This blog serves two purposes: (1) a back-up for my original blog on myspace and (2) a site I can use for supporting my colleagues who are using blogs to guide 21st century college students to a better understanding of their emerging roles as "citizen journalists."
On 6 December 2012, Traci Crisco from the Adult High School/GED area of the Davie Campus asked me to visit her students and talk. I have visited with Traci and her students many times and am always eager to visit with her, so I arrived and planned a few activities for the students. One of the first things I did was create a wiki (click here to see the wiki) and asked the students to ask me any question and that I would answer their questions at the wiki. However, one of the first questions I saw was this one: "What are you here for?" This blog entry is my initial reflection on the nature of this question--"Why am I here?"
My first response to this question had to do with the multiple ways I could read this seemingly simply "What are you here for?" I could read it directly, e.g. "Why are your visiting us today?" Or, I could read it as a little more pointed: : "What the hell are you here for?" I also could read it philosophically: "Why are you here on this planet?" or I could have read it ironically: "Yeah--why are you here?" I believe that part of the reason of my "being here" is answered with this brief reflection on ways to read the question: I love language and the potential nuances language carries. So this first reflection is part of my answer.
I have to concede that another reason "I am here" was to do with my parents. My dad was a veteran of WW II
Arnold Lester Branson circa 1941
He had been a POW of the Germans for about nine months (early September 1944 until May 1945), returned from combat, married my mom, and went to work with Western Electric making telephones. He had what was called a "piece rate." This term means that he could potentially earn extra money if he exceeded his base rate. By 1953, because he had meet and exceeded his piece rate, I was born. Thus, another answer to the "why am I here" traces to my parents and their lives and the choicest they made.
Another aspect of this question--certainly appertaining to my visit to Davie--is what I wanted to accomplish with the students that day. I listed three things on my Prezi that were my goals for that class time:
You may choose to read more
You can demonstrate that you better understand the reasons for reading
You may be able to demonstrate some fundamental critical thinking skills
I believe I accomplished these goals and here is the evidence: I have invited several students to join my wiki, which will guide them to read (and I hope write) more. I asked them several questions--from naming movie allusions from a comic strip to reasons why Scrooge gave the Cratchit family a turkey for Christmas (think about it: turkeys are indigenous to the New World and it had to be expensive to offer a turkey as a gift in the 1840s). Students eagerly engaged in the responses and I believe both have deeper understanding of reading and were able to demonstrate some critical thinking. As one faculty member noted as I was getting ready to leave: "[The presentation] made them think."
Since I do have my PhD, I also have to reflect a bit on the "deep" reading of the question: "Why am I here?" I believe I am a teacher because I simply have the genes. Where they came from, I do not a clue. But I do recall helping my neighbor with US history--the neighbor was in high school and I was in junior high. I was able to guide his thinking way back in the mid-1960s and I vividly recall his mother commenting on how I was going to be a teacher.
I believe I am at a community college because of my passion for teaching, my commitment to students, and my general optimism about the future. Our young people are our future. And I compelled to have a hand in that future thru guiding students today.
I need to take a break now and get back to the wiki--but this piece is my first run at the question: "Why am I here."
If you have seen my Moodle website--or about any educational web I have posted since the mid-1990s--you have seen this epigram from Kurt Cobain's "Smells like Teen Spirit": "Here we are entertain us." When I heard this lyric in the early 1990s this line resonated with me in terms of my career as a college teacher and my growing awareness that today's students are different from me when I was in school.
Students from the mid-1990s up thru today are clearly not me:
These students are digital natives--I am, at best, an early "digital immigrant."
These students are bombarded with information coming from numerous personal devices all at the same time.
These students have access to multimedia beyond my keening: at least 100 TV channels; their own mix of music--not what is released in the album or CD; their own movies thru multiple access points--Hulu, Netflix, YouTube. When I was their age, I had access to three TV channels, vinyl albums that I could not take with me, and movies only at two or three theaters where I had to pay to enter!
These students are collaborators and inter-dependent. My experience was simple: I was in it alone and had to be independent.
These students are capable to unimaginable creativity; my generation learned quickly how to play the game and to develop the survival skills within the game to be "successful."
