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Over the summer, I had the amazing opportunity to live in D.C. for an internship. After living in one place: Bend, Oregon for my entire life, coming across the country to study at Bryn Mawr, studying abroad in Copenhagen, and living for three months in D.C., I've discovered how I can appreciate and thrive in different places. My avatar shows how happy I was living in one place, but how excited I am for traveling, living in and developing a sense of belonging somewhere else. I think that this realization will be helpful in framing concepts that we discuss in this course cluster. The environment is all around us and shapes us in different ways, while we are simultaneously shaping our own environment. 

For the most part, I am a very optimistic and always smiling type of person. I don't like to hold grudges or dwell in the past. I love setting goals for myself and challenging myself mentally, emotionally, and physically. I love to live for the adventure and no matter the circumstance, I push myself until I see the sun shine bright once again. Hence, my avatar picture reflects who I am as a person, big smile and the pink shining through the light coming through the window in my dorm. The background of the picture is white, unfilled and untouched as it awaits for a new adventure to be drawn and fill the space. 

I’ve had a Serendip account for nine years. A few years ago, when the “avatar” option emerged on the site, I selected this picture of myself, which suited me quite well for a long while: I liked my smiling, welcoming face, the face that went with my user name (which is my real name). I liked being out, claiming, as myself, what I said on-line.

In the fall of 2013, however, I was co-teaching a cluster of courses called Women in Walled Communities (in which Jo, Jody and Sophia participated), and some of the time we met in a women’s prison in Philadelphia. As a get-acquainted activity, we asked the “inside” women to pick an image to represent themselves, then printed off the avatars of all the BMC (or “outside”) women—and we had to go around and try to figure out who we were. But nobody wanted to talk to me, because it was so obvious who I was. They were much more interested in figuring out who had chosen to represent herself with a cactus flower, or a bike, or an owl, or a beach…and why…

we'll meet tues, jan. 21, @ 4 p.m. in the english house lounge--
and have to settle then on whether we will be offering classes every friday,
or on alternate weeks (this depends on you, sasha...).

i'm attaching the four handouts i've drafted for our session on jan. 24 --
all to be discussed, of course.

So I was remembering back to one of our earlier conversation about how we can carry on our work financially and have money to buy books, transportation, etc. I think Sara brought up the idea of a website like kickstarter or indiegogo. I've looked into both and Indiegogo seems best (kickstarter is mostly for art-related ventures). For fun, I also started the process of creating our page. But as I got further into it and started answering some tougher questions, I realized that this may be better done as a group with all of us providing input. Maybe we can schedule an extra meeting sometime to work on this? I know how important the money part is to us being able to sustain this work, so I'm thinking sooner rather than later.. 

Rather than just updating you on this progress, I also wanted to get everyone's feedback on how me might use something like this internet platform to our advantage. Obviously we could share the link through Facebook and email to our friends, colleagues and family to solicit donations, but what else? 

sasha, sara, and hayley,

Here are some thoughts about our upcoming semester at rcf:

We’ve talked about running the book group (reading and writing group?) every fri., 1-3 pm, from jan. 24 to may 2.  Anne and jody would be there alternate Fridays, and the other Fridays Hayley (if you’re staying with this-?), sara, and sasha would teach the class.  BUT I just realized in an exchange with Anne that if sara takes our 360, you won’t be available on those alternative Fridays either--?  And this might be a reason to get a (strong!) student from Multicultural Ed…

“Taking Control of Our Lives: Reading, Writing, Transforming”
Proposal for the Bryn Mawr Book Group, Riverside Correctional Facility, Spring 2014

“In Pedagogy of Freedom Freire states, ‘I like being human because I know that . . . my destiny is not given but something that needs to be constructed and for which I must assume responsibility.’ We assume responsibility for our crimes. We believe that we are the products of our decisions and actions, and we recognize ourselves as such. This represents the transformation of the prison system from within….education in prison is the vehicle through which we meditate, analyze, and transform ourselves and, ultimately, society from the inside-out” (from Anke Pinkert and students, “The Transformative Power of Holocaust Education in Prison: A Teacher and Student Account.” Radical Teacher 95, Spring 2013).

In this workshop, we will use reading and writing as pleasurable, necessary and meaningful tools for understanding and change.  We will read different kinds of writing by women, and use our own writing as a tool both for reflecting on the reading and for understanding our own lives. Reading and re-reading, writing and re-writing stories offer the opportunity to work on literacy skills and critical problem solving, and can empower us to reclaim and reimagine ourselves.

So, after shouting for months that we should talk about the essays in Radical Teacher, I finally found the time, betwixt semesters, to spend a morning reading through them. Sad, heartening, discouraging, inspirational….I want to include some of my reading notes here, and also some thoughts about next steps. And I want to invite y’all to think w/ me about what our “course” of action might be this spring. I’m ready to be more ambitious!

Do y'all remember reading, in our course on "The Rhetorics of Silence," Doris Sommer's analysis of Rigoberta Menchu? And her argument that we should be respectful of others' silences, others' secrets, not presume that we have 'the right to know'? I've just found out that, 10 years ago, she published two books about code-switching. Here's a description of the first: