New journey starts: the metacognitive cultural humility quest

Blog post 1
June 17, 2011


Here I am in a kind of study abroad ready to do a little experiential learning.  Page and I are talking about critical thinking blogging to increase cultural awareness, and we are in the process of trying to adapt the concept of cultural humility to the foreign language classroom.  Sipple  and I are working on applying Bakhtin's concept of carnival to the experience of study abroad. So, here I am putting on my metaphorical white lab coat, splitting myself into metacognitive observer and immersed participant, and taking notes.  This is armchair theorizing on wheels, ethnography through the looking glass, the practical application of critical navel gazing, as it were.

First, blogging as metacognitive practice.  If I'm not careful, this blog could turn into a travelogue where I just chronicle what happens in a kind of boring reportage.  I need to remember to observe/describe, analyze, evaluate, and extrapolate.  At this point in the journey, I am two thirds along in my journey as I wait in Heathrow for my flight to Vienna.  In getting from Cincinnati FTP Heathrow via Toronto, I noticed two things: there is a lot of personal stress for travelers trying to make The Rules of the airport make sense, and it is tiring to make connections work.  

Airports now have all kinds of crazy rules that don't always make sense like the liquids in the plastic bag, going through all the different kinds of security procedures, and what documents one must give to whom and when.  It is rather the opposite of carnival: it reminds me of a Kafkaesque world where officials needing something just turn up and block you from your task until some line has been walked through.  In Toronto, we had to get off the plane, go through a passport and Landing Card check even though we were only making a connection inside the airport to another Air Canada flight.  (note to self: never do that again!). I asked apparently official  two people why we had to do this, and they both looked off into space and muttered vagaries: it was The Rules.  I think that the stress is increased by the apparent arbitrariness of The Rules and consequent feeling of lack of control or being at the mercy of mysterious forces.  The most constructive response, I think, is to just let go of control and treat airports and their ilk as seas with high chop: a mild force of nature that you can't push against but which can be maneuvered and accounted for in other ways.  

The other observation was about how tiring this is.  Hurry up and wait is stressful, and it is really  hard to sleep well on a plane.  As a result, I think that on our study abroad trip, we need to have a snack provision time because I went up to Costa Coffee, and that cup of coffee worked wonders.  If we go directly to Prague from Cincinnati, or Vienna, we'll need to make sure we have plenty of rest time planned in, and we need to make sure that the kids have snacks or, more likely, time to get snacks.  

I think that giving oneself to the carnivalesque world of international travel is tightly related to the practice of cultural humility because both require letting go of control and being more responsive than proactive.  One can plan and plan, but once in motion, one can only use the plan as a general guideline.  The customs man at the UK Border Control asked me a series of border questions ending with "What kind of professor are you?" Would there have been a wrong answer? Was he waiting for a hesitation in case I wasn't what I had written for my profession on my landing card?  I blurted out "Comparative literature" because it sounded less silly than "English".  He was fine with that, but I reflected on the cultural humility "courageous questions" as I hiked on to the next terminal to see if I had dealt with that moment in the way that we recommend in our paper.  
      What are my biases about this group of people?  
                I believe that border authority people are capricious.
      How do I know these biases are true or not?
                 I have passed through customs in many countries and been confused            by them often.
       What will happen if I act on these biases?
                 I don't know because border authority people confuse me.
        What kind of relationship do I want to have with this person?
                 I know I am harmless so I want to give him answers that will make him happy.
         
I guess I was humble enough.  I answered his questions, and when i was confused, I just went with whatever came to mind.  It seemed to work well enough. I think the challenge in cultural humility will really come into play when I am weaker with the language skills, like in Austria and the Czech Republic.  What is my plan, a la self regulated learning?  I will plan ahead what I need to say, use that plan as a guideline, when I get confused I will slow down and try to politely work though the interaction with writing or graphic aids.  Okay. The next step in my participation in this carnival of humility will begin in two hours when I have to find the S7 train to Praterstern and buy a ticket for it.  Heh heh.   We'll see how this best laid plan of this mouse goes.  

