Radical Teacher, plus

I wanted every one to know that the full text of the whole issue of
Radical Teacher on teaching in carceral institutions is now available on-line through Pro-Quest,
and I'd like to recommend that we read (@ least!)
Artif Rafay, "An 'Impossible Profession'? the Radical University in Prison" and
Robert Scott, "Distinguishing Radical Teaching from Merely Having Intense Experiences While Teaching in Prison."

I really enjoyed our conversation last Wednesday; coupla other things i want to remember:
* if we go in talking, we're not attending to the "series of lock boxes "we have to go through
--what about the possibility of our "going in silently," the better to attend to what's happening around us?
--the danger/vulnerability of doing so-->"the more casual we are, the more protected we are"
--sara s's project has got us "sensing" the environment there, attending to what it looks like-->
--but flip this: what does the environment think of us?
--how out of place are we? how do we look? ("we look so green")

* trying to understand the connection between thinking and feeling:
--in cf. to BMC classes, which focus on the analytical, and obscure/invalidate the emotional side,
in Riverside we are concerned that emotion (esp. guilt) is obscuring the analysis of structures
--emotional discovery is not seen as labor here (but it is!)
--the labor of building meaning that goes into writing --> the reader is called to the same sort of labor
--(not unrelatedly: what do we think of the current "movement toward self-care" @ BMC?)

* we had very different reactions to the religious language so commonly used @ Riverside,
which informs this spectrum of thinking-and-feeling:
--"once you believe all the random events in your life are God, you will live a much easier life”
--it's not necessarily that simple: religion can be a platform;
--but it can ask you to think about your own responsibility;
--it can provide closure for thiings you don't understand;
--it can also provoke you to much harder work, of testing the self and the world
--from The Life of Pi: " doubt is useful for a while…Christ doubted…but we must move on…
to choose doubt as a philosophy is akin to choosing immobility as a form of transportation" (!)
--what might the space of seeking be, if you are not religious? (consider existentialism...)
--Bible study can be "very textual"