existential crisis #2

i have a major problem and that's that i can't convince myself, no matter how hard i've tried, that going into "educational leadership" at a phd level will actually change anything or allow me to act on the kinds of changes i want to work for. all the programs i look at talk about "organizational theory" and "leadership studies" and i can't help but feel like i'm going to be going to school to study how to manage and micro-manage, rather than teach or create social movements. this is the problem i had with education that made me want to get into the field, but is now keeping me from entering into it (as if i'm not in it now?) becoming "a serious (i.e. phd-toting) academic" in it.

every single program i read about talks about organization, student affairs, administration, and governance, and that doesn't sound even vaguely interesting to me. is this what i'm looking to sign up for? to become the stuffy administrator of some school district or college? no thanks. i just want to teach some radical social change theory. where can i beef up on that?

seriously, if anyone has info, drop it below. if i read one more boring course description about organizational theory i think i am going to slit my wrists.

comfortably numb

at school, the wednesday before thanksgiving, 2 hrs after the kids have all gone home.

typing with one hand, eating a banana with the other.

the teacher next door to me is singing really loud to "Comfortably Numb" while, ostensibly, moving the furniture in his classroom. occasionally, he pauses to whistle the refrains.

a postmodern schooling-related rant (kinda)

i had to write a "blog" post for my grad class and this is what i spat:

These authors seem to be in conversation regarding the interconnectedness of the school and society, and the unique role the school plays as a social institution. Provenzo opens up his chapter discussing the interconnection from a postmodern view. He goes on to explain that a postmodern perspective is one that takes culture and history as a context for changes and phenomena that may occur or be observed. I found his discussion of technology particularly interesting. In page 9 of his introduction, he discusses the importance of seeking new perspectives as our culture and society are redefined. That is, coming to consider those things we once took for granted to the point of being invisible, questioning our most basic assumptions of how things are and whether they need to be this way, and what makes them that way to begin with. His discussion of technology, its advantages and conveniences in our modern age, but also its downfalls, rang particularly strong with me. Take technology as an example of how education has sought to adapt to the changing times, but with, what I believe, are drastic results. In this day and age, students are constantly plugged into something: they surf the web to talk to friends, everyone has a phone that text messages as well as sends photos, they know how to use video technology and post videos to YouTube. Instead of talking to people face to face, or going outside to play games with other children, modern age school children are retreating online to talk to others through virtual mediums, and to play Capture the Flag on shoot-them-up video game simulations. Their hyper-reality translates into a constant need for stimulation and entertainment. Teaching practices have come to mirror this change in our children's interactive patterns: best practices now incorporate multiple learning modes, activities, connections to children's knowledge and experiences (frequently manifested as connections to their virtual realities - online games, movies, etc.). Even the drastically increased use of technology in teaching itself, the move away from low-tech transparencies and overheads to digital projectors, document cameras, Smart Boards reflects the change in the times but also the change in needs of our student populations. As a student in public schools, I never once saw more than a chalkboard or overhead used during instruction, never once played a game to "trick" me into liking math, and never had to have teachers explain mathematic conversions using elaborate metaphors involving superheroes to get me to understand or find interest in the subject. I was learning because I enjoyed the raw subject matter itself, and not the fancy instructional tricks my teacher could pull in a one hour class. But, modern day instruction requires hooks, and activities, and even "collaborative conversation" moments to be effective. When did we have to start teaching children to talk to one another and get along? This begs me to wonder, what elements of society does the school seek to accommodate and incorporate, and which elements does it perpetuate? Is our modern society losing its ability to talk to itself because of technology's fierce advancement and seduction of our youth, or is it because our schools are finding themselves also susceptible to the media and mandates of technology because of society itself? I believe Provenzo echoes my same concern when he writes, "simply stated, problems, conditions, and issues in the larger society tend to be reproduced in the schools" (10). The struggle we face as educators, parents, and citizens, is understanding the interconnection between education and society, and how they reflect and influence one another, for good or bad.

geez, my writing has deteriorated remarkably since becoming a grad student + teacher. sleep deprivation, i see you in my future.

misery,
s

happy holidays

sometimes i think i teach the cutest group of 6th graders in all of Los Angeles. (or maybe just the cutest ones at my school...) and the other times, i think they're little terrors whose only goal in life is to make my life hell. but today, they were nice.

below, a Christmas card from one of my students, Victor:

and what it said inside:

and this is my personal development class, my 6th period, one of my favorite groups of characters:

even though they're sweet and cute, i'm still looking forward to this 3-week break from them. we need a little distance.

