One of my chief concerns this semester has been how to incorporate perspectives outside of the known for students. I liked the idea of place conscious education, but I didn't understand how it could be used as a springboard to discuss the other. One question from Susan Swan's "From Urban Classroom to Urban Community"resonated with me as a way to make PCE a viable way to discuss others:"'What type of work don't we as a group represent?'" (88). I thought the working autobiography was a terrific idea as well, but especially when it leads to this question. Swan notes that this question usually leads to students seeing many different things as work, parenting, art, sports, etc, but it should also get them to consider why they don't work certain jobs and how job availability is linked to class.
That's why I really loved Swan's article; it focuses on understanding those of different social class in a way I'm not sure many university students see before coming here. She tells the story of one of her students speaking to fast food workers who catch three different buses to make it to a job that pays them minimum wage (91). I can only think of how eye opening that experience would be for some of my students. At the beginning of the year, I had them read some articles on vocational schooling, and I asked them if any of them had considered attending a vocational school. No one had. I asked them why. Most didn't have an answer, probably because it had never crossed their minds, but those who did answer provided thoughts like This is just what you do you go to college and The only kids who went to vocational school from my high school were the ones who can't make it in college. Eventually, this led to a really healthy conversation about the expectations of the middle class and what it means to be a member of that class as opposed to another.
Perhaps I was just in an otherness mindset, but this concept struck me in the "Toward a Sustainable Citizenship and Pedagogy" chapter as well. In it, Donehower, Hogg and Schell write about what it means to be a mobile professional attempting to connect with a rural student base. A story they tell relays the experience of Kim Donehower's husband who felt unease about working with rural Kentucky students as a native of the northeastern United States (160-161). I don't think this is exclusive to a rural setting though these three write specifically about that setting. Any mobile professional, which many educators end up being, must deal with his/her otherness upon entering a situation. I think if Mr. Donehower had used his situation as a springboard into discussing issues of place and otherness with his students, it could have been a tremendous learning experience and made him and his students more comfortable.
Another section of the Donehower, Hogg, and Schell piece stuck with me that is unrelated to my previous thoughts. My undergraduate degree is in Journalism so their section on media representation of rural communities and people was really interesting. I'm not sold on the entirety of their argument that rural America is represented in such a bad light, but I think it is important to examine how rural America is portrayed in the media and the ramifications of that portrayal. I agree with the cultural lens through which people see the plight of some rural communities: "They suggest that the ills of rural communities are idiosyncratic and cultural, denying the role that public policy, economic realities, and social complexities play in shaping the conditions of rural life and the circumstances for rural literacies" (169). This portrayal does connect to the way rural students may feel they are perceived by educators and the institutional community.
I didn't write anything on 826 Valencia or the "Stories of Home" project. Sorry. Some final thoughts on them. 1) 826 Valencia rocks, and I'm thinking of trying to do something similar in Lincoln. It's in the thought passing through a head stage right now, but hopefully it gets all the way there. A community writing center is a wonderful way to use the skills we as English educators have to make an impact in the community. 2) The "Stories of Home" were incredible, but I have questions. I couldn't find the actual art projects on the website anywhere. Are they still around? Do I have to go somewhere? I looked on the Lincoln Arts Counsel website, but I'm not smart enough to navigate the interweb.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
I'm Struck in this Place
Like John Price, I hold vivid memories of the flood of '93. I was seven years old, moving from Kansas City, MO to Ravenwood, a small town of 400 about 100 miles north of Kansas City. So many of the Missouri tributaries had flooded their banks along with major rivers like the Missouri and Mississippi. I remember sitting in the back of our car and staring at what should have been corn fields. In some places, I could still see the tops of corn stalks; in others, just water. Not too far from Ravenwood, I saw a man strapped to water skis glide along the top of his corn field, or what I assume was his corn field.
It was one of the most amazing and terrible things I'd ever seen. Of course, I didn't understand that at the time. I only thought it was cool that I was moving to place where people water skied wherever they wanted. Price's article got me thinking about that flood and conflicting ideas about the constant and inconstant nature of environment. The flood of '93 is probably a flood that has occurred a thousand times in the history of this place and will continue to occur for many years after America is no more. Price hints at this notion, perhaps inadvertently, when he talks about thinking vertically and the ever-changing weather of the Midwest (we all know that's still around) (7). Yet, he also points to how malleable environment can be, and that's easy to see as one of man's most constant struggles is to control his environment, damming rivers, cutting forests, tilling earth.
