Coming soon.
Monday, October 26, 2020
Thursday, May 30, 2019
On the Teaching Profession in the U.S.
I just finished up my 2018-19 year as a teacher. This year, I taught eighth-grade English Language Arts. I am still in deep reflection over this year. It was filled incredible stress, long hours, sleepless nights, early mornings, kids who cussed me out, parents who threatened my job, and some less than supportive administrators. There were high points too, and I learned an incredible amount about myself and about what it means to be a good teacher.
Teaching is, as almost every teacher will tell you, really tough the first year in the classroom. Don't get me wrong; I knew before I ever stepped into the classroom I would be putting in hours far beyond an eight-hour day; I knew teaching was fraught with challenges; but I did underestimate the nature, number, and frequency of the challenges I would face.
To be sure, there were moments of joy, immense satisfaction, discovery, and belly-busting laughter. However, I am going to claim that the incredible stress of teaching today, at this point in time, makes blissful teaching moments fewer than they used to be for teachers in the past.
My parents were both educators. My mother was a teacher for 30 years. She is gentle, loyal, fastidious, and steadfast in her commitments. Still, sometimes the very attributes that made her a great teacher often caused her a great deal of stress. She had regular anxiety about missing some detail or fretting that something wasn't "just so." She was always concerned about not letting anyone down, although none of those things ever were the case.
Her dedication was recognized, and she was very well-respected. She became a mentor and academic coach to other teachers, and both students and staff loved her. However, growing up with her as my mother, I knew the anxiety her teaching responsibilities caused her, especially when she felt torn between those and her role as a mother. It often left her exhausted.
My father, also an educator, started out as a teacher. He quickly moved into administration. He was a principal for over a decade and then moved into a district position overseeing the elementary schools. After five years in that role, he found he missed the daily interaction with teachers and students, and he took up a principalship at a newly opened school.
My parents always extolled the virtues of the job. They tried ardently, many times, to convince me to become a teacher. True, they would say, you won't get rich teaching, but there are other kinds of riches to be had from the profession. Stability, camaraderie, life-long impacts on students, the satisfaction of making a difference, and a chance to flex your creativity. They especially emphasized the good retirement pension. Not really wanting to "only be a teacher," I took a business career path after college.
I made my way up into positions where I made a big six-figure income, but I became rather unhappy in the corporate grind, especially after my kids were born. So, I got my teaching certification with the intention of changing careers. By the time I was certified in 2010, my parents had been retired from teaching for almost twenty years—they retired in 1991. Policies and theories on education fluctuate constantly, so in those twenty years, things certainly changed, particularly after the passage of NCLB* in 2001.
When I describe the expectations, responsibilities, procedures, and issues I have witnessed and experienced as a teacher, they are not only dismayed but also greatly saddened by the turn education has taken. My kind and dedicated mother would never have made it as a teacher today. She would have been driven to physical and emotional collapse. Lost then, would have been the mentorship, empathy, and experience that she shared with the teachers she guided. Her students never would have experienced her compassion and understanding or benefitted from the learning atmosphere she created for them. She made a difference to so many students and teachers, but her talents and dedication would have been lost on the world of teaching today.
I don't want to imply that teachers today are unable to be compassionate, creative educators or mentors. But, it is getting harder and harder to do that in too many schools in our system of public education. I am a member of a number of social media teacher groups, some with over 5,000 members. Teachers are actively contributing their thoughts and experiences in these closed spaces and sharing the most significant issues they deal with as teachers today. What I have seen are very clear and consistent issues that are common across the nation as the sources of significant problems in education today. The top three issues I regularly see are problems with (1) accountability and inconsistency in schools' expectations and consequences, (2) an extreme lack of social-emotional development in students of all ages, (3) learned helplessness (more about this phenomenon in a future post) in part due to an extreme emphasis on standardized testing and Common Core. Of course, complaints about standardized testing has been around for many years now.
In a series of upcoming posts, I intend to discuss these issues. I hope to present some empirical information, explore the truths or misconceptions of these problems, and I also plan to share real anecdotal stories as to how these issues impact the classroom in the United States today.
*No Child Left Behind
Teaching is, as almost every teacher will tell you, really tough the first year in the classroom. Don't get me wrong; I knew before I ever stepped into the classroom I would be putting in hours far beyond an eight-hour day; I knew teaching was fraught with challenges; but I did underestimate the nature, number, and frequency of the challenges I would face.
To be sure, there were moments of joy, immense satisfaction, discovery, and belly-busting laughter. However, I am going to claim that the incredible stress of teaching today, at this point in time, makes blissful teaching moments fewer than they used to be for teachers in the past.
My parents were both educators. My mother was a teacher for 30 years. She is gentle, loyal, fastidious, and steadfast in her commitments. Still, sometimes the very attributes that made her a great teacher often caused her a great deal of stress. She had regular anxiety about missing some detail or fretting that something wasn't "just so." She was always concerned about not letting anyone down, although none of those things ever were the case.
Her dedication was recognized, and she was very well-respected. She became a mentor and academic coach to other teachers, and both students and staff loved her. However, growing up with her as my mother, I knew the anxiety her teaching responsibilities caused her, especially when she felt torn between those and her role as a mother. It often left her exhausted.
My father, also an educator, started out as a teacher. He quickly moved into administration. He was a principal for over a decade and then moved into a district position overseeing the elementary schools. After five years in that role, he found he missed the daily interaction with teachers and students, and he took up a principalship at a newly opened school.
My parents always extolled the virtues of the job. They tried ardently, many times, to convince me to become a teacher. True, they would say, you won't get rich teaching, but there are other kinds of riches to be had from the profession. Stability, camaraderie, life-long impacts on students, the satisfaction of making a difference, and a chance to flex your creativity. They especially emphasized the good retirement pension. Not really wanting to "only be a teacher," I took a business career path after college.
I made my way up into positions where I made a big six-figure income, but I became rather unhappy in the corporate grind, especially after my kids were born. So, I got my teaching certification with the intention of changing careers. By the time I was certified in 2010, my parents had been retired from teaching for almost twenty years—they retired in 1991. Policies and theories on education fluctuate constantly, so in those twenty years, things certainly changed, particularly after the passage of NCLB* in 2001.
When I describe the expectations, responsibilities, procedures, and issues I have witnessed and experienced as a teacher, they are not only dismayed but also greatly saddened by the turn education has taken. My kind and dedicated mother would never have made it as a teacher today. She would have been driven to physical and emotional collapse. Lost then, would have been the mentorship, empathy, and experience that she shared with the teachers she guided. Her students never would have experienced her compassion and understanding or benefitted from the learning atmosphere she created for them. She made a difference to so many students and teachers, but her talents and dedication would have been lost on the world of teaching today.
I don't want to imply that teachers today are unable to be compassionate, creative educators or mentors. But, it is getting harder and harder to do that in too many schools in our system of public education. I am a member of a number of social media teacher groups, some with over 5,000 members. Teachers are actively contributing their thoughts and experiences in these closed spaces and sharing the most significant issues they deal with as teachers today. What I have seen are very clear and consistent issues that are common across the nation as the sources of significant problems in education today. The top three issues I regularly see are problems with (1) accountability and inconsistency in schools' expectations and consequences, (2) an extreme lack of social-emotional development in students of all ages, (3) learned helplessness (more about this phenomenon in a future post) in part due to an extreme emphasis on standardized testing and Common Core. Of course, complaints about standardized testing has been around for many years now.
In a series of upcoming posts, I intend to discuss these issues. I hope to present some empirical information, explore the truths or misconceptions of these problems, and I also plan to share real anecdotal stories as to how these issues impact the classroom in the United States today.
But, this is this is what remainswhat remains of my teaching career.
*No Child Left Behind
Friday, June 9, 2017
Nostalgia for America: Why "Make America Great Again" has sinister connotations under Trump
Saturday, May 27, 2017
Who Vouches for the Inbetween?
So, here's the age old conundrum in American education, and here's why school vouchers won't work. Look at the graphic below. Graphic #1 shows a school with 56% of the population being Black and 33% White, but the White students test at 75% in mathematics, while Black students at the SAME SCHOOL, in the SAME SUBJECT, test at 17% pass rate.*
The factors are many, I'm sure, but I have to lean toward the explanation that the Black students at this school do not have the same academic resources OUTSIDE of the school as the White students. However, the second graphic shows that only 16% of the students are considered "economically disadvantaged," so what does this mean? I believe that the definition of "economically disadvantaged" must have something to do with this. Yet, check this out: 59% of the students are considered "not economically disadvantaged." That means that 44% of the students are supposed not class disadvantaged, but they are ALSO NOT considered "*not* economically disadvantaged."
Thus, I have to believe that the students who are not poor enough to receive additional academic support from the school or district (tutoring, counseling, learning disability testing, nutritional aid, etc.) are from families who still cannot afford to pay extra to OUTSIDE professionals for tutoring, counseling, learning disability testing, yet NOT POOR ENOUGH to receive additional support from the school. What happens to these students? This is why school vouchers are bogus. A "good school" is a "good school" because of the additional support wealthy and upper middle class families can afford to provide their children and perhaps generous PTSAs (to provide color paper and bountiful teacher supplies) at that particular school. Vouchers will NOT solve the problem of other academic support issues. Cuts to funding in public schools does nothing to help already struggling students who will not be able to AFFORD TRANSPORTATION to other schools that are "better" yet far from the students' district areas.
*[The graphics above are pulled off greatschools.net and are numbers from a high school in Atlanta City Schools.) Since the data are from a non-academic source (yet they do link to empirical sources), these are not necessarily peer-reviewed numbers, but they are indicative of a lot of scholarly studies elsewhere.]
Thursday, January 26, 2017
There and Back Again: When Will We Really Learn from the Past?
"...the whole world has been going through the fires of Hell…[and there are] signs that the peoples themselves are beginning to once again crave something more than…toils and toys of the mass-production age. *They are beginning to realize that because a man is born with a particular knack for gathering in vast aggregates of money and power for himself, he may not on that account be the wisest leader to follow nor the best fitted to propound a sane philosophy of life. We have a long and arduous road to travel if we are to realize our American dream in the life of our nation*" (416).
