What Would Freire Do?

So there’s this guy. You might have heard of him. (No, it’s not my main (political) man, Obama.) This guy, he’s been around for a bit longer than Barack. He’s been around in education and has dabbled in United States affairs, but mostly through translation…because his work is from Brazil (no, P-Gill-S, it’s not the BBT). His name is Paulo Freire. Cool dude, this Paulo. Major contributor to a whole movement of a theory we around here in PhDness like to call Critical Theory. Among other things, Freire talks (or really talk–ed, cuz he be d-e-d…it’s a joke, people…I obviously know how to spell dead, but you never know these days with who’s critiquing whom…) so anyway, Freire talks about teachers and how we should be working toward becoming constant pedagogues of justice (btw, a “pedagogue” to those of you who are not familiar is simply…a teacher…well, it’s not really simple in the etymology of pedagogue, because the Greek origin of the word (paidagōgos)was a slave who escorted his pupil to school—a guide of the male pupil, if you will. Huge issues there that still prevail in my recent town-of-residence…but that won’t be the focus of this essay…

So, Freire writes in one of his books Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare to Teach, that we as educators need to constantly work on (well, many things…he has really high expectations for us all) our constant commitment to justice, liberty, and individual rights. He says that we should always defend the weakest when they are subjected to the smack-down of the strongest…and that we need to always show students in our daily teachings that there is amazing power and strength in ethical struggles. How awesome is that? Paulo is all about helping those who are “oppressed” in some way, rise up and learn the meanings of ‘freedom’ by educating themselves with whatever means necessary or whatever knowledge surrounding them. But, he says, when those who are oppressed are being nailed down by the oppressor, if you will, it is our duty as teachers to protect them, help them, aid them in any way we can. Powerful man, I tellya! I’m pretty sure if I would have read Freire when I was teaching I would have been in more trouble with my boss man than I already was…cuz this guy is really liberating to read! Power to all people! Woop Woop!

And then there are my undergraduate students. The future teachers of America’s ten-to-fourteen-year-olds. The ones I teach. The ones I’m supposed to nurture and support. The ones who might not be oppressed as much as they are the oppressors, sometimes. The ones for whom I practice compassion and open-mindedness. Or I could. Or I should, and I could, and I do—sometimes—but other times…well…I need Paulo Freire to come talk to my students for an afternoon so he can see where I’m coming from here.

What I want is for my students to open their eyes and their minds and see the inequities that permeate many of the schoolroom walls if not in the country, at least here in Georgia. I want them to look beyond poverty as lazy people who just need to get a job; to try and understand that someone’s sexual preference may not be an “immoral choice,” to realize that the color white is not beautiful to everyone. I want a lot, as Freire wants a lot. And Freire asks me to be tolerant in my sojourn with my undergraduates. He tells me that without tolerance, no “serious” pedagogical work can take place and no kind of democratic experience is possible, because I am closing my mind and not trying to hear/understand my students…because some of them think differently than I do. And yes, of course I know that I used to think/act/live the way some of them do that come to my class at the ripe age of nineteen and twenty. But I don’t now. So I can judge all I want, right? As long as I’m working on being open and tolerant like Freire asks me to?

In order for me to be tolerant of my students, Freire tells me that I don’t have to give-in to intolerable acts, I don’t have to ignore disrespect, nor do I have to accept someone’s unacceptable behavior. In the most positive connotation I have read/heard in a while in relation to tolerance, Freire says it’s simply a virtue “that teaches us to live with the different. It teaches us to learn from and respect different.” I can do that. I can try and learn from others, get to know where they are coming from to help broaden my own understandings. Even with the nineteen and twenty-somethings.

Sometimes. Other times, well, not-so-much.

I mean, I can handle the, “Ms. Hughes, I was going to turn in that assignment today that was assigned three weeks ago (and is due today), but my printer ran out of ink this morning and so I couldn’t print it.” Because I know that they waited until last night AFTER they went downtown to the 14 bars to work on the social part of their teaching repertoire. I can do that one. “Sure. Just email it to me.” And I can handle the, “What? No we didn’t watch any of the presidential speeches or debates because we were too busy out on the town or busy doing work or because we don’t care.” (Yes, a few of them said that in class…to their instructor…during one of the most important times of our country’s history.) I can handle it because I’m working HARD to understand where they’re coming from and use those points as beginnings of strength. And because I know that some of them do care or will one day. And others, well, they really don’t care. I simply respond, “Well, if you’re going to become a public school educator, I would suggest you start caring. Right about now.” I know, supportive and gentle, right?

I have even learned to be more accepting of the, “I’m not sure I can do ‘hands-on’ learning with these kids…because….well….they’re too ‘low’ or too poor or too whatever" the new excuse is about children who do not come from their same backgrounds or do not look like them. Because I can say, “You can and you will. You will plan your lessons as if every child in the class is ‘gifted’ and then scaffold appropriately. I promise you it will be successful.” Because then it is successful and they never think that again. Or at least never say that to me again. All of these things I’m learning to open up to---I’m trying to “learn from and respect different.”

But like I said, only sometimes. One of the other times is represented below in an anecdote of “ethical struggle” presented to me recently, I’m sure, so I can practice compassion and open-mindedness with ALL students:

Ten Minutes into My First Meeting with Miss GA/FL

Me: So what days would you like me to come observe you teach this class? I will let you choose since it’s your first time being observed, so you feel comfortable.

Precious-twenty-year-old: Well, I’d rather you wait a few weeks so I feel comfortable with the class and the students.

Me: That’s fine. How about the first week of November?

Precious-twenty-year-old-southern-belle: Well, of course you can’t come on that Monday, November 1st because that’s the weekend of Georgia/Florida, and I’ll just be exhausted from the game! I definitely won’t feel like teaching that day! And the rest of the week, I’m pretty booked up.

Me: Huh?

Precious-obviously-confused-twenty-year-old-southern-belle: I mean, of course you understand. I’ll be in Jacksonville that whole weekend, beginning Thursday, of course, because we have fall break on Friday. I won’t get back until late Sunday night, so Monday just won’t work for me teaching.

Me: Oh…Um. OK.

I mean, what could I say? It IS the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. Who am I to get in the way of that?

I can see it now. It’s the year 2010. Miss GA/FL has her own class of precious 6th graders (probably in a private school so she won’t have to deal with the riff-raff) and there is a huge Halloween party in her little town. Unfortunately for her 6th graders, the party falls on a Thursday night instead of a Friday night. Miss GA/FL calls in and leaves a message for the front office: “Yes, office girl? I will not be able to make it in tomorrow because I have an event to attend tonight where I’ll be dressing as Minnie Mouse. I’ll not be able to make it in tomorrow because I’ll simply be exhausted! See you on Monday.”

