I have said that graduating high school left me as a blank canvas; a canvas portraying the balance between clarity and confusion. The experiences that tore a heart apart, gathered the pieces together, and then delicately sewed them back in place. My canvas had the extravagance of all colors, but concluded with the simple color white; a white that is open to new colors and texture, but always keeping white as a constant; that constant being confused. Confusion is my clarity, clarity is my ability to learn and learning is the meaning of life.
In a student lounge I laid my head on the plastic table in front of me. The glare of my computer screen hurt my eyes with daunting lists of Spanish assignments past due. I was tired with hardly any sleep the night before and uncomfortably hot wondering why the hell the heat was on. I lifted my head and looked to the students lounging with me. I glanced at the rows of chairs occupied with sleeping faces hanging their legs over arms of ugly seats, I looked at glowing eyes glued to their computer screens finishing their homework, or watching youtube videos with friends. I looked at the piles of books in front of studying students, and the coffee cups filled with fancy espresso drinks. I looked at the television, displaying last night’s scores for the big game, and David Letterman giving his top tens. But then I looked at my computer screen and saw the dark reflection of glazed eyes, shaggy hair and a tired face. I saw a reflection of myself. My reflection blended in with the surrounding. I was a student. I was another point of observation in my own eyes. My eyes led to my brain and my brain led to my heart and I found myself asking, “What the fuck am I doing here?” With another glance around the room I rephrased that question and whispered,” What the fuck are we doing here?”
So I’m in college now. I am not sure how I got here, but I am enrolled. A full eleven fucking credits! Well okay, eleven credits. Not quite full time, but it definitely seems like enough. It took me weeks to really realize that I was in college. Initially I told myself a whole list of predetermined ideas as to why I applied. Things like, “I want to learn,” and “I am looking at it as a study of college,” to as low as “What else am I going to do,” but after attending for over a month, I am not sure what the hell I am doing. I say this not as a complaint, but in excitement to answer that question.
I simply want to state my experience. I want to refrain from placing my ideals and analyses in front of my experience. I do not want to list the reasons why I oppose institutional education, or explain the forces of power at play without them directly coming into my experience. I understand that I have (sometimes an overwhelming amount of) thoughts and ideals towards educational systems, but I want this writing to come only from my experiences, and the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that conclude from those experiences. Saying that, I understand that really, the only person who this document will fully speak to is me, but that is truly why I am writing this; for me. I might release it to a wider audience, or I might use it as a journal, but I feel the documentation of my participation inside of Metro State College is worth documentation. I will not throw away the lessons I have learned from previous experiences, but I do not want to focus on those lessons, I want to only focus on my experience inside Metro State College.
My classes:
8:30am- Art and Craft of Writing (Monday and Wednesday)
11:30am- Spanish 1010 (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
2:30amIntroduction to Chicano Studies (Monday and Wednesday)
2/26/09
All face forward. Rows of small desks occupied by blank faces with no sounds; maybe a yawn, or the muffled bass in blaring headphones. Its 8:25 am and I am walking in the door of my creative writing class. I sit down in the chair closest to the door and pull out my books from my bag. Still no sounds. I take a look around the room. No one looks. No one says anything. A popping sound breaks the silence. I twist my head and look to the front of the class where the professor sits in his padded chair opening his morning can of diet Mountain Dew. He brought the neon liquid to his lips and smiled with delight. Placing the can on his desk, he looked at his cell phone and announced to the class, “Well it’s about time to start.”
Everyday this is how school starts: in complete silence. Why does no one talk to each other in class? Actually a better question is; why do I feel restricted to converse with my fellow classmates? I often find myself making up stories about whom people are, or what their lives are like, because I am too afraid to ask them. I am a fairly sociable person, but inside of classrooms my social characteristics go hide in the corner. I mean shit, there is a boy in my class who I went to high school with. I have had many conversations with him, but the moment we saw each other sitting in the same classroom, our tongues slipped to the back of our throats and we ignored each other’s presence.