The quote is from historian James Truslow Adams's 1931 book, The Epic of America, a popular, best-selling book that year. As some of you know, I've been doing research for my M.A. in American Studies, which is how I came across it. At the time the book was published, the U.S. in was in the early years of the Great Depression. We now know from history, the Depression came about in part due to corrupt banking practices and excesses of the Roaring Twenties (sounding familiar yet?). Additionally, 1920s-1930s saw the alarming rise of extreme nationalist rhetoric in European countries, or jingoism, chauvinism, and nativism in other nationalistic movements (Britain, France, and the U.S. etc.) Does Brexit rhetoric and "Trumpery" seem far too similar now? Times and technologies are different today, but the danger is the same. Know history; read the signs. Let's not repeat the tragedies of the past. Think about it.
Wrestling with the World: Are We Really 'Winning' When We Win?
I've been doing a lot of thinking about my 19-year old son, who has been very much engaged in a personal wrestling match with the world lately. One of the things he really struggles with is being open to listening to and processing information that goes against what he has determined is "true." He fiercely wants to "win" every prospective point, and anyone who takes exception to the whole of his view is one of the "sheeple." I'm not talking about politics, I'm talking about everything from table manners and driving habits to science and medicine to breaking the law.
Sometimes I'm not even sure he believes what he is saying; he just wants to win the argument. In the past, I have felt that as his mother I needed to fight to set him right about his misguided beliefs, but I have painfully learned to patiently hear him out, calmly state my disagreement, and then walk away, regardless of what he throws out at me after that. He wins because he thinks he's had the last word; I win because I don't allow him to make me angry and upset. Furthermore, I also know that if I'm truly right, another chance will come again when he may be more receptive—or he will have learned in the roundabout the thing I was trying to save him from learning the hard way. Much of his argumentativeness comes from anger—not just anger, but also deep frustration, pain, and fear—all things that I could not hear when I was too focused on trying to correct his misguided arguments.
The social and political issues we are struggling with now come about most often when we act like adolescents, driven to adamantly "win" a point at the cost of more long-term conciliatory gains. Many people have become more like my son, in that they want you to accept what they believe wholesale and anything less renders you an idiot. We all have our beliefs and values, but the ability to remain open to listening to other perspectives is deeply important. Maybe much of what they say is misguided, but when you listen, you may hear something else—their pain, frustrations, and fear—and that is when opportunities arise to comfort and guide each other lead to understanding and greater unity.
When we don't listen, that's when the truth gets lost, 'alternate facts' are desperately thrown in any attempt to convince others their truth is THE undisputed Truth. There is then no negotiation of understanding, no resolution of cognitive dissonance, and no navigation toward compromise because the so-called truth gets butchered in the emotionally desperate process of reducing any opposing view into mincemeat. We must choose our arguments wisely and make more effort to listen, foster empathy, and to educate at the right moments—otherwise no one wins, and we remain locked in our personal wrestling matches with each other and the world.
Sometimes I'm not even sure he believes what he is saying; he just wants to win the argument. In the past, I have felt that as his mother I needed to fight to set him right about his misguided beliefs, but I have painfully learned to patiently hear him out, calmly state my disagreement, and then walk away, regardless of what he throws out at me after that. He wins because he thinks he's had the last word; I win because I don't allow him to make me angry and upset. Furthermore, I also know that if I'm truly right, another chance will come again when he may be more receptive—or he will have learned in the roundabout the thing I was trying to save him from learning the hard way. Much of his argumentativeness comes from anger—not just anger, but also deep frustration, pain, and fear—all things that I could not hear when I was too focused on trying to correct his misguided arguments.
The social and political issues we are struggling with now come about most often when we act like adolescents, driven to adamantly "win" a point at the cost of more long-term conciliatory gains. Many people have become more like my son, in that they want you to accept what they believe wholesale and anything less renders you an idiot. We all have our beliefs and values, but the ability to remain open to listening to other perspectives is deeply important. Maybe much of what they say is misguided, but when you listen, you may hear something else—their pain, frustrations, and fear—and that is when opportunities arise to comfort and guide each other lead to understanding and greater unity.
When we don't listen, that's when the truth gets lost, 'alternate facts' are desperately thrown in any attempt to convince others their truth is THE undisputed Truth. There is then no negotiation of understanding, no resolution of cognitive dissonance, and no navigation toward compromise because the so-called truth gets butchered in the emotionally desperate process of reducing any opposing view into mincemeat. We must choose our arguments wisely and make more effort to listen, foster empathy, and to educate at the right moments—otherwise no one wins, and we remain locked in our personal wrestling matches with each other and the world.
Friday, September 2, 2016
The Demise of a Tree
I'm chopping down the apple tree in my front yard this weekend. It's become overwhelmed by Fire Blight, despite the fact that I've treated the tree and tried to stave off the its slow decline for about a decade now. I finally lost hope that it can be cured. Even though almost every year this tree produces a bumper crop of apples, this year they all ended up rotten and diseased before harvest time.
I guess you could say the same thing has happened to my personal hopes over the years since I last posted on this blog. I am still discouraged about why or how I might have done things differently in order to remedy the ailments that have struck my life over the last few years and have spoiled the goals I had hoped would come to fruition. After all, I worked really hard when I went back to get a second B.A. in English Education. I graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I spent endless hours writing English papers and then planning, writing, preparing, and executing lesson plans. Student teaching was nothing short of stressful itself, but I learned a great deal about teaching and myself with that crazy experience, and I reflected on how and what I might do better. I was hopeful that there would be "many apples in my orchard." But that didn't come to pass.
Six years after I graduated and became certified to teach, I still have not been able to find a permanent teaching position.
There are many reasons why that happened. First, I got certified in early 2010, just in time for the economy to be the worst it had been since the Great Depression. Recently hired teachers were laid-off in droves, and those who kept their jobs were furloughed and had salaries slashed. Second, I am certified to teach Language Arts and Literature. When I entered my teaching program in 2007, the field of English was considered a "High Priority Teacher Shortage" in my state. However, that quickly changed after the recession. Today more than ever, English and Humanities fields have become marginalized areas because of the frantic urgency of pushing the STEM curriculum (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). English classes are, of course, still required for high-school student across four years, but it's not a "critical needs" area like Physics or Mathematics. I didn't even bother to apply for jobs directly after graduating because I knew I probably had a less than five percent chance of finding a position ("five percent" is a random figure—the chances were likely even lower than that in my area). Finally, I also encountered some significant personal challenges and disappointments shortly after graduation, including family concerns and family health issues.
My solution was to continue on to graduate school. The rationale was that while I waited for the economy and job prospects to rebound, I would go ahead and get my Master's degree—but not in Education. At the time, my university's M.Ed program required students to be current teachers anyway, but to be honest, I felt the Education program was weak. Thus I ambitiously enrolled in not one but two graduate programs: Professional Writing and American Studies. Without getting into all the gory details in this particular post (I'll save some of that maybe for future posts), it suffices to say that many things did not go as planned as I moved forward, and they continued to get worse over the next few years. I couldn't have made-up a sequence of events more disheartening that what followed in reality. Most of the things that transpired were out of my control, despite the fact I tried to control them. What happened could be described using a quote from Star Wars: Episode IV. Princess Leia says to General Tarkin: "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers," except' "star systems" weren't slipping through my fingers. What was slipping through my fingers was a galaxy of other little things that slowly overwhelmed me: students loans, car problems, house problems, money issues, and my son (that too is a story for another time.) Then, finally, the worst thing struck: I could no longer write. Writing was something I had loved to do and prided myself on doing well, but it suddenly seemed to abandon me. And with that, my confidence evaporated. You might say that it was as if I felt there were suddenly no more "Apples in the Orchard." That orchard that once had so much potential for producing great yields slowly withered away, and it took all my energy and hope with it. I floundered and lost my way in a very dark forest instead.
I still haven't completed either Master's degree, although I'm projected to finally finish my M.A. in American Studies this Spring semester. My inability to write really did a number on my being able to write a thesis paper, even though my head was bursting with ideas. But most disconcertingly, I still haven't found anyplace that feels like I belong, and I'm not getting any younger, either.
Some days I can pick my way through the spoiled fruit that litters the ground around me; other days I look around and all I see is rotten and barren terrain.
So, back to that apple tree in my yard.
In it's demise, I see something more symbolic in that for my life, too. Something lost, something very sad, certainly, but maybe there is a deeper meaning here. I want to think there is something greater in its demise, and maybe I can figure it out fairly soon. Maybe there big obstacles in my own life I need to cut down. Maybe it's time to take a slice out of a different apple. Or maybe it represents a need to make a clean break from something else altogether. I don't know. But I'm going to chew on that for a while and see what grows.
I guess you could say the same thing has happened to my personal hopes over the years since I last posted on this blog. I am still discouraged about why or how I might have done things differently in order to remedy the ailments that have struck my life over the last few years and have spoiled the goals I had hoped would come to fruition. After all, I worked really hard when I went back to get a second B.A. in English Education. I graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I spent endless hours writing English papers and then planning, writing, preparing, and executing lesson plans. Student teaching was nothing short of stressful itself, but I learned a great deal about teaching and myself with that crazy experience, and I reflected on how and what I might do better. I was hopeful that there would be "many apples in my orchard." But that didn't come to pass.
Six years after I graduated and became certified to teach, I still have not been able to find a permanent teaching position.
There are many reasons why that happened. First, I got certified in early 2010, just in time for the economy to be the worst it had been since the Great Depression. Recently hired teachers were laid-off in droves, and those who kept their jobs were furloughed and had salaries slashed. Second, I am certified to teach Language Arts and Literature. When I entered my teaching program in 2007, the field of English was considered a "High Priority Teacher Shortage" in my state. However, that quickly changed after the recession. Today more than ever, English and Humanities fields have become marginalized areas because of the frantic urgency of pushing the STEM curriculum (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). English classes are, of course, still required for high-school student across four years, but it's not a "critical needs" area like Physics or Mathematics. I didn't even bother to apply for jobs directly after graduating because I knew I probably had a less than five percent chance of finding a position ("five percent" is a random figure—the chances were likely even lower than that in my area). Finally, I also encountered some significant personal challenges and disappointments shortly after graduation, including family concerns and family health issues.