Just today, I did observe Miss Georgia/Florida teach her class (mind you, today is the day before GA/FL game—we compromised…or…something like that), and when I asked if we could meet after the lesson for our post-observation meeting, she laughingly reminded me that it would be impossible because she had to rush home and meet people to get on the road for the game. She did tell me to have a good weekend, though, so that was nice.

Open-mindedness….learn from different….respect different….we’ll see, Paulo….we’ll see…..

Maybe I’ll move to Brazil and see how they do things there…without…football…

Martians, Smoothie Queens, and Facebooking as a verb

Twilight Zone, Part I

Soooo I’m sitting at the restaurant bar the other night waiting for my dinner companions, and I begin (not meaning to, of course) eavesdropping on a conversation between two of the bar patrons and the bartender. This barmaid was all of a sprite twenty years, I would guess, and the nice-looking, agreeably dressed couple probably averaged late sixties, early seventies. I could hear the two beginning to question the young, female barkeep about her voting proficiency—if she was “even old enough to vote,” if she was registered to vote, where she was registered, and finally how she should immediately obtain an absentee ballot because she was not from Athens. After the five minute interrogation about the act of voting, the couple moved into a fantastically wonderful tête-à-tête for whom this twenty year old should be casting her vote.
“I mean, we’re not saying we KNOW this for sure,” the southern gentleman stated politely while smiling at the young college student, “but we’re pretty confident that he is backed one hundred percent by the Chicago mafia.”

“Yes,” replied the silky smooth voice of the gentleman’s confidant, “it’s true. And, no matter what you hear about him being Christian, we know for a fact that he is Muslim.”

(….um…..…..keep a lid on it for now, Hughes. This could get even better……..)

“You know, I’ve heard that somewhere before.” The barely non-teen mixologist replied with a really confused look on her face. “But I was watchin’ TV recently and they were sayin’ how he left his church after that preacher guy said all that bad stuff about our country, so I just couldn’t believe he left his own church after all that time. That doesn’t really seem cool to do.”

“Oh he didn’t leave the church,” the old crotchety racist man retorted, cutting the probable-future-manager of Long Horn Steak House off as quickly as he could, “he just ‘denounced’ the church. You see, that’s why we know he’s Muslim. And it’s up to you and your friends to make sure he doesn’t get elected. You don’t know what will happen to our country if he ends up in the White House.”

(Ok, Ok, I get it…so he’s a planted spy for the other team…because certainly no one would be delivering this kind of propaganda and actually believe it…so he’s obviously being PAID to say it, right?)

“Mmmhmmm, he’s exactly right.” The probable-mistress of the old crotchety racist man chimes in with confidence. “You can’t even imagine the harm that our country will endure if he is elected.”

…Soooo I’m sitting at the restaurant bar the other night waiting for my dinner companions, and I begin writing down everything these native inhabitants from the planet Mars are saying because I’m…well….at a loss for words, as I am …not…..right now. I’m writing and writing all over these bar napkins, basically, so I won’t get up, meander over to their bar stools, and knock them off, one by one. A smile is now spreading slowly over my horror-struck face as I am logging voraciously what these two really disturbed (human?) beings are pumping into one of America’s finest youth, and I hear the old KKK member then say, “Give me Sarah Palin all day long! Now that’s a woman! She’s real, you know what I mean? She lives in reality and cares about our country. SHE is our country’s future.”

“Oh, I totally agree,” says the distorted old crotchety KKK man’s house-wrecking-mistress. “I mean, I’m not racist,” she continued—(and you KNOW I love when people begin a sentence that way, revealing themselves as absolutely racist)—“but can you imagine what would happen if a black man was elected president of our country? I’d MUCH rather a woman who has similar values to me and who is Christian to be in the White House.”

…..huh?

….what?

Oh, I remember, I’m in Mayberry. Hey Barney, arrest these ignorant Martian adulterers, wouldja? Oh wait, I’m not in Maayyyyberry! I’m in a “liberal” university town—one of the supposedly ‘blue’ counties in my predominantly ‘red’ (insert double entendre here for ‘red’) state. Dinner companion number one finally enters the Twilight Zone area where I’ve been apparently beamed to by Scotty for this brief period and I get to exit the scene leaving the sweet couple unscathed, thank you Lord Jesus!

Twilight Zone, Part II

I won’t go too deep on the Planet Smoothie experience I had the very next morning with the high school smoothie connoisseur, but let me just give you this visual:

With her dirty blond hair pulled back in two (a few days old) pig tails and her extra large and perfectly circular black glasses sliding down her nose every three seconds, Planet Smoothie girl is holding my morning’s future captive in one hand, its lid grasped tightly in the other, telling me about a three-legged dog she’s just saved, her twenty-year-old sister who smokes too much, and her four-year-old niece who, well, “She don’t even care ‘bout tellin’ mah sister how bad she stanks. She jus’ goes own n tells’er, ‘Yu stank cuz of them cigarettes! I ain’t ridin’ in ur car!’ En then she jus’ runs off laughin’. Ain’t that the funniest thang you’d ev’r heard?” I, meanwhile, am still stuck on the three legged dog she’s so wittily (and originally) named Tripod, and the incredibly detailed story describing how she found Tripod just after he’d lost his leg on that hot summer day in the middle of the road…

I stare at my smoothie, beckoning it to wiggle free from its hostage grip, but to no avail. Smoothie princess has made the conscious decision not to give up my breakfast until I’ve heard everything she can muster up about Tripod and each of her closest relatives. God, where is the couple from last night when I need them?

School? School is good. Just a few snapshot vignettes to give you an insider’s peek into my past few months of PhDness, year three.

EDMS 5020: Teaching Young Adolescents

(First class for preservice teachers in a series of four in the Middle Grades Program)

Instructor: Hilary Hughes

Class I, 8:00AM:

They file into the room both uncertain and ambivalent. Social justice is the premise of my course—I will open their eyes to a world they may not know; I will try and disrupt everything they think they know about education, middle school kids, and themselves, but I will try and use compassion during my quest. Race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, culture—we will cover it all. About twenty two of them are there ready and waiting with syllabus in hands, perusing their future semester with sleepy eyes. He walks in, all six-feet-five inches of him, with almost translucent white skin and a smattering of freckles. Immediately, I hear a student ask him if he plays basketball. “Nope.” is the only word that escapes his lips.

“Hey, are you Cal?” I ask him cheerfully.

“Nope.” He responds looking put-off and/or shy.

“Oh, so then who are you?” I ask, confused because he’s the only one left on my roster who looks like he could match this name that seems to belong to a dude.

“I’m Kris,” he says and sits down, never making eye contact with me.

“Hmmm, so I wonder who this Cal guy is,” I question myself out loud in my first-day-of-school-aren’t-you-so-excited-to-be-here-cheesy voice.

