The Discordant Dash for Doctoral Degrees

Let’s start with the premise that the pursuit and award of a doctoral degree equals economic privilege. Add in a dash of consideration for J. Elspeth Stuckey’s idea that by the time mainstream students reach the ninth grade, they have already achieved an elite academic status (The Violence of Literacy). Now take a quick glance at table #283 (page 23) in the Census Bureau’s updated 2004-2005 Statistical Abstract of the American Indian and Alaska Native Population: http://www.census.gov/statab/www/sa04aian.pdf.

This should be disturbing to more people than myself. I am just one short week away from taking my comprehensive exams (for my doctoral degree), so am trying to concentrate on reviewing, but find my attention sidelined by details such as this. Once again, as with my prior post on economic disparity within my home academic institution, I find myself distracted and upset and wondering what the hell is the answer to this problem?

Look specifically at the “Doctor’s degrees” section of Table 283 “Degrees Earned by Level and Race/Ethnicity: 1981-2002.” Notice anything strange?

The number of doctoral degrees conferred to Blacks, Hispanics, Asian or Pacific Islanders (which, by the way, is a misnomer since many Pacific Islanders consider themselves more “indigenous” than “Asian”), and Nonresident Aliens (whatever the hell that means) ALL increased in the number of degrees earned from 1981 to 2002. The number of degrees to whites went down 18%, but I honestly don’t think that’s a problem, considering whites still outnumber all other groups by a considerable sum. The only group that stayed the same was American Indian/Alaska Native - .4% in 1981 and .4% in 2002. The real number difference shows a total increase of 50 degrees, but with a severe drop in 1990 to 98 (a drop shared during that same time only with Black/Non-Hispanics…have to wonder if U.S. economic policies of the 1980s had anything to do with that), which means that unlike Hispanics, Asians, and Nonresident Aliens that made consistent upward progress in this category, American Indians and Alaska Natives somehow found themselves fighting an uphill battle for elite academic (and ostensibly economic) status.

But wait. This uphill battle is a pretty consistent problem for Native peoples – from challenges with literacy to continued treaty and land disputes with the U.S. federal government, tribes are certainly striving in their own, self-defined ways to overcome considerable obstacles, but this doctoral degree disparity seems especially problematic. Why? Well, for one thing, remember that I started with the premise that we can all agree, regardless of racial or economic background, that obtaining a PhD equates to economic privilege and status…and flat out more money. Anyone with a doctorate is generally going to make more than someone without a doctorate – regardless of field or industry and irrespective of how and where that degree is used (whether in a university or in the government or in the private sector). The fact that American Indians are essentially earning almost the same number of doctorates in 2002 as in 1981 while all other non-white groups saw some kind of positive change indicates that perhaps Native communities don’t value this highest degree as much as other groups? Or perhaps not enough Native undergraduates matriculate and continue on into graduate school? Or perhaps a lack of funding opportunities, despite an abundant focus on diversity initiatives and affirmative action-esque quotas on college campuses?

I don’t have an answer to this frustrating and easily identified problem, but it seems pretty clear that there is a problem related to higher education in our Native American communities. Of course, I know that the problems run much deeper than this. However, education and economic opportunity have always been tightly bound together, especially in the U.S. and especially now in modern (or “postmodern”) times. Looking at these numbers is like looking at a fence…the barrier is clear. The disparity shown by this formal statistical table relates to thousands of Native people living in less-than-desirable economic situations. Think about it. If more Native students went on to graduate school, chances are pretty good that they would make more money for their families…if we can look at other groups and our own situations as comparable examples.

If we, as a people in this nation, claim to believe that education is the “answer” to economic problems…why aren’t we doing more to help this particular group solve its own problems through higher educational achievement? At the very least, more non-Native people should be aware of this problem. And more people should give a damn about it - maybe then our leaders would also pay attention to disparities such as this.

Interesting that no politician currently running for President has meaningfully addressed Native communities and their concerns thusfar, beyond some lip service. Telling. Very telling.

(Edit: The Dems allowed this one tribal college president to speak: http://www.reznetnews.org/article/united-tribes-technical-college/tribal-college-president-decries-poverty-indian-country
...wonder if the Repubs have a similar plan?)

The fallacy of "Academic Community"

One of the persistent underlying themes of my comprehensive exam readings is the concept of community. And because I prefer to concretely connect abstract concepts to my sense of reality, this now has me thinking about my communities. Most disturbingly, I have discovered that the idea of an “academic community” is a fallacy.

