Cultural Standards: What Knowledge Counts?

In April, I traveled to Chicago to present our curriculum paper at the American Educational Research Association. This is the paper that Jill, Megan, and I wrote on centering the margins in psychology education. The best thing about conferences is meeting educators from around the world who are doing social justice work. At AERA, which is the largest educational research conference and brings educators from all over the world, I met some very wonderful educators from Aotearoa/New Zealand. We exchanged papers and continued our dialogue over email. Huia Tomlins-Jahnke is a Professor at Massey University in the School of Maori and Mulitcultural Education. I asked Huia if it would be okay with her if I posted some of her writing as a way of continuing our dialogue on the blog and she said yes. Here are some of Huia’s thoughts on cultural standards in education:

“Invariably standards are about knowledge which bring to bear those critical questions regarding what knowledge counts, how knowledge should be organised (the curriculum) and/or packaged (as textbooks) for transmission? Transmission is concerned with pedagogy, with learning, with the curriculum and its construction. Which raises further questions regarding how learning will be facilitated and by whom? What criteria are necessary in pre-service selection and training of teachers? What are the implications of this for Colleges of Education and other pre-service providers? What do teachers need to know in order to ensure successful outcomes for Maori children? Schools serve to act as key agents of cultural and ideological hegemony and of selective traditions. The cultural capital that is enshrined in the schools habitus operates to reward and fail students in accordance with the cultural capital they bring (Bourdieu, 1999).”

from "The Development of Cultural Standards in Education: What are the Issues?" By Huia Tomlins-Jahnke, Te Uru Maraurau, School of Maori and Multicultural Education, Massey University, 23 August 2006

Curriculum transformation is perhaps the most central and urgent project educators have before us. Battles over curriculum are about who gets to say what is important to know and in what ways this will be taught. So, whether you read Huey's take on textbook priorities in The Boondocks or take a look at the painting "American Progress" the issue is there for all to see. The textbook is not just a book; it is The Book of Knowledge and textbooks are also Technologies of Knowledge. As Huia writes, textbooks are how knowledge is packaged for transmission.

In 2008, AERA will be in New York City which should also be a lot of fun.

Support the Matthew Shepard Act

From my friend Adrea at the Syracuse University LGBT Resource Center who is spreading the word:

You've got to watch this video. Thousands of people are attacked every year because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, and there's still no federal hate crimes law to protect them. This video is the most powerful statement I've seen on hate crimes, and I couldn't help but pass it on. I think you'll see why.

There's a bill in the Senate right now that would address this heartbreaking problem, and we only have a few weeks until the vote. It would mean a lot to me if you could take a minute to watch the video and write your Senators, and then pass this along to five friends. I really believe none of us can sit this one out. Just go to:

http://www.hrc.org/FightHate
or
Click on "Support the Matthew Shepard Act" (title of this post above)

Derrida

"To know how to “leave” and to “let” [laisser], and to know the meaning of “leaving” and “letting”—that is one of the most beautiful, most hazardous, most necessary things I know of. It is in close proximity with giving up and giving over, the gift, and forgiveness. The experience of “deconstruction” is never without this, without this love, if you prefer that word. It begins by paying homage to that which, to those whom, it “takes on,” I would say."

Jacques Derrida, For What Tomorrow…A Dialogue. Translated by Jeff Fort. Stanford University Press. 2004.

Dr. Emo attempts an English to English translation filtered through Boricua meanings created from a hybrid language of colonisation. Impossible, but here goes.

When trying to engage with knowledge or politics or art or any theory of how the world works, it’s necessary to let that be on its own; to engage it fully as a whole construction first. Even to love it which is to say to take it in fully through all of one’s senses. To bring it into one’s own system, if you will, one’s own body and body of knowledge, one’s own experience of thinking and constructing the world. Paying homage is to understand another on her/his own terms; to let that person be as s/he is; to leave that person to be able to be with them in a way that understands them in their difference. To deconstruct involves a passion for the whole and not as is more generally thought a passion for destruction or fragmentation. To deconstruct is to reflect deeply and complexly on the many parts that make the whole in order to remake a new whole. It is like a puzzle that once you have all the pieces in place you then take them apart to make it again but in the taking each piece apart it is reconfigured and a new puzzle is necessarily made in the putting together and taking apart. At the edge of each piece, at the edges of difference, things fit together. Which is not to say that similarity is the same as difference smoothed around the edges. It’s also not to say that differences fit together.