EDMS 5020

Students: 25

White males: Kris, Matt, Brian

White females: 20

African American females: Cal

Asian American females: Toni Rose

Nice start on the socially-just gendering thing…

Same Day, a few hours later:

“So which one of you is teaching Kris Durham?” My program coordinator asks my friend Lisa and me, because we’re each teaching a section of the course.

“I am. What’s his deal, anyway?” I answer, thinking she’ll tell me something juicy that I can use to make him like my class.

“Oh, he’s a football player. One of the starting players, I think. He assures us he’ll be fine in our program and won’t miss any classes, so keep us posted.”

Riiiight…A starting football player for the University of Georgia. (At the time) ranked number one in the country. In my middle grades education methods course. And I called him a girl on the first day. Awesome.

Class II, 9:15AM—“Getting to Know You Activities”

Me: When getting to know your students, it’s nice to listen to the music they like, read the books they read, learn about the video games they’re into, see some of their after-school activities, you know, get to know them outside of school. So name a song that you’re tired of hearing on the radio over and over.

Student: “Lollipop” (Other students: Oh yeah, hate that one. Grumble, grumble…)

Me: Hmm, never heard of that one. Someone else? What’s another song?

Student: “Bleeding Love” (Other students: Oh yeah, horrible! All the time! So over it!)

Me: Hmmm, never heard of that one. (Good lord, what ARE these songs they’re talking about?) OK, so what’s another one?

Student: “Take a Bow,” Rihanna. (Other students: Ooooh, yeah, that one too! Sooo annoying!)

Me: Nope, haven’t heard that one either.

Student: So, um, what DO you listen to, Hilary?

Me: Obviously nothing. I apparently have been moving through life in absolute silence. Let’s move on, shall we?

Me: In this center, you are listing all of your strengths on these construction paper links and then you will connect them to see all of your strengths you bring into the class as a cohort. So what are some verbs you’ve listed here as your strengths?

Twenty-something: Well, let’s see…I put like running, cooking, laughing, and Facebooking.

Me: Umhmm and um, what’s Facebooking, exactly?

Her: ……………………….blank stare……………………

Me: I mean, what does that mean, since you’ve turned the noun into a verb?

Her: ………………………..blank stare…………………..

Me: So what does one do when one is ‘Facebooking’?

Another student (appalled look): Um, you go on Facebook, obviously. Like one of my verbs I put was Facebook stalking because I’m really good at that!

Me: OK, well, let’s move on then.

Class VIII, 8:47AM (a month and a half into the semester…each class three hours long…total time spent together with twenty-five students: approximately 24 hours total)

“So what does everyone think about what Kristyne (pronounced Kristeen) said about teaching in an inner-city school versus teaching in a rural school? Oh, I mean, Kristen, sorry, Kristen.”

Blank stares from twenty-five faces for what feels like two days.

“Um, no, you were right the first time, Hilary. My name is Kristyne (pronounced Kristeen).”

Laughing nervously, “Oh, right. Yeah. Sorry. I knew that. Of course I knew that. I just wasn’t paying attention. Could you repeat what you said, before, Kristyne. I’ve forgotten what you said now.”

ELAN 8950: Arts-Based Research Methodologies

Students: Hilary Hughes—art-deficient PhD student in middle grades program

Six others: Art Education, Language and Literacy Education, Design

something-or-other-that’s-really-cool-and-brilliant Program

Class I:

Professor: I’d like you to go around the room and introduce yourselves to us. Why are you getting your PhD? What are your obsessions? How have those obsessions influenced what you’re studying?

Me: Oh, well, I’ll start. My name is Hilary. (giggle out loud) That’s funny, I’m in a twelve-step program so I just felt like I was at a meeting, Hehehehe.

Them: ………………………

Me: So anyway, blah, blah, blah…….happy-go-lucky-giddy-oh-how-I-love-PhDness-and-my-family-and-teaching-young-adolescents-and-body-imagestuff-and-sexualitystuff-and-alcoholism-and-here-is-my-whole-life-story-to-all-of-you-whom-I’ve-never-seen-before…

Them: ……………………….

Professor: OK, so let’s try and keep it under about seven minutes while we go around the room so we can all have a chance to share.

Class II, Discussion on readings for class:

One of Them: Yes, and I really agreed with how Ellis talked about autoethnography and its avenues of allowing us to delve deeper into the self as well as the Other. I can see how the postmodern influence has helped Arts-Based research move forward in the field of education….

Me: ……………………………

Professor: So what does everyone think about scholARTistry being described as a hybrid practice that combines tools used by the literary, visual, and/or performing arts with tools used by educators and other social scientists to explore the human condition?[1]

Me: Um…it’s…pretty….cool? Maybe kinda like Facebooking?

Gooooooooo Dawgs! Sick ‘em! Woof, woof, woof!

Cheers! HEH

---

[1] Cahnmann, M. (2006). Reading, Living, and Writing Bilingual Poetry as ScholARTistry in the Language Arts Classroom. Language Arts, 83, 4.

Celebrityhood and the Most Winningest Mascots Around: The Legend of the Ugas…

Did you know that Uga VI died? Yep. National news a few months back. Poor guy dropped dead (peacefully, of course, in his sleep) from congestive heart failure. I’m sure they’ll be bringin’ Uga VII up any day now to debut his first football game, but there is a riff in the air about who will be the lucky DAWG…

What? Some of you don’t know to whom I’m referring? Well, friends, let me enlighten you! Uga VII has been around the University of Georgia’s campus for nine seasons. And by nine seasons, I mean that little Churchillian English bulldog served his biggest (metaphorically and literally) fans for nine football seasons, slobbering all over the football field…when he wasn’t resting in his air conditioned house on the sidelines from “being sore from people petting him too much.” To which part are you furrowing your brow so far: the air conditioned house that a freakin’ dog has on the UGA football sidelines, the free flights from Delta to away games (forgot to mention that one), or the massages he used to get because he was pet too much? They even quoted someone in the Atlanta Journal Constitution back in June talking about the dog’s political status! I’m not pullin’ your chain here:

With the passing of one Uga there's always speculation regarding which bulldog will be heir to the throne, which comes with a few perks, including an air-conditioned doghouse, travel by Delta Airlines to away games, celebrityhood (Uga V was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1997 as the nation's best mascot) and a fanbase that's paparazzi-like in its obsession. "People pet him so much his head gets sore," Seiler once said of his line of Ugas. "He's like a politician who shakes too many hands." (AJC, 6/28/08)

There’s just so much that’s wrong about this that I don’t know really where to begin. But you all know I’ll find a starting point somewhere…Celebrityhood…for a slobbery dog, how about that?

