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Today I spent the day at an Innovative Learning Environments conference in Hilliard, Ohio (just outside of Columbus).  In the first session I attended, there was talk of 21^st century skills, not a new discussion, but it made me want to articulate what I think is important to understand right now regarding technology in education.  In the session, the theme seemed to be focused on how to use technology to get at the content standards as well as the new “21^st century skills” like communication and collaboration.  This was from a group of “integration coaches for 21^st century skills” in a nearby school district whose primary role was to encourage teachers to use 21^st century skills (which apparently are best learned via technology?).  Although, I do think that there are skills that students need and that technology affords an avenue to many of those skills, what I think is most important is that the availability of new technology (alongside our current economic, political, and cultural situation) is changing the way people function, but more than that it changes our ways of being, of seeing ourselves, of understanding our place in the world.  This opinion that I have is due to my work and thinking about blogs and bloggers, but I think it goes beyond that.  When teachers ask, or provide the conditions for students to communicate or collaborate in conjunction with a technology, and if this is done well, skills are built; that is true.  But, what I’m most concerned about, or what matters most to me, is how putting ourselves online, how collaborating with these tools is changing our being in the world.  Our bodies are extended in new ways.  We are all presenting ourselves to the world in new ways.  In this process, mediated by a little box and a screen, there is an opportunity to rethink that being.  But, this is not the agenda for schools, who are primarily concerned with content learned or with producing skilled citizens that can contribute to our economy… future workers rather than future human beings.

It might help if I use my blog as an example.  As I write and record my daily activity, thoughts, musings, etc., as I select images, respond to comments, and write (or rewrite) my about page, I am, via an internet-connected machine, putting myself, my being out to the world in a way that I would not without that internet-connected machine.  I’m making decisions about how to put myself out there, reflecting (though also forgetting to reflect) on what these sorts of things mean and say about my being.  Even now, as I type this paragraph, I am carefully choosing my words and wondering (worrying) that I might now know exactly where I’m going with this blog post, this post, which will be archived in perpetuity.  This doesn’t happen in the physical world.  I might get into a conversation with someone, but my words are directed only at that person and they disappear into the ether.  In addition, her words back to me are also gone, stored perhaps in my memory, but mostly kept between the two of us, likely to be forgotten.  My thoughts here on this blog post are different, in the mediation, the typing, the editing available, the ability to add images, video, links, etc. and then in the ability to put it on the web, potentially accessible to people around the world.  This not only expands the meaning of communication, but it changes my role in the process.  I’m more apt to think carefully about what I put on a blog than what I spout to a friend or colleague.  And what I hope is that as I think carefully, that I’m more likely to think, who am I?  What is what I am putting “out there” saying about who I am and my place in the world?  Often, I think about this in terms of gender, wondering if I am reinscribing traditional gender norms or if I, or others, are somehow rethinking those norms and creating new spaces for a of rethinking gender and personhood.  Although I think that this rethinking of who I am, or my subjectivity, could also have to do with race, class, a sense of agency, power, etc.  As I put myself online, as my body merges with hardware to extend and function differently, how am I sure to use this opportunity to better understand myself, my role in the world, the world and a possibility for being otherwise?  Therefore, as we put students online to learn by communicating and collaborating, we should not ignore or forget that in this activity, there is an opportunity for students to understand themselves and the world.  There is an opportunity to think otherwise.  And, if we are so focused on content and skills, we forget that as our students create a profile that tells the world that their favorite television show is the Bachelorette or that a sexualized image of themselves is a representation that “who they are,” that they are telling the world and themselves about being.  If we teach students to pay attention to what they want to tell the world, perhaps they might wonder as they type… why is my favorite show the Bachelorette?  Why am I choosing this image?  Is this how I want to be perceived?  Is this who I am?  Am I who I am because of what has surrounded me, almost on accident?  What else might I be interested in?  Who else might I want to be?

So, I guess my point is that students and internet-connected computers working collaboratively, is changing communication and ways to learn, but more importantly it is changing what it means to be a person.  Students and teachers need to pay just as much attention to that (if not more) as to the content or skills that they might be learning.  This mediated self is an opportunity to rethink personhood and that’s a big deal.

