Your readings for this week are:
1.) Willingness to be Disturbed
2.) Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class
I hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend and that the end-of-the-year whirlwind has left you intact.
What do you make of the readings this week? What's resounding with you? Are you willing to be disturbed? Other noticings?
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33 comments:
When I read Wheatley's "Willing to be disturbed" for the umpteenth time, and then pair it with hooks' "Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class," which I am reading in its entirety for only the 2nd time (having read excerpts only from it umpteen times), I am dumbstruck and dumbfounded by the differences in tone in the pieces. Wheatley makes "disturbance" sound delightful. hooks demonstrates the profound discomfort she experiences being the outsider in the educational worlds most educators take for granted. The pairing of these readings is very disturbing to me and I am wondering why I (having been the one in charge of assigning them as reading)have not noticed this before. I am listening to hooks at Wheatley's urging and I understand her anger at things that folks with class and race privilege rarely need to examine. I am thinking more deeply about the culturally engaged teaching piece from the last two weeks... I really think it is difficult to be disturbed enough to learn when we don't see difference... or we judge others on the basis of our own norms of experience. Or when we are just feeling attacked by someone else's anger. I know the sting of hooks-like anger from students who didn't think I was taking them seriously enough or helping them to negotiate the requirements of the educational system that has privileged my cultural norms as what is necessary for success so that their cultural norms might be included as successful. With all my good intentions, I find it difficult to proceed through the rage hurled at me. How might my disturbance at the rage enable learning? How can it?
I am also thinking and seething about Ruby Payne and the privilege she is currently enjoying with her ridiculous assessments about class privilege. She is making millions by reaffirming things that long have been the bullwark of class privilege. She has enjoyed such unquestioning hegemony with her framework for understanding what hooks describes as deeply disturbing misunderstandings about poverty. Why?
I also am thinking about an article I read this morning in the Missoulian about gas prices and another about Barack Obama's speech yesterday in Great Falls... about people struggling to put enough gas in the car to get to work. I am also thinking about a comment I read about many years ago, which I think in recalling it was attributed to the MSU men's basketball coach but it might have been Ed Butcher... about the appearance of yards on Indian reservations. hooks' description of Stanford in comparison with her father's attempts to grow grass in tired soil is what prompted me to recall that comment here. And her description about riding the public bus... which I have been doing this year noticing who else is riding it and realizing how much middle class people take for granted...
I am rambling now in my wonderings. I guess my real question is how do we put Wheatley's admonition to listen when we hear things/see things that disturb us when the things that disturb us are things like hooks' class-, race-, and gender-based rage? When the Native student in my class tells me that because I am a white woman I am a colonizer, how do I listen to her in a way that helps me to learn beyond the disturbance the accusation carries?
I wish to begin by pulling a line from Heather Bruce’s reflection on hook: “…and I understand her anger at things that folks with class and race privilege rarely need to examine.”
In certain aspects, I am one who would fall into that category of ‘folks.’ However, I find myself more and more in the position of a new breed of folks living in the U.S. who feel anger and alienation toward a most powerful group of oppressors who are, on a positive note, indiscriminate with the exception of extraordinary wealth. Middle class Americans left trampled and disillusioned by their government. “…I’m reminded that the actions of those in power have enormous consequences-a price that they themselves almost never have to pay” (Obama, 2006).
I am not ashamed to admit that I become so emotional during discussions of our current political policies and the possibility of America one day regaining the respect of our global neighbors that my voice catches right behind my eyes causing tears to surface. I truly want to be proud again. (I am not ashamed to use Barack’s words again, either, because it is so nice to be able to read/hear intelligent discourse.) I want to become “reengaged in the project of national renewal.”
I am not ashamed to admit that I teach with that in the forefront of my mind: I am teaching future citizens. They must connect the survival of the early civilizations to a needs hierarchy that moves beyond survival of the fittest. Survival occurred; democracy occurred because adaptation and change came from “the hands of the people directly affected by the change” (Bomer & Bomer). I make it crystal clear to my kids that this understanding of the past is needed to enable them to be an effective, thriving civilization today.
