Preliminary Notes NCORE (Day 4 – PM)

June 6, 2010 Leave a comment

NCORE

NCORE

In the afternoon and final session  for me, I went to a documentary, Muslim Cool:

Muslim Cool

Themes: Citizenship, Race and Ethnicity, Religion, Fundamentalism, Freedom of Speech, Militarism, Homeland Security, The Constitution of the US, the Environment, Love and Marriage, Gangbangers, Drugs and Violence, Class, Socio-Economic insecurity

You name it, this movie asks that we re-think our tendency to over-classify the Other; thus the dominant class evolves a narrative contracdictory to the Other’s lived experience.  New Muslim Cool defines hotpoints in a changing and (hopefully) evolving society that pits race, ethnicity and class against the perceptions of a dominant class that willingly enables surveillance and force as means of negating the narrative of the Other, those people that look and behave differently then what’s mythologized as the norm: the answer to happiness is a wide birthed consumerism that externalizes those that can’t.

Filed under america's apartheid system of education, corruption, cultural studies, education, Obama Administration, philosophy, politics, Socio-Economic insecurity, war on drugs

Preliminary Notes NCORE (Day 4 – AM)

June 6, 2010 Leave a comment

NCORE

NCORE

Day 4
10:30-noon
Magnolia 2/ Hotel Level 2

Special Feature Presentation

“Hip-Hop and the Politics, Hip-Hop and Race“
Bakari Kitwana –Public Intellectual, assisting what academics are doing; runs “Rap Sessions”, www.rapsessions.org, and organization trying to go back to “old school” – scholars, activists, artists that travel the country

(Note: an interesting conversation about the intersection of hip-hop culture and attempts to engage youth politically.   Hip-hop – non mainstream, not what we hear on the airwaves – provides avenues for engagement, ways of talking to youth.  Kitwana’s RapSessions are interesting too because these bring together artists, journalists and rap performers.)

Intro

•    works with hip-hop artists and scholars, a way of changing the equation
•    showed clips first, then an interview

Q & A

Q.: Is hip-hop relevant?  Commercial hip-hop only pushes people to be sexually active.

BK:  Yes, because nothing else has evolved that is not totally controlled by “some” aspect of the mainstream. Hip-hop could be a random way of communicating with each other.  Chuck D said that hip-hop is Black America’s CNN.  Globally, hip-hop is being used creatively.

Q.: Why do white kids love hip-hop?  It’s said that 80% of all hip-hop is bought by white kids — what is their responsibility?

BK: It’s never been documented that 80% is the number.  No one really knows.  Currently, there’s a rise of hip-hop activism on college campuses. I see it. I visit many campuses year ’round; they’re usurping political action committees. This is a multiracial movement.  Hip-hop exists as a political vanguard right now.

Q: The National Hip-Hop Convention, how did it come about?

BK: It started when students began working and protesting against apartheid in South Africa.  That’s the era of the Third World Press and the advent of Henry Louis Gates and I knew that I knew more, much more about hip-hop then Gates could ever.  It was also the era of Dan Quayle and his “American Values” campaign.  When I went to The Source, I began working and writing on closer relations between artists and politics.  I wanted — we wanted — to bring a closer relationship and political awareness to the new generation through hip-hop.  This was the beginning of an idea about convening a national convention.  At first, no one thought the idea good — but then things changed and we sat around a table — journalists, political activists, muscians, and the idea gained traction.

Q.: How is hip-hop used for political activism?

BK: the actual political organizing of youth happened around the Kerry run for presidents and it evolved, 2004-06.  The crux of my new book is about this so I went and interviewed young political organizers to see how this is done and where we might go from here. The problem now is that you have a Black man in office and young people might say, “What now?”  The time is crucial now and we only have a small window to keep  young people’s heads in the game.  The questions now are — “where are young people today?” and “how do we keep them engaged?

We have to turn to people like Mattie Weiss and Adolph L. Reed, Jr (see his: Is Obama Rewriting his Resume?)

Filed under america's apartheid system of education, cultural studies, education, Media, Obama Administration, philosophy, politics, the University

Preliminary Notes NCORE (Day 3-PM-2)

June 4, 2010 Leave a comment

NCORE

NCORE

2:45-4:15 (Baltimore 5/Convention Center, Level 2)
75-Minute Concurrent Session
“Social Justice Pedagogy Across the Curriculum”

Curricular/Pedagogical Models

Lee Anne Bell, PhD, Professor, Director of the Education Program, Barnard College, Columbia University – New York, New York  lbell@barnard.edu

Glen David Kueker, PhD, Associate Professor, Political Science Department, DePauw University—Greencastle, Indiana gkuecker@depauw.edu

Kamakshi Murti, PhD, Professor of German, Emerita, Middlebury College – Middlebury, Vermont  kmurti@middlebury.edu

Rob Root, PhD, Associate Professor, Mathematics Department, Lafayette College—Easton, Pennsylvania robroot@lafayette.edu

Kathleen Skubikowski, PhD, Associate Professor of English, and Assistant Dean for Instruction, Middlebury College – Middlebury, Vermont   skubikow@middlebury.edu

Catharine Wright, Lecturer in Writing, Acting Associate Director of Writing, Middlebury College—Middlebury, Vermont  cwwright@middlebury.edu