-stephan!e

new lows

i am sitting on a towel on the floor of my bathroom, a pile of folders and papers and books beside me, trying to keep warm with a laptop in my lap and sitting as close as i can to the only heater in the entire apartment, a Thermodor built into the wall (i suspect my current use for it fails to meet its intended purpose – my guess being to eliminate bathroom odors? i dunno, that's based solely on the name and what i've heard about ppl lighting matches after taking shits: i was told the flame "burns the bad air" so you can't smell it any more, but i always thought that didn't make sense and was bad household science. anyway...)

i'm 2.5 weeks away from a blissful retreat to my home state, and only a few grad school projects away from the end of this forsaken semester, but this lump of (forgive me) shit before me is too huge to surmount, it seems. i am teetering on incompletes for 2 of the 3 grad classes and it is so fucking cold in my apartment right now, i can't get anything done. it's either crawl into bed, or sit on the floor of the bathroom next to the heater. and so it goes...

i'm fighting nausea and panic and utter depression and lack of excitement, and all from the floor 2 feet away from a fucking toilet. thank cheeses i'm the only one who uses it and i just cleaned it the other day, or this would be a really long miserable night indeed.

to the future!
-stephan!e

sometimes you just need to be reminded

school sucks. what else is new? whether you're a student, or a teacher, the school is not a pleasant place to be.

sometimes i feel myself sinking into this deep and dark depression where i lose all sense of hope and possibility. i once believed that the school was the place for change and revolution. i now understand why ppl would hear me talk with my hopeful idealism and laugh.

it's only the first day of the week, and i am already counting down the days until friday. my friend Tim and i were dreaming out loud about a place where we would be able to enjoy teaching, and would love going to work every day, but that place is not where i work.

it's hard to feel like my job is worth the time and suffering i put into it when every day i suspect the students would be just as happy (if not more) if i weren't there. the ones who say they "love" math are liars and/or sycophants. and i must admit, i'm even growing to fall for it. the ass-kissers are at least trying to make my job a little easier.

i came here with bold ideas for reforming education and changing pedagogy to empower youth and change the world. but the more i actually teach, the more i lose my belief that democratic education and revolutionary pedagogy are possible in american public education. at least, certainly not in anything but a higher educational setting.

i read this livejournal entry by my friend Brandon, and felt sad and nostalgic to be reminded of the kind of education i once called "a dream."

indeed, unrealized.

-stephan!e

end of the line

tonight, in my grad class, Behavior Management:

Tim - “what if [a new teacher] gets assaulted by a kid? what can he do?”
professor - “press charges.”
Tim - “can he hit back?”
David - “you know, out of self defense.”
Kyle - “what if you choke someone out, you know, just to make sure they don’t hurt anyone else?” [makes choking gesture]

later: Milton - "i am not getting hit by a kid and taking it, i'm sorry."

three brawny, adult male first-year teachers, talking about their students.

clearly at wit's end.
-stephanie

emotionally disturbed

today, in my grad class on students with emotional disturbances:

the prof: "i worked at a psych ward. in california, we don't lock em up, we just close the door. one of my students had multiple personalities. one of her personalities was a hooker. so, one day she got up to leave. i told her she couldn't go, she had to stay. she told me she was off, she was going to make money. so to get her to stay in class i asked her how much she cost. she said $10. so i gave her the bill and told her she couldn't leave, i just bought her for the hour."

wow.

really puts my day into perspective. (details forthcoming on my first day of teaching – today!)

