My Project Proposal

I have chosen an institutional autobiography for my project. I will focus on my parents' educational values and how they affected and directed me; how CUNY has played such a major role in my life, wedding the educational with the personal--my parents both went to CUNY for their BAs, I went for my BA and now for my MA, I met my ex-husband here, I met my current boyfriend here, I work here, etc.--and how I am still so closely connected to the university (student and administrative employee; an interesting opportunity to see things from both sides), and continually shaped by the institution; and how I feel that my later in life (comparatively speaking) decision to teach was in many ways an inevitability, based on my family life growing up and my present life as a daily participant in an educational community. My goal in writing this, I think, is a little selfish. In order to better understand myself and the (somewhat circuitous) road I took to get where I am today, I want to explore coming of age in a family where the parents already held advanced degrees, so the kids could not be the first to go to college (a more "typical" education story, I think--one our professor shared as his own) and instead struggled to find a way to claim some path as their own (in terms of schooling and educational choices) and to assert some sort of independence and individuality in a family where education was constantly discussed as a fundamental component of living a good (i.e., productive) life and achieving personal enrichment and growth. How do three pretty smart kids claim a "first" at anything when the educational bar was already set so high? (Hint: rebellion. None of us went to college straight out of high school.) I will likely reference both Miller and Rodriguez and maybe some other readings from this semester.

Project Proposal

I have decided to write an institutional autobiography. My focus is on two institutions in particular: school and family. I plan to address the ways in which my education has been shaped by the schools I have attended, as well by the contrasting experience of my older brother who attended the same schools as me through high school. Both my personal educational experience and observations of my brother's education have changed me as an individual, a thinker, a learner, and an educator. My goal is to show how my brother's experience in school (as compared with mine) led to changes in my ways of thining about education and helped shape my philosophy as a teacher. I am incorporating Miller's work and Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Films about Teachers

Hi everybody. I promised I would post titles of some movies about teaching, teachers, and the humanities. Please add any you can think of--and any thoughts you have about them.

To Sir with Love--one of the classics; a precursor to movies like Dangerous Minds; it's less ridiculous than that film, though it is a pretty fantasy-driven portrait of teaching

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie--another classic; more complicated, both witty and dark; really great.

Dangerous Minds--terrible, but interesting in its terribleness, particularly with regard to questions of social class, race, and education; remember Richard Miller's discussion of it in Writing at the End of the World

Wonder Boys--more complex than most teacher films; the teacher is a mess, the student a compulsive liar; the relationship involves sex and drugs in a way that makes the film seem nostalgic for a time when teacher-student relationships were passionate, unstifled by bureaucratic strictures; in this sense, it's pretty Romantic (capital R) and overblown, bu it has a sense of humor about itself.

Fahrenheit 451--What can I say, it's Truffaut. It's witty, beautiful, strange, insightful. My favorite of this bunch.

Election--another dark comedy, this one about the seething dysfunction beneath the public facade of the teacher; actually, you could think of the film as the institutional autobiography of Jim McCallister, the character played by Matthew Broderick.

Please add more!

I’m not very much into manifestism nowadays. When I first became a teacher I was the queen of manifest-ing to anyone who’d lend me an ear. Those days are long gone and at this point if I would have to rant about anything it would be: those darn administrators. They need to teach. They need to be back in the classroom where they belong…if they are really as good as they purport to be. Most of the time I feel as if their job is akin to that of a fluffed up corporate executive in need of a secretary. I ran into Joel Klein last summer and volunteered my two cents when it comes to school administrators. He heard me out and entered some information into his blackberry. I think if anything is to get better, the current system of school administration must go through a major renovation – I’d call it “Extreme Makeover – Administrators Edition.”

TIME...NO TIME...

WHY IS IT THAT AT TEN A.M YOU NEED TO READ TO THE STUDENTS AND BY TEN FIFTEEN A.M THEY NEED TO READ TO YOU BUT BY TEN THIRTY THE STUDENTS NEED TO BE READING SILENTY? WHEN ARE THE STUDENT ABLE TO THINK AND EXPRESS THEMSELVES FREELY? WHEN WILL TEACHER BE ABLE TO TEACH AND CONNECT WITH STUDENTS? NOT ALL STUDENT CAN LEARN IN A ROBOTIC MANNER. ARE WE GOING BACK TO THE OLD TEACHING METHOD MEMORIZATION FOR A TEST AND THEN MOVE ON ? IS THAT RIGHT! HOW ARE STUDENT ABLE TO COMPLETE THEIR THOUGHTS ON A SUBJECT MATTER WHEN FORCED TO MOVE ON TO ANOTHER?DOES THE BOARD OF ED. REALIZE THE PRESSURE PUT ON THE STUDENTS AS WELL AS THE TEACHER?

Excuse me Miss, Can you wipe my nose?

Have you ever felt like you do everything for your students? Students in this day and age take no responsibility for themselves or their work. They have absolutely no respect for themselves or anyone else for that matter. The sad part is that we as teachers are forced to give in to their laziness because a doctor will give them a drug and label them as “ADD” because they don’t “feel” like paying attention. Don’t get me wrong, I do think that there are “SOME” students who may have this disorder, but there are too many of them being labeled these days. There are countless numbers of times that I am “told” to create lessons that will allow my students to learn in a visual, spatial, auditory and kinesthetic manner in one forty-five minute period. This means I have to jump around like a maniac to try to get them to speak and participate. And what if I object to this? Well, my students won’t learn, they can not learn the way that we did as students (back in the day). Everything has to be communicative and FUN! We need to incorporate television, computers, technology, music, etc. into our lessons on a daily basis in order for our students to be the slightest bit interested.
Not only do doctors contribute to this problem, but administrators and parents do as well. I don’t know about you, but I have been told on several occasions that I “have to” provide a set of class notes for several children, why? Well, Johnny doesn’t have good handwriting, and Maria does not pay attention well, and Greg, well, Greg doesn’t come to school because he has a stomach ache (everyday) and needs the notes. The worst though, and I am not trying to make any accusations or blame anyone BUT the parents, oh my goodness they have every excuse in the book. Mrs.Johnson calls me and says: “Nicole is going to be absent for a week and we will need the work. Our family is going to Disney World”, I mean, Are you kidding?, However, the administrators will side with the parents and we as teachers have to plan, copy, and provide class notes for these children.
What can we do to show kids that they need to start taking responsibility for their own learning? And how can we get parents and administrators to help us?

Manifesto

Manifesto
I attended elmenetary and high school in the Caribbean. When I was a child, I read because there was little esle to do. I grew up without a television, and it was impossible to spend hours with anyone on the phone. Besides playing all day in the yard, the only thing available to me was books. Our students are not reading because many of them are not encouraged to do so at home. Parents are buying these ipods and other electronic devices for their children instead of exposing them to books. I did a survey with my class, and I was surprised by the number of students who said they were never read to at home as children, or students who never find time to read at home. Many of us blame the cannonized books and suggest that if the books were more interesting or more up to date, maybe the students would want to read. The question is, how will the students know if a book is interesting or not if they never read it? I give my students opportunities to choose books they like, and bring them to class for independent reading. Only about half the class get those books. The main complaint is "I hate reading." Early exposure to books fosters a love for reading. I don't know if I can honestly say that the Humanities is dying because I have been teaching for only three years, and I have only taught at one school. However, my experience with my students is that approximately half of them are either reluctant to read, or have difficulty with reading. I also find that teachers I talk to from other schools have similar problems. But they also teach in New York City. I think the problem can be fixed with early exposure to reading, and with parents taking more control over their children, supervising them more, and placing greater demands on them to do schoolwork. I think a collaborative effort with teachers and parents can solve the problem.

