i emerged from the cultural studies conference drenched in questions, several of them circulating around where different research finds an intellectual (theoretical?) home; still more having to do with the remarks that cameron mccarthy made near the conclusion of the conference in his talk on "art and the postcolonial imagination." among them, i wondered: whose art is postcolonial? that is, does one have to participate willingly in postcolonial discourses, with the intent to disrupt prevailing "dominant" sentiments, in order to participate in the broad scope of the postcolonial imagination?
in particular, i was thinking about the ways in which the young men and women with whom i have worked, learned, and imagined have created aesthetic representations that "do work" similar to that of basquiat (whom mccarthy noted) in that they offer commentary on the current social realities while presenting multiple perspectives of the often "othered" realities.
i think i just lost myself in that observation... needless to say the conference raised some questions for me about research, our explorations of culture and cultural forms, and the significance of cultural in/for/of education (this latter point better articulated by john broughton, who concluded the conference with some - as i like to call it - thread-pulling).
and finally, re: chocolate chip pedagogy - a phrase that emerged from a conversation with my sister, that has since come to mean several things (in its short 4 day-old life). approaches an interesting commentary on how educational notions (i.e. pedagogy) are situated amongst and in broader and more commonly known realities (i.e. chocolate chip cookies)...
hmmm...
4.25.2005
4.22.2005
chocolate chip pedagogy
just attended a workshop by rhonda hammer - who is presenting at the cultural studies conference going on here at tc.
first, an interesting example of clever editing
she talked a bit about how the students in her class, which i think took place at ucla, created critiques of media by using media that they were critiquing - a little bit of imovie magic and voila! a whole new reality...
'cept... earlier this morning there was a lot of talk about the use of art to critique the printed word (at another panel - youth, youth cultures, and politics - read more at: www.subjectmatters.org)anyway, a point raised by all the presenters - who were sharing their work with/about youth - suggested that we need genres other than the ones used by "dominant" forces or discourses in order to effectively critique them.
seems like a good time to bring up hybridity again... though, what of lorde's often quoted sentiment about the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the "master's tools" in dismantling said master's house... are there such clear distinctions? do we not all inhabit this house in different ways in our lives? (how) can we use the range of tools, resources, technologies, stories available to us in order to work toward productive, disruptive dismantling? what is gained? what might be lost? and for whom is there urgency in this critical work?
just day .5 of the conference... more to come!
first, an interesting example of clever editing
she talked a bit about how the students in her class, which i think took place at ucla, created critiques of media by using media that they were critiquing - a little bit of imovie magic and voila! a whole new reality...
'cept... earlier this morning there was a lot of talk about the use of art to critique the printed word (at another panel - youth, youth cultures, and politics - read more at: www.subjectmatters.org)anyway, a point raised by all the presenters - who were sharing their work with/about youth - suggested that we need genres other than the ones used by "dominant" forces or discourses in order to effectively critique them.
seems like a good time to bring up hybridity again... though, what of lorde's often quoted sentiment about the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the "master's tools" in dismantling said master's house... are there such clear distinctions? do we not all inhabit this house in different ways in our lives? (how) can we use the range of tools, resources, technologies, stories available to us in order to work toward productive, disruptive dismantling? what is gained? what might be lost? and for whom is there urgency in this critical work?
just day .5 of the conference... more to come!
4.21.2005
riot grrrl anyone??
during a recent conversation with chuck, i learned about a new book titled girl wide web, which of course got me curious and online, and within a few seconds i hit upon a page of the same name, albeit unrelated to the book - complementary, nonetheless.
girl wide web, the book, explores "issues related to the ways adolescent girls interact with the Internet." (from peter lang description). i haven't read it yet but will post more thoughts once i do.
the GWW page is part of a site described in an article as "the voice of the new girl order": Bust.com.
so check them both out, and for some very outdated background check out this article.
and p.s. - there's also a site with the url www.girlwideweb.com but it wasn't coming up when i linked to it.
girl wide web, the book, explores "issues related to the ways adolescent girls interact with the Internet." (from peter lang description). i haven't read it yet but will post more thoughts once i do.
the GWW page is part of a site described in an article as "the voice of the new girl order": Bust.com.
so check them both out, and for some very outdated background check out this article.
and p.s. - there's also a site with the url www.girlwideweb.com but it wasn't coming up when i linked to it.
4.19.2005
images of youth
a few i've come across recently:
what happens when we invite youth to image/imagine/represent themselves??
what happens when we invite youth to image/imagine/represent themselves??
