Snow Day Discussion Forum on Today's Readings (3/5/15)

I really connected with the ideas in the “Education Is Life Itself” piece, as it spoke to many of the theories by Freire and Dewey that resonated with me last semester in Critical Issues.  I agree that learning should be a life long process that is not bound solely to the limitations of the formal classroom.  I think one way to be empowered as learners is to be open to all opportunities to learn, which is emphasized in this piece through the idea of education as a way of living.  If we view all experiences, both positive and difficult, as learning opportunities, then we will be continually growing as thinkers and people.  One metaphor from the piece that stuck out to me was the notion that “an elephant does not prepare to become an elephant”(11), just as a person does not have to prepare to be able to learn- they learn in the act of being.

Another point that I found very powerful in the piece was the critiques of a “preparation-driven curricula”(14).  I agree that it is problematic to have students learning information that does not seem relevant or applicable to their lives under the guise that they need to trust the authority figure telling them that someday it will be useful.  How can knowledge be expected to be grown and built collaboratively in a classroom when the students are not able to engage with what they are being taught?  I think preparation-driven curricula is inherently disempowering when students are told they must learn something without even understanding why.  In this scenario, teaching becomes a one-way street, when instead it should be a cooperative give and take.

Finally, I really appreciated the notion that, “just as students should feel a sense of exciting if somewhat unknown potential in formal education classrooms, so should their teachers”(17).  I fully agree that the classroom should be a place of excitement and wonder, a place where knowledge can grow in a positive way.  I think it is impossible for a classroom to be this exciting and magical place if the teacher does not see it as such, because students will respond off of the energy of the teacher, and that sort of enthusiasm and belief cannot be faked.

The readings for this week made me think about collaborative vs. individual learning. In my placement there is a constant feel that learning is done to turn something in and receive a grade. When we try to push for conversations, they often revert to individual work. I believe the two readings for this week are advocating for learning to be done informally and through collaboration, while not getting rid of the “formal school”. Just the question”what is possible between us” asks us to consider education as outside of oneself or our own understanding the the world. I find the most empowerment coming out of somewhat “risky” or uncomfortable interactions with others. For example, when the students were being called “siliminga” or conversations about race, class, privilege etc. take place. The “temporary bridge” example acts a way to see collaborative learning and facilitation as not “permanent”  but two sides connected in exchange. In addition, the quote “teaching isn’t telling, it’s learning” resonates so strongly with my placement. I question how we can begin to break students out of the notion of the passive student when the are comfortable being one? How can we create a learning environment in one so “top down” with permanent steel bridges between student and teacher? I question how the formal system could be “more informal”?

Eve Tuck's call for desire-based approaches was in my mind the entire time was I reading Hopeful Impossibility. I was fascinated and inspired by the term "tullum", discussed in a paper by Atia Apusigah. She writes, "it becomes possible to redefine the self in ways that foster the reclamation of lost identities and forging of new ones." To me, tullum is the embodiment of a desire-based mindset. Eve Tuck is sure to point out that using a desire-based approach does not mean that we ignore, forget, or gloss of the bad, the difficult, or the challening, but that instead, we use this to push us forward. Apusigah writes further that tullum, "offers opportunity for turning bad or difficult situations around; an opportunity for demonstrating creative abilities and potentials." It acts as a bridge between our past and our future, our struggles and our hopes, our desires and our motivations.

Tullum and thus a desire-based framework are what we need to push forward when we face difficulties, and even when we don't, so that we avoid letting damage-based criticism, critiques, challenges, and struggles define who we are and prevent us from moving forward. Alice asks eariler in Hopeful Impossibility how we validate a critic's voice without letting it be the end of the conversation. I believe by using tullum and desire based frameworks we can listen to critiques while using them to inform our next steps, instead of restricting our present ones. Alice illustrates the concept beautifully when she writes, "In tullum, then, there is an indication of what is possible: a discipline of hope and risk grounded in but not dominated by restriction".

I finished the article wondering if there is an English equivilent to tullum. "Challenge" and "resourcefulness" were too simple for such an immense and powerful concept, but can there be a translation? Further, I wonder if there even needs to be. We don't need the word to be in English to use it in our lives and work, or to understand the power and hope it represents.

I was mostly fascinated by the piece "Hopeful Impossibility." Throughout the piece, Alice mentions various spaces where there seems to be a divide - a divide between learning and teaching, a divide between language, a divide between physical space, divides in classrooms and schools, divides in power, opportunity, access - the list goes on. This notion of bridging the divide is a hopeful one, and it brings to mind a piece we read in multicultural education by Kromidas, "Elementary Forms of Cosmopolitanism: Blood, Birth, and Bodies in Immigrant New York City." In this piece, Kromidas spends a lot of time with children who engage in a series of process that aim to bridge the gaps/divide across the multicultural backgrounds of the various students. One thing that she explores in great detail is the authenticity of this bridging. I'm wondering how we can ensure we are being authentic in our bridging? What if we aim for authenticity, but we fail and in turn only increase the divides? I think Alice would hope that dialogue/conversation can create authenticity in bridging divides. What about when there are barriers that are harder to bridge? Such as language, which is deeply embedded with issues of hierarchy, power, and privilege? Alice wants to explore the possibility that difference does not have to create barriers.How can we do this? Is a statement like this or an exploration like this only emphasizing the notion that teachers are idealist? Where does a conversation about "help" fit in here?

In Alice’s article there was one part that stood out to me, when I went and re did the readings after the talk we had this morning. This idea subsistence, I thought was very in rightful. During our talk we thought about how society interplays with schools, and in her article she says ”Yes, it can mean to exist with the minimum needed to maintain life. But it can also mean to exist, period. Even in my school lessons, I could gather that it meant something like self-sufficiency, though this kind of self-sufficiency looked like a default, not a desire. Capitalism doesn’t want us too self-sufficient, after all. Subsistence, then, means something whole and it means barely enough.” (Pg.  12-13) I talked in my paper about how capitalism was designed to create winner and losers, and how Marxist sociologist Spitzer see’s the working class as divided into those who have stabilized and those who have not stabilized under capitalism. But now when I think about subsistence, I think about how that may play in within these two roles, for does the common narrative not often look down upon those in the working class and see them as if they are subsisting, not stabilized. Like the substance farmers, do we not look at factor workers as though their jobs are less than the doctor or the lawyer.