day (during which the non-driving members of the team reunited a baby whooping crane with its parents), it was a shock to see Ruta and the car returning in the back of one of the rescue pickups.  Forty mile per hour post-thunderstorm gusts had ripped the windshield loose. Designed to withstand normal specified engineering tolerances, the extreme doubling of force gyred the windshield off its latches and under the left tire, sending the car into a 30 mph donut spin, and shearing off the bolt holding the left wheel to the axle as the car skidded to a screeching stop.

“Some crazy things happened” [J.R.]

Dr J.R summarized the team character: “Our response to adversity was great.”

The second attempt was delayed by the first flat tire. Seeking a correctly-sized inner tube added texture to the sense of tragicomedy. Ruta finally got the car around the track a lap and a half before another flat forced her to pull over for a second salvage ride in the rescue pickup (baby powder, it turns out, is essential equipment). One of the guys laughed, “They haven’t even seen us on the track, that’s how fast we are!” Dry humor peppered the team’s steady, focused response.

Ruta held up half the team. Photo by Jimmy Hsu.

Those who were good

Optimizing air pressure

at the required tasks simply buckled down and worked out solutions. No one questioned or hesitated when asked to get this or do that. Ruta herself never blinked: she got back in a vehicle damaged from the crash, with a known design weakness – that had been repaired but not re-engineered due to the constraint of available time. There was a single brief flare of frustration from a team member naming an obvious oversight – which was respectfully acknowledged (later) by the responsible party. “Oh yea, about that…” Otherwise no one displayed their upset: team members took every obstacle in stride. “In the end,” Matt explained, “we all want the same thing.”

“In the zone” [J.R.]

“The time has come,” pronounced Andrew.

“I’m feeling good about this one,” said Charlie.

Trying to work the rub out

“This is when the praying starts, “ offered J.R as the Zoom-Mass SMV rolled out onto the track “held together with Bondo and duct tape” for the third attempt.  The Team did not hit their mileage target, but this “Apollo 13 of SMV” finished despite extensive damage to the aerodynamics of the body, including a persistently rubbing tire.

Adjusting the safety/escape latches on the windshield

“Gangster metal fab” and a “ghetto look” set the tone as unassuming team members who had managed side projects throughout the year stepped up and delivered. Breaking out a football and Frisbee, downplaying endangered species rescue, noticing other cars’ idiosyncracies but always turning the lens back on themselves (why did our windshield look that way?!), this team built a supermileage vehicle from scratch and made it run.

Here’s to the Team!

“A free Corona for the first person to hit their call button,” announced a flight attendant on my Southwest flight home.

Ya'all are great!

Popularity: 9% [?]

a Communication course on Media and Culture
UMass Amherst

Facebook commentary after viewing the video

The unreality of DayGlow’s Escape Reality tour provides reprieve to the 24/7 demands of the socially-wired digital world. Some of my students think I would enjoy the concert. It seems possible, although the behavior required to secure tickets does not appeal. Descriptions of the emotions raised by the keyboard-and-mouse competition carefully calibrated to the timing of a ticket release has all the characteristics of addiction. A fan, however, might just call it passion. To be sprayed with paint while mass dancing to great music at eardrum-blasting decibels: you’ve always dreamed of it, right? Most of the young adults taking this class could hardly imagine anything better. The encompassing sensory experience fundamentally connects them with their bodies and each other in a shared physical space and time: it is as far from online social interaction as you can get. I suppose DayGlowers may text or Tweet or update their Facebook statuses just to tweak their friends – haha, I’m here and you’re not! - but the point of DayGlow is to experience an entirely different way of being together.

It’s about Identity, Stupid!

In the final small group discussion with the teacher, one of the students in class made an identity claim about technology that encompassed everyone regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and (to a lesser but still relevant extent) socioeconomic class. “Technology,” Jamar said, “is what makes us normal.” Orienting to society via the specific types of technology known as social media defines the digital native and simultaneously signals a potent site of contest over the future. What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of person are you now? Although these questions were not asked overtly, they underscored the Red Pill/Blue Pill debate over the prominence of technology in student’s lives. While embracing what they like and accommodating to what they must, many members of this first generation of digital natives are also deeply concerned about what it all means.

