Writing and risking: toe by toe

I’m a bit out of the academic writing game. (I’m very into the pinching, ponching and pooching my baby game, but no one’s giving me a red graduation cloak and silly hat for that.) As my maternity leave comes to an end, I’ve been easing back into it with a burst of writing here and a spurt of research there, but no one’s more aware then me that it’s time to buckle down and really do this PhD thing.

“So what’s stopping you, Nudelman?” I hear you ask. 

“To be honest,” I answer, “I’m scared.” 

That’s right, dear reader, academic writing is scary. An empty screen with a flashing cursor top left is enough to supercharge the butterflies in my tummy. Where will the words come from? What if they’re no good? What if I get to the end and realise that nothing I’ve written makes sense? Who will read it and how will they judge me? Will they realise I’m just a big academic fake?

I’ve thought a lot about how I manage the risk involved in writing. I find it a bit like getting into an icy cold swimming pool. Some people dive right in, but I tentatively dip the tip of one big toe in, then the ball of the foot, the heel, a calf… then the other. I know how cold I’m going to be so I mitigate that imminent shock by drawing out the moment.

I do the same with writing. I know that my words on the page will have to stand alone without me, so they need to be strong. And logical. And succinct. I think this is why I approach the writing game slowly. I test the waters of my knowledge. A chunk of literature here. Some data generation there. A smidgeon of policy analysis. And so on.

Perhaps it’s not the most efficient way to approach the thesis writing, but tackling my work bit by bit makes it a little less scary for me. It becomes less of a behemoth and more possible. How do you deal with risk in your writing?

What to expect (from mommy and PhD blogs) when you’re expecting

During my daily morning cyber amble through the Facebooks, I came across this article about a new mother who posted a photo of herself that has gone viral. In the photo, she holds her 3-day-old son close to her bare chest and stares directly into the camera,expression raw, eyes red from crying. Mothers from all around the world have applauded her honesty and her courage in not sugar coating the realities of the postpartum period.

The article that accompanies her picture describes this woman’s tough new reality. It includes input from experts explaining just how hard this time really is for mothers. It talks about isolation, feelings of loss, inadequacy, loneliness, physical pain. The photo, the article says, “is a perfect answer to the overly curated image of new motherhood that we get on social media”.

The reason I came across the article this morning is a result of not needing to rush to get out of bed, which is a result of being 39 and a bit weeks pregnant, finished work, and trying to follow everyone’s orders to “take it easy”. Basically, I’m about to have a baby, which translates into spending a lot more time then usual trawling mommy blogs and finding out how little I know about anything to do with babies.

Reading the article, though, I was struck by conflicting feelings. On the one hand, I think it’s great that women aren’t forced to present some flowers-hearts-smiley-smile version of new motherhood. I have no doubt it’s going to be a tough time, and I appreciate the honesty. But on the other hand, the article’s very honesty, its undertones of desperation and darkness, make me question the whole idea of even having a baby. I find myself wondering – do I really want to go through that? It doesn’t sound very nice.

And it struck me that many PhD blogs I read are equally gritty and raw. They present the warts-and-all version of the PhD process, with people attesting to their struggles. Again, I appreciate the sense of solidarity that these offer and the knowledge that I’m not alone in finding it hard. But I do wonder, if I’d read these before I started studying again, would I even have got so far as registering?

Granted, it’s a little late to back out of either my baby or my PhD at this point, so I guess I’ll take what I can from the articles, particularly that it’s OK if it’s not all perfect all the time, and try not to expect the worst from either process. And then, I will watch some ridiculously cute baby animal videos (like this one of a kitten meeting a baby hedgehog) and proceed with as much calm as I can muster.

Two worlds collide: Jews and higher education (and yoyos and figure skating)

Imagine that you were totally into two things in your life: yoyos and figure skating. So there you are, one day, flipping through the channels when, lo and behold, you stumble across the world’s first ever yoyo-based ice dance. The graceful woman with the tight buns (in her hair, people, in her hair) leaps and twirls over a series of artfully-strung “around the worlds” and “rock the babies” perfectly executed by her partner in the tight pants. “Figure skating AND yoyos in one program?!” you exclaim. “What are the chances of that?”