Let me lay down some groundwork for this conclusion. Between my readings and my own developing beliefs, my loose definition of community entails interaction, communication, and understanding among the members. Easy, right? Well…no. Consider this scenario. I am a member of the “academic community.” What does that mean, exactly? That I am participating in the academic, university environment? Ok, but based on my aforementioned definition, that’s not enough. Let’s consider interactivity – who do I interact with in the broader “academic community”? Professors, instructors, and graduate students in my department. A couple of grad students outside my department (thanks to my service on the Graduate Student Council last year). The librarians. That’s about it. So maybe that qualifies. How about communication?

Yes, I definitely communicate with all of the above mentioned folks. Check. And understanding? Ummm. Ok, I think this is where things fall apart. Let’s take just one common question: “What are you getting your PhD in?”

I get this one all the time. In fact, it is one of the unwritten and unspoken rules of grad school that this must be one of the first questions you ask upon meeting a fellow grad student for the first time. Here is how that interaction usually goes when the question is directed at me from a fellow grad student outside the English department:

“What are you getting your PhD in?”

“Composition and Rhetoric with a focus on Native American rhetoric and literacy”

Response range: Half-smile/half-recognition of terms to glazed eyes/raised eyebrows

I try again: “Writing”

Full on smile/recognition: “oh!”

Usually the conversation then veers onto something else, like the temperature and flavor of the free pizza, but on the off chance that the poor soul attempts to continue, which has happened a handful of times, this is how that conversation usually progresses:

“Really? What’s Native American rhetoric? Who are the theorists?”

“The way Native scholars past and present use language in various situations to make a point. Some of the big names are Vine Deloria, Robert Warrior, Jace Weaver, Joy Harjo…”

At this point, recognition is so far away that I usually throw in “Leslie Marmon Silko,” at which point the proverbial light bulb goes on and out comes another, “ooohhh! I read Ceremony as an undergrad!”

Le sigh.

Back to the concept of community. Very often, when this conversation plays out in my own department among myself and professors, instructors, or fellow English grad students, I get similar reactions because the “academy” is very good at partitioning itself into insular, disconnected compartments that seldom, if ever, interact. So “Native American rhetoric” is a foreign concept to many in the English department as much as “Composition and Rhetoric” is a foreign designation to anyone outside the English department.

(And by the way, all of this magnifies once I step outside the academic environment and try to interact with friends and family “on the outside,” so to speak. They really glaze over and lack understanding about what exactly it is that I do. And not only do they not understand, they also aren’t interested in learning, so conversation always shifts to other topics.)

I’m questioning whether there is such a thing as an “academic community” at all. Who exactly is in the community who can interact, communicate, and understand the fields I’m studying and discussing? Let’s see, that would be my three-member professorial committee, a handful of instructors and all of my grad student friends who took my director’s Native American theory class with me last spring. (I know I’m selfishly presenting myself and my situation, but I imagine the same argument could be made for someone in the Biology Department, or Family Services, or Poultry Science, etc.)

Certainly my little cohort of folks who can interact and communicate with, and understand me in discussions of Native American theorists and rhetoric qualifies as a sub-community within the larger English department community, which is part of the Humanities community within the Auburn University structure, which is part of the broader “university” or “academic community” in the U.S. and the world. So many levels of community, but can we really call those broader categories communities, considering the lack of interaction, communication, and understanding between the internal members of the sub-genres and sub-communities that make up the larger versions?

Instead of “community,” which puts a positive spin and gloss over what the superstructure really is – and I see this term in academic journals as well as my own writing -- we should be honest and stop pretending to be a community. We should call the broader groupings by a more honest and less happy term: an institution. Seems to me in recent years, people have been trying to get away from the term “institution” because of its negative connotations. Well. Yeah. An institution can operate, function, and even flourish without its members interacting, communicating, or even feigning understanding across boundaries. As long as the work gets done and everyone gets paid, the “institution” is just fine.

The institution is really a machine. Not a community that functionally relies on the interconnectivity and interdependence of its participants.