This felt like a long day.  I taught this morning and this particular class session is my least favorite because we have to figure out how to get audio and video for everyone in the class.  Typically everyone has different cameras, audio recorders, operating systems, cords, etc., so it is ALWAYS total chaos.  All went well though, considering… only a few loose ends and moderately-frustrated customers.

I ran home for a quick lunch and then came back for two classes in a row.  Both classes were interesting again, but I don’t know if I stepped on some toes in the second class.  See, the second class is called “Modern Trends in Educational Philosophy” and we’re talking a lot about liberalism (which, in this case is not the opposite of conservatism).  It’s a political philosophy that basically says that we are all autonomous beings that can make our own choices, pursue happiness and determine our own future and our government should permit us to do that within reason.  So, we talked much about how education would look if we assumed this to be the case.  The problem was, that I’m not sure we have autonomy.  And, after taking that Foucault class, it’s very hard not to question how much we are shaped by the discourses of the day and if this whole idea of autonomy is a sort of dog and pony show.  Do we really make our own decisions or are we so inscribed in the ways of our world that our decisions are shaped for us?  Is the very idea of autonomy just a way for us to feel comfortable with the way society functions?  What I mean is, if we are happy thinking that we are autonomous beings, will we forget that we really aren’t autonomous?  I kind of think that the only way we can even become a little bit autonomous is to start to realize that we are exactly not autonomous… which I realize is quite the conundrum.

Well, my professor sort of really ascribes to this idea of autonomy, so when I posed some variation of those questions, he said, and I quote, “You don’t really believe that do you?”  Oh boy.  I explained a bit more and he’s a congenial enough guy, but he ended up basically saying that even if we might not be autonomous (which we can never really know), we should err on the side of presuming we are, since that would bring about the most just form of government (a liberal democracy, one that respects our autonomy).  At least I think that’s what he said.  I still need to percolate on this one.

The stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.
Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.
A tree that is unbending is easily broken.
- Lao Tzu

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
- Oscar Wilde

When I write, I do it above all to change myself and not to think the same thing as before.
- Michel Foucault

I write because I want to find something out.  I write in order to learn something that I didn’t know before I wrote it.
- Laurel Richardson

This year I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about research and how I will research and it has led me to a lot of soul searching.  What I have discovered is that the point of the research that I would like to do has little to do with discovering a perfect teaching method (since I don’t think one exists) or proving that video games are valid in the classroom (it depends on many factors, particularly if you think the classroom itself is valid).  Instead, what I would like to do is think differently than I have before, to look carefully at a phenomenon and at myself, in order to do justice to the topic by resisting a practical, simplistic, conclusion and embracing an equally practical (in my opinion), complex, open-ended, never-ending conversation.  But, the problem is always, how to actually do this type of work.  How do you do work that tears yourself from yourself?  How do you, composed of all of your cultural bias and personal attachments, get out of yourself enough to think differently?  What does thinking differently even mean?

To take a stab at this, I decided that my New Year’s resolution would be a year-long series of mini-challenges.  The challenges are meant to make me feel uncomfortable (as if grad school wasn’t enough, right?), to tear myself from myself.  I’ve tried to create a broad list that includes physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual challenges.  What I plan to do is post the full and complete challenge each Mondaearch and how I will research and it has led me to a lot of soul searching.  What I have discovered is that the point of the research that I would like to do has little to do with discovering a perfect teaching method (since I don’t think one exists) or proving that video games are valid in the classroom (it depends on many factors, particularly if you think the classroom itself is valid).  Instead, what I would like to do is think differently than I have before, to look carefully at a phenomenon and at myself, in order to do justice to the topic by resisting a practical, simplistic, conclusion and embracing an equally practical (in my opinion), complex, open-ended, never-ending conversation.  But, the problem is always, how to actually do this type of work.  How do you do work that tears yourself from yourself?  How do you, composed of all of your cultural bias and personal attachments, get out of yourself enough to think differently?  What does thinking differently even mean?

