“Stories are just data with a Soul” ~ Brene Brown

I know a mechanical engineer, who loved what he did even though he became an engineer not due to his passion for engineering but due to family pressures. However, over the years he found that he loved what he did and he worked for it. One of his colleagues got promoted every year, chosen over him for six straight years not because of better work but because of the relationships maintained with superiors. Even though our engineer never complained, his boss subtlety indicated that he needed to get better at connecting with his superiors too. Our engineer did not care because he knew he was being authentic and real to himself and his work. He connected with his workers, they cared for and respected him and that was enough for him. He did not need to connect with his superiors to gain this insight, he found gratification in his authenticity and his ideals rather than the approval of his superiors. Our engineer – a man a few words – my father, defying norms, did not care of organizational safety.

Safety – we all crave safety, don’t we? If we look at Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy, after our basic needs of food, water and air are met we move on to safety needs. Being “safe” means different things to different people though. In the professional world, I think it has unfortunately been equated to conformity – we conform with standards, we conform with norms, we conform with ideals of the company we work for because we want to be professionally “safe”. It is in the human nature, in our instinct to want to be safe. Fight, flight and freeze are real and all three of these instincts insure our safety depending on the situation we are in. Human beings are wired for it and that is what I believe Parker Palmer is getting at, when he questions why people don’t stand up to institutional ignorance or injustice. If we believe that our professional safety is in danger because we are not conforming to the norms of our workplace, then it is possible that people will chose safety over whatever is on the other side of the spectrum.

What is on the other side? According to Brene Brown, the author of Daring Greatly, it is shame – defined as the fear of disconnection or the fear of not being good enough to connect. How did I go from intellectual to emotional, left brain to right brain? Please bear with me so I can explain. Just as human beings are wired for safety, we are also wired for connection. In her research that focuses on qualitative data analysis of interviews with themes such as shame and vulnerability, Brene Brown has talked extensively about human connection and the lack thereof. In her TedTalk, The Power of Vulnerability, she states that in order for us to connect with others, we have to allow ourselves to be “really seen”. While reading Palmer’s thoughts about the “new professional” I wondered if that is what he thinks the new professionals need…the courage to “really be seen”. The willingness to be examined as a whole person – not just as a professional or an academic but as a whole. And that is where the image of a wholehearted, authentic educator appeared in my mind.

In describing the features of a wholehearted person, Brene Brown succinctly puts them as “the courage to be imperfect”, the compassion to be kind to oneself and others, the connection that is formed as a result of authenticity which is the willingness “to let go of who people think they should be in order to be who they” really are. And last but not least, the vulnerability that comes along with the belief that what makes a person vulnerable is also the sole cause of them being beautiful. In order to be vulnerable however, one has to be willing to put themselves under a microscope, to examine their own values, beliefs, ideals, and most importantly, as Palmer puts it, their “own shadows”.

Very few people sign up for self-inflicted interrogation though. Mostly we are “ok” with being safe in our lovely, comfortable cocoons and we lose our passions and we douse our fires that drove us towards our professions in the first place. Passions that made us want to be doctors, engineers, scientists, researchers, psychologists, artists, counselors, mathematicians, actors, economists…the list goes on. Personally, I agree with Palmer as well as Brown, and for myself want to integrate the concept of challenging what is wrong not only with the intention to stay sane but essentially because I want to remain authentic and genuine in my profession, to honor my own integrity as a counselor and live by what I believe is my deepest calling – to be an educator of new authentic and genuine professionals.


There’s more to life than what you read in books

Maybe it’s the caffeine or the sunshine, but I don’t know if an article has ever energized me as much as the one I just read.

I started by watching Seth Godin’s TEDx Talk in which he posed the question:

“What is school for?”

Then I read Dan Edelstein’s article, about the purpose and the indirect impacts of education in the humanities.

However, as incredible as those were, it was Parker Palmer’s article that has me so excited. Maybe the first two set the stage for this one. Maybe it’s just the ideas that he mentions or the incredible examples he used.

If higher education is to serve humane purposes, we who educate must insist that knowing is not enough, that we are not fully human until we recognize what we know and take responsibility for it.