-stef

real emotional trash

ok so that's the name of a Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks album. but it's fitting, b/c not only have i been listening to them a lot lately, but that's kinda how i feel about my life right now.

i don't have any real reason to feel this way, but emotions are kinda like that. they just happen, that's why i prefer saying "i feel" rather than "i think" b/c emotions are just there and you have to deal with them, and reason is overrated anyway. who wants an explanation when all you really want is a hug?

i don't know if it's the weather in ohio (nothing but rain for days, it seems), or the lack of sleep, or the malnutrition, or my loneliness*, my restlessness, the overwhelming list of things i have to do before tomorrow and the next monday and before i graduate, or if it's the lack of warmth or safety i have b/c i realized i left all my sweaters at home, or the hole in my sleeve, or the mud in my shoes, or the way i feel no one understands how sad i can get sometimes, but...

in the last hour or so i've felt on the brink of tears. and i hardly ever cry. but i guess these little break-downs happen a lot. i guess i document them b/c they're always strange to me when they happen, and maybe deep down i hope by remembering them i can counteract them when they happen again. 

lately, i've been busy and a lot of my friends have been busy. i can understand that when work piles up, we need to take breaks from each other some times. but really, when this happens, i don't get more work done, i just spend less of it being happy. i miss living with ppl who knew me well enough to know that when work kicks in, that's when i need them most. i miss having a friend nearby to reach out a hand and steady mine. i need people the most when i get busy like this, but i find ppl especially don't want me around these days. 

i feel forgotten. i feel alone. i feel like disappearing.

that's usually what i try to do. i turn off my phone, i unplug the internet. i put up a wall of sound around me and let pounding music throb in my head until i can fall asleep again. 

i'm real emotional trash. i'm feeling used and under-appreciated today. i've been running around since the early morning working for various ppl, sometimes getting paid, sometimes getting ignored. i've been really emotional b/c i feel i've put my own work off for so long, and i've spent most of my day making time to help other ppl with things, and only getting pushed around and asked to do more things. one of my friends observed that he seems to notice "ppl seem to want to take advantage of you a lot." this doesn't make me feel very good. 

i think i'll take a trip. i don't know to where yet. i don't want to say i'll be back, even tho i probably will. i just don't want to be sad any more, and if i find happiness on the road, maybe i'll stay there for a while instead.

listen: "We Can't Help You" [mp3] by Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

-stephanie

*loneliness, even when you're surrounded by people. that's the worst kind of loneliness.

"trundling" along

i went to the grocery with my friends Brandon and Will today and we spent some time perusing the ridiculous selections in the trashy romance section before we purchased some canned goods to donate to the Oxford Family Resource Center. i think my favorite title was "Déjà You" and my favorite use of a verb was "trundled," as in "she trundled over to the car where Danny waited..." - which is not an incorrect usage, but all i could think of at the time was "trundle? as in trundle bed...?"

[...]

image credit: Neko Case

i feel like my mind has been begging me for a break all week. it busted its hump to get me thru the GREs, and now that i'm back with one less thing to worry about, it's all "you want me to do what?!", giving me attitude, doing what my bro calls "back-sass."

we've had a difficult understanding. i agree to give my mind some rest, some well-deserved TLC after a week of hard work and productivity. my mind in turn gives me some great stuff when i need it: being inventive and creative when i least expect it, discovering nuances in mundane things, rising to the occasion in the high-pressure moments before a paper is due, remembering to think of others and also looking out for me. but lately, i've been asking a little too much from it, and my mind is beginning to rebel against me.

in high school, i knew how to love my mind better. i'd let it rest every night, which it loves to do. i'd let it have fun, we'd watch movies, i'd treat it to a good book now and then, and we'd do a morning crossword or some Calculus problems, just to keep each other on our toes, so to speak. things were slow and steady, and we were communicating and checking up on each other. we were happy.

but lately, there's so little time in the day. i find i'm constantly cutting corners in order to make time, overlapping things to make sure everything gets done. my mind hates me for this. it likes to take its time, to be careful and precise, to be perfect and exacting. it doesn't like me when i expect so much out of it but don't give anything back in return. i promised we'd watch some Arrested Development together and look for dominant, oppositional and negotiated codes together, for fun, but i never followed through because a certain project was taking too much of my time and energy.

my mind went on strike this week. it's feeling overworked and underappreciated. it has a right to. i've been pushing it, asking it to stay up late and wake up early, to focus on a million things at once (my laptop has over 20 documents open on it, my browser has 14 tabs open in each window, there are books opened to various pages spread on top of one another all over my desk and bed), and it hasn't had a vacation since August. it's reminding me that the last time it watched a really good film was ... it can't remember. and i can't either.

