Teachers Act Up!

To Practice Creativity Within Constraint

The educational system is filled with constraints from how many photocopies one is allowed to make per week or year, to what page one is supposed to be on in the textbook, what curriculum standard is to be addressed, or which assessment will determine the students’ (and their teachers’) success or failure. 

      Teachers know these constraints exist, and are often baffled and exhausted by them (as am I as a professor friend and now public school parent).  When we university educators train teachers it is our responsibilty, too often overlooked, not to dwell in ideals, but address the realities of school and classroom management, providing theories behind dynamic content instruction as well as strategies for how to take attendance and manage 100s of pages of grading while enduring endless faculty meetings regarding the educational crisis of the day—a crisis which is often defined by someone outside the classroom and school building!

      But the function of a culture of constraint can also have unintended effects.  The effect of such a culture can constrain even when restrictions are not there.  Much like Foulcault’s panopticon or Boal’s “cops in the head”—such a culture constrains actions and possibility in absentia when an invidividual absorbs the regularly enforced rules and makes them a permanent ways of life.  This is one of many reasons why teachers need the arts and why we need more explicit attention to training teachers much like we train artists.

      Artists are explicitly mentored to see limitations as opportunities—for example, a playwrite knows her play must be over within approximately two hours or she’ll lose her audience’s attention just as a kindergarten teacher knows her lesson must be over within 10-20 minutes. But how one fills the minutes or hours, the canvas, the stage or the restrictions placed on the classroom is also filled with possibility—every teacher must be awakened to the infinite space for wiggle room (this is a technical term, really.  I learned it from the great Fred Erickson!). But grown ups didn’t invent wiggle room.  Teachers and artists learn this from children, getting in touch with the childlike instinct to wiggle every unconstrained moment of the day—learning what space we can own as ours in order to feel childlike and free. 

      Training teachers as artists also means a training in vision—to see what may not be visible or possible.  To think creatively and strategically; to see opportunity when others might see limitation or impossibility.  Creativity is a skill that is necessary on the stage of a teacher’s life, to imagine new ways of working within the limitations set by our time.  While teachers cannot usually control the standards and curricula chosen by administrators, districts, states, and publishers, they do determine to varying degrees what gets absorbed into their classrooms and what it gets used for.  This process of selection and creativity requires rehearsal; training in the arts can provide just that.

Please forgive me readers–these are rough notes for my class with little time to edit–I will work on this again–bear with me!

The Domestic Arrangement
from Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journals

Wm went into the wood to alter his poems
writes Dorothy. I shelled peas, gathered beans,
and worked in the garden. This is Grasmere

where she picked and boiled gooseberries,
two lbs. of sugar in the first panfull
while Wm went into the wood to alter his poems

a trip he makes almost daily, composing
the lines she will later copy. Mornings
she works in the garden at Grasmere

which looked so beautiful my heart
almost melted away, she confides
while Wm’s in the wood altering his poems.

On one of their daily walks she observes
helpful details of Wm’s famed daffodils.
Then it’s back to the garden at Grasmere

where she ties up her scarlet runner beans
and pulls a bag of peas for Miss Simpson.
Leave Wm in the wood to alter his poems;
praise Dorothy in the garden at Grasmere.

by Maxine Kumin
From: Still To Mow, 2007

So were William Wordsworth’s poems really coauthored? Whose words are whose and who gets credit? What are the expectations in academic (and creative) writing over authorship and citation?

Pennycook adds much complexity to my own thinking about the “crime” of plagiarism and other forms of academic “dishonesty” and to complexify (to borrow Pennycook’s verb) my own and others’ thinking to include cultural and contextual factors.

Bell: interrupt lectures with questions; discussion in class as a kind of informal, interactional lecture (though it may not appear to be so), the importance of oral, in class decisions and instructions over the written (changing) syllabus, the importance of “group” exercises and spokespersons for the group.  Intimidation vs. who knows more informaiton or just how to play the academic game. 

Talk about starting class with my own original allusion—that I know of this poem and its likely my audience does not, proves a kind of authorial integrity—that I can pick up on the ideas of one academic in a given text and make interesting, original intertextual and interpersonal links—the connection I made between Pennycook’s discussion of the academic Nunan and his tendenacy to quote himself rather than always refer to the “I.”  I too have had this dilemma when I have created turns of phrase and forms of discussion in one written text (single-authored material) and want to quote elsewhere.  This becomes even more problematic in dual offered papers and books—when does the idea or phrasing change from being “mine” to being “shared” to being a third entity that needs to be quoted!!!??? 