Palmer’s article really drove home the point that education is for more than just content knowledge. One of the key topics he discusses is the interaction of an individual with the institutions of which they are a part. I believe that this knowledge of institutional relationships is something a lot of folks struggle with these days. Often the narrative of “I have a problem with this organization. I’ll find something else to do” defeats the harder narrative of “I have a problem with this organization. However, I believe in it and will work to make it better.” Too often we believe that institutions are untouchable.

Palmer gets into a deep discussion of how to navigate our own feelings and let them speak to us in the workplace and in academia, which my commentary cannot do justice. I’ll let him speak for himself here.

So we have precious little experience and even less competence at extracting work-related information from our feelings. […] “So what?” might be a reasonable response to that observation—until we realize that a capacity to translate private feelings into knowledge and then public action, when warranted, has been an engine of every movement for social change.

Palmer is asserting, and I agree, that education is for more than just teaching people the “stuff” they learn in school. It’s more than solving equations and memorizing anatomy. Our educational institutions provide settings that could be used for so much more. So what are some things that I believe school is for? I’ll tell you.

School is for

  • Self-discovery
  • Gaining inspiration from those who have gone before us
  • Learning how to make connections between seemingly unrelated topics
  • Building and making and creating
  • Figuring out how our feelings relate to what we do
  • Learning how to work with other people to accomplish a goal
  • Seeing the value in people different than us
  • Learning how to work hard even when you don’t want to

School is a playground to discover who we are and how we want to interact with the world around us. My good friend Jeff wrote a blog post sharing college advice he had recently given to a high school senior. His first point really stuck with me:

You will learn about your degree in class.  You have the potential to learn about yourself every single moment.

This is the point I want to end with. Too often our educational system downplays this idea, but it should be sung in every classroom:

The most important thing we can learn is who we are.

 

What bullet points would you add to the list? How have you learned who you are through interactions inside or outside the classroom?


I am a model

Ok, so. Maybe my title is a bit misleading…..but let me explain.

As we quickly come upon the close of the semester, I am more vastly aware of how important my role is as an educator. Providing much supervision this semester to several master’s counseling students I have learned that so much acquisition of knowledge comes from doing and seeing others in action. It brings words studied on pages to life and provides deeper understanding of application. This leads me into thinking that a great deal of emphasis needs to be on what I model to my students in addition to what I am teaching them. After all, how can I expect greatness from them if I am not willing to give them my greatest efforts in return?

Parker Palmer comments in A New Professional: The Aims of Education Revisited that “as mentors we must embody what it looks like”, which is how I feel it should be in higher education. Not a sage on the stage telling the students to “do as I say” but not themselves be doing those very things. Rather, share their experiences, vulnerabilities, and remain committed to the heart you have for your profession.  Which reminds me of a quote I once read, claimed to have been spoken by Rosa Parks:

Each person must live their life as a model for others.

Rosa Parks simply sat on a bus. She did not lead a movement, but her brave actions to remain in her seat did inspire courage and bravery in the many, many others who did act. Today, her name is well known and still provides modeling for those of us who wish to stand (or sit in her case!) for something for which we are passionate. Her small, but impactful action caused a ripple effect that has been massive.

As educators, we should strive to do the same. Make passionate, deep, impactful actions which cause ripple effects in our students. Our students will then know what it looks like to see the lessons in action, who will then in turn have impact on others. And so on and so forth.

How do I plan to do this? I am not fully sure. My idea is that I will strive to make my profession strong, ethical, amazing, and helpful. For me, that means continuing my own education, yes even after the PhD is complete. It means advocating for others who need assistance having their voices heard. It means reading or writing articles; meeting with clients; creating pedagogy that will stimulate the next generation. So I guess I will largely take it day by day, class by class, and student by student. We will learn and grow from each other.

So I am a model. Not the runway type, glossy magazine cover, television advertisement kind of model. I am a role model. I am not perfect, but hey, that just normalizes things and lets my students know that it is perfectly find to be human!


