Since the discussion on Tuesday, when Kevin mentioned how accomodating everyone's needs ended up disasterously for a number of the students, I've been wondering to what extent accomodations should be made and in what order. For example, when he mentioned the lack of deadlines, I thought of an article I'd read some time ago on the Summerhill School. Controversial in its image as a school where lessons were optional, it nonetheless turned out high grades. Because of its loose guidelines, it feels like a complete counterpoint to their results. Of course, it's a school in service for nearly a hundred years rather than a one-off program - but how did they come to perfect it? On the other hand, what accomodations take precedence over others? I had a short-term injury that made it difficult to go to classes, but a friend has deathly allergies that make eating in the dining hall nigh impossible. While this is a very grand-scale example that hardly overlaps (as opposed to learning techniques, like fast-paced and slow-paced classes, visual versus audio learners, et cetera), when you're in a position when accomodating everyone starts to hold people back, how do you decide who to cater to? Does it depend on the severity of the condition, or of the number of people with a similar disability? Does a disability mean a person is fully disabled? How do we decide that, and how do we act upon that?

I found the discussion we had on "queer time" in class interesting because it really brought to mind not only how Western society views the idea of time itself, but how Western society views success and "milestones" in a person's lifetime. Many of these ideas of success and milestones revolve around very traditional concepts, such as the idea that everyone should be married and reproduce at a certain point. The issue with this "normative" time is that it is exclusive of certain people, such as those who choose not get married, or those who cannot reproduce, and so on. That is where the idea of "queer time" might come into use. When I was learning about it, I was pretty confused about how "success" would be measured in queer time. Then I thought "Why does this idea of success have to factor into it? Is life really just a sum of successes and failures?" I may be simplifying it too much, but that's what we're often told life is: success and failure. We're constantly under the pressure to perform in order to succeed, learn from our mistakes the first time, and place value on who we are based on these things. However, if the ideas of success and failure were taken out of the picture entirely, I don't believe I, or many other people, would be productive or want to learn from experience. Both "normative" and "queer" concepts of time have their problems, but it was good to learn about ideas of time outside of what I've always known.

I thought the idea of accountability in the context of queer time was really interesting.  There seemed to be a debate in class about whether or not a person would have to be more or less accountable for themselves if they subscribed to the idea of queer time.  During our small group discussions on Thursday, my group touched on the topic of queer time in an educational space.  It seemed difficult to wrap our minds around the idea of having the personal agency to decide when or if you would attend a class let alone decide when you have completed a course, when you have reached your full potential in a subject.  In Anne Dalke and Clare Mullaney's essay, in the passage that we analyzed in Tuesday's class, the idea of an unconventional "form of education that is less driven by the clock" (11) was presented.  In theory, this all seems like a great idea that would really help a student control the way in which they learn by taking the time to discover what truly interests them in the world of academia.  But this idea makes me start thinking about whether or not there is a certain kind of person that can effectively make use of queer time.  Queer time seems to ask for a certain amount of patience, flexibility and resistance to social constructs all at the same time.  Are we all capable of this mixing these different traits?

For this week’s post, I wanted to comment on our classroom structure reform because I don’t think the 5-second pause worked last Thursday. Topics, ideas, comments were lost amid the silence and confusion. Quickly it became difficult to keep organized who had just spoke and who was waiting to speak. I don't think we should be focused on restraining the oppurtunity to speak. Instead of sitting in shared silence, maybe we could promote more talking for the continually quiet by bringing back the ice-breaker activities we did in the first week of the class. We could use prompts from the weekly readings or from our Sunday Serendip postings and have one-on-one or small groups discussions to start off class. That way people who want to continue talking about a topic from Tuesday’s class have the opportunity to, and people who usually don’t speak during class can raise some questions or comments to someone in the class so at least on a small scale so they can be heard, then after 5-10 minutes, we can start the full-circle discussion and bring some of these smaller discussions to the forefront.  

Zadie Smith’s NW mulls over how our neighborhood, clan, and race affects the path your life takes. None of the main characters are satisfied with how their lives turned out, even if in society’s view, their lives turned out rather well. They all feel various degrees of agency to do something about it. While I was reading the book on the Amtrak back to Bryn Mawr, I started thinking about where their biology fits into their predicaments. By biology, I mean how and why their brains are wired. For example, if Leah is wired to have a deficit of agency, is it still her fault? 

