One of the great things about being both an educator and a parent is that you get to think about teaching, learning, and education from all kinds of perspectives. As a parent, I’m constantly teaching my children and they are constantly learning (not just from me, of course, but from everything). I also have to interact and react to the educational system my children are a part of. As a college educator, I’m also thinking about teaching and learning within my own classroom, and also about the higher ed system in which that teaching and learning takes place. I’ve been doing that on multiple fronts this morning as I’ve been reading the LEAP report and working on a presentation proposal. I also read these twoposts by Aspazia that relate to the book I read not too long ago and my continuing work to help my son through the educational system.
For me, education is separate from teaching and learning. Education is a system within which teaching and learning occur. A school is a part of that system and the usual context within which most children get formally educated. What I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, both as a parent and as an educator, is how formal education interacts so little with the teaching and learning that goes on outside of school. Aspazia points to the deficit system of education where what formal education does is build on what’s missing, presumably filling in the gaps of what has not been filled in informally instead of building on a child’s strengths. The child must conform to the system rather than the system conforming to the child (a point also made in relation to ADHD both by Aspazia and by Peg Tyre). I’m thinking as a parent about how to help bridge the gap between the way my son is with the way the school wants him to be and at the same time, insure that he’s learning. I would also like to find ways to encourage the school to change.
At the college level, with my own students, I’m also seeing a gap between what we do in class and what they do outside of class. So they’re exploring Facebook, Wikipedia, and YouTube while we are reading printed articles and books, listening to a lecture on said printouts and occasionally having discussions about that. It would be great to bridge those two worlds, not have one subsume the other (as I think is happening when a CMS is the technology of choice). We need to find a way to help students connect what’s happening in the classroom to the world they actually live in. I see the gap between the two widening as people shun Wikipedia or YouTube and cling to a “classic” education. When you can’t apply what you’re learning in the classroom to your real life, you don’t learn.
Pardon me, but I’m in a bit of a mood right now. I’ve been following the discussion at 11D that is a spin-off of two Mama PhDposts about balancing an academic career and family and off ramps and on ramps to such careers. The second Mama PhD post references this article in the NY Times about career lattices, about providing a variety of opportunities for not just climbing a ladder, but pursuing other opportunities that may be lateral moves, part-time work, etc. As the post points out, such opportunities seem unavailable in academe.
All of this is resonating with me, of course, as I’m in a bit of an off-ramp at the moment. I have no idea what I’ll on-ramp to in a few months–could be the academy, could be my own business, or it could be the right job at the right place. I have a feeling, though, that what I’ll put together will be not quite full time. Because honestly, doing the parent thing is a shit-load of work and I really, really don’t want to short-change that. But I also have to say that I’m a little disappointed that we couldn’t make the dual-career family work. There are a lot of reasons for that. A flexible, intellectually satisfying job just isn’t to be had at the moment. So I’m making it up as I go along and despite some frustrations in picking up the pieces of the household maintenance that got left behind as a result of the dual-career thing, I’m much, much happier than I was a few months ago. And I think I’ll be happier still one my career does start to take shape and once the house gets to a point where I’m not digging out from under a bunch of crap. That’s taking retraining not just myself, but the whole family, which is a long road, let me tell you.
Although Laura and the other professor moms lament the strictures of the academy in terms of career movement, things are not much different on the corporate side either. Even though things are changing more there than in the academy, there’s still the same assumptions about what a career means: “For some, a career that isn’t going steadily upward is a career going nowhere” (NY Times). This was the attitude of the man referred to in the article, and I think it’s telling what the wife’s response is:
You were successful because you worked really hard at one thing — your career — while my role was to carry out all the noncareer elements of life, from child-rearing to household projects to community involvement and so on.