The most important aspect of Price's essay, I think, is the posited symbiotic relationship between man and place that really already exists. He utilizes the writing of Wallace Stegner to do so. "Neither the country nor the society we built out of it can be healthy ... until we stop raiding and running, and learn to be quiet part of the time, and acquire the sense not of ownership but of belonging" (qtd. in Price 16). This is the system I see championed on the Ribbons of the Prairie website as well. "It's easy to take our surrounding for granted. And yet it's often a connection with the outdoors that makes us appreciate where we live"(pairieplains.org, SOAR and Other Education). Using language like "connection" and "appreciate" paints the picture of a movement that isn't radical but that can enact a radical change via an established relationship between person and place.
What I cannot get on board with so much is Wes Jackson's idea that what is needed is to "arrest consumerism" (98). Why do I disagree with it? Because that idea won't work; it hasn't worked. It's not even that I don't wish this were possible, I do, but this approach clearly doesn't work. I'm currently sitting in my office surrounded by material things, writing on a laptop, at a university that surely used to be prairie grassland. I'm guessing no one can convince the 24,000 students here that they shouldn't have Iphones, that they shouldn't be striving for economic success and material wealth. If someone does try, good luck.
It's an interesting struggle, especially at present and in the future because so much of "place" has a negative ecological impact. Farmers till land, people build malls, universities, and huge apartment complexes, and now, those things are a part of who we are. They're a part of our place too. That's why movements like the Ribbons of the Prairie site are right on. They're looking at change in a very subtle but important way. It's almost like they see the seeds of change as understanding the tension that exists between where we are and where we've been, understanding that when leaving a place to gain something you lose something else and vice versa.
It was one of the most amazing and terrible things I'd ever seen. Of course, I didn't understand that at the time. I only thought it was cool that I was moving to place where people water skied wherever they wanted. Price's article got me thinking about that flood and conflicting ideas about the constant and inconstant nature of environment. The flood of '93 is probably a flood that has occurred a thousand times in the history of this place and will continue to occur for many years after America is no more. Price hints at this notion, perhaps inadvertently, when he talks about thinking vertically and the ever-changing weather of the Midwest (we all know that's still around) (7). Yet, he also points to how malleable environment can be, and that's easy to see as one of man's most constant struggles is to control his environment, damming rivers, cutting forests, tilling earth.
The most important aspect of Price's essay, I think, is the posited symbiotic relationship between man and place that really already exists. He utilizes the writing of Wallace Stegner to do so. "Neither the country nor the society we built out of it can be healthy ... until we stop raiding and running, and learn to be quiet part of the time, and acquire the sense not of ownership but of belonging" (qtd. in Price 16). This is the system I see championed on the Ribbons of the Prairie website as well. "It's easy to take our surrounding for granted. And yet it's often a connection with the outdoors that makes us appreciate where we live"(pairieplains.org, SOAR and Other Education). Using language like "connection" and "appreciate" paints the picture of a movement that isn't radical but that can enact a radical change via an established relationship between person and place.
What I cannot get on board with so much is Wes Jackson's idea that what is needed is to "arrest consumerism" (98). Why do I disagree with it? Because that idea won't work; it hasn't worked. It's not even that I don't wish this were possible, I do, but this approach clearly doesn't work. I'm currently sitting in my office surrounded by material things, writing on a laptop, at a university that surely used to be prairie grassland. I'm guessing no one can convince the 24,000 students here that they shouldn't have Iphones, that they shouldn't be striving for economic success and material wealth. If someone does try, good luck.
It's an interesting struggle, especially at present and in the future because so much of "place" has a negative ecological impact. Farmers till land, people build malls, universities, and huge apartment complexes, and now, those things are a part of who we are. They're a part of our place too. That's why movements like the Ribbons of the Prairie site are right on. They're looking at change in a very subtle but important way. It's almost like they see the seeds of change as understanding the tension that exists between where we are and where we've been, understanding that when leaving a place to gain something you lose something else and vice versa.
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