I AM ashamed, however, to admit that I have not carried this pedagogical belief OUT of my social studies classroom and INTO my language arts classrooms. I have too often provided inauthentic writing experiences and thought it was all about letting things happen naturally. I will work hard to support “a different literacy” as discussed in For A Better World: “Learning to use literacy to obtain or accomplish something is a cultural norm and a political predisposition, one that adults must pass onto children.” I believe that my work with the MWP will greatly facilitate that goal.
-Beth Sandoval
And one more thing, Heather... I just wanted to say that my heart goes out to you. As a fellow-teacher, I am so sorry when a person such as yourself (so obviously compassionate and aware) is punished for the sins of the father, so to speak.
It is difficult to get beyond certain family's biases. Perhaps that is just the way to help move through those moments. The student hurling accusations at you is the one raised to be so prejudiced against you and is the one who should heed Wheatley's admonition.
Anyway, I sound idealistic (it's a summer thing), but I wish that "planned" rage and disturbance was allowable without fear of recrimination in order to further the concept of shared values within a nation of diversity.
In a nutshell, I'm saying that many of my students hold far more prejudices than I, yet to address them is seen as an 'infringement' of THEIR rights, but ya know, you have to make a mess to clean. (I could never relate to the more familiar phrase "It takes money to make money" so I use my own version.)
Have a nice weekend. It looks like a sunny day here in Columbus today! Can I get a woo-hoo!? -Beth Sandoval
Someone early in my lifetime taught me that there are two sides to every question. I ask, or at least think to myself, lots of “How come?” and “Why?” questions. Therefore, Wheatley’s article, “Willing to Be Disturbed” resonated with me as something I think I have been doing for some time. I think the article ties in well with Obama’s speech, “A More Perfect Union.” We shall learn in the next few weeks whether people have been willing to notice what “surprises and disturbs” them as a useful way to see invisible beliefs as described in the article.
Hooks’ articles on “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” was less inspiring as the first seemed to be steeped in self-pity. Although I agreed with the premise of the second article that “Class matters,” there were too many statements that I questioned because I saw no evidence to back up the claims ie. “”the intellectual left in this nation looks down on anyone who does not speak the chosen jargon” or “Feminist theorists acknowledged the overwhelming significance of the interlocking systems of race, gender, and class long before men decided to talk more about these issues together.” Statements such as these would not make me want to read, Where We Stand.
Follow-up to a statement made by Beth about her anger and alienation toward oppressors as those with extraordinary wealth (if I am reading the statement correctly.)
As I read the articles about the poor and poverty, I also thought about the concentration of wealth in our changing society. One statement made on C-Span last week was that the “extraordinary wealth” has increased greatly in the last decade from 30% to over 300% of the “average wealth.” I can relate more to the families of the students I teach who may make half or less of my salary, than to the people who are making 300% more than my salary. Perhaps we should not be looking so much at poverty (poor, poorer, poorest) but study more about wealth (rich, richer, richest) and how that affects global economies and educational philosophies.
Follow-up to questions posed by Heather.
First, Wheatly vs hook: “I guess my real question is how do we put Wheatley's admonition to listen when we hear things/see things that disturb us when the things that disturb us are things like hooks' class-, race-, and gender-based rage? How might my disturbance at the rage enable learning? How can it?”
It is interesting that I did not read the “rage” in hook’s articles as much as “self-pity,” a “woe is me” attitude.. I think much of those attitudes can be overcome by novels that address some of the same “teenage angst” hook was going through. hook said she “lived in a world of books” and even though she may not have recognized it at the time, that could be what got her to “my own personal journey from a working-class background to the world of affluence” as stated in the second article. (I disagree with her “working-class/affluence” dichotomy.) So if you are disturbed by the rage over class, race, and gender, encourage students to do more reading of novels on the topics. These thoughts spoken from a librarian’s point of view (grin).
Second thought: When the Native student in my class tells me that because I am a white woman I am a colonizer, how do I listen to her in a way that helps me to learn beyond the disturbance the accusation carries?
