October Meeting

Submitted by Karen Frostig: As co-facilitator of critical pedagogy’s most recent meeting in October, I’ve been invited to write a blog, not be confused with a summary report of the meeting.
The meeting’s agenda was to solicit sample vignettes from faculty, where issues of power and oppression, racism, sexism and exclusions of all kinds, became the focal point of classroom discourse. One faculty discussed an incident and named her experience as an “ouch” moment, where one or more people experienced pain, shame, discomfort, rage, while others scrambled to find language to further critical reflection and collective investigation. A few more examples were also presented.
It might be useful to think about these moments in a broader context, as opportunities rather than collision sites or blind spots. I left the meeting wondering whether faculty were looking for intervention techniques that would be culturally responsive, as well as aid in circumventing the likelihood of future “ouch” moments, erupting in the classroom.
While empathy is wedded to imagination, emerging in the development of a young child–often in response to how the child was treated by parents and caregivers– critical thinking is a conceptual process, seen as the culmination of cognitive development. It is not necessarily a given. Students working with young children are immersed in educational environments where literal thinking and concrete thinking dominate classroom experience. Critical thinking can often appear as unfamiliar terrain.
In addition to these developmental considerations, I am a firm believer that as long as we have privilege and oppression in the world, we will have “ouch” moments, where the pretend game comes to a screeching halt. These are wake up calls that provide educators with a rich opportunity to develop real conversations about things that matter between people in the room. The task-at-hand is to create safety, so that exploration can unfold. The dialogue is not to become so facile so as to eliminate these moments of great import.
At the same time, we need to consider students’ contracts and program expectations. For example, Creative Arts and Learning is marketed as an educational program. The line between education, critical pedagogy, citizenship, consciousness-raising, personal growth and therapy can quickly become quite dynamic, overwhelming some students who just bargained for a little “curriculum enhancement” packaging. How do web sites represent programs? What kind of training should be in place for faculty to tackle difficult topics that may emerge from any number of directions? How do these unruly moments mirror what teachers face day-to-day in the classroom?
_________

Coincidentally, from the news desk…
An item concerning the very topic that touched off the discussion in our meeting, was broadcast on CNN the morning we met. The story concerned the cover image on French Vogue Magazine, where a white model’s face was painted black for a photo shoot. An international debate quickly ensued, examining whether this was a racist or, at the very least, a culturally insensitive act…take a listen…

We are back!

The Critical Pedagogy & the Arts Committee convened on September 23, 2009 after a summer hiatus. We welcomed new members Lisa Donovan, Delores Goode, Dalia Llera and Karen Frostig.

Topics of interest for this year include: faculty teaching in isolation in relationship to their students; teachers taking “risks”; permission to state discomfort; detangling issues of race, class, immigration status, ethnicity, minority status; religion; tokenism; assumptions; age of students, their level of experience; etc.

Committee members suggested topics for discussion:
a. October meeting – Wed. October 14th, 10:30 AM -12 PM, University Hall 2-129: Karen Frostig and Aziza Bey will facilitate discussion concerning teaching vignettes that stirred discomfort or confusion around diversity issues. Committee members will bring in stories from the field to share.

b. November meeting – Monday November 16th , 10:30 – 12, 2-129: Marjorie Jones will present The Transformative Power of Music: the Negro Spiritual.

c. December meeting – Thursday December 17th 1:00 – 2:30 PM: Eleanor Roffman and Dalia Llera will present a developmental overview of psycho-social issues concerning diversity.

Two guest will be coming to Aziza Bey’s Critical Pedagogy class this fall.
Oct. 6th – Paula Cantor Special Education Specialist and fifth grade teacher.

Oct. 27th – Three Arrows Keeper of the firer for the Tsalagi Cherokee –. This event is a part of the C.P. Committee’s Guest Lecture Series and will be open to the public.

Summer Hiatus

We would like to thank everyone who has been reading this blog over the past year. Our last meeting of the school year was today so we are putting the blog on hiatus over the summer. Our next meeting will be in September and we hope to see everyone there and have the blog running again at that time.

Some ideas we are exploring for meeting topics next year include:
The idea of post-racism and post-feminism
Bicultural teaching teams
Online dialogues in teaching with technology
Other identities in the classroom: disability, men
Environmental art

In the meantime, please make use of the various resources we have compiled on the website that you can visit through the right-hand navigation.

Have a great summer and we will see you in the fall!

Digital Storytelling and Bicultural Identities

At today’s meeting we enjoyed learning about the recent work one of our members, Young Song, has done with young immigrant students to help them express their dual identities through the arts. She has worked with Korean American, Japanese American, Haitian American, and Chinese American students thus far. She shared a DVD of the process of her work, including examples of the students’ art, on exploring Korean and American identities through various art projects. They made art from recycled materials, books that showed inward and outward appearances, and finally videos to explore digital storytelling. Art allowed them to move out of their comfort zones, take risks, and look at things in new ways so they can learn to move back and forth gracefully between their two cultures.

