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.