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I want to reflect on Amy's visit to our class last Tuesday. I thought she was an excellent guest speaker and brought the practice element to our class that is sometimes missing in education classes. Especially after our discussion in ed311 about how there is more theory than practice in education classes, I was really excited to hear Amy discuss her role as a literacy specialist in a classroom. As our class has progressed so far, I feel like we have discussed a lot about meanings of literacy in terms of technology and connections to Ghana. This definitely makes sense as the Ghana trip is the central part of the 360, but I feel like we hadn't addressed how literacy plays out in classroom situations such as at placements. I was really impressed by Amy and the way that she took initiative and responsibility for students' learning. Her handouts were really informative, especially the sheet explaining what a balanced literacy program was. I started to think about these elements in terms of my placement which was really productive in terms of helping me make connections between our class and my field placement/work at a kindergarten. Without actively realizing that I was following such a program, I realized that many of these elements are incorporated into what I do every morning when I teach. Although it is tricky to put a set definition of what sort of elements and activities make up a productive way to teach literacy, I do think it is helpful for some guidelines to be put in place as starting points for how to treat reading and writing.

In thinking of favorite books from childhood, it made think about what we absorb as children and what we futher gain when we look back on the books we loved as children. In many ways, what we learn from books as children is as valid as what we later on understand, but in other ways I think that the adult view on childrens literature is more full and developed. Here is an example from my own personal experience:

This week during the guest presentation on Thursday I wanted to ask a question relating to literacy in research. I was wondering how the professor communicated with participants in her research. I thought her research and findings were extremely interesting. I appreciated how she framed it as giving agency to women and discussed them as being resilient. Additionally, I liked how she discussed their agency and role in relationship/in the framework of macro systems and the involvement of SAPs, the IMF and the WB. But I want to know more about her research methods and process: What kind of language was used, what tone, what formality of words? Did how interviewees were talked to different based on their age or experiences or backgrounds? I wanted to ask, which I didn’t, how participants were told about the research they were part of. Did they know why they were being interviewed, what it was being used for and what story was going to be told about them? In research, what do participants get out of the experience? I thought it was a really interesting presentation not just in the content, but that the skill/ experience/ perspective she brought as a guest speaker was her profession and specific research interest. Being a researcher requires competency and literacy in how to do (in her case) qualitative in-depth interviews. Knowing how to frame questions, how to ask them, how to interpret data, code and analyze date are all part of a literacy in social science research.

Right off the bat I want to thank Jenny and Jamey for handling the presentation so well in spite of my abscence due to illness. (Still sorry about that guys)

My part of the project focused on primary education in Ghana because primary education has always been my passion. What was most important for me to convey was the awe I felt when looking at how much work had gone into the education system. I know it seems strange because so much of the formal education history is filled with failure and inequality, but I found myself inspired by how many times the education system was built back up in the face of failure. Obviously there is still a long ways to go and a lot of improvements need to be made, but I was struck by how resilient people were in terms of pushing the education agenda. I wanted to convey some of that because I think it can often be too easy to get lost in the government policies and issues surrounding funding and jurisdiction and we often miss the drive of the people.

     When I first checked out a film called Born Into Brothels from the library I immediately felt anxious about its point of view, and from skimming the DVD cover that read in bold-faced text, "Uplifting!", that sentiment did not seem like it was going to change. Not to say that I didn't appreciate a chance to look into the lives of a group of young children that frankly, it had not occurred to me existed--it was that the documentary seemed to so determinedly manipulate what little access I was being given into that of a role I was not free to pick.

Despite the many things to talk about and think over on the topic of graphic novels and spacetime and panels, I find myself recalling the discussion from the beginning of class on Thursday about co-writing. Froggies315 and KT were convinced that computers were mere tools, contrary to what Kathleen Fitzpatrick argues. While I don't necessarily agree with Fitzpatrick, I can't define computers as mere tools either. Perhaps, a better way to restate Fitzpatrick's argument would be to say that computers are the scribes, the translators of our ideas into a different medium.  Because, although computers can be controlled, our demands don't always manipulate them into how we want them to; there are times when we fail to give the proper command and the computer "thinks" for itself, as was the case with ayla's picture of the board. It's not a tool, because it's not something we canfully manipulate; but a language we have to be literate in, to be able to input an idea, and have an output of a different medium. The computer makes us do work, by burdening the user of the responsibility of learning its language in order to fully utilise it. Because of this, it's not simply a tool. At the same time, it cannot be a co-writer either because it didn't have any input of ideas. For me, I guess, the distinction between writer and a tool ( maybe an aid is a better word) is not intent but thought. Since the computer is merely putting what you wrote on a different platform, it is not co-writing. It's just a translator.

I liked our discussion at the very end of class today about the importance of “drawing a line” to indicate that something is special and unique instead of expanding definitions to include everything.  If I remember correctly, this conversation sprung from our discussion about the end of Scott McCloud’s second book.  I understood his argument to be something like this: in order to maintain comics’ relevance in the digital age, artists have to remove panels and embrace the infinite.  We talked briefly about how removing panels from comics makes them reminiscent of the cave drawings from which they arose.  

If McCloud is right, and the future of comics relies upon removing the panel, then their evolution serendipitously ends up right back where it started.  This is nice for my brain to think about.  I like circles.

After reading Najmabadi's essay concerning sex change operations in Iran, learning that it is considered a way to be able to be attracted to someone in the "right" form (becoming a woman if you are a man who loves a man, or a man if you are a woman who loves a woman), I began to search for more information about this and found that Iran is one of the world's largest centers for sex change operations.

 

http://www.belikeothers.com/

I also found a film that was shown at Sundance in 2008 which is about this very same topic. I never knew this was such an active conversation and controversial aspects of life in Iran.

There is a chance to watch a few of the clips on the film's website, and one of the men who is about to undergo a sex-change operation is told by his mother that what he is feeling is just a "desire" and nothing more. The mother overall seems to be very worried about her son's operation, wanting him to conform or if not, just act the way that he does within the boundaries of their home. The fact that she calls what he has with his boyfriend and what he feels like inside as simply a "desire" to be something else or to get attention is astounding to me. What makes someone else able to identify that what you feel for someone else is purely desire, or is something that you are choosing to feel, so therefore can stop feeling that way all the same?

One of the most intriguing aspects of Ghanian history that I learned is their intense grading system. I was incredibly surprised by how rigorously grades were incorporated into the Ghanaian education system starting from a young age. For example, Ghanian children would probably have pictures graded in kindergarten, and this continues into university where an entire class is based on the final exam. Then, when talking to the Liberian therapist, he mentioned how even the education system is much more rigorous that that of an American education. He described the American education as a “spoon feeding” system and while I was slightly taken aback by this statement, I started to realize what he meant when as I reflected on my own education.

Throughout my education in the US I have gotten much guidance from my teachers. I went to private school from 7th to 12th grade because my parents wanted me to be in a smaller setting where teachers were more available. However, even when I went to a middle sized public elementary school from kindergarten to grade 6 I was receiving a lot of attention from teachers, the only difference being that things were taught much more slowly in elementary school in order to give this individual attention to large groups of students. I am not saying that “guidance” is bad; in fact, it is one of the strengths in a good education. However, in many ways, education is also “handed” to us.