Education Today What a Difference From My Schooling

In today's learning environment as a teacher I have been exposed to many new things. These new things which range from curriculum to student work and behavior, and even parental involvement are often a far cry from my days as a student in a junior high and high school classroom not that long ago (10 years or so). When I went to school I believe that many elements were for the better. Sure, the technology in schools is not what it is today, but I feel that more learning was going on inside classrooms. The breakdown starts in my mind with school bigshots and the curriculum they preach. This curriculum is shoved down your throat as you have no choice but to teach exactly everything they want. As a teacher this takes away from your creativity and forces you to teach exactly like everyone else. I should be able to teach the literature I want as this would benefit my students more then some administrator telling me to teach this certain novel that they like and none of my students or myself can relate to. Curriculum should be created by each teacher and as long as vital elements are included that the students will learn (grammar, vocabulary and spelling, writing, and literary elements) , it should be approved. The second part of the problem in today's learning environment involves the attitude andf work ethic of many kids. Students often come to junior high now lacking many basic skills. A lot of my students struggle with simple spelling and vocabulary, grammar, and writing exercises. I feel that in grammar school the kids today do not get the education I received. I had a spelling and vocabulary books as well as a phonics and grammar book to learn these basics. This prepared for me junior high and later high school and college. This comes down to curriculum again as administrators seem to be demphasizing spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and writing in schools today and putting everything into standardized testing and high test scores. Also, students as a whole do not bring in great motivation and work ethics into the classroom today. Yes, your top students today are articulate, bright, and well-motivated. However, there are many other kids who are struggling academically and showing no concern towards their grades. This brings me to final culprits. These culprits are parents. If I brought home a report card with a 67 average and 2 failures there would be major problems at home. I would have been grounded and had priviliges taken away, like playing on a sports tyeam until my grades improved. Today, I see way too many students who are doing poorly and there parents are not concerned.This happens often because most parents have to work full time or kids come from one parent homes. Still, no matter how busy the parent is they need to hold their child responsible for their academic and behavioral actions. In addition to this, other parents blame the teacher if their kid is doing poorly. On ce in a while this may hold true, but in general teachers are dedicated professionals who try hard to reach and teach every student in their classroom. In conclusion, if we could right some of these wrongs, our future and education for years to come will benefit everyone involved!

Manifesto

I spent my undergraduate years at Queens College and have since returned to work and to pursue my master's degree here. I have plenty of my own experiences, as student and as employee, plus those of the faculty friends I've cultivated. There is a frustration and sometimes even a sense of hopelessness that pervades even the most optimistic among them.

I myself deal with one example of what I can (hyperbolically) call the death of the humanities in at least one aspect of my job. There is a CUNY Proficiency Examination (CPE), sometimes referred to as a "rising junior exam," and its goal is to to test the basic skills one has (ostensibly) learned as a college freshman/sophomore before proceeding to the upperclassman level. It consists of a standard essay section along with a section on interpreting graphs--and it's not difficult. Though the College's Testing Center oversees the actual administration of the test, part of my job is to to deal with the aftermath: sifting through the data, trying to ascertain why we have students who are unable to pass it.

I know we have many good undergrad students at Queens College, but unfortunately I only deal with the ones who have issues or complaints. Over and over I hear that this one is an accounting major so who cares if he can write a coherent essay and that one is going to major in economics or business so why does she need to take this stupid essay test anyway? Despite being a liberal arts college, and supposedly demanding an educational well-roundedness of our graduates, I think we seriously lack in providing for many of them--those who are majoring in fields of study outside the humanities--the foundational tools that will enable them to enter the world and be able to read and write and otherwise effectively communicate.

What frustrates me is that many of them seem not to understand the need for this, or realize that they will benefit from these skills regardless of what career path they choose. How does one change this? How does one teach the importance of the concept of a liberal arts education to a student population that wants to tally up the necessary credits in the quickest and easiest way possible and just get the hell out of college? One solution is to require more humanities courses of all of them, regardless of their intended major. Other solutions? Well, I'm still working on my manifesto-style bullet-point list...

Standardized Exploitation and the rationale of L.I.A.R. (Long Island Anarachists against Regents)

............

They spent the entire evening downing tequila shots, chugging Coronas, and reading essays. A cool summer breeze swept through the city of Austin around midnight, reminding the tired, old teachers that it was about time to sober up and grade the countless Advanced Placement exams. Yes, what you hear is true: drunk, disgruntled, retirees "playing God"……deciding whether or not your spoiled Long Island teen has a shot at Yale.

Thank Mom and Dad for the $3,000 they dropped on your tutors and AP prep courses, because it pays to have someone like your drunken Uncle Joe review "To what extent did the American Revolution fundamentally change American society? Addressing the political, social, and economic effects in the period from 1775-1800".

Here's another appetizing mental image:

After countless hours of rereading each failed student's Regents Examinations the bloodsucking, fascist English coordinator had to make a decision while the idiotic, pathetic, subservient puppets (the teachers) stared at their leader with apathetic eyes. The only option the Puppet master felt was to have the puppet monkeys go back to the exams and change a few answers, you know--just a little here and a little there. Think about it…..the coordinator has to hide the inadequate efforts and mistakes of the staff in order to avoid the Principal, Administration, Superintendent, and Community conducting public humiliation and exile from white suburban heaven (I mean God forbid, the coordinator would ever accept the fact that maybe it wasn't the puppets fault and some student's actually failed because they didn't study. Or maybe the Nazi leader hasn't been in a classroom in over a decade and forgot that some student's can sometimes just be having a bad day, i.e. failed abortion, abusive father, rape, coke addiction…..you know-the sort of "minor", "trivial" things that might distract the student and cause them to fail.).

Yes, this is sad, but all true. The rigorous, highly academic, "Blue Ribbon School of Excellence" in one of the most prestigious towns in Long Island cheats!!!!

I mean who doesn't these days? A CBS report states that from 1999-2002, New York education officials found 21 proven cases of teacher/administrative cheating from Buffalo to Long Island. The teachers either read off answers or changed scores. Even our beloved Leader of the Free World supposedly cheated on a few exams, no big whoop!

So, what's the deal anyways with the AP and Regents Exams?. We're all aware of the exams various purposes: to assess student's knowledge and enrich their education. Oh yeah, I forgot about school funding, property tax value, and shady bureaucratic political moves.