My solution was to continue on to graduate school. The rationale was that while I waited for the economy and job prospects to rebound, I would go ahead and get my Master's degree—but not in Education. At the time, my university's M.Ed program required students to be current teachers anyway, but to be honest, I felt the Education program was weak. Thus I ambitiously enrolled in not one but two graduate programs: Professional Writing and American Studies. Without getting into all the gory details in this particular post (I'll save some of that maybe for future posts), it suffices to say that many things did not go as planned as I moved forward, and they continued to get worse over the next few years. I couldn't have made-up a sequence of events more disheartening that what followed in reality. Most of the things that transpired were out of my control, despite the fact I tried to control them. What happened could be described using a quote from Star Wars: Episode IV. Princess Leia says to General Tarkin: "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers," except' "star systems" weren't slipping through my fingers. What was slipping through my fingers was a galaxy of other little things that slowly overwhelmed me: students loans, car problems, house problems, money issues, and my son (that too is a story for another time.) Then, finally, the worst thing struck: I could no longer write. Writing was something I had loved to do and prided myself on doing well, but it suddenly seemed to abandon me. And with that, my confidence evaporated. You might say that it was as if I felt there were suddenly no more "Apples in the Orchard." That orchard that once had so much potential for producing great yields slowly withered away, and it took all my energy and hope with it. I floundered and lost my way in a very dark forest instead.
I still haven't completed either Master's degree, although I'm projected to finally finish my M.A. in American Studies this Spring semester. My inability to write really did a number on my being able to write a thesis paper, even though my head was bursting with ideas. But most disconcertingly, I still haven't found anyplace that feels like I belong, and I'm not getting any younger, either.
Some days I can pick my way through the spoiled fruit that litters the ground around me; other days I look around and all I see is rotten and barren terrain.
So, back to that apple tree in my yard.
In it's demise, I see something more symbolic in that for my life, too. Something lost, something very sad, certainly, but maybe there is a deeper meaning here. I want to think there is something greater in its demise, and maybe I can figure it out fairly soon. Maybe there big obstacles in my own life I need to cut down. Maybe it's time to take a slice out of a different apple. Or maybe it represents a need to make a clean break from something else altogether. I don't know. But I'm going to chew on that for a while and see what grows.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
An American Horror Story: "Birth"
I knew I was right! This "horror story" is the horror story of the European invasion and contamination of America and the decimation of the original people and landscape of this country. The "new inhabitants" (the ghosts) of this "Murder House" (our country) are, I suggest, the "newcomers"—the Puritan settlers, if you will. They aim to over take the "infantile" and innocent land, with little regard for the lives that are living. Yes!!!!! I knew it!
As I just finished watching this episode, I want to say it was very..."moving," but that sounds weird for a "horror story." I suppose, though, considering some of the horror in U.S. History, there are some very heartbreaking episodes in our past as well. The more I think about it (in my PTSD haze from this semester), Walter Benjamin's writings would probably have been the better choice for analyzing this series rather than Michel Foucault, although both scholars have relevance. Really, in all honesty, the best social theorist to use is Reinhold Niebuhr. Unfortunately, he wasn't one of the critical lenses we had to choose from to do our analysis in American Studies.
More to come as I take it all in. What a frickin' brilliant series this is...I would guess a lot of people don't "get it." But that's the American mentality for you...
As I just finished watching this episode, I want to say it was very..."moving," but that sounds weird for a "horror story." I suppose, though, considering some of the horror in U.S. History, there are some very heartbreaking episodes in our past as well. The more I think about it (in my PTSD haze from this semester), Walter Benjamin's writings would probably have been the better choice for analyzing this series rather than Michel Foucault, although both scholars have relevance. Really, in all honesty, the best social theorist to use is Reinhold Niebuhr. Unfortunately, he wasn't one of the critical lenses we had to choose from to do our analysis in American Studies.
More to come as I take it all in. What a frickin' brilliant series this is...I would guess a lot of people don't "get it." But that's the American mentality for you...
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Does American Rhetoric Use Undemocratic Vocabulary?
The boundaries of two of my classes this semester have collided in a rhetorical "mash up" of sorts. Through my writing class and my language class, it is becoming clear to me how more and more Americans have come to dismiss rhetorical arguments about American public policy-making as merely one-sided pieces of propaganda that have no merit. Americans have either tuned out or are not included in legitmate debates about our Great Democracy that demand our critical consideration. There are many reasons that rhetoric has become the eqivalent of a four-letter word, but that is a topic for another post. However, let me go on record as saying that I believe the reasons for our' dismissive attitude toward rhetoric are valid.
Last week in my writing class, the conversation about rhetoric turned to the state of American education and the observation that young people are no longer "readers." The discussion included ideas about how to motivate young people to read more and the barriers that prohibit their reading proficiencies and critical understanding. It's a real concern because the future of our democratic society depends upon an educated American population. However, much of the "politi-rhet" about advancing the state of our educational institutions is pure rhetoric only—there is no "functional rhetoric." By that I mean that the purpose of rhetoric and the rhetorical argument is to spur the audience to some sort of tangible action to address the exigence of the situation. Yet American rhetoric has not been able motivate citizens to action over our failing educational system or even change the tunnel vision of those who have real power to affect significant change.
However, believe it or not, rhetoric molds our history, culture, and language and has a profound impact on "public discourse" within our grand democratic American Experiment, as de Toqueville called it, and America is constantly evolving, which renders the "experiment" semper novum. Therefore, incorporating new "vocabularies" into our society becomes particularly important when there are certain voices in public rhetoric that are missing from the democratic process on which our country is built.
The crux of problem appears to be that an increasing number of groups in the American population deprived of the language and support through which they might engage in discourse about public policies. Currently, our educational system fails to support new segments of the population, and consequently, these new groups become only invisible shadows in our society, but their presence still haunts the changing relationships and associations within America's pluralistic society. When there is no shared dialogue about civic participation and responsibility, the cohesive structure of a society begins to break down. Whole parts of the population are left in a netherworld or limboland, occupying neither a common space or place within the fabric of the country.
For example, more than a century ago when African-Americans were freed from slavery they did not have the knowledge or vocabulary that could give them in a voice in America, and it was purposefully withheld from them to keep them under the thumb of majority whites. Black people could not go back to Africa because the majority of former slaves were not even born in Africa, but they were not given a the tools to engage in the commonalities that bind a society together, and as a result, civil unrest and violence eventually ensured. Now, in the 21st Century, large contingents of Latinos, a majority of which are Mexicans, have lived in the U.S. for 20, 30, 40, or more years, but have never been citizens of this country. Although the South and Southwest U.S. were the indigenous geographic area from which their ancestors may have come, Mexicans are not welcome here anymore. Those that have been able to live here for generations as undocumented immigrants may feel American, but they are not considered American. When they are "sent back," although they may never have stepped foot south of the border, they are misfits in the Mexican culture to an even more dramatic degree than they were in the U.S. Their voices are not part of the "grand narrative," suggests Claudia Galindo, a professor of linguistics and culture at the University of Maryland, of the American history as a nation of democratic equals.
Until Americans reimagine a culture that embraces the rhetoric and vocabulary of what E.D. Hirsch calls "a Pluralistic Nation," until we reconsider the way we all relate to each other—remember e pluribus unum?— until our country revisits the way we view each other, treat each other, and conceive of our democratic responsibilities, our nation is made vulnerable to a potentially disastrous disunity, such as one Arthur Schlesinger warned against in the early 1990s (yes, even we liberals must also consider the voices of the conservatives like Schlesinger). The "rhetorical situation" must be broadened to include the stories, cultures, and vocabulary of all groups that have had an impact on the American Experiment and will continue to have in the future. It is in the historic chronicle of our nation to embrace and adapt to evolving philosophies of what it means to be an American and to listen to the variety of voices that make up the "remarkably diverse racial, religious, and ethnic origins" of America (de Toqueville). This can only be achieved by unconditionally allowing immigrants, whether of legal or illegal status, the access to respectable public and higher educations. Through tolerance, justice, and ethical action, a productive population that contributes to the on-going welfare of America can be truly articulated.
In order to facilitate the great strengths of our nation in the future, the educational system must prepare itself to act on the rhetoric that our country's leaders regurgitate. It means educators much actively expand the cultural vocabulary of rhetoric in our classrooms to foster a more critical and dimensional conversation. It does not mean to pay cursory, "politically correct" attention to various cultural groups, it mean to truly engage in issues that address cultural conflict, the principles of a democratic society—a society that respects the voices of all America's people, not just those that control the rhetoric. The loss of true democratic debates and the disregard for moral justice in our country should be what alarms us most and should be recognized as a frightening crisis facing our country today. We must support leaders who fearlessly use American rhetoric to produce not the rhetoric of "change," but to instigate palpable, substantive results that focus on the welfare of all, particularly when focused on local community involvement and improvements. Only by giving all segments of our society the tools to enter into the critical debates that will confront our next generation, can authentic conversations about the endurance of our "grand experiment" extend democracy for all American people, by including the people.
Last week in my writing class, the conversation about rhetoric turned to the state of American education and the observation that young people are no longer "readers." The discussion included ideas about how to motivate young people to read more and the barriers that prohibit their reading proficiencies and critical understanding. It's a real concern because the future of our democratic society depends upon an educated American population. However, much of the "politi-rhet" about advancing the state of our educational institutions is pure rhetoric only—there is no "functional rhetoric." By that I mean that the purpose of rhetoric and the rhetorical argument is to spur the audience to some sort of tangible action to address the exigence of the situation. Yet American rhetoric has not been able motivate citizens to action over our failing educational system or even change the tunnel vision of those who have real power to affect significant change.
However, believe it or not, rhetoric molds our history, culture, and language and has a profound impact on "public discourse" within our grand democratic American Experiment, as de Toqueville called it, and America is constantly evolving, which renders the "experiment" semper novum. Therefore, incorporating new "vocabularies" into our society becomes particularly important when there are certain voices in public rhetoric that are missing from the democratic process on which our country is built.
The crux of problem appears to be that an increasing number of groups in the American population deprived of the language and support through which they might engage in discourse about public policies. Currently, our educational system fails to support new segments of the population, and consequently, these new groups become only invisible shadows in our society, but their presence still haunts the changing relationships and associations within America's pluralistic society. When there is no shared dialogue about civic participation and responsibility, the cohesive structure of a society begins to break down. Whole parts of the population are left in a netherworld or limboland, occupying neither a common space or place within the fabric of the country.