Dr. Emo apasionadamente loves the impossible.

On the Water

On the Water that morning
Blue Heron flew off as usual
When she saw me
How lucky I was to say “as usual”
To see Heron fly, beak open
Making her loud screech of a call
I followed her wanting to feel
The force of her powerful wings
Kayaking out along the shoreline
The rhythm of paddling becoming
My own set of wings
Looking for birds
Each one a blessing, a chance to fly
Out of Water and into Sky
Heron landed on the shore
Flew off again, swooping
I followed along
The rhythm of paddling becoming
My own set of wings
Back and forth, back and forth
Dip into Water, push against Water
I love how the Ducks
Ignore the plastic Owls
Placed on docks
To scare them away but instead
They dry themselves
In the warm sun, heads tucked in
Calm with no intent of feeling fear
When I walked up from the lake
Pileated Woodpecker was in the woods
Fiercely working away
At the dead wood
Clutching the side of the tree bark
His bright red black white feathers
Shone through the leaf shadows
I had just been missing him
When he appeared
He said, “Join me”
The rhythm of paddling became
My own set of wings.






for Dr. Brissette

Derrida

"To ask me to renounce what formed me, what I’ve loved so much, what has been my law, is to ask me to die. In this fidelity there is a sort of instinct for self-preservation. To renounce, for example, some difficult formulation, some complication, paradox, or supplementary contradiction, because it is not going to be understood, or rather because some journalist who does not know how to read it, or even the title of the book, thinks he or she understands that the reader or audience will not understand any better, and that his or her ratings and job will suffer as a result, is for me an unacceptable obscenity. It is as if I were being asked to capitulate or to subjugate myself – or else to die of stupidity."

Jacques Derrida, Learning To Live Finally: The Last Interview. Translation by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Nass. 2007. Melville House Publishing, Hoboken, NJ.


OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
What Derrida Really Meant
By MARK C. TAYLOR

Published: October 14, 2004
New York Times

Mr. Derrida's name is most closely associated with the often cited but rarely understood term "deconstruction." Initially formulated to define a strategy for interpreting sophisticated written and visual works, deconstruction has entered everyday language. When responsibly understood, the implications of deconstruction are quite different from the misleading clichés often used to describe a process of dismantling or taking things apart. The guiding insight of deconstruction is that every structure - be it literary, psychological, social, economic, political or religious - that organizes our experience is constituted and maintained through acts of exclusion. In the process of creating something, something else inevitably gets left out.

These exclusive structures can become repressive - and that repression comes with consequences. In a manner reminiscent of Freud, Mr. Derrida insists that what is repressed does not disappear but always returns to unsettle every construction, no matter how secure it seems. As an Algerian Jew writing in France during the postwar years in the wake of totalitarianism on the right (fascism) as well as the left (Stalinism), Mr. Derrida understood all too well the danger of beliefs and ideologies that divide the world into diametrical opposites: right or left, red or blue, good or evil, for us or against us. He showed how these repressive structures, which grew directly out of the Western intellectual and cultural tradition, threatened to return with devastating consequences. By struggling to find ways to overcome patterns that exclude the differences that make life worth living, he developed a vision that is consistently ethical.

Little Sister Makes Big News

Natalia Muñoz, in Family Tradition, Launches New Bilingual Newspaper
By Edward Shanahan
Café Evolution in Florence - the location for my conversation with Natalia Muñoz about the bilingual newspaper she has recently launched here - seemed altogether fitting.

She and I first became colleagues 25 years ago when she was a new, but untrained, proof reader at the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Later a friend, Muñoz, a native of Puerto Rico, labored during weekly dialogues to help me with my rudimentary Spanish.

Today, as editor of La Prensa del oeste de Massachusetts, Muñoz, 46 and a resident of Florence, has come full circle in the field of journalism. Even more significantly, she has wound up carrying on a long family tradition, which saw her great grandfather and grandfather running a newspaper – La Democracia - for many turbulent decades in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Her paper, La Prensa (The Press), is published once a month, almost entirely in Spanish, although on its Web site www.LaPrensaMa.com, there are English translations of most articles. The free paper has circulated 3,500 copies in each of its first two issues, and Muñoz is projecting a circulation of 10,000 within a year as well as paid advertising support.

To read the whole article by Edward Shanahan click on "Little Sister Makes Big News"

¡La lucha continúa!