*****
Ha! It was so easy to get to the hotel from the airport thanks to the fabulous public transport and a little research.  At the hotel desk, Page will laugh, I didn't have to use my fancy sentences asking the clerk to speak English because all of my night school German worked just fine.  Of course the clerk was kind and patient, so that was good.  What new understanding do I have? Go in with a plan and wing it.  

This part of the outer ring of Vienna is the work-a-day business use end of the city.  At Pratersterne u-bahn and s-bahn station, everybody gathers to sit around, smoke cigarettes, drink  whatever, and have their dogs bark at each other amidst the trash.  It is quite scruffy, and not quite what I expected, although I'm not sure what I expected.  I certainly did not expect to see 19th century buildings with graffiti tags on them.  But the coolest thing so far is the never ending bike parade in the congested bike lane: a bike with a trailer full of full sized speaker cranking out industrial synth, a recumbent bike with the driver on the cell phone so he steers with one foot and peels with the other whilst on the phone, baskets of all sizes, roller blazers with bicycle bells in their hands to get the slow bikes out of the way, pirate flags, stuffed rabbits, and tigger ente painted bikes.  That was fun to see.

Alternative Faculty Biographies

Our department is currently creating bios for our website. As you know, Gentle Reader, audience and purpose are very important in crafting a piece of writing. Here is what I originally wrote thinking of the audience of potential students with the purpose of inviting them to join our club. However, I had misjudged both audience and purpose, so I had to revise, which I was happy to do. Here is the version with the new audience and purpose: Currently published bio.

Here is my original one. What do you think? Which one do you prefer?

First Bio Attempt

My B.A. Is from the Colorado College, in Colorado Springs, in Anthropology. I studied ethnography and languages, and I spent my freshman year in Mexico and my sophomore year in France, in addition to skiing in Breckenridge. I spent the next seven years getting a Masters degree in language pedagogy and a doctorate in educational linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. In 1991, I came to Raymond Walters and worked as an academic tutor in the Writing Center while I also taught anthropology at Northern Kentucky University. In 1993 I came to RWC as a full time faculty member, and I teach composition and literature for the English Department. I also serve in faculty development for the college, working with faculty to improve teaching and learning both online and face to face. Study abroad is an area of interest for me both in supporting students to participate and in researching innovative ways to help faculty and students to benefit most from international experience. Part of supporting students’ international experience, is helping students from other countries who come to the United States. I volunteer every week teaching English as a Second Language at the Scarlet Oaks campus, and I sit on the advisory board for the ESOL/ABEL program. For a less formal outline of my teaching philosophy, please listen to Guy Clark’s song “Picasso’s Mandolin.”

shoes of POD

As I collected the photos for this photo essay of POD, I was surprised how eagerly people displayed their feet for me and then recommended other shoes for me to track down and photograph. I regret, Gentle Reader, that I missed the purple suede spiked heels that flashed past me in the lobby. I spotted them trotting across the lobby with great authority, but by the time I had gotten my camera out and run after the owner of said astonishing footwear, I rounded the corner only to see them disappearing into the elevator. Those were the ones that got away.

And now, the shoes of POD: a sampling of the more fashionable






The Shoes of POD: Comfy and Tenured




The Shoes of POD: Urban Decay Chic

Pod 2010: publicity, man-bashing, and assessment

Bright and early, 6:00 am, I attended the POD yoga class that is lead by next year's POD president, Michele DiPietro. I would say 35 podlings showed up for yoga at that hour of the morning. However, there were people who were wandering in around 6:30. Right: faculty members showing up for a class a 1/2 hour late: what are they thinking? Breakfast this year is quite improved with bacon, cheesy eggs, and much in the way of tasty pastry that went untouched by me (pat on head). People complained that the bacon was too crispy, but I count that as whining: it existed and that was enough for me to love. Oooooo and the coffee is strong, spoon stand up in it strong. Unfortunately, it does not come in tureens. It comes in little pots from which it is meted out by the wait staff. rrrrrrrr. At one point, I could wait no longer for my cup of coffee, and I had to chase one of the wait staff around the room and then beg for my tasty coffee. I cover my bad behavior by clowning, and so far it seems to work.