Now I am not fully able to make a conclusion why there is such a lack of dialog inside classrooms, but I have a few ideas. Rows of seats absolutely restricts dialog. Everyone is looking at the backs of people’s heads. As much as I would like to think that the back of my head is a welcome matt with a cute doorbell to gain entrance to a conversation with my face, I don’t think that is the case.
Art and Craft of Writing:
I embarrassed my writing teacher in Monday’s class. We had a multi genre presentation due where we were supposed to bring in copies of a sample of writing that had multiple genres in it. I brought a zine on transgender issues because of its format and its powerful writing. The class’s response was interesting. I told them it was a zine and the boy sitting next to me asked, “Like what they make in Seattle?” I explained the accessibility of zines because of the encouragement toward making your own copies, and a little bit about what D.I.Y. means. Kids were really responsive to the art, and some even read parts out of the zine when it was being passed around. My professor chirped in with a little explanation of his own and then compared the zine to Abby Hoffman’s book Steal This Book. I held in my laughter and calmly responded that that book is on sale at Barnes and Noble for $30. The class laughed, and so did I, as he mumbled some response about his brother being apart of that sub culture and how he hadn’t seen the book since the ‘70’s.
I didn’t think joking with my professor would, but it may have embarrassed my professor more than I thought. Yesterday in class he shared some of our poetry to the class. He chose one of my poems and placed it on the projector for the whole class to see. We were assigned to write a poem about a childhood toy, and I chose a toolbox that I got for Christmas when I was young. He read the poem and highlighted its strong points, but before he went on with his lesson he snuck in a joke about my gender. Something like, “Well this toy obviously shaped your gender.” The class laughed and I sat confused. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seemed like a comeback. The zine I brought was about transgender issues, and it seemed like he was joking about that.
I do not respect educators who teach with an ego. Because of their position and the power granted with their position, ego inside of classrooms constructs a huge fucking wall, blocking my desire to connect with professors. When teaching, I think you need to keep your ego at the door in order to create a safe and comforting environment for kids to learn and grow. Your responsibility is to facilitate student’s growth, not stifle it with stupid comebacks.
2/27/09
Spanish 1010:
Oh the wonders of beginning Spanish, the mispronunciations, the terrible accents, and the timid responses from scared volunteers. What a subject. I actually am really enjoying this class. It is the only class I am taking that students naturally interact with each other. At first I was surprised. I didn’t understand why there were an overwhelmingly higher percentage of sociable students inside this class than any other, but I gave it some thought as to why. Obviously, it’s a language class. We are forced to speak to each other in order to learn.
It’s pretty incredible to watch both the enjoyment and ability to learn arise in the students when they are able to share their experiences with the people surrounding them. Instead of being tested and corrected by a professor (although there still are tests and grades) you are in pedagogical dialog with your fellow students. It’s easier to grow and learn and be embarrassed when you know that the person you are working with is growing, learning and making a fool of them selves with you. I even made a friend in this class and we had lunch together at my house a couple days ago.
3/3/09
I decided not to go to my Art and Craft of Writing class yesterday. I woke up at 7:00 to the sun warming my face, and my wonderful bear like blanket hugging my body with its furry threads. There was no piece of me that wanted to get out of bed. I thought how wonderful it would be to spend the morning on my porch sipping on coffee, and reading my book. I thought of how nice the sun would feel on my neck as I had breakfast, but school started in an hour, and I had to go. I looked outside again and thought to myself why I felt forced to go to school. I felt guilt. I am really fortunate to have parents like I do. They pay for my school and support me in my educational process with encouragement to experiment with it, but I still feel the obligation to try my hardest and achieve a good grade so they feel they got their money’s worth (even though I know they would reject this notion.) I also felt fear. This fear was a little bit nauseating. I thought about the poem that was due in class, a poem about traveling to Prescott, Arizona in a hot and stuffy car. How much of my grade would be deducted if I turned it in late? This was poetry I was turning in and I was worried about the fucking grade!