And as far as re-casting the institutional machinery of the academy into the frame of a community as I envision it, well, I just don’t know if that’s really possible. It would require members of the compartmentalized units to truly care about what’s going on in other units – enough to at least learn some fundamentals or even just basic concepts and terminology. But honestly, who has time for that? The pressures of “publish or perish” – which is ridiculous and a problem to tackle another day – in addition to administrative and service requirements that come with working in academe restrict members to focusing on their own compartments (for job survival) while engaged in academic business. Outside time is usually devoted to hobbies and interests that have very little or nothing to do with that institutional machinery…and perhaps that is where our best chance for “academic” community resides – in the external interactions of academic professionals engaged in non-academic activities, like Niffer’s trivia on Mondays and Project Runway Appreciation Nights. ;)

Privilege and impotence

I am being paid to read, study, think, synthesize, regurgitate others’ ideas, and contribute to an academic conversation that may never have any practical application in the real world. If that isn’t the ultimate position of privilege, I don’t know what is. And people who complain about being busy and how hard this work is just boggles my mind.

I’m reading Richard Rodriguez, Victor Villanueva, and other “academics of color” on issues of education, literacy, language, power, and class. Much of their experiences are relatable to me only in terms of the privileged position I share with them in the academy and in a middle class background with all its opportunities and benefits.

What do I mean by this in a country where being “middle class” now seems to be a political distinction for “struggle.” (Seriously?)

Here’s what I mean.

In 2005, I decided to work in Yellowstone National Park for three months in the summer. The jobs I held were “hard” in comparison to what I do now – grill cook and dormitory manager. The day-to-day responsibilities of grill cook entailed standing for three to four hours at a time twice a day on a concrete floor in front of a superheated slab of metal, slinging burgers, chicken breasts, and gardenburgers (no separation between them on the grill, by the way), and listening to privileged tourists from home and abroad abuse the serving staff (*snap snap* go the fingers, “No ice!”, “Where’s my tuna fish?!”). Hard. The second job for the second half of the summer as the dorm manager entailed coping with privileged college students who were confused and angered by the tourists and older store employees who expected to sleep each night instead of listening to their loud and drunken parties, in addition to cleaning toilets, urinals, shower stalls, emptying garbage, and vacuuming/Windexing the public spaces of the dorm every day. Hard.

But all of this I did by CHOICE. You will see no one working at Yellowstone who isn’t there by choice. Who can’t afford to make $7/hour and not worry about paying the bills at home. Who isn’t from a privileged, middle class, well-educated, articulate background. Working physically demanding jobs for a few months in a stunning national park is a choice. Just as going to graduate school and getting a PhD is a choice. But there are custodians at my university who clean toilets, urinals, floors, and take out the residents’ garbage (with a smile and a friendly ‘hi’) every day for a salary of $16,100 per year. Is this a choice? I doubt it.

The salary information for any public state university is available to the public. A friend of mine shared this page of data about our university with me yesterday and I was stunned at the economic disparity laid out in those cold, black and white numbers. I agree with him – no one who works for this wealthy, privileged university that dumps MILLIONS into its athletic program – should make less than $20,000 a year. Not the custodians. Not campus security. Not lab technicians. To be working a hard job for less than $20,000 a year seems criminal. This is where a union would be beneficial.

I know this attitude opens me up to all sorts of attacks – Marxist! Communist! Re-distributing wealth is bad! Unions bad! And I’m not a huge fan of unions – I think generally they take money from the people they purport to help and represent, but then don’t necessarily deliver. And I also think unionization can allow for lax work ethics – hey, I’m making $25 an hour whether I break a sweat or not, so why break a sweat? (Sounds like tenure, doesn’t it?) We’ve all heard the arguments. But the more I read and the more I think and the more I realize what a privileged position of choice I am in now and have always been in and will always BE in…the more appalled I am at this economic disparity within one institutional structure.

What’s the answer? The old stand-by answer is that the system has to change. Ok. But how?

Well, would the professor making $165,000 a year really miss $500? No. And if the answer is yes, then this person is living far beyond his means and needs to cut back. And how about the argument that it is not the responsibility of the person raking in $165,000 for reading and thinking all day? He did SOMETHING to achieve that privileged position…why make HIM pay for the institutional disparity? Well, I suppose this is my inner-liberal-academic coming out, but perhaps it IS our responsibility. If not to contribute to the increase of salaries, but to put pressure on those who make those decisions to change the cruelly disparate work-to-money value ratio…yes, even in a year of budget cuts.

Frankly, if this (or any) university can afford to pay its coaching staff all six-figure salaries, then the least it can do is value its custodial and other hard-working employees who may not have a choice with “upward mobility” enough to provide an equitable salary for a more comfortable life. And for most of us, let’s be honest, $20,000 don’t come close to providing “a comfortable life.” When’s the last time you made $20 grand a year? My last time was as a freelance journalist in the last decade…but that was BY CHOICE.

