It's a quiet New Year's Eve, as usual, for me - I'm not much on large crowds of random people and with limited social options here, staying in with a good meal and my new Band of Brothers DVD box set really does make for a nice evening. I'll worry about resolutions and what-not tomorrow.
Funny, you watch Law & Order for a dozen years and you feel like the characters are people you actually know, which, I suppose, explains my sadness at hearing of Jerry Orbach's death. What a wonderful Lumiere he was...
I suppose I could blame the stress of my trip Christmas night for my laxity in writing lately. About an hour into the drive, I hit the edge of an ice storm that gradually turned into slushy sleet that slowly turned into rain, all of which kept me - shall we say - a bit on edge until I arrived in Charleston at 2:30 am, with my car encased in several layers of ice. I crawled into bed 10.3 minutes after arriving and didn't wake up til noon the next day.
Or I could blame the social whirl since my arrival for my inability to sit down at the computer long enough to write (and it isn't my computer, which always adds another layer to the excuse). With the present opening, dinner eating, snack nibbling and tea drinking, not to mention the good ole Southern tradition of "visiting" - as in "Turn that tv off, Bill, we're trying to visit" - I've been pleasantly engaged since I woke up on Boxing Day.
I can almost claim immobilization from trying to grasp the unimaginable disaster in South Asia and East Africa. Everytime I hear a new report on NPR or read another story on the net, the death toll has climbed - over 80,000 dead now, with children the majority of the victims. I cannot imagine the destruction, the enormity of the physical, emotional, pschychological damage done in those regions. My cousin and her family are in Jakarta at the moment - I assume, anyway. I appear to be the only one in the family even slightly concerned over her presence in a country recently overcome by huge walls of water. Strangely, I don't much care whether she was a few hundred, a few thousand, or simply a few miles away from the disaster; I'd like to know if she's okay.
I could give lots of reasons for why I'm not writing but I think the root of the problem is disorientation. This happens quite often when I come down to Charleston. I'm away from the regular routine: the laptop on the kitchen table, the pile of books on the bedroom floor, the alarm clock that won't shut up on the other side of the room. I bring the work with me but somehow it doesn't seem as pressing when I'm here. Sure, I could skim through those half dozen books I borrowed from the library on reflection and caring but Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything is sitting right there on the coffee table and since it wasn't my Christmas present, I really should read it now before I drive north next week. Yeah, I know I need to finish that conference paper - I brought my laptop so I'd have the materials I needed to write - but trying that new recipe for Apple-Glazed Chicken and Gorgonzola Grits seems much more pressing at the moment.
It's funny how I leave the atmosphere of graduate school behind and I almost become normal. I'm still interested in the same issues; I still want to read the same books and study the same topics; I still want to find a teaching position in a college of education. It all falls into perspective, though; I'm not consumed by any of it. It's more important for me to visit with a friend's grandparents for a few hours than to write up that conference paper - really, it is.
I know I'll re-enter the atmosphere next week and be consumed in a cloud of stress as I write and edit and read and write some more. Knowing that, however, doesn't prompt me to change gears. I rather like having a life beyond graduate study at the moment and I'd like to make the most of it until reality intrudes too strongly for me to ignore. I suppose I should read a little more quickly then, shouldn't I?
- or as they say in my favorite city of London: Happy Christmas! Time to trundle off to my parents, after I load the car with quite a lot of presents, my contributions to Christmas dinner and my suitcases. After much too much delicious food and the hurricane of present opening, I'm on my way to Charleston. Best Christmas present so far: knitting needles, a skein of gorgeous yarn and a how-to book on knitting from my roommate. I love this girl!
Few things come close to pure, unadulterated beauty like a boy soprano singing O Holy Night in a candlelit Duke Chapel on Christmas Eve.
How funny: of all the things I could do on Christmas Eve, I spent the last few hours finishing up my transcriptions. I've also baked eight mini-loaves of banana bread, but I find that less interesting than that I actually did some academic work in the glow of my Christmas tree. Justification, I suppose, for now fixing some dinner and watching my favorite holiday movie (National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) before I leave for the Christmas Eve service at the chapel. I do manage to find a wisp of my religious upbringing at least once a year.
I had a little pre-Christmas fun today, driving home to spend the afternoon with my best friend. We left the kids with her husband (such a wonderful man - one of the few husbands I know who can grasp the idea of "the girls need to have some alone time") and ran off for a lovely lunch and a little last-minute Christmas shopping. I found the most adorable second...third...okay, fourth present for my little nephew: an exceptionally soft Pat The Bunny bunny (parents know what I'm talking about) with crinkly ears. How I love being an aunt.