To take a stab at this, I decided that my New Year’s resolution would be a year-long series of mini-challenges.  The challenges are meant to make me feel uncomfortable (as if grad school wasn’t enough, right?), to tear myself from myself.  I’ve tried to create a broad list that includes physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual challenges.  What I plan to do is post the full and complete challenge each Monday and then post my struggles/thoughts on the following Sunday.  I really don’t know where this will lead.  I really don’t know what I’ll learn, but I hope that it takes me out of my comfort zone and helps me to be able to see the world in unexpected ways and I hope to able to use this new way of thinking in my research and in my life.  Following my Stay Awake post, this is my best effort to stay awake and to resist falling into the default.

I also have to remember (please remind me) that I must enter each of these challenges with a joyful spirit.  It will do me no good to begrudgingly go through the motions.  I must bathe in the discomfort/difference as though it is a good massage, one that hurts just enough to feel really wonderful.

I would like to extend the offer to anyone (but most especially to women that read this) who wants to try out these challenges, week by week, and post their own new insights as comments.  You can even pop in just when the challenge interests you.  I’m sure your insights would only multiply my own as I believe you often learn more in community than going it alone.  So, peruse, browse and let me know what you think.  Some might sound superficial, some scary, some stupid, some easy, but I hope that they will all do just a little bit to help me stay awake when my first instinct is to fall asleep.

Below you’ll find the list of mini-challenges.  I won’t be doing them in any particular order, instead, I’ll try to find things appropriate for that week (so I won’t be trying to garden in February).  I’ll be officially starting on Monday, January 4.  Also, I only have 51 so far, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to think one more in the next year.  Anyone have ideas?

1. No make up for a week
2. Fast for a day
3. Go vegan for a week
4. Physical challenge (something that scares me or is physically difficult)
5. Set a personal record
6. Play everyday for a week
7. Dance everyday for a week
8. No soda/caffeine
9. No car for a week
10. No buying anything for a week
11. Bake bread
12. Take care of a plant
13. Read Walden
14. Read a children’s book everyday for a week
15. Watch a few movies from childhood you haven’t seen in awhile
16. Find new (interesting, inspiring) music and listen to it everyday for a week (and sing along)
17. Write a poem, perfect it everyday for a week
18. Paint a picture
19. Give up television for a week
20. Learn something new
21. Rearrange a room
22. Complete an entire NY Times crossword throughout the week
23. Make up a game
24. No email for a week
25. Rewrite (or write) your About page
26. Interview a family member
27. Interview someone with a different experience
28. Host a dinner party
29. Volunteer
30. Call friends
31. Teach someone something
32. No talking for a week (or as little as possible)
33. Write a vivid childhood memory
34. Write a fictional story
35. Go to a play/symphony
36. Video tape yourself
37. Go camping
38. Meditate everyday for a week
39. Attend a vastly different religious service
40. Travel
41. Ask what others honestly think of you (and just listen)
42. Practice complete patience
43. Write to an old teacher
44. Pray everyday for a week
45. Take a hot air balloon ride (a real one)
46. Do something just for fun
47. Surprise someone
48. Plan a date with yourself
49. Take a photograph everyday for a week
50. Don’t create a list for a week (this one is pretty scary for me!)
51. Do something spontaneous

In my Visualizing the Curriculum class, we talked a lot about the ways the media use images to make us think or feel a certain way about a product or a lifestyle.  I can’t remember where I read it, but one of the articles posed the question: Who does this ad think that you are?  I think that’s an interesting question.  So, now, when I see advertisements I try to think about that question.  For example, there was a TJ Maxx commercial on television today that began with a woman saying, “I get a rush finding just the right gifts.”  Sigh.  Who does this ad think that I am?  Someone who gets a rush shopping, I suppose.  Someone who loves buying things.  And, they like to use that angle that you are buying gifts for others, but we all know that it doesn’t stop there.  Or what about that commercial for Target’s Black Friday sale?  You know the one with the lady is “training” to get the deals on Black Friday.  She was a strange, crazed woman.  Target’s sale went on for two days, so they were saying, you’re not her.  You don’t have to be her.  Well, who is her?  Or, I love the ones with “scientific explanations.”  Have you ever noticed how many times companies use the aura of science and technology to sell a product.  If they can get a doctor to give some generic explanation for why we need something, then we believe it.  Do we go do our own research?  Not usually.  Never mind that this guy (always a guy) was paid by the company and is noticeably reading his lines.  Or, what about all of the ads for pharmaceuticals?  Not only do the ads try to say that we are people that think we can cure most things with drugs, but also there’s the aura of science again.  And the one’s that get me the most right now are the ads targeting kids for Christmas presents.  Who does the ad think that your kid is?  Companies are hoping that they are easily dazzled by “stuff” and will beg you to get “stuff” until they get it.  Stuff, stuff, stuff.  Merry Christmas!