Education--for my students--is not only a right--it is an entitlement; for me, education was something I had to have for my path out of the blue collar life of my father's and grandfather's.
In mind, Kurt Cobain's pithy, "Here were are, entertain us," seemed to coalesce all of these differences and I worked hard to, indeed, "entertain." However, I misread Cobain's lyrics and it took Sir Ken Robinson to show me how he and Cobain are really speaking about the same thing--not just entertainment, but the theatrical relationship actors and audiences have.
Below is Sir. Ken Robinson's video that enlightened me:
Robinson begins this excerpt with his reflections on Peter Brooks and theater. He reduces all of theater to two key elements: an actor and the audience and the relationship between these two. He goes on to add that education is similar to Brooks' construct in that all education is reducible to a learner and a teacher. He expands this comment to the notion of "back to basics": if we as a culture were serious about "back to basics," we would really focus on "teaching and learning"; however, in the politicized world of education today, "basics" means a return to focus on subjects--either academic or utilitarian and NOT to the irreducible aspect of "learner and teacher."
And at this point, I believe Robinson and Cobain are echoing one another: learning is about relationships between two people and, as a minimum, we need to assure that there is engagement on both sides: entertainment.
I know that many will think it strange that I have juxtaposed Kurt Cobain a depressive, early 1990s alternative rock star with Sir Ken Robinson, who has talked extensively about students and the changes required in education today. Yet, I am convinced that these two individuals do resonate with one another. If nothing else--consider the video setting of Cobain's, "Smells like Teen Spirit": he chooses a high school setting with cheer leaders and students!
Tho' some commentators tend to cast "Smells like Teen Spirit" as anarchical (certainly the logo is on the teen cheer leaders' tops), I think Cobain is challenging us just like Ken Robinson: we must change education before it is too late and chaos does ensue. And certainly, I disagree with one commentator who asserts that one way to read the refrain is teenagers are"absorbed in the most passive form of entertainment ever invented, TV" (see the link by clicking here). I believe that our reactions to TV, movies,--video in general--is NOT passive and DOES entertain and engage just like Cobain and Robinson are "arguing."
Sir Ken Robinson is speaking from an enlightened "Baby Boomer" perspective (born 1950). Kurt Cobain was looking at education from his 1967 Gen Xer point of view. Both are telling us education has lost its way. Both are telling us the political "double speak" of "back to basics" is missing the point. Both are telling us that the success in education is a simple equation: learner + teacher + entertain/engage = success (for everyone).
Wednesday morning's High Point Enterprise noted that a book was being debated by the Guilford County School Board. There is a list which promotes reading literature for students (an issue I will explore in another blog post) and a title on the list, The Handmaid's Tale, has stirred the ire of at least one parent and some members of the board. The article points out that Catherine Barnette and other parents have "complained" about the novels "graphic sex scenes and violence." I have five daughters and confess there are something that I have shielded them from. For example, I did not watch the classic 1982 film by David Lynch, Blue Velvet, with my oldest daughter until she was in college. But let's step back and consider: what are the reasons we may have as parents or teachers to have books available and what are the reasons for, essentially, banning books.
The most obvious reason supporting access to books comes the the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment guarantees NO action from the government can abridge the freedom of speech or of the press. As we have seen with the advent of the Internet and the Arab Spring: information liberates people. The framers of our Constitution wanted to make it abundantly clear that the role of government in the United States is to assure access to information, not prohibit access.
Teachers (and I would hope, parents) certainly have the role of encouraging critical thinking from our students. One way to assure critical thinking is going on is to challenge the assumptions students bring with them to the classroom. Sometimes, this challenge emerges from reading controversial material. The Handmaid's Tale certainly requires students to critically think about many issues:
What is the role of women in a post-women's movement world?
What is the relationship between men and women?
What is the role of religion?
How does religion shape our values about one another and about ourselves?
These are just a few questions I believe Atwood is exploring in this "fable." And these are important questions that certainly teenagers are wrestling with in high school. What better environment for a discussion of these issues than in the safe environment of school and home?