I think the first thing is to not be disturbed by the accusation and acknowledge that yes, ‘you’ are the colonizer, even though you were not personally responsible for atrocities that happened to Indians. Then, as most tribal speakers I have listened to say, “get beyond the ‘blame game’” and see how we can make things better for the future. Point out the many good things that are happening in Montana to help Native Americans and how many are taking advantage of the opportunities.
Lastly: “She (Ruby Payne) is making millions by reaffirming things that long have been the bullwark of class privilege. She has enjoyed such unquestioning hegemony with her framework for understanding what hooks describes as deeply disturbing misunderstandings about poverty. Why?”
I also asked “why” and wore out my highlighter underlining and questioning many things in the article. The only answer I can give to Ms. Payne’s success is that she has found an audience that will “buy into” her premises without critical analysis, the same thing that many people do when listening to TV news broadcasts or reading newspapers. I only wish that Dworin and Bomer would use CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis) to critique nearly any “news” show on TV that have many of the same flaws they attributed to Ruby Payne’s Framework. Many more people watch and believe what they hear on TV than are duped by the seminars of Ms. Payne.
The Margaret Wheatley article resonates with facets of my own philosophy: “We don’t have to let go of what we believe, but we do need to be curious about someone else believes. We do need to acknowledge that their way of interpreting the world might be essential to our survival.” That is essentially how I embrace the Indian Education for All legislation.
At my recent IEFA workshop at Fort Belknap College, I learned that Indian people count kinship in different ways, believe learning comes in quiet observation, and desperately wish to regain their language, believing that culture, which is embedded in language, will fall into place. One speaker said, “We are a lost people unless we know our origins, our names, our identities. . . . Name carries you through your lifetime.”
We learned that all cultures contribute, that all humans count; thus, we need to be open to learning about others, since conflict, stereotypes, and bias often find roots in ignorance. From my two days with these indigenous educators, I learned some new curriculum ideas, ways I can make both Indian and non-Indian students feel comfortable in my classroom. For example, I can invite students to write about, present an oral retelling, or create a photo collage of a family story or history they wish to see carried on. They can design a Heroes at Home biography, endorsing the contributions of family members or elders who serve as mentors and role models, heroes with familiar faces.
I also gained some talking points that will assist me in building community with my White Clay students, who are still living the effects of shame and generational oppression. After all, identity is both culture and tradition based. I now have more knowledge about a culture of A’ani students I am expected to teach. I know something of their ceremonies as a reflection of their affiliation with the earth, how a Pow wow grounds is sacred, how a tipi door should face East to greet the sun, the giver of life, how smudge is used to ward off dark feelings, why an eagle feather deserves reverence and respect, that sweet grass is used as prayer, and that the buffalo was revered as a life force. In addition, I learned the purposes for a Sun Dance, a four day sacrifice for some favor from He Who Makes All Things, and for a Feather Bundle, a healing, prayer ceremony.
Yet, I would have learned nothing had I not been willing to be disturbed. At this same workshop, the term white man was occasionally spoken like an invective, we heard that the syntax of our sentences is “backwards,” and stories of historical genocide efforts (boarding schools, forced name changes, attempts to civilize—to save the man, destroy the Indian) and coercion saddened me immensely, but these are Nakoda: The People, the Generous Ones, and they wish to look forward rather than back, realizing healing will not happen otherwise. That is not to say they wish to leave the past behind, however. Indigenous people believe we cheat our ancestors if we don’t learn our histories.
I don’t want my students to see their beliefs, their histories, their cultures, as worthless or stupid; I don’t want to silence them but to give them voice, to empower them to believe in themselves. I want to unlearn the oppressor’s language, to embrace a blending of concepts. I don’t want to hesitate to listen for differences. I like the idea of a “rich tapestry of interpretations that are much more interesting than any single one.” I value the notion of “change starting with confusion,” of confusion as the fountainhead of creativity. I share the idea of one world, many voices.
to beth, norma and donna:
thanks for your incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking responses... I just want to add that I realize (most days) when I am "disturbed" by something... the finger pointing accusation, the biting tongue of disregard... that I don't need to take offense. That I can be disturbed and learn to listen and wonder what I might need to know or do differently.
