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In the beginning of the semester, I think my learning was largely centered on my personal relationships to the themes of each class. For one, my life (for example, silence in my home) was the only platform I had at the time and two, I did not know how to move forward with Silence, Voice and Vision if I did not start with my own experiences. So, when reading through my early work, I notice that a lot of my thoughts focused on the value of personal experiences in the classroom which I mainly wrote about in paper I for Jody. Today, I still see the value--they make us invested in the work we do/each other and I am thankful for the fishbowl activities in Jody’s and Anne’s class that did this--but I now see the dangers of bringing personal experiences to the forefront and relying on them too heavily.
I remember reading the comic book from Barb’s class about “common” reasons for why women are jailed and going, “yep, not surprised....mmhmm seen/heard that one before....so-so’s cousin is in the same position...oh yea, sounds like my neighborhood.” I can’t believe I thought I had engaged with the text because I could make these connections when, in reality, I was probably so “connected” that I was, at times, disengaged and, unintentionally, close-minded. The greatest lesson that I have learned from the 360 (more like it is the one that I can best articulate) is that I need to step beyond myself in order to understand the world around me. It was not easy--it was really scary! How was I to broaden my perspectives when very few of our readings valued--which is way different from “analyzed”--the one I brought to the table? How was I going to broaden my perspectives when, at times and due to lack of time, the dense texts barred me out? This transformation, one that I really wanted to make, was difficult because, ironically, I was hitting walls along the way.
However a turning point for me was meeting the Cannery women for the first time. It was one thing to hide behind my personal experiences, particularly as a women of color from an inner-city neighborhood, but it was another to project these experiences onto the Cannery women. Similar to sentiments expressed in my journal entries to Barb, I initially felt ashamed in thinking that I would be able to connect with the women because we were of similar racial and economic backgrounds. This thinking was absolutely crazy! “Hi! I’m black and so are you...therefore, we know each other.” NO. Of course, my thinking was not this simple, neither were my intentions, but when I realized that my thinking turned the individual experiences of the women into a single story, I made a decision. It mattered more to me that the women had their agency, were recognized beyond their socioeconomic status and told their own stories. I also decided to do the same for myself. I know I am not a victim of who I am and where I come from but never before has my socioeconomic status been so apparent. Perhaps, “apparent” isn’t the right word...never has it been so important, especially in a walled community like Bryn Mawr. This reality, the “edges” of my learning, have left me with more questions than answers. How do I speak on the issues talked about in this 360 (for example, public schools and tracking) independent of my identities? Is there a way to speak about personal experience without getting trapped in it and how does one make room for multiple perspectives to enter? Can it only be done with silence as a medium?
Participation in the 360 made me nervous towards the end because I became much quieter in discussions than I was in the beginning. By the end, I felt like I had to vocally participate even if I did not want to because if I wasn’t one of the students characterized as silent from the beginning, there was no excuse for being quieter towards the end of the 360. Perhaps the difference was not noticed by others, but I felt it. The silent practices I learned in Anne’s class definitely carried over into the other two classes. I became more of a listener than a talker and I preferred to contemplate in silence than openly. Even when I did speak up towards the final weeks of the 360 experience, I was less confident in my ability to articulate because the thoughts in my head were always scrambled. Honestly, the discussion about PAR in Jody’s class was the first time in a long time where I felt like I had clearly articulated thoughts that had felt confusing, and infuriating, for so long.
My best participation was not through Serendip but through my journal entries and memos for Barb. I liked Serendip and I posted/commented consistently, but I only felt passionate enough to write when I felt like I needed to call the class’ attention to the men in Eva’s Man, the parallels between Colored Amazons and black women/communities today and my frustrations with pinning incarcerated poor people against law-abiding poor people for education opportunities. I enjoyed and felt like I participated best through Barb’s assignments because of how the nature of the 360 played out. It’s no secret that Barb’s component of the 360, aside from the prison, was not as integrated as Silence and Voice were with each other. I don’t see this as a bad thing anymore because the fact that there were less eyes, less attention, less voice to my thoughts in the journal entries and memos (I believe they were the only papers emailed) created more boundary-less space for me to just be with all the 360 texts, experiences and women. In a 360 that did weigh a lot more on voice and silence, we neglected the invisible, an opposite of vision and not necessarily silence itself, which is a little disappointing. I feel like some of my best work or participation was only recognized by Barb.