4.11.2005
brr! it's cold out there! (and i'm not just talking about the weather...)
it was my objective to eat a freshly baked chocolate croissant within 24 hours of landing in montreal, pre-diabetic status notwithstanding. i succeeded only partially, purchasing and consuming said baked good with much delight, albeit not freshly baked (at 1:45 pm).
another interesting point of note: fred erickson reminding the audience during an invited presidential session that "there are no general settings" and that we are always engaged in doing work and research in specific settings. in saying so, he called on the generations-old practice of indigenous farmers who tend to each plot of soil and land with specific lenses, knowing that they cannot apply the one-size-fits-all approach to gardening. what would grow? or wouldn't?
i am reminded again of labels, and successful failure, and the purposeful construction of "us/them" dichotomies that deepen chasms and perpetuate savior mentalities. in class we began to delve into the questions surrounding the issue of what students are held to what expectations. how would we - all of us caught up in the web of education and educational discourses - fare if we truly were a we, and not an uncomfortable negotiation between "we" and "they"?
what does it take to become a "we"?
what does with look like?
another interesting point of note: fred erickson reminding the audience during an invited presidential session that "there are no general settings" and that we are always engaged in doing work and research in specific settings. in saying so, he called on the generations-old practice of indigenous farmers who tend to each plot of soil and land with specific lenses, knowing that they cannot apply the one-size-fits-all approach to gardening. what would grow? or wouldn't?
i am reminded again of labels, and successful failure, and the purposeful construction of "us/them" dichotomies that deepen chasms and perpetuate savior mentalities. in class we began to delve into the questions surrounding the issue of what students are held to what expectations. how would we - all of us caught up in the web of education and educational discourses - fare if we truly were a we, and not an uncomfortable negotiation between "we" and "they"?
what does it take to become a "we"?
what does with look like?
4.08.2005
...
what if we had no labels?
whose lives would we hear about?
whose voices would we listen for?
this past week, while working with a group of young people i have come to know over the past few months at an alternative-to-probation program, i felt these questions come crashing down on me at once... we were creating a group poem out of words we had selected the previous week - the meanings and resonances of which we had illustrated with pictures - and one young man started us off, choosing the words "Black man" and "freedom." we took turns walking up to the large post-it chart paper and adding our lines with a black crayola marker. one of the teachers added a line at the end of the poem, after we had each read the poem aloud one time. as i was writing this final line, nearly sitting on the floor, i looked up and saw the words, thoughts, hesitations, and declarations looming above me, and i thought:
who will hear these words?
and
what if we had no labels?
whose lives would we hear about?
whose voices would we listen for?
we are working now on another layer - looking for and creating images and other visual representations that emerged from the poetry - as we move toward the construction of a multimedia piece. again, i wonder about audience... and what can this (the program, our multimedia storytelling workshops) cog in the great wheel-system of the justice-education symbiosis really do? what else do we/i have to consider beyond audience and form?
what if we had no labels?
who could hear these words?
whose lives could we hear about?
whose voices could we listen for?
whose lives would we hear about?
whose voices would we listen for?
this past week, while working with a group of young people i have come to know over the past few months at an alternative-to-probation program, i felt these questions come crashing down on me at once... we were creating a group poem out of words we had selected the previous week - the meanings and resonances of which we had illustrated with pictures - and one young man started us off, choosing the words "Black man" and "freedom." we took turns walking up to the large post-it chart paper and adding our lines with a black crayola marker. one of the teachers added a line at the end of the poem, after we had each read the poem aloud one time. as i was writing this final line, nearly sitting on the floor, i looked up and saw the words, thoughts, hesitations, and declarations looming above me, and i thought:
who will hear these words?
and
what if we had no labels?
whose lives would we hear about?
whose voices would we listen for?
we are working now on another layer - looking for and creating images and other visual representations that emerged from the poetry - as we move toward the construction of a multimedia piece. again, i wonder about audience... and what can this (the program, our multimedia storytelling workshops) cog in the great wheel-system of the justice-education symbiosis really do? what else do we/i have to consider beyond audience and form?
what if we had no labels?
who could hear these words?
whose lives could we hear about?
whose voices could we listen for?
4.04.2005
purple's the new red
if THIS is what cnn.com is covering in their education section, then we have more than a long way to go...!
4.02.2005
searching for cool
so, in my usual saturday night web surfing, i landed on a site for a doc that i saw when it came out while i was in grad school: the merchants of cool. frontline (pbs) went "behind the scenes" of the relationship between teens and the media to get at the phenomenon that can be summed up as: "disposable income equals perfect marketing targets"
at any rate, they've added to their site since i last visited and it's worth a look: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/
now, you can watch the program online, too!
at any rate, they've added to their site since i last visited and it's worth a look: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/
now, you can watch the program online, too!