I love bell hooks for her righteous rage... she has come a long way from the days when she was an undergraduate student trying to figure out where/how she fit as a very smart black woman from a poor family that was trying to hold on to her past while pursuing "the world of books." She has been an amazing teacher to me and I am never put off by her rage because I think anger has its uses... it teaches us how we might think differently.
I have been told that I have an open heart... that it helps me to see my blunders toward peace in a teachable/learnable light. I think that is all we can ask for. When I am told that I am a colonizer... I can think more carefully about my behavior and I can say that the deliverer of such nonsense is nuts. Wheatley would caution the former course of action if I am hoping to learn. And that's what I am trying to do.
I am always amazed how many people do not always think through their philosophical ideals. They might find that it leads them down a totally different path that they assumed to be right. Listening to differences and getting people to think them through down the road of inquiry it a tough row at the very least. This problem occurs when people have a lack of understanding the history of their train of thought and how it reflects changes as time has past. Where does Race and Class have their origins? Do we do a disservice to ourselves by not understanding its history and moving on to create a new course in a new time. Are we all not guilty of making light of it and not respecting that we can not view each other always the same. Our own society demands equality by race, gender, and cultural background, yet we promote individual as most important aspect of freedom, and individuals are far from equal in economics, thoughts, desires, or needs. Maybe we fall short in trying reconcile the two.
I have always had a problem with the White colonizer issue, Because of my History background. I read a book by David Quinn called Ismael that stated the problems with civilizations are not one dominating over the other but the fact that there is one "Mother Culture that dominates them all in our society today. It takes destroys and remakes everyone in to one culture. Star Trek's Prime Directive is needed in many ways on Earth itself. I always want to respond to native americans with yeah I know how you feel. My culture was taken away from me as well as my land by Romans. I was forced into small land areas up to the 1800's by Germanic Tribes, Anglos, Saxons, and finally the English. My tribes were made up of clans and we are known for our alchol and drug abuse for centuries up until this very one. They make jokes about us to this very day, and yet we move around influence the world culture and survive with stories, music, and fashon, and we still make history. We are the Irish. You just have had this for two hundred years, try it on for more than a thousand. It helps to look at others in context to what has happened to you to get a better grip on how to react today and in the future. Realize it is a long ardourous task to become whole again if it is possible at all. Iam not sure. I guess we have to work together to get out there and discover our own individual selves?
comment to J Nix...
My colleague Katie Kane who is Dir. of Irish Studies here has been writing a book that documents similarities between English treatment of Irish and English colonialization of Native Americans, which you might find interesting once it is finished. She has written an article that has been published When Nits get Lice... I think is its title. I don't think she advocates a "let's share the victimhood around" chorus but I do think she is trying to articulate the ways in which structural/systemic oppression work. I think hooks is getting more at the aspects of structural oppression/racism and folks with privilege, like myself, need to be clear that it operates in pernicious ways even when we don't necessarily intend it. That is what I am trying to consider... and I have to work on it everyday because of the benefits of privilege that I enjoy as a white, middle class American woman. I try to do so as carefully as possible, but sometimes the way is not clear and I am accused of racism or colonizing. I want to sort through that pretty carefully because there is always something of which I am not aware, something my privilege blinds me to...
Go Montana Voters!!!!
As it is now clearly summer, I feel much like my students do: I am tired of thinking! But, now that I am over that and back in reflection mode over Wheatley's "...Disturbed", I keep thinking of my students' abilities and willingness to be disturbed. Because "curiousity is what we need" I think literature can satisfy much of that curiousity while giving us an opportunity to be disturbed by what characters choose to do and say. We can give students experiences that they may reflect on later as they use the literature as fodder for thought and as comparison to their own experiences. Some days it is simple to "disturb" students' thoughts, but most days it is difficult to provoke them to analyze their own interpretations in writing. Wheatley's article seems more about philosophical ideas than about writing. So, my summer-slow brain is finally thinking maybe the instructors chose this piece to get me to listen to and analyze more of the things that surprise me to prepare me to accept more of the lessons coming up in July?...and of course the rest of the future...