For example, more than a century ago when African-Americans were freed from slavery they did not have the knowledge or vocabulary that could give them in a voice in America, and it was purposefully withheld from them to keep them under the thumb of majority whites. Black people could not go back to Africa because the majority of former slaves were not even born in Africa, but they were not given a the tools to engage in the commonalities that bind a society together, and as a result, civil unrest and violence eventually ensured. Now, in the 21st Century, large contingents of Latinos, a majority of which are Mexicans, have lived in the U.S. for 20, 30, 40, or more years, but have never been citizens of this country. Although the South and Southwest U.S. were the indigenous geographic area from which their ancestors may have come, Mexicans are not welcome here anymore. Those that have been able to live here for generations as undocumented immigrants may feel American, but they are not considered American. When they are "sent back," although they may never have stepped foot south of the border, they are misfits in the Mexican culture to an even more dramatic degree than they were in the U.S. Their voices are not part of the "grand narrative," suggests Claudia Galindo, a professor of linguistics and culture at the University of Maryland, of the American history as a nation of democratic equals.
Until Americans reimagine a culture that embraces the rhetoric and vocabulary of what E.D. Hirsch calls "a Pluralistic Nation," until we reconsider the way we all relate to each other—remember e pluribus unum?— until our country revisits the way we view each other, treat each other, and conceive of our democratic responsibilities, our nation is made vulnerable to a potentially disastrous disunity, such as one Arthur Schlesinger warned against in the early 1990s (yes, even we liberals must also consider the voices of the conservatives like Schlesinger). The "rhetorical situation" must be broadened to include the stories, cultures, and vocabulary of all groups that have had an impact on the American Experiment and will continue to have in the future. It is in the historic chronicle of our nation to embrace and adapt to evolving philosophies of what it means to be an American and to listen to the variety of voices that make up the "remarkably diverse racial, religious, and ethnic origins" of America (de Toqueville). This can only be achieved by unconditionally allowing immigrants, whether of legal or illegal status, the access to respectable public and higher educations. Through tolerance, justice, and ethical action, a productive population that contributes to the on-going welfare of America can be truly articulated.
In order to facilitate the great strengths of our nation in the future, the educational system must prepare itself to act on the rhetoric that our country's leaders regurgitate. It means educators much actively expand the cultural vocabulary of rhetoric in our classrooms to foster a more critical and dimensional conversation. It does not mean to pay cursory, "politically correct" attention to various cultural groups, it mean to truly engage in issues that address cultural conflict, the principles of a democratic society—a society that respects the voices of all America's people, not just those that control the rhetoric. The loss of true democratic debates and the disregard for moral justice in our country should be what alarms us most and should be recognized as a frightening crisis facing our country today. We must support leaders who fearlessly use American rhetoric to produce not the rhetoric of "change," but to instigate palpable, substantive results that focus on the welfare of all, particularly when focused on local community involvement and improvements. Only by giving all segments of our society the tools to enter into the critical debates that will confront our next generation, can authentic conversations about the endurance of our "grand experiment" extend democracy for all American people, by including the people.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Stuffing Our Eyeballs
In the world of writing, "hunkering down" is a term taken from a section of essays in The Writing Life published by The Washington Post about "writers on how they think and work." "Hunkering down," can mean getting serious about your craft, but it can turn writers into becoming isolationists, solo adventurers,lonely wanderers in the phantasmagorical world of language. A Scrooge-like, Grinch-y recluse then emerges from an hazy veil of flickering images that casts shadows on a cave wall created by some magic lantern. "Hunkering down" tends to beget some idea that the dedicated writer's only world consists of "spiritual and artistically inspirational" landscapes shaped by a profundity of words, sentences, and paragraphs.
However, the craft of writing is initiated by the opposite experience. It comes from watchful observations of the outside world, interactions with and between people, the exploration of places and times that fall outside the boundaries of the familiar, and attentive awareness to surrounding conversations. Wendy Wasserstein, acclaimed playwright and author writes, "the joy of being on the road is having dinner alone" (The Writing Life, "Holiday at The Keyboard Inn"). Dinner is a time to become a student of other people's lives rather than live in the solitary world of the mind. It is a time to immerse oneself and to "listen carefully . . . to judge harshly the surrounding couples," and to speculate about their private lives.
There tends to be a notion that the "serious" writer is some irascible loner, such as William Faulkner or, more recently, Cormac McCarthy, although the latter is known more for his hermit-like persona rather than his Faulkneresque irascibility. "Hunkering down" conjures an image of the lonely writer hunched over a slaving hot keyboard. However, to be an authentic writer, one must engage in the outside world, and make time to put aside the remote, virtual world that exists only on the printed page. Otherwise, as Patricia Cornell writes in her essay, which is also included in The Writing Life, "If I stop seeing, hearing, touching,
there will be no story. I will be a writer with nothing to say—a violin with no music to play," which inadvertently rhymes and might be used as a kind of mantra to accompany a writer on the journey to a final destination. Or, as David McCullough, author of the critically acclaimed book-turned-mini-series John Adams, quotes, "What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in everything."
"Hunkering down" means, then, not only getting serious about the so-called writing life, but also never forgetting that real life is rich with meanings to write about. We must “stuff our eyeballs,” as Ray Bradbury says, with metaphors and symbols of the actualities of the surrounding landscape—living metaphors that only then “bid [writers] jump to run and trap them” with words that subsequently “stuff” the page with “compacted truths of a life” that echoes with the refrain, “Live forever!”
All quotes are taken from The Writing Life, edited by Marie Arana, 2003)
However, the craft of writing is initiated by the opposite experience. It comes from watchful observations of the outside world, interactions with and between people, the exploration of places and times that fall outside the boundaries of the familiar, and attentive awareness to surrounding conversations. Wendy Wasserstein, acclaimed playwright and author writes, "the joy of being on the road is having dinner alone" (The Writing Life, "Holiday at The Keyboard Inn"). Dinner is a time to become a student of other people's lives rather than live in the solitary world of the mind. It is a time to immerse oneself and to "listen carefully . . . to judge harshly the surrounding couples," and to speculate about their private lives.
There tends to be a notion that the "serious" writer is some irascible loner, such as William Faulkner or, more recently, Cormac McCarthy, although the latter is known more for his hermit-like persona rather than his Faulkneresque irascibility. "Hunkering down" conjures an image of the lonely writer hunched over a slaving hot keyboard. However, to be an authentic writer, one must engage in the outside world, and make time to put aside the remote, virtual world that exists only on the printed page. Otherwise, as Patricia Cornell writes in her essay, which is also included in The Writing Life, "If I stop seeing, hearing, touching,
"Hunkering down" means, then, not only getting serious about the so-called writing life, but also never forgetting that real life is rich with meanings to write about. We must “stuff our eyeballs,” as Ray Bradbury says, with metaphors and symbols of the actualities of the surrounding landscape—living metaphors that only then “bid [writers] jump to run and trap them” with words that subsequently “stuff” the page with “compacted truths of a life” that echoes with the refrain, “Live forever!”
All quotes are taken from The Writing Life, edited by Marie Arana, 2003)
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Art of Shorthand
I conducted my interview today with the author of my choice, a woman who is a published writer and an academic at a local university. As many writers can be, she was somewhat difficult to get talking, although a bit surprising since she is a professor too. There was also a big hiccup because I couldn't get a digital recorder as I had thought I was going to be able to do in order to tape our conversation. Our conversation took about an hour and a half, with me scribbling furiously since I couldn't record the interview. Sure wish I knew shorthand. Que será será.
1. When did you start to write, seriously?
2. How would you characterize yourself as a writer? Your style,
your tone, specifically?
3. Through reading your books, I got the feeling that you got away
from writing and academia for a long time while you worked on
the railroad, although I'm sure that it still shaped who you were
a working class person—your world view, etc. How did you get
back into writing again after having been distanced from it in
many ways during your years on the rails?
4. You mention reading poetry as a sort of guiding force,
particularly Wallace Stevens. What other writers or writing
shaped you as a person and as a writer?
5. Wallace Stevens writes, "The imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real. When it adheres to the unreal . . . its first effect may be extraordinary, that effect is the maximum effect that it will ever have." Does he express here what ultimately drives you to write non-fiction.
6. How did you first find an agent or a publisher? How difficult was
that, and what were some of the responses that you first got
when you submitted your work?
7. How do you balance the truths in your autobiographical writing
and your relationships with people whom you depict? What kind
of consideration do you take into account when writing about
some very personal details involving the people in your life?
8. What has been their reaction?
9. How do you want others to think of your writing? And how do
you think other might describe your writing? Does that please
you?
10. Your writing exudes a certain kind of critique of modern
American culture. What issues in American society do your feel
your work bring attention to?
11. What kind of response do you want to elicit through your
writing? From others, and from yourself, perhaps, too?
12. Autobiographical or memoir writing in many respects can
be more difficult because what you may find interesting and
intriguing, may sound like whining selfindulgence to others.
How do you decide what life events or epiphanies you can build
some kind of "arc" around, and which ones may be less
attractive to readers—despite the fact that they be significant to
you?
13. You writing, by the nature of its genre is very personal.
How does "developing an authorial voice" in your writing differ
from your own personal voice. Or does it?
14. In your life you've made decisions that opened you up to
a larger community of people and experiences. What has that
done for you as a person and a writer?
15. Plot, characterization, setting, voice, tone: all these things
are used to describe writing and literature in general—but which
of these qualities do you feel is most imperative in bringing
writing to life?
16. You say in your book that you've always felt like you've
violated the "membership rules" of the communities around you.
You say, "not money, status, or happiness" is what you seek.How has writing helped your in your quest to find some
kind of niche?
17. You write a good bit about your partying, drug use,
alcohol use, and sexual preferences and experiences: Do you
feel that these unorthodox experiences and "altered states" of
mind contributed to your ability to "see beyond" the norm, as so
many authors have implied it does?
18. Self-abuse seems to be a thread that runs through some
of your writing, from wearing the hat with the silver wings that
calls attention to you in the rail yards and to the way you manage
your love life and substance abuse. What surprised you most
about yourself as your wrote about the search to find a sense
of place? or to be "a part of it all" (7) as you say in your
memoir?
19. How has your sobriety changed the way you approach
writing? Or has it?
20. On page 111 in the memoir, you write that you wanted to
become your own story, to find out who was the hero of your
own life. What was it that drove you to set your "hero's journey"
into motion? Is this part of that inner drive that some people are
born with—a need to search for and express some force of life?
21. When you look back on "your story," how did you
approach writing about it? What is your working method or
routine like? Describe it.
22. Can you read this passage on page 166? That is
beautiful, poetic language—is that kind of writing what became
your sober "high," because it's really heady, gorgeous prose.