3.30.2005
lovely and amazing
people snap the oddest/lovliest things...
some photoblogs i've come across recently:
www.travisruse.com
chromasia
brownglasses.com
for more, see: http://www.photoblogs.org/top/
and: photoblogs magazine
some photoblogs i've come across recently:
www.travisruse.com
chromasia
brownglasses.com
for more, see: http://www.photoblogs.org/top/
and: photoblogs magazine
3.29.2005
genre affordances...?
so we had this conversation in class the other night about different genres affording different "stuff" - of course, the students in the class were much more articulate that i am being here! but it's a question that surfaced in the context of our discussion of blogs and spoken word as literate spaces. i wrote down in my journal:
- who composes what?
- who uses what to compose what?
- what is afforded by what genre?
going in reverse for a minute, i should note that i understand that the language can be affordances constraining and even deterministic in nature. however, i am intrigued by how a language of affordances can be illuminating and full of possibility. (but that is a post for a different time...)
our conversation led me to wonder about the "what"s noted above as we explored ways to look at the "how" and "who" of blogs and spoken word. is it necessarily the nature of spoken word that compositions be imbued with stories of struggle and resistance? (as one author we read seemed to imply) recently, i read a piece in newsweek that wondered why "white men" are dominating the blogosphere.
i had a lot more written here that i just erased. i will simply ask this (in response to the above):
- who composes what?
- who uses what to compose what?
- what is afforded by what genre?
going in reverse for a minute, i should note that i understand that the language can be affordances constraining and even deterministic in nature. however, i am intrigued by how a language of affordances can be illuminating and full of possibility. (but that is a post for a different time...)
our conversation led me to wonder about the "what"s noted above as we explored ways to look at the "how" and "who" of blogs and spoken word. is it necessarily the nature of spoken word that compositions be imbued with stories of struggle and resistance? (as one author we read seemed to imply) recently, i read a piece in newsweek that wondered why "white men" are dominating the blogosphere.
i had a lot more written here that i just erased. i will simply ask this (in response to the above):
- what mechanisms do we have for talking about and making sense of adolescents' practices, genres, and groups that fracture existing, (loosely) bounded categorization?
- in this age of "ies" (multiplicity of literacy, technology, practice, story, identity...), when the existing ways of knowing in schools are out of sync with the knowledge and insights that are emerging from the growing body of scholarship involving youth, what are the spaces for possibility that we can and should address as educators and researchers?
manchester, england... england (indeed!)
makes me wonder how the hell we're going to get anything done anywhere when "educators" are in the business of deciding what "cultures" can wear what hairstyles...
case in point: olivia's story
case in point: olivia's story
3.19.2005
3.14.2005
economics and the digital divide
from this week's economist:
"So even if it were possible to wave a magic wand and cause a computer to appear in every household on earth, it would not achieve very much: a computer is not useful if you have no food or electricity and cannot read."
hmm... is there another dimension to this statement, and to their overall point in this article? before i go on, i should note: the thrust of this article - The real digital divide - calls for funding to focus on increasing the availability of mobile phone technology in areas of the world that are currently without mobile networks. A few cases of shared mobile phone use are presented in order to argue that "the mobile phone is the technology with the greatest impact on development." the article concludes with the following plea:
"Rather than trying to close the digital divide through top-down IT infrastructure projects, governments in the developing world should open their telecoms markets."
asserting that, "firms and customers, on their own and even in the poorest countries, will close the divide themselves."
it's an interesting argument, and certainly one that rings true in this country where mobile phone use is not only on the rise but is fast becoming the ubiquitous mode of communication across demographic boundaries. (as opposed to within, what Gee might call, affinity groups)
but i want to return to the casual use of reading and writing mentioned earlier, and restated below later in the article: "Mobile phones do not rely on a permanent electricity supply and can be used by people who cannot read or write." as a reader, i am making the assertion that the author(s) of this piece want me to think about reading and writing in the functional sense. (is this true?) if this is true, then the resulting thinking might be something along the lines of the following thought:
- the digital divide is primarily concerned with addressing the chasm of access to technologies that afford financial viability and competition in the global marketplace
i spend a lot of time thinking about and observing literacies in practice, and in recent years have shrugged off the burden of economics placed on my liberal (progressive?) sensibilities by what i call the luxury of graduate school. that is, in my work with youth in and out of urban schools, i regularly engaged in and documented literate practice that goes unrecognized by officially sanctioned institutions and formal educational spaces. but what happens when the question is about reading and writing? what is the space between reading and literacy?