Kennedy Mugo, Student, Political Science, Middlebury College

Intro

•    Kathy: 3rd time coming together, 2005-06, supported by Mellon Foundation; produce collection of essays, second meeting; third time NCRE 23
•    Premise: social just classrooms need socially just academies; faculty are more willing to take pedagogical risks; social justice ed is the responsibility of faculty across the curriculum
•    Social justice education must move beyond a few faculty; has to be thought of a shared endeavor across constituency
•    Institutions have been challenged before; 1970s, writing across the curriculum asked faculty to step out of comfort field; digital technology challenge that has transformed the classroom, committing to spread IT across disciplines
•    Many liberal arts institutions are challenged by developing social justice work
•    We’re being asked to question our courses, perspectives, etc; a call to re-examine our own assumptions, making ourselves objects of inquiry
•    Sharing personal histories and disciplines

Talk

•    (Kamakshi): deliberative dialog –enable people to talk about difficult subjects
•    involves reading and thinking together; how to address and take action
•    humanities teacher has a challenge to bring this forth
•    general framework: identify an issue that is of common concern: discover other people’s interests, group in clusters, research, interviewing citizens, recognize tensions, list actions and test; convene community forums
•    (Kueker): conflict analysis began early in career; 2000, involved in Ecuador as an activist, then drawn to academic questions and writing about social movements – lead to an intersection of activism and academic work; 2006, writing about human rights and mining; firewall between activist work and academic work, following letters of protest from mining company; created an organization, non-profit: what happens when activist work runs into conflict with private goals and needs? What do we talk about when we speak about a socially just institution?
•    (Root): loose working group of mathematicians working since 2006 making the connection btwn social justice and mathematics; at least 3 points of contact btwn mathematics and social justice: (1) mathematical theory of social interaction (evolutionary game theory) – how is it we behave in cooperative ways? How do we get to a society that is fair and socially just?  We all care about motive; (2) mathematics as a tool to delineate and understand and work for social justice, such as theories of voting – could we create a voting system that eliminates vote splitting? Wealth and income inequality, seeing the trends, along with scarce resources; (3) using mathematics to rest equitable treatment that insists on competition and self-reliance – we need to first understand what we deserve? – math as social justice
•    for instance, looking at sustainability; or looking, in stats,  at wealth distribution inequality, which has been going on for 30 years; debt and access to credit to use these to understand interest payments
•   (Catharine): slaughter and conquest in standard English, bell hooks; what do we do not to hear the sound of slaughter in students’ writings and in our own; we can vary assignments – citizen scholar; balance emotional and cognitive, personal and academic; using the language of the senses, from all parts of our being; we can learn the language of scholarship, but include our emotional side; studying and observing and taking in our feelings as we study; social justice writing balances reason and emotion; varied writing assignments – formal, informal; how do we validate an informal paper?;  we can also assign personal papers
•    any faculty can read and re-educate; we tend to teach writing as it was taught to us
•   (Bell): artists and teachers and undergraduate to teach about race and racism in the arts; notion of story when interviewing gatekeepers in higher ed (several hundred interviews); people often told stories to get across a point: how can we use stories to get at social justice?; model on a white board: starts with “counter storytelling community”(informed by critical race theory) – how do we challenge stock stories that are told in mainstream curriculum?; “concealed stories” are not hidden, but suppressed and provide a lens for critiquing stock stories; “resistance stories,” that are in our lore about people who have challenged racism and have much to learn from; “emerging transforming stories” – emerge from a historical and social grounding, they have roots that we need to understand and connect to our history and are transforming – all this (hopefully) lead to change or new stock stories; used to frame a course on student teaching – used to look at stock stories about “white privileged” students going into the city to teach; also used to think about curriculum being used in classrooms
•    (Mugo): perspective as poli sci major; braindrain: a better education is always sought elsewhere, not in Kenya; class examples (1) intro to poli philosophy – “learning about our history” – she didn’t look at Mugo; switched off immediately; (2) international political economy: all data from the American political view (Middlebury from one perspective); (3) economics – learned models, concluding that models have not worked in the past because they were based on western economy; African economic development is not a part of the discourse; point of view is created by dominant class; students are not armed to empower the oppressed people: what’s the use of education if the educated can helped the oppressed?  Let’s all fit into the white man’s model; has come to learn what it is to be ‘invisible’

Filed under composition and rhetoric, cultural studies, education, philosophy, politics, technology and education, the University

Preliminary Notes NCORE (Day3-PM)

June 4, 2010 4 Comments

NCORE

NCORE

NOTE: this is a very important topic, handled with grace and professionalism! Excellent, informative session.

1:15-2:30 (National Harbor 4/Convention Center, Level 2)
75-Minute Concurrent Session
“Toward a Male Student Imperative in Higher Education: Race, Gender, and Ethnicity Revealed”

T. Elon Delancy II, PhD, Assistant Professor, Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, The University of Oklahoma – Norman, Oklahoma  tedancy@ou.edu

James Earl Davis, PhD, Professor, College of Education, Temple University – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania  jdavis21@temple.edu

Lorenzo L. Esters, EdD, Vice President, Office for Access and the Advancement of Public Black Universities, Association of Public Land-Grant Universities –Washington, DC  lesters@aplu.org

Terrell L. Strayhorn, PhD, Associate Professor and Special Assistant to the Provost; and Director, Center for Higher Education Research & Policy (CHERP), University of Tennessee – Knoxville, Tennessee  strayhorn@utk.edu

Intro

•    Scholars, researchers, leaders – discuss the American Male and higher education; get behind the hype, talk about research (what do we know); how does race and ethnicity inform the hype