Another reason for allowing access to information is simple: try to hide it and teenagers, specifically, and others, in general, will want this "prohibited" information even more. I bought a privately published edition of D. H. Lawrence's controversial novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover, many years ago. The reason it was "privately" published was that the novel was considered "obscene" by some American perspectives in the 1920s. Yet the book still made its way to our shores and subsequent court decisions upheld the legitimacy of this work. The bottom line: tighter the attempt to control ideas, the more ideas get out into the world!
On the other hand, there are reason for curtailing access or "free speech."
Consider, for example, the Supreme Court's actions many, many years ago that a person cannot stand up in a theater and shout "FIRE!" The curtailment of "speech" seemed reasonable to the Court simply because of the potential injury of those who panic. Ordinances have supported this decision across the land and we, by and large, live with this source of constraint on our speech.
Another issue, as a parent, has to do with my assessment of where my child is in her maturity to be able to process information. As I referenced above, I "censored" access to Blue Velvet to my daughter: the language is raw, extremely raw; there are scenes of extreme violence; there are passing images of sexual behavior. I just did not believe my daughters were capable of processing this film that I believe is one of the BEST ever made in the 1980s until they had more experience with the world.
Lastly, one possible reason for limiting access to information can be the standard established by the Supreme Court many years ago: that standard is defined by what is acceptable within the community. Certainly, in large urban areas around the country, there are more things young people are exposed to simply walking the streets in contract to your people in more rural areas. As parents and as a community, we have values that I believe we wish to uphold. Thus the way to assure the values are perpetuated from one generation to the next is linked to what I allow my children to see or to read or to listen to.
Here is a case in point: an art faculty member took off points from a student's description of a religious painting because as the student described the work (a work which features Jesus as a significant element in the painting), the student would capitalize "His" (e.g. "to His left is the disciple. . . ."). The faculty member's goal is to show how the "real world" picks on issues--such as capitalization--and rejects those pieces of writing. The student, on the other, working from her religious conviction, believed she had an obligation to capitalize "His" since it refers to Jesus, the Son of God--and religious names are always capitalized.
Ultimately, the Guildford County School Board's action was to do nothing. The article reports that the board "did not challenge or change how the book got on the list." The interesting aspect for me--both as an educator and as a parent--is where we are, here in the 21st century, still wrestling with competing values: embracing and celebrating the freedoms we hold and assuring the our personal values are carried forth through our children and grandchildren.
Nivens, David. "Board Debates Book List." The High Point Enterprise. 12 Sept. 2012, 1f.
For some time now, I have asked my students to do a simple activity:
I show them the "Mindset of Beloit College" (both a couple of different videos and the lists from as far back as 2002). I then organized them into groups of four or five, given each group a "Flip camera," and told them to come back in week with a video directed to the faculty here at DCCC about their "mindset." They are free to show us individual, group, or generational perspectives. Here are some from this year:
Professionally and personally I have been interested (some may say "obsessed") by generational differences for over 10 years. My first experience was a professional development on Davidson County Community College's campus and I recall using generational metaphors to underscore differences in values and perspectives. In March 2012, I co-presented with Jody Lawrence on generational differences and leadership succession planning in Philadelphia.
I share this background to illustrate my opening: I have a long history of looking at the four generations living and working together in the US today. However, as a Baby Boomer (I was born in 1953), my focus in my speaking about generation differences has been to illustrate TO Baby Boomers the differences they are likely to encounter in Gen Xer's and ME's. Since my audiences have primarily been "Boomers," I was able to gloss over our perspectives. Now I believe is the time to explore for my ME audience who we "Baby Boomers" really are.
One way to understand "Baby Boomers" is the simple demography: this generation was born from returning veterans of WWII. My dad was a POW in Germany and he returned in summer 1945. He and my mom married in 1947 and I was born in 1953--which is the mid-range of this "boom." My brother was born about 18 months late in December 1954. My mother could not carry any more children and our "nuclear family" was in place.
There are others ways to understand "boomers." For example, we can understand them through their interests in popular culture (did you notice the card above?). Television was becoming increasingly accessible into homes across the US throughout the 1950s. Both the standard of living and the technology itself were drawing the parents and their children. Early TV included the "nuclear family" shows: Ozzie and Harriett (1952-1966), Leave it to Beaver (1957-1963), and Father Knows Best (1954-1960). Each of these shows perpetuated a myth of the "standard" family of being a heterosexual couple with 2.5 children (the Andersons, for example, had three). This myth about the American family still haunts us today even though the "nuclear family" never really existed in American culture.
