Transforming Good Girls into Smart Women

As I started reading “Voices and Silences in Our Classrooms: Strategies for Mapping Trails Among Sex/Gender, Race, and Class” by Bell and Golombisky, their notion of the Good Girl deeply resonated with me on different levels.

In my own academic experience, I associate my own silence in the classroom to the notion of the Good Girl in combination with my ethnicity. Bell and Golombisky define the Good Girl as a white, middle-class type, containing the “cultural pressure to conform to the dominant conventional image of the ideal, perfect girl –who is always nice and good, who never hurts other people’s feelings…and who contains her feelings, especially anger.” (p. 296). Further, the pressures and consequences of this type is very different for Good Girls who are women of color. When we insert the Good Girl in academia, researchers found common themes: “white girls begin to silence themselves at adolescence, girls of color are caught in class and racial binds that make them invisible and unwelcome in the classroom, and the education system reinforces this decline.” (p. 297) When the Good Girl is faced with various forms of gender bias, “including a lower quality and quantity of classroom attention”, Good Girls begin to reside in their own silence. (p. 297)

In my own experience, I can relate to the Good Girl. Throughout my undergraduate career, I was a Good Girl. I spent my undergrad laser focused on my academic career, I rarely missed a class, wrote down every single due date in my planner, I took diligent notes, completed every assignment, and assessed every line of the syllabus. I spent most of my undergrad focused on receiving high grades and ducking my head through class. I rarely, if ever, spoke up in a classroom. And though I was deeply invested in the courses I took (mostly my comm courses) and committed to my learning, I was not confident in my own thoughts, opinions, or ideas to share them in front of an entire class. In fact, though I am speaking from past experience, I still struggle with the notion of the Good Girl in myself today. Though I am hyper-aware of the Good Girl in graduate school, I am still working and fighting to change it every time I walk into a graduate class. Reflecting upon this, I think I have made strides of improvement since my undergrad, but there is so much room for more. Put lightly (or maybe not so lightly), I pine for the confidence of a straight white man in a college classroom. But even then, I know that’s not exactly what I really want. I want the confidence of a Hispanic woman in a classroom, whatever that means for me.

Though I personally related to the Good Girl, as I was reading I also thought of several girls in my COMM 1010 class. I have some Good Girls who are white, black, and Hispanic. In particular, I find myself thinking about a group of four Hispanic girls who sit near each other in class, each of which have never spoken up in a class discussion or in front of the entire class at all. But when we do group activities in class, I speak to them one-on-one and they each share their thoughts and ideas with me. They are the quintessential Good Girl. I think as someone who can deeply relate to the Good Girl, I have a soft spot for the Good Girls in my classroom. Though I feel their pain, their discomfort, and even their complicity in the “comfort of the known” of being the Good Girl, I think I have a responsibility to encourage and empower them. I want to be able to create a classroom that invites the ideas of everyone, but specifically the Good Girls who remain silent. Bell and Golombisky describe several activities that can encourage the Good Girl to participate in class, including Think/Pair/Share, Write and Example, Make a List, and Think of Everything You Know About. These activities are easy and applicable to apply to any classroom lecture or discussion. Even further, bell and Golombisky discuss other strategies, such as “pay to talk” days and the closing ritual. In my own classroom, I am interested in applying the closing ritual to each class. Though it seems uncomfortable and awkward, I wonder how this strategy can work in COMM 1010 – does it have the power to truly encourage the Good Girls to share their smart ideas with the class?

As an instructor, I know that I want to encourage the Good Girls to share their smart ideas with the class, because I know they have them. If I can take any part in encouraging a Good Girl in her transformation into a Smart Woman, I will know that I have done something good.

#eyeswideopen

So We Talked About Hate Speech

Monday of this week in my 1010 classes we had a brief conversation about hate speech based on some students attending the extra credit event When Hate Comes To Campus. I had not originally planned to have this conversation until right before class when I noticed an extra credit submission. My though was that I could briefly mention that we were not aware of what would be said and what would be censored, and that if I had any students who had concerns that I could try to ease those concerns. In some ways I felt like I did that but I'm not sure how the overall conversation was received since I had quite a few minority students who didn't speak on the topic. 

