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Fêted – Fated

I tend to blame myself. Maybe it’s that guilty recovering Catholic conscience. Whenever something bad happens (not far away, just close to me) I find myself scrutinizing my actions and role in the event and wondering where I made a mistake and what I should have done differently. Note — not wondering *if* I made a mistake, but *when* I did.

I’m about to graduate. Convocation will be a celebration of sorts (hence the fête). I barely remember my high school graduation which I had not intended to attend.
At the last minute I was asked to do one of the opening addresses so I ended up going. I delivered a speech in French about cows or something ridiculous and I wore my low-top sneakers with candy cane socks. For various reasons my family did not attend but they are planning to come to this. I haven’t completely figured out how to assemble my children from 2 different schools at different ends of the cities in the middle of the afternoon. I have just over a week still to sort that out. I anticipate the entire experience will be anticlimactic. The speeches will probably be long and will not relate to my life. The kids will likely get bored. I don’t particularly feel connected to the university since classes ended. I’ve been back a few times for conferences but it feels different somehow. I debate not going because it all seems too complicated today. The work is done, the grades earned… is the ceremony really important? Why did I want to go back in March when I applied to graduate?

Part of me feels like I didn’t do all the things I should have. I know I worked hard, but maybe it wasn’t hard enough. This last year I did take it a little bit easy compared to first year. I didn’t accomplish as much as I did in the beginning. I wonder what I could have done differently and if it would have made a difference. I worry about next year and what comes after that.

Since finishing classes a few weeks ago I’ve been trying to reconnect with the friends I had before I went back to school. I did my best to keep these relationships alive while life was crazy but we’ve all been through a lot in four years and you can’t just resume. We’re not the same people. It takes time to build intimacy and connection.

Even at school I felt disconnected: I hardly saw the people from my program during this last semester. I didn’t have any women’s studies classes at all and as much as I loved my programming class I didn’t make any friends there. I miss bumping into my colleagues from school around campus. Even going back there like I have for a few conferences and events since classes ended it seems changed. I know it isn’t the campus though, it’s me. Like I know my undergrad is over and I’m in a different role there now. My identity is in limbo. I’m not an undergrad but I don’t yet feel like a grad student.

Working at home is wonderful but isolating. I don’t miss the assignments and the deadlines. But I miss the contact with grownups. Poor Rob has felt the brunt of this more than once when I’ve spent the day by myself. I’m trying to get out each day just so that I talk to a grown up — it reminds me of my days with little babies except this time I see it happening and am better resourced to stop it from becoming a problem.

I wonder if other people are celebrating or if they are worrying like I am. I think my readiness to celebrate came and went when I handed in my last exam (and I did have a fabulous dinner with really good *Ontario* wine). Maybe I should allow this to pass quietly while I get on to the next thing.

A tree!

Rob and I have been working on the house. When we’re finished what we have planned I’ll be loading up, distributing the duplicate stuff, and relocating 10 minutes up the street. A blended family! I’m pretty excited. It’s a lot of work but it’s all fun.

Today when I went to a friend’s house to reformat her old computer she offered me/us a tree: it’s a Kentucky Coffeetree. Windsor-Essex County is the northernmost limit of its range. It’s a native species but they are rare. There’s a male and female of the species and if they aren’t planted close enough together they don’t make any babies.

My friend knew we’d been talking about trees (what kind we like, where to put it, when to do it). I am especially eager for some shade so that the kids can get outside this summer. It’s a newish neighbourhood and although the city has been around planting a young tree on each lot there’s a need for many, many more trees in that part of the city. I grew up in the country surrounded by trees. My parents planted more trees every year and they have hundreds on the one acre property they own. I know that it takes time for a tree to establish itself and get some shade going so choosing to plant sooner rather than later is not trivial. But still, it’s Rob’s place and even if I feel okay planting some flowers or doing something small it’s a very big deal all this navigating sharing space. Digging a hole and sticking a tree in it should be a joint adventure. The gift of this tree just speeds us up on the inevitable.