Talk

•    (Esters/Presenter): Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, the oldest organization in the US
•    American Male Imperative: raise retention of males –hispanic, Af AM, Native Americans
•    Obama has challenged all Americans to push higher ed to be leaders by 2020; APLGU, raise tertiary attainment of the 25-34 year old pop from 41% to 55% by 2025
•    8.7 more degrees
•    If we did nothing else, from current state, we can achieve this goal
•    Getting to 55% by 2025: need to look at particularly populations? Current state: 24-35 = 41.06%; males: 36.11% (decrease) females have increased, but there are more males in the US population btwn 24-35, but in higher ed, the reverse is true in higher ed 1 male = 1.4 females
•    Greater percentage of foreign males is greater than female
•    US. Dept of Ed, national center for education studies (source) – good data here
•    How does the US compare: we rank 20 in enrollment; projection for 2018: male 41% – female 59%
•    Why is this important: impacts competitive knowledge base of workforce; creates economic difficulties and social disparities
•    Key Questions: how might public and research U’s best promote success; is there a need for further research to optimize learning?; what measures are appropriate to monitor performance; what roles might public research U’s help transfers from community colleges where more minorities are enrolled?; what are the interventions necessary?; what impact do demography and preparation have on male/female retention
•    (Davis/Presenter) : (1) larger picture about gender gaps, drawing on the larger earlier picture; (2) smaller study Davis completed that connect to a larger issue of engagement, particularly black men; (3) institutional based practices and how we socialize organize activities in institutions
•    potential loss in skill sets; gaps create economic and social disparity; economic reinvestments in communities
•    Ambivalence to Focus on Men: history of male privilege in higher ed; fear of slowing progress made on women; limited resources – where do the come from?; displaced attention to the needs of the population
•    College Men Paradox: the “problem” of African American, Latino, and Indigenous males in higher ed: Paradox: the progress we’ve made, increased attention, and the paradox diverts attention away from problems of college men generally – retention and graduation problems; fix the problem and growing imbalance btwn gender
•    What do we know? 47% high school grad rates; 10.4% male undergraduates; 30.5% are athletes; over 65% fail to graduate within 6 years (similar data about Latino males)
•    Transition through higher education: a pipeline issue/framework
•    Socialization at the Intersection of Race and Gender: boys receive different social rewards for pronounced masculine behaviors (Adler, Klass and Adler 1991); Elementary school teachers report unique concerns that inhibit boys’ learning potential and development (Stipek, 2004); Early socialization experiences may be more rigid for Black boys; quickly understand the social rewards with exhibiting hegemonic masculine behavior (Lasan, et al, 2000); adultification of Black boys
•    Engagement in College: well-rehearsed gender roles by time of college enrollment (Connell, 1996; Reese 2004); masculine sub-culture places academics at lower position than more acceptable social alternatives (Harper, 2008); adopt gender-specific beliefs regarding study habits and social activities
•    What’s manly on campus?: Czopp and Lasane, 1998: not being concerned about academic performance; academically organized and studious are less masculine and less socially attractive than disorganized and less conscientious male students
•    Tension btwn important academic activities and more traditional masculine behaviors (Skelton, 2002); beliefs and behaviors are inconsistent with norms of academic engagement (Davis, 2006); masculine scripts and performance to show detachment, invulnerability and indifference (Major & Billison, 1992; Young, 2003)
•    Transition to Higher Ed: Increase high school completion rates; Alternative high school experiences – Second Chance High Schools, for instance
•    College Choice: 2 yr vs 4 years, minority serving institutions, cost and debt
•    Men in College: academic: lower gpa, high level of probation, disengagement around activities, especially in campus leadership, decline in important programming, such as study abroad; higher level of engagement around athletics, drugs, drinking, fraternities
•    Higher Ed Outcomes: constructed as behaviors because this leaves room for intervention
•    Mastery Competitiveness – why has traditional behavior not translated to academics?  Vs Antisocial Competitiveness – taking credit for other people’s work; Hypermasculinity – exaggerated, stereotypically masculine, risk seeking behavior
•    Higher level of masculinity, lower levels of positive engagement; men on Black campuses tend to express more anti social, hypermasculine behavior (this is also supported by Black females); normative pressure to adjust to normative masculinity
•    Intervention: gender know-how, particularly for Black men; who is responsible for Masculine pedagogy?
•    Teaching and learning: can pedagogy be male sensitive?; lecture, direct instruction; group work, peer; multi media; Need to promote diverse teaching experiences; need to highlight themes attractive to males; creating men’s spaces on campus; leadership development; more residential opportunities
•    (Dancy/Presenter): theory, research and the latest implications for policy and practice in the literature
•    gender gaps exist across student’s racial groups: trends point to increase research
•    white men dominate college and university leadership, particularly at the presidential level; historically, Am higher ed has sought to preserve white male interests
•    Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory: 4 systems – roles, norms, and rules
•    Identity: Bandura’s Social Learning, Eagly’s Social Role Theory, Intersdisciplinary and Double-consciousness – the “but” condition, “American but oppressed”
•    Heteronormativity (Rich, 1994)—systemic pressure is placed on people to form heterosexual relationships; heternormativity as marginalizing women, LGBT, and other groups of men students (Dancy, in press; Dilley, 2002; Rhoads, 1994) – shaping “the closet”
•    How might policy and practice need to change and evolve in higher ed?
•    Identify spaces where men of all races may more readily befriend women; men students can use women’s and gender affairs offices and centers – befriend rather than objectify; break across the stigmas, encouraging men to see the welfare provided by these programs and centers
•    Create in-class and out of class opportunities to learn about their own diverse narratives; disrupt norms and behaviors that threaten gender relations – conversations about “male” crimes, must involve conversations about gender issues
•    Counseling, tutoring or related educational programs are not signs of weakness – recruit men’s groups and advisors to participate; include narratives of men’s culture and men’s narratives
•    Establishing talks across race; make sure we’re not culturally taxing one group
•    Mentoring programs are essential – men’s sessions and workshops; hiring and promoting practices must not privilege men of any race over women counterparts
•    Women participate in how men are defined
•    Men understand diversity through friendships, shaping their world view; research needed on identity intersections (www.aplu.org — source for articles)
•    (Strayhorn/Encapsulating) General comments: reflect on the data: what is the ultimate goal of higher education? Are we envisioning a place that promotes academic success, where college men are free to be themselves and are encouraged to do so? Are we willing to transform the system overall; policies and programs that force men to engage; disruption of current policies so we can better define a successful student; the role that women play, particularly men of color: consistent evidence that college women want a masculine male, who prescribes to male hegemonic behavior (traditional) – how can we foster alternatives to the norm; what’s the problem? Who is responsible?  We all have to work with the problem that men face.
•    Book source (two presenters have chapters here): Managing Diversity: (Re)Visioning Equity On College Campuses. New York: Peter Lang (2010)