Bell clarifies many ways in which graduate students in TESOL can demonstrate their understanding of a given text—like the above text to text and text to life connections; asking questions of the text, making critical assessments of a text (but also with attempts to find “redeeming value”).

International students need to recognize “writing as a social practice” (Bell, p. 83) and understand the expectations, strategies and skills that are required of gradute level writing as a practice of academic identity.  I am indebted to Bell for clarifying some of these implicit writing practices and find I agree and disagree with some of her advice.  For example, on page 83 she discusses a basic paper outline most of use in TESOL use for academic research papers:

• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Research Methods
• Results (or Findings)
• Discussion (and Implications)

But she talks about penchants for passive voice, formal (big ticket!) diction, and avoidance of the personal pronoun “I.” These were traditional stylistic choices that have dramatically changed as you can see by many of the readings we will do in this class that tend to favor the exact opposite (of course I prefer the opposite more formal/personal style so the readings demonstrate this preference. There is increasing flexibility in academic writing style, yet conforming to readers’ genre expectations can buy the writer a great deal of “consent” to learn from your writing.  A professor that has to hunt for you literature review or who suspects you have forgotten to quote an important reference, will be much less favorable in her assessment of your work, than one who can read a paper that has clarified its sections and styles.

In sum, what is important in all academic communication—be it oral or written—is to know as much as you can about the cultural and stylistic expectations as possible so that when you can help your reader/interlocutor understand the message. It is also important to know the rules so that if you “break” one, you are aware of it and more prepared to anticipate the consequences.  This doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes—you will.  In such a case it is important also to have read and discussed others’ experiences with similar mistakes (whether the mistake is incorrect citation or an accusation of plagiarism) and understand what your best options are for recovery.   This is part of the goal for this class.

I share these lecture notes on the wiki so that I may share them with you in either a 1) formal lecture; 2) informal discussion; 3) group work and presentation and/or 4) our virtual wiki dialogue!  I will be checking with your blogposts to see how you integrate others’ ideas into your own and come into your own academic “voices” in English—of course post modern theories require me to modify this kind of statement and recognize everyone’s “own” voice is polyvocal, made up of the many different written and spoken voices around us.  Our job then is to be creators of our own “mash-ups”—creating “our voice” through our own unique combinations of the voices that surround us.

Mash-up: a digitalrecording thatcombines andsynchronizesinstrumentaland vocaltracks fromtwo or moresongs

I just went for an annual physical.  Aside from seeing doctors related to having swine flu and babies, I haven’t had an actual physical check ups in the last ten years.  So I was surprised to learn that I have hypothyroidism, a condition that if left untreated, upsets the balance of chemicals in my system and can have all kinds of negative effects.  Fortunately, knowing this, I can easily treat it.  I began to think about the annual physical and how remiss I have been not to schedule it.  Thankfully, due to this condition, I will have to be much more vigilant.  

As an academic and creative person, I also wonder about the parallels for cognition and the critical mind.  While there is some debate among doctors about the merits of the annual physical, I would like to strongly recommend that all scholars undergo the figurative parallel: an annual intellectual.  Many of us have the good fortune to live long healthy intellectual lives in the academy, comfortable in our disciplinary domains, teaching a familiar list of courses, referring to an enduring theoretical foundation.  There is much to be said for constancy but the intellectual mind also requires annual check ups.  There are so many ways that we have for checking up on the health of our thinking–attending professional conferences, reading recent issues of academic journals to which we subscribe, challenging ourselves to teach new courses and update old ones.  This advice to have an annual intellectual is one that most of us follow as part of our professional practice.  Naming it as such simply reminds me to test and measure intellectual health in an expansive way, asking myself: in what ways has my thinking changed? What new concepts and ideas have I learned by engaging in my own varied professional development? What do new and varied kinds of students and young professors have to say about concepts and ideas I have long taken for granted? How are field specific conversations taking place outside my program, department, university, region, and nation? What kinds of activities might charge up my pedagogy and thought? What new genres are available? New media and mediums for healthy exchanges of ideas and foundations for new forms of action? 

