Sunday, November 8, 2009

Promising Practices

I enjoyed Promising Practices for the most part. The day started off a little shaky, but it improved as it went on. I arrived a little after 8:00 and checked in and got my folder. I had forgotten the second workshop I had picked, but I knew the first one was on the artwork and life of Diego Rivera. I met up some of our class and I found out that Jared and I picked the same first workshop. We arrived and found out that the presenter was having technical difficulties and couldn't get her PowerPoint presentation to open. She passed around handouts very nervously and I felt bad for her. She had a couple of students offer to fix her presentation in the computer lab, but after 10 or 15 minutes they came back and it was still unusable. She tried to push forward with her presentation using just the handouts, but I got the feeling that she felt defeated from the start. The images of Diego Rivera's artwork were essential to the presentation and to have them in full color on the drop-screen would have been nice. A few pages into the presentation Jared was raising his hand to get her attention. She called on him and Jared suggested that she use Google Images to pull up the paintings. He basically saved her entire presentation and deserves the credit. Nevertheless, the workshop wasn't the greatest, but I did learn a few things about Diego Rivera's life.
The second workshop I chose was called New England Historical Context and Multicultural Education. I picked it because I thought it would be good to know a little more local history and it goes along with our class and what we have been studying. The workshop started and the instructor had some materials spread out across the room so we were put into groups to discuss our document. All of the materials had to do with the local commerce in the 1800's and they all had a tie to the triangular slave trade. I learned a bit about how Rhode Island was connected to slavery even though we were not a major slave state ourselves. Rhode Island supported slave trade through international commerce. The workshop went by pretty fast and we were off to lunch and then to hear Dr. Rose.
The highlight of the day was definitely Dr. Rose's address. She is an excellent speaker with the gift of being able to speak intellectually with a common voice. Sometimes when really smart people give speeches the message gets lost and it is hard to connect. I think her message went along with what we are doing in class. Like Rodriguez, Dr. Rose talked about a public identity, although not with language but still carrying the same essential point. Especially when the angry anti-capitalist girl tried to argue individuality separate from a social identity. Dr. Rose wanted to give her a verbal beating but she took the high ground and let the girl defeat herself. I think another connection to class is when Dr. Rose was talking about unpacking issues as they arise. That reminded me of Macintosh, and how we can unpack our own privilege and also unpack the cause and reasons behind oppression as they present themselves in the classroom. She gave an example of a girl in her class calling her dysfunctional computer "gay". She talked about how she unpacked that issue and handled what this student had said in a moment of frustration while her mental guard was down. Dr. Rose also talked about using the words and recognizing the problem. She gave an example of a conversation she had with a colleague about racism and yet the word racism was never said once. This reminded me of Johnson and how you must name the "trouble" and not dance around the issue. Dr. Rose's speech seemed like it was specifically designed for our FNED class and I thought it was the best part of the day.

3 comments:

  1. I agree with you Brian! The best part of my day on Saturday was Dr. Tricia Rose's speech! She was great and she kept me entertained. She is a very smart woman.

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  2. I agree with your last sentence completely, it was like she was talking directly to our class. She touched upon so many things in our reading and the issues that we have been learning about. It was such a great experience.

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  3. Great description of your day. I hope you will plan to attend Promising Practices again next year!!

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