Oh, just in case you're wondering how many little sisters & brothers I have it all depends on how you count, but I'll leave figuring out The Boricua Kinship System to The Anthropologists. In order of appearance, here are my sisters and brothers; Teresa, Natalia, Andrés, Ana Gabriela, Annie, and Peter.

PACE

A couple of months ago I hung the PACE flag from my office window. I had this fantasy that anyone who had a flag for social justice or cualquier tipo de bandera que significa liberación would open their windows and do the same. Well, I waited and the PACE flag hung there by itself for months. Wouldn't it have been great if other faculty had gotten out their flags in solidarity? What keeps people from doing beautiful things? The PACE flag is beautiful. Rainbow stripes like LGBT pride and the word PEACE. The Italians made this one up to protest the invasion of Iraq. I wonder if it's still there since I haven't been back to check. It doesn't exactly go with the architecture of the brick Ivy League kind of building, Macmillan Hall, but it goes with the times. I have to go get my office cleaned up for the person who will be teaching my courses next year. I'd like to leave the flag hanging out the window though. Ya veremos.

P.S. Rene' and Debbie made me want to look up some more information on the Italian peace flag. Turns out the Italians have been making rainbow peace flags against war since the 1960's and it has gone through several versions before the PACE one now. The current flag is part of a campaign, "Peace from every balcony," which was to protest Italian involvement in Iraq. Other countries have also made adaptations of this flag to protest war. Now, I REALLY wish everyone had a flag hanging out their office windows. I mean, wouldn't that be something to see while driving through Aurora? And how about hanging a PACE flag next to each and every one of those UCE signs that have written on them, "No sovereign nation. No reservation"? Invasion of Iraq. Invasion of the Cayuga Nation. Yes, compañer@s, PACE flags are needed.

Informed Consent? or What's Wrong With This Picture? Part 2007

Here we are 135 years later after the painting of "American Progress." Today, in the New York Times we get word again that Indigenous people are being used as experimental objects by Western Science. Take a look at this article by clicking on the title of this post. The last sentences in the article should give you chills, that is, if you haven't already had them throughout reading:

“None of these samples have been used in an unethical manner,” Dr. Salzano added. As for the question of informed consent, he added, “That is always relative.”

Okay, does Dr. Salzano mean who your relatives are makes a difference in informed consent? As in, I have relatives that I could call to come get you? Or, does he mean, consent is relative to how human you are judged to be by him? Anyone out there know how informed consent can be relative?

For another perspective, how about this from the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism:

Bad Science
Bad science is scientific research that harms people against their will.
It imposes itself on the subjects; it operates against the notion of consent.
It may be based on coerced consent, failing to reveal relevant information to secure consent.
Research where the subjects do not stand to benefit.
Tribes can and must take control of any research activity that takes place within their territories and affects their people.

http://www.ipcb.org/publications/primers/htmls/ipgg.html

Now, let's not get all high-minded about how this only happens in Brazil. Brazil actually makes the new regional sized jets that JetBlue is purchasing every other day to expand its fleet. So, let's not get into this Brazil is backward and Third World mode. The Genographic Project planned to collect blood from Alaska Natives. And, believe it or not, it was National Geographic on board to document it. Education, Technology, Knowledge. Let's deconstruct the painting "American Progress" again, shall we? This time we need to add the word, Bio-Piracy.

Visiting Fellow

I am excited to be a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University for 2007 - 2008. The Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program is sponsoring me. Here is their logo and you can check out the program by clicking on Visiting Fellow (the title of this post). Looking forward to meeting people and learning all sorts of new ideas. I'll write more from there once I get settled in this fall. A big thank you to everyone who made this happen. It's a real gift to have this opportunity. Cornell is so big compared to Wells. Everytime I go there I have to rearrange my eyes from looking at small village scenes to enormous Ivy League Buildings. It's a complete perceptual shift which is dizzying for my small eyes. Does this mean when I get back to Wells that I'll have to squint to see it? Just playing. Plus, gotta love being a Fellow. It's the beginning of una adventura. Pa' lante es pa' ya. Gracias, compañer@s.

Friends

Okay, well, it's obvious that The Boondocks comic strip is my life right now. No offense to all you Friends fans out there. It's just that it's a club. Members only. Remember those days? Still here, mi gente. The good ol' days. Aaron McGruder is still on sabbatical. Be sure to come back, dude. We need you out here.

