Plans and actions

November 20^th, 2015

I have been thinking about the possibility that we can fix the environment which is going to be messing up. Kolbert states that “Wouldn’t it better, practically and ethically, to focus on what can be done and is being done to save species, rather than to speculate gloomily about a future in which the biosphere is reduced to little plastic vials? The director of a conservation group in Alaska once put it to me this way: ‘people have to have hope. I have to have hope. It’s what keeps us going’.”(Kolbert, p.262)

I've found it difficult to engage with these courses recently as a whole for various reasons, but the English class left me with a new set of frustrations. Thursday felt like a prolonged uncomfortable silence, one that was voluntary but unpleasant. I wanted to express my thoughts, but it doesn't feel right (safe?). I don't know how to frame these thoughts in a productive way, one fit for a classroom, without bringing up personal history that I'm not comfortable going into in this setting. I'm uncomfortable with how we're studying trauma in class and I feel excluded not being able to push aside my feelings to read Eva's Man academically. Not being able to engage with a convoluted text is one type of struggle, but trying to convert raw feeling and testimony is something else entirely.

I.

[EDIT: We'll start with brief committee check-ins in preparation for the final event, with twofold goals: (1) to nail down a title; and (2) to select times for the events. Then we'll turn to the Coates quote.]

A quotation cum prompt for reflecting on Thursday and Friday at RCF as well as what we've been doing. This is from Ta-Nehisi Coates' recent book Between the World and Me. (He also wrote the piece on reparations that y'all read).

"The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books." (48)

And the question: How does this speak to your experiences at RCF and as learners both there and in this 360?

II.

I enjoyed our conversation in the “glass box” Thursday. Here are the couple of passages I quoted:

“the educational system ignores the knowing self, and teaches us not to trust our experience”-- Jane Tompkins

"The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated" - James Baldwin

Sula and I are currently in Philly at a studio for a recording session with our acapella group, the Extreme Keys. We’ve had a little down time for a while as the solos are being recorded, so we are reading Eva’s Man in the lounge, our friends milling around us, talking and humming and harmonizing and giggling. I am so comfortable and warm in this space right now, so far from campus but surrounded by friends. For me, singing is like sleeping (or maybe better, because I’m a far better singer than sleeper), it allows for a silence, a break in my constant stream of anxious thoughts. I can instead revel in these enchanting harmonies or even shake off my heartache by getting funky and down with a 90’s style rap.

Some different threads, laid out. Some connections in my head carry over to the page. Some might not:

We spent some time in Anne's class recently talking about how we connect, on a more basic, personal level, with the women inside. Bringing up themes of truth and lying by omission, as explored by Adrienne Rich, we talked about how we may or may not be developing real trust within the walls of the prison. Last week, those of us in the Friday class witnessed first hand our assumed space of structure and control broke down. I left, as I think many others did, feeling like we were holding something heavy--some emotional intimacy gifted to us by the women who opened their hearts to us in that space on that day. 

In The Importance of The Act of Reading, Paulo suggests the students need the teachers’ help to enter the world of words, but they should use their own creativities to learn language and read the language. I always have the question about how can teachers teach students without bias from themselves, and we have a limited time to talk about it in last class. The ideas in the Steps to the Recovery of Ecological Intelligence give me some hints to think about it. Although teachers might bring some of their ideas in teaching, but if they encourage the students to look at the history of the words and understand them with the ecological intelligence, the bias or prejudices from the teachers can be eliminated to some extent.