This is not a new question. It is not a new problem. But having seen that sheet of paper with those numbers, I find myself truly disturbed at my own privileged place in this society and my utter impotence to change anything about it.

"Areas of National Need"

Racism. Misunderstandings across cultural boundaries. Tolerance (or lack thereof). Adult literacy. Feelings of alienation by good students in college classrooms designed to “weed” them out. Writing and being able to master the language and discourse of mainstream America in order to compete effectively within that culture. These are just a few categories that I believe our nation needs to focus on and improve. And much of this work could be done in education. But then, in search of current information on the number of PhDs granted last year in America, I entered the self-congratulatory stump-site of the Department of Education and open the very distracting Higher Education Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Request.

Thinking this might hold the elusive answer to that original question, I flip through the .pdf pages until the title of one catches my attention: Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need.

Ah ha! I think, maybe there is an opportunity there for me. I envisioned the list to be broad, as our “needs” are many, according to my studies (see above – and add your own issues to the list!). Would you like to know what our hegemonic federal government considers to be “Areas of National Need” to the point that they provide $30,000 three-year fellowships to graduate students of “superior ability and high financial need studying in areas of national need”?

Personally, I think teaching young adults how to negotiate the overwhelming world of written communication in ways that will benefit them in the long run to be serving a vital need. I’ve taught corporate training sessions for execs who can’t write, so don’t try to tell me that good writing skills are not vitally important to the running of this nation’s businesses. And don’t get me started on the inability to think critically…which apparently is a bad idea – how dare we question anything, right?

Anywho – as you can tell, this DOE document has gotten me fairly irritated, focusing as it does unnecessarily on areas that do NOT have the most pressing need for our society’s health. According to the DOE, the way they determine these areas is “by taking into account the extent to which these areas fulfill a compelling national interest.” A compelling national interest. The Department of Education, as representative of our entire government right now, is completely off the mark. The most vital, pressing, and important “Areas of National Need” where graduate students can get extra government funding are as follows: biology, chemistry, computer information sciences, engineering, geological and related sciences, mathematics, physics, and nursing.

And what happens when these highly focused students who are currently undergraduates in these “areas of national need” get into grad school and can’t coherently communicate an idea in writing? This list clearly articulates the blinded, competitive, narrowly-focused agenda of the current administration and all U.S. administrations. The underlying message behind this privileged list is abundantly clear – if you are in one of these fields and care about the issues in these fields, you are valued. If you are not in one of these fields and care about issues outside these fields, you are not valued in this society.

Message received loud and clear. And although my students may not be aware of this document, many of them do feel the pinch of pressure to perform at a higher level than they may be prepared for when in these fields’ classes. Privileging from the top down – the government decrees, the universities obey, the students who are confused or need help are pushed out, and the cycle of intolerance, misunderstanding, and alienation continues. One solution to this egregious list might be to include some of the more humanistic fields like writing, philosophy, art, music, and yes…education.

Independence Day indeed.

The offending document - http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget08/justifications/r-highered.pdf

Empowering students to join the conversation

One of my students, a young African-American woman (I’ll call her “Liz”) from an inner-city childhood and substandard schools, told me yesterday about her experiences and passionate commitment to improving conditions in VA hospitals. She has volunteered in a particular VA hospital since she was 12 years old and at age 16, had some truly life-changing and eye-opening experiences including vets being turned away, uncaring high-salaried administrators, and witnessing the physical therapy department lack the funds and equipment to help vets in pain. She now wants to be in the physical/rehabilitative therapy field as a result, but her anger about the government’s lack of financial attention to veterans’ care lends a sharp edge to her words and presentation of her thoughts. And yet she considers herself a terrible writer. She utterly lacks confidence in her ability to convey her thoughts and ideas in writing.

She received a 99 out of 100 on her first major essay for me. When she saw her score, she was visibly shocked and said in a quiet, shaky whisper, “I’ve never gotten an A on a paper before.” Then she cried.