it especially doesn't like my false promises. i tease it with the possibility of some amazing music (i got the new Radiohead this week, along with Dirty Projectors and Phosphorescent), only to force earplugs upon it. i tried to take it for a bike ride today, only to have our time interrupted by some Students for Staff questions, and soon enough i found myself asking it to think about things again, even while i was enjoying the wind in my hair, the sun on my face. it wasn't fair.

so tonight, it's telling me stop it stop it jesus fuck STOP IT.

it wants me to start appreciating it, before it leaves me for real.

so today, i finally learned to listen.

i'm putting in a movie. and we're listening to some trip hop when this is all done.
-stephan!e

on hi-at-us

hey!

so, there's a lot going on! oh-so-much is going on! i can't believe i'm still a student sometimes, it's like i'm juggling 2 jobs and 5 obligations, and it just becomes too much to remember to do homework too!

well, there's SFS, which is taking loads of time, what with the living wage committee and research, funding meetings and negotiations, our weekly meetings, planning organizing retreats, applying for grants, and then having to build a homecoming float??!!

and then there's Campus Progress, for which i need to start becoming more available to help regional rep's with their projects, need to organize some projects of my own, and then there's 2 films or documentaries waiting for me to pick them up at the package center (and later screen!), that have been sitting there for weeks because they just keep coming and i don't have the time nor means to pick all of them up any more!! (there are 4 total boxes and packages for me. that's too many to carry on a bike or in my arms...)

oh, and then there's senior project, which fills me with self-loathing because i can't understand the intricate ways in which all these steps are supposed to help me write the paper i basically already wrote. wha??

and then i have to apply for Teach For America, before they won't accept me any more, and i haven't even begun thinking about my personal statement!

there's also my obligations to Talawanda High School every week as a volunteer in their Extra Time Extra Help program. soon the weather will be colder, making my bike rides to the school a little less pleasant. (but thank goodness for Autumn!)

and then, i'm teaching a class next semester! which requires a lot of planning and paperwork and all sorts of bureaucratic gymnastics, as i'm trying to draw a diverse group of students with institutional incentives and perks. and the fact that i'm teaching a 300-level undergraduate seminar makes me feel less and less like an undergrad each day. and as i'm spending so little time in a classroom these days, i am forgetting that, oh yeah, i am still a student, and i still have to graduate and figure out a future for myself.

which brings me to the fact that i'm taking the mother-effing GREs in less than 2 weeks and i have yet to understand what i'm getting myself into!

am i forgetting anything? i've been working early mornings at the radio station during the NPR fundraising drive, which is exciting and fun and a love fest, obviously, but also has me kinda exhausted.

put all these things in a blender, what do you get? one really frazzled undergrad who's had weird heart palpitations every five minutes for the last 1.5 days. at first i thought it was a happy thing, kinda like butterflies in the stomach, but like skipping in the heart. but then i realized that maybe it was a not-so-happy thing and maybe i should take 'er a little easy...

but as my friend Jens Lekman once wisely advised me [in an email about love and relationships more than heart tremors of the life-threatening or stress-induced kind]:

"if your heart is small and fragile then you need to start exercising. pump it up !"

tremors!
-stef

Exciting new course for Spring 2008: "Education for Social Change"

hiya,

as i mentioned yesterday, i'm teaching a class next semester!

and as excited as i am, i'm also struggling with ideas for how to market it to a broad base of students. obviously, i'd like to have a class size of more than 3, which is the current tally of committed persons (not too bad though, considering it became official just this afternoon).

i drafted up this general email that i suppose i'll forward around to departments and see if i can recruit people that way. i'm not sure how much i like the last paragraph, about wanting to "change the world," but i felt it was necessary to explain that this is a radical posture, without explicitly stating it.

let me know what you think?
-stef

-----------------------------------

Hi everyone -

Do you dream of changing the world? Do you want to meet other people who do? Do you want to get course credit for pursuing your dream?

As you prepare to register for Spring semester classes (priority registration begins Oct. 11 at 7 am!), I hope you will consider taking the student-initiated Interdisciplinary Advanced Seminar: "Education for Social Change."