How about also that I didn’t learn this news by reading the Atlanta Journal Constitution because…well…I don’t read. (Well, we all know I READ or I wouldn’t have wonderful pieces of theory, philosophy and websites to pass on to all of you.) Newspapers, I mean. No, I learned this Bull(dog)-fan--tasmic information from the guy I’m dating. Because he went to University of Georgia. So he’s a DAWG! Part of the cult. You know, kinda psycho like all the rest of the people who went or go to the University of Georgia about a sport where very large men wear very tight pants and role around on the ground with other very large men in a rough and animalistic kind of way…and thousands of people stand around and cheer for them to do that. Loudly, inebriated, and violently. Sounds kinda Greek to me….hmmm…..Athens…..makes sense….

Launching into my third year of graduate school, I’m probably more amazed now than I was when I moved here two years ago with the absolute crazed-obsession thousands of people have here with football. And dogs. That aren’t even human. Yet these slobbering, heavy-breathing canines (who can’t even play football, mind you) receive free plane tickets, air conditioned houses, and massages. What the hell is wrong with this society? Or shall I say, this SEC (Southeastern Conference) society? I am surrounded constantly in Athens by people who are homeless or near homeless or college students who are working on becoming homeless because they attend more football games than classes. (Actually, as I am writing this essay I am surrounded by a few of the homeless people who keep feeling the need to strike up conversations with me, and because I’m politely nodding and writing with my EARPHONES on trying to give the not-so-subtle hint that I’m KIND OF BUSY HERE, HELLLOOOO, one of them keeps circling my table trying to get me to look at him…so fun….But anyway, back to the sob-story: I have seen more poverty in this town than I have seen in any other town I’ve lived in during my short (almost) thirty-five years, and the freaking mascot dog who can’t figure out where he is most of the time gets free plane tickets? First class, probably, too. My cat could kick that dog’s ass in a game of chess or Scrabulous on Facebook, and yet, Phoebe doesn’t have gigantic statues all over the city dressed in different outfits (some in drag, thank you very much) icon-izing her greatness.

The article I was quoting earlier talked about Uga VI being the “most winningest” mascot. Yeh, um so I won’t even GO into the term the AJC used as a superlative for “win.” But the most winningest mascot will be buried in a marble vault at UGA’s stadium with his ancestors in case any of you were wondering. His ancestors, by the way, have been around since 1956. I’m tellin’ you, I know more than I should about this stupid slobbering line of mutts that don’t know how to do anything with pigskin except drool on it or pee on it.

I probably write this essay today because recently, as many of you may or may not know, the Georgia Bulldog football team was named numero UNO in the pre-season picks AND three of their players were on the COVER of Sports Illustrated just last week. All of this, of course, just after two of the players were arrested for “simple battery” because they were drunk and (accused of) harassing a pregnant lady using sexual innuendos. A six month pregnant lady who was visiting a friend in a dorm at 1:30 in the morning, mind you. Cuz, she…couldn’t sleep….because she was so pregnant that she was….uncomfortable? Another UGA football player was incarcerated for beating the shit out of someone that same night…cuz he could…cuz he’s a DAAAWWWGGGG! “Gooooooooo DAWGS! Sick ‘Em! Whoo, Whoo, Whoo!”

What am I looking forward to during this upcoming football season, you ask? Well, the usual, of course: tailgating that begins at 6:30 in the morning for miles and miles and continues on for a strong red and black thirty hours; the once beautiful eighteen-to-twenty-year-old sorority girls in the stands who are all disheveled by half time because they’ve been throwing up on themselves thanks to their date’s chivalrous acts of pumping them full of Kentucky bourbon, which is kept secure in a Zip-lock baggy that’s been shoved inside the girls’ bra straps; the really old drunk men who scream and shout at the players on the field as if 1) the players will actually hear the professional-sounding plays the men are shouting at them, and 2) the really old drunk men could do any better out there in the 100 degree weather with the pressure of being number one in the country lying peacefully on their roided-out shoulders; and I am looking forward to the new rule this year in Stanford Stadium: NO SMOKING. Can you believe it? What will the drunks do who “smoke only when they drink,” or the ones who smoke three packs during the first half because they’re so drunk? Will they just drink more? Will ciggies be added to another Zip-lock and stored in the opposite bra strap?

Oh, and the new look! I’m really looking forward to some snapshots of the adorable twenty thousand-twenty-somethings in their—you guessed it—flow-ee skirts just below or above the knees and their cowgirl boots. C’mon, I know you’ve seen it on Entertainment Tonight, in People, or tromping around your local downtowns. This new look is apparently for all shapes-n-sizes and here to stay for the fall! I wonder how they’ll accessorize it for the UGA red-n-black days. More to come…

PhDs, Graffiti, and Water Parks: The Art Forms of Life

Recently I’ve been frequenting the quaint and under-populated city streets of Atlanta, Georgia for various reasons, and I’ve noticed (aside from the superb maintenance and upkeep of the interstate system keeping the motor vehicles moving along nicely) the enormous amounts of graffiti that sprinkle the cement walls, garbage cans, bridges, and other empty surfaces on the east side of the A.T.L. Now, to some, graffiti is an eye-sore and a pain to clean-up/off, but to others (many others, I’d guess) it is a true art form. One has to be especially skilled with a certain artistic eye, mind, and hand to scratch, draw, or paint building walls with the marvelously detailed pictures and stories I’ve been seeing all over the eastside of the “dirty, dirty,” as some refer to it in their crazy lil’ rap songs. I’ve seen spectacular depictions of Bob Marley, Barack Obama, Humphrey Bogart, and some other old, dead white guy who was famous in the black-n-white-movie days smoking his ciggy. I’ve read deep messages scripted in brilliant colors along city buildings, and I’ve glimpsed some kid’s selected struggles scrawled alongside Interstate Twenty on my way to dinner. To be skilled in the genre of graffiti is truly an art form I do not and will not ever possess…unfortunately. Something my PhD preparation will not offer me in the near future…

Another art form I don’t think about often but recently experienced that I may never possess is the art of parenting. Or maybe more specifically, single-parenting. A.K.A., taking a thirteen-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a four-year-old to a gigantic water park by myself. Yes, friends, there are some things that even a PhD cannot prepare one for, and the skills needed to be a single mom in a water park with three children varying widely in age is one of those areas.

Because I had not been to Florida in so long to visit my precious niece and nephews, I told my brother that I would LOVE to take them all to the famous Shipwreck Island Water Park for a day of fun in the sun, and then back to the grandparents’ house for a spend the night party after our explorations on the beach. What a great idea…Hilary….for a crack addict! I know many of you on my list have children, so you’ll know what I mean when I say…sometimes kids don’t like each other. At all. I mean, if each of them had the choice, they’d all choose to be only children and I’m not just saying that. My older brother always felt that way (probably still does) but I never wanted him dead or shipped off or whatever he wanted for me, his sister four years his junior, who worshiped the ground he walked on, so I don’t understand the mentality of an absolute loathing for a younger or older sibling. Well…after spending twenty-four hours with my three babies, I kind of do now.

