Number 2 of Books That Blew Me Away

Number Two

One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty (1984) spoke to me as a teen in Jackson, Mississippi.  I heard the voices in “Why I live at the P.O.” and loved to write. Miss Welty’s house was close to Belhaven College and Millsaps in Jackson so I knew she was real. My mother had seen her in the grocery store. Writer’s were real; their stories were real. My secret dream was real too.

Ten Books That Blew Me Away

This is in response to the FaceBook challenge from Patricia Spears Jones to list ten books that have blown me away.

The Spiral Dance by Starhawk was first published in 1979. I arrived in California in 1980. I can’t remember when I first read this but I remember the excitement of reading in print the Wicca life I had only heard about. Coming from a Southern Christian background, this was beyond the comparative religion classes where I read the Bhagavad Gita. After the second edition came out in 1989, I danced with Starhawk and many others under the full moon and asked for healing for Mother Earth. I have a signed copy from that night.

Home Sick

Waking in the afternoon long ago,

To the sound of my mother weeping.

Counterpoint to the swell of the soap opera speaking,

Then, a hiss, and the sharp burning smell of iron on cotton.

Sheets, pants, skirts, and finally, shirts.

Stacks of cloth on the sofa, waiting.

All the laundry finally bleached, folded, ironed.

I learned on my father’s handkerchief, a clean one daily.

This summer afternoon, in my home, alone,

My dead friend has left me weeping

Keeping the cycle of washing, folding, and ironing,

Back aching, I took more from my closet hangers.

The long day, I ironed the unironed and the ironed.

Running the steaming, hissing point into each dart and crease.

Finally, my wardrobe hung, ready for distributing

After I leave, as we all eventually will.

Defiant

Beyond the Internet, but not the ubiquitous Dollar General

Winding through the green pavements of the upstate border road

Carolina green dreams.

Sway down a dirt drive to a distillery made by Florida pirates

Falling slats of shacks showing a gleaming barrel inside

Barking dog on the hill tells me no one is home

Left thirsty.

Long an expatriate in a foreign land,

Adopted by a cold California mountain.

Pines, bold obsidian, sandy path

Almost forty years in Sierra wilderness,

The high desert home, until

I left, thirsty

South, the music is right

Like rainy afternoons followed by the steaming green.

True in my heart to dance with a cousin,

Touch okra and taste tomatoes.

My bifurcated soul spans this country

Stretches tight, snaps back.

Neither blue ocean, neither side slakes my thirst

Even with whiskey, I thirst.

Balance in Teaching

Although I wrote this a while back, I encountered it today.

A Response to

Dumbing Down Teachers, Henry A. Giroux, Truthout, May 26 2010.

A self reflective discipline in a vacuum of experience is useless. I didn't learn how to teach until years after I went through my "teacher training". I needed to step into reality. Without the days in the real classroom all my critical pedagogy was smoke in the wind. I also have seen the use of practical experience in learning with the students Giroux seems to champion. Those at risk students when involved in service learning which has a solid academic basis come up with some of the more profound insights into subject matter than I have seen in a "regular" classroom. I suggest that students should practice not just the critical thinking Giroux yearns for but the other two "c"'s - communication and collaboration. (21st Century Skills) If modern education lacks anything, it is this step into application of learning. That takes freedom of expression in class and a respect for opinion that models our ideals of democracy.

As to his defense of teacher unions and measures of teacher performance, I suggest that instructional methods need to be assessed in a responsible data driven, self-reflective manner. I have belonged to both major teacher unions in my time and the only advantage I had was the provision of legal representation. That and contract negotiation seem to be their most intent function. For those reasons I supported them. However, the practice of evaluation of teachers is inadequate and at times, criminal in benign neglect.

Practical application does not have to be joined with the repressive production of worker bees without the ability to consider the world. If my teaching were not grounded in my deep thought about the implications of my subject matter as well as my methods, I could not effectively function. Cookbook teaching is not teaching, in my opinion.

Giroux is right to note that "schools are dominated by a politics of fear, containment and authoritarianism" particularly for schools of color and poverty. This is a reflection of our society that does need to be addressed. Knowledge is power. Without that knowledge these students cannot escape the cycles of poverty and hopelessness that follow them to class. Ruby Payne's controversial theories of poverty and social culture forced me to look at the assumptions I had about a "proper" classroom.

It is certainly easier to focus on data, standards and testing than to grow an articulate, informed, literate, critical thinking citizen. The schools run like businesses do have something to offer. I would have liked to go to "work" at a creative place like Apple. There the experience informs the debate and opinion is based in experience as well as theory. That's what our kids need in school.

Teaching is a verb, a very active verb. Our kids deserve the best, all of them.

Shoes, ships and sealing wax/ talking about information.

Fascinating statistics in the report on the Internet Librarian Conference provided by Lee Rainie from the Pew Internet Project. Looking forward to the results of the Gates grant he has received to study libraries and the new media. The speech is very interesting with lots of computer jokes but the statistics are staggering - information anytime, anywhere and any device is more than real. We have more cell phones (according to subscription) that we have people! 59% of adults connect to the Internet via mobile devices. So where do libraries and librarians particularly fit?

He has five basic questions:

1) What is the future of knowledge? 2) What is the future of reference expertise? 3) What is the future of public technology? 4) What is the future of learning spaces? 5) What is the future of community anchor institutions?

Having recently reviewed those bogus websites with my library college students, I see the second question as one that calls the most to my ponderings. The librarian as the "knowledge concierge" who guides those wandering out into the city of Internet information. Google is the big thing for my students, understandably. Google is consumer oriented and society is oriented to consume (still). So you get the immediate response and the lack of filter. The old acronym of GOGI applies. Garbage, garbage everywhere and who is going to think?

So the filtering and evaluation of the mass quantities of information is a special place for librarians to stand. To view librarians, especially in higher academic environments, as the expert in information is more and more challenging. Students seem to need to evaluate and locate useful information and want to do it online. Many faculty want to do this physically in a building with physical items. How to provide for both! The concept of the "embedded librarian" is held up once again in this presentation.

So see the article on: Pew Internet. http://pewinternet.org/Presentations/2011/Oct/Internet-Librarian.aspx

The Backchannel

One of the great things about teaching is that I learn something every day. Today, I learned about "Backchannel". A phrase born in 1970 by Victor Yngve to describe a technological conversation going on in a group at the same time a lecture or verbal discussion was ongoing. Sort of like MST3000 , for those of you who are as geeky as I am. The first instance in 2002 resulting in some embarrassing fact checking for QWest CEO, Joe Nacchio, who was bemoaning his lack of funds -not true. So now, according to the New York Times, teachers are using it in class. Speaking Up in Class, Silently, Using Social Media.

Now I never asked that cell phones be turned off in my class and when I walk past the professor in the computer lab whose students are on Facebook rather than his chemistry simulation, I don't report them. After all, they are there, which is more than many students are today. The idea of using the new modes of communication, of incorporating them in your class, virtual or not, is lifesaving for teachers who want to survive. No more arguments and you are watching on all channels! Everyone knows the worst thing to do with people is to forbid them something.

So if I want to be in the game, I have to use all the tools at my disposal. To the people who have asked to follow me on my mute Twitter account, maybe I can get something going. If I can ever get off of Facebook long enough to tweet. Oh yeah, I need to do both simultaneously. For a gray head like me, it is sometimes like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. Fun but confusing and, at times, just laughable. LOL indeed.