i admit that my immediate reaction to this piece was one of indignance - who "says that people in monetarily poor countries can't read and write?" and "is this a measure of their english proficiency?" these questions have not gone away entirely, but this article made me wonder: what if we understood literacy as globally situated, with local meaning? that is, given recent debates about the "limits of the local" (see Brandt & Clinton; Street) could we imagine a way of talking about literacies that is at once local and global? could we, i wonder, take up the charge presented by the economist and assert this dynamic relationship in the context of the growing telecom industry? or, perhaps it is more accurate to say, in light of the growing telecom mediated literacy practices?
these are still "bubbling thoughts" - evolving in their form and content - and in that vein, i want to pose a question to the economist:
could it be that increasing the availability of telecommunications around the world, and particularly in monetarily poor countries, we might not only "close the digital divide" from an economic perspective within these countries, but we might also establish and strengthen lines of participation/collaboration/communication between people situated across these contexts in order to reshape what we understand the be global marketplace in the first place?
more simply put: could increased telecom markets help with learning from and with the local that many ethnographers advocate for, in a way yet to be fulfilled by the promise of the internet?
i'm off to read the rest of the related articles. in the meantime, for another interesting take on the digital divide, check out: Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide by Mark Warschauer.
"So even if it were possible to wave a magic wand and cause a computer to appear in every household on earth, it would not achieve very much: a computer is not useful if you have no food or electricity and cannot read."
hmm... is there another dimension to this statement, and to their overall point in this article? before i go on, i should note: the thrust of this article - The real digital divide - calls for funding to focus on increasing the availability of mobile phone technology in areas of the world that are currently without mobile networks. A few cases of shared mobile phone use are presented in order to argue that "the mobile phone is the technology with the greatest impact on development." the article concludes with the following plea:
"Rather than trying to close the digital divide through top-down IT infrastructure projects, governments in the developing world should open their telecoms markets."
asserting that, "firms and customers, on their own and even in the poorest countries, will close the divide themselves."
it's an interesting argument, and certainly one that rings true in this country where mobile phone use is not only on the rise but is fast becoming the ubiquitous mode of communication across demographic boundaries. (as opposed to within, what Gee might call, affinity groups)
but i want to return to the casual use of reading and writing mentioned earlier, and restated below later in the article: "Mobile phones do not rely on a permanent electricity supply and can be used by people who cannot read or write." as a reader, i am making the assertion that the author(s) of this piece want me to think about reading and writing in the functional sense. (is this true?) if this is true, then the resulting thinking might be something along the lines of the following thought:
- the digital divide is primarily concerned with addressing the chasm of access to technologies that afford financial viability and competition in the global marketplace
i spend a lot of time thinking about and observing literacies in practice, and in recent years have shrugged off the burden of economics placed on my liberal (progressive?) sensibilities by what i call the luxury of graduate school. that is, in my work with youth in and out of urban schools, i regularly engaged in and documented literate practice that goes unrecognized by officially sanctioned institutions and formal educational spaces. but what happens when the question is about reading and writing? what is the space between reading and literacy?
i admit that my immediate reaction to this piece was one of indignance - who "says that people in monetarily poor countries can't read and write?" and "is this a measure of their english proficiency?" these questions have not gone away entirely, but this article made me wonder: what if we understood literacy as globally situated, with local meaning? that is, given recent debates about the "limits of the local" (see Brandt & Clinton; Street) could we imagine a way of talking about literacies that is at once local and global? could we, i wonder, take up the charge presented by the economist and assert this dynamic relationship in the context of the growing telecom industry? or, perhaps it is more accurate to say, in light of the growing telecom mediated literacy practices?
these are still "bubbling thoughts" - evolving in their form and content - and in that vein, i want to pose a question to the economist:
could it be that increasing the availability of telecommunications around the world, and particularly in monetarily poor countries, we might not only "close the digital divide" from an economic perspective within these countries, but we might also establish and strengthen lines of participation/collaboration/communication between people situated across these contexts in order to reshape what we understand the be global marketplace in the first place?
more simply put: could increased telecom markets help with learning from and with the local that many ethnographers advocate for, in a way yet to be fulfilled by the promise of the internet?
i'm off to read the rest of the related articles. in the meantime, for another interesting take on the digital divide, check out: Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide by Mark Warschauer.