Infiltrating your wealthy towns and esteemed high schools right now is the army L.I.A.R. (Long Island Anarchists against Regents). L.I.A.R. will cheat on everything, and every exam that comes their way. They believe that if their hard work amounts to nothing, their goal will be to manipulate and cheat their way "to the top" positions ( i.e. Puppet masters of sorts) in the American educational system. Of course, L.I.A.R. is sympathetic towards lowly teachers, who they understand could help create the desired utopian classroom-- free of standardized testing. Teachers, like L.I.A.R. members agree the shady antics of coordinators and superintendents must stop before they ruin education in America. Some of the "everyday" L.I.A.R. cheating techniques include:

----Providing S.A.T. exams answers to underclassmen that will cause them to excel with flying colors, prompting educators to allow early graduation (providing a faster opportunity to attend universities and "take over" education).

---Hack into the Board of Education doctrines and recreate laws allowing high school students to run for B.O.E. positions.

---Hold private meetings discussing the newest cheating techniques (i.e. answers on bubble gum wrapper, inside hat lids, water bottle labels, etc.)

---Locate AP grading meet points (i.e. Austin), take incriminating photos, exploit corruption, and abolish AP exams. (Of course this will place more emphasis on the Regents, but it will be easier to hack only one exam…at least for the time being).

---Increase the humanities course load: Art, Literature, Music, and Philosophy (All of the core subjects that promote discussion and debate and rage against testing).

For a while, coordinators, administrators, principals, and community members will believe their efforts prompted the increase in student excellence but it is a mere decoy to cheat them out of work. The high achievement levels will surpass any current administrative position forcing them to retire/and or resign. Try and create a painstaking Regents exam and L.I.A.R. will crush its bones.

manifest o!

Hey, now. Looks like its my turn to vent my anger. But where to start? Oh, where to start? How about with the fact that we now live in an era of accountability?

Accountability? Who are we holding accountable? The teachers or the students? With the ingenious No Child Left Behind Act, we, as educators, are faced with a world of personal angst, and I am tired of it. I am more stressed out than I have ever been. I went into teaching to help children, but I find that children don't want to help themselves. Some care, but so many just don't care at all. And their parents don't care, either. That's the problem. That's the real problem. The parents just aren't there. And where are they? Probably working to support the family. But we can't hold parents accountable, whether or not they are home. We can't touch that subject. Not the sanctity of the home! But really, without parents, where does everything we teach our students go? In the garbage? Out the other ear? I think so.

So, now the blame game goes full circle. You can't blame the kids. You can't blame the parents. You can't blame peer pressure. So, who do you blame? The teachers, of course! Let's make their lives miserable and totally and completely take away everything that these fine men and women work for. And then, let's blame them for not getting the job done. But, logically speaking, how can teachers really be held accountable? Turns out, at least at my school, that the adminstration will now be judging teachers' efficiency based on their test scores. The teachers will now be graded, electronically, on their success rates. This has nothing to do with student motivation, parental involvement, intelligence level, class level, or anything that may aid in the teacher's defense. It is just another way of holding someone accountable without going to the root of the problem. I am sick of the whole thing. Reform is needed. I am not going to sit back and take this anymore. Thank you.

Political Correctness or Education?

We live in a society where to say or do something that is not considered politically correct can, and will, determine if you have a teaching position come next fall. Administrators have made education a business where they are rewarded for students achieving the appropriate scores on mandated exams. Teachers are not recognized to the level they should be for the achievements made by their students. In addition, we had better not dare veer from the prescribed curriculum/agenda!
Do we have the courage to challenge administration and possibly fail an eleventh grade English student who has not met muster? This action would certainly not be considered politically correct. Your colleagues applaud your “guts” in taking such an action and they will agree with you, (in the teacher’s lounge and the library while grading the English Regents – but definitely not before the department chairperson or the principal) that you have done the right thing by failing Johnny because he really was not up to snuff. Nevertheless, as a reward for their silence and for ingratiating themselves on administration, they are offered the tenured position and you are advised that there just aren’t anymore English teacher slots left for September, so thanks, but see ya! How do we change this? Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto is a bit far-fetched and brash, but her point is well made. As teachers we see the direction in which education is going and as teachers in the classroom we must do something about it. It’s time we considered taking action and following Benjamin Franklin’s advice - “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.”

Why I thought I was going to be a high-school teacher!

So... it's my third year in college and I'm still a bit unsure about my major. My counselor looks down on me and states... "Ms. Curtin, if you do not choose your major soon, you'll be in college for six years." Two days later after much soul searching I was registering for the secondary education program at Queens College. My thought process was this: I like kids, I like to teach, I like to talk and I love reading. Easy right? Not exactly. You see, choosing the "older kids" was also done on purpose. I certainly didn't want to have to teach grammar, the basics, spelling and "easy books." But that's not exactly what happened. I ended up teaching at a school in desperate need of a paint job, with overcrowded classrooms, kids who attend part-time, and as many other NYC teachers would testify ... kids at such a low level they should still be in grammar school. But don't get me wrong, I enjoy it now. I've learned to deal with the little kinks in the system. But should we have to? Shouldn't something be done at an earlier age to teach these children basic stuff at an earlier age. Could it be possibly that our classrooms are too small, our rosters are too high, and there just isn't enough time to spend helping that one kid in need if the administration is breathing down our back about bulletin boards. For God's sake... why can't someone up there notice what the real problem is for once.

Lock Step Manifesto

Did I see five extra staples in your bulletin board?
Was that mini-lesson 12 minutes long?
Why isn't 1/3 of your library leveled?
Who put these desks in rows?
Where is your TAN? How about their SANs?

Microscopic, insignificant...

Trying to educate, while the timer is ticking. Trying to teach, while the script has already been written. As the new curriculum infuses its way into most disadvantaged schools, quality teachers are leaving the area. Creativity turns to robotics. Where else did I see that America's Choice label? Oh, in the bread aisle at Waldbaums. Why take away the craft in education? How can this possibly help the students who are failing? It is quite difficult to find meaning in meaningless texts.

Know What?………..SIZE DOES MATTER!!

In an age of student-centered learning, how is it possible that we stand in front of classes of 35 to 40 students? An individual student in these classrooms cannot even move to the center of the room through the mass of peers; let alone be the center of our lessons. While we can go through the motions of teaching in this environment, if actual learning is - as our motto states: Not for School; But for Life, then class sizes need to be cut. All other improvements we perfunctorily agree should happen, could happen.

Sometime around mid-October –
when we have memorized the 185 total names and faces left to our care, as long as they have not switched seats (for I do not know Nicholas Davis, but I know that Nicholas Davis is the kid in Second Period with curly brown hair that sits three seats in by the window sandwiched by Emily A. with the glasses and Emily D. who is on the basketball team)
- written assignments start to pour in…
flood in…
spate in…
suffuse any physical and mental space once used to work on creative and poignant assignments.

The next day will be the inevitable question: Will we get our papers back today?
Internal laughter, laughter, laughter
-“Do the math.”
“But this is English class..”
-“If I take 5 minutes per paper; at 185 students; that will be ….925 minutes. How many hours is that?..(silence – this is English class)........Ok, I’ll tell you. It is over 15 hours. So considering eating, sleeping, and breathing are necessities of life, I could not have them all done in that time.”
“Oh….. Tomorrow then?”

When the papers finally make their way back to them, Emily..uh... -let me check my list…oh right.... Emily Anderson will not remember what she had written.

