Blogs

Given the nature of our course and our affinity towards the inclusion of technology, as well as comments made via Twitter recently, I’ve been considering the impact technology can have in other educational settings than our own.

I’ve been thinking back on my own education and the slowly growing incorporation of technology into it. I remember when it used to be if you had a projector in your classroom you had advanced technology. How is technology currently used in a public high school? When I was a senior in high school, we had ONE SmartBoard in the school, in my A.P. Physics class, and we must have used it about two or three times throughout the duration of the school year. For the most part it was off to the side of the room and no one was inclined to use it. When our teacher brought it out, it was mostly for play - what he was showing us was physics-related but it was just for fun as it was after we had already taken the A.P. exams, so it was never really used in the daily lessons.

On a visit to a public high school last year, I talked with some teachers who expressed frustrations with the increase in technology brought into their rooms as they did not know how to use the products brought in, i.e. SmartBoard or otherwise, and were given no instruction as to how best to incorporate them into the lessons nor any orientation towards their functions.

I really enjoyed the field trip and the high school students’ incites and reactions to the Imagine Africa Exhibit. The pre-field trip activity was really engaging and I was so impressed by what the high school students had to say in my “Changing” group and in all the groups. It was great to work with the three students in the Changing group because a couple of them have recently come to the Student Success Center where I tutor and have worked with us. I got to get to know the high school students on an intellectual and a social level- some of the things the girls were saying were hilarious and Mia and I enjoyed ourselves talking to them on the bus. The Imagine Africa exhibit was very interesting. It was engaging and I liked a lot of the self-guided area- especially the Healing section. Some positive things that were said in the focus/feedback group is that being able to touch and interact with the exhibit was a plus. Being able to watch clips and listen to people talking about their own current practices added depth to the exhibit. I liked being able to create my own collage with the photos and listening to music. We were a little confused though whether the exhibit was meant to portray historic or current Africa because some of the concepts were current yet the artifacts were historic. I thought that the juxtaposed media was very interesting with the Disney representations of Africa like the Lion King, yet there was no signage asking us to be critical of these representations or to think about stereotypes and representation.

I have never heard of the digital humanities before the Literary Kinds course and I soon discovered the transformative nature of digital writing and its evolution across media. I have taken for granted the opportunities for self-learning from the infinite sources of information that are available through the Internet. The Digital Humanities Manifesto was empowering as it pushed me to take advantage of the open-source culture that is available in this time and age and to get my hands dirty as I partake in the “democratization of culture and scholarship”. For my first web paper, I explored science writing by examining how it transforms across platforms: from laboratory journal to popular science magazine to headline news. I looked into several pieces of writing in each stage but did not seek to examine the interface between the audience/readers and the scientists. I remained at the surface. It is a gift economy, where knowledge is readily accessible to all of us at no cost, but I had to make the connections inside the network in order to extract the most out of it. I had to give back, provide my perspective to hear the echo of others. In examining the Ten Principles for the Future of Learning Institutions in this digital age presented by Davidson and Goldberg, it was clear that I have not yet reached out “horizontally”. I did not consider approaching neither peers nor bloggers who explored the topic to better understand the changes in science writing.

Mental health is a personal interest of mine - mainly because it is so personal to me, but also because I like to think that there is a connection between mental disorders and brilliance.  Newton, Michaelangelo, Nash, Einstein, Van Gogh, Aristotle - so many great minds in history who are thought to have had some sort of mental disorder (by studying their personal journals or historical accounts about their personalities).  As I said in class, I indulge in being part of a community of people who have the same mental disorder as I do.  It is my personal preference to dive into the idea that mental illness and intelligence are connected.  Very smart people come with baggage.

