Geeky Mom

Today is the first parent-teacher conference of the year. Normally I look forward to these. I have a sweet and intelligent child who does well in school. I still have a sweet, intelligent child who does well in school, but this year we are confronted with the homework issue. We’ve had phone calls from every one of his teachers about his not doing homework and how it’s going to affect his grade. Sigh. Last week, he was grounded the whole week. We have insisted that he do his homework before doing anything else. But if he doesn’t bring a book home or doesn’t write down the assignment, there’s not much for us to do. He’s being punished at school (lower grade, no recess) and he’s being punished at home. I’m not sure what else can be done. I’ve thought of a reward system and my son even suggested one and we might give that a try.

But what I dread about the conference most is that I know I will be blamed. It’s my fault for not being there more, for working instead of staying home. The teacher will not say this directly, but there will be hints at it. I’ve been here before. (We experienced a similar problem in 2nd grade. Turned out the teacher was obsessed with neatness and that other parents and students were having issues with her.) And what I think when these kinds of things come up is, “Am I doing the best I can? Am I just making excuses about it being harder because I work?” And frankly, I’m also a little miffed at Mr. GM because he finds ways to not be as concerned. Somehow it’s more okay for him to put work first than it is for me. If I say something about maybe he should be more involved in the day-to-day stuff–like homework, like getting stuff ready for school–that would go a long way. And he is sometimes, but it’s inconsistent. Often my ideas about what to do in these situations get vetoed. But it’s me who is going to the conference, not him, and I am going to do my best not to be defensive and guilty and to look for real solutions and implement them and not let Mr. GM get in the way.

And it is harder for working moms. I can’t be as involved as I would like to be. I can’t go to things that take place during working hours very easily. I’m often tired at the end of the day, which makes it harder to deal with things that my kids need me for. I find myself easily irritated sometimes because I’ve brought my work stress home with me. If I take time for myself–and I do–it seems like that’s just when things break down, reinforcing the notion that if I’m not involved every minute, something bad will happen. This is not to say that stay at home moms have it any easier. I know they don’t. It’s just that school schedule and the ideal for how education works is built around the idea that someone is home at 3:00 p.m. When you get home at 6:00 p.m. and homework wasn’t done at the after-care program and probably won’t get started until 7 or 7:30 after dinner, that means it’s 9:00 at the earliest which means very little family time. You start to get resentful about it. Yes, one of us is there while our son does his homework, but is this quality time? I don’t know. I resent not being able to just sit and have a conversation or play a game–and yes, we really do these things when we have time. I think this affects our son and his performance in school.

There’s a lot of stress and anxiety out there among the academic bloggers. Part of it is the time of year. Students begin to realize that no, they’re not going to pass and yes, maybe they should have come to class, written that paper in more than a couple of hours, or read that book more thoroughly. Their anxieties get pushed onto the teacher. And there’s the grading that absolutely needs to get done, job applications to write, papers to write, presentations to give. There’s also the stress of the holidays, visiting relatives we have strained relationships with, the financial strain of buying gifts, the memory of lost loved ones who won’t be with us this year.

We need to give ourselves permission to take a break. Bitch, Ph.D. is taking a break from blogging. JMP is stressing about the holidays. New Kid is stressing over procrastination. And EMN points us to a study in Britain that shows an increase in stress levels among academics. Even though I am on the other side of the aisle so to speak, in not teaching, I feel a similar stress. The computer lab increasingly fills with students working on papers and projects. 95% of them have their own computers, but they need the moral support. Their stress and anxiety is palpable. Around campus, I see faculty with that look of not having slept because they were up grading, writing, or reading.

I’ve decided to give myself permission to take a break. I’ve been stressing over the fact that I haven’t worked on my novel in a while. I keep thinking, “I’ve got some free time, I should write a few pages.” Then I look at it and I just can’t. So I’m now officially telling myself that it will be okay not to work on it–to enjoy the holiday season without thinking I need to fill it with work. I’m going to make cookies, shop for gifts, work puzzles and spend time with my children. What can you let go of that will relieve the burden?

