Dottie’s Story is a chapter in the book I wrote during my sabbatical. The book is a collection of my stories about what I’ve learned across the year of my life about race and me and systemic racism in this country. I try to make the point through examples in my own life that seeing ourselves and knowing ourselves as a category (white) is essential to working through other socially categories (black, mixed, privilege, etc.) from which we’ve constructed our racist behavior.
This particular chapter occurs after I’ve decided not to accept invitations to work with faculties unless the invitations come from the faculties themselves. Instead, I’ve declared the bottom line for me as a teacher educator is whether I can make a positive, measured (!) difference in the lives of schoolchildren through my university students. Making that difference is the bottom line of whether or not I believe I am effective (and good) at what I do.
The reference to the Big Red Book is a reference to one of the first chapters in the book in which I tell how race became “named” for me. The list of names that occur in the text (Manny, Doris, etc.) are teachers I worked with when I taught Junior High.
I’m not sure if anyone will check in on the blog again or which postings they’ll respond to so I’m going to post in a couple of different places.
I felt badly that I had to leave before the end today. I wanted to say goodbye to each of you personally and tell you how much you enriched my LAST course. I learned something from each one of you and I want to thank you. The depth of your thinking and willingness to challenge yourselves, your beliefs and your practice is what will help change the course of public education where it needs to change. This was such a great ending after three years of work. In many ways it is catapulting me in the next things. My experience after my M.Ed program was “what now?” tinged with sadness. I feel some of the same sadness now as well but I also sense a new direction emerging that I doubt would have surfaced without all the rich discussion and intense reading and coursework. Charlie thank you for all you gave us.
I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to cross paths with you however late in the game it is for me.
One last request is for folks to post their email addresses here so that we can get in touch with each other if we are so moved. I want to know how things are going for Karen up north and how Katharine is doing in Winooski. I want to know how Christine makes out in New Hampshire and what’s going on for Leo with his group work. Ellen, your brain research is going to benefit all those SPED kiddos you work with. They are lucky to have you. Tara, Christie, Katie and Tammy I want to know about your experiences as you test the waters in your training. Melissa let us know if you decide to go back to the classroom or shake up parents from that perspective. Gina the student affairs perspective in higher ed was brand new to me. I want to know about the interface with the profs!
Anyway my email is artemis@gmavt.net
One of the many wonderful thoughts I have about this class is the range of expertise you all represent and the respect you have for what each other knows. You all listen so well, and are willing to take the next step and check out perceptions that might be misperceptions. A two weeker is an intense experience, for everyone. What I like about these courses is that given the right mix of people, we can really get beneath surface motivations and appearances and dig a little into what makes us tick. I suspect this was one of the strengths of the faculty relationships present at CPE – the “no BS” factor was pretty high! We’ve got a bit of that ourselves and I’d like to thank you all for making it that way. And Christie, search for the kind of school you want to be you in. They are out there, believe me. Charlie
First I’d like to say that I enjoyed Dottie’s story. The first thing that jumped out at me was the description of the room, Waterman 426. It mirrored the thoughts I had about the room. After that, I thought it blended a nice combination of skepticism and idealism. They seemed to come together to form a nice success story. You start off with Dottie’s skepticism and it is confronted with the idealism of Complex Instruction. The result is a success story about Hillary. Nice example.
The class has been great, I definitelly need some time to process large amounts of information.
Leo
I have to say that I think Christie and I are on the same page – I guess great minds think alike…but seriuosly, I truly feel the same way about everything she commented on today in the blog.
I am glad that this was my “introductory” class, if you will, into this program on which I am about to embark upon. It is my understanding that many of my classes this fall for the el. ed. program will be more “nuts and bolts” teaching methods and strategies, and I felt that this class really helped set me up for that. I know that we are quite a mixed bag of folks, and it was so encouraging to know (and feel) not only that everyone really enjoyed the class, but the sense of camaraderie. Education seems to attract so many different, wonderful people – who have their heads AND hearts in the game. I know we all learned such a tremendous amount, and even better, that it will be put into practice. Thanks for such a wonderful experience. Tara
I really enjoyed today’s class. I felt we had a good mix of learning material, discussion and presentations. I liked that movie we watched because it made me feel like if this is the direction we are trying to go in schools, then I have made the right decision in what area I want to pursue. I think as all people do when trying to decide what they want to do after graduating, I got a little scared that I might go through this program and become a teacher and then feel way to programmed as to what I need to teach and how I need to teach it. I am hoping that I will be able to implement my own beliefs and style into my teaching and that no one will be able to direct me otherwise. I know that there will be someone keeping track of what I’m doing while teaching but I really hope that this will be something in which I will be proud of because I did it my way and not the way administration told me to.
I have also really loved hearing people’s presentations. I have been taking notes and thinking about how I want to teach according to these presentations. It’s really nice to finally watch presentations that I know will help me out. In undergrad, I can remember so many classes where I would watch a presentation on something I had no interest on, walk out of the class and throw away their handout sheet because I know that I will be throwing it away at the end of the semester anyway because I won’t use it! I can assure you all that I will keep ALL of yours and refer back to it when I am a teacher!!