As nice as my day was, well, it also wasn't. Going home is just...bittersweet, for lack of a better word; I feel like I'm literally torn between "How comforting to see the homestead" and "How in the hell did I grow up here?" I love my family, despite the vein of sheer nuttiness that flows a little too freely at times. [Case in point: I tell my mom that I saw an old high school friend while I was out shopping. Her response: "How nice. Did you recognize him?"] I have mostly fond memories of growing up, in the country, surrounded by cousins and friends, doing the things that kids in the country do (probably because I've aged enough to gain perspective on the whole experience, but that's between my and my future therapist) but it's almost as if I'm holding those memories for someone else and any day now she'll show up and demand them back. Was I really that little girl who ran around the pasture playing Batman & Robin? Did my mom really heat my gown in front of the fireplace so I could jump into it while it was warm and run, run, run to jump in the bed while it was still toasty because the heat didn't quite reach the back bedroom? Did I really have that accent?
It isn't just the whole "Oh my god, I'm getting old" surprise. It's also the repeatedly fresh shock of realizing how different I've become from what I grew up as. I certainly wouldn't answer in the affirmative if asked whether I was religious. I can't stomach those offhand bigoted/homophobic/conservative comments that come from small communities and once wouldn't have made any impression in the least. I don't have the thick Southern accent anymore - although it comes back a little too quickly when I'm home long enough.
Maybe that's the rub: that I'm different and yet the same, that I'm caught between two different worlds and comfortable in neither. I can't imagine going back to live in that small community, where it's 20 minutes to the nearest grocery store and people don't know that a PhD isn't a medical doctor and social life revolves around the church and cell phones don't work. I like cities and sweaters that don't have appliqued snowmen and cable tv. I suppose those are relatively superficial things, though, because I know that I'm better off having grown up in a community where people bring food when relatives die, where strangers stop to pull your car out of the ditch, where friends exchange the latest news in the cereal aisle, where I could run across the pasture to swim in the pond and play cards with our retired neighbors. Obviously, who I am was shaped by where I grew up and the people that I grew up with, as well as the people I've known and the experiences I've had since leaving home, but that juxtaposition - the girl who isn't happy unless people are eating when they come to her apartment and the girl who wandered around Europe with a backpack and a (male!) friend for the sheer hell of it - causes great consternation in the mental equilibrium.
Would I change my life if given the chance? Parts of it could do with a little revision but, in general, I suppose not. I know that life would be very different if I had chosen Door A instead of Door B and, in some respects, easier. If I had gone to the state university and stayed with the high school sweetheart, as planned, I'm sure I would be in that small town today, probably with a kid or two, eating Sunday dinner at my parents and concerned over the recent influx of Hispanic immigrants. How strange that I can see that life actually happening! I chose Door B, however, and making that choice obviated Door A forever, thank you Thomas Wolfe. And so I feel like an outsider when I sit in my parents' house and wonder if they feel the same way.
Okay, I have all the Christmas presents I intend to buy and only one more to wrap. I've made two batches of Chex mix, with one more in the oven. Time to start the holly leaves (mix corn flakes and marshmallows with lots of green food coloring and add red M&Ms for berries - the kids love it). The gingersnap dough is still chilling - I'll get to that tomorrow - and I need to make the cranberry salad tomorrow, too, so it will have time to freeze properly. I'm way ahead of schedule.
Things I managed to accomplish today:
I can't tell if I'm ill, becoming ill, recovering from illness, or a quart low on the appropriate brain chemicals. Tis the season to be jolly but jollity is hard to come by when I barely have the energy to get out of bed in the morning. Wake up - stare at the ceiling - roll over - doze - wake up - look at the clock - think "I have to get out of bed, there's so much work to do" - wake up an hour later - force myself out of bed in the general direction of the shower: I've established a rhythm.
That said, one side of the family gathered tonight for great quantities of food and a round of present-opening. We have fun: everyone brings a $1 gift, someone opens, the next person can take an opened present or open a new one, etc. I ended up, after some collective bargaining, with a snazzy ice-scraper, which I dearly hope I will not need this winter but will wield with great efficiency if called upon to do so. The present of the night, however, was a Virginia lottery ticket; that must have traded hands a dozen times. Last year it was a mini-bottle of Jack Daniels. Hidden depths to this family, I must say!