The memorization is up – The learning and thinking is down
The total tuition collected is up – The love is down
The total attendance is up – The accountability is down
The veil of education is up - WE ARE DOWN

We need to use our number and girth to make it known that we would like to teach again. Not be crowd control or something for the masses to click on when they want a piece of encyclopedic information:

1. Class sizes need to be reduced to 25 students maximum

2.The administration should be concerned with filling minds first; filling seats second

3. Veteran and retired teachers claim they were able to handle 50 – 60; we must remind them that learning has left the memorization system, we no longer have corpal punishment, and the fear of God (and parents) is less effective than it once was.

The Manifesto's "againstness"

From the reading "The Poetics of the Manifesto : Nowness and Newness," I conclude that it is easier to say what the manifesto does, than to define the manifesto. In this reading, I have counted twenty-five adjectives (seventeen on two pages) that are used to describe what the manifesto has become. These adjectives connote the extreme. They indicate that the manifesto is designed to manipulate, to convince and to convert. It can take either an institutional or an individual and independent stance, and it promotes a "we" against "them" attitude toward an issue.

The manifesto places emphasis on appeal, and on the vision of the producer, and his ability/power to persuade. This makes me somewhat uncomfortable with this genre, and so I question :

1. How much credence should one give to the manifesto?

2. Is it usually more self-serving than representative?

3. Is there a tension between principle and the manifesto?

Please let me hear your views.

Brief Manifesto: Standardized Testing is Testing Patience

Standardized testing is certainly effective at ONE thing: testing the patience of teachers and its "test subjects"--the students. What about teaching for an exchange of knowledge?? That's a novel idea! Sure there are some of us who do not teach with the test in our immediate conscious thoughts, but it is always looming. The students are aware of it too. Testing has made teaching and learning a robotic process--there is no REAL thinking. More teachers are becoming mechanical in their pedagogy and more students are becoming mechanical in their responses. Isn't this a danger to the future of our larger society?? The greater lesson being taught is that education is FAILING its students but that's okay as long as they are producing high test scores!!!

A Manifesto for Literary Studies

Sitting down and reading Garber's manifesto during spring break was definitely a much more difficult task than I could have expected. The introduction "Asking Literary Questions" had me asking, what did I just read? It was dense and a bit wordy. I couldn't really understand what Garber's point was. Then I moved onto the second and third sections on Human Nature and History in Literature. As an educator these sections were relatable and readable. I decided that I would focus mainly on the last section for my presentation this week. This section had me raise certain questions in my own teaching methods. In her manifesto, Garber argues that we can read literature without judging it's historical "mistakes." She states that these anachronisms in the text or film are sometimes done for affect and sometimes by accident. Garber cites many contemporary pieces that are used in the classroom today. She explains that it is not necessarily terribly important when an anachronism occurs in literature. She states that the message of the literature is what is important. Sometimes historical content should be adjusted for the audience or simply to make a point stronger within the text. What I wonder is how this can be addressed towards teachers? I'd like to pose some sub-questions for the class to think about or respond to on the blog: Can we teach Literature to our students without addressing the historical content? Are interdisciplinary curriculums helpful to our students or are they bringing about boredom from the repetition of material? Can literature teach history to students if it is somewhat fictional, and if so should we correct it or ignore it? Do our students need to know the history of the text and of the author in order to comprehend it's purpose?

"An unreflected life is not worth living." - Socrates
"Far from being rendered powerless by the requirement that we perserve in the face of uncertainty, those of us who teach are actually very well positioned to assist our studenys in acquiring the skills necessary for persisting in the ongoing project of navigating life in a bureaucracy, by virtue of our years of experience making our way through this frequently capricious and indifferent system for distributing social privilege. And what we can teah our students is how to work within and against discursive constraints simultaneously--thereby helping them to experience the mediated access to authenticity that social action allows." The student - teacher relationship should bring to the table a variety of perspectives, experiences, knowledge and insights. As educators, we need to be respectful and supportive to each and every individual. A teacher's methods and strategies of teahing should promote students' confidence in active exercises and techniques that require students to engage in discussions to better teach them to look at different points of view and to better critical think. I strongly believe creative writing is empowering and necessary for learning. It allows for peer critiquing, translating, generating poems, writing essays and reports. The classroom is an example of an audience that is a powerful tool for an individual when sharing their work with the class a whole. Students are enthusiastic to learn when they are successful. Interaction with texts allows individuals to internalize and extrapolete their own meaning based on their unique experiencesm characteristics and perceptions. "Process should be turned into a verb." (Romano) Learning occurs while producin encouragement and feedback through a process. The recipe to becoming a successful writer is reading and exposing individuals toa variety of texts, giving them the fredom to explore and extrapolate meaning. Remembering enables a writer to make connections to reading texts and respond with innovative ways. Writing is a way individuals can express themselves evoking emotion and allowing space to eplore the pleasure of inventin and manipulating by using descriptive diction to entertain readers. It i a continual process which requires pre-writing, writing, proofreading, revising, and editing. As educators, we should allow our students to create a voice that wants to be heard through a variety of ways such as multi-genres, poems, journal entries, essays, and music. Providing students with a variety of ways they may express themselves evokes emotion and promotes learning.

blaming "the mindless bureaucrats"

“In the world Ferri inhabits, the great chain of being has been transformed into the great chain of humiliation, and education has devolved into nothing more than compliance and constraint. In this dying world, all the teacher can do is transmit ever-bleaker reports from the front lines as the indomitable forces of the mindless bureaucrats overwhelm the meager defenses of those truly committed to “critical thinking”( Miller52).
-Richard Miller, Writing at the End of the World

“The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their reading to consider what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes” (Nafisi 94).
-Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

These two quotes perfectly capture the struggles that many English teachers face in states, where standardized tests have come to mean more, and therefore control the methods of our instruction. Often, teachers do not have time to make our students into better readers who can read and write critically with a thought provoking eye, because we have to spend months on teaching test taking skills. Half the time, we are reading to gain basic, useless information, only to write a dry, and meaningless five paragraph essay in the end. Sadly, students develop a natural hatred for writing in the early days of elementary school, where the five paragraph model has been drilled into their heads. Many were also negatively reinforced with writing for their unacceptable behaviors. It is therefore that much more difficult to encourage high school students the therapeutic power of writing and reading. Too often, students only think of school as just something to get over with, because they are told to. And it’s the mindless bearcats that corrupt the lives of our future forever.

"This is not to imply that no "authentic" interactions can occur within the space of the classroom or, conversely, that all interations in that space are necessarily duplications, cynical, self-serving or self-protective." Miller 130-1

"In order for students to begin to imagine other ways of framing their experience of schooling and other ways of navigating the twisted paths bureacracies cut through the social sphere, students must first be given an opportunity to formulate more advanced understandings of social exercise of power." Miller 136

I chose these two quotes because I believe they fit well with my biography. Well, I guess, they really fit into my life. I agree with these two statements and I remember when I was 16 and in my English class. Mrs. Honig was my teacher--really a master teacher--and we had a creative project to write a short story about 'Bartleby the Scrivener'. I became immersed in the writing and the ideas that were pouring through my head. I wrote a short story about how Bartleby's father was the influence for his actions and my teacher loved it. I believe that by not assigning the traditional, bureacratic 5 paragraph essay, my teacher allowed me to be creative and have the opportunity to be creative. As a result, I fell in love with writing, developed a real love for it, and this really allowed me to become a better writer. I haven't stopped writing since, and I credit Mrs. Honig for allowing me to just write. This is something that the state and school doesn't allow students to do. Now, almost ten years later, I have a book awaiting release that challenges the very things that Miller discusses. I feel that Mrs. Honig, and all her quirky, great techniques, allowed me to break through the twisted paths of society and really gain an interest in English and writing.