3.13.2005
epiphany!
until a few minutes ago i hadn't really articulated what the purpose of this blog was. sure, i noted that this blog was a risk i was taking, but i never really described why. so, in the midst of IMing my sister just now it came to me: this is part of my inquiry about making pedagogy transparent.
now, i am forced to wonder whether there are any readers of this blog and whether any of them happen to be enrolled in students in C&T 6501.001... b/c one could ask: "to/for whom am i interested in making pedagogy transparent?"
i suppose this inquiry is informed, in part, by my earlier readings into democratic and feminist pedagogies - moved by texts, stories, and experiences of others who strive, on and ongoing basis, to truly co-construct(pardon the hackneyed term) a teaching/learning space. in the courses that i've taught in the past, i've been aware of the gaps between the thinking and observing going on in my head and the "stuff" that was happening in the classroom. that is to say that i have been working on enacting a "with" pedagogy and attempting to do so as explicitly as possible. that's not without the aforementioned risks - mainly, admitting that i'm not really sure how something is going to turn out; and, more recently, recognizing that there may be times when boundary-less assignments truly are frustrating. a responsive pedagogy must attend to the need for structures as well as flexibility. that is my challenge.
on a related note, this past thursday the class shared their field observations. the assignment:
Students will conduct two field observations to be shared over the course of the class. These are intended to be opportunities to situate inquiry questions in the context of adolescents. Students will identify locations in their daily travels in which adolescents are engaged in meaning making, are hanging out, and are employing various literacy practices for a variety of purposes (e.g. the park, subway, local diner, school hallway, afterschool club, etc.). After a few informal observations, students will take descriptive notes on what the youth are doing, paying close attention to their meaning making in a particular context. Field observations can be constructed and represented as audio, visual, or written texts; students will pick two of the three when doing their observations. For example, if the first observation is in the form of written fieldnotes, students should choose to represent the second observation as an audio or visual text. Students should also include a brief discussion section to each observation in which they should make connections to the course texts. Examples of possible formats will be discussed in class prior to the first observation.
in class, in the weeks leading up to the due date, there was some considerable anxiety and confusion around what exactly i was expecting. and, to be honest, i wasn't sure...! i really was interested to learn about the different spaces for literate engagement that the students would explore, as well as the ways in which they would experiment with the representations of these observations. they didn't let me down. there were several online explorations: blogs, blogrings, icons, poetry, discussion boards; some meatspace reflections: in a local starbucks, at home during a LOTF re-enactment; and a few in-school observations: a school-wide literacy discussion, in-class play... and throughout our conversation, the question of representation continued to pulsate.
Critical Perspectives on Visual Imagery in Media and Cyberculture
now, i am forced to wonder whether there are any readers of this blog and whether any of them happen to be enrolled in students in C&T 6501.001... b/c one could ask: "to/for whom am i interested in making pedagogy transparent?"
i suppose this inquiry is informed, in part, by my earlier readings into democratic and feminist pedagogies - moved by texts, stories, and experiences of others who strive, on and ongoing basis, to truly co-construct(pardon the hackneyed term) a teaching/learning space. in the courses that i've taught in the past, i've been aware of the gaps between the thinking and observing going on in my head and the "stuff" that was happening in the classroom. that is to say that i have been working on enacting a "with" pedagogy and attempting to do so as explicitly as possible. that's not without the aforementioned risks - mainly, admitting that i'm not really sure how something is going to turn out; and, more recently, recognizing that there may be times when boundary-less assignments truly are frustrating. a responsive pedagogy must attend to the need for structures as well as flexibility. that is my challenge.
on a related note, this past thursday the class shared their field observations. the assignment:
Students will conduct two field observations to be shared over the course of the class. These are intended to be opportunities to situate inquiry questions in the context of adolescents. Students will identify locations in their daily travels in which adolescents are engaged in meaning making, are hanging out, and are employing various literacy practices for a variety of purposes (e.g. the park, subway, local diner, school hallway, afterschool club, etc.). After a few informal observations, students will take descriptive notes on what the youth are doing, paying close attention to their meaning making in a particular context. Field observations can be constructed and represented as audio, visual, or written texts; students will pick two of the three when doing their observations. For example, if the first observation is in the form of written fieldnotes, students should choose to represent the second observation as an audio or visual text. Students should also include a brief discussion section to each observation in which they should make connections to the course texts. Examples of possible formats will be discussed in class prior to the first observation.
in class, in the weeks leading up to the due date, there was some considerable anxiety and confusion around what exactly i was expecting. and, to be honest, i wasn't sure...! i really was interested to learn about the different spaces for literate engagement that the students would explore, as well as the ways in which they would experiment with the representations of these observations. they didn't let me down. there were several online explorations: blogs, blogrings, icons, poetry, discussion boards; some meatspace reflections: in a local starbucks, at home during a LOTF re-enactment; and a few in-school observations: a school-wide literacy discussion, in-class play... and throughout our conversation, the question of representation continued to pulsate.