The special thing about this tree is that it was a seedling that my friend and her partner gave out at their wedding ten years ago. It’s moved several times and was about to be cut down. The person who’d received it at the wedding has moved out of province and the new people don’t like trees. At my place I already have a Hackberry tree rescued from the same plight, also from the same wedding and it is beautiful. It’s been here for 6 years now and it’s tall and healthy and gives lots of shade. I hope the Kentucky Coffeetree will be as happy at Rob’s place as the Hackberry is here.

Why I Drink Ontario Wine

I live in Ontario. As much as I am able to choose, I drink Ontario wine, made from grapes grown in Ontario.

I live about an hour north of Pelee Island. I live about three hours south-west of the Niagara Escarpment. Between these two regions there are many wines to choose from. I’m lucky about this. If I lived somewhere else I might not have this many choices.

I make this choice because I don’t want to contribute to the consumption of fossil fuels by drinking wine that’s traveled great distances. I also don’t want to drink wine that contains grapes from far away places. Not only does this contribute to the environmental problem, but it also is a contributing factor in homogenizing the world’s wine. If Ontario wine contains grapes from Italy, then the difference between Ontario and Italian wine blurs. Vintners become transnational companies and diversity of flavours disappears. Grape growers in Ontario have established the VQA designation to make this easier for me: only Ontario

When I was in British Columbia for Northern Voice I had great BC wine, and when I travel other places someday I will try their regional wine.

Small choices do make a difference.

Defining History

It’s all about perspective. My kids got a map in mail, a map of the area a bit north of here with points of interest marked to encourage daytripping over the summer. It’s a cool map with great photos of marinas, wetlands, artwork, theatres, kayaking, scuba diving, lighthouses — lots of different categories so that everyone is likely to find something that they’d want to do. It’s published by a new (to me anyway) organization called Waterfront Trail, a registered charity “committed to the completion, enhancement, and promotion of the [Lake Ontario] Waterfront Trail and Greenway.” I was browsing it while taking a water break from gardening.

I’ve always been a stickler for appropriate use of icons. They should be meaningful, clear, easy to interpret, simple, scalable, and non-discriminatory. Looking at this map I thought about “history” and how through my studies of social history, women’s history, history of technology, etc, I’ve really broadened my understanding of the field of history.

There are many records of our histories. Cookbooks, diaries, storybooks, medical charts, songs, clothing, artwork — these all tell stories of our past. History is more than just the records of battles, leaders, and number of wounded. In fact, this information doesn’t really give us information about how people lived. We should not neglect the histories of the many people who were not soldiers, and remember that these people also had full lives outside of who was killing who when. We can also study people who lived their lives in city or country or both (and why they moved), about how they fed themselves, how they grew up, how they grew old, how they celebrated, how they grieved — these pieces of history are rich.

This is how I think of history and how I will study it when I start the MA history program this fall. This is why I was surprised to see that historical places on the Waterfront map are represented by an icon with a cannon. I don’t think the acceptance of social histories in academia has made it that far into the general population just yet. It is just as relevant (and for most people probably much more engaging) when we consider the lived experiences of our histories. There are more and more historical fiction novels for kids (Dear Canada, and Royal Diaries come to mind. Maybe as these become more popular the next generation will grow up thinking history is more than war.

Summer Job in Toronto at NAC

I got this today from the Women’s Studies department. Looks like an interesting summer position, but too far away for me. Could be a great opportunity for a geeky feminist if you live in Toronto and are still looking for a job.

Communications Assistant (Summer Student)

Employer: National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC)
Job term: Contract, Full-time
Location: Toronto, ON

The National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) is a non-profit/non-governmental organization that has been working to ensure the full equality rights of women and girls in all their diversity for 35 years.

Job Summary

NAC is presently seeking a vibrant student to work as a Communications Assistant to work in our National Office. The student will provide support and assistance in research, project development, facilitation and coordination of NAC seasonal initiatives and activities.

Responsibilities:

Communications

• Assist in regular website maintenance. Compile and distribute electronic newsletters.
• Assist to design and implement new strategies.

Membership

• Assist in the processing of membership requests and to do specific follow-up with group and individual members on various issues.

Special Projects

• Could involve but is not limited to: detailed policy research, project management and development, grant writing assistance, design, selected writing, special event coordination and implementing new administrative procedures.