Wechique Cumple Hoy

Little Sister is a little older today. ¡Feliz cumpleaños Wechique!







I remember when she was just about her daughter Amalia's age. Time flies. Fun or not, mi gente.

Can You Read Minds?

My friend Jill sent me this cartoon from The Boondocks comic strip. Since I have things in common with cartoonists this year and I've been deconstructing school books I thought it was a perfect post for today. As it turns out, Aaron McGruder is on sabbatical from writing his comic strip. What's that text book you're using say? (See post, What's Wrong With This Picture?)

Nico Graduates

Here is Nico, my nephew, who just graduated from high school on June 9 and will be going on to college in Vermont this fall. We are all very proud of him!!! Nico played football during high school because that is his passion. As a high school football player, Nico won honors in the state of Maine. He is interested in transferring to Ithaca College -- to be near his Tía of course -- and in becoming a history teacher. Nico is also interested in Finance and lots of other places and colleges. It's good to have an open mind and ver lo que pasa compañer@os. ¿What's not to love, mi gente?

Amazing Grace

Grace knows I love boats. That’s why she told me that she and, her partner, Kurt had been storing a Sunfish in their garage for over fifteen years for a friend of theirs who moved to where there was no water. I said, “Really? It hasn’t been in water for that long?” Grace asked me if I wanted the boat because they were now themselves going to be moving. Kurt had rigged thick ropes to suspend the sailboat at the top of the garage. The design of the storage rigging was ingenious with pulleys and clamps to lift and lower the boat. It looked as if a spider had caught the boat in its web.

This Sunfish dated back to the 60’s and is one of the early models. Since the design hasn't changed much the way you can tell if it's pre-1970's is by the rudder. The older ones have a rudder that doesn’t clip on easily like the newer ones do, but instead has to be manually tightened by turning a wing nut every time before setting out to sail. It is also a heavier boat than the ones built today which makes it feel more stable on the water when the breeze is up and sluggish when there’s little wind. Except for these two things the Sunfish has basically remained the same in design over the years. You will know any Sunfish once you get to know just one. They are not like cars that change designs but still go by the same name, say a Mustang.

A Sunfish looks like a Sunfish and handles like a Sunfish whether built 30 years ago or today. The sail has to have the officially stylized imprint of a sunfish on it and has to have five stripes. The colors can vary, but the number of stripes cannot. These kinds of details are what makes a “class” of boats and is really only important if you want to race because you have to meet all the specifications of the class you are racing in. There are other things, too, like how high you can rig your sail and at what angle you can tilt your rudder on the newer boats not the older ones because that older wing nut design doesn’t give you that flexibility.

But let’s go back to Grace and Kurt’s garage. Here was this beautiful old boat caught in Kurt’s web. It had been there long enough that generations of mud wasps had built nests in every possible place so that when we started to let the ropes loose to set the boat down on the top of my car, the air in the garage got dusty. The hull was intact but the boat needed everything else. The rudder, tiller, sail, and rigging had long gone into disrepair or had disappeared over the years. It was still a good boat though. She didn’t exactly drop down from the sky, although Kurt’s garage web made it seem like she did, but she was an unexpected gift. After cleaning her off and getting her rigged up the only possible name for a boat that had been suspended in the air for fifteen years, was offered as a gift from Grace, and was now floating on water had to be Amazing Grace.

What's Wrong With This Picture? Part 1

Besides everything? This was painted by John Gast in 1872. The idea was to show Manifest Destiny in all its glory. The painting is called, "American Progress."

Let's deconstruct, shall we?

In writings about this painting (click on post title for more) various authors comment on how it expresses the sentiment of Americans at that time. The expansion West as God given (Destiny) and the obvious (Manifest) reasons for this expansion: Progress. First off, in the left part of the painting Indigenous peoples are being displaced and run off the land. Animals are running away. This is all to make space for the telegraph wires of Technology the Woman is carrying as she flies through the air. I won't bother writing about Her color. Gender expression: Super Feminine (she can fly!). Sexuality: Unknown. Class: Hard to imagine what work you could do in that outfit. But what is she carrying in her arms? It's a school book signifying Education. Behind and below her are the settlers who will claim the land as, obviously, theirs because they have Education, Knowledge, and Technology. So, when some of us say, "Hey, wait, what education? Who are we teaching? Why?" it's that we see this school book floating through the air and invading everything held sacred for the sake of someone else's Education, Knowledge, and Technology. It's been 135 years since this was painted. What's that school book you're using say?