In my first class, I had a student who attended the event who briefly touched on what they experienced and based on that recollection had students respond with a variety of questions about everything such as did the woman get fired and why would the university respond by providing counseling? That last question, was something I wasn't expecting because it came from a student who wasn't white. Honestly, as I'm sitting here writing this, I'm still trying to figure out how this response came up because it the student started laughing at the situation as a whole. 

At this point it was obvious that this conversation needed to be wrapped up to avoid causing any other students to feel like they were in a situation where oppression based on race was being reinforced. I made a choice that I'm standing by with my closing statement for this discussion: as a white person I do not have the authority to use the language used by the controversial speaker, and I think the same is true for other white people. From day one I've said that all voices, opinions, and people deserve respect, so I hope by making that closing I reinforced the idea that all people should be respected. 

I've been thinking about what critiques hooks and Freire would make about the original event and my choice to address the event and implications of the event in class. Does this fit their approaches by encouraging engagement and since it was one of the more lively discussions? I can recognize that by having this conversation oppression was reinforced by the fact that as the instructor I chose to bring up the conversation at all. My hope is that to some extent by engaging this discussion I played into hooks' idea that that showing care for students allows deeper learning. 

This instance has left me feeling somewhere on the mother hen and chicken little spectrum. I feel like I made strides towards being that person who has enough sense about them to protect student interests, but I think my privilege as a white person puts me in a state of ignorance. Is there anything else I could have or should have done or said in this situation to try to communicate to my students that whatever concerns they had or continue to have about the situation are valid?

All LIT Things Must Come to an End

I am in pure disbelief that we are already in the final weeks of the semester and that this will be my last LIT post! Being that this week's readings centered on praxis and popular culture as education, I think this is a great final note to end on because it has made think about my implementation of popular culture for educational purposes, its effectiveness or ineffectiveness in the classroom, and how I have come to form my pedagogical stance based on my reflection of this semester.

Last week in COMM 1010, I facilitated rhetorical analysis practice using Drake's "God's Plan" music video along with multiple media advertisements, some of which touched on animal testing, gun violence, global warming, and the discourse surrounding victim-blaming. While covering these topics, I invited students to think pair share (with someone they have never talked to before) about the rhetorical message, then share their conclusions with the rest of the class. I did my very best to include diverse examples, all that touched on different social issues they told me they were passionate about at the beginning of the semester. In discussing the rhetorical message of the texts, multiple students spoke up and shared their thoughts, but also threw in their opinions about the topic and shared stories of their experiences with these topics. I was excited and shocked to see my COMM 1010 class who plays things safe, engaging in a conversation about race, normative discourse surrounding rape culture, and gun violence in schools. Although I was apprehensive to have these conversations, my students seemed nervous but excited to be able to talk about them in a classroom setting. On the other hand, some even seemed shocked and enlightened from the topics surrounding rape culture and gun violence. Following this class meeting, I had my students write a one-minute paper saying anything they were thinking or feeling about the class, myself, or the lesson. Overall, my students collectively enjoyed having these kinds of conversations, and they liked my selection of popular culture! That was a relief! 

The readings this week taught us that popular culture is educative and implementing it into our classrooms results in our students having conversations that challenge the hegemonic structure of the classroom; furthermore, it leads to story-sharing of their experiences based on that popular culture example. My day of rhetorical analysis practice demonstrated just this. Following the video and viewing the images, I executed problem-posing to my students, instructed them to think pair share, and come back to explain the rhetorical message, desired outcome, and to identify the ethos, pathos, and logos. My students were engaged, excited to share about their own experiences, and they were able to create an environment in which we were co-learners about each other and the topic. While students shared about their experiences, my other students began asking questions and engaging in dialogue with one another, and I was excited to see narratization come into play with experiential learning and critical literacy to create a critical communication pedagogy. 