Doing Collective Intelligence

In an example of what I call social metonymy, the students’ final team video projects expose individual ambiguity about their personal responsibility for choosing the reality that will define their lives. At the same time the two videos serve to represent this choice as an either/or dichotomy between the Blue Pill and the Red Pill.  In “DayGlow Makes Us Normal,” students blend a sharp knowledge of context with an unapologetic stance in support of ‘the blue pill’ – meaning an uncritical embrace of technology, particularly in terms of how it can be used to serve the needs of the self. These young people show us that they are doing their best to deal with everything; however surviving means sometimes choosing not to know in order to have the ‘escape’ that recharges them to be able to carry on. Dfoley explains:

…when Steph approached us and asked us to research deeper into DAYGLOW, ask questions and look into the three social relations, we as a class became defensive and responded first with a stern “NO!” and then eased out of the conversation with “What if we learn bad things?” We didn’t want to know how they targeted their audiences, what producers or distributors they went through, if they were in fact illegally using music or did they work with certain music industries and is the paint made in an un-ethical environment? At this moment, we didn’t want to know any of these answers; we didn’t want to know if the three social relations that applied to DAYGLOW were good or bad. Because the truth is, DAYGLOW was and is are [sic] escape, we leave all of our troubles at the door and it facilitates an environment that is blind to color or cultural difference but sees the common ground of the human race as a whole and understands that when we enter we all are in an agreement that we simply want to be. And enjoy the overpowering feeling of the love for life you feel as you live the music.

The other video is less ambiguous, showing more of the Red Pill approach through some critical juxtapositions that seem to ask  ”Do We Have to Be This Way?” If you enlarge the Facebook commentary photograph, you’ll see a student’s explanation about the DayGlow footage being replaced by activism by teenagers in Arizona regarding changes to the curriculum there. Taken as a package, the two videos provide a fairly transparent perspective on a particular demographic subset of the Millennial Generation. What isn’t necessarily evident in the videos is learning some students described about ethnic components of their identities:

Steph talked about the fact that many of us saw things in a “white way”. We never thought about seeing things this way but it was seemingly apparent that we did. Seeing in a “white way” is similar to the idea of heteronormativity. Heterosexuality is unconsciously perceived as the correct way to live and therefore heterosexual individuals are unfairly privileged in the same way that white individuals are solely because of their race. As Sgershlak said, many white college students do not think about the opportunities they are presented with because they have always been there. Many of them have not faced much adversity if any at all and this has influenced their perspective on the world. (Kim Delehanty)

Until I was 10 years old, I lived in Boston, where the lifestyle was much laid back. Many of my friends parents would often stay home, either unemployed, laid-off, or fired. There was never a real need to have a intellectual conversation with anyone, mainly because people around you did not complete much schooling. However upon moving to the suburbs, my identity changed in order to fit in with my surrounding environment. Conversations now stemmed to “what do you want to be when you grow up”, “what colleges do you plan on applying to”. Coming from a schooling system which did not produce many graduates, to one which produced more college graduates than Boston did high-school graduates, I would say my identity changed dramatically and maybe for the best. Being the most Americanized Hispanic, also meant when it came time to identify with relatives and family, my identity would also have to change, to incorporate an Hispanic culture which has not been present for several years. (Steve Baez)

Cultivating a Growth Mindset

I assigned the students in this 100-level course a nearly impossible task – to complete team video projects representing their understanding of how media and culture combine in their personally lived experience of college today. I wanted them to demonstrate to me that they understood the concept of articulation as it is used in communication theory.

With inadequate tools, little-to-no experience, and minimal guidance, they exceeded my expectations. We all wish the production values were higher but the meaning of these videos is the thoughtfulness with which these young people have illustrated the incredible tensions of being among the first human beings to live immersed in the digital age.

The intellectual prompt provided as an anchor for the course was obscure at first: “Digital Realities and Analog Living.” We also viewed the 1999 movie, The Matrix, for use as a guiding metaphor as well as an example of transmedia storytelling. The students composed individual videos for their midterm projects, absorbed my critique, and went to work to show me how it really is.

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Dialogue: Identities
Whiteness (Race), Gender, Culture…

Do some suicides matter more than others?

