The Invisible Knapsack

Last semester I had the opportunity to participate in a webinar on white privilege. The presentation relied heavily on Peggy McIntosh's Unpacking The Knapsack. It wasn't the first time that I had 'unpacked the knapsack' before, but several of the participants seemed to be unfamiliar with it. If you haven't read it yet, I recommend that you do. It sets up the metaphor that being white equips me with an invisible knapsack of tools that I use to make my life easier. An example she gives is, "I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed." I think it is a great tool for introducing someone to white privilege, but our presenter used it to create suggestions for addressing the problems of racism. I don't think the metaphor can stretch that far.

It is the 'tools' in the knapsack that cause problems when we try to fix them. The metaphor of tools suites the privileges because it helps illustrate my involvement. I have and use these tools so racism is my issue even though I am white. Where it falls short is the active intentionality of using tools. Let me use one of the examples to illustrate my point. One of them is, "Whether I use check, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability." Stating this creates awareness that other races are assumed to have poor credit, but I do not 'count on my skin color' to convince any one of my good credit. Rather, this is a privilege given by the absence of race. Someone (who is also white) that I am interacting with is not going to think, "She's white; this check won't bounce." I'm not going to think, "Maybe since I'm white, he will not make me write my work phone number on here." Neither of us is thinking about my race because being white allows me to be raceless. Many of these privileges are not tools, but actually an absence of burden.

If they were tools, I could make a decision to stop using them or to work to provide them to others. As an absence of burden, the issue is more difficult to address. I can't decide to take on the burden the same way I can stop using the tool. Telling the cashier in the grocery store, "Just because I'm white doesn't mean I have good credit," isn't going to overcome the stereotype that certain minorities write bad checks. As an individual I can try to avoid making assumptions in hopes of not burdening others, but doing that would not be a helpful action. Instead of acting, I would be striving for an inaction, and my inaction will not relieve their burden because they have to assume that I am making the same assumptions as everyone else.
It is frustrating and upsetting, and it seems so much easier to just promise to stop using my tools, but it can't work that way. Being aware of the tools is the first step, and using them for good is a possible goal. Past that, a new plan and a new metaphor needed.

What's in a Name?

Since August, I've been working in our university's external grants office. I've seen the effort that both the faculty and our office put into grant proposals. Research is done to prove a need for their project. Seminars are attended to learn how to write a budget. Draft after draft is edited and rewritten. The campus is scoured to hunt down everyone who might have a stake in the project and get their signed approval. All of this is done with the pressure of knowing that there is only so much money and only a chance that this project will even be approved. I've submitted a social science proposal to a hard sciences funder. I know what it is like to worry that they just won't understand why my project should be important to them.

Like every other faculty member who has ever applied for an NSF grant Hillary Anger Elfenbein went through this too. She was also fortunate enough to go through the elation and relief of being funded. What she didn't realize was that Congress was going to see her project title, Accuracy in the cross-cultural understanding of others' emotions, and consider it silly. The merit of her project was brought before the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

So much of academia functions on peer review, but Congress can throw it all out the window and judge these projects by their titles? I understand that taxpayer monies fund NSF and that it is a government grant, but if Congress wants to have some oversight and involvement, their appropriate role would be to evaluate and asses the standards that NSF uses to make their decisions. John Campbell's response that these projects are, "raiding Social Security funds," is what I find silly. The government spends a lot of money on a lot of things, education and research are not the standards I want to cut. The time spent by Congress to review her proposal after it was already approved by NSF and after military officials commended it for the potential uses by soldiers in Iraq , was also funded by tax payers. Does that time, "rise to the standard of requiring expenditures of taxpayer funds in a time of deficits?"

"Education Under Attack"

Virgina Tech has made all of us sensitive to the potential for unexpected violence. Part of that is because we see schools as a safe place. Students and teachers are unacceptable targets. Even now we see the threat coming from disturbed individuals instead of groups or governments, and for that we are lucky.

The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization has been researching the violence committed against education by military and political groups. The report Education Under Attack outlines their findings and discusses several case studies. This report excludes student to student violence. Rather it talks about the teachers and young girls who are attacked in Afghanistan who are attacked by military groups who don't believe women should be educated. It talks about the groups that raid schools for soldiers and kill any students who refuse to enlist. Teachers are refusing to teach because they know that it is putting the students' lives at risk. Many of these schools cannot ask for protection, because the military troops that the government would send out are just as much a target as the school is.

According to the report, these attacks are increasing. The number of lives lost for education is increasing, and because of it, the number of children receiving an education is decreasing. In these areas that are entangled in civil combat, children who are not in the classroom are hauling ammo or searching for land mines. I mourn for the people in America who suffered a loss to school violence. I ache for the countries that are losing their futures to school violence.

A Moment...