Sometimes, we are more aware of an advertisement that is trying to tell us how to be or what to like.  Sometimes, we notice what is going on, but those are the bad ads.  The good ones do it in such a way, that what they think you are seems so normal, so natural, that we scarcely bat an eye.  More than that, it starts to sink in a little.  And, we are so inundated with these sorts of messages and images, that they just sink in little by little, until we can barely tell the difference between what we want and what advertisers want us to want.  It becomes the water in which we swim.  It’s kind of scary to be manipulated in such a way that we start to desire things that are unnecessary, unhealthy, and just ridiculous (like the wrinkle cream in my medicine cabinet.  Why do I have wrinkle cream?!  I am 28!).  Or we start to desire to be something that is NOT what we would want to be, if we could just sit and think about it for a moment.  Advertisers, and the society that is being formed by them (in many ways), want us to fall asleep.  If we fall asleep, then we won’t realize the ways in which we are being manipulated.  We need to teach ourselves, and our kids, to stay awake.

I’ve been thinking about the ways people stay awake, that they reject the default.  I thought of my husband Dan and when I first met him.  He listened to the most interesting music and liked the strangest (to me) movies.  I had never thought too much about the music I listened to or the movies I watched.  I just listened to top 40 and went to see blockbusters… the default.  Why had I never thought about what I watched or listened to?  I didn’t really know there were choices.  I was being shaped by both of these media and I never chose them, they by their simple popularity, chose me.  Dan did something different.  The other day I asked him how he did it and he said that he found an independent radio station (97X, for those of you in Cincinnati, may it rest in peace), then he would find bands on there he liked and look them up online, find similar bands, talk to people that liked the same music, and find more.  It was part community and part research that led him to something other than the default.

I was kind of amazed at his ability at an early age to think critically and make his own choices.  This is not something we are taught in school, to seek out things we are interested in, to learn on our own.  That’s why I was such a good student.  I was interested not in any particular subject, but in doing well in school.  Once school was over, I sort of felt like I lost a part of my identity.  That was me; I was school (this is a continuous struggle, obviously).  This is really why I took up marathon running.  Because, while Dan had his own interests (he can fiddle with electronics from now until doomsday), one day someone asked me what my hobbies were and I realized that I didn’t have any.  I was a teacher, I had a boyfriend and a great family, I watched tv, and… I used to be a really good student.  I had just accepted all of the defaults of life and I had hardly shaped my own interests.  In fact, I had no interests.  I was asleep.

My new hobby led me to lots of new places and in some ways I think it woke me up a little (no one’s ever completely awake, I don’t think it’s possible).  It led me to learn about something I had an interest in.  I learned more about running, and health.  I began to read magazines, books, and websites.  I ran with a group and we talked, exchanged stories and information.  The crazy thing about having an interest that isn’t the default (although marathon running is becoming pretty darn commonplace) is that people, without even thinking, try to sort of beat it out of you.  This is what I first heard when I signed up, “Do you know how far a marathon is?”  “Isn’t running that far bad for your joints?”  My answers were, “Yes.” and “Isn’t sitting on your behind bad for everything?”  But, the point is that people are very uncomfortable with any thing other than what is, well, comfortable.  Being the same makes us feel like we can fit in and be part of a community.  I want to feel like I’m part of a community too, but the thing is, is that the community (you know, us Americans) has developed some very uncritical habits (thanks in part, I think to our unconscious consumption of media).