I really like that in this class we discuss the intersextionality between various identities. Often it is only one "category" that is focused on in a text or discussion, but that can be and is limiting because humans are all so diverse and have various identities and personalities. Talking about ableism in class though I feel we really only touched on physical diablities, but what about the individuals with mental disalities such as ptsd, aspergers, deafness, depression, pyschosis? I am interested in the intersections between feminism, race, ableism, and classism, and how that plays out for various individuals.

Also on the conversation on Tuesday, we questioned what "disablity" actually meant, and who defines it. Like most hierarchies I feel that those in positions of power (or in some cases its just the majority) can create definitions, so those who are seemingly "able-bodied" categorize those who are different in appearance and stature as not abled (it is interesting to note that most dividing catergories between people are base only on what we see). But are we not all disabled in some way? 

Also, I really like this quote I from Kai Erikson in his book Everything in its Path: "a person's mental health is measured less by his capacity to express his inner self than by his capacity to submerge that self into a larger communal whole". Many things in society are based on who's "in" and who's "out", and often those who are "differently abled" (as opposed to disabled which creates an "Other") are often left out. 

On Tuesday, the guest speakers talked a little about how we see things related to disability-the ramps and parking and automatic doors, but we never talk about disability. Then later, people were talking about how at Bryn Mawr, a lot of people want to know if they are doing worse/as well/better than other students, but we don't talk about grades here so we don't know where we stand. When my math midterm was handed out before break, I saw that on the front cover it had spaces for percentage and number correct, but also for standard deviation and the average grade. I was happy to see that, because I knew that when I got the midterm back, I would be able to see if I was around or better than the average (hopefully not worse). But when I actually received my graded midterm, only the percentage and number correct were filled in. I was disappointed because I wanted some sort of confirmation that my grade was good.

Kelly brought up that students are likely to see professors as people who have successfully gone through what we are going through now, and that it is hard to be ok with failure in that environment. When Anne responded that the students don't know about any failures that the professors may have had, it made me think that not talking about the failures causes a stressful expectation. Knowing where everyone else stands in the world (or just in your class) can make you feel good, or motivate you to improve. But when we don't know, I think it is natural to be worried or self conscious that others are performing better than we are.

After reading Rose Marie Garland-Thomson's article I was left disturbed and confused about the comments/ points she makes in her paper, especially, the point about genocide. Using the word genocide seems completely wrong to me, it has such a negative connotation to it. I remember a very long time ago I was having a conversation with my boyfriend's cousin about abortion. He was arguing with me that abortion was wrong and women shouldn't be so cruel. He then proceeded to call me a "supporter of murder." Thompson's comment about aborting disabled children as genocide reminded me of his insult. In my opinion, Abortion is a choice, its not murder, its not genocide, its a choice that results in discontinuing a pregnancy. Women shouldn't be harassed because they made a decision about their body. It's their body and they’re the only ones that can make a valid decision about it. In relation to Thompson's comment, I’ve been contemplating on how I feel about aborting disabled children as a negative thing. Women make that decision because they don’t want their children to suffer or endure any more pain then this world already exhibits on them for just being who they are. The idea of keeping a disabled child seems selfish to me. Being that the mother is aware that their child will go through pain and decides to let them endure it. Or if the mother can't afford to take care of their child adequately is it still fair for her to have this child?

There is a long history of evidence that cooperative learning has ample benefits. The study reviewed by Faculty Focus adds another piece to the evidence: the study focuses on the amount of time spent on task, a variable which is obviously important but was previously underexplored. Previous research would break students into groups of individuals and collaborative workers, but not necessarily take into account whether or not students were working independently outside of the group setting. This study controlled for that, by rigorously monitoring time spent studying in the classroom and out-of-class.

Samantha Plate

Play In The City

10/27/2013

The Sole Author: Keisha's Identity through Existentialism

            Have you ever wondered who you are? Have you ever thought “Why am I here? What is my purpose?” Have you ever thought everyone knows themselves except for you?  If so, you are not alone. You are questioning your existence just like Keisha Blake does all throughout NW. In Zadie Smith’s novel NW, Keisha Blake questions her identity in an attempt to understand herself while struggling with the concepts of existentialism.

            Existentialism is extremely prevalent throughout NW. It is always there in the background, breaking through every now and then to make obvious appearances, other times passing by in the background. Leah introduces Natalie to the ideas of Kierkegaard during chapter 55 and it is shortly after this that Keisha becomes Natalie. Much later in chapter 138, Keisha tries to understand this philosopher better by doing a Google search. It is shortly after this that she begins to visit the listings site. The ideas of Kierkegaard and Existentialism can be seen in Keisha’s thoughts and actions and can be used to understand her better.