Feb. 29 (M), 2016
Which day of the week affects different kind of teaching effectiveness - I think most instructors/educators are aware of this truism. Monday though, blue, usually has higher attendance for my classes. This sounds against the grain that students have low energy or motive to do anything on Mondays, in particular, the early morning classes during the frozen tundra epoch of Wisconsin. Due to this cool reality, you had better do something about it - I call it "pedagogical manipulation" in addition to pedagogical attraction or enthusiasm.As simple as that - design your learning plan with dynamic "Musts" to wake up the whole week's learning desire on Mondays (if your classes begin on this day of the week)- such as the dictatorial command on assignments that “Must” be turned in class with the “Must”-peer-review, the “Must”-sharing within each collaborative table, and a representative of each table conducting a “Must”-sharing to the big class to earn participation score, and take a “Must”-end-of-class quiz or reflection writing. But these “Musts” must be given gingerly on Mondays with your energetic and helpful induction to motivate or touch students' heart properly, otherwise, the instructor “Must” bury him/herself over the weekdays and weekends in the piles of students essays/papers, reflections, worksheets, in addition to record all these “Must” grades.
So this was last Monday classroom log from one of my 7 classes, which was Diversity Studies. A little bit background of this course: Diversity studies focus on the awareness of 6 major themes: class, race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, and their inter-sectionality that interact with people's life chances (and examine policy and legal processes on social change at the end-unit of learning).
In a typical 4-year college, it is categorized as an upper level of class with Introductory Sociology as a prerequisite. But in the 2-year college, anyone can take it if required/selected. So, usually, I spend two weeks on reviewing some basic concepts of sociology before rendering Diversity, such as roles, status (ascribed, achieved, master statuses, stigma/privileges, meritocracy, marginalization, socialization process, and social interaction), cultural capitals, social stratification...etc.
Now, regarding this class: Students came in one by one. A couple were being late due to printing their assignments on social class. During the first 5 minutes after pleading allegiance,
students conducted peer-review and then voluntarily to share personal reflection, critiques, or questions based on the article they chose to write about on the worksheet that I designed.
It took loving and caring tone to encourage them to speak up, in particular, this week's key theme was quite "abhorrent"- "social class".
Finally, the quite valiant Mary (fake name) raised her hand and said, "I don't think social class can affect much on people as the article said, because most of us are middle class... My parents work very hard to send me to a private school before this college that does not mean we are rich. I don't always have things that I really want." Then, she continued, "if not about myself, I can use my friends as an example. Both of my friends are hard-working people and have bought a $350,000 house recently in their early 30s. They also have a big boat, and enjoying traveling a lot. They truly know how to save money and manage well of their lives. In fact, I never heard off any inheritance or wealth given to them as the textbook data show. Finally she concluded, "I think that they just work hard to pursue their dream and enjoy good life..."
Through 8-weeks' classroom interaction so far, I do know a little bit about Mary. Indeed she comes from a middle class (not a dominant group in a technical college). She has very different perspectives on race/ethnicity, sexuality, not to mention social class. The concepts of privileges or stigmas, are just abstract academic terms that need to be memorized for the exams. The only diversity theme that she quite agrees to is about physical disabilities that impose challenges on some people.
No any other classmates echoed Mary's remarks. At this moment, I thought maybe I could do my usual trick - self disclosure to link with some hard-core concepts. Since Mary talked about her friends (at such a young age) who just purchased a quite high-end house in this area, I shared an episode about hunting an apartment.
Here it goes:
" A few years ago, I decided to move to close to my work-setting, not just for the buzz-word of reducing carbon-foot print, but also by nature I had never been a competent car driver, not to mention, owner (still in mortgage), if you know I got my first driver incense in the US. at the age of 40. Before my coming to the US (long time ago!). owning a car in Taipei, was much of an upper-class' status symbol, and an unnecessary act when taking the convenient transit system was an intricate part of most people's life. Furthermore, parking wars could relate to cancer and cost a lot of money to park on Formosa:)!
Before seeking professional assistance, I began with looking around housing conditions around this area. Obviously the south side of this city had lots of renting units or smaller houses. You could find the cigarette butts scattering around the front areas, the grass patches being brown or grassless in spring and summer, and the beer and soda tabs mingling with the dirt along some open yards. Many kids played in their renting front yards and their parents tended to be Hispanic or African-Americans with a strong working-class atmosphere. Some of them were quite over-weight.
Then I went to the north part of this town, and as you could expect what I would describe - you got the totally different scenes from the south. The yards of the gorgeous houses were well manicured, the gardens had beautiful flowers with nice decorations, and the trees were so lavishly green. Accidentally, I found a house for sale. I stopped by to get a piece of ad for some info stored in s box of the front yard. The exterior and interior photos were shown gracefully with a tag of $280,000 on the ad. Though the price of the house was much less than Mary's friends', apparently, I was visiting quite a high-end area. Then with curiosity, I thought: who could afford this type of houses (Surely, still much much inexpensive compared to those of Taipei's). I walked through several houses, and with surprise, the men and women of these houses, generally speaking, were in the similar age of Mary's friends - young adults!