I am so happy that by taking the time to have a blood test, I have the opportunity to be more vigilant about my health and wellness.  I look for the same kinds of opportunities for the mind–testing my ideas with a new cohort of students from China and Taiwan, diving into the process of writing poetry with a diverse group of educators, stirring with ideas at fall conferences such a Georgia TESOL and the Annual meeting of American Anthropologists.  

Good intellectual health is as complicated as good physical health and requires a great variety of activity.

What are your practices for staying healthy in mind, body, and spirit? Perhaps we can take time to exchange ideas!

Looking forward to a new round of posts and blog-thinking this semester!

We continue to celebrate poetry every night this week at The Globe, 7pm readings in a “Seat in the Shade”– a newly created series to coincide with the intensive poetry workshop I run this week with the smartest, most creative group of graduate students with whom I’d ever want to spend 12 hour days.

We have had thrilling beginnings  –Monday, Author of one of the best first books of poetry you could get your hands on: Ida Stewart and her new book, “Gloss.”

Last night we reveled in the incredible wisdom of poet/teacher/editor Ginger Murchinson–see her incredible magazine at www.cortlandreview.com/

Tonight we change our venue to 7pm at  The Highwire Lounge (behind the Trapeze bar on Hull Street).  We are lucky to have poet Ayodele Heath joining us.  He celebrates his first book, “Otherness,” performing his poems in ways that lift the words off the page and help them fly and connect to the audience.  Don’t miss this!

For a taste, check out http://www.ayospeaks.com/

Then join us back at The Globe on Thursday and Friday nights, 7pm; Thursday to hear the extraordinary Alice Friman–poems and a one of a kind craft talk.  Friday, join us for throngs of poetry and love! Our collective of students and their faculty (yours truly) will share our best work.  Because we are celebrating a poetry love fest, this will be a great event to connect to other lovers of letters.

Save ‘A Seat in the Shade!’

I am thinking about the Herculean circus god and his splendid, sinewy body, all V back, muscle, no fat and all wisdom a’top the skittering plank to say: it’s as hard as you make it–if you come up and think it’s going to be hard, it will be; if you think ‘no problem’ it will be. Were these the words of a God or a surfer or both?

What else did he say–something about letting go; about control, to “take in the view” and breathe, yes, as if to hook legs awkwardly over the slim bar and hang like a bat were as natural as a six-year-old with a bomb pop.

Later, this Hercules and his partner, the “Safety Rope Operator God,” explain the flyer’s strength and agility aren’t necessary since momentum is more important, in other words, timing is everything when an Athena goddess holds you by the safety belt and asks you to extend body weight over the precipice of foothold and commands bending with one syllable: “Knees!” I am told not to anticipate the Gods, to “hep!” which means hop feet forward, past the insecure plank into twilight, the operator’s strong arms holding my just-in-case ropes takes over, shouts, “Legs up” and I lifted the heavy limbs, threaded awkward feet up and over the fly-bar. “Hands down!” and my hands let go and I hung like a weightless iron bauble, the torso a dangling piece of timing in a giant grandfather clock sky. “Look up, Arch your back!” and I do, imagine I’m birdlike with new ambitions for accuracy and maximum energy.

I want my body to be so much closer to perfect when he orders “Hands up,” “Grab the bar” and “Bring your feet down in a straight line” –I am a soldier at attention  “When I say forward, you swing your legs forward, ready?” I’m ready to follow orders for this first-last piece, a dismount.  When I hear “Knees!”–I become a rotating knot, a curved fist, a ball of a body rolling down to the net’s apron.  “Forward, Back, Forward, Knees” I return up the steep and narrow ladder to sky again and again and like magic or physics, my body curls as he predicted, circles and spins and I feel what the body is supposed to do, what it has rehearsed in so many other bodies before, do in my body.  This floating trust; this practiced letting go.

The mind controls destiny.  He didn’t say this but it was there when upside down I looked behind to see the catcher-god on his pendulum, his hands extended, his reach and momentum and pull so that we both hung together for extraordinary seconds, eye level with tree tops, vista to industrial summer parking lots, vacant blacktop cooled to twinkling stones, to be held then released from his agile care to the taut net’s lap, caught backside down, eyes fluttered, body unharmed.