- what does it mean to represent literacies in the lives of adolescents?
- how can we show analysis multimodally?
- what do we need to know in order to make sense of and represent adolescents' hybrid meaning making?
we're on spring break this week and i'm hoping that we all return rejuvenated, inspired, and full of possibilities as approach the next half of the semester. in the meantime i will continue my personal inquiry of (critical?) transparent pedagogy both in and out of the lovely seminar room in which we convene these discussions and explorations.
here is a site that continues to help me sort through questions & issues related to representation (of ethnography, in particular):
Visualising Ethnography
Critical Perspectives on Visual Imagery in Media and Cyberculture
3.11.2005
engineering wonders...
i started out as an engineering student oh so many years ago, but after a year and half i realized that it wasn't through engineering - mech-e to b.e., to be precise - that i was going to be able to fulfill my then-naive desire to engage in some creative problem solving. (let's not worry that i didn't know what problems i wanted solved, save the o-ring snafu that left an indelible mark on my 5th grade psyche that led me down the path of engineering to begin with!)
today, i discovered another reason to love engineering: the i/o brush. those folks at mit are doing it again - enticing me with their truly fabulous imaginations and love of possibilities. scroll down and watch the video demonstration for some real fun!
off to find more wonders that i can play with :)
today, i discovered another reason to love engineering: the i/o brush. those folks at mit are doing it again - enticing me with their truly fabulous imaginations and love of possibilities. scroll down and watch the video demonstration for some real fun!
off to find more wonders that i can play with :)
3.10.2005
things i learned this week
- about wikis and the wikipedia
- teachers can be together for several days at a time and never once consider that what children and youth do out of school might be relevant to their in-school learning
- running on a track really is different than running outside
- cold stone creamery mix-in delights are definitely worth seconds
- the current administration wants to help america's youth
?!?!?!
- teachers can be together for several days at a time and never once consider that what children and youth do out of school might be relevant to their in-school learning
- running on a track really is different than running outside
- cold stone creamery mix-in delights are definitely worth seconds
- the current administration wants to help america's youth
?!?!?!
2.27.2005
random string of thoughts
i haven't posted in a while - mainly b/c i'm still getting used to making my incomplete thoughts public... (although my class is faced with these digressions on a weekly basis!).
last weekend i attended nctear in columbus. apart from freezing temps - that contrasted with the near-balmy weather we'd been having in nyc in the several days prior to my leaving the east coast - i found myself in the midst of several multilayered conversations about literacy, literacies, semiotics, language, media, technologies, space, time, and love. yes, love. (i'll return to that shortly)
as i sat in audience through keynotes and roundtable style presentations, presented two papers (one co-authored with Kathy Schultz) and participated in informal conversations, i found myself laughing on the inside at one recurring thought: if we're all asking questions upon questions, who's offerring some answers? laughing b/c harvey graff and deborah brandt began the conference by posing broad musings about exactly what is literacy? laughing b/c the two participants that kevin leander brought with him - zoe and stephen, who are a part of his ongoing research on youths' online literacy and technology practices - seemed to be lightyears ahead of their audience in terms of what it meant to engage with technologies as an everyday practice, and had us rapt with attention as the lines between their presentation and practice blurred in front of us... laughing b/c so many of us are making a life in pursuit of still more questions... and perhaps that is part of the point: what new questions can we ask? that might, i hope, lead us to engage in work/research that is then responsive to the world in which we live. or, i fear, are we engaging in all this work without paying enough mind to what carol lee reminded us of: what is all this research for?
in between last weekend and this weekend, i had the opportunity to share some of my work with the teachers college community in two quite different venues. as a result i have been in email and face-to-face contact with students with whom i have been talking about the study that anchored my dissertation work. these conversations have caused me to reflect, again, on my graduate school career and the lessons learned by asking the question of for. and, has raised for me the question of what graduate schools of education are doing to support graduate students to keep the question - what am i doing this for? - at the forefront of their studies and practice. that is, how can we support research that is at once intellectually rigorous, ethical, academically responsible, and committed to social justice? or, as another colleague put it, in response to students who wondered aloud whether every day had to be about being "critical": can we afford to "take a day off"?