¡Si, se puede!

The rallying call, "¡Sí, se puede!" (Yes, we can! or Yes, it is possible!) was first used by the United Farm Workers Union, Cesar Chavez, and Dolores Huerta. Last year, it became the rallying call for immigrant rights and is more broadly used by Latin@s in the U.S. in social justice struggles.

Check out the short film, "¡Sí Se Puede! The Cesar Chavez Day of Service and Learning 2002": Michael Jackson’s Fremont High School Media Academy students documented the work of young people to rename a park in honor of Cesar Chavez. Students from all grade levels participated in the effort. They presented at City Council meetings, planted trees, painted tiles and studied the life of Cesar Chavez. Their hard work culminated in a successful community effort to rename the park.

Also, more excellent shorts made by students. Click on ¡Sí, se puede! (post title at top).

Who Gets To Be White?

Debbie, who is a student at Wells and a Woman in Life Long Learning (WILL student), emailed me with a great question for a boricua on sabbatical. Here is what Debbie wrote:

"I know you do not consider yourself white, but here is my question......if it was the early 20th century, were Italians also not considered white? My grandfather, who was a very dark Italian married my grandmother who was Ukrainian(white) and that was a huge deal at that time. Or maybe there is more to all this than I understand. Of course, I swear you're more Italian than anything! LOL I’ve seen you talking with your hands just like I do!!!!"

Well, Italians did immigrate to Puerto Rico in the 1800's, so I might be a little Italian... But you raise the interesting question of who is white and who can be counted as "white" in the U.S. and when.

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia on Boricuas. Now, I'm not encouraging you to use Wiki as a primary source for your term papers, but this overview below isn't too bad:

"Puerto Ricans, who also commonly identify themselves as Boricua, are largely the descendants of native Taíno Indians, Europeans and African slaves, a blend which has produced one of the most multi-cultural and diversified people in the Americas. Their population is estimated to be between 7.7 and 8 million worldwide, with most living within the islands of Puerto Rico and in the United States.

The Puerto Ricans’ original ancestors are the Taíno Indians, the native people who inhabited the island of Puerto Rico at the time of the European colonization, called the island of Boriken. However, as in other parts of the North and South American continents, the native peoples soon diminished in number after the arrival of European settlers, by creating exploitation and warfare, and bringing with them diseases, including measles, chicken pox, mumps, influenza and even the common cold. These factors would prove detrimental for the Taínos in Puerto Rico and surrounding Caribbean islands, so much so that by the early 1500s, very few pure-blood Taínos existed on the island. However the University of Puerto Rico later discovered that over 60% of students tested contained Taino ancestory. The Spanish, as well as the [word missing] , quickly began to import Sub-Saharan African slaves to work in expanding the colonies in the Caribbean.

In the 16th century, a significant part of Puerto Rican culture began to take shape with the import of Sub-Saharan African slaves by the Spanish, as well as by the French, the English, the Dutch and the Portuguese. Thousands of Spanish settlers also immigrated to Puerto Rico from the Canary Islands during the 18th and 19th centuries, so much so that whole Puerto Rican villages and towns were founded by Canarian immigrants, and their descendants would later form a majority of the Spanish population on the island. These were followed by the arrival of Corsican immigrants along with smaller waves of French, Dutch, Chinese, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Portuguese (especially Azoreans) and German immigrants. In recent times, Puerto Rico has been the destination for immigrants from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, South America and Spain, as well from islands of the West Indies. In 1791, the slaves in Saint Dominique (Haiti), revolted against their French masters. Many of the French escaped to Puerto Rico via the Dominican Republic and settled in the west coast of the island, especially in Mayagüez.