Then it’s over.  Too quickly.  Not soon enough! screams the palms’ fire, the stunned armpits’ chorus in taffy aftermath.

The catcher, the rope operator, the pantheon of artists have done their work and I am done with being a bird, a daredevil, a better human being than I am at any other moment when I embrace gravity rather than defy it.

Incredible artwork by Jim Woglom!

I love to take my courses into public life and meaning–this summer, I am a lucky professor who gets to work intensely with creative educators on the craft, practice, and possibilities of poetry! Whether they become a poet or simply immerse themselves in the life of a poet for a week–no matter! What matters is the collective experience of advanced creativity and lyrical meaning making.  How we each translate this experience into our lives as teachers, researchers, poets, and community members will be a creative act of living!

We will culminate our course with a July readings series “Seat in the Shade” with some of the best published poets in Georgia who will share their words and wisdom with us every evening at the Globe July 9-12.  Our course will culminate with a reading from our “collective” of creative poet-educators on Friday July 13.  Please join us in spirit or person this summer! See the line up below…!

Seat in the Shade: A Summer Poetry Readings Series

Hosted by Poetry for Educators founder, Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor (www.teachersactup.com)

July 9-13 in Athens, Georgia

Time: Readings start at 7pm

Place: The Globe

199 North Lumpkin Street, Athens, GA 30601

 (706) 353-4721

Contact information: James F. Woglom,

 jamesfwoglom@gmail.com, (908) 337-9921

Ida Stewart, July 9, 2012

Ida Stewart’s first book, Gloss, won the 2011 Perugia Press Prize. A native of West Virginia, she holds an MFA in creative writing from The Ohio State University and is currently pursuing a PhD in creative writing here at The University of Georgia. She’s a co-editor of Unsplendid and has also served as an editorial assistant at The Georgia Review.

Ginger Murchinson, Tuesday, July 10

Ginger Murchison, together with Thomas Lux, founded Georgia Tech’s POETRY at TECH, where she served as associate director five years and has been one of its McEver Visiting Chairs in Poetry since 2009. A three-time Pushcart nominee, she is a graduate of Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers and editor of the acclaimed Cortland Review. Her first collection of poems, Out Here, was published by Jeanne Duval Editions in 2008.

Ayodele Heath, Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Born in Atlanta, poet M. Ayodele Heath is a graduate of the MFA program at New England College. His debut poetry collection, Otherness, is available on Brick Road Poetry Press. Heath’s honors include a 2009 Dorothy Rosenberg Prize and a McEver Visiting Chair in Writing at Georgia Tech. He has been awarded fellowships from Cave Canem, Summer Poetry at Idyllwild, and the Caversham Centre for Writers & Artists in South Africa and received a grant in Literary Arts from the Atlanta Bureau for Cultural Affairs.

Alice Friman, Thursday, July 12

Alice Friman’s fifth book of poetry is Vinculum, LSU. Previous books are The Book of the Rotten Daughter and Inverted Fire, BkMk, and Zoo, Arkansas. She has received fellowships from the Indiana Arts Commission, the Arts Council of Indianapolis, MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Bernheim Foundation. Among her prizes are a 2012 Pushcart Prize, the 2001 James Boatwright Prize from Shenandoah, plus three prizes from the Poetry Society of America. Anthologized widely and published in thirteen countries, she was Professor of English and creative writing at the University of Indianapolis from 1973 to 1993 and is now Poet-in-Residence at Georgia College & State University.

Poetry by and for Educators, Friday July 13–Readings from the Collective

A night of readings from University of Georgia educators and poets.

Nothing prepared,

nothing paid for,

nothing pursed worth carrying,

nothing written down,

nothing anointed, 

nothing sealed with gum wax,

nothing contagious or yellow,

nothing to be silenced or congratulated or notarized,

nothing turned its silent blades and scissored shadows until

nothing spoke, babbled really, about nothing,

nothing I can remember,

nothing to worry about,

afterall, nothing had changed,

nothing at all.

Just got word this morning that Feminine Ending, a sonnet written in fall alongside my amazing students, was just published in the May issue of the Cortland Review, audio file included!  Yeah! One’s skin get’s quite thick through piles of rejection letters.  A sweet balm to see a poem come to life in ‘web print’!