The second "impossible" task I gave you this evening was to "imagine--and then map--utopia." Below find photos of what we came up with. What did you learn from this exercise--or from comparing these maps, or from our conversation afterwards?

Thanks to all for indulging me, this evening, in an exercise of representing ideas iconically instead narratively, visually instead of in the verbal form that's more common in academia. You were also engaging in a "warm-up exercise for the "web events" you'll produce next week. So....

below find the five "teaching maps" you created of McDermott and Varenne's essay on "Culture as Disability." What a range of visualizations you produced of the same text! I'd welcome further conversation about what you learned in doing this, or in comparing the various representations.....

Hey guys, this is just a site I came across and I'm wondering what you guys think about it? At first I was struck by the image and then I started reading about the description of this program:

"The mission of the "In Your Footsteps" organization is to unite the disabled community as a family and to have those who aren't as comfortable with their disability more comfortable by providing them with a mentor they can relate to and educate them on disability culture and history." (http://www.inyourfootsteps.org/

A world has been created in which people are uncomfortable being themselves. This is not only a thought I have on a person who is not "normal", because I do not believe that anyone is normal. Even those who seem normal, I think, are trying to fit a norm rather than being who they are and what they want to do and be etc. Often times I also feel like people don't even realize that they are trying to be normal..it's just..what? The normal thing to do? 

Is there really such a thing as "normal"? Even in a smaller group which is, for example, consisting of all females...maybe each person is female in their own way? Just some thoughts...

It's been a hard time for me to organize this essay.

I've been thinking from a very macro way when I first tried to writing it. Then I realized there are some actual stories happened around me. 

Mom always liked to tell those stories happened in her generation. I think it would be interesting if I write them down and evaluate them from the aspective of access and education. 

Education does change one's life routine. At least that is true in China. I learned it from my mom and her sisters's families. It's quite amazing that I look it from a different perspective other than just listen to what my mom thinks about her sister and herself.

A friend of mine sent me the link to this article when I told him about this class. I think it is really interesting and dovetails nicely with the Living the Good Lie article that we read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/magazine/my-ex-gay-friend.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

This week, using the terms "access" and "education" as relative terms to hold up my thesis, I argued that if education in self-awareness was placed alongside academics in schooling, not only would the discrepancies of access be diminished, but ultimately, those people would become happier. I cited Thompkins, whose lack of self-knowledge brought her depression, and Shorris, whose experiment shows how self-reflection can meaningfully affect the lives of the poor.

I do believe in my argument, but the feasibility of such is questionable. While liberal arts colleges emphasise getting to know oneself, I'm not sure how the implementation of "courses" - so to speak - in self-awareness would fare in larger universities or among those who are only interested in schooling to further their careers. Surely a better understanding of the self could benefit anyone, but it could not work if it were forced upon them.

Then comes the question of how it affects those who are unable to continue their schooling. Should the "courses" then be started at a lower level, perhaps high school? How would teachers be trained in leading students on their individual journeys of self-enlightenment? When reading the Thompkins essay, I came across the issue that she seemed to hope that all of her self-knowledge would come at once, as opposed to gradually as she matured and gained more experience. How would this be remedied for those who do not intend to continue schooling after high school?

"In my life, I’ve been very blessed with my access to education and what opportunities my education has provided. My education takes place in classrooms, homes, and the outdoors with all my experiences in each providing different types of educations that all inform one another. However without my education in school, I would not be able to relate my experiences to one another and realize their significance. My education thus far has unintentionally been a practice of John Dewey’s philosophical theory on education, which he describes in Education and Democracy: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education as the connections between our experiences and our reflections of them. Dewey implies that education is an endless process in life as we are always discovering these connections by the process of thinking about our past and the consequences of our past on our future. His classed assumptions about education are that with his definition, to be educated, one must have time, energy to reflect on experiences and have access to a school that educates the whole self – mind and body. Within the working class, this access and opportunities are not normally possible. In Anzia Yezierska’s novel, she brings class to the forefront by describing how one from a working-class background feels in an upper-class college setting. Her novel seems to support Dewey’s philosophical stance on education in that her life experiences only had significance once she had the tools to reflect upon them.

I struggled greatly with this paper. The prompt was too board for me and I feel like my paper didn't have substance. I tried to focus on how access and education were connected--stemming off from the idea that experience and thought were connected. I tried to explain that education is useless without access and that it is society's job to ensure that everyone is getting an equal access to education. I am not entirely a sure that I got that sentiment across. Its hard to talk about education and access when the definition is so relative. I cant truly express about education, because I have a personal definition of it that applies, I feel, only to me. I wonder if anyone else is struggling with this and it also makes me wonder about how much emphasis there are on definitions.