"Institutional Autobiography for Me"

"What is 'really useful knowledge'? How do we get students and their teachers to produce 'writing that matters'? Thus, I am not insisting ahead of time that the academy's claim to possess really useful knowledge be ridiculed any more than I am arguing that academic writing be seen as the empty, inevitable result of a process where the self is evacuated of its content" (Miller 42). -From Richard E. Miller's Writing At The End of the World- This quote helps the shape of my institutional autobiography because of what is said in it and how it relates to me. I am a teacher of English and I wonder every day what is really useful knowledge for my students. There is so much for them to absorb, but the question is, what is most important for them to know and learn in my class? For now, the best I answer I can give to that question is to say that I want my students to learn how to read and write at a level of at least component literacy. Being able to read and write gives you a start to having "really useful knowledge." As far as getting students to produce writing that matters I feel it is a two fold process. Yes, first you have to teach them the basics of writing at my level of teaching (7th and 8th grade), which include paragraphing, sentence structure, transition words, and the five paragraph essay. However, you secondly need to make writing autobiographical at times for them too. Let them write about personal experiences and do some creative writing which can make writing fun for them. Then, a student no matter what their age is will produce more "writing that matters." The academic part and the self need to be both incorporated into writing to make the process matter. Here is my second quote and I am sorry that it does not separate from the first as I am having difficulties with the site! "To pass an examination I copied down exactly what my teachers told me. It would require many more years of schooling (an inevitable miseducation) in which I came to trust the silence of reading and the habit of abstracting from immediate experience- moving away from a life of closeness and immediacy I remembered with my parents, growing older- before I turned unafraid to desire the past, and thereby achieved what had eluded me for so long- the end of education" (Rodriguez 78)." This quote really hit home for me as I can rememeber in school doing the same thing. I copied down all the notes that the instructor said we had to know about for the exam without learning or knowing about all that I was jotting down. I used the notes to pass a test and soon after forgot about this information. This happens to my students as well as if you give them too much information to absorb from a blackboard or lecture, they usually write it down without ever getting the true meaning of what they are copying. Therefore, for many kids reading on their own can be a more effective way to truly achieve learning. Reading independently allows the student to read a book at their own pace and in their own style. Often they can relate to a character or event in the book and this helps them comprehend what is happening in the book and allows them to "learn" and be educated. Personally, relating to the end of the quote, I am ready for the end of my education in the way of copying notes or listening to a boring lecture just so I can pass an examination. I want to continue my education in courses like this and through reading and writing creatively. I hope I can do the same for my students as I try as much as possible to stay away from long lectures and strenuous notes instead allowing them to read independently, write creatively, and work on grop projects that help them "learn" in a way that wants to make them continue their education.

Academia and Its (My) Discontents

Richard Miller discusses his students’ hostility towards Rodriguez’s rejection of his parents and, by extension, his ancestral culture. Miller suggests that his students rail against Rodriguez because they believe school should provide “know-how,” and should not bleed into their private lives and alter it. However, their anger towards Rodriguez, exemplified by words like “punk,” reveal a certain amount of defensiveness and a fear that after four years of academic training, they too will feel the same distancing. Miller writes, “And, at the same time, such responses voice a fear that schools do not, in fact, function in this isolated way, but rather produce (or reinforce) an estrangement from one’s past, an uncertainty about one’s place in the world, a resignation that what one must give up during the educational process can never be recovered” (135). As a student, one feels pressure from all sides. New ideas and new views learned in the classroom often make us confront or question received notions and traditions from our families or our cultural backgrounds.

I think these moments can be both frightening and thrilling. It is not mostly the texts we encounter that are responsible for the transformations we undergo but the institutional setting that is a sort of laboratory where a metamorphosis occurs. Within the classroom, we are trained to ask questions, respond in a certain way, make associations and distinctions, and parcel experience in a way that cannot easily be shared outside the institution. For instance, as I have moved through the institutions of the academy, I find that my present-tense conversations with my family are one-sided: they talk to me about their current events but I have trouble talking to them about mine. This shift is one that I first noticed as an undergraduate. I was sitting in the back of my parents’ car one day and I wanted to talk to them about the assassination of John Hamilton by Aaron Burr. I asked my parents, “Do you know who Aaron Burr was?” as a way to initiate the conversation. To be honest, I asked “Saben quien es Aaron Burr?” My father, without looking at me in the rear view mirror, turned to my mother and said, “Esta nena se cree que somos analfabetos.” (“This girl thinks we’re illiterate.”) For a split second, I found myself as the outsider and my father trying to close ranks with my mother against a perceived superiority complex on my part. From my perspective, I was engaging my immigrant parents in a bit of American history that, though commonly known to many, I had only recently discovered. In other words, I was trying to involve my parents in my life. However, this and future incidents taught me that I had to tread lightly when talking to my family about what I was doing at school.

What compounds the anxiety of alienation that many students feel is also the old trope that a humanities education, or that the “enlightenment” that one should receive, entails a process of seamless and joyous discovery. Harold Bloom advises the young student full of intellectual curiosity to “find what comes near to you that can be put to the use of weighing and considering, and that addresses you as though you share the one nature, free of time’s tyranny. Pragmatically, that means, first find Shakespeare, and let him find you” (Bloom 22). For many students, finding Shakespeare only occurs through the mediation of devoted teachers and having Shakespeare find these students is not a complete blessing. Hence, Miller’s students express a very real anxiety about the encounters that await them in the back seats of their own parents’ cars.

Institutional Autobiography

Institutional Autobiography
"If the rhetoric deployed to bolster the study of the Great Books musters visions of civic responsibility in a democracy and the transcendent values of education, the rhetoric Keyes draws on offers a relentless sentimental counter-narrative, one where the professionals, the technocrats, and the teachers are all to be viewed with suspicion: they are not the agents of change that they seem to be, but rather the mere instruments of corruption, denying the intrinsic value of human life as they seek to extend their puny careers" (Miller 165).

""Whatever else, we at least saw to it that all of you in our care, you grew up in wonderful surroundings. And we saw to it too, after you left us, you were kept away from the worst of those horrors. We were able to do that much for you at least. But this dream of yours, this dream of being able to defer. Such a thing would always have been beyond us to grant, even at the height of our influence....I hope you can appreciate how much we were able to secure for you. Look at you both now! You've had good lives, you're educated and cultured" (Ishiguro 261).