Another aspect of TV and popular culture has to do with values. Look, for example, at this opening clip from the Adventures of Superman (circa 1952):
The values of this Superman are clearly and proudly stated: "Truth, justice, and the American way" are the values proclaimed at the end of this opening. Not only are these values openly stated, note that there is no doubt that these values exist "out in the world" and that anyone can readily see and embrace these values.
Contrast this clear values statement and the location of these values "out in the world" with the values from this video by Five for Fighting, "It's Not Easy (Being Me)" which is a song from the TV series Smallville (2001-2011):
Notice the differences between these two depictions of the SAME character! Listen carefully: the speaker in the Five for Fighting song is clearly the iconic Superman, but his values are extremely different from the 1950s character. He is "in silly red sheet" and he is "More than a bird. . . more than a plane/ More than a pretty face beside a train." The imagery here--tho' it resonates with the 1950s Superman--is twisted to show both different values AND the location of those values.
[NOTE: I am leaving this right now so you can see how I am approaching this topic.]
I have to confess that I have always had a penchant for words, so it seems reasonable that writing would also be simple for me. I was the weird kid in junior high who would come home from school and READ the dictionary. So when I look back at my public school experiences in Forsyth County and when I assess where I am now, what are the things that I see the helped me and what would I either add or ask for a "do-over."
The first "success" I have concerning my success in college and in writing I need to attribute to my parents: they made sure there were lots of books in the house as I was growing up. My mom took me to the public library and read voraciously in elementary school. By the time I was in 7th grade, I was reading Gone with the Wind--all 600+ pages! I saved my money from birthdays and from my first part time job (when I was 12 years old, I sold cantaloupes door to door and earned $12 for my efforts) and then bought books at the school's "book fair" ( I still have a few of these books on my shelf: Dracula by Bram Stoker and The Mysterious Island, Verne's sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). I continued reading throughout junior high and high school and have to point to this experience as critical to my effectiveness in writing.
The second "success" was that I studied. I know this seems strange but you need to remember a couple of things: I did not have a TV in my bedroom until I was in high school and they TV only picked up three channels: ABC, CBS, and NBC. So TV did not distract me like it certainly does my daughters today. Also, my parents were working class: my mom worked until I was born and my dad was a POW in Germany in WW II and he was insistent that develop the skills to be successful in college because, "by god," I was going and I'd better do well! I remember sitting in my room for hours, listening to the radio and pouring over my books. This habit, I believe, had a profound impact on my college-life and beyond.
A third "success" in high school was being encouraged by my teachers to write. I still have the journal my senior English teacher required us to keep. I was drafted in my senior year to write a parody of Chaucer's "Prologue," using the students in the English class as the "pilgrims" and revealing something about them as individuals and their direction after high school. I was asked to write research papers from eighth grade on, and in the nineth grade--even with my arm in a cast from my hand pass my elbow--I had to produce a library research paper. The support and encouragement of the faculty certainly contributed to my college success.
On the other hand, there are some things that I wished I'd had access to which, I believe, would have sky-rocketed my academic performance at college.
First, if I'd had access to the resources of today: OMG what could I have done! We still had to go to the library, take our notecards, match them with bibliography cards, and read and take notes. Very labor intensive! If I could have been in my room, with internet access and a computer, my writing would have improved exponentially!
If I'd had the option, I would certainly NOT spend lots of time reviewing grammar which is how ever year started in public school as far back as I can remember. We were drilled on subject verb agreement, pronoun agreement, spelling and vocabulary development, punctuation drills (I still believe a writer can live a fully successful life and NEVER use a semicolon), and on, and on, and on! I was a native speaker of English! Why did I need all this drill (I have sense learned why this practice is still in play today, but that would be another blog for me to post)? I believe that this grammar experience is certainly something I could have lived without.
Speaking of grammar: the third thing that I believe was a waste of my time was diagramming sentences! I remember agonizing over the process in junior high and in high school. Having all the lines going in the correct direction. Having the modifies subsumed under the correct part of speech on the baseline. Having the dotted lines connecting coordinate conjunctions, while having sloped line with subordinate conjunctions. I never could fathom why we had to do this activity, particularly when it did not preserve the inherent quality of the sentence!