Racial mixing, even before abolition, was more common in Puerto Rico than in Cuba or the English and French colonies. In the mid 19th century, Spain revived the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 which permitted the immigration of Italians (principally from Corsica), Germans, Irish, and the Chinese (who started arriving on the island as rail-road workers), settling mainly in the southern cities of Puerto Rico. A census conducted by royal decree on September 30, 1858, reveals the racial and national diversity among the Puerto Rican population at this time, with 300,430 identified as white, 341,015 as free-colored, and 41,736 as slaves. More recent arrivals include inhabitants from nearby islands, including Dominicans and a substantial population of Cuban immigrants after 1959

The Puerto Rico of today has evolved, as have all other former Spanish colonies, to form its own social customs, cultural matrix, American influences, historically-rooted traditions and its own unique pronunciation, vocabulary, and idiomatic expressions within the Spanish language. Even after the attempted assimilation of Puerto Rico into the United States in the early 20th Century, the majority of the people of Puerto Rico feel pride in their nationality as "Puerto Ricans", regardless of the individual's particular racial, ethnic, political or economic background. Puerto Ricans are consciously aware of their blend of African, Caribbean or American Indian, and from European ancestry. This diversity can be seen in the everyday lifestyle of Puerto Ricans, such as the African and Taíno influences in the local food and arts (including dances, music, literature and visual works), and the profound European influences in Puerto Rico architecture.

In the 2000 U.S. Census Puerto Ricans were asked to identify which racial category with which they personally identify. 95.8% answered with only one choice. The breakdown is as follows: [1]. These figures demonstrate that racial terms are relative, not absolute, and highlight the potential for confusion when they are used in a definitive and distinct way.However, a 2003 U.S. National Science Foundation funded study that measured Puerto Rican ancestry through both patrilineal and matrilineal ancestry exposed a much more mixed ancestral heritage. About 95% of the population consider themselves to be Puerto Rican (regardless of race or skin color). Broad U.S. census categories allows the mixed ancestry of most Puerto Ricans to be officially acknowledged. For an example an American in Puerto Rico would choose if he/she is 'Hispanic' or 'Latino' then they would choose from the variety of races. for instance they can choose one or more of the following choices, white, black, or Amerindian/Native American. A 2003 U.S. National Science Foundation funded study measured Puerto Rican ancestry through both patrilineal and matrilineal ancestry. Matrilineal mtDNA ancestry revealed 67% of all Puerto Ricans were shown to have a female Amerindian ancestor, 27% to have a female African ancestor and 12% to have a female European ancestor. Patrilineal Y chromosome, showed that 75% of all Puerto Ricans possessed a male European ancestor, 20% had a male African ancestor and less than 5% were shown to have had a male Amerindian ancestor. These combinations vary as Puerto Ricans can be of any variety of combined ancestries. Native American (Arawak/Taino) or/and African ancestry are common among "white" Puerto Ricans after four centuries of intermarriage between the island's racial groups."

So, even "white" Boricuas aren't White. So, who gets to be white?

Psychology TA of the Year

Well, there isn't really an award for this, but if there were it would go to Megan Correia for all her work in diversity and psychology and for being un ángel. Here we are in Cleveland Hall at the end of the semester ready for the next thing that comes our way.

Some Goals for Sabbatical Year

This is the sabbatical leave proposal that I submitted to colleagues and the administration at Wells College. It was approved for the academic year 2007 - 2008. I have two primary professional interests; decolonial and frontera education and ethnic transgender psychologies. Seeing how these can be integrated is another goal for this year.

Centering the Margins in Psychology Education:
Intersections of Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Gender

During my sabbatical leave I plan to study pedagogical and methodological approaches used to make psychology education inclusive and welcoming to marginalized people, especially in the areas of sexuality, ethnicity, and gender. I want to explore how pedagogies in psychology attend to fragmentation, controversies, politics, their own search for relevance, meaning, and roles in addressing human oppression and educating about diverse human experiences. These kinds of critical approaches which address the needs of people who are sexually, ethnically, and gender diverse are already occurring within psychology and education (see for example, Fouad & Arredondo, 2007; Britzman, 2006; Aspin, 2005; Brown & Strega, 2005; Enns & Sinacore, 2005; Abbott Mihesuah, 2004; Lather, 2004; Bronstein & Quina, 2003; Nieto, 2002; Jenkins & Pihama, 2001; Jones, 2001; Martín-Baró,1994).

I am very interested in ways in which we in psychology and education can develop feminist, postcolonial, and liberatory pedagogies and methodologies which center subjugated knowledges and have social justice and self-determination as primary goals of education. As a Puerto Rican I know first-hand the struggle for an education which decolonizes and liberates rather than oppresses and subjugates. I plan to take an international approach to these issues because we educate and do research in a transnational and interdependent world.