I was stunned and moved both by Liz’s reaction to her outstanding performance on paper and angry at an education system and English teachers before me in Liz’s life who were either unwilling or unable to recognize her passionate commitment and quality thinking. And then I realized that perhaps Liz’s ability to thrive had something to do with the subject matter of our composition class and my teaching strategy that combines expressivism with critical pedagogy and an awareness that perfect grammar does not make a perfect writer. Some of my best thinkers have imperfect grammar and sentence structures – but their ideas are creative and compelling and usually well-organized with a passionate focus. I also offer as much encouragement as I can to students like Liz, especially when they so clearly care about doing well and are so evidently terrified of the task at hand. How did our educational system get to this point where fear and dislike of writing is so deeply ingrained that too many students tell me regularly, “I’m so bad at English,” “I’m a terrible writer,” “I’m just not good at writing.”

I counter these statements with my own: “You know more than you think you do,” “Give yourself more credit, these are good ideas,” “You’re not a terrible writer, you’re a good thinker and that leads to good writing, I’ll help you.”

Although I am new to teaching in academia, I am not new to teaching. I’ve been a mentor in varying capacities since my mid-20s, I’ve taught at numerous writers’ conferences helping other (newer) writers develop the skills and confidence to start a freelance writing career, and I’ve directed community theatre, which requires all sorts of teaching and mentoring skills with all ages. Encouragement, support, and compassion are at the root of every teaching moment I encounter…and it boggles my mind that all other teachers don’t approach teaching with the same attitude. But then, I’m starting to realize that in academia – at the university level – teaching is often a side dish, not the main course. And unfortunately for students like Liz, this means they become relegated to dishwashing duty instead of learning how to become first-class chefs.

Part of my composition/rhetoric reading list for my upcoming exams includes Min-Zhan Lu’s “Conflict and Struggle: Enemies or Preconditions of Basic Writing” from a 1992 College English issue. Lu cites Ann Murphy’s essay, “Transference and Resistance” that “draws on her knowledge of the Lacanian notion of the decentered and destabilized subject.” Murphy argues that Basic Writers “may need centering rather than decentering and cognitive skills rather than self-exploration…being taken seriously as adults with something of value to say can, for many Basic Writers, be a traumatic and disorienting experience.” I have to wonder – in the case of a student like Liz, would this also be liberating and empowering as well? By giving students a sense of control and ownership of their own experiences and place in the world – or at least opening the door and inviting them to feel this – wouldn’t this also be a positive growth experience?

In addition to Murphy, Lu also cites Peter Rondinone, who maintains that “learning involves shifting social allegiances,” and asserts that “conflict can only impede one’s learning.” Lu is alarmed by this and so am I. Conflict, struggle, difficulties – these are a natural part of life, in or out of the college writing classroom. Conflict and coping with struggles can create some of the most memorable and lasting learning moments – sometimes life-changing, but ultimately positive, even if the conflict moment itself is painful in the short term. The long-term gains from learning how to cope with and articulate struggle can be extremely beneficial in very tangible ways.

Last night, Liz emailed me that she couldn’t locate her finished paper on her computer – she didn’t save it correctly, spent two hours looking for it, and couldn’t find it. So she wrote to say she’d take a zero on the assignment.I got her email this morning, wrote back instantly and told her no, that she shouldn’t give up that easily. I emailed her the two page draft she’d sent me and told her to use that as the base of the new re-written paper. She came to see me this morning and we talked extensively – many things seem to be going ‘wrong’ for her right now, and this lost paper combined with a failing math test were the so-called final straws. We talked about the need to learn how to cope with obstacles and how common problems like this really are – that instead of giving up and giving in to the urge to withdraw from the semester entirely, she should take a moment to be angry, and cry, and lament how unfair life is…then get back on the computer and re-write the paper. Basically, I tried to encourage her not to give up because she has a modest and completely attainable goal – to graduate and help people (in some capacity). She also has never experienced teachers like myself and her math teacher – apparently, we are the only two teachers she has encountered in college thus far who truly seem interested in helping her succeed.Apparently, when she has approached other teachers for help, the result is a rather disengaged rote repetition of common assistive advice – not truly personal help.

Some may argue that a big research university isn’t the place for students to receive personal help from over-taxed professors. Sink or swim. Survival of the fittest. But what if by helping Liz, she realizes her own capacity to overcome adversity and does graduate, then goes on to become a public advocate for improving VA hospitals? Perhaps these learning moments that are fraught with conflict, difficulty, and discomfort are the moments she will absorb and then, years later, benefit a community of people in need because of her willingness to bravely and substantially face the difficulties of life head on.