I am working with Dr. Nick Longo, of the American Studies/ Educational Leadership departments and director of the Wilks Leadership Institute, to develop an exciting new class that will focus on democratic and popular education, their histories, theories, philosophies, practices, and applications. We will look at the role of education in society, examine and reflect on our own educational experiences (through multi-genre and multi-media projects), and use this as an entry point to engaging in social change.

I started this class out of my own desire to "change the world," and because I believe that significant social progress can take place in our lifetime, if the leaders of tomorrow are empowered and encouraged to create it. I believe education provides this hope, and I believe the critical-democratic practices of popular education in particular will free students to pursue their dreams. This class will thus aim to practice democratic educational theory in the study of it.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

-Stephanie Lee
WCP 2008

i am worn out!

i have been so tired this week! it's inexplicable. it's almost inexcusable. i was falling asleep in class today, literally falling! my head kept swinging to the side, my eyelids were stuck at half-mast, i was practically drooling from slack mouth. embarrasing. earlier this week i went to bed at 10 pm, to wake up at 7:30 am, work for an hour, then go back to sleep for another hour!

while i worry about my bouts of narcolepsy, i wanted to share some exciting developments in my project process!

first, a new title: "Revolutionary Praxis: Empowering Alternatives for Renewed Democracy" [thoughts? do you like it better than the last one?]

and, most exciting of all: i'm (tentatively) teaching an upper-level seminar next semester! yes, i'm currently in the process of designing the curriculum for a Western junior sem that will focus on democratic education, its history, theories, philosophies, practices, applications, and implications in social movements. the class will likely be called "Education for Social Change" and will feature creative projects and civic engagement projects. i'm excited to get started, and even more thrilled by the possibility of my "students" getting institutional credit for it, a class i hope is so fun they forget about grades all together!

it's nice to think of myself and my beliefs being couched within this institutional reward system and having it work in my favor, for once. it is a radical posture.

so, my class schedule for next semester (my last semester) is looking decidedly revolutionary:
5 credits of Senior Seminar (writing the thesis, no small task, to be sure)
3 credits possibly taking Social Work Policy (a class taught by a friend to the living wage movement, Dr. Alfred Joseph)
3 credits of independent study (to work with my mentor Nick Longo on creating and planning the aforementioned seminar)
3 credits TA'ing for the aforementioned Nick Longo in one of his first-year seminars, "Leadership for the Public Good"
=14 credits, a bare minimum for Miami in my final year here
(barring any exciting electives, such as Social Dance or Photography, ideas my friends and i are batting around as last hurrahs in undergraduate education)

if i weren't so tired, i'd do a backflip. //
i'd do a backflip if my back didn't still hurt from paddle-boating on the Potomac.
-stef

that little pop you just heard was the sound of your mind rupturing

in one of my Educational Leadership classes earlier this week:

professor: "did you know they decided to stop teaching cursive as part of the curriculum?"

one music ed. major: "that is so stupid! how are people going to sign their checks?!?"

blank stares, long pause

prof: "yeah... lots of people sign in cursive..."

music ed: "i mean, older people will write in cursive and they won't even know how to read it!!"

---

later in class (same day):

prof: "so why do the authors say we need theory?"

another music ed major: "it's a necessary evil."

theory = evil...?

my mind: BLOWN.
-stef

this is going in a gilded frame above my bed at school next year.


so that, when i wake up every day dreading having to write my 80-page undergraduate thesis, i can look at this and think to myself, "well, at least i don't have problems like these..."

-stefanie

and it's only monday...

--->this is how the penultimate week of school makes me feel...

i've been busy. the last few weeks have borne upon me a ridiculous amount of work, and i didn't sleep more than a total of 8 hours all of last week. as you can imagine, i was hardly a person by week's end, merely a doughy shell.

i also ran out of money on my meal plan, so lately have been occupying myself with foraging for little snackies to keep alive with. i had a lunch of baby carrots before i passed out on a bench and slept until the storms came in. i woke up and the land had turned dark and i didn't know where i was any more. and i found the tiniest little bird hopping around in front of my bench, whistling and just having a hell of a time despite my utter confusion. he sure was whistling the hell out of himself. it was kinda a magical moment i wish i had on Kodak film or something.

so this post took place over the course of 3 hours because i kept getting called down to the writing center. it's finals week at last, and the signs are everywhere.