this weekend, i attended a few sessions of the ethnography forum at the university of pennsylvania's graduate school of education. in particular, i was moved by pauline lipman's keynote on friday evening when she spoke of "politcally engaged ethnography" and made call to action for researchers to take seriously their roles and work in the global discourses of education within this climate of war and resistance. she challenges us to take seriously and perform educational research that is political, partisan, and methodologically rigorous. she expounded eloquently on a question i have asked simply over the last several years: what counts as research/data/analysis? and whose voices/perspectives/realities are considered?
these posts always go on too long and make me wonder how they are connected to the topic of the course.. only they are - if only to remind me that we are not isolated in our work as teachers and researchers. this both a path of frustration and a sign of possibility...
last weekend i attended nctear in columbus. apart from freezing temps - that contrasted with the near-balmy weather we'd been having in nyc in the several days prior to my leaving the east coast - i found myself in the midst of several multilayered conversations about literacy, literacies, semiotics, language, media, technologies, space, time, and love. yes, love. (i'll return to that shortly)
as i sat in audience through keynotes and roundtable style presentations, presented two papers (one co-authored with Kathy Schultz) and participated in informal conversations, i found myself laughing on the inside at one recurring thought: if we're all asking questions upon questions, who's offerring some answers? laughing b/c harvey graff and deborah brandt began the conference by posing broad musings about exactly what is literacy? laughing b/c the two participants that kevin leander brought with him - zoe and stephen, who are a part of his ongoing research on youths' online literacy and technology practices - seemed to be lightyears ahead of their audience in terms of what it meant to engage with technologies as an everyday practice, and had us rapt with attention as the lines between their presentation and practice blurred in front of us... laughing b/c so many of us are making a life in pursuit of still more questions... and perhaps that is part of the point: what new questions can we ask? that might, i hope, lead us to engage in work/research that is then responsive to the world in which we live. or, i fear, are we engaging in all this work without paying enough mind to what carol lee reminded us of: what is all this research for?
in between last weekend and this weekend, i had the opportunity to share some of my work with the teachers college community in two quite different venues. as a result i have been in email and face-to-face contact with students with whom i have been talking about the study that anchored my dissertation work. these conversations have caused me to reflect, again, on my graduate school career and the lessons learned by asking the question of for. and, has raised for me the question of what graduate schools of education are doing to support graduate students to keep the question - what am i doing this for? - at the forefront of their studies and practice. that is, how can we support research that is at once intellectually rigorous, ethical, academically responsible, and committed to social justice? or, as another colleague put it, in response to students who wondered aloud whether every day had to be about being "critical": can we afford to "take a day off"?
this weekend, i attended a few sessions of the ethnography forum at the university of pennsylvania's graduate school of education. in particular, i was moved by pauline lipman's keynote on friday evening when she spoke of "politcally engaged ethnography" and made call to action for researchers to take seriously their roles and work in the global discourses of education within this climate of war and resistance. she challenges us to take seriously and perform educational research that is political, partisan, and methodologically rigorous. she expounded eloquently on a question i have asked simply over the last several years: what counts as research/data/analysis? and whose voices/perspectives/realities are considered?
these posts always go on too long and make me wonder how they are connected to the topic of the course.. only they are - if only to remind me that we are not isolated in our work as teachers and researchers. this both a path of frustration and a sign of possibility...
2.06.2005
collective, democratic spaces
perhaps it's because i've been reading a friend's article draft about counterhegemonic pedagogies in a middle school that i have been thinking a lot about pedagogy and space lately... i find myself in an interesting struggle at times between wanting to see where the conversation takes us, and the recognition that threads must be pulled together in coherent ways. on whom, however, does/should the dilemma/challenge/responsibility of making an activity meaningful fall? it is probably a better question to ask: how can all participants in a group contribute to the collective learning experience(s) within, for example, the context of a class?
in a related sense, i am still left wondering about our conversation from thursday evening. important ideas like agency, power, society, and resistance were brought up as we considered literacy in the context of adolescents. among the questions we asked had to do with the dissonances that exist (and that are often played out) between "old" literacies and "new" literacies - though to say that is perhaps distilling a complex conversation to few loaded terms. i will leave it at that for now, only to say that the resulting discursive meandering brought up the very significant and difficult-to-address questions of "who decides?" "who is included?" "what is and who has/enacts/uses agency?" i am left wondering, however, whether we raised any new questions? that is, is the function of graduate level seminars in the study of literacies to make sense of what has already been said, written, and debated? (and/) or is our purpose to consider still new ways in to the multilayered, always significant, ever-contentious literacy debates?