The Morning session was on publicity. It was really quite good. Here are the take-aways:
Make mp3s of the Faculty Development workshops and post them (somehow).
We need a recorder like Ann witham has.
Who can buy this for us?
Create an LTC facebook page that has events (robin and I can be admins of this page). We can do this on a Wednesday morning.
Blog our fdc workshops as summaries, make sure each one has a photo.
Make sure we have lots of photos from events.
Do we need to schedule someone to do this?
Is the only way we'll get this is to do it ourselves?
We should ask each FLC to take a group photo.
We should most certainly post the FLC end of quarter aha epiphanies on our website.

Of course POD always makes me feel tired and inadequate. Surely I should be able to do all of this even if I am teaching a full course load of writing intensive courses. Surely.

Friday Plenary: a faculty engagement survey of 17,000 faculty .
Women and Black faculty use the most student centered pedagogies.
Social Science departments demonstrate the most civic engagement.
Faculty who felt their education had prepared them for the faculty role felt more engaged. 56.8 percent of this sample report participating in teaching enhancement workshops as graduate students. This is a high number. These faculty are more likely to be engaged.
White men participated least in faculty development, demonstrated the least engaged teaching, and are least likely to be engaged in civic participation.

The presenter was a quantitative researcher. When she was asked, "What should we do as a result of this data?", she responded, "Give faculty this data. Just seeing the data will change their minds and make them question their previously held values." Beam her up Scotty.

The afternoon session was a session on assessment.
The take-away: Her point is that it is not enough to just count stuff. You must count with intentionality.
A base count can indicate other places to look more intentionally. Her point of the whole presentation is that you need to think before you count so that you can get some real meaning.

More useful was the group conversation where we discussed how to "share the bounty" of the activities faculty participate in as a result of using their travel money. Is there a way we can invite people who requested travel money to write like three line about where they went, what they did, and what they learned as a result of that travel? We could put it in a newsletter, or on our website, or our Brand New Blog, or our Facebook page. wooooooooooo.

Adjunct Faculty Development and Iranian Paradoxes

Today I attended a morning workshop on how to support part-time faculty . Everybody there was very concerned about helping part time faculty, and the nature of the help they could give seemed to depend greatly on how much money they had. One university in Georgia had 90% attendance at their part-time faculty orientation because that is where they handed out the computers and phones. Computers and phones! No wonder people came to their events: they got a computer and a phone! Other people required attendance, others paid from $250 to $800 for attending a series of workshops. Some took a certification model, and others created adjunct faculty teaching awards. There were a lot of ideas. Here are the one I think we can do:

Get the adjunct email list updated. MOST IMPORTANT.
From this list, update adjunct bb site
Make sure they get all invitations to everything
Record all FDC presentations and figure out how to stream them
At orientation (which should be recorded)
Basic classroom gift pack: markers, erasers, IFATS, student evaluation forms
College relations cute things
Have a student panel
Have an adjunct panel
Consider an adjunct teaching award and years of service pin for a spring adjunct appreciation reception. Hard copy invitation
Have speaker, have "bright idea" award, have a door prize of a teaching book

Keep a database of all FDC attendees
See if we can do an entry FDC survey for new hires
Consider an adjunct advisory council that means with the dean once a semester

In the afternoon, I walked around St. Louis. The arch is always amazing.


The park is a beautiful green space there on the edge of the mighty Missouri River, which, in and of itself, is a flat fast moving chunk of muddy water, but majestic in the way a big piece of water can be. But the arch looming over it in all its shiny metal reflectiveness is just so sublimely cool.

There was also this curious little fellow up on the corner of a building.

Evidently this is Bevo the fox, the mascot of the non-alcoholic beverage that Anheuser-Busch brewed during prohibition. He is awfully cute and ever so cheery with his mug of non-alcoholic beverage while he chews on a leg of chicken.

At dinner, we also chewed on legs of chicken and then had apple pie with carmel topping for dessert. Yum: I photographed it on my phone, but I don't have the connector cord to put that photo here for you. However, it was rather prosaic. I will remember my real camera for tomorrow's awards banquet which should have an exotic dessert. Nevertheless, quotidian as the apple pie was, it was quite delicious.

