Student Disclosures

What can we realistically ask of our university/institution in terms of recognizing and compensation for assisting students with crisis, revelations or disclosures? Is there a way to work with other services offered through the university in addressing these issues and the time constraints that may arise?

What can we do for ourselves in order to not "take home" some of the more harrowing or difficult stories/disclosures we may hear as educators of sensitive issues?

How can we effectively, but sensitively, disengage from assisting a student when we feel that our "personal limit" has been reached without alienating or silencing the student?

Week 15 Discussion Questions

In the articles "Teaching Sensitive Issues: Feminist Pedagogy and the Practice of Advocacy-Based Counseling" by Alesha Durfa and "Dangerous Responses" by Cox and Tirabassi, the teacher and advocate counselor are both protectors and nurturers of students by adopting different strategies such as self-disclosing painful experiences, feelings, and vulnerabilities, attentive listening, maintaining confidentiality, refusing to control the student by taking up a decision maker role, and trusting the students integrity.

Educators invest a lot in emotional labor, what can be done when a teacher's spirit and attitude becomes pessimized by students who abuse their careful reactions to sensitive issues? How should educators react when frustrated students exploit their holistic approach to create an oppressive environment for other students?

Pedagogical Practice for Week 15 5/5

"Survivors of Gendered Violence in the Feminist Classroom," by Janet Lee, "Dangerous Responses," by Cox and Tirabassi, and Estelle Freedman's "Small-Group Pedagogy: Consciousness Raising in Conservative Times," each illustrate a very real need to address issues surrounding violence against women and gendered violence from a sentipensante approach. Students often experience difficult/uncomfortable/painful emotions when learning about discussing violence, and professors are not immune.

As students engaging with course material regarding pedagogical practices for teaching about gendered violence, we too are put in a position where spiritual, "physical and emotional tensions arise" (Thompson 1998:70). This may be especially true for survivors of gendered violence in our seminar.

The authors suggest various methods of addressing this tension. How about we try one of their exercises out in order to address ours? (Class chooses one Pedagogical Exercise).

Exercises:

1. We will form a c.r. group (or story telling group) in seminar where we will each take turns to speak uninterrupted for 1 minute, then we will have one more minute to wrap up our thoughts. Just as Freedman tailored her student's c.r. prompts to the lecture for that day, I would like folks to speak to how reading about (teaching about) gendered violence made them feel. If you are uncomfortable speaking, please invite the group to meditate on this prompt for your 2 minutes. During this practice we should engage in active listening, as described by Dr. Lara throughout the semester.

OR

2. In the spirit of Martha E. Thompson, let's form a "NO Circle." In the circle will each take turns calling out something (rape, stalking, racism, etc.) we would like to say NO to, something we want to stop happening. In the no circle we can channel our anger, frustration, sadness, or whatever into our voices. When each of us has contributed, we will all yell "NO" to gendered violence together on the count of three. When we are finished we can reflect on the usefulness of the exercise.


See you in class,

Jessica

Week 15 Discussion Question(s)

In Mary Margaret Fonow and Debian Marty’s “The Shift from Identity Politics to the Politics of Identity: Lesbian Panels in the Women’s Studies Classroom,” the authors address the "impression management" that lesbian panelists often struggle with while discussing their sexual identity in front of a classroom. Similarly, Michelle Cox and Katherine E. Tirabassi both questioned whether to self-disclose their experiences with rape to their students in “Dangerous Responses.” How do we determine which of our personal disclosures--particularly those that are deeply emotional or deal with trauma--have pedagogical value, and which are better left unsaid? When, and to what extent, may students be more enriched by our silence than our voice? And at what point do we draw the line in regards to our vulnerability?

Possible Discussion Question 5/5

Hello Everyone! This week readings discussed an important aspect of teaching. The authors share their experience with conversations of self-disclosure in the classroom. They share the common challenges, questions that may arise, and possible strategies that can assist professors in situations like these.

This topic is complex and it requires educators to be sensitive, critical, and reflective if we were to encounter situations like the one's described in the readings.

My question then is what are the tools and supportive partnerships on this campus that either are here to train professors or just help with sensitive and personal issues? If there is a strong base established, are they effective and how is this measured?

See you you all soon.

