sara.gladwin's blog

I was just sent this link by a friend- http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1r2q6h/orange_is_the_new_black_author_piper_kerman_here/

Apparently Piper Kerman, the author of Orange is the New Black, announced on her twitter that she would be answering reader/viewer questions on reddit. Some of her answers/the conversation that was provoked seemed interesting so I thought I'd post the link here in case anyone wanted to read. IN particular, I wanted to post her answer to this question: "First of all, I have to say that I love that show, and love the book. But I have one big question. Do you think a women of color at Danbury would have had the opportunity to write a book & turn it into a successful TV show like you did?" (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1r2q6h/orange_is_the_new_black_author_piper_kerman_here/cdj00ra)

I am in the middle of reading Robert Scott's "Distinguishing Radical Teaching from Merely Having Intense Experiences," and I just had to stop and write some of my thoughts down. While I agree with Scott's assertion that the intense isolation of the prison environment has negative effects on prisoners as learners, I am struggling with some of the assumptions which bring the author to make this conclusion. Scott writes "There is no internet to cross-reference the course materials so the reading process itself becomes isolated. An isolated reading can easily become a misreading. When a teacher introduces an unheard-of subject, the resources they provide may be the only reference that students have." While Scott is not wrong in pointing out the stark lack of resources (such as outside reading materials, internet, etc.) that exist for prisoners while reading, I don't think it is possible for the reading experience to ever be entirely isolated. As we learned from Megan Sweeney in "Reading is My Window," reading allowed for the women on the inside to form what she titles as an Underground Railroad of Reading, through which women exchange books and critical conversation. Rather than reading in total isolation, the women become resources for each other. When we meet with the women from Riverside, I get the sense that similar connections are being formed between our group members during the time in between each meeting.

First, I just wanted to say how energized I felt after our conversation today. I actually followed Sasha to work and we continued the conversation until around 7:30, debating further about what it means to teach radically inside a prison, and whether it’s even possible. So rather than reflecting directly on the reading, I chose to reflect on the conversation Sasha and I had, and share with you all where we took the conversation after leaving. Of course, the questions only became more complicated and less answerable, but I enjoyed pushing our thinking further along as we challenged our responses/assumptions. It also became clearer to me while Sasha and I were talking that my thinking about these issues were being framed in my head by conversations I’ve had this past summer with one of my close friends, who identifies as a radical anarchist. I had this friend in my head during our meeting as well, debating in my ear about what it means to be radical. In particular, I was reminded of one conversation where they (gender neutral pronouns) asserted that they believed I was radical because of the way I thought, despite not being involved in any particular political action or identifying as radical.

hey everyone- this is rather late posting but if anyone has been still lurking around serendip over winter break, here is a link to my soundcloud account, which I uploaded all the recordings I had taken over the semester. There are some you haven't heard, so if you had liked the sound recordings you should check them out!

https://soundcloud.com/saragladwin

Both Sarah and I agreed that we do not have linear thought processes, but in an effort to indulge in divergent thoughts we recorded a very unstructured conversation about our ecological project, which including some of the sounds we have recorded while working together. For our project we both led each other on a blindfold sound tour, and led one another to a place of our choosing while recording. I was torn because I ended up needing to cut at least 20-30 minutes from the conversation because the entire recording was over an hour long and it was just too long to listen to. When I have the opportunity I will upload the rest because I think it is an interesting conversation, but I kept what I thought was the most relevant.

Sarahj and I met to discuss our interest in sound. We met for a while, and finally decided that we would structure a discussion around the idea of creating an auditory map of Bryn Mawr. We wanted to find differing ways to represent the world and the places we inhabit, with the understanding that in Anne’s words, all representations would be “thin and inadequate” and with the assumption that in whatever representation is produced, there will always be something lost in the final product. We wanted the class to both create this map and listen to sounds of Bryn Mawr. The presentation began with us explaining our individual interests in sound and then asking the class to contribute in trying to recreate different sounds that we hear across campus. Our peers were either allowed to describe the sounds, or attempt to represent them any way they choose as long as it was through making some kind of noise. Sarahj and I agreed ahead of time that we wanted to document this map in someway. We decided that we would record these sounds that students make, in an effort to keep the representation an entirely auditory one, and not have the visual of writing on the board or on paper. In addition, we realized that if students chose to represent a sound in a way that was not descriptive, it would be almost impossible to recreate this in writing/visually. We then played a recording of a spot on Bryn Mawr’s campus and asked students to try and figure out where the sound had come from. We originally recorded two places to share, but in the interest of time, where only able to play one sound.

As beautiful as the idea of being comfortable with silence is, wrapping my head around actually performing silent activities is a different story. I was impressed by how fulfilling silence is for Linda-Susan Beard, and I thought a lot about my own restorative practices. For me, talking has always been restorative. Not shallow or surface conversation, but the kind of talking where two people come together form a different kind of understanding. For me, thinking has always been a vocal and collaborative process rather than a silent and internalized one. I was told once that there have been studies done on cats where a cat was placed in a room with no stimuli and they were essentially brain dead- no activity went on when there was nothing stimulating a response. I can’t remember who told me this or even if it’s true, but when I’m alone, I feel like those cats. I feel muted, stunted- that without the benefit of another person to think with me, I’m unable to think fully. After hearing Linda-Susan Beard talk about how fulfilling silence was for her, I wondered if we were both talking about the same kind of restoration, even if we achieved it in different ways. She spoke of feeding off of silence in a way that seemed very similar to how I feed off of conversation; it is sustaining.

Negative spaces have always been interesting for me, not only in an artistic sense but in as an everyday occurrence- I think they speak volumes, especially about people. I’ve always liked seeing and observing what spaces exist between people. However, I had never thought about “hearing” or “feeling” negative spaces. I’ve been thinking a lot about blindness and the way in which not seeing necessitates you to “place” your body- it becomes all the more important to understand where you are, what is around you and where you are going. The environment you are in no longer becomes the background but a very important foreground. The only reason I knew where I was a given time was based on sounds and light variations. I knew we were near the road when I could hear cars, and I knew from the sound of the wind in the trees in my right ear that senior row was to the left of us. I knew we were in the woods and under senior row when the ever-present dot of light representing the sun flickered from interfering leaves and trees. When we were told to beware of an intrusive object possibly in our path, I instinctively and reflexively would put out my hand, in hopes that I could “feel” my place and know where not to walk. Finding these negative spaces through feeling and hearing instead of vision becomes necessary to find the safe spaces, in order to place your body within a context or environment.

Last week we were talking a lot about "play" in class and this ended up seeping into another conversation in one of my other classes outside the 360 with Anne. Here's a link to that conversation if any is interested/wanted to further our conversations about the links between play and learning: /exchange/divergent-thinking#comment-139691

I think some of these comments are relevant to our voice discussion about what play means or does not mean!