stay well friends, and don't eat more than eight pieces of cold pizza a day. cold leftover pizza is hardly nutritious enough to subsist on, and i'm pretty sure it does permanent damage to your digestive organs.

love and all,
stephan!e

the hits they keep on coming

as is my usual practice, whenever my favorite student activist group (Students for Staff) has events on campus, i plug it like hell in all my classes and daily conversations. i send mass emails to everyone i can think of, and make (perhaps) excessive use of all the BlackBoard class email banks, where i've discovered i can easily send one announcement to something like 400+ honors kids at a time.

after doing this for the last 2 events, i've gotten to expect maybe one or two angry responses to my spamming. most are wondering who i am, and how i got their email, not realizing that Miami has a history of favoring spammers over the privacy of its students (in fact, Mother Miami sells our information to spammers and telemarketers. ironic since one of the frequent complaints of the Miami student specious is the excessive barrage of Barracuda Spam Quarantine Summary emails.)

well this most recent spam session resulted in the quickest deluge of responses yet. those clever honors kids! they're so sun-starved and attention-hungry, just chomping at the bit to engage in meaningful interaction with any fellow human being, that their anger pours forth like effervescent steaming magma, spewing in my face.

but no matter. little do they realize that i'm more than willing to bite back. mine is a rhetorical fight, and i am ruthless.

below, a sampling of the rantings i found pleasantly awaiting me in my inbox, a mere 5 minutes after the first wave of emails. [angry Honors kid's response, followed by mine]

but first, the context:

----

The campus org Students for Staff, in conjunction with the Center for American Progress and the Bishop Debate Society, has organized a week of events for discussing and taking action for a living wage in our community. We invite you to attend the following events on April 10 & April 12 as we explore the intersections of work, wages, class, and economic disparity at Miami University.

TUESDAY, APRIL 10TH
LIVING WAGE FORUM
- talks by living wage expert Dr. Stephanie Luce and economist Dr.
Christian Weller
- discussion with students and staff to follow
Fisk Lounge, Ogden Hall, above Bell Tower Dining Hall
4:30 PM
FREE FOOD AND DRINK PROVIDED

---

THURSDAY, APRIL 12TH
LIVING WAGE RALLY!
come show your support for a living wage!
4:30 PM, the patio behind Shriver
FREE DINNER

----


chomp chomp,
stephan!e

--- Matt Kern [email removed] wrote:

Stephanie,

You realize this is two days, and not a week's worth
of events, yes?

Can I also ask how you got my email address?

and who is the Bishop Debate Society? I've never heard of them
before. Do they have meetings?

thanks for your response...whenever it comes.
-matt kern

--- Stephanie Lee wrote:

Matt,

The Bishop Debate Society is, in my most basic
understanding, a funding source that provides
assistance to student groups who bring speakers
to campus. It was created, I assume, in the spirit
of dialog and community-engagement.

I probably got your email address from one of the
many BlackBoard sites. Miami makes it easy for all
student groups to advertise for their events this way,
and it is no form of trickery on my part.

And you are correct, 2 days does fall short of a week.
Thank you for pointing that out to me.

-Stephanie


===========

---Tim Nordquist wrote:

The more we pay them the more they will charge us to
go there. [sic]


---Stephanie Lee wrote:

That is definitely not true. Tuition has been rising the maximum amount every year, regardless of increases in wages.

As someone concerned about rising tuition, you should be wondering where all your money is going, and asking why your money is being used to pay sub-poverty wages.


=========

--- Preston Parry wrote:

Have you done any research into the economics of
living wage laws? There's a lot of factual research out
there, available widely on the internet, or through the
library's databases. It would be wise of you as the leader of
this movement to know any and all arguments you will
come up against.

Also, how much work have you done with the actual
staff members themselves? Have you tried hard to
understand their position, to get to know them as
human beings, or just as a single entity that serves
as an outlet for you and your group? I'm just curious,
because not once have I ever heard a staff member
mention to me that they weren't getting paid enough,
or that they in any way disliked their job. Maybe my
sample's just too small, but I was curious how much
research you had into this area as well.