This leads me to the reason I became a vegetarian.  I became a vegetarian because, after reading Runner’s World and hearing here and there that it was a healthy way to live, I decided to read a few books on the topic and read forum posts by vegetarian communities on the internet.  I then made the decision that this was something I could do, and that I agreed with.  I didn’t think of it in this way at the time, but I was making an attempt to stay awake.  The default American diet is full of processed foods and things we don’t really need to eat, but we do because we have since we can remember and we don’t think about it.  Here again I faced some resistance because I was choosing something other than the default.  This one was much more difficult than running.  Food is part of culture and somehow me choosing not to eat certain things really offends a lot of people.  I guess if I’m not with them, I’m against them (?).  And I really don’t think that everyone should eat the way I do (I could definitely eat better, but those DQ commercials really work on me!), I just think everyone should think it over for themselves.  Just stay awake.  Don’t go into McDonald’s just because it’s there and it’s always been there and as kids we loved Ronald and the toys.  That’s called cradle-to-grave marketing.  McDonald’s has been very successful using that strategy.

I also think that very religious people are in many ways excellent at staying awake (though maybe we have different types of lenses).  Many religious people reject much of what society wants them to accept without question.  They are critical of wordly things and I think we can all agree that they get a lot of backlash too.  I can respect what they are trying to do, and I think we can learn a lesson from them in how to be critical.  For me, this is all important to consider with regard to education.  How can we make sure that students today aren’t falling asleep in the overwhelming ocean of information that is the internet and that surrounds them in their daily lives?  How can we make sure that they are thinking critically about the ways they represent themselves online?  How can we help them negotiate the world without accepting the default?  How can we make sure they consider themselves more than consumers?  How can we help them become creative, interesting, unique producers of their own identity?  Of course, this is personal too, because I still care too much about my appearance, eat Doritos like its my job, buy stupid things I don’t need, follow the herd, etc, etc.  I hear Foucault again in the back of my mind speaking of “a thousand things to do.”  Little by little, we can wake up and little by little we can reclaim that which we gave away too easily, unknowingly, or maybe that we never had… ourselves.

When Foucault was asked about his methods and his goal for writing the books that he did, he explains this by saying that he didn’t really have a method or a goal, his main aim was to have an experience.  “I write precisely because I don’t know yet what to think about a subject that attracts my interest… When I write, I do it above all to change myself and not to think the same thing as before” (Remarks on Marx, p. 27).  He calls his books experience-books as opposed to truth-books or demonstration-books (Remarks on Marx, p. 42).

Today in class, we were talking about being comfortable with uncertainty.  We read an article by Randall Bass on the ways in which internet technologies are changing the way we learn, teach, communicate, etc.  It’s much more open and unstable.  Singular authority has been replaced by the knowledge of the masses (think wikipedia).  It’s no longer necessary or worthwhile to memorize facts that can be easily looked up on the internet.  I recently saw an article where the Danish government is allowing students to use the internet on their state exams.  Really, if you can look up the answer on google, it’s not a question worth asking on an exam.  Useful knowledge should be about filtering, analyzing and synthesizing information into coherent arguments.  This work is much more rigorous than memorizing obscure dates and places for a History exam.  In this way, Bass is arguing that we need to be comfortable with uncertainty in education, something we are not used to doing.  We like results, we like concrete measurements, we like to be certain.  In my own graduate work, I am slowly becoming more comfortable with uncertainty, realizing that I will never be done with the work I am interested in doing (Foucault likes to call it the work of “a thousand things to do” (Remarks on Marx, p. 174)).  I will always be refining ideas, creating new solutions, dreaming of different ways to be in the world.  This is scary, but exciting.  No one can numerically measure my progress, but does that really matter?  Is it more important that we measure clear learning outcomes on knowledge that appears cut and dried, but is largely useless, than setting up environments where students can explore, question and think what was never thought before?

This is why I like the metaphor of an experience-book for my own life.  It helps me remain calm, resist my old straight-A student self, relish the experience of thinking and writing as a way to transform myself, rather than as a way to get to some endpoint where all suddenly becomes clear.  Following this logic, I feel like I sort of get to be Peter Pan.  I never grow up, I always get to play, I’m always in process.  Who wants to be a finished product anyway?*  What then?