I watched this short (30 minute) documentary film about a young woman and her experience with bipolar disorder.  "Crooked Beauty: Navigating the line between brilliance and insanity" is a personal documentary in which the author, Jacks McNamara, advocates for people to live with their madness and use it as a tool for inspiration and creativity.  She specifically does not support allowing people to use their diagnosis as an excuse, or a burden reliever. She did not appreciate being medicated so that her 'radio transmitters' were shut down, and she more easily glanced over the world's suffering, instead of being so sensitive to it.

not sure how I feel about this, but it seems related to our discussion from thursday.

http://www.good.is/post/is-sweden-s-classroom-free-school-the-future-of-learning/

also related (re: free schools) act three from this episode of This American Life.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/424/kid-politics

Our discussion on Tuesday about Spivak's idea that the author is often the worst reader of their own work has me thinking about "The Help."  I'm not sure if many of you have read it, but it was on the bestseller list over the summer, and was also adapted into a film.  "The Help" is, in short, the story of a rich white woman who breaks into the publishing world by teling the stories of the black household workers of her southern town.  At first it reads, as it was intended, as a sweet tale a inter-racial connection and understanding which is heartwarming and inpiring to all.  However, a close reading reveas that the story is actually a sort of standard llne revision of US history, in which a white person risks nothing while the black characters risk everything and, at the end, the white woman is left in a better position, while the black women are exactly where they are when they started.  The book contains scant reference to the civil rights movement, and the movie, from what I understand, contains even less.  

Once I finished reading the book, I commented on it on Facebook, and was met with several comments about how I had misread the book, and how the author intended to highlight the racism of the 50's.  Though I never did have time to research the author's statements regarding her intention, I did end up engaging in several debates regarding the story, and those debates eventually led to me gaining a greater understanding of the people with whom I was debating.  

I recently read an article "Motherhood as a Retreat from Equality"  (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/world/europe/24iht-letter24.html?pagewanted=2&ref=feministmovement). It talks how many women go back to work after giving a birth in Germany and France.

Though motherhood seems far in the future, I know it is coming and it's coming quickly. So I asked myself a question. I want to be a doctor. That is one of the reasons to come to Bryn Mawr so I can get eduated well. And, I wouldn't be able to trust anyone to take care of my baby(ies). Then, will I be able to sacrifice my career to be a "full-time mom"? Then, is coming to BMC worth it? Will it pay off someday? Or, would having a baby make me happy?

I have always wanted to ask my feminist friends this question: which one is more important? motherhood or career? Why? If you want to go back to work after having a baby, would you feel comfortable hiring a nanny to take care of your baby? If you do not want to go back to work right after, how long will you take a break from work? And, what makes you believe that the companies still want to hire you even though there will be smarter, younger people who work for them?

I have three words: What. A. Week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are so many things that I want to blog about but I will stick to my incredible experience at the Imagine Africa Exhibit at the UPenn Museum.  I’ll do it in two parts:

Part I: I really enjoyed the field trip with the high school teenagers—I don’t think the trip would have been the same without them. My favorite part of the museum was the exhibit that allowed us to “create” Africa or, better yet, to reveal the many “stories” of Africa. Aside from the fact that the exhibit was limiting because you could only “imagine” Africa with the images/words/media clips available, I felt empowered. I felt empowered in the sense that I had the ability to determine whether or not I wanted Africa to be described as “beautiful” vs. “Unique” or “Modern” vs. “Rural.” Of course, Africa can embody both components but having a say in what Africa meant to me instead of having someone impose their views on Africa, particularly in education settings, on me was a powerful moment. My group happened to have the word, “healing.” And although, initially, we thought that there was no healing in the world, or very little, seeing the high school sophomores excited at the chance to define Africa and to make meaning out of her history was healing happening right before my eyes.

I have a confession to make. In eighth grade, I was first exposed to a documentary called Invisible Children that exposed the longest running war in Africa with all its atrocities. From that point on, being apart of this organization was my life and passion. I felt so enraged that human beings could be treated as animals and slaves in this day and age. I was a founding member of the club in high school as well as at Bryn Mawr where I hosted many fundraisers and participated in peaceful demonstrations on the behalf of the children of Northern Uganda. However, this past summer after six years of involvement, I came to the realization through divine intervention per se that Invisible Children as an organization had consumed me and made me into a monster. Instead of continually being empowered to help children abducted and forced to fight in a terrible war, I was more concerned with receiving the recognition and glory for my good works. The irony in all this is that the initial spark that created this passion for activism came from this deep belief in human rights. I really started thinking about how this passion is connected to the 360 program when Teresa came to our class and asked us why we were in the class or program. Originally, I applied because I had a passion to help from a position of privilege as well as compassion. However, through the 360 program, I no longer see a single story. I had compassion for children that were used for rape as a weapon of war, but I did not allow myself to see the an amazing culture.