I stumbled around my room pulling out some clean clothes (a polite gesture to my fellow students) but threw them back into the shelf. I stood staring at my pile of underwear, and slowly backed away falling backwards onto my bed. I pulled my hair contemplating my decision. Should I stay, or should I go? I saw a coin on the floor and picked it up placing it to rest on my thumbnail and index finger and flicked it airborne. Heads I stay, tails I go. It softly fell onto my mattress and sprung into a few more gracious flips until finally landing, heads up. I looked at the coin surprised. I still felt conflict with this decision so I tried flipping it again. Heads. One more time. Heads. I was sold. I was going to stay home for the morning.
I spent my morning like I had planned. I read a book and drank coffee in the sun. The wind felt nice in my hair, and the sounds of morning life were pleasing to my ears. I wore my summertime shorts for the first time and lounged on my patio for a couple hours. I wrote in my journal about the weather and the sounds. Finally 11:00 rolled around and I decided to go to Spanish class. I gathered my books, put on a hat, and rolled my bicycle out the front door. I was greeted with crowds of people playing basketball, and a long procession of men and women dressed in black having a funeral at the mortuary across the street. There was no sadness in the procession, but more the scent of celebration. I rode my bike slowly to class and concluded that March 2nd was a day worth celebrating.
3/5/09
Chicano Studies:
“So what did you think about the film?” Nothing. She said it slower and louder. “So what did you think about the film?”
From the back of the room came a grunt, “Pretty good.” We just finished watching the beautiful film “Zoot Suite,” a movie created after the first Chicano written Broadway musical. The lights were turned on and I quickly wiped the tears that dripped from my eyes while the credits rolled. The film moved me into an embarrassing motion of hiding my tears with the sleeve of my shirt. I’m not embarrassed by my emotions but a silent and stagnant classroom does not make the most comforting environment to weep in. I wiped the last of my tears, and became excited to hear the opinion of my fellow classmates. I heard nothing. Empty faces blended with the white walls, and the sounds of the buzzing lights interrupted the breaths of the uninterested class. I couldn’t take it anymore and jumped in with my opinion of the film, stating that I loved it and it was very powerful and moving. The conversation ended shortly after my input and we were given, like always, a hand out questionnaire about the subject matter, which we could use as a study sheet.
I wonder if this class would have been any different if we watched the film in a theater and discussed it in a park around a nice picnic, or hell a potluck. I wonder if there were a window in the classroom, people would become livelier in discussion. I wonder if there was no such thing as a classroom the passion towards learning would be more abundant. I sometimes wonder if professor’s care less about the students they are teaching because of the paycheck at the end of the month. I wonder if teaching weren’t a profession. Would there be a better relationship between student and teacher?
It interests me that people approach their educations so passively. They allow information to be placed inside with only the concern of their final grade, or the midterm next week (oh yeah I took my Spanish midterm yesterday and it was on the internet and the damn thing counted questions wrong that were actually right. Fucking internet!) There is hardly any dialogue or interest in creating relationships with the people attending school with them, or further, the professors. I never really understood the concept of credentials in teaching. Why do people automatically assume that the person writing on the board knows what the fuck they are talking about? I have always thought about walking into a new class before the professor arrived and pretending to be the professor. I wonder if folks would buy it.
I consider the affect of environment to a person’s ability to learn or further develop. I can’t imagine there being no affect to having all of your schooling done in windowless boxes, drenched in the haze of fluorescent glowing lights. I see contradiction in having a creative writing class in a room with blank white walls and no windows. How the hell are we supposed to be creative and engaged when we are subjected to such stagnant environments.
I see the severe conditions traditional education has put on “students.” In my eyes there should be no dichotomy between the concepts of development and education, but by the looks of the majority of students in my classes there is no personal development happening inside the classroom.
3/11/09
Chicano Studies:
I thought today while taking a midterm for my Chicano Studies class, how much economics interfere with education. I was filling out endless sheets of black text, circling the answer I thought was suitable, or writing short essays about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when into my head popped the same notion from earlier, “What the fuck are we doing here.”
