Category Archives: Social and emotional learning

Patterns

  By admin | June 4, 2011 - 10:55 am | , ,
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You have to listen for them. They’re there.

I was blessed back in 1998 (to be technical, I’ve been blessed every day before and since, but anyway) when I was cast in Northwestern University’s Titanic Players and began to study improv. I could wax for hours in pretentious, art-meets-philosophy mumbojumbo-speak about how improv is life, but I’ll spare us all the trouble. You’re welcome.*

Laura and I go back to 1996, a coupla north suburban Chicago speech team kids diving into the dysfunctional waters of the National Forensics Tournament in Fayetteville, NC… We were also teammates on Titanic. Last night, I saw Laura improvise with Chet Watkins in New York City. And while I’m far from my collegiate crisp salad days in Titanic, far even from my mid-20’s wilted greens days in Valid Hysteria, I like to think I’ve still got the eye, or the ear, for improv.

Patterns were everywhere.

The great improvisers recognize a pattern’s potential with the second element aired, and cement it for the rest of us with number three. Decent improvisers respect number three.  Greatness again can be achieved or avoided in what you do with it. The greats play the pattern, just play out the game the pattern delivers, so simple, so satisfying. The less great complicate; they deny the pattern, think they’re better, more clever than the pattern…

Let’s not get too technical, that really isn’t the point. Laura and I talked about her show a bit as we trekked out to Brooklyn, then switched to relationships.** We talked about me and mine, her and hers, our friends and theirs. Was it the priming device of improv that night, or the cognitive framework of improv in general, that influenced our perspectives? Laura called out the first one, a doozy, that.

Patterns were everywhere.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: Fundamentally, improv isn’t really about patterns… not really. Improv is about listening. I foreshadowed it in the first paragaph, saying you had to listen for em. You see how I did that? :-)

Our challenge, then, is to listen. You do need a little savvy to distinguish the pattern from the noise. Sure. But if you’re not listening in the first place, you won’t pick up on a blessed thing — nothing. It’s all a bewildering, limitless expanse, no knowing what’s coming next, no smart way to accommodate.

In The Tipping Point, Gladwell disclosed how telegraph operators analyzed enemy communications. This is separate from Bletchley Park, Alan Turing, the Enigma machine, all of that. Regular old telegraph operators learned their counterparts’ “fist,” or the unique signature with which they communicated — their pressure and tempo on the telegraph keys, as well as the expansiveness and pacing of their interpersonal chatter. While the Allied listeners didn’t know precisely what the Axis operators were saying, they knew which unique communicator was doing the talking. Gladwell likened this to a relationship’s DNA, an ingrained communication style shaping each interchange — a dynamic. A pattern.

So what are we going to do with it? How do we achieve greatness? To what extent are our personal and interpersonal patterns inescapable? Where is innovation possible, advisable, not just a (doomed?) vanity project of proving one’s “extraordinariness,” and where do we surrender to the pattern and play it out (or exit stage left)?

Tonight I’ll take in Meg‘s improv show with The Baldwins. Meg has been one of my best friends since 1994, and thanks to her and her fiance, my car stereo/heart is richer by two CD’s (lady power mix and sad country, respectively). Wonder if/how we’ll hear the patterns… and what we’ll do next.

*I happen to believe that improv is life, and improv’s approaches to good playing could be embraced as approaches to good living (shouldn’t life be lived playfully, afterall?). But then maybe you’ll come back with an example of how yoga or guitar-playing is life and I just really don’t want to get into it. ;-)

**See, this is where long-form improvisers would chime in, Improv is relationships!

Renewal

  By admin | June 2, 2011 - 3:06 pm | , ,
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You know how they say, What once was old is new again?

Today I (re)visited Tufts University’s Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development, site of my 2004-2006 MA studies. How lucky I am to have worked with such wise and caring teachers, who generously shared their time: over a cup of tea in Ball Square (thank you, Martha!); in the director’s office of my white knight, the Eliot-Pearson Children’s School (thank you, Maryann and Debbie!); to and from Powderhouse Square’s Dunkin Donuts (thank you, Chip!); and in the car of a friendly GTA passerby (thank you, David and girl whose name I can’t remember!).