That’s the kind of feeling I had the other day when I came across THIS article with the headline “Higher Education Transformation Network (HETN) labels Habib, Wits (Jewish) Puppets“. “Higher education AND Judaism?” I thought. “What are the chances of that?”

The gist of the article is that HETN believes that, by removing Mcebo Dlamini (he of “I love Hitler” and “I’m a Sisulu“-fame) from his position as chairperson of the university’s SRC, Adam Habib has capitulated to the evil machinations of the evil Jews who run the world with their evil money. And just in case not enough offence was caused by this awakening of the oldest antisemitic trope in the world, HETN throws in the following:

It would be unfortunate if Wits University management now has adopted ‘Gestapo-type’ management tactics of summarily expelling students and staff merely because they hold dissenting views…

I love the rhetorical reference to the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, who formed an integral part of Hitler’s system of terror, slavery, murder, and genocide. “Yes,” the reader is clearly meant to contend. “That’s exactly what Habib and Wits are up to.” A regime determined to wipe out any part of society not deemed racially up-to-scratch? A university meting out consequences for an act of thuggery against a senior staff member by a student? Now there’s an analogy that sticks.

(Anyway, we’ve seen this before, HETN. BDS movements across the world love to remind their acolytes that the Jews have now become just as bad as the Nazis. It’s getting old.)

It’s clear that what lies at the root of this statement has to do with deeply entrenched issues, like race, privilege, nationalism and the need for transformation. But, for what it’s worth, here are some thoughts from a Jew who cares deeply about higher education (and yoyos and figure skating):

• You support a man who “loves Hitler”, but condemn Wits for its “Gestapo-type” management. Mixed metaphors, much?
• After the whole “Jewish funder” shtick, your statement goes on to condemn acts of racism on campuses that allegedly haven’t been followed up on. Couldn’t agree with you more. Root them out. Shame them. Punish them. Push universities to do that. Saying that Dlamini shouldn’t face consequences for his actions because other perpetrators haven’t faced consequences is counter-intuitive to your mandate of change. Rather, use your position to ensure that those who haven’t been brought to book face the consequences of their actions.
• IT’S NOT ONLY JEWS WHO DON’T LIKE HITLER. He killed 11 million people, among them Jehova’s Witnesses, Roma Gypsies, Catholic Priests and Christian Pastors, homosexuals, resistors, the disabled and citizens of countries the Nazis invaded. So, not that this is why he lost his position, but why this assumption that the only people who could have possibly taken offence to Dlamini’s Hitler statements are the Jews?

I wish HETN’s leadership would actually speak to Jewish people. Maybe then they would realise that we’re not all the same. We hold widely dissenting views and come at issues from angles that differ politically, ethically and intellectually.

You bunch us together as one, fixing the handy label of “Jewish money” on an issue that is so much more nuanced. If the labelsticks, it could cause untold harm to the Jews of South Africa, as it has to Jews again and again throughout history. If it doesn’t, the current transformation debates on campus will fester into destruction, hate and harm to people and properties. To get back to where we began, it seems to me that HETN’s skating on some seriously thin ice here.

I probably should have just bought this blog post

Dear readers,

For a good (academic/nerdy) time, check out these websites http://myessaywrite.com/ and http://forensicsinschool.com.

I always knew that there were online companies that would write your academic essay for you, but I guess I thought this would be covert and a little sneaky. But these sites (and tons more, I’m sure) manage to spin it so that suddenly, buying your custom-written academic essay is the right thing to do. These are some of my favourite quotes from the sites:

“Purchasing essays is, essentially, an investment into itself. You are buying the expertise that our company can offer your future, which we hope is spectacular.”

“Professors have known for ages that students will take an ‘easy way out’ where and when applicable, yet to buy essay assignments online, one must actually have some primary directive in mind. For honest students, it’s about passing classes and getting onto their careers.”

“Essay subjects have become increasingly difficult over the years which either causes students to flunk, or even lose their potentially lucrative scholarship. Rather than worrying about completing your essay, simply hire someone online to discreetly write this essay based off any topic you wish and avoid missing out on your teenage years in school because you were cooped up writing essays you don’t understand.”

and perhaps most bewilderingly:

“Case studies and teachers believe that buying essays from online sources becomes a formality of plagiarism; if this was the case, our government would shut thousands of companies down. If you cannot grasp the outline or general idea of essay writing, hiring someone to take care of it for you is no different than writing the material yourself so long as the material wasn’t plagiarised.”