Tests confuse me. You are given facts, then you study those facts and then you restate the facts you learned in a test. But then what? Is the meaning of education to be tested and hope for a good grade? Are the countless hours of passive studying really leading us anywhere but a packet in class, and a letter at the top a few days later? Where did these tests come from? I laughed under my breath considering that people are paying to be tested and graded, but shit! I am paying for this too.
The fact that students pay for school troubles me deeply. The dynamics created by that economy put a student into a situation where they are forced to listen and assert themselves, not because they want to, but so they can get there money’s worth. The money’s worth in this case is the credit, and in order to get credit you have to get good grades and in order to get good grades, you have to mold yourself into an empty well being filled with the professors knowledge. When you look at the benefits of getting a college degree now, it gives you a slightly better chance to get a decent job, or as all my prep school teachers would say, a “career”. So basically, you have to pay in order to have a position that you can participate in the idea of a career. Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.
I want to be a student to be a student. I want to learn to learn. I hate the idea that when I decide to take a day off to spend in the woods (which I did on Monday, oh what a great decision. I hiked up a mountain over looking Mount Evans and found an abandoned cabin. I did some good writing up there, and got my knees wet with snow, it was a great day) I am dampening my chances of getting “credit” for the class. The psychological effects of paying for school have made me turn into a nervous wreck at times. It has made me worry about some stupid letter at the top of a mid-term, or the online homework assignment due tonight. I want to worry about real things, not about bullshit assignments that promise a future participation with real things.
3/22/09
I have recently been exploring the idea of educational reform. I have noticed a trend of students assimilating themselves to the conditions that schools are in, instead of demanding educational systems to serve their needs. I thought further into this and asked the question: Is it possible to reform traditional educational systems, or must we build new educational environments autonomous from the educational systems in place in order to create schooling that is not coercive but liberating?
In my book A Mind Full of Junk and a Heart Full of Truth, I explain that trust is the most important theme inside educational environments. If the relationships built between an educator and a student are not built off of trust, the ability for the student to fully engulf themselves in their education will be limited. When I said this though, I only focused on the educational process, not the creation of the educational environment. Now my thoughts on the creation of the educational environment are just as important as the actual education. Because of the inherent power that educators are granted, they have the responsibility to be trustworthy and empower their students to create supportive educational environments. The trust I was given in high school to create an educational environment in the city of Denver and completely away from the actual school building radically changed my perception of what a school can look like.
Now when I think of reform in this context, the possibility to reform the current traditional educational systems looks bleak. Because of the amount of power granted to educators, the history of that power being abused, and the coercive lessons they are told to teach in order to assimilate students into a dominate society, reform will inherently be led by those with power. New educational systems need to drop the mentality that education is the process of preparing students to participate in a set society. Instead, education should be focused to allow students to empower themselves and create the lives and environments they want live in. Education should be a collective movement embodying constant, reflection and growth, and the environments we are being educated in should nurture that process.
4/3/09
I have discovered a disconnected element in traditional educational institutions. I have come to notice that my feelings toward subject matter are disregarded with an overbearing concern for whether or not I understand the concepts. Instead of allowing students to approach their educations with a personal motive, we are forced into urgent classrooms with the agenda of filling our empty minds with concepts that build a wall between our brains and our hearts.
This discovery has been with me for a long time, but the reality of this thought has uncovered itself in my time spent at school. In my last Chicano Studies class I had such a bizarre thing happen to me. We had been assigned to read a passage in one of our books called “Internal Colonialism.” It was a research paper about the affect our campus has had on the West side of Denver. Obviously, the construction of the Auraria Campus had a major affect on the communities lining in the neighborhoods. These communities were predominately Chicano and they were aware of the dangers the Auraria campus would bring in the form of gentrification. The article goes into detail about the idea of socioeconomic powerlessness. It discusses the disadvantages the Chicano communities had against the state in preserving their neighborhoods because of their lack of access inside of legislature. It also portrayed the ways they were disregarded because the majority were not homeowners . . . Anyway, the article was incredible and really impacted me. I used to live on the west side, and knew people who were around when the campus was built. I was also very impressed with the portrayal of the realistic affects of gentrification and the analysis of what socioeconomic powerlessness means.