Wear your heart on your sleeve

I really enjoyed the readings and TedTalk this week. Parker Palmer in the article A New Professional: The Aims of Education Revisited, gives a heart wrenching example of a medical resident in the donor care unit losing a patient due to the facility being understaffed and lack of supervision. The article however points out a major issue, professionals should be catalysts of change and have a great deal of power to challenge the institution. Challenging authority may not be so simple for that one solo resident. However, if one resident speaks up maybe more will follow to create a larger influx of change.

I also like that the article discusses the value of emotions. We just discussed the value of emotional intelligence in one of the other classes I am taking. In regards to a leadership role/professional success, those having a higher level of emotional intelligence were found to be more successful than those with a high IQ. Emotional intelligence skills can also be developed with time. In a Seattle study (1985) children in school systems had social learning programs in which they learned how to interact with their peers. The children in the program were able to handle/cope with frustration better and had less problems. Palmer makes a great point in that emotions claiming and aiming our emotions can help shape our knowledge, implement action, and attract followers. Growth comes from change. How do we promote change in ourselves and others to break societal norms?

The TedTalk by Seth Godin: Stop Stealing Dreams, proposed the question, what is school for? Everyone’s answer to that question I am sure is different. My hope is that it is an environment (virtual or physical) that promotes growth and learning. How much time do you think a student spends memorizing a day? How much of the class/curriculum is designed in a cookie cutter fashion?

The ideas posed by Seth Godin include:

  • Homework during the day lectures at night
  • Open book and open note all the time
  • Access to any course anytime in the world
  • Precise focused education instead of generic

I think these are great ideas! How do we transition them into the current education system? How do we get students to replace other activities with lectures at night? How do we develop core knowledge and transferable skills without some memorization? How do we tailor education yet make it cost efficient and successful for the masses?

Let’s Get Emotional! … ?

This week’s reading caused me to pause quite a bit. When that happens, it means I am learning something that challenges who I am — or who I envision myself as. Palmer’s five “immodest” proposals seem to have persuaded me about something, namely, allowing emotion to (re)enter the academy amidst a false objectivity claimed by academics. Yet where do we draw the line for emotions in our classroom? Every syllabus I have encountered mentions — or should mention — appropriate “ethics” for a classroom: no shouting, civil discourse, and if all else fails, agree to disagree. But to be fair to Palmer, I don’t think this is completely the type of emotion being discussed. It involves allowing teachers and students to come in “as they are” in order for learning to occur. One particularly salient feature of the paper is that new professionals are “in but not of” their respective institutions. Meaning, the power-structures that we find ourselves under institutions do exist, but we inflate the significance of those powers. Instead, each one of us are institutions. “Institutions are us”, Palmers claims. Intriguing, and a good idea, but problematic in real living.

Perhaps more important was the idea of cultivating our sensibility and emotions, as they too have an “intelligence” to them. Martha Nussbaum’s work referenced in Palmer’s article speaks about this at length, and anthropologists have begun to look at emotions and how people respond differently to the same stimuli, and what that says about different bodies in different societies. Lots of interesting research here.

I would like to quote from Edelstein’s piece briefly on how the humanities can teach innovation to the natural sciences. Edelstein says, “the real difference between studies in the humanities and the sciences resides in how their respective canons are assimilated. Students studying the American Revolution, for instance, are not only expected to know the names and dates of all the important players or events. They are also obliged to demonstrate that they can make sense on their own of the material; that they can develop original arguments about reasons, motivations, and outcomes for the past.”

Edelstein goes on to state how the final exam paper must be an original piece innovated by the student — different from, say, a final calculus exam where everywhere who gets the right answer is homogenous. But isn’t arriving at the right answer here a sign of “originality”? To take a statement from an author I recently read, “is there not great creativity required in good imitation?” ; Edelstein further claims that the humanities ask for innovation in thought from their beginner courses, not simply regurgitation of science text books. But here is a problem too; while the humanities do ask for students to pitch in their own unique voice, there can be little advancement past freshman seminars/electives in the humanities unless one takes into account certain vocabularies, authors, arguments and texts central to a canon of thought. Thus, the humanities, like the sciences, require students to engage in a “common language” without which advancement would seem unlikely (Who can enter the humanities in the Euro-American academy without having come across the names Kant, Rawls, and Foucault?). Edelstein acknowledges this point about the humanities; every “discipline” requires a certain “disciplining” of its students. Nevertheless, as a former chemist who left the natural sciences and have now ended up in doctoral program in the humanities, I certainly see — in hindsight — the importance of my chemistry training in how I take notes and think through the humanities. Innovation, it seems, can work both ways.