Too many vacation days left–which means I get to take a lot of time off between now and the end of the year.

The Amazing Race Starts again–I’m in an office pool; it’s cheesy and fun.

Only 3 more working days (for me) until Thanksgiving

New warm pajamas

Civilization III–which I’m going to play after this post

Guinea pigs and/or hamsters–pets I’m considering

Tivo–which will record Amazing Race and the Daily Show because I think it’s going to be an early night

My iPod–which helped me forget about the fumes that might be slowly killing me

Chamomile tea–keeping the stomach bug at bay (for now)

I woke up in the middle of the night worried about things at work. It was an hour before I could go back to sleep. I was also worried about bills and my trip to my mother’s. I have a long stretch of open time today–which is good. But I have a lot of little nit-picky things to get done and I hate that. I really need Thanksgiving break but because I’m spending it at a place I feel uncomfortable, I won’t really get to relax. So, I’ll be waiting for Christmas. I hate being tired and cranky, which is what I am today. I think it’s going to be an iPod day–don’t want to deal with people.

I’m going out on a limb and using this blog to post some thoughts about a book I’m reading (posted about here). These are just thoughts that I’m hoping to coalesce into first, something for my professional blog that the faculty read and second, into a presentation. Feel free to comment and argue.

The basic premise of the Digital Revolution (so far, 5 chapters in) is that the internet allows for unmediated learning to take place. In the current model of traditional learning at higher education institutions, learning is mostly mediated. An Instructor/Professor serves as the authority through which all knowledge passes to the student. Online learning threatens to disrupt this control(?).

In traditional learning, content is the most important “commodity” with the professor serving as the expert in the content and disseminating it to the students. This is in opposition to an instructional artisan who may understand both the content and the best way for the students to learn it.

Raschke posits a new epistemology of learning based loosely on some of Dewey’s principles. He outlines three propositions that can be useful in thinking about online learning: 1) learning is task-defined and goal-oriented; 2) find ways to maximize the student’s ability to achieve the those tasks and reach goals; and 3) there needs to be a feeback loop. Though Raschke discusses student-centered and active learning, he is careful to say that students should not be considered clients who always get what they want. Teachers are there to provide guidance and advice all along the way. Just as a teacher doesn’t usually send a student to the library without guidance, a teacher wouldn’t send a student to the internet without guidance.

Raschke says we might think of teaching/learning as “collaborative inquiry,” which is really a blurring of the line between teaching and research.

Here are some thoughts. I think he posits the “traditional model” very well, but I think he fails to recognize that not everyone follows that model completely. Most faculty I know use class discussion as a way to place the impetus on the students to “learn for themselves” or to tackle the problem/question for themselves. A lot of the things he says I think he says as a way of validating online education; however, I think there can be a happy medium where students still get lots of face-to-face time in the classroom, but perhaps there are tools available to facilitate the students’ own learning beyond the classroom.

And here’s what I’ve been thinking. My job tends to be more about technical support (though, in theory, it shouldn’t be). I’ve been thinking that I need a new way to think about what I “should”/”could” be doing. If, as Raschke (among others) says, we should shift to providing ways for students to learn “on their own” with guidance from teachers, then my job should be to provide the tools to make that happen. Perhaps I should be supporting the students, not the instructors? Or perhaps I should be in a more consultative role? I also think that my environment–a small liberal arts college–already does some things very well that he’s suggesting can be done better online. For instance, professors here regularly blur the line between teaching and research. There is always a lot of back and forth.

I’m not in favor of abandoning brick and mortar education just yet, but I do think there could be some radical changes coming. I like the way Raschke frames his argument because it’s not–use technology because it’s there but use technology because it might provide a better way for students to learn. I also have this thing–because I’m at a women’s college–that it is important for women to be exposed to technology everywhere. Still, we’re seeing women who come here without much knowledge of technology and even after they’re here, they avoid it whenever possible. If they have to confront it in some way in nearly every class, then they might be more likely to explore it later on.