Well obviously, I was really excited to discuss the article in class. I am not sure whether it was a result of it being the first day back from Spring break, but no one spoke. No one gave any input. Our professor would give posing question and the room would become completely silent. Now because of my excitement of the subject, I could not stand the silence and after waiting to see if anyone wanted to respond, I dove into the conversation with my professor. I started to ask her questions to try and pull out some opinions, but she would answer in some non-partisan way like, “Good point”, or “Maybe you’re right.” Now it confuses me as to how you can study colonialism and not focus on feelings. An analysis when speaking about the colonial model, in my mind, is inevitably emotional, but somehow in this class colonialism was just another boring subject. It is frightening that facts were laid in front of us, showing our countries violent history and no one visibly felt it.
We continued the discussion on “Internal Colonialism” but the input continued to be non-existent. It started to become fairly obvious that I was the only person who cared to share what I thought, but the way the professor decided to address that was very uncomfortable. She directed the whole conversation solely to me. It didn’t seem like she did it sarcastically, but more in a way that she knew I was going to be the only person to give input. I felt terrible about this. I felt like I played a role in the silence around me and all I wanted to do was join it. I don’t know how to apply myself in such a passive setting. I understand that the more I speak the less others will. I want to experiment with not approaching my education so selfishly, but instead inviting others to join me in the process of feeling what I am learning, not just listening. Not building a wall between the brain and the heart but instead building a bridge.
I scheduled a meeting with my professor to talk more in depth about socioeconomic powerlessness. I hope in more of a one on one setting I will be able to hear more about what she really thinks, but I also what to talk to her about her way of engaging kids. I don’t want to offend her, but I do want to see if there is any thing she could do to make kids more engaged.
4/6/09
I was hesitant to meet with my Chicano Studies professor. More for my sometime awkward conversational skills than anything, but I really was worried that I wouldn’t be able to converse with her. I mean I wanted to dive deep. They were planning on talking about the essay we read for homework (“Internal Colonialism”), which I was hoping would create a catalyst for a conversation around her motives for being a teacher. It made sense to me, but I worried that she would be hesitant to talk about anything but the text. I was wrong.
She gave me a respect for patience. Somehow we jumped into it fast. She was enthusiastic and excited that I was interested in the reading, but I sensed that she knew I wanted to talk about more than the article. It was my reference to Paulo Freire that shut our books and opened the conversation. Before I knew it we were talking about teaching. I asker her how she was so patient with classes that are so passive. She laughed and agreed that our class was pretty quiet, but she responded to my question by explaining that her role as a teacher is not to bonk students heads until they get it, her role is to simply present the information she has passionately, and allow students to create their own opinions around it . . . if they want to create an opinion.
I felt like an angsty boy. I saw a contradiction in my urgency. Why is it so important to me that students engage in classes? Well maybe a better question would be, who am I to say they aren’t? Maybe their way of learning is different than mine, or maybe they are in a place where the information doesn’t mean anything to them. I respect my professor because she presents the information passionately, but without an expectation of how the students digest it. She seemed to understand her power as a teacher, and she seemed to have harnessed it.
I guess what I got out of this conversation was the realization that I do not support students participating inside of educational institutions passively, but I also do not support educators who try and force students to participate.
4/11/09
I spoke to a good friend of mine the other day. She is an educator and a wonderful artist. I told her that I was in school with an approach to observe myself as a student. She loved the idea and showed enthusiasm at the observations I have made. It humored me to hear how surprised she was with the patience I have had with the bullshit that fills the classrooms of traditional schools. She has taught in traditional settings and through her experience she will never again. She shared that she sees an overwhelming lack of community inside of schools. She loves the idea of students creating their own curriculum and the teachers sitting back and trusting the students to create their own path and find their own responsibilities. We continued talking about our educational ideals, but she made a request that I start documenting educational environments I encounter that are outside of college. I like this idea. I acknowledge lessons and educational experiences all the time, but I think that the documentation of them will help this piece of writing develop into something meaningful to me.