23. Another theme that shows up in your writing is this idea of
"pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" (individualism) vs. the
uniting power of community. You write some in Railroad Noir
about the kind of entitlement and materialism that seem to
possess American youth today. How has that materialist
sentiment in society —and the dependence on social
technology to express oneself —changed the way that people
read and write today? Good thing or bad thing?
24. You write, back in your academic days that a literate
society was assumed, and after a few years as a writing teacher you "figured
out" how to these, shall I say, subliterate youth. How DO
you teach them?
25. On page 245, the last page of your memoir, Ellen, the
boatman says to you, "when you've come to the end of the trail, it
means you've lost it somewhere" . . . still feel this way? what
does that mean to you now?
1. When did you start to write, seriously?
2. How would you characterize yourself as a writer? Your style,
your tone, specifically?
3. Through reading your books, I got the feeling that you got away
from writing and academia for a long time while you worked on
the railroad, although I'm sure that it still shaped who you were
a working class person—your world view, etc. How did you get
back into writing again after having been distanced from it in
many ways during your years on the rails?
4. You mention reading poetry as a sort of guiding force,
particularly Wallace Stevens. What other writers or writing
shaped you as a person and as a writer?
5. Wallace Stevens writes, "The imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real. When it adheres to the unreal . . . its first effect may be extraordinary, that effect is the maximum effect that it will ever have." Does he express here what ultimately drives you to write non-fiction.
6. How did you first find an agent or a publisher? How difficult was
that, and what were some of the responses that you first got
when you submitted your work?
7. How do you balance the truths in your autobiographical writing
and your relationships with people whom you depict? What kind
of consideration do you take into account when writing about
some very personal details involving the people in your life?
8. What has been their reaction?
9. How do you want others to think of your writing? And how do
you think other might describe your writing? Does that please
you?
10. Your writing exudes a certain kind of critique of modern
American culture. What issues in American society do your feel
your work bring attention to?
11. What kind of response do you want to elicit through your
writing? From others, and from yourself, perhaps, too?
12. Autobiographical or memoir writing in many respects can
be more difficult because what you may find interesting and
intriguing, may sound like whining selfindulgence to others.
How do you decide what life events or epiphanies you can build
some kind of "arc" around, and which ones may be less
attractive to readers—despite the fact that they be significant to
you?
13. You writing, by the nature of its genre is very personal.
How does "developing an authorial voice" in your writing differ
from your own personal voice. Or does it?
14. In your life you've made decisions that opened you up to
a larger community of people and experiences. What has that
done for you as a person and a writer?
15. Plot, characterization, setting, voice, tone: all these things
are used to describe writing and literature in general—but which
of these qualities do you feel is most imperative in bringing
writing to life?
16. You say in your book that you've always felt like you've
violated the "membership rules" of the communities around you.
You say, "not money, status, or happiness" is what you seek.How has writing helped your in your quest to find some
kind of niche?
17. You write a good bit about your partying, drug use,
alcohol use, and sexual preferences and experiences: Do you
feel that these unorthodox experiences and "altered states" of
mind contributed to your ability to "see beyond" the norm, as so
many authors have implied it does?
18. Self-abuse seems to be a thread that runs through some
of your writing, from wearing the hat with the silver wings that
calls attention to you in the rail yards and to the way you manage
your love life and substance abuse. What surprised you most
about yourself as your wrote about the search to find a sense
of place? or to be "a part of it all" (7) as you say in your
memoir?
19. How has your sobriety changed the way you approach
writing? Or has it?
20. On page 111 in the memoir, you write that you wanted to
become your own story, to find out who was the hero of your
own life. What was it that drove you to set your "hero's journey"
into motion? Is this part of that inner drive that some people are
born with—a need to search for and express some force of life?
21. When you look back on "your story," how did you
approach writing about it? What is your working method or
routine like? Describe it.
22. Can you read this passage on page 166? That is
beautiful, poetic language—is that kind of writing what became
your sober "high," because it's really heady, gorgeous prose.
23. Another theme that shows up in your writing is this idea of
"pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" (individualism) vs. the
uniting power of community. You write some in Railroad Noir
about the kind of entitlement and materialism that seem to
possess American youth today. How has that materialist
sentiment in society —and the dependence on social
technology to express oneself —changed the way that people
read and write today? Good thing or bad thing?
24. You write, back in your academic days that a literate
society was assumed, and after a few years as a writing teacher you "figured
out" how to these, shall I say, subliterate youth. How DO
you teach them?
25. On page 245, the last page of your memoir, Ellen, the
boatman says to you, "when you've come to the end of the trail, it
means you've lost it somewhere" . . . still feel this way? what
does that mean to you now?
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Shakespeare— Jungle Spud or Killer Bee?
I seem to operate on only two modes: busy, buzzy bee or hairy, stinky sloth. I know; neither of those animals lead much of an appealing lifestyle.
In case you are wondering, a sloth is a very bizarre-looking creature that really isn't directly related to any other mammal. All of their closest connected relatives died out during the last Ice Age. Now they live only in the rain forests of South America, sleep 15—18 hours a day, and expend energy only when it becomes absolutely necessary. They mostly just hang their atrociously smelly and hairy bodies from the forest branches; sometimes even after they die, they can have been found still just hanging from a tree. In other words, they are lazy couch potatoes, although based on their habitat, perhaps it's more accurate to call them something like jungle spuds. (See sloth picture below: honestly, can you imagine trying to get anything done with fingernails like that?)
When I am in school taking a full load of classes, I am always reading, researching, and writing,
and I stay in a constantly stimulated state. My brain is in overdrive, making connections, looking for answers, budgeting time for deadlines on projects and papers, while simultaneously working out what kind of frozen or boxed meal I can throw together for my neglected kids while I am working. I am as focused on my target as a killer bee.
However, when I am not in school, or I'm not taking a full schedule of classes, I turn into a sloth—a mangy, slovenly, lazy jungle spud. I take a shower every three days or so, don't shave my legs or armpits, and just kind of "hang."
This worries me about my ability to be self-disciplined enough to be a productive writer. Most profiles I've read of successful authors indicate that the prosperous writer does not wait until some momentous synaptic-rattling jolt of inspiration strikes from the sky. Quite the contrary seems to be the case. The process of writing is often described as an ritualistic practice of tedious trial and error, false starts, and humiliating frustration. It got me thinking about whether Shakespeare had a compulsary writing routine. Did Homer, Dante, or Proust sequester themselves in some kind of regimented writing routine? Did Sun Tzu cordon off special time in his ancient Chinese Day Runner so he could scribble a few scrolls of rice paper on The Art of War? I suppose it's possible that Sumerian scribes got up early each morning, had a cup of joe, and then carved out special time to sit in front of the ol' clay tablet until the sundial moved a certain number of degrees, just to make sure they could grind out at least a few lines of cuneiform each day.
There is no question that man's ability to convey concepts and ideas to each other through complex languages preserved in pictures, symbols, and eventually, scripted language greatly contributed to the unique evolutionary development of human beings. It is what drastically differentiates us from lower animal orders. Archeologists and anthropologists have uncovered an amazing amount of information that was produced by ancient peoples, and these scholars believe that the earliest forms of communication, cave paintings, were not just decoration. They were representative of the transfer of important information and part of a ritualistic practice of some kind. So, here we are, back at ritualistic writing practices again.
I suppose writing does take take disciplined practice; hell, it is work. It had to have been quite a challenge for the ancients to develop alphabetical systems and methods of putting all those ideas down in perpetuity. When one looks at the work that it took to develop writing from scratch, today's authors have it easy—at least they don't need to undertake the monumental task of developing a way to capture language in order to share documented information with other humans. Most contemporary writers simply tap away on the ready-made symbols that decorate those little plastic keys on the computer.
Thinking about all this makes me realize how very little scholars actually know about the individuals who first revolutionized the way humans communicate or what kind of "writing methods" they used. Even within the Early Modern era this remains true. For example, although historians know a good deal about Shakespeare, there are still a lot of questions left unanswered about how and where he went about forming, drafting, and penning the prolific number of works that he produced. But I'll bet one thing's for sure: Shakespeare was no jungle spud.
I guess this means if I want to "bee" a successful writer, I'm going to have to shower, shave, and, of course, write on a routine basis.
In case you are wondering, a sloth is a very bizarre-looking creature that really isn't directly related to any other mammal. All of their closest connected relatives died out during the last Ice Age. Now they live only in the rain forests of South America, sleep 15—18 hours a day, and expend energy only when it becomes absolutely necessary. They mostly just hang their atrociously smelly and hairy bodies from the forest branches; sometimes even after they die, they can have been found still just hanging from a tree. In other words, they are lazy couch potatoes, although based on their habitat, perhaps it's more accurate to call them something like jungle spuds. (See sloth picture below: honestly, can you imagine trying to get anything done with fingernails like that?)
When I am in school taking a full load of classes, I am always reading, researching, and writing,
and I stay in a constantly stimulated state. My brain is in overdrive, making connections, looking for answers, budgeting time for deadlines on projects and papers, while simultaneously working out what kind of frozen or boxed meal I can throw together for my neglected kids while I am working. I am as focused on my target as a killer bee. However, when I am not in school, or I'm not taking a full schedule of classes, I turn into a sloth—a mangy, slovenly, lazy jungle spud. I take a shower every three days or so, don't shave my legs or armpits, and just kind of "hang."
This worries me about my ability to be self-disciplined enough to be a productive writer. Most profiles I've read of successful authors indicate that the prosperous writer does not wait until some momentous synaptic-rattling jolt of inspiration strikes from the sky. Quite the contrary seems to be the case. The process of writing is often described as an ritualistic practice of tedious trial and error, false starts, and humiliating frustration. It got me thinking about whether Shakespeare had a compulsary writing routine. Did Homer, Dante, or Proust sequester themselves in some kind of regimented writing routine? Did Sun Tzu cordon off special time in his ancient Chinese Day Runner so he could scribble a few scrolls of rice paper on The Art of War? I suppose it's possible that Sumerian scribes got up early each morning, had a cup of joe, and then carved out special time to sit in front of the ol' clay tablet until the sundial moved a certain number of degrees, just to make sure they could grind out at least a few lines of cuneiform each day.There is no question that man's ability to convey concepts and ideas to each other through complex languages preserved in pictures, symbols, and eventually, scripted language greatly contributed to the unique evolutionary development of human beings. It is what drastically differentiates us from lower animal orders. Archeologists and anthropologists have uncovered an amazing amount of information that was produced by ancient peoples, and these scholars believe that the earliest forms of communication, cave paintings, were not just decoration. They were representative of the transfer of important information and part of a ritualistic practice of some kind. So, here we are, back at ritualistic writing practices again.