Filed under cultural studies, education, philosophy, politics, the University Tagged with ,

Preliminary Notes NCORE ( Day 3 -AM)

June 3, 2010 Leave a comment

NCORE

NCORE

10:30-11:45 (National Harbor 7/Convention Center, Level 3)
Afternoon Conference Pleneray Session
“Diverse Learning Environments: A New Assessment and Plan of Action to Transform the Campus Climate”

Note: this was a very important topic, delivered poorly; the absence of Sylvia Hurtado hurt, big time.  Cynthia Alvarez began the talk while Chelsea Wann went to make more copies of the ppt to hand out (could have gotten emails and sent it).  Anyway, Alvarez speaks very low so it was difficult to hear – except that all she did was to read, line by line, each ppt frame, more often then not, looking at the screen to her right (our left) in the front of the room.  Wann followed the same technique, which tells me they were clearly nervous and, though they know the work, didn’t take the next step: learn how to present the work in a creative, passionate way to best illustrate the important thinking that’s gone on behind the development of their research model and the subsequent outcomes.  In all, this presentation was a disappointment.  I went to the presentation because, at Middlebury, we should perhaps be thinking along these line – researching, assessing and evaluating how diversity functions and why (why it’s important).

Research/Assessment/Evaluation

Cynthia Lua Alvarez, Research Analyst, Higher Education Research Institute, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California – Los Angeles, California  — cynalva@ucla.edu

Sylvia Hurtado, PhD, Professor and Director, Higher Education Research Institute, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California – Los Angeles, California – shurtado@gseis.ucla.edu

Chelsea Guillermo Wann, Research Analyst, Higher Education Research Institute, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California – Los Angeles, California –  cguillermo@ucla.edu

Intro

•    Absent from presentation, Sylvia Hurtado, PhD – bummer! (the leader)
•    Somewhat confusing beginning, Wann and Alvarez explaining that they don’t have enough materials to hand out, but there is material on the web (to be given at the end of the talk)
•    Project funded by the Ford Foundation
•    Creating a diversity institute (future)
Talk
•    A continuation of a presentation done in NCORE, 22, in San Diego
•    Purpose, goals & features of project; developing the DLE Conceptual Framework; Diverse Learning Environments Survey; Action plan
•    Purpose and Goals: develop awareness about diversity, student learning, and student success; asses undergraduate skills for work and citizenship in a pluralistic society; increase retention; create conditions for realizing the benefits of diversity
•    Research: diverse learning environments survey – will be launched nationality in a couple of years; campus case studies of 8 institutions – west and mid west (colleges, private and public and community colleges); National Retention Study (Clearinghouse) – about to be launched
•    Proud of work because they’re being able to quantify affects of diversity
•    Practice: Institute for the Critical Analysis of Quantitative Data – over summer; Diversity Research Institute, also summer work – anyone in the audience can attend
•    Developing the Diverse Learning Environment Conceptual Framework: habits of Mind/Skills for Lifelong Learning; Competencies for a Multicultural World – diverse democracy project; Achievement and Retention – differences in meanings btwn 2 and 4 year institutions
•    Foundational Frameworks: Institutional Adaptations to Student Diversity (Richardson and Skinner 1990); Campus Climate and Diversity (Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Perdersen and Allen (98-99) and Milem, Chang and Antonio (2005); Student/Institution Engagement Model (Nora, Barlow and Crisp- 2005); Dynamics of Multicultural Teaching and Learning (Marchesani & Adams, 1992, and adaptation of Jackson, 1988) –different climate dynamics have an impact on the classroom, a very intricate intersection
•    DLE Conceptual Framework: this is a box image on the screen that I can’t duplicate, but hopefully find; long and the short: students experience the campus in various, complex ways –historical, structural, institution, psychological, organizational, behavioral; also demographics and pre-dispositions, external influences, outcomes, habits of mid/skills for lifelong learning, competencies for a multicultural world, retention and achievement (at this point, one of the presenters returned to the talk with paper copies of the ppt presentation_
•    Unveiling the DLE Instrument: integrated assessment of climate, diversity, practice, and outcomes; inclusive of diverse social identities; modules targeting specific topics; longitudinal when linked with other student data (e.g. registrar data)
•    DLE Survery Components: core survey; Modules: classroom climate; transition into the major; intergroup relations; community college students’ transfer; transitional experiences for transfer students at 4 year institutions
•    Resources and Questions:
Higher Education Research Institute: http://www.heri.ucla

