Papers from Fall semester

I got of bunch of the papers I wrote last semester up on my new website. I hope some of them will be of interest to people. The three that I'm most proud of:

• Bernice Robinson and the Citizenship Education Schools (lays the groundwork for my thesis and should be of interest to teachers everywhere)
• Images of White People in Harlem Literature (this is really the first part of the independent study I am doing)
• The Future of New Orleans Higher Education (though already out of date, documents just one more catastrophic result of the man-made and natural disaster that was Hurricane Katrina)

Indy Study: Goals

On a personal level, my main goal for this independent study is to do the groundwork that will allow me to write a curriculum for suburban high school students about perceptions of majority otherness. On a scholarly level, I hope to develop a framework and vocabulary that in some way transcends the Self-Other dialectic. Unlike Mia Bay and David Roediger (who have written on this subject from a historical perspective), I am not particularly concerned with empirical accuracy of black visions of whiteness. I am interested in the ways in which the representation of whites by blacks serves as both an act of resistance and self-affirmation. Drawing on Bay, I want to look at the implicit theory of race that accompanies representations of whiteness. I also want to test Roediger’s claim that representations of white people and whiteness in black writing falls into two main categories: whiteness as property and whiteness as terror. My initial reaction is that this is an oversimplification and I hope to develop accompanying categories.

The books I am reading fall into two main categories. The first category is books primarily about black people. The analysis of these books will augment the analysis of my final paper from Writing Black New York. These will (tentatively) included The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The Known World by Edward P. Jones, Parable of the Sowerby Octavia E. Butler, and Native Son, by Richard Wright.

The second group of books are “white life” novels that focus whites. These will include Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, Seraph on the Suwanee by Zora Neale Hurston, Savage Holidayby Richard Wright, Country Place by Ann Petry, and Knock on Any Door by Willard Motley. These books present their own unique sets of questions: Does the focus on white make race more or less visible? Are these books meant to be critical of their subject or are the lack of racial difference meant to allow the author to focus on other issues? How does the fact that these works are written by black, rather than white, authors change my reading and understanding of the book?

Works Refereced:
Bay, Mia. The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas About White People, 1830-1925. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Roediger, David R. "Introduction." Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White. Ed. David R. Roediger. New York: Schocken Books, 1998. 1-26.

Indy Study: Background

One of the requirements of my student teaching program was to complete a Personal Inquiry Project, which combined research with observation of my classroom. I asked the question, “How Should I Approach Sensitive Multicultural Issues in a Homogeneous Environment?” I did my student teaching at a small public school in the richest town in Rhode Island that was over 95% white. For my purposes here, the key conclusions were:

• Students must learn to see themselves as whites and understand the accompanying privilege
• Students cannot just study “Others” but also must do extensive self reflection and analysis in terms of their own identity, therefore developing the ability to see their selves through different mirrors.
• This cannot happen through doing “token” classes on current issues. This must be done repeatedly and it must be a foundation for the curriculum.

Research and personnel experience suggests that the racial identity of most white suburban students is either normative and/or invisible. That is, most white students do not identify as “white” in any meaningful way. They do not, for the most part, incorporate as part of their identity their whiteness or the extensive privilege that this whiteness carries (for further explanation, see Peggy McIntosh’s invaluable essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”). Because of this, most white people do not recognize that others see them and their whiteness is different ways.

It is my hypothesis that one curricular method for rectifying this problem is to use materials in this classroom that reveal the viewpoints of non-whites towards white people. Teaching these pieces to students would be like holding up new mirrors to students who are only used to looking at themselves in a very certain way as racial beings. As the study of perceptions of whites by non-whites has received scant scholarly attention, this independent study is an attempt to investigate sources of writing that reveal some of the attitudes and perceptions of white people by black people in the United States.