Office administration

• Administrative support to the Executive Coordinator: could include research, organizing meetings, helping to liaise with committees.

Qualifications

The qualified candidate for this position will be someone who has a strong research and analysis skills-set, advanced effective research and effective written and oral communication skills, strong inter-personal abilities and has a strong interest and/or academic background in women’s studies or any of the social sciences.

In particular, we are looking for someone who:

• Is a university or community college student; must have finished the school year and intend to return to school in September.
• Has advanced computer and Internet literacy, including online research experience.
• Has excellent written, verbal and telephone communication skills.
• Is well organized, able to work independently and collectively.
• Thrives in a small, open-concept office space.
• Demonstrates the capacity to respond quickly to emerging priorities.
• Demonstrates good trouble-shooting abilities, flexibility and creativity.
• Has experience in and enthusiasm for women’s issues, community development and/or community-based researchc
• Basic web site development skills are an asset.
• Knowledge of written and spoken French is a definite asset.

Contract Details: The contract is for full-time (30 hours/week) for a maximum of 12 weeks at $10 per hour.
Deadline for applications no later than NOON June 4, 2007.

Interested candidates are invited to submit a current CV and cover letter via email to:
Enisone Kadiri, Executive Coordinator, NAC-CCA
Email: enisone.kadiri@nac-cca.ca

No faxes or phone calls please. While we thank all candidates for their interest, only those short-listed will be contacted.

NAC works from an anti-oppression framework and maintains feminist principles. We are committed to diversity and equitable opportunity; as such, we encourage applications from traditionally marginalized communities. Our place of work is wheelchair accessible.

*Funding for this position is provided, in part, by the Summer Career Placements program of Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC).*

Man the maker, Woman the consumer

Ruth Oldenziel (2001) argues that producers and consumers are linked and that the mythology that distinguishes men as exclusively “makers” and women as solely “consumers” is false. Consumers shape what is produced, just as producers create what will be consumed (p. 143).

Telephones were originally intended only for short, efficient business calls (Martin, 1998). When women began to use them to connect socially, telephone companies realized women were a potential market. Marketing changed and the telephone was reconstructed as a useful social tool in order to increase sales and profit. Women participated in the production of telephone technologies, but they are credited only with consumption.

Often women are producers in areas not regarded as “technology.” Women’s inventions for the domestic sphere like those related to needlework (Oldenziel, 2001, p. 131) often did not received patents. Without this formal recognition, women’s production goes unrecorded, unacknowledged, and therefore unvalued. Because of this, women who produce are not recognized as such. This strengthens the mythology of women as consumers rather than makers. Without formal examples, it is easier to disregard women’s contributions. It is important to recognize that the ways that this formal recognition is given is through systems developed by men.

Women’s modification of ‘male’ technologies has also been invisible. Women who converted car engines into refrigerator generators have not been credited as producers of technology (Oldenziel, p. 134). Instead, women are constructed as not interested in new technologies (Oldenziel, p. 133). This simplification does not recognize that women lacked funds of their own (Oldenziel, p. 133) and that their dependence on reliable, simple, durable, and easy to repair machines (Oldenziel, p. 134) drove their decisions, not irrationality, obstinacy (Oldenziel 132-133) or rejection of technology. As women became involved in production so that products matched needs, women embraced labour saving devices and other technologies.

Quickie on social construction of gender

Gender is a fluid construct. It is not determined by our biology, but is a product of our environment, our performance, our choices, and our society.

Our society sets up gender as a dichotomy: masculine and feminine. Masculinity includes traits like brave, noisy, and strong. Femininity includes being timid, quiet, fragile, and nurturing. Nothing is genetically inherent in men to make them masculine, or in women to make them feminine. Global variations in behaviour and expectations show that gender is a cultural construct.

From early childhood, we condition members of our society to believe that sex determines gender. Dressing girls in lace and pink clothing that restricts movement is standard. Boys are dressed in camouflage and dark colours, and when they get dirty, we forgive quickly with statements that actually encourage this behaviour.

Physiological girls who display ‘masculine’ characteristics and physiological boys who act ‘feminine’ are censured for crossing gender lines. Intersexed individuals often struggle with gender identity issues. The cisgendered do not often realize how challenging and unclear gender identity can be.

Socially constructing gender is problematic. When gender defines acceptable behaviours and interests, it limits an individual. If a girl is ‘supposed to be’ interested in nurturing, not machines, she may not receive a full range of choices and opportunities to develop her interests.

On a larger scale, society also suffers. Fields like computing, which have historically excluded women, neglect half of a potential pool of knowledge and skills. When entire groups of individuals are discouraged from exploring and developing interests in an area, these fields develop internal biases and are skewed to the interests of a non-representative group of the population.

When society is constructed such that only women are nurturers, men are also unfairly limited. The public sphere, which has been historically male dominated, has little accommodation for the needs of the family and men are unsupported in their role as caregivers. As women have entered the paid workforce in greater numbers, working for change in terms of parental leave or leave for caring for sick children or parents has illustrated the bias against men as nurturers.

Society benefits from encouraging individuality, rather than relying on stereotypes to determine each person’s potential contribution to the community. Gender dichotomies create a hierarchy, preferencing one element over the other. This preference is then used to esteem one group at the expense of the other when with cooperation, both group’s contribution could be valuable, if the society were open to it.

Good feeling from 43 things

I got this in my email this morning from 43things and it gave me such a good feeling. One week ago today I handed in my last exam and met with my advisor to discuss my major paper. Here’s what the email said:

Dear future self,

I’m reminding you about your stated goal on 43 things, to
“finish school”.

How’s it going?

Sincerely,
Your past self

I’m done! And getting this email reminded me that I’ve accomplished a major goal. It hasn’t been easy juggling school, work, and parenting, but somehow I managed even if it is all a bit of a blur now. I’m soaking up time with Rob and my kids now and catching up on projects that have been sitting a bit too long. I’m spending a lot of time gardening and it feels so good to see the sunflowers, anemones, nasturtiums, and morning glories coming up. My eczema has all cleared up and I’m exercising again. It isn’t ballet four times a week like it was in first year, but it’s something. Life is good.

photo by RaeA

Skin

The semester’s over here. Know how I can tell? The eczema* on my right hand, specifically my thumb, index, and middle finger has cleared up. Completely. It’s wonderful to be able to touch things again, to work, to hold hands, to give a massage, to shake hands without pain and without wondering if anyone’s grossed out.

*from Wikipedia:

Eczema is a form of dermatitis, or inflammation of the upper layers of the skin. The term eczema is broadly applied to a range of persistent or recurring skin rashes characterized by redness, skin edema, itching and dryness, with possible crusting, flaking, blistering, cracking, oozing or bleeding. Areas of temporary skin discoloration sometimes characterize healed lesions, though scarring is rare.

It was bad this semester, the last four months of my undergrad. I didn’t feel more stressed than usual but maybe I was. Compounded by the furnace running all winter. And not consuming enough water. I tested negative for a bunch of allergies although I discovered that the dishwashing brush that I use was making it worse. I’ve used one for a few years, since my last run in with eczema because getting my hand wet to do dishes left me cracked and bleeding. Turns out the grippy rubbery handle on the brush triggered a reaction, same with gripper pens. Now I wrap it with a dishcloth and it helps a lot.

I wrote an exam with a Papermate “flex grip” pen, all soft and anti-slip and again: cracked and bleeding right hand by the end. For my final I actually considered asking Special Needs if this would be enough to get me a computer in the special needs office. I didn’t ask though. Instead I found an old fashioned hard plastic pen by the time I needed it. Who would have thought?

My usual remedy of calendula cream did nothing this time. I went in for the stronger stuff. My nurse practitioner gave me some cortisone cream which I used for 2 weeks, no improvement. Then I saw a dermatologist who prescribed a stronger steroid cream for morning and an ointment for night. The ointment was unavailable but I used the cream twice a day for 2 weeks: no improvement. I went back again and she prescribed protopic which I’d read about and caused me some apprehension. Each of these treatments has long-term side effects: adrenal system for the steroids, cancer for the protopic. (These studies are readily available so I’m not going to quote them here. Anyone who wants to read more can use their favourite search engine. And yes I know we’re talking reeeeally long term use and in high quantities, but too much risk for me right now.)

I took the prescription but never got it filled. I wrote my exams and got several extra bottles of Aveeno fragrance free skin relief moisturizing lotions. I started using only Aveeno skin relief body wash for handwashing, showering, and shaving. I put one bottle of lotion at the sink, one by the washing machine, one by my bed, and one at the computer. I put it on All The Time. I’ve used mild and envrio friendly washing products for years but I made an extreme effort to stick to Aveeno this time. And I found a pair of gardening gloves that are cotton on the inside. It may be that the same thing that’s on the pens and on my dishwashing brush is also inside rubber gloves because rubber gloves have always made my hands burn. I’d rather take the extreme cracking from working barehanded than the burning that comes from rubber gloves.

Then exams were over. By the day after my last one, no more eczema. And now my hands are very very soft. Someone told me so.

Last time I had eczema I had another similar cure: my ex moved out. Within a week of him leaving, the eczema I’d had for 2 years was gone. Coincidence?

I got a small patch again yesterday from a long day of many kids (PA day here), lots of gardening and lots of dishes without covering the handle of the brush. It’s mostly gone already. I’ll need to come up with a way to manage my stress better before life gets crazy again. For now I’m off to knit at The Coffee Exchange with a bunch of Actiongirls. We’re planning some more radical cheerleading!

Laptops in the Classroom

I went to the Teaching and Learning Conference at the University of Windsor on Tuesday. It turns out that this conference is worth at least a couple of blog posts. First one up is about laptops in the classroom.

The session was called “Excellence in Teaching: Ten Useful Strategies for New and Experienced Faculty” and presented by Dr. Mary Stein, Associate Professor in Teacher Development & Education Studies at Oakland University. I had high expectations because I figure there is so much I need to learn and all of these people will know so much. It turns out that panning for gold as far as teaching strategies goes isn’t easy.

Some of the strategies were clearly true. The one that came up under a few headings was planning. Plan out the syllabus, plan assignments, plan assessment, plan your classes. Determine your expectations before the course begins and have it all in the syllabus. This makes good sense — except that a lot of the other sessions talked about interaction between faculty and students and the importance of active learning. There has to be balance between planning in infinite detail and student participation in learning. I think this gets easier with practice.

Another of Dr. Stein’s strategies was to give students sticky labels with their names from a pre-printed class list. In a conversation after the session, two of us were questioning whether or not this would violate the privacy policy at our university. While there’s something to be said for getting to know your students (and it’s important to note that this is much more likely to happen in a class of 20 or even 40 than it will in a class of 700 students) requiring name tags may be a privacy violation. Should students be required to share their names in the classroom or should they get to choose how and when they identify themselves in class?

Dr. Stein also ‘encourages’ her students to upload a photo to the learning management system and joked that during the first week of classes students will generally do what she asks (hinting to her power as “controller-of-the-grade”). Yikes.

One paper-marking strategy I never considered was only marking grammar and spelling errors only so far and then drawing a line where you’ve stopped. The point is to get students who need writing help connected with the resources that will help them learn to write better, instead of spending all of your own time correcting pages and pages of these types of errors. I like this.

The importance of routines was also mentioned and it reminds me a lot of parenting. Lots of parenting books talk about the importance of establishing routines. Clear routines have clear expectations. Clear expectations lead to better cooperation or at least a starting point for discussion when things aren’t working. It’s interesting to see overlap between parenting strategies and teaching strategies but I shouldn’t be surprised. I read Rahima Baldwin’s book, You are Your Child’s First Teacher when my daughter was a baby. Do educators see the parallels and take advantage of the resources written on parenting strategies?