It’s that focus on one thing that leads to success both in academe and in the corporate world. Women more so than men, don’t have the luxury to focus on one thing for such an extended period of time. My own career is a testament to that–graduate school, lose funding, get corporate job to put hubby through grad school, have kid, move across the country for hubby’s job, go back to grad school, have another kid, move across the country again for hubby’s job, adjunct for a while, get full time job because adjuncting doesn’t pay the bills, finish Ph.D., quit job, start a business. And honestly, that timeline isn’t that unusual regardless of what the husband does. I saw women whose husbands worked for a large corporation get transferred every couple of years. How the hell are you supposed to maintain a career with all that moving and all those life changes. And throughout that whole thing, it was Mr. Geeky who was focusing on his career, not so much with a careerist kind of attitude, but just pursuing interests and opportunities. Meanwhile, I was trying to juggle both. And as I’ve said before, it’s not that Mr. Geeky was uninvolved, it’s just that I probably thought about my career and the kids about equally not in terms of everyday tasks, but in terms of long-term goals, etc. and Mr. Geeky did the day-to-day stuff equally, but wasn’t really thinking long-term about the kids. At least that’s my impression of things.
And then there’s just the feeling of being discounted because you do have a family . . . but only if you’re a woman. From Leslie, at Clutter Museum, comes this nugget in response to Ed Rendell’s microphone blunder:
Some of the commenters at 11D expressed frustration at having to have this conversation so many times. I’m frustrated too. And I think partly it’s because I have no idea how to fix the problem and of course, those of us who are frustrated are the ones without any power. It’d be great if we could all band together and do something about it, start a think tank or something. As Laura said, there’s an awful lot of talent volunteering at school because they can’t find satisfying flexible work. How stupid is that? In my ideal world, here’s what life would be like:
1. Husbands would do as much housework as wives. 2. Good, part-time work would be readily available, with pro-rated benefits. 3. Schools would come up with a schedule that makes sense for working families and/or provide services and programs when 1/2 days are scheduled. 4. In the academic world, adjuncts would be paid a decent salary (see #2). 5. Women would not be seen as less desirable employees because they took time off to care for children. 6. Employers would offer leaves for women (and men, if they want) that are longer than simply the physical recovery time from giving birth. And leave doesn’t just have to be taken right after the baby is born. Got a kid struggling with school? Maybe take some time off and then come back part-time.
That’s just a start. It frustrates the hell out of me that employers can’t get more creative about work schedules and that if someone presents a solution like one of the ones listed above, they’re seen as not as committed to work. Ugh. So, how do we fix this? Are there opportunities with the new administration to encourage employers (including colleges and universities) to adopt better policies? Or is this a lost cause?
And why aren’t there enough hours in a day. Yesterday, I had a lot planned. I had the usual morning routine. I worked on my web site all morning and then had a skype call at 11 to discuss a presentation proposal. I met some colleagues for lunch to discuss some possible work. Lunch lasted a bit longer than anticipated. I had planned to drop off some recycling, hit the grocery store and be home around 2:30. I was going to clean the dining room/kitchen, including taking care of a couple of much-need organization projects. Instead I wasn’t home until 3:00. By then, Geeky Boy was home and I was completely and totally exhausted. If, what I do getting the kids ready for school and in maintaining the house count as work, I had been working (with a 1/2 hour break for a shower) since 6:30, or 8.5 hours. So a full day. If the work I do for the family doesn’t count, then I only “worked” for about 5 hours.
On both fronts, I *still* didn’t get everything done. Everything always seems to take longer than I think. Sigh.
The New York Times reports that PayPal has come out with a service for teens and parents, where teens can have an account, spend money and parents can monitor all of it. I think this is a great way for parents (*cough* like me *cough*) to have an easy way to pay allowance and for kids to learn about saving and spending. I suppose you could do this with a regular bank and have access to the account online, but this seems easier somehow.
I was a complete slug this weekend. I’m only now catching up with world news. I know horrible things happened. I don’t know the details. I’m kind of in denial.
Mr. Geeky and I got up early yesterday and had breakfast and went shopping without the kids. We had no real agenda, but we ended up getting about half of the presents we needed anyway. I’m at a point where this whole Christmas present thing could go away. I don’t need anything else. The kids don’t need anything else. I think sometime in the near future, I may just say, don’t get me or my kids anything, and we’ll just travel for Christmas or something. Now that the youngest is no longer a believer, it opens up a bunch of opportunities.
So now it’s back to work and school, though Christmas vacation is only 3 weeks away. I have some projects with deadlines so there is work to be done over the next few weeks. And the house slid a little this weekend although the kids did a good job keeping up with kitchen duties. I have some frustration with the household duties, but I will leave that aside for now. More intelligent commentary is coming soon.
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