I am in a car right now driving east away from Chicago to Toledo, Ohio. Frankly, I hate Toledo. My relatives live there and I struggle with not being understood. It’s hard to leave Denver, where I have a community of family and friends who understand and support me, to a place where people are confused by my presence. My feelings are easily hurt in this environment, but maybe if I approach Toledo with an educational drive, I will leave feeling uplifted by the lessons I have learned. I have seen magic in the act of being educationally genuine and experiences like spending time with relatives who don’t get you seems like a perfect environment to make magic. Maybe the process of recognizing our educational environments before, during or after they happen is how we create liberated and life long learners.
4/14/09
I have been giving a lot of thought toward the idea of educational community and the potention around the idea. I have caught myself saying college is an individualized institution, and for a while I didn’t think that was bad. I have been reconsidering that thought because I see that creating an individualized educational environment takes away the magnitude and responsibilities at play in the work involved.
I just did research on the Sleepy Lagoon Murder and the Zoot Suite Riots. I am supposed to write an essay on the events and then give my opinion on whether what happened during could happen today. I knew a bit about the Sleepy Lagoon Murder and the riots, and I was aware of the judicial racism at play during these events, but the extent at which racism was visible was startling. Now I am also aware that racism inside our judicial system is still existent, so the answer to whether or not what happened could happen again seems like an obvious yes. But for some reason this question frightens me.
Questions addressing oppression need to be taken seriously. The lack of seriousness when learning about oppression objectifies the reality of oppression. I think that if we are asked whether or not racism is existent inside of our judicial system there should be deep intentions to create an understanding and movement to counteract it. It scares me how removed students are from reality. They read and write about catastrophic conditions in the world, but portray them on our paper like an algebraic expression. Humans are not objects and oppression is not a subject.
5/1/09
I have slowed down my writing for this project a lot. For a while I felt bad about it. Another project forgotten in the dusty corners of my computer, but I started to give thought as to why I lost motivation to write about school. Or maybe why I thought that this writing was meaningless. I thought about how bored I was in school, and the only insights I really had while attending was, “This sucks.” Maybe it was my pile of B+ creative writing assignments. I don’t know. I guess I saw my writing with a necessity to have quality, in a scholarly tone. I dismissed the connection my body has with my typewriter or my pencil with a fear of not being good enough.
Where did this come from? Where does this thought of quality verse enjoyment come into play? And who the fuck is judging, or in other words grading me?
I state at the beginning of this document that I am writing this first and foremost for myself, but I was told in my creative writing class that there is no writing that is not targeted to an audience. Maybe this is true and maybe this truth is giving me anxiety that my writing is amateur and being amateur is not worth presenting, or even more so writing. I am disgusted by this thought.
I conversed with my Mom yesterday about how I am doing. We dove into our emotions deeply and expressed our states metaphorically. We compared ourselves to characteristics of forests and gardens, or streetlights and concrete and painted a picture of what could otherwise be said as, “I have been feeling weird lately.” We were enthused at the realization that we both cannot communicate our honest emotions without speaking metaphorically or furthermore poetically. It was then that I realized to speak honestly is to speak poetically.
Honest words are the core of movement and beauty. When speaking honestly, every word has meaning and creates building blocks for more honesty to unveil itself. This is like a poem. Every word in a poem has meaning and they are strewn together to create a stanza. The stanzas are strewn together to portray imagery, and the imagery helps create insight. When living honestly, or poetically, you create an image of your path and can address your path pedagogically. When living dully, with dishonesty of who you are and how you feel, your path looks bleak and the language used to explain yourself is scattered and unimportant.