*Please note: This does NOT mean I never want to graduate, just that even after I graduate, I’ll still continue to transform.

In school, people like to talk about “analysis paralysis.”  Not only is it fun to say, it can be a serious problem.  It’s when you collect so much data that you become paralyzed and aren’t able to do any analysis.  This is why my advisor tells us to “do more with less data.”  Well, right now, I wish data was my problem.  Instead, I suffer from Foucauldian paralysis or poststructural paralysis, which I can assure you is much more severe than analysis paralysis (even though it doesn’t rhyme).  See, Foucauldian paralysis is when you are trying to use Foucault’s ideas to analyze your problematic (if you can even pin that down) and you realize that because he resists any sort of nice, neat closure, you could potentially analyze the problematic FOREVER.  I could write and think from now until I keel over and die and I still wouldn’t be done.  In fact, Foucault might just call that an interesting turn of events.  And, not only can you never be done, you can’t ever be RIGHT either.  I mean, I think some analyses are maybe truer to Foucault’s purpose or maybe more analytically rigorous, but none is THE RIGHT ONE.  NONE.  This is antithetical to my bossy, A+, know-it-all side… and it is paralyzing.

I’m trying to write my final paper for my Foucault class and I decided to do a mock interview with the intellectual.  I am spending an inordinate amount of time thinking how to phrase things, each word is painful, and when I finish a sentence I HATE it.  I feel like I’m wading through mud and I don’t know how I will be able to share this paper with the class next Tuesday (my day to present).  It will be horrifying.  It will be a good learning experience, but it will still be horrifying… another limit-experience to tear me down and help me to learn something.  When does the building back up begin?  Anyone?

So, today in class, I got very worried. We read Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and when I read it, it made me think about the way art has changed from something with a unique aura, to something that is easily reproduced ad infinitum.  Benjamin argues that this means that we are more likely to easily accept the image and less likely to contemplate upon it.  I sort of didn’t agree with this because I thought that surely older forms of art (paintings) were just as persuasive (maybe in different ways).  But, it turns out that Benjamin was making more of a political argument.  He was saying that the means of production (socialist reproduction) is changing the way we experience art.  And these new artistic expressions are merely distracting us from a real political reality.  So, since art is mechanically reproduced, we are distracted by these expressive forms created by anyone from the reality that we are living in a fascist, socialist society (this was written in the 1920s) that we cannot escape without changing the means of production (?).  I’m not really that clear on this idea because, frankly, I NEVER think about the means of production or capital or the economy in relation to my work (my blog study).  But, this had me worried that my blogs (my expressive mechanical reproductions) were just distractions from bigger political issues like the economy.

So, I spent a some time tonight just thinking about this and here’s what I came up with.  I am not a Marxist.  I don’t believe that the economy is the only thing that determines culture.  I think Foucault would say that it’s a more complex interplay of several types of power relations.  Yes, the economy matters, but culture matters too.  My blog (and lots of other new expressive forms of media) does work of its own.  It’s shaped by certain discourses, it has certain effects, it produces certain knowledges.  It does its little part.  So, if the economy is not everything, I don’t have to worry so much.  My blogs in some ways may distract the blogger, but in other ways, it is doing some work.  (Although I’d appreciate any sort of feedback on these very unclear ideas (to me)…)

Today was kind of grand.  It’s Veteran’s day, so classes were canceled.  I spent most of the morning, searching for journal article on video games, so I can write this article I have been putting off for some time.  The thing is, I haven’t had much time this quarter to just peruse for articles and it felt really nice to read a bit here and there and change direction without too much worry that I wasn’t taking everything in.  And, I found some good stuff, and I’m on my way to a good solid outline.

One of the video game articles led me to another on blogs and I started thinking more about my new(er) research project and how I have been wanting to look at danah boyd’s old blog posts for awhile now.  danah is in my study and has been blogging since 1996 (when it wasn’t called blogging).  She’s pretty famous in the the circle of “those who study social networking”, and she writes some great blogs about new ideas in this area.  But, you know, she doesn’t do much personal blogging anymore, so I wanted to go back into her archives and see what she was blogging about when she was in graduate school.  I drifted on over to her blog and just picked August of 1999 to browse through.  And, you know what?  It started sounding pretty familiar.  The tone, the anxiety, the scattered thoughts, the overly personal information (a fair bit of navel-gazing even)… she sounds like me… now.  This kind of gives me hope.  Maybe, once I start to get myself together, I will become more coherent, more confident, more… something better.