Thanks to Paulo Freire, Parker Palmer, bell hooks, Kyle Hammonds and Karen Anderson-Lain, Ken Bain, Fasset and Warren, Deana Dannels, and John Dewey, I have learned so much about myself as a teaching assistant. I have learned that I lead with my heart, but I know when to stand my ground, I value self-reflexivity in order to transform and improve, making sure everyone is heard and feels represented in the classroom matters a great deal to me, and story-sharing in conjunction with popular culture has co-created a learning environment that both my students and I feel comfortable in. Furthermore, I value critical communication pedagogy, praxis, negotiating power relations with my students (with allowing them to teach me and be the experts on popular culture), and embracing the uncomfortable conversations to make for a LIT learning moment for all human beings in the room, including myself. I say this because students forget we are human until we have conversations about real-world things!

If it isn't clear yet, the point of this blog is to say farewell, but also to say that I have discovered my approach to pedagogy and I am aware of how I can only continue to be reflexive and grow from here as both a student and teaching assistant. Although this semester has had its dark days and legitimate rainy days, it has been LIT to learn about myself, learn with my students, and work toward building a new skill set of which I did not have before coming to this graduate program: the art of teaching. 

This semester was MAD LIT, thank you to my fellow teaching assistants, incredible faculty, and wonderful students.  #It'sMADLit

The Woes of An Online Class

This semester I am an instructor for Section 805 of online COMM 1010: Introduction to Communication. The first half of the semester has been fairly smooth for both my students and I, each week the students are required to read a couple chapters, watch an online video or two, and submit a quick assignment – whether it be a short quiz, discussion forum post, or online activity. As an instructor, I post weekly videos outlining their required readings, videos, and assignments for the week and I make sure to grade their assignments fairly quickly. Easy enough. Sure, some of my students had some rough starts or hard lessons learned, for instance, I had a couple of students who missed an online exam or an online activity without realizing the due date. But nothing unexpected from an online class. After all, freshman students enrolled in this class are still learning the amount of responsibility and motivation an online course requires.

Within the online COMM 1010 course, the students are required to complete a group project. As part of this project and as a graded assignment, their group is required to confirm an online conference meeting with their instructor to discuss their plans as a group moving forward in the project.

Ohhh, man was I in for a treat!

By the time the due date for the meeting rolled around, one group had confirmed a conference meeting time with me, and most of the other groups were scrambling to confirm a conference meeting time that not only worked for everyone in their group, but for me as the instructor as well. Not to mention, this was occurring on Sunday, November 3^rd at 10:00pm, two hours before the deadline. Not to mention, I had one group that had not even posted a single post in their group page on Canvas, so as far as I knew, each group member was not in communication with their other group members.

While the conference meeting assignment fiasco was occurring, my class was also required to submit a presentation to Canvas, worth 200 points. By the end of the night, I had 16 out of 30 students submit the assignment.

I was incredibly frustrated and disappointed in my class. The entire first half of semester, the majority of my students submitted their work on time and submitted quality work. But when the group project began, they fell apart.

Reflecting on this, I wonder whether or not my weekly videos and announcements communicated the requirements of this assignment well enough. Maybe I didn’t stress the importance of not waiting until the last minute? Or maybe I confused my students with my explanations? I’m not entirely sure. On the other hand, my students also hold some responsibility. I posted weekly videos and announcements of this assignment nearly three weeks before the assignment was due. Additional resources are posted to Canvas throughout the entire semester, including instructions for all assignments, my email, and my office hours. I consistently remind them to either email me or visit me during my office hours if they ever have any questions.

The difficulty with online classes is that when a class collectively expresses behaviors that seem to fall in line with laziness, frustration, lack of engagement, or simply not caring, there is no place for my frustration to go. How can I motivate an online class? How can I mediate any confusion or frustration in an online class? How can I encourage an online class?

The irony of it all is that ultimately, I am struggling to effectively communicate to my online communications course. I don’t know how, if at all possible, I can foster a class climate, encourage and motivate my students, or express my own identity to them. As their instructor, I feel like I have some sense of who my students are because I grade their work, but it is still not the same as a face-to-face class. I do not know my students in my online COMM 1010 class at the same level that I know my students in my face-to-face COMM 1010 class.