Based on these to quotes, some questions that come to mind are: What does it mean to be educated? What is the role of education in shaping our lives? How much of our own education should we be responsible for, and how much should we rely on institutions to provide us with what we consider a "solid education? Miss Emily claims that the students are educated, yet that are unable to make decisions for themselves that affect their own lives. While great books are considered important instruments for change, they do not always illicit positive change.

insitutional AUTObiography

"Most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little unesasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes" (Nafisi 94).

"In order for students to begin to imagine other ways of framing their expeience of schooling and other ways of navigating the twisted paths bureacracies cut through the social sphere, students must first be given an opportunity to formualte more nuanced understandings of the social exercise of power. And for this to happen, students must be provided with genuine opportunities to discover the vitrues of discursive versatility, by which I mean opportunites to acquire the skills neccessary to speak, read, and write persuasivley cross a wide range of social contexts" (Miller 136).

I believe Nafisi's struggle with her students in Reading Lolita in Tehran is similar to what Miller examines throughout Writing at the End of the World. Although Nafisi's students lived under an extremely conservative regime, Miller similarly describes the stifling ethos exemplified in American bureaucratic education. Both Nafisi and Miller discuss and attempt to "open the eyes" of students in order to conjure personal responses.

I am a prime example of what so many of Miller's students experience throughout their education; "doing what I'm told" and giving the "right" answers. My ignorance began during my elementary years and gradually progressed into high school. Until I was about seventeen I believed I had received an "above par" education that was a part of a liberal "think outside the box" institution. Ah, to be young and naive! I began to formulate my own opinions of education as a senior, but had little guidance on how to question these ideas further or how to apply them. If it weren't for Professor Steve G. my sophmore year at J.M.U., I would still be searching for anwers to my education like the F.B.I's quest for Hoffa's remains.

Finally, an educator who told the TRUTH!: an American Literature Professor who was , at the time, on trial for his unorthodox lectures and challenging "left-wing" politics. Like Nafisi, Steve G. allowed me to become an "Alice", and question the world I lived in. He advocated academic freedom and revolutionized my thought by challenging my old idealogies. He bashed Columbus, praised Thoreau's tenacity, boisterously recited Emerson, and told the tender tale of Whitman's unrequited love for a Civil War soldier. He made the class reconsider Poe's "Annabel Lee", and Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" from different lenses/eyes. Who knew Poe was into writing about necrophilism? Professor Steve G. also discussed the "underbelly of America" in a specific lecture titled "the American Junkie". This lecture eerily connects to the despondent souls within Miller's novel; Eric, Dylan, and McCandless a.k. a "Alex Supertramp". Steve G. explained that the drug users quest for escapism was the yearning to live outside the social realm in a sort of enlightened, nirvana state. The act of using drugs (in McCandless's case an immersion in literature) is in itself defying/rebelling against capitalistic society. On the other hand, the user becomes addicted, and ultimately becomes a slave to capitalism (black market has supply, junkie has demands). The junkie ultimately depends on the drug that once liberated him from a confining world (as seen in McCandless' consumption and ultimate demise with literature). There seems to be a dangerous and fine line between what we know and "seek to discover". In these rare cases the quest for enlightenment can be treacherous because the consumption becomes lethal.

My questions......

Would I have been able to "grasp" this information as a young student?
Can student's handle it today? If so, How and What do we tell them?
How do educators determine which student's are allowed to become "enlightened"?
How can we as teachers assist student discovery while following strict school district policies?

Institutional Autobiography

“...in order for students to begin to imagine other ways of framing their experience of schooling and other ways of navigating the twisted paths bureaucracies cut through the social sphere, students must first be given an opportunity to formulate more nuanced understandings of the social exercise of power. And for this to happen, students must be provided with genuine opportunities to discover the virtues of discursive versatility, by which I mean opportunities to acquire the skills necessary to speak, read, and write persuasively across a wide range of contexts” (Miller136).
-Richard Miller, Writing At The End Of The World

“Because of the emphasis place on testing…many teachers focus on narrow and basic skills. Literacy, as defined and codified in high-stakes tests that are being implemented in the United States, is often interpreted as basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics by schoolteachers and administrators. A conception of literacy that defines it only as basic skills ignores the knowledge and skills required to be effective citizens in national and global contexts…literate students should be reflective, moral, and active citizens”(Banks24).
–James Banks, Cultural Diversity and Education

These two quotes raise a big question about our roles as educators and our objectives in educating students. It is unfortunate that, in many cases, schools place a large emphasis on standardized exams. Many times, the goal of the curriculum and our instruction is to teach students the basic skills needed to pass these exams. In preparation for these exams, students are taught to produce superficial responses that do not require critical thought. Creativity is often discouraged and students do not learn how to challenge the conventions of society and become active participants. With this being the case, one must ask - what is the purpose of educating our students? Do we want them to meet the demands of the exam/state/standard and fall short in other areas? This type of instruction does not teach the skills “necessary to speak, read, and write persuasively across a wide range of contexts.” So shouldn’t we, as teachers, be preparing our students to become thoughtful, active, and reflective citizens in our society?

What is reading, writing and talking good for in today's society?

What is reading, writing and talking good for in today’s modern society? Is it education, culture, prestige we seek, or simple self-edification – learning for learning’s sake? We live in a world of information, in a world of technology, and in a world of bureaucrats suppressing our individuality and creativity resulting in a “sense of powerlessness on the part of the average person.” (Miller 62 quoting Kaczynski). Yet, the American film industry, television, politicians, even the new genre of graphic novels incorporate the themes, ideas and stories from classical and canon literature. They fascinate our young people and our society in general. Miller refers to Amis’s Richard Tull and his work as being full of culture – “…work that is replete with veiled literary references…” (Miller 7) As teachers, we must instill the desire to learn and an appreciation of literature – irrespective of the genre, irrespective of the fact that is canon or not – in our students. If we do not, we commit the sin of denigrating the artist to the lowest level of society, namely the criminal and of “…assaulting the pieties…of reading and writing by showing artists to be indistinguishable from criminals.” (Miller 7)
Jon Krakauer’s character Chris McCandless, in the novel, Into the Wild “…stands as evidence that there continue to be real readers who invest the activities of reading and writing with great significance…a reader who savors the words that others have produced, who seeks guidance from the printed page, who dreams of inhabiting the landscapes that his or her most-admired authors describe in such loving detail.” (Miller 11)
In his autobiography, Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez states very simply, “It is education that has altered my live. Carried me far.” (Rodriguez 4) When he finally feels confident enough in his ability to speak English, Rodriguez raises his hand and volunteers to answer a question. He states, “That day, I moved very far from the disadvantaged child I had been only days earlier. The belief, the calming assurance that I belonged in public, had at last taken hold.” (Rodriguez 21) This is how we must get our students to feel – everyday, about education, about school, and about literature.

Unnatural Reading

I wanted to repond to what Cynthia said about immersing herself into literature. I have the same experience feeling that I am inside the book when I am reading. This is such a hard thing to teach to our students. So often I wish that they could feel at home in my classroom. This is such a difficult task. I always try to incorporate the luxuries of home such as plants good lighting, food and drinks. These basic things make my classroom home-like but it is a poor substitution. I feel like reading in a stiff chair in a classroom with too many other children is unnatural. I wish my students could feel the same emotions as I do, yet I feel like I am incapable of giving them the correct environment. Is this possible?