For now though, I’m happy using the writing on this blog as a sort of method of inquiry.  Laurel Richardson*, a former OSU professor (and a fantastic writer… and my almost namesake), used the phrase “writing as a method of inquiry” to describe a method of analyzing her research.  As you write, you think, you change your thinking; they are all connected.  So, as I write, I think, I change my thinking, I inquire of myself and I continue to grow, not in a single trajectory, but in a sort of bouncing around from here to there… and hopefully as I continue to think and inquire the bouncing around becomes, not more focused, but less frantic, not narrower, but more deliberate.  I guess I’m striving for a controlled and blissful chaos.

I’m a little behind danah already.   I think those posts from 1999 were in her last year of her undergraduate degree.  She was already doing this sort of writing as a method of inquiry, although on a side note, she went to Brown, which is a heck of a lot more open to inquiring into yourself and life/society than the oh so homogenous Miami University (no disrespect).  But, I wonder where I would be if I had started blogging earlier.  And I think the blogging part is important.  I don’t think it could have just been a journal.  When I put my stuff “out there”, I think just a bit harder than if I weren’t to put it out there.  Of course, I also censor myself a bit more, but that’s part of being thoughtful.  What am I willing to commit to and defend, right at this moment?  That’s a tougher question than, what am I willing to rant about in a journal no one will ever see?

Later in the day, I went to Barnes and Noble to read for a bit and I dug up an old article I had read for my qualitative analysis class that I loved.  It’s by Elizabeth St. Pierre** (one of my advisor’s former students and another brillian woman I admire).  In the article, she talks about how she goes about doing her work.  She brings up Laurel Richardson and writing as a method of inquiry, but she also brings up my newest frenemy, Foucault (!).  She talks of the way that she tries to tear herself from herself as she writes and analyzes the lives of others.  She practices by complexifying rather than essentializing, by having a new experience with each thing she writes, by thinking differently than she has thought as an “ethical imperative” (p. 407).  She also cites my advisor***, who argues that we should “get lost” in this type of work.  Wow.  Scary.  Exciting.  I need to keep trying to do this with myself and my work.  Quite a task.

*Richardson, L. (1994). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. Denzin (Ed.), Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

**St. Pierre, E. (1998). Circling the text: nomadic writing practices. Communication Abstracts, 21(2).

***Lather, P. (2007). Getting lost : feminist efforts toward a double(d) science. Albany: State University of New York Press. 

Yesterday I decided that it was best not to write in my blog.  I was a little emotional and thought I might say something I didn’t mean, which I surely would have, now that I am calm and feeling a little better (Thanks, Dan!).  Yesterday I got an email that my AERA proposal was rejected.  I was counting on this proposal to be accepted and I thought it would be cake, really.  I had reviewed other proposals for AERA and I thought in comparison that mine was pretty decent.  I know there are other factors that go into the decision-making, but I don’t really feel that I need to justify my failure.  I failed, it sucks.  Yesterday, I was more in the I failed, I will always be a failure, OMG what am I doing? mindset.  So, I took a break and read my blogs and forums on food and running and tried not to think about school too much (see this cool set of videos I found on healthy eating and this recipe for pumpkin pie bites).  But today, I am accepting the fact that this is only one conference and I can always apply next year.  There are other conferences and I will continue to press on.  This is a learning experience and I need to quit thinking that I should already be great at everything.  This almost identical paper got accepted at Bergamo, after all.