I have strong admiration for honest thinkers and feelers. I have admiration towards people who speak poetically (and I must say that speaking poetically does not mean you have an extensive vocabulary or write A+ pieces for your creative writing class). Speaking poetically only means that you are speaking from the core of who you are. From a real and vulnerable standpoint. I showed my Mom some of my poetry and she shared that it was one of my most beautiful, but vulnerable characteristics. I took it as a compliment.
Living poetically is gentle in the strongest sense of the word. It is a vulnerable movement that cannot be harmed or beaten. It is impossible to submit when living poetically, because there is nothing to submit to. It is a complete understanding of life in the most naive manner.
My Mom told me after reading some of my poetry that she hopes no one ever takes away my ability to creatively express my feelings. Huh? I guess I hope that never happens, but in a way that I am going to construct my hope so I make sure that I never lose this ability. To think of living with out the outlet of writing is a dark thought, but being in school has showed me that there are environments that constrict my ability to critically feel. Further more to pedagogically dig the soil of my soul and find roots in my feelings. For example, I am disinterested in traditional education, but instead of approaching these emotions passively and disregarding them in a place that I have no control over them, I use writing like this to gain insight, through my honesty, as to where the roots of these feelings started to grow. This process I have been exploring of using tools, like writing, to dig the soil of my identity to find the roots to how I relate to the world, and build a relationship to those roots developing, growing, changing and moving is the only true form of education I have found meaning in.
Introduction to my Art and Craft of Writing Portfolio:
A lamp lights my bed and I slouch, staring at my computer screen, brainstorming how to introduce this project. I was not enthused when I started to create this book. I was frustrated about school, specifically this class. I was annoyed by the fact that I was only turning my writing in for a grade again (which I had hope would help my final grade after all my unknown unexcused absences). I felt vulnerable in my creativity and my enjoyment to write. I was sick of receiving B+ papers with no response other than the portrayal of misplaced commas and confusing images. I appreciated the lessons learned and gained insight, but I felt as if the experiences shared by myself and other students were written off as more homogenized assignments lost in the shadows of the “to be graded” file. I had concluded never to write for a grade again and find alternatives to a classroom to continue to explore how to improve my writing.
I sat in front of the sewing machine after spending a day with a glue stick and magazine clippings. My sewn covers would not fit under the needle, so I had to make an extension with a t-shirt and only sew the edges of the covers to bind the paper separate from the edge. It worked! The last piece of thread punched through the wool, cardboard and paper, and a knot released from my stomach. I forgot about having to turn this in the following morning and admired the book that I created in front of me. I forgot about the grade, or the commentary and I remembered that I love writing. I had created something that I wanted to keep for myself.
Sewing this book was a process, and really created a living metaphor to the writing inside of it. I wrote a lot about movement. Specifically traveling, but the growth that took place around or inside that traveling. I sewed this book as if it were myself. I was honest in the creation; not trying to overdue it, or stress myself out, but instead relax and watch the creation take place without an overbearing presence of my judgmental self. The pieces were arranged the way I felt they should be. Not much intention behind it, but more how I felt when I decided to sew them in. I allowed my fingers to press glue on white pages and my toes to push down on the pedal of the sewing machine without my brain getting too much in the way. I watched my stories to arrange themselves. My writing moved and changed into a book, and I am happy with the final product.
5/25/09
The semesters over. I am done and am relieved this Monday morning to not be rushing to my Art and Craft of Writing class. I concluded my finals week simply. I turned my tests in and left. There was no sincerity with the goodbyes and I left each class like I would have left my first class, but this time I didn’t have to return. It was relieving in a non- climactic way. I ended up with decent grades (somewhat surprisingly.) I had an A in Chicano Studies, a B in Spanish, and a C in Art and Craft of Writing (a whole letter was docked in this one for “unexcused absences”).