Maybe I can add words of encouragement in my weekly videos and announcements? Maybe I can include some information about my own life in my weekly videos and announcements? But will it ever be the same as a face-to-face class? Probably not. Maybe the key is acceptance. Acceptance that online classes are fundamentally structured differently that face-to-face classes and maybe the best I can do is the best I can do. Ultimately, online students must be able to motivate themselves to complete assignments and take responsibility for their own learning. Maybe that in itself is empowering for students.

As for the conference meeting assignment, I spoke to Madie and expressed my frustrations and she gave me some advice: to give them a break. So, I did. I expressed understanding to my students and ignored the official due date (under some circumstances, of course). With that, four out of five groups scheduled conference meetings with me and completed the assignment.

 I’ll take it.

#drainedandinsane

#eyeswideopen

Suck it up and Embrace it!

So far this semester, I have held it together pretty well. Although everyone warned me about how difficult October is for the teaching assistants in our graduate program, I wasn't feelin' it! I was smooth sailing, prepared for the storm. Then, the last week of October came around. Within that week, SO MUCH HAPPENED, and consequently, I ended up publicly sobbing three times in one week. As I have mentioned before, I am a VERY blue personality; blue to the point that is my biggest strength and biggest weakness, but sobbing like that in front multiple people is not something one would normally see me do. Needless to say, the last week of October pushed me beyond my limits; however, I learned a valuable, LIT lesson from my exhausting week thanks to my pedagogy and communication professor, Karen Anderson-Lain, and bell hooks.

I have mentioned before that I often become frustrated with my COMM 2060 (Performance of Literature) students due to their low expectations of themselves and nonchalant behavior, and I have been reflexive in thinking about what I am doing wrong to have created this environment. However, as I mentioned in my last post, I began to feel better about it after one of my students came to give me some constructive feedback, but then I had another bad week in that class and imposter syndrome set in once again.

For the poetry performance, I had a student perform a poem by Langston Hughes about the walls of oppression around a black man and how in the end, the speaker is enlightened and encourages the black community to break down those walls. He set the scene by creating a physical barrier with tables and chairs, but just started at me while he recited his poem. I reminded him that he must have deliberate staging movements, performative aspects, and these things would be hard to do behind such a constricted barrier. So, I suggested that he widen the barrier, or possibly use string to make a small box around him. In response to my suggestion, one of my black students spoke up to say that I don't know what it's like being a black man, and that my suggestion isn't correct. He then became passionate and the other black students in the room joined him in saying I don't know what it's like being black in this world and shouldn't speak on it.

I was shocked by this response as I would never speak on behalf of another's identity and say that I know another's experience. I responded to my student by saying that I, indeed, did NOT know what it's like to be black; rather, I was offering a suggestion from a teaching perspective as I am the grader and know the requirements for the performance. My student performing thanked me and sat back down, but I still felt very strange and offended that my students thought I would ever do such a thing after I have spent so much time establishing myself as open-minded, open-hearted, and very aware of my privilege. I thought through this all day, and I thought about all of the negative experiences my students may have had with white teachers in their educational experience in which they felt silenced as I did in that one singular moment.

In "Teaching to Transgress," bell hooks tells us to encourage conversations about identity and embrace the painful conversations in order to learn and create an open environment. With this amazing work in front of me, there I sat feeling discouraged and as though I have missed the connection with my students. Upon telling my class about the situation, Dr. Anderson-Lain told me to "suck it up," lean into those uncomfortable conversations, and to acknowledge that I must be doing something right if my students felt comfortable enough to speak about their experience and empower one another as they did. This piece of advice was what I needed to turn that moment into something positive, something constructive, and something LIT.

I walked down the hall on that following Thursday feeling nervous, hoping that my students still liked me and did not see me as another narrow-minded white teacher with the "I have a black friend!" mentality. But by some divine intervention, I heard my class from the hallway talking about how they love the class and enjoy coming to recitation because it puts them in a good mood. My face LIT up as I walked in, and most of them shouted "Hey, Madie!" That's when I knew I should have looked at Tuesday's class through a bell hooks lens and embraced the pain. I am blue, after all, feelings are my thing!


#It'sMADLit