Obama's speech is a fine example of a person interpreting a mix of that rage, disturbance, and judgemental examination mentioned in other articles as well as posts here in the blog. Does anyone know if he wrote the entire speech or if he has an amazing staff of speech writers? Either way, the weaving of different ideas together throughout the piece is quite a feat. Every one of us teachers must get excited about the fourth paragraph after the first quote, "...Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle..." as this is what we strive to do and to evoke students to grow up to do.
Obama's speech shows that he can see the rage in others and himself, but look at it in that curious way to examine the rage. He then uses language to channel that into possible changes for the future. It was enjoyable to watch the speech on youtube, I mean read it :).
That sounds like a wonderful book about the Irish I would like to read. I guess that my thought is we are all in this together and racial problems need to be examined not with guilt or with more racism, but with helping each other understand and get along. Sometimes I see the it's only me and (my insert minority or whatever) and you must feel guilty. I don't care for that. I would hope we can share our problems and obstacles and over come them together and not assign blame.
Comment for Brenna,
Obama wrote that speech himself... he was "disturbed" by the reactions to comments made by his pastor, and wanted to put them in a larger context... he waved off his speech writers. He also chose (at that time) to do the right thing rather than the politically expedient thing: to say that he could no more distance himself from Wright than he could from his grandmother...
It is sad that continual harassment and Wright's incendiary rhetoric have caused Obama to indeed part ways with Wright and with his church after a white Catholic visiting priest made a mockery of Hillary Clinton. It is unfortunate that politicians are judged by the company they keep rather than on their own words, actions, convictions.
I hang around with a lot of radical people. I don't always agree with everything they say, but I learn from them nonetheless. Sometimes, I say things to enrage for the purpose of pushing learning forward... I own my own words and actions, but I also want the room to say "at 20, I was this kind of person..." "at 50, I am this kind of person..." Politicians seem not to have that luxury... the luxury of being human.
After reading “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” and “For a Better World” what I am struck by is this idea that you don’t have to “fit” in. However, one does. I tell my students, ‘the reason you must take English, yes, I know, you’ve been speaking it since you were little, but the reason you must take English is to use the language well. Language is POWER, use it well, or you have no power’. Let me ask you…when a person with, say a twangy southern accent, speak most people automatically write him/her off. No matter how hard one tries, when someone doesn’t have a grasp on Standard English, one will make assumptions on that person’s education.
It has everything to do with race and class (not so much gender), but if you do not use the language correctly, judgment is passed. Going into hooks’ article…yeah, it is great to be an outsider, not to care what people think, to be your own person, but isn’t it time to give up the hatred, to accept that there are things you cannot change, things that others will have and others will not? What I’m attempting to say is if we continue to point out and dwell in the negative, we are doomed to stay there and not do anything to make change. Accepting that there is a huge class difference isn’t the same as not doing anything about it. Whining doesn’t solve anything; it just makes people pissy.
I really liked Brenna’s statement about how “literature can satisfy much of that curiosity while giving us an opportunity to be disturbed by what characters choose to do and say”, because literature is coming under fire in my school because my administration doesn’t see the relevance to our students’ lives. But, like Brenna said, it can and does give us the occasion to think outside of ourselves. By reading and thinking about the choices our hero/heroine have made, we can look inside ourselves and determine what we hold most dear. Would we have acted the same in that situation or would we have chosen to take the other path? By examining the choices, and thus the differences, of the characters we can learn about ourselves and maybe society as a whole.
After finishing "Willing to be Disturbed" and "Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class," as well as the many insightful comments, I think that I'm in a good spot to start putting my thoughts together for this week.
