"the most exciting new frontier is charting what's already here"

XKCD explores the wreck.

There's so much life below the surface.

Shabbat shalom.

Calling myself out: student learning, linguistic privilege, gratitude

Today I got an email from a first-year student in the living-learning program for which I am a graduate assistant/assistant director.  He was about to register for our sophomore capstone course and was trying to choose a section based on which professor, in my view, would be "an easy teacher or grader."

I will not tell a lie.  My first reaction was one of amused annoyance.  Asking a staff/faculty member to tell you who the easy teacher is?  Unbelievable.  "What a classic millennial moment," I thought.  "Let me just post this on Facebook - my colleagues and friends in the higher ed world will love this."

 With that out of my system, it was time to respond to the student.  I know him fairly well -- he's a first-generation college student and non-native speaker of English who puts an extraordinary amount of time into his academic work.  So I was surprised and somewhat disappointed, not just at receiving an email like this (oh, millennials...), but at receiving it from him.  I wrote:

"I hope you are doing well.  It's nice to hear from you, but this was a surprising email to get from you - as you are an extremely hard-working person who takes coursework seriously, and not a person who I see as wanting to seek out the easy route.  And in this case, there probably will not be one, as both instructors will work very hard to offer a challenging but fun learning experience in the course.  I encourage you to see this course as a learning opportunity and not a chance for an easy A - it will be a challenging course no matter who teaches it."

His response - I won't paste it verbatim here, because I don't have his permission.  But he said, with an anxious tone, that he was really worried about this writing-intensive course.  He "did not really 'properly' learn English" as a kid, he reminded me, and shared that he's frustrated by always getting the same grade on writing assignments, no matter how hard he tries.

Whoa. MY BAD.  His goal: writing A-papers, so he can earn an A in the course, so he can maintain a high GPA, so he can graduate near the top of his class, so he can get a great job, so he can bring honor to his family, showing them that the sacrifices they've made for his education have all been worth it.  My goal: offering a "teachable moment" about the importance of seeking out challenging learning experiences...as if I've had a single day in my educational life when I haven't been grade-conscious; as if I had any idea what it might be like to write and speak all day long in a non-native tongue.

Step one...follow-up email sharing that I hear him loud and clear, honoring his experience, talking about the writing center, sharing resources on academic writing for college students who are non-native speakers of English...doing and saying all the right things.

Step two...calling myself out, big time...lovingly and constructively.  This is what it means to explore the wreck.  It's not about guilt, shame, or blame.  It's not about sitting here wishing I hadn't posted to Facebook, or feeling ashamed for finding humor in a student e-mail message.  It's about exploring the wreck...working through layers upon layers of (educational/upper middle class/white) privilege so that I learn, with gratitude, all that this student has to teach me. 

OK, maybe I don't need to post *every* day...

...just more often.

Why, at the end of every semester, do I fantasize about dropping everything and becoming a contemporary folk/American singer-songwriter?  All insights welcome.

Oopsie. Missed a day.

But I'm back.

I'm thinking about...

• the theory/practice divide in higher education.
• identity construction among white women working against racism.
• what it means to leave a place where one is deeply rooted.
• my fantastic mother-in-love, Jan Robbins, and how badly I still miss her every day, almost two years after her death.
• how deeply personal my research interests have turned out to be.

And, randomly...

• About why we're all so allergic to pollen?  How long have people had plant allergies?  Is it a post-industrial phenomenon?  Did we destroy our respiratory systems with machines?

Jumping in...

Okay.  I refused to be one of those people who sucks at writing blog entries.  But it's time to come clean:  I'm deeply ambivalent. 

On the one hand, I feel like an old lady, because I definitely have a voice in me that says blogs, Facebook, Twitter, blah blah blah - that's for self-centered people who think their random thoughts are worth other people's time. 

On the other hand, I need to force myself to get my words out there, get into the daily practice of putting words on the page, and knowing I have followers (hi followers!), no matter how few, will help keep me accountable.

So here's the deal.  I will post here every day for one week.  Period.  And we'll see how it goes.  I will stop censoring and editing myself, waiting for something "blog-worthy" that isn't too private to share or the time to write a friggin' dissertation about a news item.  This will be my Gen X/Gen Y cusper - version of Twitter (which I TOTALLY can't deal with...even though I'm all up in Facebook like it's my job). 

Entry for today?  Check.  Come back tomorrow.  Let's see if it gets interesting. 

And, for the sake of documenting a bittersweet day, some words from Marvin Bell:

Around Us
by Marvin Bell
We need some pines to assuage the darkness when it blankets the mind, we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind, and a blur or two of a wild thing that sees and is not seen. We need these things between appointments, after work, and, if we keep them, then someone someday, lying down after a walk and supper, with the fire hole wet down, the whole night sky set at a particular time, without numbers or hours, will cause a little sound of thanks--a zipper or a snap-- to close round the moment and the thought of whatever good we did.