voki testing (solamente un examencito)

Nebraska: Illuminating Light Show

Last night, I was minding my own business working on Spanish text books for my job as a teacher next year when to my (non-television watching) surprise the tornado siren started to call out. I grabbed a few things (lap top, candle, beverage, and calendar....funny how we prioritize things in an emergency) and headed for the basement. Five minutes later the alarm fell silent and Jay came home from his softball game to find me crouched in our damp, moldy basement. The imminent danger gone, Jay and I headed to our front porch to witness the spectacular show of dizzying clouds moving in unnatural directions and lightning that seemed to stretch like spiderwebs across the bottom of the system. We managed to capture a few images as seen below. Enjoy!

Summer creeps in like a really slow snail.

Graduation has passed and I find myself spending time working on a few new projects these days. With the unseasonably cold wet weather keeping me out of my gardens, I have taken time to create two new websites for Jay's Woods and my own "professional" online-portfolio. Currently you can find the sites at the following links:

http://senoritastetson.weebly.com

http://jayswoods.weebly.com

Eventually we hope to get Jay's site linked up to his domain name of jayswoods.com, but for now I hope you are able to enjoy what we've made. As always if you have any feedback positive or negative on either site, I would sincerely appreciate it.

I hope everyone else's summer is starting out warmer than mine! Ciao...

Graduation!

This Saturday, May 10th, 2008 I received my Master's of Arts degree from the University of Nebraska. Thanks to all who have been a part of my life thus far. None of this would have been possible without you!

T minus 15 days

Due to having only two weeks left until my final presentation of my summative work for my Master's in education and less than 6 weeks until graduation the odds are good that I won't be posting again until May. Wish me luck and until then...

“You’ve got to work for your supper.”

When I was a child my dad used to regale me with lengthy stories that proposed two dominating themes. One was the trials and tribulations of the wicked witch of the west and the other centered on the numerous values of hard work. The wicked witch was like any other good bed time story. It was just spooky enough for me to beg for more so that he wouldn’t leave my bedside, but PG enough that I could still get to sleep. In contrast, his stories on hard work could keep me up for hours on end worrying that I wasn’t living up to some standard he had set for me without my permission or my understanding.

“Amy you don’t know how easy you’ve got it. When I was your age things were a lot more difficult.”

This is how my dad got rolling. I knew I was in for a doozy as soon as these two fateful sentences popped out of his mouth. The stern scowl on his face and the exasperated look of disappointment in a daughter who didn’t yet understand that life was work, and hard work at that, were enough to put me on the defense.

“When I was your age, I had to walk five miles to school across a marsh and through the woods in the worst of weather to get to my one room school house. Do you know what they did to us if we hadn’t done our homework?”

He would taunt me with the possible what ifs and “horror” stories of his youth. It was clear that I was not supposed to take my ten minute walk to school for granted, that I should be willing to do my homework without the risk of capital punishment because he had gone through the worst for me already.

“I want a better future for you so you don’t have to go through things I did.”

My inner-child rolled her eyes. I had heard the same mantra over and over again. What was he really trying to say? All I knew was that apparently my dad’s life had been difficult and traumatic and I couldn’t fix that for him. Hard work was not appealing to an eleven year old who had dreams of performing on Star Search and moving to Hollywood to live with Kirk Cameron. My desire for instant gratification most certainly did not match up with the struggle he proposed as reality.

“Back in the dark ages, we didn’t have TV. I didn’t get an allowance. If I wanted something for myself, I had to work for it.”

And work is what my father was good at. Growing up he was always home last and tired from a long day of crunching numbers at his accounting job. On weekends when we went fishing the experience was mostly work and very little play. I’d ask if we could go swimming at the beach and the response was frequently determined by whether or not we had caught any fish.

“You’ve got to work for your supper.”

......................................................................................................

This story only scratches the surface of all the encounters I had with my father on the subject of hard work, but it does speak to the nature of the dilemma. I was a child who didn’t want to hear about hard work and he was a man who knew that hard work was necessary to future gain. In retrospect, I can look at myself as a foolish child. I didn’t get it then, but today I most certainly carry the same cultural values as my father.

My dad’s espousal of values does not give him hero status. I do not believe that he had the proper tools to truly demonstrate why he thought hard work was important. Lecturing me over and over on the same point never gave me the experience I needed to understand where he was coming from. It was only years later when I realized that I too had the capability to work hard and the ability to see its’ benefits that I truly understood what he meant. The key was that I had to experience the concept on my own.