Inside the realm of education as teachers and teacher educators, we read, read, read about how we need to learn where children come from, how we should get to know children’s life experiences, get to know their cultures, backgrounds, beliefs, etc. We learn these things in order to better serve them in the classroom, to help shape the curriculum more to their needs and likings, and to build relationships with them while we’re in loco parentis (“in the place of the parent” for those of you who forgot your Latin roots) for the short time they enter our lives.

If you spent five hours with my three angels, you’d never guess they came from the same family while getting to know their backgrounds. Good lesson for me as an educator—apples don’t always fall directly—or even near—the tree. Sometimes those apples seem to be hurled across the farm, bounce through a raging river, and then land somewhere else…in someone else’s yard. The thirteen-year-old is this absolute beauty queen who is incredibly intelligent and is so old-soul-seeming at the chronologically and socially-constructed-assigned age of thirteen. She has a huge heart and will do anything for her two younger brothers…well, almost anything. She spends a lot of time babysitting them, so she is learning (as I did not get to) the art of mothering at an early age. The eight-year-old had to be an absolute mix-up because he is so much like me and not anything like my older brother, his father, that it constantly baffles me when I’m around him. He is actually more like me than I am like me: sensitive spirited, loves to entertain, loves to laugh, and definitely loves to cry. He looks just like me with his fair skin and freckles, and if that boy doesn’t have enough rest he is just like his aunt—meaning, we both need time by ourselves (my mom calls it ‘downtime’ to nicely describe my viscous wrath in a diplomatic way).

The littlest one. Well, I’m not sure how to describe him. Incredibly smart (as are the other two), a little ball of…full-throttled energy in both mind and spirit, and always vying for his family’s attention. Being the youngest in a family of five, the youngest one has learned that in order to gain attention from anyone in that busy family, he can just scream as loud as his miniature lungs will allow, causing the neighboring dogs to howl, or he can just walk up and punch you in the gut. It’s nice, really. He is a beautiful child.

So there I am on a Wednesday afternoon at the water park. With all three of them. By myself. Now I’ve been reading about children and their needs for at least nine years. I’ve read developmental theories, socio-cultural theories, studies on and about children, books; you name it, I’ve read it (OK, so I haven’t read What to Expect When You’re Expecting or all those other parenting books, but you know where I’m coming from here). And I love my three angels. I worship them, actually. When I’m with them—any or all—I think to myself, Yes, I want to be a mother one day because if I love these children this much, I can’t imagine how much I’d love one of my own. But like I said, I was at the water park with all three of them. By myself. At this water park some rides everyone can ride, some rides only the little ones can ride (the kiddy park, which is an enormous place with multiple pee-pools, slides, spurting fountains, mothers chasing babies-to-four-year-olds, and fathers with huge guts passed out in the sun chairs from all their supportive-parental-beer drinking), and then some rides are just for big kids and adults. So I’m with three children who represent each of these categories. The four-year-old can go on all the rides in the kiddy park and is only tall enough for a few of the big-kid rides, which look wonderfully enticing to him until we get in line for a long time, and he keeps lamenting, “Aunt Hirry, this was a very, very bad idea. I don’t think we should be waiting in this long line. It’s just a very, very bad idea. When will we get up there, Aunt Hirry?” and then hurls himself on the ground looking up at me with his precarious facial expressions. The eight-year-old can ride every ride in the park…and wants to…all day long. He, unfortunately, has to go with us to the little kid stuff because I can’t separate myself from them, and he is a pretty good sport the seventh time we get in the Lazy River to float around with the four-year-old. The thirteen-year-old? Well, she’s thirteen. She’s just lookin’ all hot in her lil’ bikini and making fun of the lifeguards with her immature aunt, smirking occasionally because of my absolute lack of knowledge in caring for children. (“Should we put more sunscreen on them now, Savannah? When do you think they’ll be hungry, Savannah? Why does Dawson keep punching me in the stomach? Why won’t Dawson listen to me? Do you think Brady’s feelings will be hurt if we wait to go on that ride? Will you please just put 4 on your nose, Savannah? Why haven’t Dawson and Brady had to go to the bathroom all day? Are they peeing in the pool?”)

A few snapshots from the day.

Savannah (13) is hungry. We’ve been on several rides that the boys wanted to go on, with me promising her after every one that we’ll get food after “this next one.” She is exceptionally patient. Feeling defeated, I finally tell her to go get the food without us because the boys keep telling me that they’re not hungry (with me of course knowing they are because they haven’t eaten all day and are just too wound up to get the food) but she doesn’t want to go alone and carry all the food. So I come up with the brilliant idea to tell Brady (8) to watch Dawson (4) in the kiddy park—not to let him out of his site (Dawson has ‘selective hearing’ at the early age of 4 and usually does what he wants no matter what anyone tells him…no, really, it’s fun). And I tell Dawson NOT to leave Brady’s sight. Right, Aunt Hilary. Good one. That’ll work. They are to float around in the Lazy River one time (it’s a large Lazy River) and then I’ll find them at the stairs near the kiddy pool. Minutes later, Savannah and I are standing in line for food and I am extremely antsy about the boys. She’s a bit annoyed because I’m a bit paranoid, but hell, I’m just the aunt. I can’t imagine calling my brother and saying, “Well, two of them are good. Lost one, but two outta three ain’t bad.” So I tell her I’ll be RIGHT back—that I’m just going to check on them in the Lazy River, knowing that they’ll be “fine.”

I walk over to the kiddy pool section where the Lazy River is and watch the people floating by slowly…no boys…I walk around the circle a bit to see if they’re in another section of the Lazy River…no boys….my heart skips only once as I glance across the kiddy pool (keeping my cool because I know they can’t be too far gone in the kiddy section) and my eyes fall upon the little four-year-old walking along the Lazy River on the cement. By himself. No, he’s not IN the water, not IN the Lazy River floating like he’s supposed to be. He’s walking along the inside of the ropes where only lifeguards are supposed to walk. Throwing sticks in the water as people float by him. At the people as they float by him. Entertaining, right? I casually walk over to him and ask, “Hey there, Dawson. Where’s your brother?” He replies, “I don’t know. I’m going to the slide now.” And runs off.