Independent Study: Perceptions of Whiteness and White People in Black Literature

This semester, I will be completing an Independent Study looking at the perceptions of whiteness and white people in black literature with Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin. This project is part of my master's degree in African-American Studies at Columbia University. Over the next three months, I will be reading and writing about (primarily) fictional work written by black American authors since the 1945 which of interesting or insightful depictions of whites and whiteness. Dr. Griffin has kindly allowed my writing medium to be this blog. I will be reading one book approximately every week and posting thoughts about the work, its depictions of whites and whiteness, and some thoughts on using the work in the classroom.

Update

I finished my first semester of grad school. It went well. Learned a ton, and I feel like I'm beginning to understand the history of this country of ours. While being a grad student certainly has its detractions (it has been hard for me to go from interacting with nearly 100 students on any given day to doing most of my work by myself at a desk or in the library), I feel like it has given me a great opportunity to really develop, grow, and mature as a student and scholar.

This semester my course load is down. I'm doing a seminar on Black Leadership in American Politics, a research seminar, and I an independent study on the representation of white people and whiteness in black literature (much more to come on this soon - it will involve this blog). Most of time will be focused on my thesis on the Civil Rights Citizenship Schools. I was in Charleston, SC two weeks ago doing archival research, which was really an incredible experience that I wish more people, particularly high school students, could have.

I miss being in the classroom, and am eager to return in the fall. I have started looking for high school social studies positions in NYC for the coming Fall, and would be glad to hear of any leads, opportunities, or suggestions.

All in all things are going well. I love living in Brooklyn, and plans for my June wedding are coming along smoothly.

I want to post some of my work from last semester. As I am currently without web hosting, does anyone have any suggestions on how to do this free or cheaply? I've been looking at ourmedia.org, but it seems a little cumbersome. I may just do some really cheap web hosting, but I'd rather not have to pay. Hopefully I'll have this figured out in the next couple days, and I'll be able to make my stuff available.

A Quasi-Hiatus

First off, thanks to all my students who's been leaving messages. It's been great to hear from all of you and I'm glad things seem to be going well.

The first month of grad school has gone really well. I'm pretty much constantly working (I average about 1000 pages of reading and 5 pages of writing a week), but the work is really interesting and I'm learning a ridiculous amount --both fact wise as well as gaining a better understanding of how the society we live in really works.

I haven't been posting (and realistically, will not be posting much for the coming year) for two reasons. First, I just really don't have the time (though this is serving as great procrastination for starting the paper I need to outline before going out tonight). But second, and more importantly, much of the thoughts I'm having now revolve around issues of race and class, two topics that are unfortunately completely politicized in most of the discourse in the United States. Even though I feel the work I do is analytical and grounded in sound academic methodology, I don't want to publish a lot of these thoughts in order to not alienate anyone reading this, or any future students of mine who may read this.

So with that, I am going to take a quasi-hiatus from blogging. I will still post occasionally when I feel I have thoughts or work that are safe to share (one of these will be a paper I am working on in a history research seminar looking at the role of educational philosophy and pedagogy in the foundation of the Citizenship Schools which were an integral part of early civil rights organization). And I'll always check for comments and respond to anything there (and my e-mail is outsidethecave@gmail.com if anyone needs me).

To My Students From Last Year

Just wanted to wish everyone good luck with sophomore year. My sophomore year, for reasons good and bad, was probably the most significant year of my life. It was the year that for me, marked the real turning point between being a kid and a young adult. I wish you all the best on the journey.

If you're going to South County, good luck with being at a new school. I hope things run smoothly for you.

If you're still at Hayfield, you are lucky. You have a lot of really good and committed teachers who want to be at the school to work with you. Let me know in the comments or IM who your World II teacher is. And if you play a sport, make sure to kick a little South County butt for me.

Have fun and keep in touch.

Back to School

So tomorrow is my first day of class as a graduate student.

I had orientation last week. The general Grad School orientation was pretty useless, but my department's orientation got me really excited. The African-American studies professors all seemed very down to earth and eager to teach - a far cry from many of the professors I had at Brown. I'm really looking forward to working with them.