When it comes to participation in group projects, the best word to describe myself is as the “doer.” I did very little discussing about projects and when I did my comments were direct and addressed “Who, what, when, where and why?” It is the way I have always been and I don’t like rehashing a project idea when it seems to be solid...at least to me. So, Anne, you might have noticed that I was checked out when you came around to check on the Perry House Couch group because 1. I was and 2. I did not think there was anything more to discuss, I was dying to just film. While, Jody, for the the 1960s tour video, much of my work was in the background: doing the research and editing while my partner did a lot of the communicating with you, promoting and making sure we were “Youtube famous” :) I just do what needs to be done and how I took on the responsibility of timekeeper at the final presentation is very similar to how I run in groups.
I am not sure how to address the question of, “How much of the class work was focused on your own learning?” because as I expressed earlier, I think too much of my experience was focused on myself and it, ultimately, trapped me. I do think I have contributed to the learning of others when my Serendip posts were used in the classroom. Other than that, I am forever grateful to Irene for constantly reminding me of how I impacted her learning and our learning environment. Her comments were very affirming, so, yes, I would like to believe that if I impacted Irene then the same is true for the rest of the 360, professors included.
I am not exactly sure how I have grown as a reader, I might have learned a few new words, but my attitude towards academic texts has definitely changed for the better. I did not have any trouble with Barb’s readings before and during the Cannery experience which I appreciate. I think they were accessible enough for both the 360 women and the Cannery women to understand and, as a result, less time was spent trying to understand the language of the text before understanding the context and more time understanding each other. However, I think there was great value in me struggling with both Jody’s and Anne’s texts. In Jody’s class, what was difficult about the texts was not the language of them but the theories in them. It was difficult for me to understand the theories because there was nothing practical that I could use to support the readings. So, I really appreciated when we would base the class on the readings through activities like lesson planning, watching a short film on theatre, etc. because then I would have a tangible example for what I was reading. As for Anne’s class, the articles, not the books, were difficult to understand because new terms and phrases were being used that made it difficult for me to follow the text. I had the most frustration with the texts in Silence because often times we would simplify the thesis/points in the articles and I would go, “Wow, really? That’s all he/she was trying to say?” Moments like these brought up a lot of personal feelings around access, or lack thereof, for me. I never felt like I had to prove that I understood the texts, but I felt like I didn’t even have the option to do so when I read some of these texts. So, I really appreciated both the partnered reading and my one-on-one with Anne about my history with literacy and reading material. I needed to struggle because for part of my 360 experience I was reading just to read whether I understood it or not...in some ways I think that is worse than not reading the texts at all. After my two turning points, both discussions with Jody and Anne, I decided that allowing the texts to “win” would be a disservice to myself and a denial of my right to know, even if the process of getting to know the text is still difficult.
When I reviewed my Serendip portfolio, I had 18 comments and 22 stand alone posts. My posts did not get a lot of online activity from my peers compared to others but I did love seeing them appear in the classroom a few times. I think I put a lot of effort into posting/commenting and I took a lot of personal risks in publicly acknowledging and writing about topics that challenged or was the opposite of people’s thinking such as my posts on Eva’s Man, not being apologetic for the fishbowl activity and my discomfort with interracial black/white couples. What I regret not doing is continuing conversations online. I would post and when someone would comment, I would read it and not reply back. There’s no real reason for why I failed to do this. I think I was just trying to get the postings/comments required of me and didn’t do a good job of treating Serendip as an actual conversation.