Shift forward a few hours: one wants Dippin’ Dots, the other a blue icy, and the other an ice cream cone. All three, of course, at different locations. Why would a business for mostly kids do this to an adult? Why not sell all three in the same freaking hut? Being the single in loco parentis that I am, we all wait in line together and I convince two of them to want the same thing so we don’t have as many huts to visit. We purchase our edibles move to a table to chow down and take a break from all the fun in the sun, and the four-year-old begins performing stunts while eating his cone. I saw it happening; I knew it would be the way I foresaw it in my head, and it came to be just that. The cone hit the sand and the little one cried as if I had just taken him from his mommy. Ice cream’s over, kids. Back to the kiddy pool.

It’s now 3:45 and we’ve pledged that we’ll make it to the closing of the park at 5:00 (we arrived near the opening around 11:00, mind you). I have whole-heartedly changed that pledge now with the promise that we’ll all go get henna tattoos at Alvin’s Magical Island if we leave NOW! (Another stellar idea by the absurd, inexperienced aunt. Take three children to get henna tattoos where all have to wait patiently for the other in a huge store full of pirate swords, plastic snakes, rubber bouncy balls, and let’s see…what else got broken…). So I ask the 8 year old to PROMISE he’ll keep an eye on the 4 year old for just five minutes while the 13 year old and I get our stuff together. He promises his best promise and puts on his most efficient parental tone with the 4 year old. Three and a half minutes later, I hear a young boy screaming at the top of his lungs as if someone has just been shot in front of him, and I look over to see the 8 year old pulling the 4 year old out of the Lazy River (Oh yeah, I’ve told the 4 year old he’s not to get in the Lazy River because we’re leaving and he’s assured me he wouldn’t think of it. “I’ll stay RIGHT HERE, Aunt Hirry, with Brady, right? We won’t leave this slide, right?”).

I calmly walk toward the two boys as two lifeguards are simultaneously sprinting over to them, I’m sure, thinking the little one is drowning, and I guarantee them that no, he’s not drowning, he’s just not getting his way because that’s how we roll, baby! The fifteen-year-old and seventeen-year-old lifeguards don’t think I’m as funny as I think I am and they stalk off to talk about me and my poor parenting skills with their cronies, who are twirling their professional lifeguard whistles at the lifeguard stand, reapplying their sunscreen before yet another round of crazy life guarding skills at the kiddy pee-pools. One second later, I see out of my peripherals an obvious and professional mom gawking at me both worried and annoyed, while her angelic four-year-old sits quietly next to her eating a hotdog. I happily respond to her silent and violent stare burning a hole in my forehead, “I’m obviously just the aunt. Hahaha…Your son must be really tired to be that good at a place like this.” Because I don’t think the, “You know, I’m working on my PhD and although I might not be the best single parent, I bet I’m smarter than you.” retort wouldn’t suffice. She too, does not join in on my attempted child-humor of the day.

I wonder if I could artistically scrawl some waves, a speed slide, and a pair of four-year-old lungs screaming, along with enormous tears welling up in little 8 and 4 year old eyes on a local wall…you know, to represent the unforgettable family time I had with the little ones that day…

Maybe I’ll just keep reading about how experiences help shape who we are. And I’ll keep appreciating the graffiti I see on the buildings in Atlanta representing the stories of children who come in and out of our lives for brief moments over time. And I’ll continue to be grateful for the art of parenting that so many of you possess, and do extremely well, I might add. Keep up the good work. As will I. And screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke! HEH

Trippinbillies and Tribal Elders, Summer 08

Don’t you hate it when you’re talking to people and they either have something very large stuck in their teeth or they have a little something hanging out of their nose? What about when you don’t know that person very well? Or that person is a boss/professor/colleague/new romance…it’s so uncomfortable, isn’t it? And when that person with the large object all jacked up in his/her teeth/nose is you, the rest of us tend to say, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me I had blah blah…” and the other responds, “Oh, I didn’t even see it!” We all know we saw it, don’t we? Or at least those of us who are extremely observant of the person with whom we’re speaking. We know. We just feel too uncomfortable to say anything. And there it is: that moment when someone does tell you that you do, in fact, have something hanging or stuck…then it’s just an uncomfortable moment—a split second of humility. Or when you’re walking and you trip over nothing, then look around to see if anyone saw you…or just keep walking with a little side step so it looked like you meant to perform that totally ungraceful move—as if it was purposeful to look like a jackass. Or the people who trip, look around, see that you have noticed their graceless-ness, and then say something like, “Oh my gosh, I totally just tripped.” Like you might not have seen them so they feel the need to tell you even though you’ll never see them again. Or, “Oh my gosh, I totally didn’t see that.” And you smile politely like you don’t know what that person is talking about, as if you didn’t see him or her stumble over a non-existent crack in the ground and perform the absolutely absurd actions that follow.

There are other scenarios in life that I find to be quite analogous to the booger/black spice/jackass-trip situations. And those scenarios are when I happen to be that slight piece of booger, or the black spice leftover in your front tooth, or your right foot that suddenly seems as if it has grown a gigantic clown shoe for a millisecond. I can happily say it’s all about humility for me. The universe constantly reminds me that I am a human being and that I will make mistakes; and if I practice acknowledging those mistakes, then I can continue to learn and grow.(Sound reflective enough for ya?)

During the recently chilly month of May in Georgia, I attended one of my summer classes—“Writing Up Qualitative Research”—but it was not your ordinary PhD class. (I’m not quite sure what an ordinary PhD anything would be after these past two years and change, but bear with my storytelling, por favor.) There were sixteen of us varying in our PhDness registered for the class, some working on final chapters of dissertations, some just beginning dissertations, and then…well, me. I was working on a book chapter for a book that some professors and a few of us grad students are writing for masters and PhD level students in education, and the premise behind the book is to explore the idea that “developmentalism” as we know it in education may not be so cut and dry. That the boxes and categories that we often tend to lump kids into (“all fourteen-year-olds are…”) were created by a certain group of people a long, long time ago who were studying only a certain group of kids: white, middle-class kids. So my specific chapter is about “readiness” in talking to middle school girls about their bodies, body image, and sexuality. Sounds pretty scary, right? Are some of you right this second thinking, Oh my god, Hilary. Why would you want to write about sex and bodies? Teenagers aren’t ready to talk about that! While others of you who have worked with thirteen and fourteen year olds might be thinking, RIIIIGGGHHHTTT OONNNN, sister! Bring it!

And so the I-am-the-spice-caught-in-tooth/I-become-the-booger-story unfolds.

For our “non-traditional” PhD class, we had to meet at Amacalola State Park in the north GA Mountains, where we were to write for six days and nights, all day long, all night long. We met with our professors for 30 minutes each day to set goals and get feedback, and then some of us had writing partners with whom we met for an hour on some days to also get/give feedback. It was intense, to say the least. Pretty much ten to twelve hours a day of writing…limited internet (had to hike up to a lodge where it was) and four people in a cabin to pump out some major work! Each night the sixteen of us registered for the class (well, the fifteen registered and me who thought I had registered but found out two days into the damn class that I had actually forgotten to register, so now I have to register for another class so I can get credit for it) would meet from 7-9 post meridian to share work and get/give feedback as a whole.