The first that that sprung up after reading bell hooks' piece was the vividness and anger that infuse everything that she writes. Like others have commented, this kind of rage--perhaps difficult to understand, and certainly disturbing--is hard for me to deal with. I recently read "Teaching to Transgress" and had a similar reaction. Sometimes I think that bell hooks' rage--while certainly NOT misplaced--may be unproductive or even counterproductive. I know that, after reading "Teaching to Transgress," I felt a little lost. What do you want ME to do? How can I help?
Other times, however, I think that rage, anger can be the only legitimate responses to the prejudices and injustices that many face. I found an interesting example (to dovetail on this election talk that's happening) online today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-IrhRSwF9U&eurl=http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2008/05/27/sexism_sells/
It's a montage of the various pundits commenting on Hillary Clinton's failed run for the presidency, an example of "gloating, unshackled sexism of the ugliest kind." (not my words). After watching it, I was just so frustrated (regardless of my political affiliations) by the ways that gender stereotypes have been so freely traded on the last few months.
Like bell hooks' description of class and race, I think that this unwillingness to examine gender contributes to the toxic atmosphere that both bell hooks and Margaret Wheatley describe. It's when I feel like this that I appreciate bell hooks' willingness to say things honestly, to DEMAND that we examine biases (economic, racial and gender-based) rather than suggest.
Apologies for the rambling nature of this post, but that's what's been on my mind lately. I just got back from Alaska--it was just like I pictured it. Cold, beautiful, and huge. Denali National Park is the size of Massachusetts. Its difficult to even imagine. Best to all this week,
Elliot
Sorry that this post is so late. I'm currently in Washington and I had to have my readings sent to me since I forgot them when I left.
Anyway, I have read the article by Bell Hooks three times. I don't know what to feel about her experience. I realize that her educational experience must have been really difficult due to the many injustices that she faced. However, I think that many people still today can relate with her. Coming from a working class family of 7, it was always very difficult growing up not having some of the luxuries that others had. However, I don't feel at all deprived nor do I feel hatred or anger toward those who did "have it all" persay. Maybe it is because I don't measure people by their class, or at least I don't think that I do. I think back to my first year of teaching when a mother of a student that I had in class came for a conference. Her son was in my third-fourth grade combo class. She made a comment that I will never forget. She said that in the school I taught at, the teachers only helped the "rich" kids and that is why her kids were struggling. I really had no response to her comment except for that I didn't feel that it was true and I asked her why she felt that way. She really couldn't answer me. After that conference, I thought long and hard about who the rich kids were. This was a three room schoolhouse with three teachers K-6. For the most part, it was a ranching community and I couldn't come up with one family that I would deem as rich. I thought about what it was that made her make her comment, and I believe that it was a way of making an excuse for the misbehavior of her kids or rather her immaturity as a parent.
Next, I look to the article by Wheatley. We don't have to agree to everything people have to say, but we do owe it to "our survival" to listen to them about how they "interpret the world". I can't tell you how much I have learned from people around me that have experienced so many more things than myself. I especially enjoyed the part in the article that says "expect ourselves to be confused for a time". I'm confused all of the time, but I'm very guilty of not asking the questions. I get into the mode of nodding my head and then putting my opinion in. I need to get better at listening I guess. I guess I'm rambling so it is probably time to go. Have a great week!
Response to Norma.
I agree that class matters to a certain degree. Obviously, social stature gets people places they want to go, but I think that in the end it has to do with hard work and determination of the certain individual. Life is what we make of it. I look at certain people who were born into poverty or middle class, and work their tail off to get to the place that they aspire to be. I have also seen people with the label of high class do the opposite, because everything had always been handed to them. I do think that class does matter, but as teachers I think that it is also up to us to help those that are not as privileged understand that there is always the opportunity for the life that they aspire to have. We give them the keys and then it is up to them to use them. Ok, not sure if that is where I needed to go with that or even if I truly understood what you were saying. That is why I prefer face to face discussions!!
Response to Donna.
I agree that we need to try and understand how other people with different backgrounds interpret the world. Indian Education comes to mind also. I really didn't know how ignorant I really was about their cultural background until I experienced the storytelling at our workshop in Great Falls. In this situation, I think that "knowledge is power" understanding where others come from and why they believe what they do.