Readers, I kid you not! These companies are framing the purchasing of academic essays online as an investment, as educationally productive and as something you should do because… let’s be honest… you’re worth it. It’s basically like telling someone, “Quickly, grab that lady’s Chanel handbag, because capitalism is an unjust system and private ownership is corrupt”.

I’d never condone this kind of action, but somewhere deep down, I’m hoping that if students do buy essays online, they’re upfront about why they’re doing it: too many deadlines, no grasp of the course material, or they just can’t be arsed. I hope students aren’t buying essays with the belief that it’s really ethically and morally justifiable. They can’t be that stupid… can they?

If a PhD student falls in a forest…

I’m reading a book about policy analysis, which should be boring but really isn’t. I am so into it, that at times I find myself shouting “Yes!” out loud or giggling along as I it becomes clear how we human beings are so very shaped by the way official policies (particularly governmental ones) represent society. At moments like this I feel so lucky to be a PhD student, with time and space to expand my mind.

Sounds rad, right? In the midst of enthusiasm, I came across this Foucault (1988: 265) quote. It’s about a particular approach to policy analysis, which encourages us to:

… question over and over again what is postulated as self-evident, to disturb people’s mental habits, the way they do and think things, to dissipate what is familiar and accepted, to reexamine rules and institutions and on  the basis of this re-problematisation… to participate in the formation of political will.”

“Eureka!”, thought I. That’s exactly what the PhD’s meant to do! How exciting… how empowering… how realistic?!

Because come on, people, realistically what are the chances of my PhD changing the world? (And you don’t have to be kind, oh loyal readers, I can handle the truth). Even if it’s super-duper good, fuelled by insights and enlightened realisations, chances are it’ll only ever be read by my supervisors, examiner(s) and, after subtle coercion, my very kind husband.

Just like the old adage of the tree falling in the empty forrest, If a PhD student writes a magnificent thesis, but there’s no one there to read it, does the knowledge really exist at all? And if the answer to this is no, then really – what’s the point of it all?

Do Marks Matter?

I’ve always been a bit of an academic nerd, so marks have never been a big deal for me. The school and university system of assignments and exams worked for me, which made life pretty easy. I do, however, know that there are tons of students who find the whole system very challenging. Last year, for example, I received a distraught email from a very bright student who had tanked his exam. He’d let the stress get to him, he said.

That’s why I was fascinated to read about the book “Why A students work for C students“. In it, the author Robert Kiyosaki explains that the school system rewards kids who read well, memorise and test well. These are the kids who generally churn out the As and go on to study book-smart subjects like accountancy and law.

The C kids are often those who don’t fit this mould. They are often, however, highly creative, out-of-the-box dreamers, and it is these individuals who go on to innovate, create, and change the world around them. Thus, A students often end up working for C students.

I LOVE this idea, and I bet that in many cases it’s true. However, it doesn’t help my student who failed his exam last year. There are real repercussions for poor performance at school and university, no  matter how limited the system may be.

I came across a related idea in Stefan Collini’s (2012) book “What are universities for?“ Here he’s discussing the idea that one of university’s roles is to enable people to develop their potential:

…  (but) what if the potential that people find they have to develop is to become unsaleable esoteric poets?

Kiyosaki says that parents shouldn’t be obsessed with their kids’ grades; they should rather help them find and follow their special gifts. But, what’s a parent to do if that gift is to be an unsaleable esoteric poet? In a world where people need to fill their cars with petrol and pay for health insurance, how idealistic is it to encourage students who may not be academically-minded to follow their (potentially unprofitable) dreams?

Since I left varsity, I don’t think anyone’s ever looked at my matric results, and job applications seldom ask for academic transcripts. So that leaves me wondering if, whether you’re an A or a C student, marks ultimately matter at all. Is it a case of “Nice work if you can get it, but if you can’t, don’t stress too much because you have other gifts”? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Rating and evaluating lecturers: a perfect 10 or an outright fail?

At the end of each of our courses, students fill out evaluations about the course itself: how it fulfilled their expectations; what they found most useful; what they think needs to change; and, of course, their lecturer.