I’ve assembled their valuable words of advice for us all to process and enact in real life. Their implicit meta-message: Don’t lose heart. The object lesson in this homecoming: Don’t lose people.

-Life has phases and cultures have orientations. Our youthful, Western passions may fade with time and/or never attain such manifestation/idealization elsewhere. Recognize and celebrate changes across the lifespan.
-Certain academic departments do value applied work and can allow young parents to survive.
-Activities should be evaluated in terms of their cost-benefit to professional and personal matters.
-Academia offers June, July, and August (plus Winter Break!). While you have to work hard eight months of the year, those three-ish months off are a beautiful thing. So is being paid to think…
-At certain academic departments, you can clearly understand expectations, affably negotiate politics, and ruthlessly set limits regarding work time and personal time.
-Writing time and personal time should be deliberately scheduled and conscientiously respected.
-It is important that the university not only appreciates but values your work. Without the attachment of meaningful value, people-pleasers must say “no.”
-Following your passion will lead you where you’re meant to go.
-Invoking your passion by asking “How does this relate to my key priority/area of interest?” should be regularly done so as to ensure both its pursuit and your sole participation in significant projects that advance your agenda.
-Appreciate contextual features that influence your work’s impact. Be realistic.

Also shared time with dear friends from back in the day, who have vitally remained my friends to this day, and don’t show signs of stopping. Thanks to old friends of friends (Tim), old friends (Jenn, Yali, Geetha, Erika, Kelli), old friends out of context (Meg, Meryl), newer friends out of context (Jinah), new friends (Christina, Emily, Julie, “Mussels”), and the old friends who will variously host and entertain me in the Big Apple (Laura, Jordan, Marci, Ed, Lucy, Meg, Happy, Waylon, Willie, the Griffiths, the Andersons, Arian, Krissy, Olive Joon, and Ivy Shireen).

Lately feeling like things are coming full circle… or like I’m on one of those spiral staircases, looping back to the origin, but happen to be up a level. Let it be so.

I’m old(er) but I’m new again.

Realization

  By admin | May 26, 2011 - 3:48 pm | , , , , , , ,
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I am now four days post-quals and the whole experience seems like a dream, a Dali-esque portrait of vibrant images stitched together crazily… The scene it describes is of a Western/technologized rite of passage whose equivalent is stripping you naked, feeding you peyote, and sending you out in the desert to channel strange visions and, hopefully, survive.

I’m still sleep-deprived but for different reasons: play, travel, and circadian rhythm compromise. I’m energized, though, to be among smart and friendly scholars in familiar Boston. Maybe this PhD is a bit like my 2003-2006 Boston experience — exciting in anticipation, surprisingly challenging in acclimation, depressing and identity-rocking at times, and ultimately, home.

Below, you’ll find what I wrote yesterday and perhaps appreciate, as I do now, how feelings can be ephemeral and how meaning-making is a continuous process…
__________________

I did it.

The thing is, I’m not sure what “it” is. Just what did I do? Here is an itemized list:

-worked from the moment I woke up until the time I went to sleep;
(-except for when I watched Top Chef: Season 4 – Chicago during my breakfast, lunch, and dinner + dishwashing breaks;)
-wrote a paper for two solid days*, then moved on to the next, despite the fact that the last section of the previous paper was unfinished and I hate leaving things unfinished, because I couldn’t risk getting bogged down and figured a slapdash last section to one (or several) papers was better than a non-existent or mostly inadequate paper in its entirety;
-went for a daily, two block walk for a cup of coffee to go;
-experienced two of the 10 days feeling cloudy-brained due to sleep deprivation, sympathizing with the concussed, strategizing work-arounds – making detailed notes since my silly cerebrum couldn’t hold a thought, going for a walk to the mailbox (can’t trust my postal carrier and your lack of Valentines is the reason – I mailed em, people), catching quick semi-naps, re-jiggering my 10-day plan;
-communicated with my beloved mother, my champion, daily;
-compromised my body’s structural integrity, perhaps (by the end of the experience, got the distinct impression that my posture kept tilting to the right – that ain’t ergonomic, and neither is my Ikea couch);
-rubbed the ends of my hair to frayed, eroded stumps;
-opted for loose dresses and my most generous jeans;
-managed to make it to yoga on both Sundays;
-got bites across my infernally expanding belly from some critter (a flea?) that I hope doesn’t live in my furniture;
-surprised myself by some of the routes that the papers took – hadn’t anticipated needing to get into X or Y topic, but realized I couldn’t speak about Z without foregrounding X and Y;
-cursed myself for these deviations from the plan because they necessitated searching for literature and adding the new citations to my stupid reference section;
-marveled at the sheer length of these documents, born of my ignorance that it would take so many pages to explain some fundamentals before I could even get into more of the “meat”;
-wondered…………..

Here’s the philosophical part and I’m warning you now, it’s not pretty. I wondered:

-if the fundamentals are the meat, if the point is to prove one’s mastery of theory and research methods;
-if the fundamentals aren’t the meat, if the point is to explore something novel, synthesize, make more of a contribution;
-who decides the point anyway – who is this for? While my professors may read these papers (I say “may” intentionally – I take nothing for granted, especially since I forked over behemoths), I’m not driven to please them necessarily, or other people in general, and doubt that honoring my own agenda will dissatisfy them, or anyone (and if it does cause dissatisfaction, tend to think that the refuseniks are in the wrong);
-then, if this is for me, how am I benefiting again? Where is the value in writing a paper in two days, on the back of another two day paper, another two day paper, another two day paper? Does that generate products of value? Are my papers any good?
-if it’s not about the product, it’s about the process, then is this nose-to-the-grindstone process one that confers any take-aways? Do I want to practice this, get better at this, this process of masochism and social disconnect? That doesn’t sound sustainable or qualify-of-life-y…
-if there’s something to be said about learning how to write on demand? Maaaaaaaybe, because procrastination and overcommitment can and has and will inspire two-day paper writing (I have a book chapter due next week, for example, and a conference and another deadline in the interim). But. Ugh. And that’s still just one or maybe two two-day papers, not four. And one or maybe two two-day papers, that I’ve done. I like to call that “finals.” So does doing four build up a muscle that makes two seem like cake? Like after a marathon, a 15-mile run is a breeze? If so, how long does that muscle last? It can’t be permanent – nothing is permanent. What will I have to do to maintain it? Is whatever that is worth it?
-if this is less of a body and muscle game, more of a brain and story game – maybe this builds up confidence or stokes a sense of self-image, as in “I can, I am — I can put something scholarly together, I am a scholar.” But can I, am I? What does middling performance prove? Whose standard are we using? Do I compare myself to professionals or am I still just a student? At the age of 31, when is my work legitimate? What is my work? Who defines legitimacy?
-Will any of these papers make a difference for me or anyone?
-Will any of my work make a difference for me or anyone? Does anyone know anything, or are we all just feeling around in the dark? If it’s the latter, then that would make my darkness-groping okay, or normative at least… But then how can we ever get anywhere? Stroke of luck? This isn’t about luck, this is about science. To what extent is it naïve to impose science’s order on the complexity of real life — dynamic systems, flesh-and-blood-and-mind-and-spirit people?
HOW DO I HELP PEOPLE?
How do I help myself? What am I doing?

To be honest, most of this emerged amorphously, intuitively, as it dawned on me that I couldn’t muster the energy to proof my papers and wondered what was the point of having worked so hard to perfect the reference sections (which no one will read) if the content is grammatically-challenged and flabby? This led me down the recrimination highway (Why hadn’t I uploaded everything to Zotero way back when and anytime since? (I know why. Time. (Why don’t I have any time? What am I doing wrong?))) and, sending the papers anyway, smashed headfirst into an existential crisis.