I read bell both articles before reading any of the group's posts, and I find myself questioning a lot of my original thoughts and comments about hooks'perspective on her educational experience in relation to race and especially class. I have just read the piece again, looking specifically for indications of her rage and/or self-pity, as I would not have characterized the tone of the piece as either myself. I agree with Elliot that hooks' narrative style is extremely vivid, and she makes no attempt to hide or mask the ugliness that others showed her in her college experiences. To me, one of the compelling things about hooks' style is that it feels matter-of-fact and stark, and invites the reader to feel a mixture of emotions from pity to rage, but that she does not get carried away in these emotions herself. It even seemed to me that hooks was trying to infuse some humor in her descriptions of her mother's tactics for helping bell accept not being able to have the things other kids had, and in her efforts to support both hooks' desire to go to Stanford and also the father's decision that Stanford was out of the question.
For me, hooks' rage was most evident in the description of the room vandalization that the "in" group (upper-class, white girls)so carelessly and calously conducted time and again. hooks describes this event as unleashing "my rage and deep grief over not being able to protect my space from violation andn ivasion." Certainly, this violation in itself is worthy of anger, yet it is evident that the rage that spilled out from this incident had been bottled and stuffed in from a lifetime of denials and squelched hopes to the point she was generally not even desirous of the things the "haves" had. But, while hooks calls her reaction rage and admits to having hate and contempt for the caddy, distructive, and careless actions of her dormmates, I sense she has filtered this masterfully into a telling of her story that does not meaningfully ask for pity, yet demands readers to empathize with her journey. While hooks may not be as masterful as Obama at acknowledging the point of view of the "other" and attempting to understand the reasons and even "merits" for an opposing point of view, she does make some attempt to explain the situation from outside of herself, as she even uses the term "violation" in reference to both the trashing of her room and the girls' inability to accept her stony silence after the fact. I at first wished hooks could have been able to accept their efforts at "reconciliation," and was sadened by her statement that "there was nothing about me I wanted them to understand." This is the place that she was during the experience, but I think the past-tense verb is important as is the context of the writing years later. Her immediate reaction seems an attempt at self-preservation and protection, something she had been trained to do her entire life for emotional survival. I will never be able to fully understand the weight of her experience and the outside feeling she experienced becuase of both race and class during her formative years, but i am still grateful she has told her story and it seems to me that she has moved beyond the unproductive side of rage and now (or by the time she wrote this article) does want herself and her life to be understood by those willing to be disturbed by it. --
amy b.
for Amy
Thanks for your thoughtful and close reading of hooks. You demonstrate amazing and productive insight into hooks' situation and analyses. Unlike Elliot, who finds her anger offputting, I am drawn in to listen and consider... it is interesting how different texts affect us in different ways. I look forward to discussing this more next week!
The last week of school is history, visiting family has returned to their nests, the wind is blowing, and rain is coming down again. It must be summer in Montana.
Once again I have spent an extraordinary amount of time thinking about writing, and now sit surrounded by the half dozen or so pieces that spurred me to the thinking part.
FOR A BETTER WORLD: This textbook excerpt presented some facts and factoids in support of public education whose sole purpose is to produce a citizenship that can make reasoned political decisions. OK, I'll bite, but I think that ability to make informed decisions is more than just the ability to read and write. We do need to make sure what we're teaching has application in the real world, but there's also something to be said for reading and writing for pleasure, and reading and writing in content areas as a means of self enlightenment, not just to be an informed citizen. Perhaps more important in this electronic age is to "make students aware when they are being compromised by worldviews in texts..." Perhaps the most pertinent admonition in this piece is to "... live in a community where people are trying right NOW to make a better world."
LEARNING IN THE SHADOW OF RACE AND CLASS: I tend to see this article the way Norma did--steeped in self pity. It's as if hooks thinks others have Superman-like sight and can see right through her to the bottom line: I am a poor black woman. My mother went through high school wearing the same skirt alternated with 2 sweaters, and was still part of what hooks would see as the "rich kids group." Perhaps always seeing life through the "what I don't have lens" enabled her to find plenty of "proof" when she got out into the real world. Not that I don't believe some of what she says, even feel for her, but get over it.