We also wanted to mark the recent passing of two great critical pedagogues. Joe Kincheloe, who edited the recent book Critical Pedagogy: Where Are We Now? and was a leader in forming the theory of critical pedagogy. Also Augusta Boal, author of Theatre of the Oppressed, passed away recently.
You can read their obituaries online: Joe Kincheloe and Augusta Boal.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring

At today’s meeting we briefly discussed the 2003 Korean movie Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring. Several people were interested in this. The movie should be available to rent from a video store or Netflix. You can watch the tailer here:

Crossing Borders, Making Homes

We are excited to announce the new book Crossing Borders, Making Homes: Stories of Resilient Women. Two of our members are involved in this book: Eleanor Roffman as one of the editors and Aziza Braithwaite Bey as a contributor.

From the back cover:
War, terrorism and discrimination affect the lives of women and their families across the globe. It is often up to women to create and re-create safe homes within themselves, families, and communities. Crossing Borders, Making Homes: Stories of Resilient Women is a collection of narratives that illustrate the resilience, resolve, and strength of women. The contributors are a racially and ethnically diverse group of international and native-born women who have crossed literal and figurative borders in their struggle for empowerment, social justice and peace. A major part of each woman’s story is the commitment to making positive change in local and global communities. The women’s resilience and their commitment to social justice serves as inspiration to readers everywhere.

The book is available on amazon.com

Self and Trauma

In the context of war-torn countries we also talked about the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organization to relocate displaced persons. They have also created community based programs to assist in war-torn countries. One challenge they faced was that most of the counselors who work in these programs are trained in Western models of counseling that focus on the individual identity. They see the self as ego-centric as opposed to socio-centric with many outside influences.

These different concepts of self lead to different ways of thinking about suffering and pain, and therefore counselors need to adopt a different approach to healing. In Western culture we may compartmentalize our suffering into the physical, emotional, and psychological pain. We often do not consider a spiritual suffering or sense of self. For those with a socio-centric sense of self all types of suffering, including spiritual, may be seen as connected.

To address suffering the counselor must understand how the community understands the traumatic experience. This may differ individual to individual, but it provides a starting point for healing. In order for healing to occur there must be integration and understanding of what happened and how human rights fits into that picture. This gives new meaning to struggle and allows people to understand the traumatic events both personally and collectively.

The IOM tries to address these differences and move away from just the Western concept of self in addressing trauma. One way they do this is with Bonding Therapy, through which the bonds of the community, which may have been broken or altered by trauma, are observed. These bonds provide social support and collective strength, which are particularly important in collectivist communities.

Recovery from Trauma

In our last meeting on mental health in war-torn countries we discussed the Recovery Model (originally from Judith Herman and her book Trauma and Recovery) in which survivors are empowered and new connections are established. This model centers on the power of healing in relationships, affirmation of life, and the role of integrity and trust in healing.

1. Establishing Safety
People need to find a space in which they can trust each other and begin to have normal discourse and form relationships. Even if there is not yet a full sense of safety in the country, a safe community or center must be established to begin recovering.

2. Remembrance and Mourning
At this stage it is important to give space for negative feelings. In order to mourn first people must express rage, anger, and hatred. We are so often discouraged from expressing these emotions, but in the face of horrible acts of violence and abuse these feelings need a space. Part of the mourning process is also processing the lost and understanding the relationship between the sense of loss and the sense of self. As people work through loss they can begin to form a sense of self where loss isn’t the only defining feature.

3. Reconnection with Ordinary Life
At this point people can begin to imagine a future for themselves and their communities. Part of this process is constructing meaning out of the experiences they have had and incorporating that into one’s sense of self. People come to understand that their reaction is a natural reaction to an unnatural act.

Healing has many dimensions including personal, cultural, familial, and political. Reconstruction and rebuilding are important processes in creating new lives and moving through these healing processes.

Mental Health in War-Torn Countries

In today’s Critical Pedagogy meeting, Eleanor Roffman talked about her research that she presented at the Gaza Mental Health Conference in October, 2008. We will post more on the discussions we had around the issue of psychosocial support for individuals and communities who have survived trauma and war, but in the meantime please go to the conference website for references and information on this interesting and relevant topic:

Gaza Mental Health Conference
You can access Eleanor and others’ papers by using the left-hand navigation and clicking on conference papers [English] at the top.

Open Windows DVD

The DVD of Monica Prendergast’s presentation with the guest speaker series, Open Windows, is now available in the Critical Pedagogy binder in 13 Mellen. If you were not able to attend the lecture you can check out the DVD using the sign out sheet in the back of the binder.

Monica discussed her performances of Peace Mom in the context of research. She presents on using performative writing and shares a poem she wrote about her performances and doing in character talk backs with students. Finally, she performs a section of the play (most of this is available, but the end was cut off due to lack of space on the tape).

If you are interested in any of these topics please feel free to check out the disc to learn more.