There is no doubt in my mind that I put 100% and beyond in my papers/projects for all three classes because I genuinely enjoyed thinking through a question on paper or in the form of a 1960s tour project. I really enjoyed and put a lot of effort into them because they were the only opportunities I had to figure out alone what I was learning from the 360, the texts and myself. While I always loved having long class discussions in all three classes, sometimes I would get overwhelmed because I couldn’t process what I understood independent of other people’s thoughts. So, every paper and journal entry was a space for me to have a conversation with myself.
I am glad that initial my struggle with writing ended early on with my first paper for Jody. My first paper for Jody was a struggle because I had allowed my worries over how to write the paper overshadow the content of my work. I was scared to take a risk and to use personal statements because I thought that would hinder my chances of a good grade. So, I wrote in this very dry, stiff way and remember being upset at how I couldn’t even understand my own point because I wrote in a voice that was not my own. I was advised to “just write” from Jody and took it to heart for every paper I wrote in all three classes. This was probably the best, and most simple, writing advice I have ever received. This 360 experience made me realize that when I work from a desire to just learn, the pressure of a grade is alleviated. Now, I write with more confidence, thanks to Anne’s affirming comments, and am more satisfied with the effort I put into my work than the grade I get for them.
As for the Cannery experience, the only way I knew how to prepare for the visits was by doing deep reflections in my journal entries and memos. After the first two visits, I realized that I would leave feeling so heavy and overwhelmed with thoughts that for those two weekends, all my work was done at the last minute. I just could not mentally function after the visits and when I realized that not even the journal entries were relieving me of anything, every Friday evening I made sure I talked through my Cannery experience with my mentor on campus. This was very helpful. If I this class is taught again, I would suggest having frequent, short debriefs either soon after the jail experience or the day after in the beginning of the Cannery experience. As helpful as journal entries were, they were not enough.

Engaging with the women was interesting. As I mentioned before, I thought it would be relatively easily because we had similar backgrounds. NOT. When I made the decision to change my thinking, I realized that, aside from a few laughs and songs, the women and I did not have much in common or with more time, we would have discovered more in common. After the first two weeks, it didn’t really matter to me (not the best wording) if I engaged with the women a lot or not--I didn’t want to force it and preferred to let the opportunities just happen. I found myself to be more of an observer and a listener. When I wasn’t listening in on a conversation, I was observing other people’s interactions. When I was one-on-one with Deloris for the self-portrait, I remember not talking much and, honestly, really enjoying the silence and eye contact between us. So, when I reflected on the Cannery experience, I did not reflect on individuals or individual moments. Instead I explored bigger concepts around matters of life/death, what it means to be human, the true crime of our country and our “injustice” systems. As I began to see the Cannery women as just everyday women and unique individuals, the experience became much easier because I treated them no differently than I would treat other women in my life. As a result, I didn’t internalize isolated and, relatively, small events either. For instance, when I heard about the pizza incident, it was unfortunate but it wasn’t the first environment I had been in where someone did not get a second slice.

For some reason, the artwork had as big of an impact on me as the women of the Cannery. I surprised myself in how possessive I was over my art and I wish I had explored why in a journal entry. I think it has to do with how happy I was to share and to do my artwork with the women of the Cannery. I hate to say it but the creating of the art was therapeutic and it felt great knowing that the art was a shared experience we could all relate to. It isn’t yet clear to me what the artwork represented sociologically, socially, etc. Honestly, I found myself doing the art for myself, which isn’t really a bad thing, but I could have used it as an opportunity to converse with the women more if that was the intention. I feel guilty (well, not too guilty) saying that much of what I got out of the art activities is how much I miss the arts, my creativity and playing. I’m just so grateful that the Cannery women were there for the creation of my artwork.
I wanted to end by saying thank you to the three of you! Honestly, I am not even sure what I am specifically thankful for because just like this 360 experience, I am not sure of all the ways you have impacted me and will continue to impact me in the future. So know that this thank you is for a lifetime. Happy Holidays!!!!