Diverse Lerning Environments Project: http://heri.ucla.edu/dle

Email: dleproject@gseis.ucla.edu
Phone: 310-267-5930

Filed under education, technology and education, the University

Preliminary Notes NCORE (Day1-PM 2)

June 3, 2010 Leave a comment

NCORE

NCORE

5-5:45 (Potomac Ballroom A and B/Convention Center, Level 2)
Afternoon Conference Pleneray Session
“Teach the Children, Free the Land: The Political Economy of Public Education”

Mari J. Matsuda, J.D., Professor of Law, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawi’i—Mãnoa, Hawai’i ( pioneer in critical race theory; top, most influential Asian Americans)

Intro

•    Loves coming to the conference – she can tell it’s NCORE.  It is a convention of people who are dedicated to the heart and spirit of the country, rich in its diversity. It’s not a convention in Arizona
•    Currently working on a book on the state of public education – history, economy, race and subordination and class
•    3 worlds: (1) greed is good: plow orchards and build macmansions to people that can’t afford them; bail out too big to fail ponzi schemes that are too large to fail, the $ coming from the workers; experts say that this is not suppose to happened; (2) greed is good lite: a modest national health care system, leaving all intact –pharmaceutical, hospitals, etc; business as usual; give cash for clunkers; what you can pull together for yourself will be yours – up and down and malaise: (3) just beyond our grasp: expected to work hard, but the market does not make rules, we do it under the Constitution and build a democracy – we choose how to regulate markets; we will impose reasonable regulations on the food industry; we will propose reasonable regulations on oil and coal so that they can’t kill our oceans and our land.
•    Topic: if we could take hold of our government, we can start investing in our needs – education, health care, homes, etc., everything that’s as important as militarism. This place is imperative, because our nation’s survival dependents on an educated citizen that can build our future.
•    We’re losing minority enrollment because of the economy.  As a critical race theorist, I ask what race has to do with it and I consider all forms of subordination intersecting in our schools.
•    No more orchestra, no glee club, no more play – it’s all gone from public schools.
•    What happened?

Talk

•    In DC, in public schools, mouse feces in closets, no heat, so students have to learn to write and ware mittens
•    To avoid social problems (critical race theory) is to place them on the shoulders of a disenfranchised group
•    Reagan cut social investments using images of poor, homeless people of color, although most recepients were white
•    What does it mean when we say, “They just can’t learn?”  We have to keep “our” students from “their” students
•    Most schools are “black”—black teachers, black students, etc. – all coding, encompassing all ethnic groups of color
•    Derek Bell – when people say urban, we mean “black”; it happens at the uncoscious levels: “We can’t just throw money at the problem because it will be waste.  The problem is waste and inefficiency.”
•    The presuption that they will fail is racist—they don’t have what it takes to succeed
•    No form of subordination is without cause: everyone can read, write and succed
•    Where is the interconnection of forms of subordination that cause this
•    Gender is less obvious: look for gender where it’s hard to see: we swim in the objectification of women. Where is gender of subordination in education?
•    Second wave feminists were involved in practice, though what they asked for became theory, one such area is public vs private, so women originally entered the public in private sphere jobs
•    Ideology of separate spheres carried over, after the second wave
•    Post New Deal Era marked a sharp decline in women wages – short paying women and unfunding schools; we have decreased the total amount of money put into the infrastructure
•    Broken systems generate costs, inefficiencies generate costs – it sends a message to students, which is education is not important.  Feminist take: education of children is woman’s work; in the middle class, women still pick up the work. Women are doing the job that the state is suppose to do.
•    Well endowed private schools do spend money on infrastructure, things are fixed
•    Poar New Deal generation have the same sense of entitlement, but now the parents have to pick up the slack: what will it take to stop accomadating and resisting all efforts to divest the public sector
•    In deep economic era, there is no public outcry at the abuse of the working class
•    Capital will make consessions to the worker if it has no choice; it responds with just enough to quiet it down
•    During the last depression, people did fight back – people marched, 20,000 strong, on to capital hill (unemployed veterans of WW1, run out by tanks and Army personal on horseback) – this image gave us the New Deal (note: we never hear this narrative)
•    Three decades later, poor women, stood up demanding demanding for their children
•    Power concedes to the demands of the poor; we have models of multiracial divesting and as educators we need to retrieve them
•    Now we see public education as expendable: the country belongs to us and we have the power to make the country strong
•    We need a new deal for education
•    DuBois: a deep hunger for learning among those we consider the outcasts
•    We have protoypes of multiracial, small schools that work
•    We know what works; it’s not a mystery, so it’s proof that we are making a deliberate choice to have urban schools fail. Charters, etc., words that supplant the kind of integration that’s needed
•    We have become unknowing survilists in terms of education; we’re taking on education as a personal problem.  But people must be called back to the table to re-do what we’ve left behind
•    Every child is our own – feed, teach, shelter, embrace every child with the love human beings are entitled. This is when we’ll see peace.  An investment has to be made – and it’s a big investment
(note: we do make this investment, but it separates those that can afford it from those that can’t; standardization is what we do when we’re aiming low)

Filed under america's apartheid system of education, arne duncan, cultural studies, education, education stimulus package, jonathan kozol, Obama Administration, philosophy, politics, technology and education, the University

Preliminary Notes NCORE (day 1/PM)

June 3, 2010 Leave a comment

NCORE

NCORE

In-between sessions, I usually take a 10-15 walk out on the harbor, where’ it’s always hazy and very humid.  Can’t see the Washington Monument behind the wall of haze.

