Week 7

One of the biggest challenges that college students face is the struggle for meaning, creating or discovering connections between what they are learning in their courses and what is important in their lives.  What does this course have to do with the rest of my life?  Why do I have to take art history if I am not an art history major?  I'll never use math beyond my checkbook; why would I need college algebra?  These questions are all good and can be answered in a myriad of ways, but at their essence they point to a crisis in meaning at the heart of higher education.

Students receive conflicting messages regarding school.  If you don't go to college, you will end up a failure.  You will earn less than someone with a degree.  You will not find a good paying job.  These statements all have a element of truth, but they also falsify the college idea.  We have seen this even as we have performed many of the skits this semester.

Although everyone agrees that students graduating from college should have marketable skills, the historic and primary end of an education is so much more.  The Greek ideal of paideia, which aimed to educate the whole person so that they could take part in the work of being a citizen, is one such purpose that often gets lost or is never fully realized.

In the struggle for meaning, students and hopefully everyone else in the academy, can hear an invitation for all of us to confront the differences between thin and deep learning.  Thin learning addresses learning from the outside and is unaware or comfortable with the notion of divorcing the skills being taught with the inner working of the individual learning them.  It treats education as a set of discrete skills that can be easily taught and assessed rather than a complex interaction that calls for an inner transformation of skills and values on the part of the learner or teacher, in the context of the needs of the community.

Much of the work of this semester is an attempt to delve deeply into the ancient ideal of paideia.  Last weekend's Gandhi Day Celebration is one example as was the barbeque earlier in the term.  Stepping outside of our classroom boundaries, opening the doors of our minds and hearts to the world at large goes hand in hand with this larger form of education and the quest for meaning.

Images from Gandhi Day 2012

The calls for reinventing the classroom are many.  However, these often stay on the thin side of education and fail to engage in the meaning making of thick or deep learning.  To learn in this manner has a transformational aspect that is often difficult to assess but manifests in very visible and outward ways.  This week we continue our exploration and our attempt at thicker or deeper learning.  The following activities are offered in that spirit.  I will briefly highlight these and go over them in class in detail.

Photo Walk Group Essay on Campus

I would like for groups (3-4 people) to form once again.   I'd like for the groups to document our campus.  We will need to decide on themes for each group and avoid overlapping themes as much as possible.  The essay should be about 800 words once again.  This time it will be done collaboratively.  We will use three web resources to develop the collaboration and come up with a final document:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Storify

Here's a website that embodies the spirit behind this assignment.  Notice the way the pictures dance with the words.

Work on Essay #2

I will ask you to write a one or two page proposal in your notebook's and have these ready by the time of the notebook check.  Please describe your topic for Essay #2, explain why you chose it, and how you plan to go about writing it.

Notebook Check

This week there will be a notebook check and grade (100 pts).  This will be a pass/fail kind of grade.  You either have all of the entries and receive 100 points or you don't and receive no credit.  Please number the pages in your notebook and make a table of contents.  I will be checking notebooks this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Week 1

General response to the weekly message
What is Forum Theater?
Who Am I?
Dr. Padron's Email
The Push to Declare a Major
WDTB "First Thoughts" 

Week 2

General response to the weekly message
Writer's notebook
Telling Is a Difficult Thing
Probing Questions (One section)
WDTB "Fighting Tofu"  

Week 3

General response to the weekly message
Image that represents you
Letter to younger self
WDTB  "Beginner's Mind," "Pen and Paper," and "Trouble with the Editor 

Week 4

General response to the weekly message
Billy Idol video and writing
First and third person perspective article from The New York TimesIra Glass video
WDTB "Writing Is Not a MacDonald's Hamburger" 

Week 5

General response to the weekly message
Response to Walt Whitman video
Response to Allen Ginsberg writer's video
Response to the storyline behind the Facebook posts
Response to Allen Ginsberg poem
WDTB "You Are Not the Poem" 

Week 6

General response to the weekly message
Response to "Please Call Me by My True Names"
Entry regarding potential topics for Essay #2

WDTB "Original Detail" and "The Power of Detail" 

Week 7

Theme proposal for Essay #2.  Explain why you chose your topic and how you plan on approaching it.

Readings+

From  WDTB, read and respond to "Writers Have Good Figures" and "Listening."

EC visit for  Wednesday (4:15pm), Thursday and Friday Classes

Toward the end of the week we should be able to take a visit to the Environmental Center.  This will be an excellent opportunity to practice moving outside of our classroom boundaries and doing an individual photowalk.  Come dressed for the outdoors: comfortable shoes, shorts, and t-shirts.  Bring a something to take pictures with (a phone will do and if not a camera).

The theme for the walk will be "The Still Small Voice."  It is taken from the following passage from 1 Kings in the Bible:

¹¹ Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, theLord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; ¹² and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.¹³ So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Your aim as you walk will be to find representations of the small voice.  This is is not a particularly religious exercise but mostly a poetic one.  I consider the still small voice to reside in the unexpected and as in the passage shows up when we stop looking for the fireworks and constant commotion that often are substitutes for a rich inner life. I will ask you to post your pictures to our FB group along with a one-paragraph evocative caption by the end of the day of the walk.  For those who use Instagram, have fun with the artsy filters!