During dinner I sat next to a guy from Iran who was here on sabbatical studying learning and teaching centers for his university in Tehran. I asked how many women were in his classes. "Oh," he said, "50 or 60% of my students are women."
"Oh," I asked disingenuously and already knowing the answer, but wanting him to say it anyway, "What kind of work do they do when they graduate from university? Is there much work for women with degrees in higher education?"
He replied, "No, there is not much work for women with degrees, but they agree that they will be better mothers if they are well educated. We will have a very smart generation of children since so many of our women have an advanced education."
I smiled and nodded, but, unwilling to let it go said, "It seems like with higher education being more available to more people, there will be a big change in Iran over the next 10 or twenty years."
"Oh, yes," he agreed enthusiastically, "But the conservative forces of the government are getting stricter, and we will see if they are able to squash this movement. People don't agree with them, but they do stir up a minority. I guess they don't read much history because this tactic never works."
He was really very cheery about the whole situation. Of course, he was in St. Louis eating apple pie, so he could afford to be cheery.

Finally, at the end of dinner, the president of POD spoke. He focused on the fact that the POD network is more important now that finances and support for higher ed are both getting smaller. He talked about how networks are about the strength of the connections. He made us think-pair-share about how POD could make strong connections in our networks. Those who had phones who could do it, tweeted their answers to #pod10, and those who could not tweet, wrote their ideas on scraps of paper to turn in. These suggestions will all turn up on the networking websites:
http://sites.google.com/site/podnetwork
and
http://tinyurl.com/wikipodia.

Tomorrow, how to effectively publicize a teaching and learning center and Shoes at Pod.

Getting to Saint Looey

This year the POD conference is in St. Louis, and I had to laugh as I drove down 71 South to Louisville to get on 64 West to St. Louis. There was a bit of a dearth of creativity when they were naming these big cities. I had actually forgotten how much relative nothing there is between these two namesakes of the infamous King. No, wait, there are a lot of truck stops, which means there are a lot of trucks. I borrowed my-very-good-friend Ralph's little Honda Fit for this drive, and there I was on I-64 West, an ant among the 18 wheeled elephants. It was actually pretty funny because it felt like I was driving through these huge mobile canyons. As I went deeper into the Midwest, I felt the culture change, or maybe it was just the rural depth of western Kentucky. I stopped for gas at a Flying J truck stop half-way to St. Louis (Gateway to the West, BTW), and I got some coffee. I was standing at the counter to pay for my coffee, and a large man in a red Flying J apron over a stained white polo shirt said, "That's a lovely ensemble you have on tonight. Very pleasant to the eyes," and he tucked his thumbs into the strings of his apron and nodded with great satisfaction. This was disorienting for me at so many levels. Here's what I was wearing:


Not wanting to just stare at him in shock, I mastered myself and tried to say, as cheerily as possible, "Thanks!" What else could I say? The red of my bloodshot eyes must have been set off nicely by the green scarf.

Anyway, here at POD, we are at the Hyatt near the Arch. I got in when it was dark, and the river, the arch, and the moon were exquisite, but I only got to glimpse this transcendent tableau because I was zooming across the bridge between huge trucks and trying to read the street signs through the gaps in the trailers. I did find the hotel easily enough, and wowey but this is a nice one! It has this Asian motif going on. Here, check out the bathroom sink:


Lovely room, I-Pod dock on the room clock, and the conference has negotiated free wireless for conference attendees. Cool.

Traveling to the Gate of Westward Expansion

Well back from the East and now to the West.




I'm off to the Professional and Organizational Development Conference to engage in scholarly discourse with my colleagues in faculty development. I will be blogging from the conference so that you, too, Gentle Reader, can feel like you are attending this conference as well. My goals for this conference are to learn how to do better faculty development for adjunct faculty and to see what kind of research would be useful for next year's conference. I'm thinking we need to do more on faculty learning communities, but we'll see. I'm driving, so I'll have plenty of contemplation time as I trace the trails of the old wagon trains that would leave from Cincinnati in past centuries, arriving in St. Louis for the final provisioning before setting out on the great Trails West through the gateway.

The last time I made this trip for a conference in St. Louis, I was traveling with Sylvia Thompson, a wonderful teacher of developmental English as Raymond Walters and saint up on this earth, God rest her soul. She was a model of love and patience for us all. I can only hope that I can be as kind a person and as patient a teacher as Sylvia was.