I just got back from my first Christmas party of the season (also known as dinner). I usually need a little prodding to get out the door and be social but I usually enjoy myself once I get where I'm going. This was a collection of choir people - a slightly odd bunch, to be sure, but quite entertaining. Get a little merlot in people and watch out! Actually, it is fun to reminisce about former choir trips. I've been to Poland with the choir, and to England, but they traveled to China without me. The concerts were memorable: Evensong in Canterbury Cathedral, Messiah in St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Christmas carols in a monastery in Jasna Gora, Laudate Dominum in Holy Cross Church in Warsaw. And then there are all the side stories: making up Top 10 lists of how to stay warm in Poland, celebrating New Year's in Krakow's town square and dodging fireworks set off at knee-level, playing trivia in a pub in York, staying in a dorm room under the eaves at Oxford. How I miss traveling...
This has been a long and difficult day - not a bad day, certainly nothing like Post-Hip Chick's day - but not really an easy day. Another interview - always good to add one to my growing collection, especially when it's full of interesting ideas and thoughtful comments. Lunch with a friend - ssome comfort food on a cold day. Wrapping Christmas presents - my tree no longer sits forlornly on the carpet. Transcription all this evening - eats up the time and makes me forget about dinner. So, nothing really bad but, still, I have a dull headache and a slightly queasy stomach and I'm rather tired. I think I'm experiencing the side effects of thinking too much.
Dammit, these kids really make me think and it's wreaking havoc on my lifestyle, not to mention my temperament. I'd much rather sit in front of the tv, munching on a bowl of popcorn - the popcorn, not the bowl - while watching some suitably mindless crime show. Instead, I'm walking around with these semi-academic thoughts whipping through my skull - is that a pattern? are they actually talking about the same thing there? could I draw a connection between those different conversations? is there a theory for this? can I pull it all together within this particular framework?
Okay, so I do actually enjoy trying to make sense of it all, in some twisted fashion. The headache I could do without, however. It may be time to call it quits and find that crime show.
My "I think I'll just stay at home and leisurely go about my numerous activities" day turned into a "I've got to get to campus to meet with another interviewee and transcribe that last interview" day. Thank goodness other people keep me on track. Now, another interview down, another transcription completed, and a tiny step closer to writing that dissertation proposal. I've done none of the writing, mind you, but I'm thinking about it. When this is actually going to happen, I'm not sure, since I've not written word one and it's due mid-January. Can I just act like I have it all under control?
As I struggled to put a conference proposal together this afternoon, I faced a glaringly evident truth: I hate writing abstracts - perhaps because I've rarely written the full paper corresponding to said abstract at the time the abstract is required, another issue entirely. So, I have an abstract, which somehow manages to present the basic concepts of my proposal while saying absolutely nothing of any intelligence:Reflection, simply put, means teachers asking questions and teachers effecting change. If this is the intent, pre-service teachers must take ownership of their reflective efforts while still in the university setting. By claiming reflection as their own, practicing teachers have the chance to combat the institutionalized resistance to the thought and change inherent in reflective questioning.
Dewey’s definition and discussion of the reflective process in How We Think (1910/1997) began an examination of reflection that has resulted in definition and re-definition, explanation and re-explanation for almost one hundred years. A review of the literature on reflection in teacher education reveals rather clearly that reflection as a process and a practice means many different things to many different educators. In recent years, for example, teacher educators have concentrated on the methods used for reflection, the outcomes expected from reflection, and the hierarchies of thought achieved through reflection. Generally speaking, then, while reflection is accepted as a process of thought about one’s actions or beliefs that leads toward change, the details of that process are open to discussion.
The multiplicative nature of reflection does not necessarily detract from the power of the reflective process, however. Being able to respond to the needs of particular students is – or should be – the hallmark of education; teacher educators should also be able to interpret reflection as best suits the needs of pre-service teachers. To some degree, this does occur: teacher education programs define and implement reflection in agreement with a particular educational philosophy. The reflective process fails to meet the needs of beginning teachers, however, when it fails to account for the mismatch between university education programs and public schools.
Pre-service teachers associate reflection with the university, an assignment consisting of a number of double-spaced pages on an assigned topic. Defined as a skill and delineated by specific steps, reflection, as taught by the university, is easily cast aside when teachers enter their own classrooms. The disconnect between university reflective practice and classroom reflective practice simply echoes the ongoing argument between theory and practice: it may work at the university but it won’t fly in the real world.
Pre-service teachers must learn to take ownership of their reflective efforts while still in the university setting. Teacher education programs should employ a greater variety of approaches to reflection, allowing pre-service teachers to find their own voice in the reflective process. By claiming reflection as their own, practicing teachers, in turn, combat the institutionalized resistance to the thought and change inherent in reflective questioning.