I am curious to explore how I could develop Psy 250 Human Sexuality into a two-semester course which would center international perspectives in the study of sexuality. The fall course could be an overview of the various approaches to studying sexuality as I currently teach it now. But the spring course could focus on community-based centers, culturally based approaches to sexuality education, and more focused theoretical readings from places where sexuality education is being done in exemplary ways in both pedagogical and methodological ways. For example, at the University of Auckland where Clive Aspin has been conducting sexuality research with Maori for Maori.

Another way to explore pedagogical approaches that are culturally competent would be to visit and spend time at Diné College where my friend Wesley K. Thomas, Ph.D., is now Academic Dean of the Division of Humanities and Social/Behavioral Sciences. Another place to explore culturally competent pedagogical and methodological approaches would be with Alison Jones. Professor Jones (University of Auckland) is involved in ongoing feminist and postcolonial pedagogies with Maori and Pakeha students in ways that have similarities with our Diversity & Psychology tutorial.

I am curious about the possibility of creating a concentration within the psychology major at Wells which centers the experiences of oppressed people and plan to study models that currently exist in psychology. I would like to explore how a concentration in Postcolonial & Feminist Psychologies would add to our current psychology major and what new courses might be needed for such a concentration. For example, The Psychology of Racism, Latin@ Psychologies, and Liberation Psychology. A good place to explore this would be at the Centre for Feminist Research at York University which supports Visiting Scholars by providing office space and library privileges. The Centre also provides a venue for discussing these ideas with colleagues at York University which has strong Psychology and Women’s Studies programs and where my friend and longtime colleague Professor Deborah Britzman holds appointments in both programs. The Centre would also be a good place to prepare articles for publication and would provide space and time to integrate my experiences at Diné College and the School of Education at Auckland.

I have included examples of what I plan to conduct research on to illustrate that my plan of study has a central focus – to study pedagogical and methodological approaches used to make psychology and education inclusive and welcoming to marginalized people -- and that it can be carried out at various sites over the 07 – 08 academic year. Possible sites include: Diné College in Arizona, the Centre for Feminist Research at York University (Toronto), and the School of Education at the University of Auckland. These diverse places would provide me with experience in multicultural, feminist, and postcolonial pedagogies and methodologies which I would then bring to my own teaching, research, and curriculum development in Psychology and Women’s Studies and which would also contribute to the college’s diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Journals where I plan to submit this work for review for publication include; Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Psychology of Women, Teaching of Psychology, and Harvard Educational Review.

Select Bibliography

Aspin, C. (2005). The place of Takatapui identity within Maori society: Reinterpreting Maori sexuality within a contemporary context. Paper presented at Competing Diversities: Traditional Sexualities and Modern Western Sexual Identity Constructions Conference, Mexico City.

Martín-Baró, I. (1994). Writings for a Liberation Psychology. A. Aron & S. Corne (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Press.

Britzman, D. (1998). Lost subjects, contested objects: Toward a psychoanalytic inquiry of learning. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Britzman, D. (2006). Novel education: Psychoanalytic studies of learning and not learning. New York: Peter Lang.

Bronstein, P. and Quina, K. (Eds.). (2003). Teaching gender and multicultural awareness: Resources for the psychology classroom. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Brown, L. & Strega, S. (2005). Research as resistance: Critical, indigenous, and anti-oppressive approaches. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.

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¿Compai, pero que es un sabbatical?

Sabbatical year

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

A sabbatical year is a prolonged hiatus, typically one year, in the career of an individual taken in order to fulfill some goal, e.g. writing a book or traveling extensively for research. Some universities and other institutional employers of scientists, physicians, and/or academics offer a paid sabbatical as an employee benefit. Some companies offer an unpaid sabbatical for people wanting to take career breaks - this is a growing trend in the UK, with 20% of companies having a career break policy, and 10% considering introducing one.[1]

Sabbaticals are often taken by professors, pastors, cartoonists (e.g. Gary Larson and Bill Watterson), musicians (e.g. Cindy Wilson, Bobby McFerrin) and sportsmen (e.g. Alain Prost).

In UK students' unions, particularly in higher education institutions, students can be elected to become sabbatical officers of their students' union, either taking a year out of their study (in the academic year following their election) or remaining at the institution for a year following completion of study. Sabbatical officers are usually provided with a living allowance or stipend.

PROFESSORS, PASTORS, CARTOONISTS, MUSICIANS, and SPORTSMEN often take sabbaticals. Okay, I'm in good company for the year! Especialmente con los cartoonists.