It just so happened that our third dialogue session on identities came on the second anniversary of an 11-year-old’s suicide. Some high school students from Springfield offered a trenchant analysis of why the 2009 suicide of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover received less sustained public attention than that of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince in 2010. In contrast with the perception that “people are always bullied” in Springfield – where Carl lived and died – “South Hadley always gets good press.”  The novelty of “something bad happening there” drew the media spotlight. Kamari, Noelani, Tiffany, Jerrico, Allie, Ashley and Tory had no difficulty naming stereotypes associated with area high schools, including those held by others about them.

Frustration and humor poured out of these young people in equal measure, spinning out in multiple directions and toward a range of targets. These high school juniors are in a bind and they know it. Refreshingly, they sense that high school students from other schools in western Massachusetts are also bound up in their own situations. The strangeness of social hierarchies based on assumptions about identity clearly exasperates them; telling jokes to keep each other laughing is a social coping strategy.

Naming the superficial

Most of the contact between high school youth occurs through sports. “You see what people in other towns think and it’s not very nice.” I was discouraged to learn only negative stories, mainly about South Hadley. I suspect South Hadley topped out the stereotype list both because they are hosting the multi-high school Dialogue Summit on April 30 and because of disparities of public interest in the two suicides.

Some stereotypes about students at South Hadley High School are

• “notorious” and “known for being effective at bullying;”
• “bad” in competition, swearing loudly despite the presence of young kids in the bleachers;
• “They gave me attitude – crazy attitude;” and
• “are always talking junk” and “yelling swears.”

The stereotype scenario became more complicated when we asked how these students at Renaissance High School think they are viewed by others. It depends upon where those other high school students are located. There’s one view from outside of Springfield that lumps all Springfield High Schools together: “ghetto thugs, everyone wearing do-rags, swearing, using guns, smoking dope and selling drugs – both at the same time.” This list was generated with the dull verbal tone of routine and placed in context: “This is what is shown in the media.”

Specifically, these Renaissance high schoolers imagine that their peers from South Hadley and Amherst probably assume they’re

• “loud” and “obnoxious;”
• “fight” and “steal;”
• will “kill them;” and
• “Dress like hoochies.” (“How do you spell that?” I asked. “H-o-o-c-h-i-e-s. You can throw an extra ‘o’ in there if you want.”)

These youth face a different set of stereotypes from their contemporaries in other Springfield high schools. This view came up when asked what they wanted others to know that contradicts the stereotypes. “I don’t think we can technically defend our school,” said Tory. Huh? I didn’t understand – “technically”?

“They always have a problem if you go to Renaissance:
‘you’re smart and stuck up.’”

Interestingly, these Renaissance youth don’t display extremely negative attitudes toward the other Springfield high schools. “All the bad schools have something good about them.” For instance, “Sci-Tech is good, it’s just loose.”  Loose meant “30 kids outside” without administrative/adult supervision: “that would never happen here.” Commerce has programs like 1B and 9th Grade Teams (among others), and a legacy. “My dad went to Commerce when it was good… they didn’t play.”

Going in with a Clean Slate

While the students were talking about these stereotypes, I was wondering how addressing these stereotypes directly might unfold during the upcoming Multi-High School Summit. Dialogue co-facilitator Taos asked the important question about how they want to approach the Summit. Kamari responded instantly, “I’m going in with a clean slate.”  They are excited! A little nervous but eager nonetheless.

From their point-of-view, neither South Hadley nor Amherst High School are very diverse. By “diversity” the students meant “not predominately one race” – then they had a bit of debate about whether Renaissance is diverse or not. From one view, “Springfield is 75% minorities,” which “isn’t very diverse.” When asked about the label, “minority,” Noelani smiled:  “We’re the majority here, but not everywhere else.” The slightly more-detailed demographic breakdown (provided by the students) is 36% Hispanic, 25% Black, 26% White, and .03% Asian.
Those block percentages suggest cultural homogeneity, but most of the Renaissance youth participating in these dialogues have parents who do not share the same ethnic profile with each other.