---Stephanie Lee wrote:

Preston,

I have indeed been speaking to workers, as have other members of Students for Staff. It is our invested conversations and relationships with workers that drive many of us to continue working toward a living wage. While we could not possibly speak with all 1,600 of the Classified staff (hourly employees) at Miami, we have made an effort to get to know as many as possible, and have been working diligently in conjunction with many staff liaisons, and have met with staff advisory committees such as CPAC, in order to better understand the staff as a whole.

As someone working diligently on writing and researching my thesis, I can assure you that we do not do this for our own amusement, but because we care very much for the health of our community, and the individuals therein.

I'm glad to hear you've been talking to staff on your own, and that you've been "getting to know them as human beings." I encourage you to continue doing so.

I also encourage you to attend the Forum on Tuesday April 10th for the economics research on living wages. There will be two prominent economists from Washington DC and U Mass-Amherst who will speak to the very concerns you mentioned.

-Stephanie

field notes: observing the college student specious in its (un)natural habitat

i wrote this passing thought in a notebook as i people-watched in the halls of Upham, waiting for a sociology prof to sign my force-add slip for Social Stratification next year.

it suddenly seemed very clear to me how the college specious works...

"no wonder ppl drink themselves into oblivion on the wkends – they need release! release from the dull, painful monotony of the rest of their week, time spent wasting in classrooms, the dead, boring material washing over them as they sit staring, hoping to catch glimmers of a future promised them, a future they desperately await, while the present passes them by"

waiting out the monotonous present, living in a zombie state, hoping for something better down the road, while making a mockery of the present and the life you could be living.

this is what Paulo Freire termed the "necrophilic" nature of traditional education. = "driven not by a love of life, but a love of death."

is it sad i can quote all this stuff from memory now?
-stephan!e

a page from my service journal

Shock and Awe.
2.3.07

OK, so perhaps my title is a bit dramatic. But that's what first came to mind as an accurate description of my first day on-site for the EITC service.

The day began like a typical school day. That is, very early. While everyone in my dorm was still sleeping their Friday nights off, I was up at 7:30, getting ready to make the long trek in the numbing cold to Lane Library for my service, which began at 9. In actuality, my preparation for today's service began on Friday night, when my friend and I were "studying" for our positions as screeners. We role-played and quizzed each other on procedure, foregoing the parties and movie nights everyone else seemed to be enjoying.

As I expected, the first day bore some revelations: First, that there are NO places to eat a hearty breakfast on campus before 9 am. I settled for a blueberry muffin in Shriver, which, though delicious, proved to be too little, and by the time 11:30 came I was hungry. (Note to self: get up a little earlier next time and find enough time to eat a full breakfast uptown. 4 hours is a long time to be hungry.) Next, Lane Library is just about the farthest place to have to walk from Peabody Hall (even though it is one of the closest places on the fringe of Uptown). I say this because Kroger is far enough that you wouldn't consider it walkable. If you were to tell someone you were walking to Kroger, they'd probably say you're crazy and offer you a ride. But Lane is close enough to seem within reasonable walking distance, so no one ever considers it a formidable feat to walk there. In fact, people will often tell you it's close and convenient. But they would be wrong. And in the bitter cold (it was 11 degrees this morning, not including windchill), the walk, no matter how long or short, was insufferable. As I power-walked uphill to Lane on my Saturday morning, I was cursing the cold and wondering how I could best get out of doing this again.

When I finally arrived, I threw down my heavy backpack and checked in with the Site Coordinator, Debra Stanley, and saw that there was already someone waiting. To my complete shock, it was Mary*. She works with another woman, Dorothy, to maintain Peabody during the week. They work all by themselves and never complain, despite the deplorable messes in the bathrooms and halls after long nights of careless neglect. Dorothy and Mary are two of the most wonderful people you will ever meet, and I've spent many an afternoon chatting with them, munching on the many desserts they delight in making for the residents of Peabody. When I see them, they make an effort to say hello and tell me, over and over again, how wonderful they think the work I do for Students for Staff is, and how much they appreciate the little gnome I set outside my door just for them (Mary loves to joke about "the little guy" protecting the hallways). I will update them on my activities and hand them an SFS newsletter, ask them how they're feeling, if their work is going well. Though they are very deliberate in saying they love working for Miami, there's an air of sadness and forlorn weariness. This is the stock answer I get from workers, who, when reminded of their work situation, This is the response I've been getting from workers all over campus. They will say the benefits are great, the atmosphere is nice, the people are always so friendly. They never mention their wages, nor do I ask them.