My sister drove me to school and I ran into the Kings Center not sure where my Art and Craft of Writing class was. Instead of having a final in this class we were assigned to pick and exemplary piece of writing from our portfolios and read it to the class. I ran to the third floor of the Kings Center and scanned all the classrooms looking for familiar faces. There were none. I made a loop around all the classrooms a couple times and started to feel a bit nervous. Today was my day to present! I had to be there. I ran around a corner and saw my professor walking toward me. I was relieved and slowed my jog to a walk. He nodded at me without saying hello and then opened the door to the classroom. No one was there. He looked at me confused and asked nervously, “You’re it?” I laughed. No one came. By this time it was already past the start of the class and I could see embarrassment and frustration seeping through my professor in a form of sweat on his upper lip. It was rather awkward between the two of us because he clearly knew that I did not respect him after reading my introduction to my portfolio. Luckily, shortly after the realization that we were alone and the awkward silence that followed, a couple more students walked in and laughed at the lack of attendance. My professor sat down and rubbed his temple, placed his glasses on his desk, and silently asked for the three of us to sit down and start our presentations. I started and finished with silence. I had my responses and they were fine, and then we moved on to the next presenter. As he was reading there was a rumble on the staircase outside. Through the small window in the door appeared dozens of flushed faces searching dramatically for their class. It was the missing students and their eyes met mine directing them for the door, which they opened abruptly, exploding with explanations as to why they were late. It turned out to be the professor’s fault. He had put the room number 301 but it was really in 303 and when the professor who actually had her final in 301 found a room full of students who weren’t hers, she sent them away. In frustration, they walked across campus to the south classroom (our normal classroom) but found no one there also. They waited there until finally making the decision to return to the Kings Center where they found the four of us sitting quietly in the door next to their original stop. The class had been in session for almost an hour. Our professor tried hard to avoid the blame, but his embarrassment was obvious and he silenced himself continuing with the presentations.
The rest of my classes ran smoothly. I simply went to the classroom where our finals were, completed the final and left. The sun was shining as I walked out of my Chicano Studies class and I slowly walked to the light rail for the last time as a Metropolitan State College student.
The insights I gained from my participation are not fully clear. I was given wonderful examples though as how to not to teach and where not to teach. The contradictions I encountered in the blank white walls in my writing class, or Spanish homework assignments being supplied on the internet with oral exams recorded through microphones and digitally sent to the computer of our professor, helped me capture the absurd condition traditional education has placed itself into and the detrimental effects it has on minds lacking the importance of critical thought. I have seen clearly how passively a majority of students approach their education, and the lack of accountability some educators have with their responsibility to create nurturing environments for the students to learn.
6/2/09
It saddens me that there are schools that people attend only to “get it over with.” College confuses me because of the urgency settled in the doors of classrooms, waiting. Waiting for the calendar pages to turn and another semester to be over. Waiting for the caps to be thrown and a powdered hand to gift you a diploma. Waiting to start your life in the “real world.” There is something wrong with paying for school and feeling the obligation to participate as if it were a job.
I spoke with a close friend who one day decided to take the day off of school. He told me that in his waking moments when he stared at the sun and knew that that day was not a day to be in a classroom, he felt anxiety creep into his chest and tighten forcing him to lie back down. He asked himself where this anxiety came from and concluded that he felt an obligation to attend school because of guilt and fear.
There is a need for alternatives to schools maintaining control by placing a false obligation on students built by guilt and fear. I am not sure where the core of this fear based obligation lies, whether it be the monetary element (or in other words getting your moneys worth), or a life spent in a fluorescent classroom facing forward, but this obligation needs to be eliminated in order for educational environments to be empowering. I spent to many days at Metro making up games to figure out how many seconds were left in the class to reflect on the experience with optimism.
I must say that I am leaving Metro with a new fuel pushing me towards my dream of becoming an educator and creating new functioning alternatives to the institutions in place. My frustration has turned into an appreciation for the lessons learned by observing my ignoramus Art and Craft of Writing professor, or conversing with my Chicano Studies professor, or even taking final exams on the Internet for my Spanish course. I move forward now with new perspectives on how desperate our educational system is in and how far we have trailed from any sort of empowering curriculum.
Hmmm. I guess I’m empowered by this realization? I guess this is what school is.
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