My fellows students also seemed great. There are 10 of us starting the program this fall. Everyone seemed to be very intelligent and passionate about being there. I can tell they have a lot to offer. One of the other students taught elementary school, and there is another who wants to get a job writing history curriculum after the program. And I have to admit, I was somewhat relieved to not be the only white person in the program (there is 1 other).

As of now I'm signed up for 19 credits, which sounds like a little too much but there are just too many good sounding classes and not enough time. But as of now my course load is:

• African-American Studies Research and Writing (Tuesdays)
• Writing Black New York (Tuesdays)
• Comparative Literature of the African Diaspora (Monday and Wednesday)
• Race and the Articulation of the Difference (Thursday)
• Seminar is African-American History: 1945-Present (Thursday)

As excited as I am to start class, I'm definitely missing the anticipation of the first day from the teacher's POV. Last night I ended up out with a woman who is starting her first teaching job this week. I felt pretty envious. Oh well....next year.

Clarence's Questions About Blogger

Clarence posted some questions in the comments about the blogging project I did with my students last fall, specifically about using Blogger.

Overall, I really liked using Blogger. It was a little time consuming to set up initially (though not as bad as I'll make it sound) but once we got going, it worked great. I'd say that total process of setting up 16 blogs took about an hour of my time, and then about 10 minutes per group in class. The most time consuming part was creating each blog. I also spent a little time designing a template, though I had some experience from my site. I just used one of the standard Blogger Templates, then took out the navbar (and Next Blog Button!!! directions are here) and some of the other sidebar content. I then added a blogroll to link all the blogs together using Bloglines. (The template is a kind of weird hybrid of CSS, html, and some unique Blogger things. The Blogger help section has a good walkthrough).

I retained the master login for each blog. This allowed me to edit and delete posts at will (though I only had to do this one or two times with 100 students). Once the blogs are created, you can invite others to join through their e-mail. You have the option to give the individuals who join full editorial privileges, or only the ability to post and edit/delete their own posts (I chose the latter). Each student then received an e-mail inviting them to join. They each got their own unique login and password. (When I did the Responsible Blogging Lesson, one of the very few rules I myself added was that individuals were responsible for what was done on their login, so if they shared it with a friend that was at their own risk)

I hope that answers your questions. Please let me know if you have any more.

A Very Untriumphant Return

Man, did I fall off the ball on this front.

I'm really hoping to get back in the habit of posting. I think it will be really helpful and beneficial for me as I start my grad school program (orientation is Tuesday).

Since moving to New York, I've felt very disconnected form my experiences as a teacher in Virginia. I think I took the easy way out in not thinking about a lot of things from the end of the year and just focused whole-heartedly on establishing my life here with my fiancee (which has gone very well). One important lesson I learned was it's probably not a good idea to publish a whole list of things I'm planning on writing about...feel like a bit of jackass for that now. I'm sorry to anyone who was looking forward to reading about those things.

Part of me was ready to just leave this blogging experiment behind, but the heckling I got in the comments wouldn't let me do that. So I will try to wrap up some loose ends before I start class after Labor Day. (Clarence, answering your question is the #1 thing on my to-do list for Monday...thanks for the kick in the butt I needed to get back writing)

It has been a great summer though. Had a great trip to LA to visit my best friend from college (with a weekend road trip to Vegas) and another great week on Cape Cod with my fiancee's family. Otherwise I've been spending my time in NYC taking advantage of all the free offerings of the city during the summer. I've seen some great concerts (highlights were Wilco, Clap Your Hands Says Yeah, and Neil Diamond with my mom for her birthday last weekend at MSG). I've also had time to read a ton. Been averaging a book a week or so. Most interesting was probably Fast Food Nation. That, followed up with finally seeing Super Size Me, has eliminated fast food from my life.

I moved into my own apartment last week. It's the first time (and last time) in my life I've lived alone. So far I'm really enjoying it.

I hope everyone has been having good summers. Good luck to everyone returning to the classroom as students or teachers.