Years back, when I was still teaching middle school, I’d fantasise about what I would really like to say in a particularly painful student’s report. Instead of “Joey’s energetic nature means he can, on occasion, distract other students”, I’d imagine myself scrawling, “NOBODY LIKES YOUR SON. HE’S IRRITATING ON MULTIPLE LEVELS. (PS. HE’S NOT VERY BRIGHT. SORRY.)”

So when I hand out the course evaluations to my university students, I wonder whether they’ve spent the semester composing their evil responses in their minds. Most of the time though, it’s all good, and when students say I’m “awesome” I feel inordinately  happy, even though there’s no mention of my innovative teaching methodologies or my commitment to critical pedagogy.

Last night on Twitter, I came across THIS STORY about a Professor in the States who is suing a student for defamation after he posted about her on ratemyprofessors.com (which doesn’t operate in SA) , as well as other websites, blogs and YouTube. It made me wonder, should there be spaces online where a ranty student gets to spew bile about a lecturer anonymously? Doesn’t this place the lecturer immediately on the back foot with no recourse for self-defence?

On the other hand, I’m always bemoaning poor teaching and I can understand how powerlessness students must feel experiencing it day after day. Perhaps sites like ratemyprofessors can usher in an “Academic Spring” and an ousting of poor educators from the system. With an ever-increasing emphasis on research in universities, we need nothing short of a teaching revolution. Could online lecturer evaluations hold the key?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Five common student presentation errors

As the term comes to a frantic end, with stacks of marking and piles of paper, I get to enjoy my favourite chunk of classtime: the student presentations. I’ve blogged about this before (HERE and HERE), but I thought that today I would share some of the most common errors I see in student presentations. Who knows – you just might recognise your own presentation-self in here.

 

1. Reading off the screen while presenting

We require our students to present with slides (most use PowerPoint; some use Prezi). I always stress that the slides should be a backdrop to their own presentation, that if there was an ESKOM blackout and they lost all use of the computer or the data projector, they should be able to continue with their presentation with no problem. However, students often find comfort reading the notes on the screen, which decreases the connection they’re able to make and sustain with the audience.

2. Strange involuntary body movements

I will never tire of watching the strange things that otherwise normal students do when they stand up to present. Legs shake… one hand flies around… weight shifts from foot to foot… a finger points at the audience… a groin gets periodically scratched (no jokes!). We’ve started filming the students while they present and then playing the video back to them so they can see the strange things they do. They’re almost always surprised at what they see.

3. Robot voice

There’s something about giving a formal presentation that makes many a lively, engaging, funny student turn into a robot. The whole presentation gets delivered in a strange sing-song tone to the voice a’la the talking clock you get when you’re lonely and you phone 1026. I know what this is: the student has learnt the presentation off-by-heart and is reciting it to the audience. The problem is this eliminates any natural spontaneity, which an audience finds appealing and engaging. 

4. Being very, VERY serious

Yes, sometimes students present on things like illnesses, pollution or poverty, and a serious tone is justified. However, often they forget that audiences like to connect with real people, and real people exhibit a range of emotions during conversations. Often students forget to smile when they introduce themselves, or get excited when trying to get audiences to buy into their idea. This almost always affects the impact of their presentation, which can feel more didactic then is appropriate.

5. Making themselves small

I’ve been super-aware of this one since watching Amy Cuddy’s AMAZING Ted Talk (click HERE if you haven’t seen it yet) about how one’s body language shapes who you are. Some students, when they stand up to present, make themselves so tiny. Their shoulder close in, they wring their aims together, they slouch inwards. This doesn’t just create the impression of an unconfident presenters but, as Cuddy shows, feeds into feelings of powerlessness for the students themselves.

 

I’m passionate about helping students learn to present effectively and powerfully. I see these five errors a lot in student presentations, but I firmly believe that, in most cases, good presenters are bred not born. Seeing the students improve during our courses is proof of this.

Do you see your presenting styles in this list? Can you spot any I may have left out?

 

Putting the “high” into Higher Education

As a BA graduate at a university in Cape Town, I am well-placed to know that there are many ways UCT students get high. The fresh sweep of wind as they walk down Jammie stairs… the pump of adrenalin as the short loan book they wanted is still in… meeting a last minute hand-in deadline. There’s other less legal (but equally natural) highs, but we’ll save that for someone else’s blog.