My hypothesis is that growing up in a family where everyone doesn’t look like the same ‘type’ or even behave – culturally – in the same ways has provided these youth with a neat ability of balancing differences. The evidence is threefold (at least):

1. there is no uniformity of identity among students in the dialogue group (most of whom hang together much of the time);
2. their ability to perceive beyond stereotypes, and also to ‘understand’ and be able to explain why people from outside Springfield seem unable to exercise such insight in return; and
3. their refusal to demonize their contemporaries living in Springfield, even though the vise of being misunderstood/misrepresented both from without and within must suck.

Identities are fluid

The communicative skillset demonstrated by these Renaissance juniors suggests an intuitive comprehension that “identity” is not a single, solid, unchanging thing.  We’ve just begun to explore if it is helpful to separate stereotypes associated with the body from stereotypes associated with the mind. Specifically, does learning how to recognize when one is ‘trapped’ by a stereotype based on body help one make the shift to perceiving another based on the consciousness of their brain?  Generalizations about awareness and intelligence can lead to troubled relationships, too, so I am not posing this as any kind of universal answer. I am suggesting that recognizing when a shift from body to brain would enhance a relationship, and then practicing enough to be able to pull it off when it matters, are crucial skills for navigating the increasingly complex mixing and blending of cultural ways-of-being in society today.

Please Note:

A fundraiser for an anti-bullying scholarship in memory of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover will be held this upcoming April 16, 2011. Walker’s mother has become a national leader in the struggle to curb bullying in school, recently meeting with President Obama because of her activism, locally and nationally, to eliminate bullying in schools.

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Amherst, MA

Boundaries or Identities?

Lately I’ve been wondering which comes first, or if this is a classic chicken-and-egg dynamic. Talking about whiteness raises interesting identity questions about belonging – to whom, when and where, how much. The privilege of being known on the basis of mind rather than body is one of the core features of whiteness: white people (like me) might notice attractive white people but would consider the physical as an extension of the mental. In contrast, white people (like me) might notice attractive brown people and stop there, as if the physical is the entire package.

You can see how this works by watching the strategic representation co-constructed by Director Hype Williams and Rihanna, as she is featured in the Kanye West video “All of the Lights” with Kid Cudi and a host of others: Charlie Wilson, John Legend, Tony Williams, Alicia Keys, La Roux, The Dream, Ryan Leslie, Alvin Fields and Ken Lewis. The reflection of whiteness back at itself is heavily dosed with gender, too.

The Rihanna thing is intense. The mournful tones of the introduction frame an ominous future for young girls growing up in a body-centric world. Not that the prospects for men are so much better – read the lyrics. We are all under surveillance of one kind or another most of the time, it’s just that the surveillance is so unobtrusive we can ignore it. Ignore it routinely enough and you’ll forget it’s happening!

My Hip Hop Education

I learn through interaction, talking about ideas and observing responses until I locate a stance that reflects the kind of ethos I want to project into the social world. Teaching allows me to test and assess some of the effects of acting consistently within that ethos, especially where it rubs against conformity. This semester, at least a third of the students in a Communication course on Media and Culture are proactively engaged in cultivating their own ethical stance in today’s fast-forward society. Together, we are all working to develop collective intelligence.

My hip hop education merged with my teaching in a surprising way. The cultural anthropologist and digital ethnographer Micheal Wesch – described as the “Head Honcho” by one of my students – commented on three videos submitted as midterm projects by students in my class to his call for “Visions of Students Today.” In one of his comments, it is obvious that he misunderstood something about hip hop, which I – roughly six hours ahead of Professor Wesch on the learning curve, haha! – was able to recognize.

Given a penchant for using my own mistakes to extend the learning process for myself and possibly others, I engaged:

Michael Wesch, thank you for joining our conversation! I am going to drag you into this lesson, too. An interesting coincidence of timing occurred with your comment to Jamar’s video “My Life, My Eyes, My World” and me learning about Hip Hop. I juxtapose our mistakes (!) to see if there is anything to be learned from them.

I shared all the gory detail with my students because it allowed me to provide them with an immediate and non-academic example of the communication phenomena of juxtaposition and articulation.

Juxtaposition and Articulation

In the All of the Lights video, Rihanna’s adult female body – the physical manifestation of her person – is juxtaposed with rousing lyrics and an exciting musical beat in a saccade. The combined visual and auditory stimuli articulates the dark female body as an object of desire. Because the body is foregrounded, considerations of mind fade from consciousness.

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