Reading for class this morning actually helped me to reconcile my downswing.  I was reading an article by Randall Bass* on how technology is changing the way we thinking of learning (learning rather than instruction).  He says, “We have to prioritize the experience with uncertainty” (p. 32).  This sounds a lot like Foucault’s limit-experience.  And, well, this uncertainty has been a huge part of my doctoral experience thus far.  I am always uncertain of myself and it’s scary, but it’s also necessary to grow.  I also really identified with an author Bass cites (Lee Shulman**) who says that students must feel “deeply engaged, highly visible and even vulnerable.”  They must also engage in “interactive, accountable talk” (p. 32).  Check, check, check, and check.  But what was really interesting to me was that Shulman also states that this risk-taking involves anxiety.  “Managing levels of anxiety is a major responsibility of the teacher, but is also a responsibility of the collective.  Because they all feel it, students must learn how to simultaneously challenge and support each other’s thinking.  In these settings, the presence of emotion, even a modicum of passion, is quite striking — as is its absence in other settings.  I would say that without a certain amount of anxiety and risk, there’s a limit to how much learning occurs.  No emotional investment, no intellectual or formational yield” (p. 33).  I’m glad I don’t have to feel bad about feeling emotional, but dang, do I have to learn so much?

*Bass, Randall (2009) Knowledge, expertise, and uncertainty in the new digital learning landscape.  Unpublished paper.

**Shulman, Lee (2005) Pedagogies of uncertainty. Liberal Education.  Spring 2005.

We had a great discussion in my Cultural Studies class today about the moment we began to be critical of our own education.  Critical in a good way, critical as in… “Hey, Columbus wasn’t such a good guy!”  My professor asked if there was a teacher that helped us begin to be critical.  I couldn’t think of one, but I could think of one guy that was pretty critical and that instilled a good dose of skepticism and passed on quite a large mouth (literally and metaphorically)… and that would be Wayne Richards (my dad).  Not that Dad was too political or anything, but he certainly was not buying what anyone was selling.  I remember when I came home spouting off about something in my eighth grade social studies class and Dad told me that it wasn’t true.  “But, Mrs. Miller said it was true!”  “Well, Mrs. Miller is wrong!”  Whoa.  Wait, teachers can be wrong?  I’m not sure if that was “the moment” or anything, but I certainly remembering a little shift happening.  I also remember when I was in an undergraduate history class and we read a few primary sources about how Columbus didn’t even know where he was sailing and how the “Indians” were treated and I thought, Mrs. Miller (different Mrs. Miller, this one third grade) lied to me!  I know, I mean, what are you going to tell a third grader?  That Columbus was a murderer?  Maybe that it was just a little more complicated?  I don’t know, I’d be interested to hear what my sister-in-law and aunt think (both third grade teachers).  Also, maybe the story of Columbus is different now than it was when I was in third grade.  Regardless, when I realized that the nice story I was told was actually quite different, I began to wonder what other “stories” I had been sold for so long and I became more likely to question history and narratives presented to me.

I also remember, and I don’t know when it began (I’m sure it was many small impressions and instances), but I had this sense that as a girl I was not expected to be as smart or strive for certain jobs and I hated that.  When I was in French class in high school, my lovely teacher, Madame Pfund, taught us a mnemonic device to remember the irregular verbs, DR. & MRS. VANDERTRAMP.  My first reaction was, “Well, why does the man always get to be the doctor?”  So, I suggested that we change the mnemonic to DR. & MR. VANDERTRAMPS (an easy fix in my mind).  Madame Pfund smiled and continued using the original mnemonic.  I, however, wrote my own version as often as humanly possible on every piece paper that I could (homework, quiz, notes, etc.). I know this might only mean that I was an obnoxious high school student, but I think Foucault would be just as interested in that “harmless” mnemonic and what exactly created the conditions for its use.  What normalizing discourses produced this handy tool and how did it reproduce those same discourses?  I didn’t have the language then to explain it then, but it was really a recognition and desire not to be forced to see a more powerful male and a less powerful female as a normal couple.  Today, I might even have just left the mnemonic alone and could have assumed that the doctor indeed was a woman.  Or maybe I would have changed it to DRS. VANDERRTRAMMP or how about DR. VANDERRTRAMMPS?  Little did I know that this would be the work I end up doing, studying something (like technology in education) and trying to understand it in a way against what is taken for granted.  What fun it is too.  And the best part?  Someday we will be a Dr. and Mr.  Whoda thunk?