One little sentence from Polly nicely situates the slurry of thoughts that has been percolating in my mind for the last few days: "I believe that time is one of the most essential elements for reflective teaching." Time is definitely essential and, as the literature continues to illuminate, the lack of time is a key factor in the lack of reflection among practicing teachers. There's nothing new in that observation; time is sorely lacking in most people's lives, regardless of profession. Teaching, however, is a profession that requires "time" as a condition of sucess: teachers need more time to interact with students, to teach content, to grade papers, to plan lessons, to create community, to develop professionally and - yes - to reflect.
So, if we know this, why are teachers faced with less and less time to concentrate on the important components of their job? Putting aside the intercom interruptions and the pep rallies and the mandated testing and the paperwork - why are teachers provided with so little time to reflect, either individually or communally? Why isn't time built into the day, in some form or fashion, to give teachers time to think?
Perhaps - and this is just a suggestion - we don't actually want our teachers to reflect. "Why," you say, "that makes no sense! Reflection is one of the key components of teacher education; programs across the US teach reflection, read about reflection, encourage reflection, study reflection. You're just talking crazy, woman!"
Okay, but consider this: reflection is an agent of change. By truly reflecting about a situation, we are attempting to both understand and change. Dewey likened reflection to the scientific process: analysis and action must follow description for reflection to take place. So, action is implicitly tied to the reflective act. In reflecting, a teacher is really asking the question, "Why" - why did this happen? why did I react this way? why is this acceptable? why does this need to change? So, reflection leads to action leads to change.
But schools don't like change. We're talking about a conserving institution, one that has stayed remarkably similar since its inception in the US. Teachers have one role, students another, and ne'er the twain shall meet. If teachers start thinking about things - using reflection as a step toward questioning the status quo - they might realize that much needs changing. They might even attempt to make those changes themselves, god forbid.
By appropriating the simple component of time, the institution manages to maintain itself. Even though most teachers may realize much needs to change, they do so without engaging with those fleeting thoughts; it's all they can do to manage an overcrowded classroom in an underfunded school. Teachers who don't have time to think don't have time to act, and without action from teachers, schools cannot change for the better.
Despite my usual tug-of-war over getting a Christmas tree, I'm always glad when I actually have one. Add a few lights, my odd assortment of ornaments and it really brightens up the room: the silver tracery of a Frank Lloyd Wright window detail; a small ceramic horse from a long-ago Pennsylvania vacation; a glass globe of cobalt-blue and baby-pink pansies; a miniature fuzzy red stocking from my godmother; delicate snowflakes crocheted by my grandmother and my father. Now I can wrap up the pile of presents stacked in my room - a natural consequence of having a rather large family - and arrange them artfully under the tree.
holding your 16-day-old nephew most of the afternoon while he angelically sleeps, yawns, stretches and goes back to sleep in your arms. The horror of waking up at 4:30 am has faded into never-been.
I'm so happy I woke up at 4:30 am. I'm practically estastic that I remain wide awake at 5:57 am. I suspect this isn't going to be a good day.
I'm starting to dislike the term reflection - not the concept, but the actual word. Even accepting that it means different things to different people (and I love the fact that the literature legitimizes that state of affairs), it somehow doesn't quite capture what I'm thinking about as I work through my research. Reflection carries connotations of a mirror, your words being thrown back at you, slightly distorted, to allow you to examine a familiar image from a different perspective. Okay, that works. But I want something different, something that breaks the mirror, that allows the words you speak or write or think to become unfamiliar, to move beyond your perspective to influence others, that moves beyond the individual to gain from the input of others.
I'm not even sure that makes any sense. Maybe I do need to retire to the couch after all.
I'm fighting a cold and I'm afraid I'm not going to win. I just have that feeling of imminent doom, personified by watery eyes, scratchy throat and stuffy nose. Normally, I'm a wimp about getting sick - give me my jammies and let me camp out on the coach with the remote for a few days. This is not the time of year, however, to concede defeat, so I'll just ignore the symptoms as long as possible. tick tock tick tock
A third interview today, which does make me feel somewhat better. The transcribing part - not so much. The chance to talk to the PSTs about student teaching and blogging - much. My ability to ask good questions could stand some improvement. I usually end up with something worthwhile but it's definitely "in spite of" rather than "because of" any natural skill on my part.