I believe I was able to connect the Dots

I have to say that after I took the Future Professoriate class last semester, I felt that I experienced another whole new level of how my future as professor is going to be. With this class I realized that we don’t have to stick to the same method to accomplish something.  We all know that the semester was all about blogging, but what the blogs were about is the most important part that allowed me to see that we as professors have to keep an open mind at every moment if we want to succeed.

Contemporary Pedagogy class not only helped me understand that there is more to be done but also I was able to see everybody point of view and how they see each other in the future as professors. I love flowcharts when it comes to explain something, therefore I developed one to present how was my way of thinking related to teaching before I took this two classes. It shows a simple process where I though that we should simply teach and whether the student is learning or not, I don’t have to change my method because is their fault that they are not having fun and learning. THIS IS COMPLETELY WRONG!

Untitled Diagram-2

This way of thinking is not only wrong, is the most selfish way of thinking that unfortunately exist in todays world. I remembered when I took Calculus III during my undergrad in Puerto Rico with Lev Steinberg, a Russian professor. During that semester there were two sections with approximately 30 students each. Long story short, at the end of the semester there was only me in the morning section and 4 student the afternoon section. I got the hardest 86 % (B) that I had to work in my life, but since I noticed that I was the only student in my section he will be nice enough to give me the A. I couldn’t be more wrong. After a long conversation trying to convince him that he should change his teaching method and of course my grade, he told me that it was not his fault that the students in my section were dumb and lazy and his teaching method is the right one because that’s why he got his tenure. This is a two way street where if we work together, in the same way the professor teach the student what is on his/her side of the street, the student can also teach them what’s on their side.

I had several experience that made me understand that there things to be changed, but lets start talking about how I “connected the dots” during this semester. Once again I will put it the simplest way using the following diagram:Capture

Throughout the semester I learned that there is a more innovative way to teach in the 21st century that some of us are willing to put into practice. I believe that this new way of teaching takes into consideration four main areas, although I’m sure that most of you will think differently. The learning stage of the students has to be one that considers all the possibilities to get the attention of each one of them by applying methods such as connected learning and problem based learning that will allow them to learn mindfulness. The professors need tools to become the one in the 21st century. Finding their authentic teaching self will allow them to establish their best teaching philosophy and their learner centered syllabus that will help them in the teaching process. The tools will help the professors define if their teaching approach in order to be critical/inclusive to challenge the students by creating a dynamic environment. At last, since everything was implemented, the relation student/professor has to be evaluated to verify how the student adapts to the new system by using his imagination and critical thinking. Also the student will evaluate the professor to verify if the learning method was productive, how feasible were their tools and how good was the pedagogy applied

I know is a little bit broad, but I believe the dots of the Contemporary Pedagogy course were connected in the simplest form by using what I have learned. Of course, there is a lot more to include, but I will let everyone fill in the possible blanks depending on their way of thinking.

The purpose of school

We are spending almost one fourth or one third of our life being schooled. What is the real purpose of school? To acquire knowledge/information? To be trained for jobs? To be a good person to society? Different people have different answers.

Seth Godin gave several points in his video. One of his points on connecting dots emphasize on thinking instead of memorizing. Students need to be taught how to think and how to solve problems, not what to think and what to memorize. Once they learn the techniques of connecting dots, they will still be able to connect dots although the dots may change. Seth thinks there is no value to memorizing things. But I think memory work is necessary for learning. When students begin to learn a subject, they should first memorize facts, then understand and apply these facts into a creative process. If students are only tested about how much/how well they memorized (my school experience before I went to university), they will lose their interests. Before I went to university, I was taught to memorize things and I was tested about how well I memorized. In order to get a high score and be accepted by a good school, I need to focus on memory works. I often forgot the content after I turned in my tests. I didn’t know much about how to think. This is the wrong direction for education.