Don’t we owe it to our students to empower them to learn from conflict and struggle, no matter how small or how large the issue, and to fearlessly join the human conversation? Isn’t that why we’re teaching? Or shouldn’t that at least be part of it?

The power and volatility of language

Funny thing about language. Once you say something, it’s out there. It can’t be taken back or reversed. The direct or indirect implications of a statement can’t be fixed or corrected or even amended. Once a thought, spoken with words, is verbalized, it becomes powerful and potentially volatile.

Consider a situation in which a person you are dating tells you they love you. For most people, this is a pivotal moment in the relationship, loaded with all sorts of emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical implications. And usually, it is a joyous moment.

My experience as a writer, a writing teacher, and an analytic engager with culture, has taught me that a person’s language and spoken utterances should be weighed and considered carefully. Therefore, it takes me awhile to process something that was said – I consider how the statement was said, when it was said, in what context it was spoken, and why that statement might have seemed appropriate to the other person at that time. I also weigh my own reaction to that statement – how and why I reacted a certain way externally and internally, whether my reaction was rational or extreme.

All of this careful consideration of spoken language has a purpose – to help me grow as a person, understand more about human nature and myself, and to guarantee that I don’t make snap judgments about people and situations. This tactic has served me well over the past decade, protected me from questionable situations, and helped me give good people more of a chance to enter and become part of my life.

Back to “I love you.” The timing of this particularly loaded phrase is crucial to its success or failure. For example, after dating for several months, and developing a progressively stronger bond with someone that begins to transcend physical desire, one person feels comfortable enough to utter this pivotal phrase, thus exposing the rawest and most vulnerable part of themselves to scrutiny (and worse, rejection); the response from the other party is telling. If the other person instantly responds sincerely with “I love you, too,” then much rejoicing results and the relationship enters a new and glorious phase. If, however, the response is silence, or confusion, or “How could you love me, you don’t really know me,” then the negative and volatile impact of that single utterance becomes a barrier to progress. Because now imbalance and the awareness of that imbalance takes center stage and can become an insurmountable obstacle.

Now consider what might happen if, for example, the man tells the woman he loves her and is sure of it…on the second date. (I’ll wait for you to stop hyperventilating.)…..

And starts talking about marriage and moving in and the future during the first week of dating….

This is the situation I recently found myself in. So while some women might run screaming in the other direction, I paused for thought. I verbally (and gently) rebuffed, directly established my boundaries and comfort zone, and gave him a chance to live in the moment and not bring it up again.

He did bring it up again – differently, but obviously. So I thought some more and re-established my boundaries and reiterated my aversion to implied references to the future. And to every verbal exchange, he would agree, and then proceed to bring it up again and again in direct and indirect ways that became so persistent that I realized his emotional attachment to me was unhealthily strong for being such a new relationship (three weeks). What to do, what to do.

I looked it up…in a book. Of course. Books have provided so much guidance to me that I have come to rely on them for answers or help with thinking through problems. And it turns out, this intense and fast emotional attachment is a psychological condition that has been studied – it’s called Anxious Romantic Attachment. And the 33 question test for it (in a scholarly psychological book, not on some web site) revealed to me almost everything this very nice and well-meaning guy had done to a very high level…within three weeks. A high score on this test indicates or reinforces that the person has a “tendency toward anxious romantic attachments.” And every scrap of affection given reinforces the person’s already elevated sense of attachment…and they are very hard to dissuade.

Armed with my own discomfort and this information, I thought some more and reflected on this man’s words and actions over the past three weeks, in hopes that I would discover a point of misunderstanding – meaning, perhaps I misunderstood something or misinterpreted a statement or situation. But the more I thought and considered, the more I realized that this wasn’t a scenario I wanted to participate in.

Language in relationships is so important, reinforced by actions. So I’m not really a believer in that old stand-by phrase, “Actions speak louder than words.” Very often, I find that words scream a mouthful of intention that can’t be ignored or corrected by the sweetest actions. Sometimes when someone you care about says something at the wrong time, in the wrong context, even with the most honorable and honest intentions, the power of language renders the situation irredeemable, completely cut short of its potential had those words not been uttered.

Daydreamer

Trying to write a blog while being a PhD student sometimes seems an exercise in futility, as evidenced by the fact that my last post was June 2007. And yet here I am again because I can’t not write. Yes, that’s right. An English PhD candidate just used a double-negative…correctly, might I add, and absolutely intentionally. I work within parameters but I love breaking the rules, especially if the desired outcome can still be achieved. Pushing the boundaries of what makes an acceptable and appropriate writing teacher is one of my current projects. So what inspired this return to the blog? A book. No surprise, really. Books have always helped me to think through problems, issues, social and family situations, personal demons. And this is no different.