Paz,

Nancy Huante

OTHER TONGUES: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out — Submissions Due May 15, 2010

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!

OTHER TONGUES: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out

Co-editors Adebe D.A. and Andrea Thompson are seeking submissions for an anthology of writing by and about mixed-race women, intended for publication in Fall 2010 by Inanna Publications.

The purpose of this anthology is to explore the question of how mixed-race women in North America identify in the 21st Century. The anthology will also serve as a place to learn about the social experiences, attitudes, and feelings of others, and what racial identity has come to mean today. We are inviting previously unpublished submissions that engage, document, and/or explore the experiences of being mixed-race, by placing interraciality as the center, rather than periphery, of analysis.

Please send one (1) submission of up to 2500 words of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, or spoken word as a SINGLE attachment to othertonguesanthology@gmail.com

Black and white images and artwork should be 300 dpi and sent as attachments in jpg. of tiff. format. Artwork and photography limited to three (3) per applicant.

Please include your contact information, including your name, address, phone number, e-mail, title(s) of work submitted, type of submission, and a short artist bio (50 words max) in the body of the email, with your name and the type of submission in the subject line (e.g. “Jazmine – Poetry Submission”). All submissions are due May 15, 2010. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

If you prefer that your contribution remain anonymous, please include this preference at the top of your submission. All personal information you provide will be kept strictly confidential.

If you have any questions about this project, please contact the Editors, Adebe DeRango-Adem and Andrea Thompson, at othertonguesanthology@gmail.com

For more information: http://www.adebe.wordpress.com, http://www.andreathompson.ca or visit us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=276479812662

We look forward to reviewing your submission!

Current Event - Jessica Spain Week 15

Hello everyone!

So below I have posted a very short piece taken from Anarchist news dot org, a "non-sectarian source for news about and of concern to anarchists" (About Us).
The piece is titled "WE’LL SHOW YOU CRAZY BITCHES: TAKE BACK THE NIGHT" and it details an event that took place last week in Brooklyn, New York. (Take Back the Night was 4/29).

I think it would be very interesting to discuss this piece and possibly have a conversation about radical anarcha-feminist politics and activism. What emotions, if any, does this piece evoke for you? Do you feel that these efforts are effective ways to address violence against women, why or not? Hopefully we will have time to discuss on Wednesday.

See you in class!

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BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – Dressed in matching black skirts and masks, dozens of women gathered on Saturday evening for an anti-capitalist Take Back the Night march, stopping traffic on Bedford Avenue, overturning trashcans, and breaking windows. Tired of tamely shouting slogans on campus sidewalks, we took the night back by taking it, refusing the structural mechanisms that create rapists and their victims.

Although in recent years Take Back the Night has been co-opted by liberal feminists, it has its roots in the widespread unrest of Italy in the late seventies. In 1976, a seventeen-year-old was gang-raped in Rome. A year later, when her case went to trial, she was gang-raped again by the same men: and this time, her whole body was slashed with razors in an attempt to keep her silent. Within hours, fifteen thousand women mobilized, uniformly dressed like the sex workers common to the district; “NO MORE MOTHERS, WIVES AND DAUGHTERS: LET’S DESTROY THE FAMILIES!” was the cry heard in the street. They came just short of burning the neighborhood to the ground.
[1 block of cars windows broken = burning neighborhood?]

Forty years later, we marched again, to refuse the violence that continues to force us to be housewives and fuck-toys and mothers and daddy’s girls, to refuse to understand women’s oppression in the private sphere as a simple cultural or ideological matter. We address capitalism and patriarchy as one intrinsically interconnected system. We are not asking for rights: we are demanding something else entirely.

A woman on the street stopped and attempted to begin an argument: “Why are you doing this?” A swift reply: “Because we have grown tired of rape and makeup.” The woman responds: “Just get drunk and get laid – deal with it.” But this is no longer enough for us. We are not asking for a right to the streets, we are taking them; we are not asking for advertisements that do not objectify women, we’re destroying the commercial mechanisms that objectify women; we are not appealing to male power for an end to rape, but threatening: “If you touch me, I will fucking kill you.”

For once, the mechanisms that create and maintain identities of womanhood were refused, and our desires were our own, our bodies were our own, and our violence was our own.

See original post here -> http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/11127