Nonetheless hard work is a value that my culture holds as extremely important. Whether it was my father admonishing me about how easy my life was compared to his or my mother telling me that I had to help weed the garden before I could play. These sentiments were usually in accord with what I learned at school. Despite tracking practices that led students to believe that intelligence was innate, we were never given the impression that school would be easy. In fact my school prided itself on being difficult.

As a child, I frequently joked with my dad that he was a “plugger”. There was a comic in the Boston Globe each day that detailed the life of a dog that always worked hard, but never saw much reward. He just kept plugging away. There was a distinct disconnection between what my father preached and my viewpoint that his own hard work was futile. It was hard for me as an eight year old to see the connection between the endless hours at work “bean counting” and the roof over my head, the food in my stomach, the cleats for soccer practice, and so on. My father did not always enjoy his work, but he did it so that his family could live comfortably and so that I would have better opportunities than he.

The disconnection that existed for me as a child did not fully integrate itself until I was in my early twenties. One might account this to my own cognitive development, but I believe that his education of me could have been done in a different way. Perhaps if I had been able to experience the meaning behind his values, I would have learned them sooner. Similarly in school systems there can be disconnect between preached values and the way that they are taught. Nieto and Bode point to this contradiction as they state,

When schools are not cared for, when they become fortresses rather than an integral part of the community they serve, and when they are holding places instead of learning environments the contradiction between goals and realities is a vivid one. The chasm between ideal and real is not lost on students. (p.139)

While Nieto and Bode are also speaking to the broader contradiction of the education system, I feel their point rings true for my learning. The more “real life” experience there is in education the more connections students can make. Authenticity creates an education worth fighting for and one that students can engage in.

Today my father’s work and message resonate in my life. I have learned through experience that the things I work for mean more to me. I have seen that my education, formal or informal, means more when I take note of the process I went through to get their. As a parent now, I hear myself telling the same stories my father once told me. I regale my step-daughter with stories that start “Back in the dark ages…” just as he did. I try to make sure that she too takes part in the work that goes on around the house. In addition to stories, we try to engage in real life practical applications that show results. Instead of being the authoritarian, I try to be the coach. I hope these skills will benefit me in my future role of educator.

Citation:

Nieto, S., & Bode, P. (2008). Affirming diversity: the sociopolitical context of multicultural education. Boston: Pearson, Allyn and Bacon.

Vignettes from the particular:

What is academic success? How have ethnic minority children faired in my experience?

One night volunteering at Bettie’s Place, a women’s soup kitchen, I passed out crayons and other art supplies to tired, wary children while their mothers hounded me for packs of cigarettes. Interestingly the art supplies had been donated by children from local schools while the sought after cigarettes were supplied by the shelter.

At my college being an ethnic minority meant you were driven, brilliant, and often poor enough to qualify for financial aide. Laura was a gifted and passionate woman. Her scholarship was ripped out from underneath her the second year of college because her family made slightly more than the established poverty line. She was sent packing despite her hard work.

I befriended an eight year old who struggled with his school experience. He often got into scuffles with his peers and had a hard time listening to school authority figures. At home Mark was sweet, curious, and yet sullen. Three years before I met him his mother had passed away leaving Mark, his younger sister Christina, and his father behind. Matt often watched after his sister as dad, the man whom he blindly trusted, made and sold methamphetamines out of the garage.

While waiting tables, I became friends with a Colombian man named Eduardo. We bonded through my faltering Spanish and his supportive encouragement. He always took the time to inquire how I was and I tried to respond in kind as we worked our respective jobs. Eduardo has a Ph.D., but cleans dishes every night.

I met Dante who had given up on every type of institutional system and instead relied on gangs for support. He was one of the most business savvy people I’ve ever met in my life. In spite of huge cultural differences, we became friends. This 6’, 250 lb., heavily tattooed, California gang leader carried on philosophical conversations about respect with little ole’ me. We found a common ground.

A Sudanese family registered five of their children at a local school where I was employed. During recess, we were required to walk around the playground for exercise. Dana the youngest and most vulnerable of the girls frequently needed reassurance and comfort during this time. She would approach me teary-eyed and sniffling looking for a partner to walk with. Her peers didn’t know how to console a lifetime of heartache. Neither did I. We would walk hand in hand slowly and sadly around the playground.