I did manage to read four articles that I've been carrying around in my bag for at least a week. I didn't really learn anything useful but, hey, I read them. It's the small victories. Now I can choose which of the four books sitting on the end of my desk to crack open before I decide to sprint for the bus home. Oooo, decisions.
I came across the following - I think, interesting - quotes while reading a chapter by Anna Richert in Reflective teacher education: Cases and critiques (1992), edited by Linda Vall. To my way of thinking, all true and all too often overlooked.
- Learning to teach is just like learning anything else that is difficult, uncertain, complex, and infinitely challenging. (p. 188)
- The culture of teaching and the organization of schooling both mitigate against teachers sharing with one another their thoughts about the dilemmas of practice. (p. 189)
- By talking about what they do, believe, feel, or think, teachers raise to a level of consciousness the complex matters of their work. (p. 190)
- For student-teachers, the opportunity to talk about their actions, their thinking, their beliefs, and their feelings, is part of the process of learning to be a reflective teacher. (p. 191)
- As teachers talk about their work and ‘name’ their experiences, they learn about what they know and what they believe. They also learn what they do not know. Such knowledge empowers the individual by providing a source for action that is generated from within rather than imposed from without. (p. 196)
Okay, I know some people swear Macs are the answer to all that's sacrosanct in the technological world but I fail to see their appeal when I have so much trouble sending webemail and posting to my blog when I use one - two relatively simple tasks, I would think. My PC was having internet issues over the weekend (yes, I realize the irony there but bear with me), so I was relying on a nice little G5 to stay in touch with the world beyond me. And it wasn't working! It looked rather sleek, sitting there on the desk, but the functionality was a little less than perfect. I just want things to work when I turn them on, whether it's my computer or my car.
I'm back at the kitchen table, working at various and sundry tasks. The majority of my day was spent transcribing the interview from Thursday. A 22-minute interview comes out to about four hours of transcription, give or take, and I'm not transcribing my blathering word-for-word, just the student's conversation. Still, not a bad way to spend the afternoon, when I can see my slowly gathering thoughts about pre-teachers and technology take shape. Other than that, mostly reading on and off throughout the day, in between running errands, cooking and cleaning. I'm a little homebody...especially when I have endless quantitites of reading to accomplish. I remember when I started grad school; I was pulling 18 hour days, with most of the day spent reading articles, writing papers, researching ERIC. That work ethic is certainly a remembrance of things past!
A few of us gathered in the graduate student lounge today to give it a mini-makeover. Six hours later, the place looked pretty good. We added a few things - curtains, posters, microwave - to make it a slightly more pleasant space. We cleaned everything that allowed scrubbing, even the windows. Moving the furniture made the most difference, though; the place looks completely different after a good amount of shoving and dragging all the odds and ends that we've inherited or scrounged. Who knew being grad student president would provide me with such diverse activities?
Today was just one of those days, and, although it seemed like a good idea at the time, finishing off the half-gallon of ice cream did not make the day any better. The day didn't exactly start off on a high note when I groggily headed for my bowl of cereal and realized by the arctic temp of the kitchen that the front door of the apartment was standing wide open. My roommate, alerted to the state of events by my loud and somewhat colorful invective, realized she must not have completely closed the door when she came in at 2am. So! I'm so glad I'm the one sleeping at the front of the apartment, closer to the potential murderer who happens to seize the opportunity. [Okay, that's a bit histrionic but, in light of yesterday's post, slightly disturbing as well.]
The one bright spot was starting my first round of interviews this afternoon - and, yes, I'm actually serious about that. This means I have a few hours of transcribing in front of me - always fun - but bearable since I'm actually interested in what the person has to say. I worked on a research project my first semester in grad school, transcribing focus group interviews of middle schoolers involved in project-based learning. I think that was a clear-cut case of mental torture. Of course, I was also using a tape recorder for the transcriptions: play, stop, rewind, play, pause, play, stop, rewind (too far), fast forward (too far), play, stop, threaten to throw tape recorder through window...it took a few days. At least digital recorders make the actual process easier to bear.
For once, I read the paper today and, lo, what do I discover? One of my former students is a murder suspect. It's just surreal to see the name of a boy I used to teach - whose face I still remember - in the same sentence as "charged with murder." Am I surprised? Not really. He was one of those students who bothered me in an unsettling way - the dead look in his eyes when we talked, the malice in his smile when he caused trouble. Am I sad? Oh yes. He was one of those students who made me question what went wrong and where. So, of my former students from this one particular school, I know that one is in jail for robbery, one committed suicide in jail, and one is on the run for murder. That's three too many.
an attempt to document my slippings and slidings along the doctoral path