Nor do I need to. My work in SFS has never assumed that wages are the only problem. "It is not," as one administrator told me, "a wage issue." Rather, I take issue with what Miami's wages symbolize, what they mean to the worker and to the university in terms of intrinsic value. What matters to me is the level of respect and appreciation those wages represent. It irks me that though Mary works 40 hours a week for Miami, she is still only scraping by. When Dorothy's shoulder was injured on the job last year, she had to take time off work for surgery and subsequent physical therapy and recuperation. Those weeks of not working put her back quite a bit, so she had to work over time. Another woman working in my building suffered a car crash and multiple health problems due to her diabetes, and is now working the night shift at Krogers to pay the accumulating medical bills.

If "it is not a wage issue," as some administrators say, then the implication is that it is a problem with the individual workers. I find this accusation even more deplorable, since it seems clear to me that not all workers have a choice in the financial decisions they make. Furthermore, I do not believe it is my, nor an administrator's, place to say what is "appropriate" use of an individual's wage. However, I do believe that financial literacy is an important step in addressing poverty in our communities. If the administration does not see it as a wage problem, it is of great importance to me that I become involved with part of the solution, as they see it.

However, judging from my first day at EITC service, I feel even more justified in refusing to believe the administration's insistence that poverty is not an issue in the Miami community. As I saw from Saturday's service, poverty is much more of a reality than most would think to imagine. I helped clients who weren't older than my younger brother, who's turning 18 in April. In fact, most of our clients on Saturday were teenagers, who were already beginning their dives into the labor industry. Life can seem incomprehensibly unfair, when I'm helping kids younger than myself to get their federal income tax returns. I am glad to help them, of course, but I wish there were more I could do. I wish I could urge them into school. I wish that school could be an option for them as it is for me. I wish that we could be kids together, rather than be two strangers on opposite sides of a table, opposite sides of an experience, on opposite sides of society, with myself helping, and them asking for help. I wish that rather than doing work for them, that I could work with them to make things better.

I am reading Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in which he talks about effective radical praxis as a combination of deliberate action accompanied by reflection. I hope that maybe this is a start.

early starts

hear here, here hear!

it's 9 am on an ice-tinged saturday, and i have begun official work on my thesis!

today, we shall flesh out the outline, determine which research will be necessary before i can begin writing the first chapters, and --i hope-- have a rough understanding of democratic educational history and philosophy.

the goals for this semester's research:
-history/philosophy of democratic ed
-timelines and maps and lists
-case studies (my educational autobio, Highlander School, Central Academy)
-field work (local school, local U, local community)

first nuggets of the day:
the language of education. education vs schooling. learners vs students. mentors vs teachers. finding ways to make language "work."
the pedagogy of the oppressed. schooling can be oppressive. teachers use grades as leverage against undesirable student behavior. grades and favoritism as ways to silence challengers. we become slaves to grades before we become wage slaves. (we're always slaves!)
"educational reform" = my death blow. i want to integrate theory and practice, toward a more empowering and effective (rather than efficient) system and method of education. but as long as i'm open about what i see as egregious flaws in the educational process, i will be met with heavy criticism and hostility. no one wants to admit they're doing things wrong, or concede to an undergraduate. no one can acknowledge that i have experience in the educational system enough to be a critic of it.
why split my experience in education into hierarchies, levels of understanding? why limit the study of higher education to the graduate level? this assumes an undergraduate cannot understand what they experience on a daily basis? must i really have all 4 yrs of undergrad under my belt before i can be a critical, conscious student of higher education?
why are we always looking back rather than simply looking? if i can examine it closely now, why wait until it's even further away?

and these thoughts from a classroom experience last thursday:
relationships of power - students become afraid to challenge/ to speak their mind
-they learn to love convention and obey rules. there's safety in rules. there's safety in passivity. to submit is to be safe and invisible in passivity. to speak one's mind is to challenge the teacher's authority, to make the banking method difficult, to interfere with the completion of the teacher's job. to be vocal is to be a terrorist.
-students sacrifice their intellectual freedom for safety, both in the classroom and in life