The first night of our “community of writers meeting,” I noticed a certain atmosphere that puzzled me. You see, you can take this class as many times as you’d like, but it’s on a first-come, first-serve basis, so it depends on if you sign up in time. This year there were a few returning doctoral students I decided to name the Tribal Elders, and there were the neophytes—the rest of us. The Tribal Elders were a motley crew, all residing over in a department called “Leisure and Recreation Studies.” Yes, that is correct. There is a whole department where people can acquire a doctor of philosophy (as well as an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree) in Leisure and Recreation. What does this entail, you ask? You know, the usual: hangin’ out at someone’s pad, channel surfin’, chillin’ at the bar, smokin’ some weed…whatever dude…Ok, not really. Leisure and Rec. is actually a really interesting department where future park rangers, hotel service industry people, and some other kinds of people I’m sure go to get their degrees in wonderfulness. So the Tribal Elders consisted of four Leisure and Rec. PhD students who were all nearing finished with their dissertations and natives of the writing class, raising their status considerably in many areas of PhDness. And like I said earlier, the rest of us were just…new.

During “community of writers meeting” (notice how I’ve put this in quotations twice now? There is a reason for this that will soon be revealed), we were required to share something with the group that we had been working on that day or that week. Because this was the first meeting, most seemed to be shying away from sharing their progress, so a few of the Elders read their stuff. All of them received multiple kudos from the professors and the neophyte crowd like, “Oh, wow, that’s amazing writing you have there. Your dissertation is just incredible. You’re an awesome writer. I loved how you…..That one line on page six, paragraph three really moved me….” Yadda, yadda, yadda. And after they were finished there was silence. So much silence, in fact, that our professor said, “I’m really good at wait time. Just watch how good I am with wait time.” So you know who piped up! Couldn’t help myself. Saw an entry point and took it. Let me back up here and say that when one shares during “community of writers meeting,” she is supposed to give some background to the writing—some context, if you will. People might say, “My study is about blah, blah, blah, and this is where I am with it.” And you’re also supposed to say if you want a “bless, a press, an address,” or one more rhyming word that is all writer-ee and community-oriented. Bless just means “gimme positive feedback and don’t rip on my shit;” Press means, “give me some feedback and tell me where I can make it better;” Address means, well, I can’t remember because no one did that. And the last one was obviously very important because that word doesn’t even fit into the rhyme scheme in my head any longer. So during my sharing time, I did none of this. Didn’t give background, didn’t give context, and didn’t ask for specifics. Booger/stuck-in-teeth/trip-on-the-pavement-girl just said, “This is a piece of fiction I am writing to begin my book chapter on adolescent girls, body image, and sexuality. It’s the first time I’ve tried my hand at writing fiction, so I’m excited to see what you all think.” That’s it. No more, no less. Unfortunately for me.

Some background for you on this piece of excerpted fiction I read to them. I’m trying to push against what people think is “normal” for adolescent girls to be talking/thinking about in this chapter, so I used this opening piece of fiction to lay the groundwork for a little shock value, I suppose. My professor had said earlier not to lay much foreground for the piece and see what kind of reaction I’d get after reading it. He of course probably meant give them lots of background/context on the premise of the chapter and not on the fiction piece itself, but he should have clarified. To give you a sample of what I was reading to them, I’ve chosen to include a few lines for you below. Please make sure not to replicate these lines as they have not yet been published...plagiarizers…

His lips were warm and moist as they brushed against her cheek and then slowly
found their way to her own mouth. And his breath—oh, his breath. His sweet hot breath reminded her of the Grande mocha latte she picked up from Starbucks each morning on her way to school, as it lingered on her neck before filling her mouth with his tongue. But that was him. Her experience last night with this…amateur… jerked her out of that blissful Oh-my-god-state that she couldn’t really explain but loved reaching whenever she could.

OK, so there are a few lines. The rest is a little more sensual if you can imagine…but you probably can’t, so don’t try—I’ll just expect you to read it when it comes out. Remember the feedback I was mentioning that the Elders received after reading their brilliant work? “Soooo wonderful; you’re so incredible” blah, blah, blah…well, erase that from your memory. I finish reading. Silence. Crickets weren’t even present to welcome the harshness in the air. I look up and around the circle of “friends” to see faces of awe and astonishment. What seemed to feel like three days to me was probably about two minutes of absolute shock and horror. And then finally I say, “Ok, well, that was it. So what’d y’all think?” with a huge cheesy grin on my face. (BTW, if you ever read anything out loud to a group of people who are supposed to be a “community of writers,” who are there to support you and give you inspiration to continue on with your plight of writing, and there are stone-ass-cold faces staring back at you, don’t ASK what they thought of it. Just a little piece of advice from a now seasoned veteran.)

Just a few of the retorts:

“Are you quoting directly from your students? If not, you need to write a whole introduction about how you’re making all this up.”

What race are these girls?”

“Maybe you could get into their culture a little bit. Watch what they watch—what TV shows do they watch? What music do they listen to? That might help you write this a little better in relation to adolescent girls.”

“I mean, ‘erotica’? C’mon! What adolescent girl would think about things having to do with something like that?”

“Maybe you should try hanging out with some adolescents to learn more about them. Because they would never talk about that!”

And my all-time favorite comment—the topper from one of the Tribal Elders—to me…the thirty-four-year-old woman who has only been reading teen books for the past eight years (minus the twenty books a week for her PhD); the reader who for the two weeks prior to our writing class and up to that very day who was reading the Twilight series, which she actually plagiarized (just a lil’ bit) for her fiction piece that she read to the “community of writers” that evening (Twilight series is an adolescent series), the BEST comment of all:

“I’d like to invite you to read some adolescent literature. I think that will help you a lot with what they’re reading and what they think and talk about. Have you ever even read any books for adolescents?” I smiled. I looked around the room again. I chuckled to myself. I dropped the F-bomb a few times in my failed attempt to explain what I was trying to accomplish. And slowly but surely, I became the slender discolored piece of booger that hung in all of their noses, the chive-wedge lodged in their front teeth, the invisible but distinct crack in the sidewalk that they all tripped over at some point in their lives. A good moment of humility, wouldn’t you say?

To end this wonderful recalling of a “community of writers” who were so supportive, my professor whom I had worked with that day finally said, “Well, you obviously got the reaction you were looking for in this first piece of writing, Hilary. Clearly, none of us can say anything about your writing because it is absolutely fabulous if we’re all sitting here with this much emotion in response to it. So let’s move on and hear the next person’s writing, shall we?” Thanks, professor, for being the toothpick/Kleenex that I needed in that moment.