William Faulkner said, "Read, Read, Read. Read everything--trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it." I certainly read everything I could: the dictionary, GWTW, Frankenstein, every Perry Mason novel I could find, Ian Fleming, Leon Uris. . . . the list goes on and on. So this message would be to any one planning on college: read, read, read and you will find college writing and college in general more likely a success for you.
Since I was having password trouble, I could not write with you this AM as I normally prefer to do. So I apologize for my delay in sharing with you my notions of what I believe:
I do believe fully and completely in each and every one of you and in your potential to make a future for yourself, your children, and your grandchildren. I would not have stayed at this community college nor in education if I did not hold this belief. The brightest part of my year is in March when I have a chance to engage the current group of 8th graders. At this point, we have been hosting the 8th graders here for about 10 years now--so I have talked with over 20,000 8th graders. I believe this illustrates my commitment to you and the future of us all.
I believe we live in an imperfect world and that we work to try to make it perfect, it cannot be. Some call this imperfect world the "fallen state" from the particular perspective. I do not. I simply believe that the world--by definition--is imperfect because we--by definition--are imperfect. I am not saying that we should not try to do our best. I am not saying that we should not strive for perfection. But I am saying that we do not need to "beat ourselves up" because we fall short of some notion of perfection. We need to acknowledge that we did, in truth, try our best and that we have learned from our endeavor. That is what life is about: striving for perfection, falling short, and learning.
I believe in the future and what marvels it holds for us. My
grandmother was born in 1893. She was a teenager when the Wrights "flew"
at Kitty Hawk. She saw Neil Armstrong step onto the moon. Can you
imagine moving from a horse and buggy world to the moon within a life
time? Can you imagine what is out there for us to still discover?
My grandmother, Dovie Mae
I believe in love. I love my family and my wife, passionately. I love the people I work with--and have worked with for 29 years now. I love my students and the passion they bring about their future. But I also remember well the line from William Blake: “He who binds himself to a joy/Does the winged life destroy/But he who kisses the joy as it flies/Lives in eternity’s sunrise.” This means to me that if we hold onto those that we love, we destroy that very thing we love. So with regret, I have to encourage and support my students when they move on to the university. I have to encourage and write letters of recommendations for my faculty who "fly." I have to encourage my daughters to spread their wings and fly, when I'd rather they be at home--safe and sound, where I could simply look in while they sleep.
I believe in learning stuff. I don't care whether it is about astronomy
or zoology. I don't care whether it Achilles or Zola. I don't care if
it is . . . .well, I hope you get the picture. I have not told you
yet, so I am sharing this now: by the end of this term, I can promise
you that I will have learned more from you that you have from me. And I
appreciate this learning opportunity!
I believe in awe. Sam Keen wrote a profound book, An Apology for Wonder, that I go back to from time to time to remind myself of the awe we seem to have forgotten. I can see how we have lost our sense of awe: we have seen men walking on the moon, we have seen information and change happen in "real time," we have let our language rob us of the capability of sensing "awe." But I have seen a golden sunset bathe the countryside around the college. I have seen light streaming through the stained glass of Coventry Cathedral. I have seen snow in Glendalough, Wicklow, Ireland. I have seen a rainbow touch the waters of Lake Innisfree. . . .these are all "awe-inspiring," and I would encourage you to think about what the term "awe" really means!
Lastly, I believe in this equation: difference DOES NOT EQUAL deficient. I believe we have embraced the opposite; however, different is simply that: different. We tend to want to find what is wrong with differences instead of simply accepting them. I owe a boatload of thanks to my graduate faculty in grammar who drove this point home with me and which resonates with everything I do: different is simply that--different.