The New Professional: Shredding Force Fields at the Speed of Light

Parker J. Palmer’s concept of the “new professional” describes those who fight for their true mission “in the midst of the powerful force-field of institutional life, where so much conspires to compromise the core values” of their work. I wholeheartedly embrace this definition, but it presupposes that I align with Palmer’s idea of my work’s …

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Connecting the dots

First off, am I the only one who after hearing “connect the dots” thinks, “la, la la”?  I forgot that this was from Pee Wee Herman .

This week, several of the readings were about rethinking/revamping how we teach students in today’s society where everyone is connected via the internet and the job requirements are shifting, stressing the importance of producing innovators.  This got me thinking about what innovation has looked like in the fields of wildlife science and ecological statistics and where they overlap.  In wildlife science, innovation has been driven by technology.  In the 70’s someone put a VHF beacon in a collar and attached it to an animal so they could follow it around.  Then everyone started doing it.  GPS technology made it’s way into the larger animal tracking collars in the late 1990’s and the size of GPS collars has been decreasing and the performance has been increasing ever since due to innovators in the smart phone industry.

In wildlife science, mark recapture models are the dominant method for estimating population sizes.  You catch animals, tag them, release them, and then try to catch them again.  Through this process, you can estimate the detection probability which can be combined with the number you actually caught to estimate the population size.  We used to have to physically capture the animals.  This is a lot of work and generally sucks for the animals involved (although with baited traps, some animals inevitably become “trap-happy”, judging the bait to be worth it).  The discovery of microsatellite markers in DNA opened the door to doing mark recapture using genetic samples such as those found in hair follicles or scat samples.  Instead of having to capture a bunch of bears, we now only have to capture a bunch of their hairs.  How do we do this?  Biologists innovated the hair snare.  Put barbed wire around some trees and put a doughnut in the middle.  Bears can’t resist.

 

Picture1

What about wolverines?  I bet they get really pissed off when caught in a trap.  Biologists came up with this contraption and put a piece of chicken on the top.

Picture2

You can also get DNA from scat samples.  Animal poop.  Do you just go out looking for poop?  No!  You train a dog to find them for you (and not eat them).  There are now several scat dog services you can hire to go capture animal scats for you.

About the same time genetics was making its way into mark recapture, people started putting up motion sensitive cameras in systematic arrays.  Camera traps.  It turns out many animals have unique patterns on their coats which can be used to identify them when caught later.  Like tigers.  In order to fully identify an animal with a camera trap, you need to capture both sides simultaneously.  Otherwise, you don’t know which left side photos go with each right side photo.  So the smart thing to do is to put two cameras at each site pointed at each other, right?  This has been the conventional wisdom for 20 years, but… no!  I’m developing mark recapture models that allow you to probabilistically link left and right sides based on the spatial location where they were captured.  Spatial partial identity models.  It turns out that hybrid grid designs consisting of both single and double camera stations (that most biologists would tell you are stupid) can estimate the number of animals with the most precision because you can cover more ground with your cameras and catch more animals.  I’m planning on expanding the same ideas to use partial genotype samples in hair snare and scat surveys that are currently being discarded.

So there are two types of innovations here, one technology driven and the other, driven by innovation in statistical models.  Did those innovating biologists have any natural propensity to be innovators?  I don’t really think so.  It seems like technology is the limiting factor and everyone in the field knows what to do with the new technology once it arrives and it’s a race to see who can do it first.  The area where the most innovation is currently getting ready to occur is in the use of drones to survey wildlife.  It’s pretty obvious what to do with a drone to survey wildlife.  You do the same thing you were doing with airplanes only better and safer.  You put VHF antennae on them and go find the animals.  You put thermal cameras on them and do transect surveys.  There are probably instances of more non-straight forward innovation in wildlife, but none come to mind.

Where innovation seems less inevitable is in the development of statistical methodology to analyze data collected in new ways.  But even here, there is a widespread sense of where the field is going and people are frequently “scooped” by others who beat you to publication.  Although maybe statisticians are just natural innovators.  I believe this is largely true.  I don’t think this has to do with their background in the humanities–I think it comes from their training in how to structure reality with probabilistic abstractions.  And programming.  Programming is problem solving and abstract thinking and innovation is rewarded.  I’d recommend programming over the humanities if the goal is to create innovators.