I suppose writing does take take disciplined practice; hell, it is work. It had to have been quite a challenge for the ancients to develop alphabetical systems and methods of putting all those ideas down in perpetuity. When one looks at the work that it took to develop writing from scratch, today's authors have it easy—at least they don't need to undertake the monumental task of developing a way to capture language in order to share documented information with other humans. Most contemporary writers simply tap away on the ready-made symbols that decorate those little plastic keys on the computer.
Thinking about all this makes me realize how very little scholars actually know about the individuals who first revolutionized the way humans communicate or what kind of "writing methods" they used. Even within the Early Modern era this remains true. For example, although historians know a good deal about Shakespeare, there are still a lot of questions left unanswered about how and where he went about forming, drafting, and penning the prolific number of works that he produced. But I'll bet one thing's for sure: Shakespeare was no jungle spud.
I guess this means if I want to "bee" a successful writer, I'm going to have to shower, shave, and, of course, write on a routine basis.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
"The Lady and the Leg"
In "Reading Like A Writer," Francine Prose devotes an entire chapter to extolling the virtues of Anton Chekov's 
"profound and beautiful . . . involving" stories that made bearable her wretched bus commute between work and home. Clearly the woman savored the time she spent nibbling greasy sugar cookies and sipping soda whilst reading Chekov's work, but I agree with the "disgruntled student" who also got sick of Fran's mooning over this Russian—there are plenty of other authors who can inspire budding writers just as well as Chekov. I realize that I've made it clear that Prose's prose doesn't click with me, so if Chekhov is one of her favorite writers, then it is doubtful he will do much for me. However, seeing as though I have, I don't think, ever read any Chekhov, I will not prejudge his writing as a way to project my rejection of Fran on to Chekhov. Yet even his compatriot, Vladmir Nabokov (Lolita), is alleged to have called Chekov's writing a "medley of dreadful prosaisms, ready-made epithets, [and] repetitions" (James Woods essay, What Chekhov Meant By Life).
This discrepancy in "taste" (ironically, I also care neither for sugar cookies nor sodas) between Fran and me brings up another important issue that is quite apparent in relief against our increasingly multicultural society. I refer to the idea that the master canon of Western literature seems to be the standard by which all writers must ascribe. The "profundity" of Chekhov's writing as described by Fran seems to emanate from his astute social observations about the intricate ways people connect with one another; however, the methods and modes through which humans interrelate can vary enormously between cultures. Social interactions differ to such a noticeable extent that it is not at all an exaggeration to say that the "norm" in one culture may be completely inconceivable in another. Thus, I submit, the level of importance of one author in a particular culture can also be rendered completely negligible in another. Fran's take on authorial imitation is not revolutionary or original; it is a technique that can be a valuable as a writing tool, but only as long as the aspiring scribe is imitating a writer whose work he or she admires.
I could go on nitpicking at Fran, but in the interests of appearing fair and open-minded, I will give props to her chapter entitled "Details." In that chapter she recounts a story that a one-legged lady tells about how she lost her leg. For the first time in Reading Like A Writer, Prose offers up something that holds my interest. I think the reason is because Frannie seems to finally use her own authentic observations and interactions with others as an example of good storytelling and characterization. The story of the lady and the leg is humorous and horrifying at once, and the details in this one paragraph tale leave a far greater impression on me than the rest of her entire book.
So, Fran adores Chekhov's "The Lady and the Dog." Fine. She can choose to use him as a model for her own work. I'll partake of the "The Lady and the Leg."
"profound and beautiful . . . involving" stories that made bearable her wretched bus commute between work and home. Clearly the woman savored the time she spent nibbling greasy sugar cookies and sipping soda whilst reading Chekov's work, but I agree with the "disgruntled student" who also got sick of Fran's mooning over this Russian—there are plenty of other authors who can inspire budding writers just as well as Chekov. I realize that I've made it clear that Prose's prose doesn't click with me, so if Chekhov is one of her favorite writers, then it is doubtful he will do much for me. However, seeing as though I have, I don't think, ever read any Chekhov, I will not prejudge his writing as a way to project my rejection of Fran on to Chekhov. Yet even his compatriot, Vladmir Nabokov (Lolita), is alleged to have called Chekov's writing a "medley of dreadful prosaisms, ready-made epithets, [and] repetitions" (James Woods essay, What Chekhov Meant By Life). This discrepancy in "taste" (ironically, I also care neither for sugar cookies nor sodas) between Fran and me brings up another important issue that is quite apparent in relief against our increasingly multicultural society. I refer to the idea that the master canon of Western literature seems to be the standard by which all writers must ascribe. The "profundity" of Chekhov's writing as described by Fran seems to emanate from his astute social observations about the intricate ways people connect with one another; however, the methods and modes through which humans interrelate can vary enormously between cultures. Social interactions differ to such a noticeable extent that it is not at all an exaggeration to say that the "norm" in one culture may be completely inconceivable in another. Thus, I submit, the level of importance of one author in a particular culture can also be rendered completely negligible in another. Fran's take on authorial imitation is not revolutionary or original; it is a technique that can be a valuable as a writing tool, but only as long as the aspiring scribe is imitating a writer whose work he or she admires.
I could go on nitpicking at Fran, but in the interests of appearing fair and open-minded, I will give props to her chapter entitled "Details." In that chapter she recounts a story that a one-legged lady tells about how she lost her leg. For the first time in Reading Like A Writer, Prose offers up something that holds my interest. I think the reason is because Frannie seems to finally use her own authentic observations and interactions with others as an example of good storytelling and characterization. The story of the lady and the leg is humorous and horrifying at once, and the details in this one paragraph tale leave a far greater impression on me than the rest of her entire book.
So, Fran adores Chekhov's "The Lady and the Dog." Fine. She can choose to use him as a model for her own work. I'll partake of the "The Lady and the Leg."
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Big Think Interview With Anne Lamott
Big Think Interview With Anne Lamott | Anne Lamott | Big Think
Please see my August 31st post for more about Anne Lamott
Please see my August 31st post for more about Anne Lamott
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Professional Writing 2: One Bird at a Time
At the risk of cutting my nose off to spite my face, as the old saying goes, I have to say I've felt uninspired to write a blog entry about anything in Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer, which is required reading in my Professional Writing seminar. Frannie may be a brilliant writer herself (I've never read anything of hers other than this book), but she ain't doing a great job of inspiring me or giving me much insight about writing. Her book is replete with examples from great literature about how to write character, dialogue, voice, etc., but her "mockingbird" just doesn't sing for me. I think the point of her book is that if we take cues from reading the "masters," our own writing will benefit. I would just like to suggest that it doesn't take an entire book to point that out. But maybe I'm just being cynical and difficult.
That said, I believe what "inspires" one person may do nothing for someone else, and this must be what is going in my relationship with Francine. I personally prefer Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Not only is it full of good anecdotes about the "writing life," but it also is a great read: humorous, humble, and honest. I like her ideas about starting "small" and how to turn writing frustrations into writing epiphanies. The metaphor captured in the title of her book is a reference to the fact that writing is a process that, to extend the metaphor even further, can really leave one's feathers in a ruffle. She tells one anecdote from her childhood about her 10-year-old brother who'd had a month to write a report on birds. On the day before it was due, he was panicked because he had not written a single word and writing the report seemed like an impossible task. Lamott writes, "my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.' " That is a small example of how Lamott does such an incredible job of making what she has to say about writing feel as though she is talking to each of her readers on a personal level, as though she is sitting there next me saying, "Bird by bird, Christi. Just take it bird by bird." That sentiment is also a fine way to approach life as well, I think.
I very highly encourage checking out this interview with Lamott at this link below. You'll get a sense of her self-deprecating humor, struggles, and insight into what it means to be a writer. Click here to link http://bigthink.com/ideas/19807 to the interview with Lamott, or see my September 2 entry for embedded video.
That said, I believe what "inspires" one person may do nothing for someone else, and this must be what is going in my relationship with Francine. I personally prefer Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Not only is it full of good anecdotes about the "writing life," but it also is a great read: humorous, humble, and honest. I like her ideas about starting "small" and how to turn writing frustrations into writing epiphanies. The metaphor captured in the title of her book is a reference to the fact that writing is a process that, to extend the metaphor even further, can really leave one's feathers in a ruffle. She tells one anecdote from her childhood about her 10-year-old brother who'd had a month to write a report on birds. On the day before it was due, he was panicked because he had not written a single word and writing the report seemed like an impossible task. Lamott writes, "my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.' " That is a small example of how Lamott does such an incredible job of making what she has to say about writing feel as though she is talking to each of her readers on a personal level, as though she is sitting there next me saying, "Bird by bird, Christi. Just take it bird by bird." That sentiment is also a fine way to approach life as well, I think.
I very highly encourage checking out this interview with Lamott at this link below. You'll get a sense of her self-deprecating humor, struggles, and insight into what it means to be a writer. Click here to link http://bigthink.com/ideas/19807 to the interview with Lamott, or see my September 2 entry for embedded video.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Keeping a Roof Over One's Head
I remain hopeful about the future for writers in the 21st-century marketplace. While it is true that circulation for magazines, newspapers, and other traditionally printed publications are on the decline, new opportunities for writers in the electronic arena are growing. Web-based written, streaming, and downloadable content is needed for an array of electronic media, 
and these prospects are not just limited to the internet. Writers will be needed to produce mobile and/or wireless applications, video games, and marketing copy for increasingly e-savvy consumers. In addition, it is very likely that as future computerized and digitized technologies evolve, developers will need writers to produce technical and creative content for these new and innovative avenues of media distribution. However, edgey, sophisticated multimedia delivery paradigms will also force a demand for writers with multiple skills. Writers will need to have not only a concise, engaging command of language, but also an understanding of various technical design tools as well.
The Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS.gov) seems to confirm that a shift in writers' and editors' roles is taking place in the current job market. As is the case with most industries in the current "Great Recession," news, entertainment, and technology firms have increasingly demanded a higher rate of employee productivity in the workplace. This means many employees take on more responsibility with less compensation than in years past. According to the New Hour's 2004 report on America's future job market, higher productivity expectations may also increase the number of jobs employers try to migrate to computerization. Unless a job requires genuine "face time" with other humans, the need for certain positions may become expendable. Luckily, most writers possess critical and analytical talents for communicating complex information that simply cannot be programmed into a computer-generated commodity. However, the fields of publishing and writing have always been rather competitive, and the BLS projects that competition will be particularly stiff in the coming years as "organizations move their publication focus from a print to an online presence and as the publishing industry continues to contract." The U.S. Labor Department suggests that "writers and editors who have adapted to the new media and are comfortable writing for and working with a variety of electronic and digital tools will have an advantage in finding new work."
The consumption of the e-book format is also on the rise, and the market more has become more user-friendly and affordable for writers who wish to self-publish their work. However, being published does not necessarily provide the assurance that a sole living can be made as a writer. The BLS reports that the average income for writers is between $36,000 and $60,000 a year, depending on the industry and organization for which the writer works. Yet, as an old journalism professor of mine used to tell all of his students, "you'll probably never get rich writing, but if you write well, you've got a better shot of at least keeping a roof over your head."
[artwork: "Tech Thoughts" blog at http://billmullins.wordpress.com]
and these prospects are not just limited to the internet. Writers will be needed to produce mobile and/or wireless applications, video games, and marketing copy for increasingly e-savvy consumers. In addition, it is very likely that as future computerized and digitized technologies evolve, developers will need writers to produce technical and creative content for these new and innovative avenues of media distribution. However, edgey, sophisticated multimedia delivery paradigms will also force a demand for writers with multiple skills. Writers will need to have not only a concise, engaging command of language, but also an understanding of various technical design tools as well.The Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS.gov) seems to confirm that a shift in writers' and editors' roles is taking place in the current job market. As is the case with most industries in the current "Great Recession," news, entertainment, and technology firms have increasingly demanded a higher rate of employee productivity in the workplace. This means many employees take on more responsibility with less compensation than in years past. According to the New Hour's 2004 report on America's future job market, higher productivity expectations may also increase the number of jobs employers try to migrate to computerization. Unless a job requires genuine "face time" with other humans, the need for certain positions may become expendable. Luckily, most writers possess critical and analytical talents for communicating complex information that simply cannot be programmed into a computer-generated commodity. However, the fields of publishing and writing have always been rather competitive, and the BLS projects that competition will be particularly stiff in the coming years as "organizations move their publication focus from a print to an online presence and as the publishing industry continues to contract." The U.S. Labor Department suggests that "writers and editors who have adapted to the new media and are comfortable writing for and working with a variety of electronic and digital tools will have an advantage in finding new work."
The consumption of the e-book format is also on the rise, and the market more has become more user-friendly and affordable for writers who wish to self-publish their work. However, being published does not necessarily provide the assurance that a sole living can be made as a writer. The BLS reports that the average income for writers is between $36,000 and $60,000 a year, depending on the industry and organization for which the writer works. Yet, as an old journalism professor of mine used to tell all of his students, "you'll probably never get rich writing, but if you write well, you've got a better shot of at least keeping a roof over your head."
[artwork: "Tech Thoughts" blog at http://billmullins.wordpress.com]
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
No More Excuses
Summer is over—at least as far as the school year is concerned because it's still a thousand degrees outside everyday—and I've started back to classes this week. The good news is that I did get a position as a Graduate Research Assistant, but could have applied to be a TA (teaching assistant) instead. There's always next year, possibly. I will be working with Dr. Rice on the English Department's communications projects (i.e., newsletter, etc.), and I always enjoy working with him. He's extremely busy though, so I may end up working with others more than him.
Quickly, here are some "highlights" from my extremely exciting (not) summer:
As the school year gears up, I know things will start to fast track again, which is why I tried to get some structured organization into my life over the summer. We'll see how long that lasts. I did decide to be nice to myself though. I dropped two of the four classes for which I had registered back in Spring semester. I came to the realization that the stress of carrying twelve hours of graduate-level coursework and fulfilling my obligations as a GRA would probably whip my tenuous nerve-endings into a puddle of quivering custard. I think I did the right thing by dropping back to six hours: one English course and one Linguistics course.
Interestingly, in my English course we are actually required to establish and write a personal blog. Now there will be no excuses for not posting entries.
Quickly, here are some "highlights" from my extremely exciting (not) summer:
- My car broke down twice, costing me about $1300 in repairs. Hey, what do you expect of a 9-year-old car? So, I can't really complain, although my bank account sure did.
- The kids and I built a deck in the backyard in order to put up one of those metal frame pools for the them. It wasn't really that hard to build, but since we were working in temperatures that were in the near vicinity of hell, it seemed like slave labor. However, the deck turned out really well; I'm proud of what we did. Even little Quinn helped drive the screws.
- We were able to go to the lake several times with Wayne and Steve (Cameron's BBBS big brothers). I was able to convince Quinn to try "tubing" when we went. She's not much of an outdoorsy adventurer, but I was very proud of her when she decided to give it a go. I think she even enjoyed it. Cameron also learned how to go tubing and had a blast, although Wayne told me Cameron was petrified at first. He hates roller coasters, so I think he thought of tubing as though it would be a roller coaster on water but without the lap bar. We all managed to survive Wayne's manic boat driving.
- My parents actually called about seeing the kids this summer in late May. It had been two years since they had seen them. They went down to Florida for two weeks to stay with them. Miracle of miracles—my parents actually drove up to Atlanta to get them. My only irritation about their two night sprint up and back was that they didn't even bother coming out to the house. Instead, they spent the night with their friends, Betty and Herb, and I took the kids over to their house the next morning.
During the time the kids were gone, I got absolutely nothing accomplished at home and went into a deep funk because of the situation with my car. I laid on my bed and mindlessly destroyed brain cells by watching television all day and night. I stocked up on Stouffer's Lean Cuisines and devolved into eating microwavable, pre-packaged, factory-manufactured bricks of frozen food. On top of that, the summer temperatures began firing up into the realm of Hades while they were gone, and it became unbearable to work in my shadeless front yard where I was halfway finished building a new stone patio.
- Cameron and I cleared out a large portion of the wooded area of our property. The canopy is mostly hardwood growth, but the understory is overgrown with barren muscadine vines and demonicly evil greenbriar vines that can cut like barbed wire. We must have clipped or pulled up literally hundreds of sweetgum seedlings. Those trees are as prolific as rabbits and as hardy as kudzu—you just can't kill the damn things.
During our clean up we discovered places where our wildlife residents had nestled themselves. The three rabbits we often saw in our yard—and destroying my liriope—had made their den under the knarly roots of a large, rotting poplar tree that fell a few years ago; we discovered an enormous black rat snake had taken up residence in an old and very deep hole that our dog Rumor dug about 3 years ago; and we found a good number of mockingbird nests in the tangles of greenbriars. They were all abandoned but still cradled wafer-thin remnants of brown- and cream-colored speckled eggshells. Oh yeah, and then there was the lovely dog tick that decided to make a home in Cameron's forearm.
- Earlier, I referenced the stone patio out front, which still remains unfinished. However, I'm pleased with the way it was progressing before construction came to a halt because of the summer heat. I look forward to finishing it up and hope it turns out well when I finish it up this fall.
- The kids and I started collecting anthropomorphic vegetable and fruit salt and pepper figurines. We had fun scouting them out on eBay, etsy.com, and Ruby Lane. Our favorites have become the 50s-era Japanese Py/Miyao shakers; they are just adorable. I got a little off the trail of salt and pepper when I became smitten with the anthropomorphic Lefton cocktail and jelly pots, so I started collecting them as well. My bank account has also begun to complain about buying all these collectibles too.
As the school year gears up, I know things will start to fast track again, which is why I tried to get some structured organization into my life over the summer. We'll see how long that lasts. I did decide to be nice to myself though. I dropped two of the four classes for which I had registered back in Spring semester. I came to the realization that the stress of carrying twelve hours of graduate-level coursework and fulfilling my obligations as a GRA would probably whip my tenuous nerve-endings into a puddle of quivering custard. I think I did the right thing by dropping back to six hours: one English course and one Linguistics course.
Interestingly, in my English course we are actually required to establish and write a personal blog. Now there will be no excuses for not posting entries.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Summa Cum Grad, but No Job to be Had
Forgive me, blogoshphere, I have sinned; it has been three months since my last confessions—or blog entry—whichever you prefer.
What a hellacious semester. I am not sure what the problem was, but I can tell you that I felt very embarrassed about the way some of my papers and/or other academic postings were handled. Although, because of the nature of my university (and my OCD), I was able to soldier on and succeed. However, I can't say I felt I was at my best this last semester. I guess the important thing is that I did graduate, and summa cum laude at that, 4.0 intact. However, I fear that despite my strong academic background, I will be unemployed for quite some time due to the miserable U.S. economy.
I'm trying to find the brightside. Guess things could be worse. I could be a citizen of Greece—apparently they are in a economic free fall and are all subject to mandated austerity measures. I suppose that even once grand civilizations are no immune to societal degradation., O! Ye United States of Excess! Take a lesson from the Romans and Greeks.
Well, there's a lot I could write about this first blog back, but I think I'll keep this one simple. Just a howdy from the orchard. I'll have plenty of time on my hands for the foreseeable future to write about everything.
What a hellacious semester. I am not sure what the problem was, but I can tell you that I felt very embarrassed about the way some of my papers and/or other academic postings were handled. Although, because of the nature of my university (and my OCD), I was able to soldier on and succeed. However, I can't say I felt I was at my best this last semester. I guess the important thing is that I did graduate, and summa cum laude at that, 4.0 intact. However, I fear that despite my strong academic background, I will be unemployed for quite some time due to the miserable U.S. economy.
I'm trying to find the brightside. Guess things could be worse. I could be a citizen of Greece—apparently they are in a economic free fall and are all subject to mandated austerity measures. I suppose that even once grand civilizations are no immune to societal degradation., O! Ye United States of Excess! Take a lesson from the Romans and Greeks.
Well, there's a lot I could write about this first blog back, but I think I'll keep this one simple. Just a howdy from the orchard. I'll have plenty of time on my hands for the foreseeable future to write about everything.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Decade of Endearment
My daughter's birthday is tomorrow, and she turns 10 years old. It's hard for me to believe that she is that old.