Another note: I’m totally surprised that at such an expensive conference about Race & Ethnicity, several systemic realities give me pause:  in the conference center, internet access has to be purchased (I don’t); coffee is put out twice a day, then quickly removed; no water anywhere, except near bathrooms; the food in this disneyesque place is very, very expensive (I’ve heard from people counting pennies) and, other than last night, nothing in terms of food is provided (most people have out of pocket expenses and we’re not all exactly rich; besides, this really hurts all organizations that are vanguard, on the margins, that might contribute to these conversations — who is being left out? I wonder).  This note/thought makes me think critically about the role of NCORE in the work towards a more equal world along race and ethnic lines.

Anway, on the way to 90, let’s get going…

2:30-4:0 (Potomac Ballroom C/Convention Center, Level 2)
A Conversation with Beverly Guy-Sheftall (Spelman Faculty for 39 years)
“Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities, I am Your Sister: Selected and Unpublished Works of Audre Lorde”

Book: Who Should Be First (released in August)

Intro

•    Not possible to do anything with Audre Lorde without having her words in the the room
•    “Reflections”, by Audre Lorde (papers held at Spelman College); Alice Walker wrote a piece called, “Audre’s Voice.”  bell hooks, “Lorde of the Imagination of Justice.”
•    A “reading” (Sheftall read from Lorde) notes:
*Affect change for a livable future.  Black, feminine, socialist poet, lesbian, mother – defined as inferior or just wrong
*Opression has no hierarchy.  Heterosexism: superiority of loving of one form over another.  Racism – one race over other and believes in its right to dominate
*No aspect of the self can profit from oppression, particularly when seeking the right to peaceful existence
*Whether there is oppression, black people can be victims
*Any attack on the black community is an attack on gay and lesbian, because “I am” both
*Anti – black is anti gay : cannot fight only one form of oppression; when they appear to destroy me, they appear to destroy “you”
•    Lorde looms large b’cause she understood that there are no hierarchies of oppression
•    Guy-Sheftall: wants to start with a convesation. Lorde was the first “out” black feminist.  First Lorde visit to Spelman was very controversial, and the Woman’s Center was asked whether it was prepared to be always be associated with lesbianism.  Before 1996, had never had an African American female president.  Spelman was founding in 1881.  President Cole was progressive – global and anti imperialist, anti oppression, and a self-identified feminist.  Cole established a reading at her home and invited Audre Lorde to the campus – a controversial gathering.  First person to come to the campus to speak about all her identities.  A student began to cry during Lorde’s talk.  Audre asked her to come and sit with her and hugged her.  Audre’s visits to Spelman helped transform the school and give power to the Woman’s Center.  Radical, black feminist work has not always been embraced, even at a woman’s college, Spelman.  Still operationalizing the work of Audre Lorde.  Work of Lorde is groundbreaking and still very important and relevant.

The Conversation

•    Over the past 30 years, women’s studies have been transformed.  Theorizing has not made its way to the public sphere. Hillary Clinton is categorized as a woman, not a white, middle class woman. Obama was constructed as an African American, primarily.  The 2008 presidential debates was one of the most contentious moments among feminists; hostility took place in women studies program; forced many of to raise the question, “what happened?”  30 years of theorizing seemed not to make its way to the media, to even feminists in the classroom.  Kimberly Crenshaw and Guy-Sheftall and Gloria Steinem convened a meeting in NYC. The Nation published overview of the meeting. Douglas and feminist debate that took place over the 15th Amendment needed to be revisited.  Media does not get intersection theories.  We seem to slip into old paradigms to talk about race.
•    Connection btwn Audre’s essay and what happened to presidential candidate?  Very few groups that are fighting for liberation are progressive on all fronts.  Groups can be radical about one issue, i.e. race movement was strong on issues of racism, but totally oblivious to issues of feminism.  Nothing peculiar about feminist. They have to be pulled, too, into an intersection or areas about race.  Disappointing when people are committed to only one issue, rather than all the issues pertaining to liberation. Progressive black folks were willing to support a totally unprogressive Clarence Thomas.  Lorde attacked all issues of oppression.
•    2008 debate and the national media: press keen on highlighting the split btwn students who supported Clinton, in Spelman, and those that supported Obama.  Where are these students now?  Students have yet to internalize the intersectional approach.  Obama was almost a taboo subject to speak about; could not speak about what might happen or emerge should Obama be president. This could not be talked about.  Racism, at the time, was on the internet, circulating in disgusting ways and never made it to the mainstream.  People are now surprised about racism, particularly in the Tea Party.
•    Michele Obama experienced racism and sexism in obvious ways.  She experiences tremendous commentary about her body, particularly her butt.  Over referencing of the first lady’s body, who can’t escape the gaze.  References to skin color, hair clips, etc.
•    How did “Precious” end up in the movie theaters?  Why Lee Daniels chose to do “Precious”?  Movie would have been a sleeper if it wasn’t for Oprah.  Has to be factored into analysis.  We all share incest, survival narratives.  The “obsession”, almost, that majority white audiences have with the film, “Precious.”  The Bush women had parties in their homes to show the film: if you want to understand black life, look at this film.  Coverage of Precious is quite obsessive in mainstream media.  It’s an old pathological black family narrative. Every imaginable pathology is in that film.  In the novel, Precious does not weigh 350 pounds.  Lee Daniels chose the character: we have to raise questions of Daniels, Tyler Perry, Oprah and the white woman who raised money for it?
•    What does it mean to have the Obamas in the White House and Precious?  What does it mean that a a gay African American male is associated with Monster’s Ball and Precious?  We have to also add the black and white consumer public.  Commercial success came when Oprah endorsed the film.  These are not pathological narrative being created outside the community; the issue is the persistence of these narratives that have no counter narrative.  (A mother daughter incest is very unusual.  The monstrous black mother is another persisten theme, the quintessential horrible mother in the public’s mind. In the novel there is no root to this behavior. Safire, the author, doesn’t help us see who she is.)
•    Back to Lorde’s visit to Spelman: the school is a very gentile place.  There has been some critique among progressive African Americans around ways in which the Obama family gets constructed in the media as the perfect heterosexual couple – perfect wife and two children reinforces the dominant heteropatriarchal family, which eliminates us from having the freedom to see other black families, constructed in different ways.  Obama represents any antithesis that anyone may have about men.  Relieves women from the notion that there are “no men out there.”  What is the impact within the black community of this overwhelming notion that Obama is this quintessential man?  Media coverage makes it impossible to think of families in any other way – privileges heteronormaty.  A more nuances, complex analysis creates problems – but it’s almost impossible for us to think about it right now.
•    When did we as a race (black Americans) move away from our own measurements?  People have made a lot of Obama’s skin color and his biracial background – but if he was not married with two perfect children, he would never have been in the White House.  Obama fits the normative that Lorde is always railing against.  Michele had to play the role of the traditional wife – unfortunate that you have to be a particular kind of wife: she is no longer the career woman; talks about the importance of her role as mother.  The discourse had to be recrafted: supportive wife that follows very traditional gender roles.  Even the issues she’s taken up – gardening, childhood obesity, not violence against women, for instance.  Feminists believe that this is crafted. Early on she was henpecking Obama; she was toned down, even in body language.  Her aggressive, black woman’s speech had to be toned down.  Lorde would say that these are the only options as first lady.  Michele was willing; she had to become something else, givent he negative PR she was having.   Negative, particularly among average white women.  She had to be recrafted to be more palatible. Gender – race issues around this issue that are very problematic.  Cultural narrative as black women as ball busting, controling – not a construction that’s around from white women.
•    Lorde would be saying that there is a “norm” out there that have to be adhered to – and we have to think about this.  She would be paying attention to what Obama is saying about race, gender and sexuality.  She would be looking at all the progressive issues Obama’s has taken up; she’d be placed on some, not pleased on others, such as Obama’s position on Afghanistan.  Bothered about the long term stay in Afghanistan and militarism.
•    Back to Michele and her agency in dealing with her image: are moments of agency resistance?  There’s no question about Michele’s agency; however, anyone in the White House cannot operate their radical politics because of constraints.  Obama is the Commander in Chief and Michele will stay away from highly controversial issues that can get Obama in trouble; she’ll exercise her agency in areas that won’t create controversy.  There are positions that they cannot publicly annouce.
•    CLOSING: Audre Lorde’s Oberlin Speech (1989), a Reading