What "should" reading and writing do for us?

“For nearly two years, almost every Thursday morning, rain or shine, they came to my house, and almost every time, I could not get over the shock of seeing them shed their mandatory veils and robes and burst into color. When my students came into that room they took off more than their scarves and robes. Gradually, each one gained an outline and a shape, becoming her own inimitable self. Our world in that living room with it’s window framing my beloved Elburz Mountains became our sanctuary, our self-contained universe, mocking the reality of black-scarved, timid faces in the city that sprawled below”(Nafisi, 5-6).

“For some, it will hardly come as a surprise to learn that reading and writing have no magically transformative powers. But for those of us who have been raised into the teaching and publishing profession, it can be quite a shock to confront the possibility that reading and writing and talking exercise almost none of the powers we regularly attribute to them in our favorite stories. The dark night of the soul for literacy workers comes with the realization that training students to read, write, and talk in more critical and self-reflective ways can-not protect them from the violent changes our culture is undergoing”(Miller, 5).

“If there is to be lasting hope for the future of higher education, that hope can only be generated by confronting our desolate world and its urgent, threatening realities. The only way out is through”(Miller, 27).

I have been thinking about the above quote from Nafisi’s novel since we discussed this novel in class. I keep thinking about how the women met in this room that was considered a place they could “live”. Often times I feel like I can take risks and adventures without consequence if I take them as a character in a novel, meaning I see myself as a character in a novel as I am reading that novel. When I was younger, I used to think of my life as a novel that someone was reading about. I used to think that it was daylight outside because the reader was reading my story and then when night came, the reader closed my book. I feel that this is similar to what Nafisi describes about how the girls live in this class and how Miller explains that we use reading and writing to magically transform our lives or parts of it.

In a way their scarves kept them from living because if Nafisi describes the women as to “burst into color”, it suggests they are coming to life which could insinuate that they were dead or lacking life outside of this room. And to connect this to Miller, this living room that Nafisi describes is similar to how people feel about reading and writing having “magically transformative powers”.
The reason that the women love to go to the class is because they can read and learn and experience things that are outside their reality of life. Reading is magic for them and in a sense that living room transforms them magically into someone they wish to be.
I think that Nafisi can further be connected to Miller because she makes reference to the reality of the outside world. She describes them in a negative way and mentions that her “girls” mock them. But as Miller argues on page twenty-seven is that the only way we can fight for higher education would be to confront those realities. Many people still believe that educating students to read and write will solve problems in the world or will protect the children. However and I agree with Miller, this is not true. People tend to attach themselves to the solution that is easiest for them on the assumption it worked in the past.

Thoughts on an Institutional Autobiography

“The problem is not that students are unaware of the conflicts between these competing spheres [the academic versus the domestic], but that, within the space of the classroom, their very sensitivity to the differing contexts manifests itself, more often than not, either as silence or as open assent to the teacher’s position. And, as every teacher who has ever heard the exasperated plea, ‘just tell me what you want and I’ll do it,’ knows, when the students set out to conform to what they believe are the teacher’s expectations, more often than not they simultaneously convey the impression that what a teacher finds most pleasing is the fully compliant, obedient, perhaps even unthinking student” (Miller, 137).

“From grammar school to graduate school I could always name my reader. I wrote for my teacher....I wrote down what I heard teachers say. I wrote down things from my books. I wrote down all I knew when I was examined at the end of the school year” (Rodriguez, 196-197).

Coming to graduate school later (in my mid thirties) has been a great experience for me. I approach being a student in a very different manner now. I am more likely to speak and write that which truly reflects who I am and what I think. But much of my earlier academic career (definitely in high school, but even as an undergraduate) was simply me trying to give them what they wanted, and I wonder if many young students still experience that, and how I will handle it if and when I encounter them when I teach. What kind of students will come before me in my classes? What did I eventually learn that made me a better student and how can I help them to learn that even earlier than I did? And why did it take so long for me to attempt to find my own voice, and to stop trying to just regurgitate what I thought the teachers wanted to hear? Was this the result of my own inner workings, or the school systems I passed through, or a little of both?

Is there no "I" in Democracy? - Institutional Autobiography Assignment

As an undergraduate majoring in English ("with a specialization in Literature and Rhetoric"), I was very much shaped by the types of text we read as part of the literature portion of my major, as well as the kind of writing we had to do as part of the rhetoric portion. The literature was mostly written by marginalized, multicultural, and feminist authors, all of whom wrote texts which were multilayered and very much non-linear. When I became a teacher, I was introduced to the genre of memoir, and realized that this was the writing that spoke to me the most, mainly because of the first person, stream of conscious style of writing.
Miller mentions various figures in the media, many infamous, who have utilized democracy to pontificate their oftentimes counterproductive "manifestos" to the masses. As an educator, I always find it crucial to teach memoir and to give my students a voice, the "I" that always speaks to me when I am in the position of the reader. But, I wonder, if doing so enables some of the dangerous voices like the ones we encounter in Miller’s book. With the following quotes in mind, I wonder if my desire to teach memoir and the personal narrative could on day combine with my desire for a democratic classroom to produce possibly incendiary commentaries from my students?

"A good novel is one that shows the complexity of individuals, and creates enough space for all these characters to have a voice; in this way a novel is called democratic - not that it advocates democracy but that by nature it is so. Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby like so many other great novels - the biggest sin is to be blind to others’ problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence." (Nafisi)

"Reading, writing, talking, meditating, speculating, arguing: these are the only resources available to those of us who teach the humanities and they are, obviously, resources that can be bent to serve any purpose. Harris and Klebold, in fact, wrote and produced for all different sorts of media; they read a range of material that supported their beliefs..." (Miller)

Institutional Biography

"In this genre, it's always the teacher against some faceless system--be it bureaucrats demanding accountability, consumer culture generating mindless customers, or even the deeply embedded indifference if the students themselves--and it's always the teacher's job to strike out against these crushingly oppressive systems, to unmask the forces of corruption, and to create a better, smarter world" (Miller 52) Writing at the End of the World

"How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days? There was no going back. However uncomfortable people were about your existence, their overwhelming concern was that their own children, their spouses, their parents, their friends, did not die from cancer, motor neurone disease, heart disease. So for a long time you were kept in the shadows, and people did their best not to think about you. And if they did, they tried to convince themselves you weren't really like us. That you were less than human, so it didn't matter" (Ishiguro 263) Never Let Me Go

It took me a while before I was able to select quotes that could capture a fraction of my institutional experiences and an even longer time to figure out how I could relate those same quotes to my personal experiences, as a thinker, a student, and a teacher. However, as I was typing the quotes on the screen, I started to make several connections between the two quotes. With that said, I think the quote I selected from Miller's work touches upon the common experiences teachers go through. Teachers, myself included, are constantly confronted with decisions, standards, jobs to do, alongside the expectations of others. I think that teachers are often asked to accomplish a lot when the students are in front of them each day and few times is this recognized. I once read a "Dear Abby" column that explored the array of roles that teachers must play for their students. The article explained that teachers are expected to advance in their own education, while they check homework and for signs of abuse, make copies, keep an organized room, note if a student is depressed, take attendance, plan lessons that meet each and every student's need, read memos, take professional development courses, attend union meetings, among countless other things. This is not to say that teachers should not do these things for the students, but rather, I think that we need to take a step back and acknowledge that these are the things that define teachers, and in turn, myself. I decided to dedicate my life to guide, respect, teach, and care for each and every student that comes into my classroom and I have been doing so and plan to continue, regardless of what else is thrown in my path.