Then, I thought to myself, " a woman like my age could be a parent of these home-owners. Yes, she is still looking for an inexpensive apartment to rent, or possibly, via an affordable mortgage for a small place to live..." The most amusing thing was that " I am a so-called "middle-class" with quite a professional job - called educator, at a college!!"
"It got to be something wrong with me", I jokingly declared in the classroom. Then I continued, "I have been working for a long time (to myself, murmuring - including being a child laborer, a retired military captain by chance, choice, happenstance, and by design - all, and different jobs throughout my life to help out my parents and siblings), and you guys might also notice, that I may be working as hard as Mary’s friends, via a 3rd language in teaching social sciences, which is, to be honest - though exciting, No Fun at all! All the teaching materials, assignments, and all sorts of learning activities, I need to spend double sometimes triple times in order to do good job... But why I still could not afford a house which does not have to be as fancy as Mary's friends', even though one can live quite comfortably by renting or living in small condo/apartment?"
Anyway, sometimes, whether self-disclosure or self-exposure might not be a good thing when it is not about being successful, glamorous, or glorious. People enjoy listening happy stories from the worshiped idols, heroes, and heroines, not from the "self-condemned", "self-pitied", or "sour-grape as well as the green-eye-like" people.
Later, class dismissed, and I started re-organizing some learning materials for the next class session.
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"Let's give a BIG hand to the "nice-to-have" and the "have-to-have" parents and grandparents." - LCH
Isn't listening or telling stories fun in facilitating teaching and learning? Behind the fun stories, two important concepts probably can be identified - meritocracy and inter-generational social mobility.
One common definition of meritocracy is to conceptualize merit in terms of tested competency and ability. In sociology, it refers to social stratification based on personal merit (from a Latin word meaning "earned"), which includes a person's knowledge, ability, and effort. In reality, the "pure" meritocracy never exists. Otherwise, a person's success will exactly reflect their ability and effort on a leveled playing field with the same starting line, which is nothing to do with race, ethnicity, class (inter and intra-generational social mobility), gender, sexuality, disability, nationality, language/accent, religion, geo-political graphical condition etc. bio-psycho-social attributes.
To visualize what meritocracy is- for example, imagining in the track and field race, the fastest or the meritorious one will be the first to break the tape at the finish line. The merit (ability and effort) of the winner's physical prowess are measured and undeniable. One of the visible objectiveness is that all runners start from the same beginning line, even though, some might argue that race/ethnicity, class, gender, physicality, nationality and so on social attributes might have impact on that starting line in a subtle way.
This brings forth a well-known phenomenon that not all the human merits are quantifiable, nor can be computed objectively, not even IQ test, due to the complex factors derived from the interplay of nature and nurture embedded in each individual of the human society.
One of these "merits" that tends to be hidden or most of time "obscured" is the establishment, accumulation, and transferring the wealth, prestige and power (SES) by the parents, grandparents, as well as the generations before, the popular practice in the upper, the upper middle, and middle-middle social classes that quietly hand down "positive" cultural capital formation to the next generations (versus the negative cultural capitals that parents passed on adversities, poverty, or disadvantages to their offspring). This is the concept of how the intra-generational success/failure turns into the inter-generational social mobility which tend to be the largest elephant-in-the-social-structural room stared by the mass. How to make C Wright Mills’ sociological imagination imaginable, sometimes, frustrates many sociologists, if not embarrasses.
Setting aside the field and track metaphor, in reality, let's us turn to socio-economic competition which is multi-faceted. Even, were Horatio Alger's the first generation of rugged to rich heroes entirely based on their "merits" to climb up the top of social ladder? How did they pass on the accumulated baton of SES into the inter-generational relay-race? Who really starts from the race line purely anew? Maybe it sounds strange to ask "Who is the 100% 'self-made men or women' on this planet?" Perhaps, ask what the percentage of one's success or failure is attributed to one's ancestors, family, and the rest of social institutions - making more sense?
So, when embracing or worshiping a successful and glorious idol, hero and heroine, don't forget to give a BIG hand to their "have-to-have" and the "nice-to-have" wonderful parents, grandparents, and the ones before them!
Meanwhile, when one doesn't possess the "nice-to-have" and/or the "have-to-have" parents, grandparents and the ones before, one should be more appreciative for the precious life challenges that are given to, because things, indeed, make one stronger if one don't get killed by the severe adversities.
A last thought, many socio-political scientists (count me in?), policy makers, and the rest of relevant parties have been tackling these topics and issues long enough in the academic and political arenas, but seemingly, these strands of studies and political harangues will be continuously flourishing with a everlasting cliche of "Well, the rich are getting richer, while the poor poorer..." How and who can do about it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX_Vzl-r8NY