 

Confessions of an Over Educated High School Dropout

“We’re focusing so much on academics that we’ve taken out things like art, sewing, cooking, woodworking, music, and other things that introduce kids to careers.” – Dr. Temple Grandin

I am a high school drop out. It’s a fact that I normally do not share with many of my colleagues and peers in graduate school. It is an aspect about my history that I usually keep hidden. I was a little less than half way through my junior year before dropping out and enrolling in the GED program. Less than six months later, I moved to New York to go to acting school and honestly, I never looked back.

The idea of being a traditional student was something that never appealed to me. In fact, it was something I rebelled very strongly against. I resented being force fed curriculum designed by an educational system that more closely resembled industrial mass production than an earnest learning environment. So my answer was to walk away and explore the world through my own curiosity, my own passions, and by identifying my own needs.

My educational path would be one of my own devising. A combination of professional experience, conservatory training, certificate programs, community college courses, a bachelor degree, and a terminal masters of fine arts with not one, but two graduate certificates. I charted this path on my own time, identifying my own learning objectives almost every step of the way. I went to acting conservatory because I wanted to be a better actor. I got my bar-tending license and my life-guarding certificate because I needed to diversify my sources of income, I took English and literature courses at a Los Angeles Community College because I wanted to be a better writer and communicator, I studied music business and management at Berklee I wanted to be a better musician, and I entered the MFA arts leadership program because I recognized an opportunity to further my career and strengthen my understanding about the role of the arts in higher education. The point is, it was always my decision. What to learn and why to learn it.

As we have explored several times over the course of the semester in Contemporary Pedagogy, the current form of primary and secondary education exists as a result of the industrial revolution which required a specialized skill set necessary to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic. By 1833, the British government would pass the Factory Act requiring children working in factories to receive two hours of education per day. Education was necessary to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving workforce. However, as society has continued to advance, the methods of knowledge creation and knowledge transfer have remained strikingly similar to the early 1800’s.

What is the purpose of education? What is the reasoning behind it? Some would argue it is to prepare students to get a job, some would argue it’s about creating engaged citizens, some would argue it isn’t about what we learn, it’s about how we learn. Still others would focus on the importance of a well rounded education while some would highlight the importance and necessity of trade schools and specialized workers. As we learned throughout the semester, there is no right answer. There shouldn’t be a right answer because these arguments are not mutually exclusive. Education exists as both a public and private good meant to advance the individual and the common good simultaneously. Why then do we allow education to define our success by assigning value to specific disciplines?

Somewhere along the way disciplines became fractured, separated into individualized class periods devoted to one type of specificity. This fracturing created an environment where specific disciplines are valued differently. Science, engineering, and math carry more significance than liberal arts and humanities. This system perpetuates an educational environment where disciplines operate out of the scarcity mindset, hoarding and guarding physical and financial resources as precious commodities. This fractured system leads to increased levels of departmental competition and often marginalizes the fine arts, liberal arts, and social sciences. But who assigns these values? Who determines the significance and importance of one discipline over another? And what about students, like me, who don’t fit well into this specific definition of education?

At their core, all disciplines are intrinsic to one another. Music and math are the same language just as engineering cannot exist without design and the arts and sciences share the same iterative process. Science exists for us to explore and discover the world around us just as engineering exists to invent ways in which we engage with the world around us. The liberal arts and humanities create meaning and provide historical context and ways of communicating our shared and individual experiences. One cannot exist without the others. One SHOULD NOT exist without the others. Yet these disciplines are fractured. Separated and expected to operate independently.

The current paradigm of education is one that will perpetuate fractional disciplines. As longs as disciplines remain fractured, differential values will be used to identify what is important and what is superfluous. This paradigm treats all students as if they are identical carbon copies. It is this paradigm that is in desperate need of revolution and reform.

I say this because I am a living example of both the failures and the successes of our current educational system. A high school drop out who went on to pursue bachelors and masters level education on my own terms, in my own time, and in my own way. Instead of adhering to a prescriptive model, I decided what was important, when it was important, and why it was important to my educational growth. Imagine if everyone was allowed the same opportunity.

 

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