For this week I decided to revisit Paulo Freire's "Cultural Action for Freedom." I am drawn to his idea of education as cultural action for freedom. Nonetheless, it also leads me to wonder if the education that Freire describes ever truly exists. On a basic level, Freire talks about how this type of education is dialectic and involves an act of truly knowing (not just rote memorization), where one knows about his/her "concrete historical and cultural reality." However isn't history always written by the victors? And does an essential cultural reality exist? In Wozniak's psychology class we talk about the origins and development of culture. We also discuss the lack of an essential self, and so I wonder if such an essential cultural reality exists. Won't this cultural "reality" in the end be influenced by the mindset of whichever side one percieves reality to be? 

As our trip to Ghana draws closer and closer, I find it more and more necessary to revisit Lugones's piece on code-switching and world-traveling. I find myself torn between excitement and anxiety in regards to travelling to Ghana.

On one hand, I worry about the implications my mere presence will have in Ghana. I have blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin: the epitome of what the stereotypical American is. I have the appearance of a colonizer, my ancestors were most likely colonizers; no matter how good my intentions are, I feel as if it is impossible to detach myself from the power and privilege of being an elite liberal arts college student who has no business pretending like I can fully understand and grasp Ghanian culture. I also feel very limited in knowing only a few phrases of Dagbani, which I'm certain I will butcher with my. Without the ability to code-switch, I feel like my ability to world-travel is much more difficult since I will be conversing in the language of the colonizer, which is used primarily in professional and academic settings.

Researching storytelling in Ghana for our presentation was an interesting learning experience, although there were details that I was previously aware of, predominantly that the act tended to be verbal rather than written. I did find it of interest that being a storyteller is considered being a profession, it made me think of the differences in what we value in this society in comparison. We value reading and literacy, but it is of higher value to be able to write stories down than it is to pass stories on verbally. In spoken word poetry we can see value placed on verbal storytelling, but that art form is valued by a few and is far from being universally appreciated. Why is that we value one form of transmitting knowledge, experiences and stories over another?

I remember the first time I read a novel that had characters that talked like me. It completely changed my attitude towards reading. I began to read one book a week starting in junior high because I loved reading about protagonists that also students who struggled through social problems.

            This reminds me of the Gee reading because of the discussion on discourse. At the beginning of the semester, I did not have a firm grasp on the meaning of discourse. However, now it seems that I do understand it more, or I am at least more comfortable with the vocabulary. One thing that the Gee reading reminds me is the importance for people, especially youth, to see their discourse in other areas of life. Being able to read about people who went through similar issues and reading phrases and words that I experienced on a daily basis was in some way a source of empowerment. It made my middle school self feel less alone in the world to know that there are other people who are similar to me and talk the same way.

This week I am revisiting the Lugones reading about world-traveling and feeling at ease in the worlds we travel through. When I first read the reading, I disliked it very much. I did not understand exactly the terms the author used and I definitely could not understand them in relation to literacy. I realize now that the Lugones reading was not something I could read and just immediately get. Instead, I had to experience what she meant by world-traveling and this experience played out this weekend when I attended the Posse Plus Retreat (PPR). 

For those who do not know, the PPR is a weekend-long event open to Bryn Mawr students, faculty and staff invited by the Pose scholars on campus. It is an annual event and its goal is to get people connected and to be challenged by conversations about a central topic. The one I attended was on gender & sexuality.

This weekend, I travelled to a new world and it was not without unease. A little ignorantly, I thought that there wasn't much to learn about the topic because I had two gay best friends, I went to a very open high school, and I go to Bryn Mawr, a school that is very supportive and vocal about the LGBTQAAII community. Of course I was completely wrong. Even worse, I left the retreat feeling like I had never belonged or felt at ease in that "world" even when I thought I did at first. Feeling, in some ways, excluded, I left PPR with more questions than answers to my frustrations. I think they are very relevant to the Lugones reading so....

Read this:

http://www.smithsophian.com/opinions/letters-to-the-editor-1.2792404#.T0bPBfEgenk

EDIT: Taken down on Smith's website due to technical difficulties. Read it on Jezebel instead:

http://jezebel.com/Anne-spurzem/

And read the responses here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/182294368547549/

Incredible, shocking? I feel fear/shame knowing that it is statistically likely that there are BMC alums like this. I know that BMC has changed a lot over the years, and somehow I wonder how the first decade of graduating classes would react to or interact with the last decade of graduating classes (GOLD - Graduates of the Last Decade).

I am very much enjoying the conversations in class, and I think that I have learned from my classmates' comments and perspectives.  For me, I like to think about the underlying questions that we are pondering in the context of assigned readings.  So far, I think about questions such as "If everyone supported this concept, what would that look like," "How do we learn differently from different genres, and how do writers manipulate that learning by choosing a certain genre," "What are the presumptions or prejudices about genre and forms of writing," "If we expect the writing world to promote the evolution of a certain genre how does this impact structure and does that matter," "What does the evolution of a genre mean, anyway," and finally, "What is the message of this class?"  So as we listened to our BMC guest speakers about their digital projects, I was wondering not so much about how they accomplished it or what they expected from it, but rather I thought about the purpose of having a piece of writing so accessible.  When we read Satrapi's graphic novel, I thought about the reason she wrote it and the reason she chose to write it in a graphic novel.  When we read "Mad at school," I thought about the breakdown of structures that we know if everyone were to promote the evolution of this type of education.  There are more examples that are too numerous to write in this small jaded space.  

            I have enjoyed the discussions we have had these past couple of weeks. What I think works best for the benefit of the class is using Serendip as a tool to establish discussion topics for upcoming classes. In addition to that, I like the fact that Anne is a part of our discussion and encourages us to come with additional thoughts and questions to the next class. What I would like to format from the course’s structure is the amount of time we spend discussing a text, I think it would be best if we reduce the amount of texts per week to analyze them further. This format would allow us to re-read a text if necessary and give room to multiple interpretations based on class discussions. If I had the opportunity to go back and spend more time discussing texts, I would like to read Margaret Price’s ”Mad at School”(especially after having her in class).