so now we arrive at another dimension of the aforementioned dilemma: what is the kind of pedagogy/ies that is inclusive and co-constructed (feminist? multicultural?), consciousness-raising and action-oriented (critical? antiracist?), and attends to the needs for lectures, discussions, hands-on experiences, and inquiry? i am forever in awe of and owe a tremendous debt to teachers who engage in these musings in both thought and practice on a daily basis, especially the many whose friendship continues to inform my practice. it is written on my schedule that i "teach" once a week, but how are those boundaries drawn? similarly, where are the boundaries between teacher and student in a context where we are learning from and with each other? beyond that, aren't we always teaching and learning with and from each other - beyond the classroom walls, outside of scripted curriculum and requirements...???
there, i've done it again - followed a digression straight to more boundary-less questions...! so, an attempt at thread-pulling (with a hope that i don't unravel the sweater in the process): it is my hope that we are becoming a community of learners together and that in doing so we are going to challenge one another to think deeply, express ourselves clearly and with conviction and support each other's burgeoning thoughts. i will strive to enact a pedagogy that is responsive to the diverse needs and interests of the fabulous group of people who are in this class, and ask for similar participation from the group.
now some words from june:
in a related sense, i am still left wondering about our conversation from thursday evening. important ideas like agency, power, society, and resistance were brought up as we considered literacy in the context of adolescents. among the questions we asked had to do with the dissonances that exist (and that are often played out) between "old" literacies and "new" literacies - though to say that is perhaps distilling a complex conversation to few loaded terms. i will leave it at that for now, only to say that the resulting discursive meandering brought up the very significant and difficult-to-address questions of "who decides?" "who is included?" "what is and who has/enacts/uses agency?" i am left wondering, however, whether we raised any new questions? that is, is the function of graduate level seminars in the study of literacies to make sense of what has already been said, written, and debated? (and/) or is our purpose to consider still new ways in to the multilayered, always significant, ever-contentious literacy debates?
so now we arrive at another dimension of the aforementioned dilemma: what is the kind of pedagogy/ies that is inclusive and co-constructed (feminist? multicultural?), consciousness-raising and action-oriented (critical? antiracist?), and attends to the needs for lectures, discussions, hands-on experiences, and inquiry? i am forever in awe of and owe a tremendous debt to teachers who engage in these musings in both thought and practice on a daily basis, especially the many whose friendship continues to inform my practice. it is written on my schedule that i "teach" once a week, but how are those boundaries drawn? similarly, where are the boundaries between teacher and student in a context where we are learning from and with each other? beyond that, aren't we always teaching and learning with and from each other - beyond the classroom walls, outside of scripted curriculum and requirements...???
there, i've done it again - followed a digression straight to more boundary-less questions...! so, an attempt at thread-pulling (with a hope that i don't unravel the sweater in the process): it is my hope that we are becoming a community of learners together and that in doing so we are going to challenge one another to think deeply, express ourselves clearly and with conviction and support each other's burgeoning thoughts. i will strive to enact a pedagogy that is responsive to the diverse needs and interests of the fabulous group of people who are in this class, and ask for similar participation from the group.
now some words from june:
I ain’t goin nowhere unless you come with me
I say I ain’t goin nowhere lessen you come with me
I ain’t about to be some leaf that lose its tree
So take my hand see how I’m reachin out for you
We got a whole lot more than only one us can do
—June Jordan
I say I ain’t goin nowhere lessen you come with me
I ain’t about to be some leaf that lose its tree
So take my hand see how I’m reachin out for you
We got a whole lot more than only one us can do
—June Jordan
1.31.2005
while we're on the subject
here's a few more links to blogs and youths' online worlds:
- Spank! Youth and Teen Culture Online
- Into the Blogosphere - rhetoris, community, and culture of weblogs
- Sex, etc.
there is another question at play in my head: are there private spaces online? or, perhaps worded differently: what are the parameters of private and public online? how are they changing? these are not just questions relevant for participating in online discourse (that's never really just "online"), but also for the wide, wide world of research and the politics of intrusion and researcher responsibility...
also related: if we're interested in understanding (for a variety of purposes) how youth are engaging in literacy performances across contexts and modalities, what do we need to know/learn/understand/explore about/with youth in order to perform research that is both responsive and responsible?
(mollie blackburn's work on literacy performances offers a lovely frame for considering the living, breathing nature of literacy in youths' lives; see above link as well this one for ongoing theorizing about literacy and agency )
adolescents online
once again, thanks to angela thomas and her fabulous e-selves site, i can pass on a wonderful resource: Adolescents and Teens Online (bibliography).
also check out lois's (the author's) blog (winner of all sorts of blog research awards).
also check out lois's (the author's) blog (winner of all sorts of blog research awards).
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