Also, I think it’s important to teach students to be critical of what’s out there in terms of technology. We need to teach them how to navigate and analyze web resources, online journal resources, arguments in discussion, and more. Given how bad the mainstream media often is, I think it’s good to send students out into the world with the skills to find information and verify it. Maybe you teach them that through your specific field–biology or history–but they can apply it to anything.

Just some thoughts so far–and maybe later, a post about my class on blogs.

The novel

half of the laundry

bills

grocery shopping-we have no food

sundry other things in my head that I wanted to do

The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: On ‘Moral Values,’ It’s Blue in a Landslide

Just made my way through this article, which I think is interesting. In terms of culture, I think Rich is right, blue is going to win. There’s too much money to be made.

It’s in the G.O.P.’s interest to pander to this far-right constituency – votes are votes – but you can be certain that a party joined at the hip to much of corporate America, Mr. Murdoch included, will take no action to curtail the blue culture these voters deplore. As Marshall Wittman, an independent-minded former associate of both Ralph Reed and John McCain, wrote before the election, “The only things the religious conservatives get are largely symbolic votes on proposals guaranteed to fail, such as the gay marriage constitutional amendment.” That amendment has never had a prayer of rounding up the two-thirds majority needed for passage and still doesn’t.

Mr. Wittman echoes Thomas Frank, the author of “What’s the Matter With Kansas?,” by common consent the year’s most prescient political book. “Values,” Mr. Frank writes, “always take a backseat to the needs of money once the elections are won.” Under this perennial “trick,” as he calls it, Republican politicians promise to stop abortion and force the culture industry “to clean up its act” – until the votes are counted. Then they return to their higher priorities, like cutting capital gains and estate taxes.

What did Bush start talking about right after election? Privitization of Social Security, not an Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment or appointing an anti-Roe Supreme Court Justice. It seems to me that Bush uses these hot-button issues–as Rich suggests–to garner votes. What he really cares about is making money (or his friends making money). Which, to me, is just as bad. Tim Burke discusses the complexity of this financial equality issue here. I don’t know how to solve this one or to convince someone who “watched his income drop from $55,000 to $35,000 since 2001, . . . that it might be a higher moral value to worry about the future of his own family than some gay family he hasn’t even met.”

Michelle hints at what I think the underlying difficulty is, here and here. I have always felt obligated to help society, but it’s not within my own personal capacity to do so much of the time. I struggle to pay my own bills, though I recognize my struggle is much less than most. I grew up very privileged in an upper middle class family. I’m thankful that my parents believed in public school, because as a result, I was in the 1% of the school population who could be classified as middle class or higher. The other 99%, working poor or welfare poor. I realized very quickly that it was sheer luck that I was born into the family I was born into. The kids I went to school with had nothing to do with their current circumstances and yet, they suffered greatly because of them. I knew, even at 9 or 10 years old, that it was unlikely that they would make it anywhere. One of my classmates was very smart and we often ended up in independent study sessions together because we were ahead of the class. She had a paper route and was trying to save money for college. Her mother, single and an alcoholic (near as I could tell), stole her paper route money (about $100). How in the world was she going to make it? Scholarship or grant? I don’t think so. Her mother was going to thwart her. And this girl didn’t have enough backbone (possibly abused?) to stand up to her. In fact, after elementary school, I did not see her. I don’t know if she moved or if she just faded into the shadows.

I feel the government owes something to children like her, to find a way to help them. Maybe it’s through providing grants to organizations that can help. Maybe it’s even faith-based initiatives. More importantly, I think the government needs to find a way to improve the economic situation more generally. Maybe that’s where a lot of people part ways. I know this is what Republicans often mean by “big government”–a government that has its hand in people’s personal lives. They’re only opposed to big government when it comes to economic issues, not social ones. Or so it seems.

I don’t know what the answer is. I only know I continue to struggle to find it. I have not written about politics in a serious way in a while because I grew personally hurt, a little, by the vitriol spinning its way around the internet. I think that some of the anger was necessary to our mourning process. But I do think it’s time to move on, and be a little more thoughtful about how we proceed and we need to engage the 29% who voted not on moral values.