I cried.

Sobbing, I called my parents (as they kept running into neighbors at the Jewel, bless em), who sagely determined that I was overtired and would benefit from a good night’s sleep. True. Good point. But it was 7 pm. And I had grown accustomed to staying up until 2.

I took a walk down to the mailbox, downing seltzer from a travel mug because I thought maybe the sharp pain in my stomach that had been troubling me for hours was due to the fact that all I’d drank all day was that single cup of coffee to go… I continued on to Bricks & Scones, where there were no sesame chewy rolls, and maybe it was just as well. I trudged back home, wishing I felt better in every way, brainstorming…

The story ends well. Basically. I ended up dashing to an 8:10 pm show of Bridesmaids, where I ate an embezzled rice cake and granola bar in the dark and drank in the (synthesized?) Midwest, laughing at the broad comedy and recognizing another seasoned woman’s search for it all.

But we weren’t exactly the same, this character and me. I wear longer dresses, for starters, and I hadn’t hit rock bottom… right? I had finished my exams. I’m sure I’ll pass the defense. I wrote scads more than was expected (to our collective detriment?). I have read more than I cited (a mistake?) and still cited up a storm (the less interesting things?). I rediscovered pdf’s and hard copies of articles and books with my underlining + margin scribbling + Post It flagging, like gifts from a fairy godmother who was me, me, me leaving myself presents, Past Me to Future Me, taking care of me, three years in the making…

I don’t know. I don’t know what it was for. At least I can keep going on in this program. That’s good, to not be stranded along the PhD highway, surviving humiliation and a six-month waiting period before being permitted to sit for quals again. It’s good not to fail (although we’re supposed to celebrate mistakes, right, “teachable moments,” risk failure, seek failure, isn’t that part of the value-added in learning through gaming? – but failure feels different outside of games, it just does, and I know people who regret losing games anyway. This was a good bullet-dodge for my ego, not failing. (Am I being presumptuous? I haven’t passed the defense yet!)). I know, at least, that when it comes time to hunker down and focus and do, I can. I did. (What did I do again?)

My friends made me laugh. ☺ Via IM, email, telephone, text, postcard, face-to-face… Old friends, dear friends, good friends who I’ve been through the war with, even who I’ve warred with, busy but still finding the time to care, not just to show up in whichever mode availed but to bring their hearts with them and connect…

My family. My family is so generous, and I am so privileged, in every way.

The hell in my head, I created. I create. I know. It consists of phantasms and tricks of light. It can be blown away, like spun sugar, with a single burst of optimism, or humor, or gratitude. It can be transformed by looking at it from a different angle, a perspective shift. I know. I know.

You believe in me. I should believe in your good judgment. I deserve some slack, I guess. And a little more faith…

My intentions are pure. I just want it to matter. I don’t know about all of this work business. But I do know about all of you. You matter. I love you.

*note, I qualified the days as solid, not the papers… but if anyone would like to read one or any of the papers, here are the links:

Participation and play: Modes of learning for today and tomorrow
“Almost as necessary as bread”: Why we need narrative and what makes it work
The origin of everything?: Empathy in theory and practice
Present promise, future potential: Positive Deviance and complementary theory

Vision

  By admin | May 11, 2011 - 3:26 pm | , , , , ,
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On Friday the 13th (no joke), I will begin to write my qualifying exams. This process, a 10-day rite of passage, separates the first part of PhD work (classes) from the second (independent research and writing). Then my five-person committee that consists of at least three members of my department and at least one member from an outside department will gather at my oral defense which is to be held at least two weeks after delivery of the written exam (in my case, scheduled for much later — Thursday, August 25) to determine whether I am qualified to begin dissertation research. If so, I will be awarded a Master of Arts in Communication, entitled to a title change (from doctoral student to doctoral candidate (also known as ABD, or “all but dissertation”)), allowed to teach stand-alone courses, required to submit a dissertation prospectus within 30 days of the oral defense, and expected to get quite drunk (with joy!).