"The first thing I want to say
to you, who are students, is that you cannot afford to think of being here to receive
an education: you will do much better to think of being here to claim
one. One of the dictionary definitions of the verb "to claim"
is: to take as the rightful owner; to assert in the face of possible
contradiction. "To receive" is to come into possession of: to
act as receptacle or container for; to accept as authoritative or true. The
difference is that between acting and being acted-upon…"
–Adrienne Rich
I have to concur with Rich on this quote.Regrettably, our public education system has
created a sense of “being acted upon.”If there is a doubt, simply ask the students who are "products" of public education: they complain of the
reading they HAVE to do; they complain of the writing they HAVE to do; they
complain of HAVING to be in school and “march to the beat of ‘someone else’s”
drum instead of their own.
Partly, I
believe this is true simply due to teenage rebelliousness and angst: there are
always thousands of things more engaging for me than reading, writing, and
being in school.However, I was talking
with my high school senior just this week who had seen “Shift Happens” for the
first time in her high school.I have
been showing this same YouTube video to the 8th graders who come to
campus since around 2008. . . .Yet she acted as this was “new stuff” to
her.That is because she was engaged by
the instructor who was “talking” her language: digital delivery. Her video experience in fall 2012--along with the experiences of her three, older sisters--confirm for me that public school is really geared for students to "receive" not to "claim."
Secondly, I have to confess the Sir Ken Robinson has also had an impact on my thinking. His little video, "Changing Education Paradigms" certainly validated for me my own thinking about public schools: the schools in North Carolina are still in the early to mid 20th century factory mindset. Schools look like factories (unless they have been built in the last 15 years or so). Schools move students around by the ringing of bells. Schools batch students like "products" in terms of their ages, even tho' any self-respecting educator realizes students learn at their own pace and in their own way.
Lastly, I have to agree with Rich's assertion that students must "claim," e.g. "take as the rightful owner," their education. The idea that adult students are "tabula rasa" has been refuted over and over again. Students come to post-secondary, and even secondary education, with a plethora of experiences and knowledge upon which they can stake the claim to THEIR education. Certainly, with our digital natives, we have to acknowledge that students believe they no longer need us for information.
However, as I keep reminding my faculty, our students DO need us to place this information into a useful context and we offer a safe place for them to explore wide ranging information they may not pursue in their homes or their "home community." Faculty still have a critical role in students' lives and their success! And I believe that is the heart of Rich's quote: students take claim and faculty facilitate that process for them.
[Since you are writing on this prompt, I believe I should, too. I
am sorry that I was late in getting started; however, I was looking for
my blog and I have started several. This one is the first I found. So
here is my response:]
Whenever I hear the phrase "Eyes on the Prize," my mind rushes back
about 20+ years ago to the summer term here at Davidson County Community
College. I was teaching ENG 113, a research/library course and I had
chosen for the focus of this course the 1960s. A significant part of my
course was to show the PBS series, "Eyes on the Prize" which was
exploring the American civil rights struggle from post WWII forward.
However, this prompt is asking me about my "prize": what is it that is
my motivation. For me, the answer is simple: I am motivated to get up
every day so I can learn something new.
I know what you are thinking: "You are saying this for us students; you
want us to think about this issue." And you are dead wrong. I do not
expect you to have the same motivations I have. I have reflected on my
motivation to learn. When did it start? How did it evolve?
The first event that I can recall is a time when my brother and I were
in Cub Scouts. I was in fifth grade and my brother is about 16 months
younger than I am. We were at the "hut" where the scouts meet once a
month for the "big" meeting. And my brother came out of the bathroom
laughing. I asked him what was so funny and he reported something that I
thought would explode my brain: he was laughing because of a phrase he
had seen on the bathroom wall: "F*** a Duck."
Why do I return to this event for the genesis of my motivation being
learning? I believe it is because this is the first time I believe I
was conscious of my own thinking. I vividly recall how incensed I was
that my brother was using THAT word and was laughing about it! I was
fearful about the implications if my parents heard him saying it: I
would be blamed for teaching him this word. And this was "THE" word; it
was imbued with an unbelievable amount of power. It was one of the
words that could not be said on radio or TV. And my brother was making a
joke of it!
For the rest of my life--after that event--I have been consumed with
learning stuff. Whether it is what I learned formally in school--I have
been in school since 1971 except for two years when I sold shoes for
Thom McCan--or learned informally--through conversations with others or
through reading or through accessing the world wide web. Learning is my
heart and soul. I did not make me rich in my pocket book, but it
certainly has enriched my life.