This brings me to the quote I selected from Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Although at this point in time, I do not teach any cloned students, the issue of how we as a society regard others is evident. Many times, society treats others in horrible and unacceptable ways because they are deemed different. I think that as a teacher, I have seen this firsthand in the way in which students often regard each other, the teachers, and even their parents. I think that it is our job and duty as educators to make note of these times, confront them, teach tolerance and move towards acceptance. This is obviously not an easy task. However, with all the advances in science, we as a society may move in the direction of using clones as medicine and cures. How then, will we treat these types of people? Are they similar to the students who don't achieve high marks? Do we, or will we, as teachers and a society, throw these students out because they cannot achieve what we define as appropriate and/or human?

These are some thoughts that I was throwing around as I read these two works. Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions?

Insitutional Autobiography--(Teacher)

--"This is not to imply that no 'authentic' interactions can occur within the space of the classroom or, conversely, that all interactions in that space are necessarily duplicitous, cynical, self-serving, or self-protective" (Miller, 130-31). Writing at the End of the World

--"Stressing memorization, my teachers implied that education is largely a matter of acquiring knowledge already discovered. And they were right. For contrary to more progressive notions of learning, much that is learned in a classroom must be the already known; and much that is already known must be learned before a student can achieve truly independent thought" (Rodriguez, 94). Hunger of Memory


As I began to reflect on my own institutional autobiography, I found two quotes that focus on my role as teacher, specifically the beliefs and values I have developed as an educator. These two quotes contrast each other greatly with regard to certain stances that are taken on education. Miller's quote supports my way of thinking as a newer educator with different philosophies of teaching than described in the Rodriguez quote. Like Miller, I believe that real interactions between teachers and students, as well as between students themselves can and do occur. They are sometimes limited by the standards teachers must meet in the classroom. The pressures teachers face are certainly a major obstacle, particularly regarding standardized testing. However, it is the role and responsibility of the educator to find or create those moments in the school day where a real exchange can occur. Everyday I see the new insights that students can offer or the angle they see something from when reading a particular lierary work. It is all about the teacher's allowance of such thought in the classroom.

Rodriquez's quote stresses the old school of thought in which students are fed information as though they are empty vessels, devoid of any ability to think on their own. Where does self-discovery and basic inquisitveness fit into this pedagogy?? Active learning must be present in the classroom in which knowledge is shared, not deposited into the minds of passive beings. I believe independent thought occurs well before teachers offer their knowledge to students. I know before I started going to school my parents were the first teachers who helped foster my independent thinking. The "banking method" is the perfect way to turn many students away from the educational institution. In all honesty, if this was the only pedagogical strategy for teacher's to use in the classroom, I would turn away from education as a profession.

Institutional Autobiography

Hi everybody. I'm posting a model for the blog assignment I asked you to do for this week. The idea is to choose and share a couple of quotations (one from Miller's book and one from another source) that inspire your own initial explorations of instituional autobiography.

Remember, the goal is to find quotations that help you think through the ways that your institutional affiliations have shaped your development as a thinker, student, writer, and teacher. That shaping might take a variety of forms; maybe the institution inspired you, or provoked you, or circumscribed you, enraged or thrilled you. Inevitably, your experience will have been multi-layered. Take this as an opportunity to start sifting through the layers.

With that in mind, use my quotations and my reflection on them as a model, but feel free to explore, to do this your own way. (By the way, I cheated; I'm using three quotations; I couldn't resist using two from Ishiguro. Hopefully, it will be clear how the three work in dialogue with each other.)


. . . I conceive of the work in the classroom as an ongoing project in which I am learning how to hear what my students are saying. Learning to do this helps me, in turn, to find a way to speak that they can hear. It also makes it possible for my students to learn how to hear what I, as a representative of the academy, am saying and how to speak, read and write in ways that I can hear. This is the only approach I know for making the classroom a possible resource for hope and it is the only mechanism I've found for transforming recitations and revelations of personal experience into moments for reflection and revision about the complex, conflicted, and contradictory ways that culture makes its presence known in the day-to-day workings of one's life. --Richard Miller, Writing at the End of the World (p. 48)

Tommy thought it possible the guardians had, throughout all our years at Hailsham, timed very carefully and deliberately everything they told us, so that we were always just too young to understand properly the latest piece of information. But of course we’d take it in at some level, so that before long all this stuff was there in our heads without us ever having examined it properly. --Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (p. 82)

"What I think," said Tommy slowly, "is this. Suppose it's true, what the veterans are saying. Suppose some special arrangement been made for Hailsham students. Suppose two people say they're truly in love, and they want extra time to be together. Then you see, Kath, there has to be a way to judge if they're really telling the truth. That they aren't just saying they're in love, just to defer their donations. You see how difficult it could be to decide? Or a couple might really believe they're in love, but it's just a sex thing. Or just a crush. You see what I mean, Kath? It'll be really hard to judge, and it's probably impossible to get it right every time. But the point is, whoever decides, Madame or whoever it is, they need something to go on." --Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (p. 175)


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I immediately identified with Richard Miller's impulse to figure out how to listen to his students and to help them find ways to make themselves heard in an academic setting. I see my teaching in similar terms. That's partly what makes Tommy's first theory so fascinating to me: he's describing a situation in which the guardians at Hailsham are relying on their students' inability to listen to what they're saying. His second theory shows that they were right. Tommy's desperate, imaginative theory about Madame's gallery is dead wrong. But it's imaginative and even insightful nonetheless.

What does all this have to do with my institutional autobiography? I identify really strongly with Tommy. As a kid in a family in which nobody had ever gone to college or even really knew anybody who had, I was obsessed with learning as a kid. I was always reaching toward conversations that were just beyond my ability to comprehend. This was always stimulating, but also alienating. I never felt like I belonged in the conversations. College for me became a gradual process of finding a way to enter the conversation, at least as a listener; teaching and writing have become a means of finding a voice in the conversation and, these days, I hope, shaping it.

But Tommy's alienation interests me because it makes me realize that my own alienation was often productive, because it made it possible for me to think inventively. It has helped me respond to academic conversations without getting too hemmed in by their often rigid constraints and boundaries. At least I hope this is the case! If I were to write an institutional autobiography, I might focus on this kind of alienation--specifically how I might respond to it productively when I see it in my students and how I might cultivate a little of it in myself now that I do feel pretty confident within the conversations that shape academic culture.

What I'm really saying is that in some ways I'd rather be imaginatively and insightfully wrong, like Tommy, than be blunted by the hard cold reality of my rightness, as Madame and Miss Emily seem to be. But more than that, if the humanities are about imagining possibilities for new ways of thinking and living, Tommy's imaginative alienation seems like a pretty productive and inspiring model.