What I’m interest in is what it is that puts the “high” into Higher Education. I started think of this while reading Ronald Barnett’s (1990) book, The Idea of Higher Education. In it, he writes:

It is not “further education”: it is not simply more of what has gone before. Rather, the term is a reference to a level of individual development over and above that normally implied by the term “education”.

(1990: 6)

I thought this was such an interesting idea on two levels. Firstly, it reminded me again about the way that our use of language both reflects and shapes our practices as human beings. Gee (2008: 97) gives another educational example of this. When we say “The teacher teaches the student French”, our words imply that French is being passed down whole from the teacher to the student. As an educator, I know that this kind of one-way flow of information doesn’t result in deep learning. So even in its simplicity, this statement embodies particular notions of how teaching and learning should take place.

This leads me to the second aspect of Barnett’s idea that I find interesting. What are the values implicit in referring to after-school education as “higher”? It could be said that once you attend a higher education institution, you’re ready to move higher up the social ladder. Or maybe a higher education allows one to access texts (of all sorts) at a higher, more sophisticated level. And do you only achieve “highness” once you’ve graduated, or is the whole experience, from the very first day, a journey up an inclining hill?

Barnett argues that the thing that makes higher education “high” is the sense of criticality that should be built in to it. Students shouldn’t simply acquire particular competencies. Rather, they should be able to adopt sceptical stances in relation to the truth claims and practices they come across. Barnett explains:

Students must be encouraged to stand back, reflect deeply, consider ethical dimensions of both thought and action, to understand the place of their knowledge in higher education, to glimpse something of what it may be, to gain their own independence from all that they learn, think and do.

(1990: 78)

The challenge is how, in a skills building course like the one I teach on, where we’re teaching students how to do things the right way, to encourage them to be sceptical. They can be as critical as they like about what I teach, but if they don’t use the kind of language that I teach them in a professional report they will a) fail the assignment and b) not be adequately prepared when they go to work.

There’s tons of research about this, which leads me to a tentative theory on what is high about higher education. Maybe it’s that there’s a whole dynamic body of literature around learning and teaching, which is devoted to understanding better what happens in academic classrooms, departments, faculties and institutions. It’s not a stagnant body; it’s always growing and developing – reaching higher levels of understanding, if you will. That’s why I’m excited to be part of this field of enquiry.

Would you Facebook friend your students?

It happens every semester: there’s always one lone student who decides we’re tight enough for him/her to call me “Gabs”. I never know where it comes from since one of my largest social fears is contracting someone’s name too soon. This probably stems from the time, in std 6, when I called a popular girl by her nickname and the netball court came to a standstill as jaws dropped dumbfoundedly. This is not a mistake I am keen to remake, so I am always extra careful in this regard.

I try very hard to maintain a healthy balance between connecting personally with my students in a way that creates a safe space for learning and not over-sharing in a personal way. Sometimes I’ll mention anecdotes in class as a way to show connection between what they’re learning and how these skills are applied in real life. For example, when I’m teaching academic writing, I often draw on my own experiences as a PhD student. 

However, I find it’s easy for boundaries to get blurred when it comes to social media. The religion of networking is one that we in contemporary professional communications preach, but I always feel conflicted when my students friend request me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter and ask to connect on LinkedIn. These extra-classroom sites are increasingly spaces of very real connection, but by engaging with them, am I busting the borders that keep a relationship professional?

I read THIS story about a substitute teacher who was forced to quit her job because she wouldn’t unfriend her students from Facebook. But on the very odd occasion that I do a student Facebook stalk, I feel kind of dirty; I can’t un-see the drunken Tiger Tiger pics and it feels like something pure has been sullied. 

Perhaps there’s a market for an academic social media site? With a nod to scholarship, we can call it Bookbook, and it can connect students and lecturers on the basis of taking the same books out of the library and whether our marking is tackled as last minute as their essay writing. Instead of the Facebook thumbs up, we can institute a tick mark. We could even set up a lecturer/student selfie booth in front of Jammie Hall with a direct connection. What about it, Mark Zuckerberg?