Needless to say the rest of the week when we all came together to “support and love one another” in our very safe—at least for me—“community of writers,” I felt that look (yes, I’m sure it was all me being insecure and suspicious) but it was the feeling of the look, all the same. The, oooh, she has something caught in her teeth but I shouldn’t tell her; the oooh, did you just see that girl trip and almost bust her ass? Let’s wait till she keeps walking and then we’ll make fun of her. I was the girl who had written about fourteen-year-olds talking and thinking about sexuality as well as their insecurities with their bodies. I had named the thing that most of the people sitting in that room—just like many people in education—thought if they didn’t acknowledge was happening or denied to be true, it indeed would not be true. It was a perfect experience for me to go through (drenched in mass waves of humility) so I could discover my dissertation topic for these next three years. Yes everyone, my booger soon became my baby.

I wish I could go on and tell you about finishing my book chapter during those four days and feeling as if it was some of the best writing I had ever done, and then going on to lose my work do to a faulty jump-drive and some stupid-ness on my part, but that would take too long. Just know that I lost most of my work and had to re-write most of it on the last day. But I had loads of support from the Tribal Elders and my writing community, so I was just fine. Oh, and that was just May. Summer number two in PhDness has many more tales attached to its name, so don’t you worry, folks!

Cheers! HEH

PhDness and Aretha Make My Day!

3.30.08

In the world of educational PhDness, there is a certain conference—THE conference, if you will, where people from the educational PhD world congregate to show their stuff. Literally. The conference book is larger than a New York City phone book because it is loaded with session after session on the multitude of studies being conducted in the PhD world to improve/save/change/critique/evaluate/understand/interpret/deconstruct American education and all its bells and whistles. The American Education Research Association (AERA from here on out) conference is not as ‘typical’ say, as Barack’s white grandmother (whom, I would say is VERY ‘typical’ for an old white lady…no offense grandmothers), in that I used to go to education conferences back in the day where they would engage us, make us laugh, have us work in small groups, and send us away with loads of resources to help change the things we were doing in our classrooms. No, the AERA conference does not live by that mantra; its purpose, rather, is to showcase the educational researcher bad-asses (the “haves,” if you will) and the up-and-coming intellectual beings (the “almost haves,” but not quite “have-nots”) who cannot seem to live outside of their very large brains long enough to make human connections with others in the larger society. Meaning, don’t try and have a chill conversation with these people because that just does not happen. No jokes, no slang, no fun. I fit right in!

So this past week, I spent a week with six other graduate students in the beautiful and fast-paced city of New York at the aforementioned AERA conference. Because we all live on our stellar full-time graduate student salaries of a whopping thirteen grand a year, we did it a little differently than the (insert drawn out, argyle sweater-sounding voice) tenured PhD professors, in that we all packed it in to a hotel room and snacked on apples, oranges, peanut butter, rice cakes, and almonds for breakfast and lunch. Now don’t get me wrong here people, we spent a few evenings eating at some of New York City’s finest. And the highlighted evening would definitely have to be seeing Tennessee William’s, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof!

They had the first all African-American cast for that play and we got to see James Earl Jones (Hell YES, Darth Vader…you’re the bomb!), Terrence Howard (helllllo, future husband), Phylicia Rashad (remember, Mrs. Huxtable?), and Anika Noni Rose (hottie from Dream Girls). Better yet, we were FRONT ROW, CENTER STAGE for the play. Paralleling that greatness, during intermission we heard whispers of famous people in the audience and turned to see Wesley Snipes and Aretha Franklin five rows behind us. Yes, that’s right, five rows BEHIND the poor, insignificant graduate students. It was a night to remember. When the play was over, the actors were bowing and we were giving them a standing ovation, and I tried to give Terrence the wink-slash-eye combination to let him know I was interested and available…and strangely enough, I think he saw me. I’m serious. I think he was into me. My friend Shar was trying to mouth her phone number to a guy who played the butler, but I don’t think he got all the numbers…probably because of the Georgia area code. My friend Sarah was trying to savor Phylicia Rashad’s spittle that Sarah had been collecting throughout the play on her face as Phylicia was projecting her voice and lines so those less fortunate than us…in the cheap seats…could hear her. As the crowd was filing out after the play ended, we had to wait because, well, we were in the front row, so we gawked like the stalkers we were as Aretha sat in her bright yellow dress surrounded by body guards and Wesley ran over to tell her hello, while his date (not quite as pretty as I would have been with him) waited patiently on the side. Now, you may think that my tales of a night like this would be over because what could be better than the wonders described above?

Well, in PhDness, there are also famous people. And when the nine of us who went to the play sauntered into The Stage Deli to eat the most incredible cheesecake, chocolate cake, and coconut cake that we’d ever laid our forks into, coming down from our previous high of the front row/Wesley/Aretha experience, we saw another group of famous people. Not your ordinary famous people, mind you, but famous people inside PhDness. For those of you who may know them, Gloria Ladson-Billings and William Tate sat among the group chowing down on their own desserts. I was in heaven. One of the professors with us ran over to chat with them and kept looking over patting Gloria on the shoulder telling her that I was dying to meet her so she was going to rub it in that she knew her. My professor didn’t introduce me, but I still practiced my most recently acquired gawker-stalker gaze to let Gloria and William know that I knew that they knew they were famous in my world….They really didn’t care. They didn’t even look over our way. At least Terrence gave me the glance-back to my stalker gaze. Damn that Gloria and William! It was probably one of the most memorable nights I’ve had in my life thus far…aside from my many memorable nights with all of you people on this list, of course!

Aside from all of the star-gazing and incredible food (beyond the hotel room snacks), the conference was a success. My brain is a little larger than it was before I went to the Big Apple, and my butt is not far behind. (Y’all knew that one was coming) The irony that one of the big-wig-crazy-ass-fall-off-the-left-side-of-the-planet-liberals pointed out during his session (Michael Apple for those of you who know his work) is that while thousands of us were inside the conference rooms lamenting our woes over our capitalistic society and its hindering of the education system for our children, we were all situated physically in the epitome of the very thing we claim keeps our children in their oppressive, inequitable educational circumstances: capitalism at its best. And there we were by the droves—thousands of researchers cut off from the rest of the world making claims about what we think is best for the rest of the world—without being out in that world. Living in big-brained theories that seem to be so disconnected from the practicalities of the fast pace that surrounded us day after day in the heart of that city. It was interesting, to say the least. But hey, at least I got to wink at Terrence Howard. I’m pretty sure he’ll call. If he does, I’m NOT inviting Gloria to the wedding…PhD snob! I’ll never be like that in my PhDness, I’ve decided. Even when I’m as famous as her. Or Phylicia. Whichever fame comes first.