The shocking bits of the session came in the “Learn from your colleagues” section. Someone asked about strategies for student questions and the presenter said she has specific time set aside for questions so that her teaching isn’t interrupted. Another said he has a “parking lot” on the chalkboard where students can write their questions, again so that teaching is not interrupted. I realize that sometimes students will find that their questions are answered if they just wait a minute in the lecture, but it was repeated several times during the conference that lectures are an inefficient way to teach and learn. Why discuss strategies for something that shouldn’t be happening? If the goal is student engagement, active learning, and learning-based pedagogy then students have to have more opportunity and encouragement to engage. If they have a question or comment, doesn’t that show they’re engaged? Isn’t that what everyone is after? If you tell students to park their question, it shows students that their questions don’t count and they’re going to disengage with the class. Moving to other teaching styles is the answer for dealing with this issue.

The ultimate shocker for me was the negativity towards laptops in the classroom. It was incredible — not one positive comment got through although maybe in the hands that didn’t get to comment there were others besides my own. People complained that students who appear to be taking notes are actually doing other things. (omg? really??) Students have always done other things in class besides take notes. Sleeping comes to mind as an example, so does talking, passing notes, drawing, doing other homework, and making grocery and chore lists. As with all things, there are advantages and disadvantages to laptops in the classroom. My favourite example comes from a computer science professor I know. He was teaching a programming class and was showing how to conserve resources in a program. Unaware to the prof, while he continued teaching, a student with a laptop connected to the university’s server and ran the program. Then they raised their hand and said, “I don’t see the results you predict.” Because this student had initiative and resources to do this, the class then went on to explore why it didn’t work according to the theory. This is learning, this is active, this is an opportunity to engage with the students and explore a real problem. Why take this away?

So maybe it isn’t the laptop in class that is the problem, it’s the Internet. Could it be that bringing the Internet into the classroom challenges who is the authority? Does this make some professors uncomfortable? The Web contains multiple viewpoints on every subject imaginable, and I’ve seen it where students look things up to challenge what the prof is saying. I’ve also seen students bring up examples that support the prof. It works both ways. It a women’s history class we were discussing some of the major womens’ organizations in North America over time. Someone asked if one of the groups still existed, prof didn’t know. Again, unknown to the prof, someone else surfed around, found the group’s site, gave an update from their front page, and shared the address with the class. Again: bonus because a student had their laptop in the classroom.

And it’s not just for students, professors can play too! If instructors had a messaging client open during the lecture (sounds off) students could message their questions, effectively dealing with the earlier concern of how to handle questions. There are positive applications of the technology!

So what are the real laptop issues?

• Students surf.

Sometimes they surf because they’re bored. Answer here is engage them with your teaching. That was actually Dr. Stein’s strategy number one: Don’t be boring.
Sometimes they surf material that isn’t rated E for Everyone. Maybe some guidelines are in order or maybe we need to accept that we can’t protect students from the big/bad/ugly. Students can spend some time at the beginning of the semester establishing a class code of conduct – it at least brings the topic into the arena of discussion. Students who would be offended are forewarned. Same advice we give to people who are offended by breastfeeding: don’t look. Small screens minimize this, and so do bad LCDs that have a limited viewing angle. Only the person close-up and directly in front can see.

• Students don’t pay attention.

This isn’t a new phenomenon created by laptops. Laptops are just a scapegoat. The students who came at least thought there was something about your class that was worth getting out of bed. They could alternatively still be sleeping or hanging in the pub. They are in your class — it’s a start. They will get more out of being there and not giving it their full attention than they would if they weren’t there at all. And students today multitask with amazing proficiency. Even without Alt-Tab. I share that with as many people as I can cause it pains me to watch them click through tabs in the task bar.

The answer here is definitely not invoking the hokey pokey as one attendee at the session suggested (not in those words but bad enough). It was more along the lines of “require a full body response to a question.” Like raising your hand to different heights to indicate level of agreement with a statement. This is a fine strategy, especially to engage kinesthetic learners, but only to get people to take their fingers of the keys? Missing the point.

And requiring students to put away laptops/close lids during discussion? Only if you’re also taking away pens, pencils, and paper from all the students.

So what about having laptop section in the classroom? Near the outlets for those who need power. If you don’t want to see the multitasking going on, you don’t look. If the typing bothers you you sit on the other side of the room. It’s true that sometimes the keys are loud. This can be as annoying as screeching chalk. Solution? Quieter keypads and getting over it. Or maybe wearing an ipod is the answer. 😉