Filed under cultural studies, education, Media, Obama Administration, philosophy, politics Tagged with , , ,

Preliminary Notes – NCORE (day 1, June 2, AM Session), National Harbor, MD

June 2, 2010 Leave a comment

NCORE

NCORE

I’m sitting in what’s known as the Atrium, a huge glass dome that opens to the National Harbor and blue skies.  Off at a distance is the bridge into DC and over a hill, the upper edge of the Washington Monument is visible through the thick haze.

Muzac plays and there’s the low hum of chatter, people sitting at tables, talking on cell phones, talking and chatting with each other or, like me, simply writing and checking emails.  I’m sitting in the Belvedere Lobby, which in the afternoons becomes the Lobby Bar – expensive.  Beneath me is the Atrium – large ficus trees, fake tropical plants mixed with real ones, a loud water fountain and restaurants about the perimeter – sports bar, Italian, a quick get a salad and a beer or coke place.  I can hear the low level hum of chatter and the clinking of silverware on plates – breakfast.

10-11:30 (Potomac Ballroom 2/Convention Center, Level 2)
A Conversation with Reza Aslan
“Sectarian Conflicts in Pluralistic Societies: Iraq as a Case Study”

Intro

•    Ethnic diversity more often than not leads to violent conflicts between religious and political groups in plural societies such as Iraq
•    Although such conflicts in recent times may occur less frequently and bee less violent in American society, we need to gain a better understanding of these conflicts in other societies and what lessons they hold for us

(note 1: the media background of candidates is so important, it seems, highlighted with equal importance as the academic)

•    Recognize the way globalization is changing the way people are defining themselves and the assault on national identities
•    Redefining what society and community mean
•    Primary form of identity is national identity, which is no longer the way we see ourselves or even behave
•    We are going to have to deal with other, more primal forms of identity – ethnicity, etc
•    Challenge: US traditional – first nation state to be “minority, majorities” – inevitable conflicts that arise when religion, culture, and ethnicity begin to clash with national identities