WILLING TO BE DISTURBED: Sounded like common sense to me.
RUBY PAYNE: OMG.
A MORE PERFECT UNION: Finally, someone who makes sense. We're all in this together, black, white, orange, purple, married, single, kids, no kids, christian, muslim, hindu, ...........
Being curious about someone else's beliefs certainly gives us the opportunity to evaluate our own.
Comment to Jamie
I agree that how one speaks the English language will make an impression on the listener. Students need to understand when it's appropriate to use "kid language/slang" and when to use proper English. It may not matter so much now, but, when they go out in the real world to find a job, it will be critical and could even be the deal breaker.
Comment to j nix
Each of us could find an issue of oppression in our family history if we look back far enough, but my question is "why go there?" Celebrate the fact that the Irish have overcome and are moving forward. Bell hooks could benefit from changing her perspective from "woe is me" to applauding her survival and accomplishments. Go Irish!
Here is an excerpt from Beth's post from a while ago (by the way, Pam, thank you for your very late posting; it gave me courage to ante up this late in the game!):
I AM ashamed, however, to admit that I have not carried this pedagogical belief [teaching future citizens] OUT of my social studies classroom and INTO my language arts classrooms. I have too often provided inauthentic writing experiences and thought it was all about letting things happen naturally. I will work hard to support “a different literacy” as discussed in For A Better World: “Learning to use literacy to obtain or accomplish something is a cultural norm and a political predisposition, one that adults must pass onto children.”
I lit up when I saw this, as I had highlighted the same section in the Bomers' piece and I had jotted notes in the margin about making a better connection between social studies and the things I do in CA. I want kids to make connections all the time between what happened historically and their lives now, but I don't think I have connected up at all with what IS happening and how that may affect their lives,...and how they can change that. I was "willing to be disturbed" by the Bomer excerpt - but the main reason I found it disturbing is because it brought into clear focus an area of deficit in my classroom. I think I am anticipating much disturbance of the same nature next week!
Wow - I was surprised by the reactions to bell hooks's article. She did a good job of stirring up discussion, and I was sorry that we are not able to actually discuss these reactions. (Sorry, but I find this form of responding to one another's ideas a poor substitute for talking together.)
I had to find out more about her, so I looked her up. No surprise to hear that she was born in the early 50's. Her age puts her on campus in the early 70's, just a few years before me. I've no doubt that her experience was not an easy one for her, although I agree with those of you who felt that her choice of reaction to her experience was self-pity. I grew up in Wisconsin in a small college town. My parents were both faculty members and we were considered fairly well-off by Menomonie standards. I went to a small liberal arts college in the 70's where I met and lived with the first Jews, blacks, foreign students, urban kids and truly wealthy kids that I had ever known. My world view was rocked! In those days, the black students ate in an alcove off the dining hall, a form of self-selected segregation that was not challenged or questioned. I had no friends of color. There was no overt racism, but there was a tendency for kids to group themselves into comfort zones.
In the last few years, I had the opportunity to serve on the admission board at the same school. Students of color are, as we all know, highly desired by colleges, but in addition to finding ways to facilitate admissions, there is much discussion about setting these kids up for success, supporting them on campus, finding them mentors who have navigated academic and social life and so forth. This was a major portion of the work our board did: ensuring that all students were shareholders in the campus experience. I would venture to say this is a major thrust on every college campus these days. Schools have diversity awareness programs and multi-cultural centers. Students are required to read and discuss books that expose them to differing viewpoints.
My overriding reaction to hooks was maybe not as harsh as "get over it" but I felt that she needs to step into the present. I was intimidated and shamed often during my first years away from home, but -- guess what? We grow up and change! We learn. In a time in our country's life when Barack can give the speech he did about race, there is no longer a need for stridency and rage. I feel great hope that we will all find new voices for these issues.
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