The book is Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary and I’m reading it in service of my comprehensive exams, upcoming at the end of August (if I get my way with scheduling). Although we come from very different backgrounds, I found my own experiences mirrored somehow in his recollections of literacy, language, and education as a youngster. One phrase in particular struck me: “the abyss of paradise”…what a fabulous evocative phrase – the text so far is littered with gems like this. (I’m only on page 131) Another gem from the introduction also resonates with me: “the resilience of the imagination.” Words to live by. At least for me…and I want to find a way to help my students understand the vital importance of imagination in reading and writing and education.

As I sat outside Applebee’s last night waiting for my friend, Jessica, I ruminated on what I’d read of Rose’s text thus far. Here are some thoughts I wrote down on the back of an envelope containing a thank you card and a $10 gift certificate to Books a Million (for my participation in some friends’ graduate research project during spring 2008):

Ability and skill with language for me meant escape, acceptance, and a way to harness and use my imagination in ways that gained me recognition, which, in turn, fueled my confidence and self-esteem when more traditional sources of these failed or frustrated me (friends, parents, standard academic subjects and classroom experiences).

Important book – Mirror, Mirror – self-acceptance; Brave New World and The Third Wave – reinforced my concern about the future

Important classes – Shakespeare and Science Fiction – love of difficult language and concepts, made me feel smart and part of a community

Important phrase – “carpe diem” – at 16 gave me a motto for life that I have strived to live up to ever since

So what on earth do these shorthand ramblings mean? Well, they are very personal remembrances of literacy moments in my past; moments that somehow helped to shape who I am, how I think and relate to others, and even my very ideas about right ways of being in the world.

Take Mirror, Mirror. I don’t remember the author, but I do remember the story – about a girl struggling with weight and self-image and self-acceptance issues - read when I was 12 and at the height of physical self-esteem issues. A constant phrase in my household directed at me was, “You’d be so much prettier if you lost weight.” And permutations of the like. I read this book at the height of my despair – bought with my own babysitting money, not pre-digested by Mom – I saw the cover and read the blurb and instantly knew I wanted to read this girl’s story. It helped me understand that I not only had the right to accept myself for who I was, but that I shouldn’t allow others to tear my psychological fabric (obviously, not the words I had at the time!)…I had been a competitive swimmer from age 6 to 12, but suddenly I was a developing young woman with breasts and hips and no longer a slight, boyish figure. I also had a thing for candy. But looking back at pictures of myself, I try so hard to be objective and not see a fat little girl – the image foisted so regularly upon me by my family. If I’m being really honest and as objective as I can, I see a girl whose body is changing, who is trying so hard to be happy and positive but is unsure and worried about friends, boys, parents, school. Especially school. Those damn tests.

I was always bad at taking tests. And I have always been horrible at math. In second grade, my teacher called my folks in for a parent-teacher meeting. She walked them over to my desk and opened the lid, revealing all of my second grade math homework for that section, unfinished. My parents were not pleased, but to their credit, they came up with a creative solution to figure out if I was capable of math or not – their suspicion was that I WAS capable, just uninterested. (How prescient that prediction turned out to be.) My dad, an artist, made me a Valentine’s Day card that year with a long addition and subtraction problem gracing the entire length of the inside page. The deal? If I could figure out the problem (no calculator) on my own and get the right answer, they would give me that much in money to spend on candy at the corner store.

I got it right on the first try. This daydreamer, creative thinker, imaginative spirit just wasn’t interested in math.

Thus began a lifelong hatred of all things math – except when it relates to money. I’m very good with money. But ask me to enter the realm of abstraction and equations unrelated to anything tangible and I shut down – uninterested and annoyed. But language? What a vast difference…I thrive on language. Language, as I wrote on that envelope, provided me a method of escaping critical parents, mean classmates, my own sadness and loneliness in the dozens of books I read every summer in the library’s competition. I regularly finished 40 – 50 books well above my grade level every summer and always earned a certificate and some free ice cream at Baskin Robbins.

Mike Rose’s book reminded me of all these childhood experiences with language and literacy – and what language really means to me. And here I thought I was just reading a book for my comprehensive exams. You just never know what’s going to resonate.