Talk

•    Islamic Reformation: “reformation” not applicable to geo-political conflicts one sees in middle east; “reformation” – is a universal phenomenon, and ultimately it’s about the inevitable conflict btwn institutions and individuals about who defines the state – who holds the interpretive capacity? This process has gone on for centuries and we’re now experiencing the “end” of the reformation of Islam, the rapid individualization of religion, the democratization that comes when adherence achieves a certain level of literary and when technological advances (communication/IT), which parallel the printing press in the Christian Reformation, creates a more fractured community; the traditional forms are dissipating and anyone can become a source of authority and emulation. Over the last 100 years, in Islam, we’ve been experiencing the fracturing of the religion and becoming more profound.  It’s neither a good nor a bad thing.
•    When institutions are used to maintain a grip on the interpretation, it’s bound to create conflict and bloodshed.
•    Islam separated church and state 1500 years ago.  The true problem of totalitarian in the Middle East comes from sectarian groups; the only religious totalitarian government is in Iran.
•    Sectarian forces: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria – maintain a monopoly of discourse and have separated themselves from religious groups.  Religion thus becomes the sole means to express one’s political ideas. The only free space is the mosque. Part of the fracturing of Islam and the diminishment of interpretive power among clerics has lead to the politically active, socially active religious movements.  These are non-mosque based movements, such as Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood, anti-institutional movements that define themselves in opposition to the clerics.  The perfect example is Al Qaeda, defining themselves against Iranian religious leaders.  Children of the Islamic reformation and disgusted by clerics, so they don’t have to look to mulas for interpretation of Islam.
•    The young find these leaders appealing because they wouldn’t be ‘caught dead’ in a mosque.  These movements exist because young Muslims don’t feel they have to get their religious education from mosques, turning to charismatic individuals that are socially conscious.
•    Taliban: diverse group, Pakistani and Afghan are different, the Afghan made up of half a dozen groups.  Taliban means student, kids members of a very conservative school that took on a political role in the 1990s when Afghanistan was taken over by warlords.  Mula Omar did not go to school; he is a tribal sheik.  Institutions were opposed to the Taliban – almost every Muslim country was against the Taliban, Iran even fighting alongside the US.
•    Iran: is it holding the “Ace” card?  Israel has becoming increasingly isolated, due to the incompetence of current regime (N); it’s living in era that no longer exists.   Other narratives are available and the Israeli narrative is no longer central.  The images of the Israeli ship event cannot be controlled.
•    “Special Relationship w/ Israel”: the normal issues, boundaries, concepts that tend to define international relations btwn two nation states do not apply when it comes to Israel; we get nothing from our relationship with Israel.  The relationship disproportionally favors Israel.  American national safety is in jeopardy.  Relationship needs to be brought into line.  The “special relations” status has hurt Israel.
•    Iran: complicated issue – a majority S’hia, which is much different than Sunni, where authority derives from text and tradition; the interpreters can maintain a real grip, a monopoly on religious interpretation (14 centuries of access).   In S’hia Islam, the sources of authority come from the Ayatollahs themselves, because they’ve reached a level of spiritual and intellectual authority.  Ayatollahs don’t have to refer to the Qur’an and can issue fatwa.  S’hia Islam can adapt and change; it’s more pliable.  In Iran, a country that’s very conservative, abortion, contraception and sex change operations are possible; they pass out clean needles for drug addicts. S’hia Islam allows for a single individual to make a judgment on a single individual.  The cons are that there is no single authority within S’hia Islam – 30 Ayatollahs have the same authority, no one having authority over the other.  S’hia Islam allows the worshiper to follow whichever s/he likes; allows for incredible diversity and innovation.
•    What we’re seeing in vibrancy in Iran in the political community; every month there are mass uprisings – unions, student groups, etc. Part of it has to do with S’hism, the sense of individualism: the individual is responsible for his /her relationship with Allah.  Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess; it’s in a moment of profound political change.
•    Iraq: majority S’hia country.  The most dynamic experiments taking place right now is happening in the S’hia world.  Iraq is much more diverse than Iran. Iraq has an overly expressive national identity – exaggerated patriotism.  US, by far, the most religious country in the modern world; we want public displays of religion.
•    Winston Churchill drew arbitrary lines and created Iraq.  Churchill gave them a fake name, Iraq, which means nothing and forced the notion of secular nationalism, a western notion, removing any attempts to define the country in indigenous ways. Sectarian conflicts then make sense since the people have never thought themselves in secular national terms; ethnic identities take a front seat.   Indefatigable nature of the Iraqis themselves.  Nothing that binds the citizens of Iraq together, except for a piece of paper.
•    Islam states conversations: are Islam and democracy reconcilable? 1/3 of Muslims live in democracy.  It’s a useless conversation because it’s not born out by empirical facts.  Iran is 98% S’hia and 96% Persian – the ideas of diversity doesn’t exist in Iran.  The challenge is greater in countries like the US, where we have to figure out a way of reconciling identities in a larger framework so that we feel that we belong to a greater society.  This is what’s really at stake when we speak about globalization.  Even in the US we’re seeing the fracturing of the American identity.  Episcopalian Church fractured into 2 communities around the issues of ordaining gays.

(note 2: Globalization is fracturing the US, too, and here we’re also experiencing the push and the pull, politically, between religious groups and groups with an exaggerated sense of patriotism.)

•    People that have very different view are challenging national Identity.  Judeo-Christian means Protestant. We need to rethink how we speak about moral issues.  Shifting moral landscape in the US.
•    Europe: no construction of minarets; France, strip yourself of identity, then you’ll be French; also banning the face covering, as a symbol of the “creeping” Islam.  This is about Europe; as a result of globalization, it’s becoming harder and harder to define what it is to be European – what does it mean to be French?  Europe has had a lot of practice in defining itself against other nationalities.  Islam is the “fall guy.”
•    India: rising economic power with tremendous diversity.  Partition was only 60 years ago, resulting in the most massive human migration.  US pluralism is an accident.  India, on the other hand, has constructed a firm a national identity and a civic identity as well, based not on ethnic or cultural or religious identification, but rather, on the notion of a greater national identity while being true to personal identities.
•    Our ethnic, cultural and religious identities are beginning to be resurgent and national identity is on decline.
•    The relations btwn nations are no longer the same.  What happens in Kashmir is affecting the US.

Filed under america's apartheid system of education, corruption, cultural studies, education, Media, Obama Administration, philosophy, politics, technology and education, the University Tagged with , ,

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