She is a lot like I am: creative, dreamy, lives in her "head," prone to passionate feelings about things. She is truly an "apple" that fell close to the mother tree. I think one of the great things that I have learned from my children is to think like a child again, too. All the frustrations and joys about how to handle life are in front of my kids now. I think as adults we feel overwhelmed with our own "adult" problems so much that we forget to see things through the eyes of youth.
So, this blog entry is for you, my dearest baby girl. Happy Birthday, little petunia. I know you read my blog. I hope you also know how much I love you, and I am very proud of all of your talents. Celebrate all those creative things you do well, and do not judge yourself too harshly on what you cannot do well. It all works out in the end as long as you have faith in yourself. I'll always have faith that you can do whatever you want with the wonderful, creative, deep thoughts and talents that you have.
Love forever, Mommy
She is a lot like I am: creative, dreamy, lives in her "head," prone to passionate feelings about things. She is truly an "apple" that fell close to the mother tree. I think one of the great things that I have learned from my children is to think like a child again, too. All the frustrations and joys about how to handle life are in front of my kids now. I think as adults we feel overwhelmed with our own "adult" problems so much that we forget to see things through the eyes of youth.
So, this blog entry is for you, my dearest baby girl. Happy Birthday, little petunia. I know you read my blog. I hope you also know how much I love you, and I am very proud of all of your talents. Celebrate all those creative things you do well, and do not judge yourself too harshly on what you cannot do well. It all works out in the end as long as you have faith in yourself. I'll always have faith that you can do whatever you want with the wonderful, creative, deep thoughts and talents that you have.
Love forever, Mommy
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Sister Soldier
The county office emailed my substitute teacher paperwork yesterday (even though I'd already done it before and been in the system, fingerprints, background check, education verification, etc.). I have to pay another $50 bucks to have it all done again, you know, because in the last six months I might have committed some heinous crime. Whatever. Am I complaining? No, not really. I just find bueracracy maddening sometimes. Actually, subbing is more than most of my peers have been able do.
This opportunity all came about because of the contact that I made at the job fair last Friday. Counties aren't even hiring subs, and when they do, it's only certified teachers. Can you believe that? Two years ago, school systems would take you if you were a warm body. It's especially difficult to get into this particular school district because the compensation is about double what most counties in the metro area pay. However, there was also a bit of a "situation" over it as well. One of my peers, who has already graduated but hasn't taken the state certification subject tests, couldn't even get a business card from the HR substitute supervisor—according to her, anyway. She was really miffed and actually made a deal about it with the university's Career Placement Office. You see, she was upset because I was able to get the HR person's card, and she wasn't. The reasons that I got the contact information are very logical:
1) I have already passed both pedagogy and subject matter certification tests (that was one of the first questions the HR person asked me).
2) I had, just six months prior, been on the sub list, and somehow my data was lost. The HR person thought that was something that could be easily reactivated in the database.
3)I've already got a certified application on file with the school system, and my references completed, etc.
My friend was upset about it because four years ago, prior to her degree in English Ed., she had also been in the sub database too; however, since she hasn't passed the certification exams, she can't technically be considered "highly qualified." In her eyes, though, the fact that the HR person would not even give her a business card seemed very unfair.
You see, here's the real problem in today's economy. Things are so competitive that even getting the "right" human resources card has become a contentious issue, but I still don't think complaining is the way to get what you want. That's why I was surprised when I walked outside to the reception table and saw her complaining about the way she had been summarily dismissed. I thought the way she handled the situation was poorly done, and I got aggravated with the fact that she didn't approach her point with a little more finesse. One thing that some people have to realize is that while the "squeeky wheel does many times get the oil" that often "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." You can have what I'll call a "clean" squeek, and it's a skill to know how to get what you want without scrubbing people the wrong way. It's been a difficult skill for me to master in my professional life sometimes. Lord knows I have pissed people off and been called "abrasive." I know for certain there were times when I just didn''t realize that my personality needed some curbing in order to better fit into a certain culture. It's so hard to bite your tongue and suck it up. It takes real patience and grace to confront people who really irritate you with genuine largesse and positivity when you just want pinch their pinheads right off the tops of their bodies. Often times it takes experience to figure it out, and some people never do regardless of how much time they spend in any work environment. But, because the field of education is populated predominately by women, it makes matters even more politically delicate.
There is another advantage I think I have over my friend. I don't think like a woman. I mean that I don't think like some women, which can be "catty," (i.e., vengeful, petty, defensive, manipulative). I am not saying my friend is this way, though. However, I consider myself more of a "man's woman." I very much like and understand the male mind, which is more, let us say, comprehensive and less, perhaps, circumspect. Yet at the same time I am a woman and obviously can think like a woman as well. I guess what I'm really saying is that women are excellent at remembering the details of every—uh—design, and they think very creatively. To make matters in this particular situation more complex, this is the South; women here say one thing to your face, but say and/or do other things behind your back. It's all a performance. Yes, that's it. A performance. You have to act the part—appear non-threatening, etc. and wait for the right moments to make your move. Therefore, working behind the scenes requires an even more nuanced performance than that of the main stage. I get into all this NOT because I approach my issues by "acting fake," but I do change directions depending on what is required by the person and the situation.
That's also what it takes in the classroom too. Change lanes, but don't get off track. Bend, but don't crack up. Never be velcro, be rubber instead. Don't let any "fuzziness" get stuck to you: a label, a person, a group, a philosophy. Things must bounce off you. Men are better at managing that that than women, and I guess it's because women operate through a pack mentality. Like a pride of lionnesses. I mean, look at the whole pack mentality in women's bathroom behavior. It's a fact—women are more "nesty" and territorial, and men are "non-commitalish" and less likely to fence themselves in.
All I'm saying is that airing your grievances negatively isn't often the best approach with females that you are trying to get on your side. Make 'em think you are doing them a favor when actually you are getting what you want out of a situation. Never let 'em see you sweat. You gotta be tactful, agreeable, cool. Does this mean just forget about the rest of your "pride?" No, but you gotta think to yourself, "I'm a sister soulja and a soul sister." In this job market I realize you have to slug it out to get your foot in the door, but no one wants a whiner for an employee.
So, I need to go back and tell my friend all this. "Imma Be . . . from the soul sonically/sending positivity," as the 'Peas would say. I don't know if she'll really hear me though.
This opportunity all came about because of the contact that I made at the job fair last Friday. Counties aren't even hiring subs, and when they do, it's only certified teachers. Can you believe that? Two years ago, school systems would take you if you were a warm body. It's especially difficult to get into this particular school district because the compensation is about double what most counties in the metro area pay. However, there was also a bit of a "situation" over it as well. One of my peers, who has already graduated but hasn't taken the state certification subject tests, couldn't even get a business card from the HR substitute supervisor—according to her, anyway. She was really miffed and actually made a deal about it with the university's Career Placement Office. You see, she was upset because I was able to get the HR person's card, and she wasn't. The reasons that I got the contact information are very logical:
1) I have already passed both pedagogy and subject matter certification tests (that was one of the first questions the HR person asked me).
2) I had, just six months prior, been on the sub list, and somehow my data was lost. The HR person thought that was something that could be easily reactivated in the database.
3)I've already got a certified application on file with the school system, and my references completed, etc.
My friend was upset about it because four years ago, prior to her degree in English Ed., she had also been in the sub database too; however, since she hasn't passed the certification exams, she can't technically be considered "highly qualified." In her eyes, though, the fact that the HR person would not even give her a business card seemed very unfair.
You see, here's the real problem in today's economy. Things are so competitive that even getting the "right" human resources card has become a contentious issue, but I still don't think complaining is the way to get what you want. That's why I was surprised when I walked outside to the reception table and saw her complaining about the way she had been summarily dismissed. I thought the way she handled the situation was poorly done, and I got aggravated with the fact that she didn't approach her point with a little more finesse. One thing that some people have to realize is that while the "squeeky wheel does many times get the oil" that often "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." You can have what I'll call a "clean" squeek, and it's a skill to know how to get what you want without scrubbing people the wrong way. It's been a difficult skill for me to master in my professional life sometimes. Lord knows I have pissed people off and been called "abrasive." I know for certain there were times when I just didn''t realize that my personality needed some curbing in order to better fit into a certain culture. It's so hard to bite your tongue and suck it up. It takes real patience and grace to confront people who really irritate you with genuine largesse and positivity when you just want pinch their pinheads right off the tops of their bodies. Often times it takes experience to figure it out, and some people never do regardless of how much time they spend in any work environment. But, because the field of education is populated predominately by women, it makes matters even more politically delicate.
There is another advantage I think I have over my friend. I don't think like a woman. I mean that I don't think like some women, which can be "catty," (i.e., vengeful, petty, defensive, manipulative). I am not saying my friend is this way, though. However, I consider myself more of a "man's woman." I very much like and understand the male mind, which is more, let us say, comprehensive and less, perhaps, circumspect. Yet at the same time I am a woman and obviously can think like a woman as well. I guess what I'm really saying is that women are excellent at remembering the details of every—uh—design, and they think very creatively. To make matters in this particular situation more complex, this is the South; women here say one thing to your face, but say and/or do other things behind your back. It's all a performance. Yes, that's it. A performance. You have to act the part—appear non-threatening, etc. and wait for the right moments to make your move. Therefore, working behind the scenes requires an even more nuanced performance than that of the main stage. I get into all this NOT because I approach my issues by "acting fake," but I do change directions depending on what is required by the person and the situation.
That's also what it takes in the classroom too. Change lanes, but don't get off track. Bend, but don't crack up. Never be velcro, be rubber instead. Don't let any "fuzziness" get stuck to you: a label, a person, a group, a philosophy. Things must bounce off you. Men are better at managing that that than women, and I guess it's because women operate through a pack mentality. Like a pride of lionnesses. I mean, look at the whole pack mentality in women's bathroom behavior. It's a fact—women are more "nesty" and territorial, and men are "non-commitalish" and less likely to fence themselves in.
All I'm saying is that airing your grievances negatively isn't often the best approach with females that you are trying to get on your side. Make 'em think you are doing them a favor when actually you are getting what you want out of a situation. Never let 'em see you sweat. You gotta be tactful, agreeable, cool. Does this mean just forget about the rest of your "pride?" No, but you gotta think to yourself, "I'm a sister soulja and a soul sister." In this job market I realize you have to slug it out to get your foot in the door, but no one wants a whiner for an employee.
So, I need to go back and tell my friend all this. "Imma Be . . . from the soul sonically/sending positivity," as the 'Peas would say. I don't know if she'll really hear me though.
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