I want to take a moment to remember those that died yesterday, and to recognize the unrest of Blacksburg. Heartache: 32 Fallen

• Ross Abdallah Alameddine
• Christopher James Bishop
• Brian Roy Bluhm
• Ryan Christopher Clark
• Austin Michelle Cloyd
• Jocelyne Couture-Nowak
• Kevin P. Granata
• Matthew Gregory Gwaltney
• Caitlin Millar Hammaren
• Jeremy Michael Herbstritt
• Emily Jane Hilscher
• Jarrett Lee Lane
• Matthew Joseph La Porte
• Henry J. Lee
• Liviu Librescu
• Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan
• Lauren Ashley McCain
• Daniel Patrick O'Neil
• J. Ortiz-Ortiz
• Minal Hiralal Panchal
• Daniel Alejandro Perez
• Erin Nicole Peterson
• Michael Steven Pohle, Jr.
• Julia Kathleen Pryde
• Mary Karen Read
• Reema Joseph Samaha
• Waleed Mohamed Shaalan
• Leslie Geraldine Sherman
• Maxine Shelly Turner
• Nicole White

To Teach or Not To Teach

This is a debate that I've been having with myself since I was old enough to think about what I want to be when I grow up. I have always been told that I should work with kids, and teach elementary school, but right now, I'm in a program that is teaching me about being any of the people on a college campus other than faculty. I like the things that I'm learning, and they are certainly applicable to the classroom as well. However, I'm still trying to decide what it is I want to be doing.

Teaching sounds wonderful, but there are a few things that have made me reluctant to pursue it. At the primary and secondary level, their are two scary factors. The first is parents. They often seem to have the best of intentions, but to use the forest for the trees metaphor, they sometimes can't see the classroom because of how much they love their kid, or they can't see their child because of the ambitions that they have for them.

My hypocrisy plays in here a bit too. As much as I don't want parents telling me what I should be doing to teach their special youngster, I have problems dealing with parents who are having a negative impact on their own kids. I taught a girl at Sonshine who was really a sweet kid. She had no self-esteem and she got into trouble, but she seemed to be drawn to it and rarely the instigator of it. Every time I saw her with her mother, she was being told that she was a pain, trouble, annoying, too loud, a problem, or in the way. She was a great kid, but she didn't know it because that's not what she was being told. It breaks my heart to see those things happen, and I know that I would want to speak up if I had a bigger role in their life.

The second thing that bothers me is the kids that will hate me for no reason other than because I am an authority figure. I can't imagine how I would deal with that. I suppose eventually I would figure it out. Some more education classes might even teach me a couple possibilities, but it is something that I know I will loose sleep over.

Of course, that concern extends into teaching in higher education, but what bothers me more is tenure. Don't get me wrong, job security and academic freedom sound great, but politics and the games to get there don't sound that great to me. I'd like to do research, and I'd like to publish, but if I was teaching, it would be because I want to teach. I would prioritize my class over my journal article and that could doom me to being adjunct forever. I haven't experienced it, but I have heard rumors that being adjunct after a certain point in your career keeps you from gaining respect.

To top all of that off I don't know what subject I could teach, but that is not much of a barrier. To teach at the university level I would have to get another degree anyway, and to teach primary or secondary I would want some education courses before I tested for certification. I am be a good teacher. People tell me it all the time, and I know that it is true, but I am good at student services too. I am good at Public Relations, and I'm sure there are other things I could be good at. I just have to decide what it is that I want to do.

No More Snow Days

Queen Anne School in Maryland responds to snow, not by canceling school, but rather by having a Cyber School Day. The students get up, log in, and interact with their classmates and teachers virtually. Here's the NPR story where you can hear more. No Snow Day for You: Log On to Homeroom I can't help but smile when Mr. Blackwood says, "As headmaster, I can tell you that I know more about what goes on and can really validate the worth while nature of it on a cyber school day than I can when their on campus, because I can't be everywhere at once on campus. "

Having this connection in place between students and their teachers is amazing. Not only could a system like this be used for the entire school for events like snow days or that time in the 4th grade when my entire school was sent home because the lice was spreading too fast. It can also help to prevent smaller groups and individuals from falling behind. For example, when the football team makes it to state, and they spend a week or more at Playoffs they already have this connection to class. My senior year a girl in my class was out for a month and a half because of major surgery. She didn't catch up in time to graduate with us.

The best part of this story is that they have been doing this for seven years. This story is a perfect example of two things that I believe very strongly. First, technology can accent and contribute to education without the threat of it replacing anything or anyone. Secondly, using the technology we have to it's fullest extent is just as important as any of the new gadgets that are coming out.

Struggling in Math? Try Neuroscience!

Psychologist Carol Dweck headed a study where a group of 100 students that were struggling in math were randomly assigned to participate in two different workshops. One workshop was on study skills, and the other was on how the brain works and information is stored. The students that learned about the brain did considerably better. They embraced their potential by being taught that they have the ability to learn no matter how 'smart' they believe they are. Here is the story with more information: Students View of Intelligence Can Help Grades

I love these results and I hope that more parents adopt these ideas so that student will experience education as a process of learning instead of a sorting between the good and the bad. Another article that emphasizes my point is The Inverse Power of Praise from New York Magazine. Researchers and psychologists have told parents not to call their children stupid, naughty, bratty, spoiled, bad, or incapable because those kids will define themselves by those labels and follow the stereotypes that their parents have placed upon them. The answer to this, however, is not to call them smart, successful, and good so they fill those stereotypes. This creates a dichotomy between smart and stupid. If you are labeled either of these, there is no process (or work) to become one or the other. There is no reason for 'stupid' to strive for smart, and there is no reason for 'smart' to put effort into maintaining that status, because it is an arbitrary assignment. If children have to do smart things to become smart then they are not as confined by our labels and that attributes they associate with them.