The exams have students choose four or five areas to bracket, investigate, and write about. This work is intended to create/demonstrate the student’s mastery of each area, clearly delineating discrete areas of expertise. The first step is selecting a professor to supervise an area. The second step is drawing up a reading list, or a bibliography of journal articles and books that a person must read in order to become an expert in this area. The third step is reading, note-taking, thinking, etc. The fourth step is writing the exams (which consist of one essay per area, each answering a question written by that area’s supervising professor, delivered via email to the student on the first day of the 10-day writing period). The fifth step is defending these exam essays.

Theoretically, at the end of this process, the student should be able to teach a course about each area, with each reading list inspiring a syllabus. Some students select well-trod areas (such as “framing and agenda-setting” or “quantitative research methods”) while some students create their own unique groupings of scholarship (that’s me). Some students choose areas that will directly inform their dissertation projects and, in the most efficient case scenario,turn each area’s essay into a chapter in their dissertation’s literature review.

Such was my attempt in identifying my four qualifying exam areas. I would love to “work smart” and make my essays count for more than bureaucratic exercise. Moreover, my overarching goal is to make a difference. That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out how to do through my coursework, and that’s what my dissertation is going to try to figure out how to do too. I read a bunch of stuff, put together some ideas, try em out, see what happened, report back. (The “see what happened” and “report back” parts are lacking for me — I’ve got reams of unanalyzed data and an anorexic publication record, but everybody’s gotta start somewhere.) So, my exams reflect this mission, my attempt to figure out how to make a difference. What makes people tick? How do we support people’s healthy development? How do we optimize our learning potential? How do we make the world a better place? These are my deep-seated questions, my North Star. Should be simple to take em on, no?

Here is my vision:

These qualifying exam essays will examine how people learn, arguing that this process occurs in community, via participation, guided by emotion, and organized as stories. As such, change-making endeavors (e.g., curriculum launches, campaigns and interventions, reform policies) must leverage community context, work-related skills, individuals’ character and feelings, and storytelling/meaning-making. Each essay will: explore several interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks; synthesize these academically separate yet philosophically complementary theories by constructing tables or models identifying consistent categories/patterns; review relevant case studies; and offer a set of recommendations for enriching theory and praxis. Case studies will range from formal and informal educational initiatives in classroom and after-school contexts, to community development and community-based youth development projects, to entertainment-education programs. Separately, each essay will provide a deep dive into a specific (albeit interdisciplinary) area – respectively, community and youth development, participatory learning, empathy, and narrative. Holistically, these essays will chart a course for future research and practice aimed at making – in whichever way possible, however large or small – the world a better place.

Here is the supervisor and working title of each (as yet unwritten) essay:

Michael Cody & Doe Mayer: Participatory community development and development in participatory communities

Henry Jenkins (Chair): Participatory learning: Philosophies and models of education for today and tomorrow

Stacy Smith: The origin of everything?: Empathy in theory and practice

Sheila Murphy: “Almost as necessary as bread”: Why we need narrative and what makes it work


Cohesion

  By admin | April 5, 2011 - 11:37 pm | ,
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“Happiness proved less social than sadness. Each happy friend increased an individual’s chances of personal happiness by 11 percent, while just one sad friend was needed to double an individual’s chance of becoming unhappy” (Keim, 2010, paragraph 9).

“The more we focus on ourselves and avoid a commitment to others, Twenge’s research shows, the more we suffer from anxiety and depression” (McGonigal, 2011, p. 113).

“Ideally, happiness needs to be approached as a collective process” (McGonigal, 2011, p. 186).

“Epic wins [are] …opportunities for ordinary people to do extraordinary things – like change or save someone’s life – every day” (McGonigal, 2011, p. 247).

“‘…When it comes to social networks, the positives outweigh the negatives. That’s why networks are everywhere.’ People, in other words, need people: We are the glue holding ourselves together” (Lehrer, 2009, paragraph 6).