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Action Alert!
Dec. 2nd, 2009 01:31 pmhttp://www.newyorkequality.com
f*************************ck youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, NYS Senate with your 38 to 24 vote against.
Dec. 2nd, 2009
http://www.newyorkequality.com
f*************************ck youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, NYS Senate with your 38 to 24 vote against.
Some days I love teaching . . .
Dec. 2nd, 2009 03:13 pmI'm in a really good mood today. It's wonderful. Tonight I plan to hang out with this Glee meetup group my friend BE told me about. But anyway . . .
So the policy course I teach at Hunter was created by someone else. And both the students and I feel the restriction of someone else's framework. But last night was a fantastic opportunity for me to break free of it.
The Unit was titled "Sexism, Heterosexism and Social Policy" and was pretty heavy on the statistics about all the ways women are shafted. The person who put it together is, without question, a hardcore second wave feminist, and this was reflected in her reading choices.
The offerings on heterosexism and social policy were scant, conflated with trans issues (read: it says LGBT on the syllabus, but the T is otherwise invisible) and entirely devoid of an actual definition of heterosexism or heteronormativity; but all things considered I was surprised to see anything at all.
So I killed a forest bringing in about a hundred hand-outs to balance the scale. :-D
I decided to let my students lead the discussion a bit in terms of interest, filling in the plot points, if you will, so that the larger frameworks around social policy were interjected. This seemed like a vastly better approach than assaulting them with statistics. And it was. It turned into a fantastic discussion about feminism and gender essentialism and the problems with second wave feminism (most students had no idea there were any 'waves' of feminism), postmodern and Marxist frameworks for examining social problems, privilege, and what role social workers have in the discussion.
Social work students often feel helpless in policy classes, and I take particular gratification out of helping them see in what ways they can be part of the dialogue around oppression, and the ways in which social workers can utilize a social justice approach in both service delivery/direct practice and traditional advocacy efforts (like calling Senators).
My students left class with their heads full and their hearts pounding, a flurry of excitement as some of them caught up with me on the way to the train. And it struck me how teaching a variety of courses helps me to frame my teaching as I draw from material in other classes. It also didn't hurt to know that this was the week for them to fill out the teaching evaluations. ;-)
I also realized for sure that the dream I had the other night about my ex is about my academic life. By putting together this LGBT course, I am in a sense "cheating on" my dissertation that wants and needs my attention. My passion for the subject matter has waned, and that's not good. I need to examine this "old friend" and seriously consider what I'm doing before I move forward, and how much of it is the subject itself versus my tendency to jump on projects feet first and then get distracted by other interests.
So the policy course I teach at Hunter was created by someone else. And both the students and I feel the restriction of someone else's framework. But last night was a fantastic opportunity for me to break free of it.
The Unit was titled "Sexism, Heterosexism and Social Policy" and was pretty heavy on the statistics about all the ways women are shafted. The person who put it together is, without question, a hardcore second wave feminist, and this was reflected in her reading choices.
The offerings on heterosexism and social policy were scant, conflated with trans issues (read: it says LGBT on the syllabus, but the T is otherwise invisible) and entirely devoid of an actual definition of heterosexism or heteronormativity; but all things considered I was surprised to see anything at all.
So I killed a forest bringing in about a hundred hand-outs to balance the scale. :-D
I decided to let my students lead the discussion a bit in terms of interest, filling in the plot points, if you will, so that the larger frameworks around social policy were interjected. This seemed like a vastly better approach than assaulting them with statistics. And it was. It turned into a fantastic discussion about feminism and gender essentialism and the problems with second wave feminism (most students had no idea there were any 'waves' of feminism), postmodern and Marxist frameworks for examining social problems, privilege, and what role social workers have in the discussion.
Social work students often feel helpless in policy classes, and I take particular gratification out of helping them see in what ways they can be part of the dialogue around oppression, and the ways in which social workers can utilize a social justice approach in both service delivery/direct practice and traditional advocacy efforts (like calling Senators).
My students left class with their heads full and their hearts pounding, a flurry of excitement as some of them caught up with me on the way to the train. And it struck me how teaching a variety of courses helps me to frame my teaching as I draw from material in other classes. It also didn't hurt to know that this was the week for them to fill out the teaching evaluations. ;-)
I also realized for sure that the dream I had the other night about my ex is about my academic life. By putting together this LGBT course, I am in a sense "cheating on" my dissertation that wants and needs my attention. My passion for the subject matter has waned, and that's not good. I need to examine this "old friend" and seriously consider what I'm doing before I move forward, and how much of it is the subject itself versus my tendency to jump on projects feet first and then get distracted by other interests.