I really love blogging. I know it sounds silly, but now I’m really sorry I didn’t start blogging when I first discovered it two years ago. I read the occasional blog back then, but not the way I have for the past year. I’m so glad I forced myself–wasn’t hard really–to blog every day. And actually, I have three blogs now so I’m blogging sometimes 3 times a day in three different blogs.

I also like reading blogs and the experience of hyperlinking all over the internet to other blogs, to newspapers, magazines and photos. It really does kind of feel like a journey.

In 1997, I really discovered the internet and jumped in feet first. I created my first web site, I joined a virtual community of other tech-savvy parents, and hosted two IRC chats for that community. It was so much fun. I had been “on the internet” long before that, reading newsgroups and using e-mail but I was not immersed in it the way I became immersed in 97.

Then I went away from it. Our virtual community was bought by a huge company who required us to use chat software that included ads and those of us (purists you might say) who had been around for a while and felt some measure of control over the situation, all left. Some of us had met IRL and I kept up a relationship with a couple of people through ICQ for awhile. Eventually, though, I was jaded. I focused instead on my literature studies and though I didn’t remove myself from the virtual world completely (joining several e-mail lists related to my field), I had lost my immersion in it.

In 2001, I began my slow movement back towards immersion. I had been using technology in the form of web sites, discussion boards, and computer classrooms for teaching since I went back to school in 97, but after moving to PA, I began really thinking more deeply about using that technology. And I now had students who regularly used e-mail, chat rooms, and IM. In 1997, I had to explain what a website was. Now I was having students create their own. In the summer of 2002 as I prepared for my fall classes, I set up a Blogger account–which I ended up not really using. I was afraid of overwhelming my students with too much technology if I required them to participate in a group blog. I had intended to keep a journal of the class and how the technology was working for myself, but I didn’t. I made maybe an entry or two.

Interestingly, we ended up having something similar to a blog inside of a Course Management System and it was that aspect of the course that the students liked the most.

So, flash forward to 2004. Finally, I jump back in. I had been talking about blogs at work for a year, but had not been practicing what I preached. So here I am. I knew I was hooked when I was at my son’s soccer practice and I was reading Bitch Ph.D.’s blog on my Treo. And I couldn’t wait to get home and get to my own blog. I guess that’s true love.

Laundry–always–2 loads down, 5 to go

Blog

5 pages of novel–really need to do this

Read short story for Writer’s group

Buy birthday present

Soccer party

Soccer game–cancelled

Birthday party

Is that enough? I think so. I really need to work on the novel. I started a blog for it and everything. I thought I would use it to keep notes, but I’m in one of my down times. This always happens. I’ll write nearly every day for a few months, then go through about a month where I won’t write anything. I think this means it’s going to take forever to finish. Luckily, there’s nothing really riding on it. I just want to do it–but obviously not enough to drag myself away from the blog to work on it. I will, though. I have my writing group and my book club, back to back, both of which inspire me in some way. I’ve been reading a lot of nonfiction lately and frankly, it’s not very conducive to inspiring fiction writing. Blog writing maybe, but not fiction. Maybe next year I’ll be finished with the novel and can participate in Na-No-Blog-Mo.

Today was actually a good day for once. It was pouring rain, so there was no construction and thus, no fumes. We had a coffee hour (as we have every Friday) where students, staff and faculty drink coffee, eat donuts and talk. Very nice. Then I went to the library and actually did some reading. I’ve made an appointment with myself to read at least one hour on MWF. When you’re a 9-5 staffer, this is hard to do. But it’s part of my job to keep up with theories and emerging trends in technology and education. I was going to read a journal, but all the good stuff is online anyway, so I ended up with a book, The Digital Revolution and the Coming of the Postmodern University. So far I like it, but I’m only two chapters in. I sat in a cozy corner with my iPod and my book. It was so nice.

Then I ran my workshop on Blackboard as a pedagogical tool which I was worried about because only 4 people signed up. But 10 people ended up coming and we had a nice, lively discussion. Afterwards, a couple of people set up appointments with me to do some technology stuff, which was exciting. I felt very validated.

And now, it’s movie night and we’re watching Mulan. Life is good.