Neurobics: Keeping the Mind Active

Become an incremental theorist

2012-01-25T19:46:00.000-05:00

You've decided to learn something new. Say you've taken up the banjo*, for example, and you've never played a musical instrument before. In those first lessons, you find yourself struggling with the first halting notes of "Old Joe Clark" -- this is not as easy as you thought! Do you say to yourself:

A. I have a lot to learn, but I'm getting better with every session. If I keep trying, I'll be sure to get this eventually.

or

B. I'm not good at this -- I guess I'll never be a really good banjo player. I'm just not musically inclined.

If you lean towards A, you are approaching banjo-playing as what psychologist Carol Dweck calls an incremental theorist. That means that you think your abilities can improve over time and that you can achieve this task with sufficient practice and study. If you tend more towards B, you would approach banjo-playing more as an entity theorist. You see your musical ability as fixed and unchangeable; banjo-playing is something some people are naturally better at than others, and you are just trying to figure out whether you are one of those gifted musicians or not. For most tasks, there is probably some truth in both approaches. Some people have the capacity to achieve a higher skill level than others, but all of us can improve with practice and dedicated study. Nevertheless, the particular emphasis you bring to the task can dramatically affect how you handle challenges and failures, ultimately affecting your overall performance in the task.

Suppose you have an entity theorist approach to mathematics, for example (as many people do in the U.S.). In your early experiences in math class, you're looking for evidence of whether you are good at math or not so good at math. If you don't do well in your first few tests, you'll probably decide you're not so good at math. Having made that determination will then affect your level of engagement with math. If I'm not good at this, I should direct my efforts elsewhere and just take the minimal math classes required. Why should I spend extra hours studying? I'll never be that good at math -- I'm just not a math person. (Sound familiar? I can't tell you how many of my students come in with similar narratives about math.)

On the other hand, if you have an incremental theorist approach to mathematics (as many do in Japan or China), you come into the class with the belief that anyone can learn math; mathematics is achievable with sufficient effort. So early failures or challenges don't signal that you aren't good at math, but merely that you must put greater effort into studying and get additional help to learn the material. I don't understand this well yet, but I know that I can learn this material. I'll need to keep trying so that I can improve and develop my skills more fully. Look how much I've already learned!

The incremental theorist approach encourages us to focus on improvement, rather than identifying those individuals who are gifted (or not so gifted). Instead of responding to failure with disengagement, we respond with renewed effort. Instead of being vigilant for cues of our lack of ability, we are focused on evidence of progress and growth. The entity theorist fears failure (signifying, as it does, inherent lack of ability -- they've found me out at last!), and so, avoids risk. Yet learning requires risk; we must be willing to try and fail in order to grow and improve.

An incremental approach needn't blind us to differences in ease of learning or final ability. Some will learn the material more easily and some less easily. Some may rise to unusual levels of excellence in their performance (e.g., the difference between a competent or even skilled banjo player and one who is a banjo virtuoso). But I cannot know my ultimate capacity if I quit trying at the first failure. The child who gives up on math might well have become a gifted mathematician -- struggling with a subject does not necessarily preclude significant mastery later on. But beyond that, achieving a basic level of mathematical competence is still a worthy achievement, and one that opens a number of career doors that will otherwise be closed. I need not be mathematically exceptional to successfully master calculus, which then allows me access to a variety of career options in the sciences and social sciences, many of which do not, in themselves, require extensive use of mathematics for successful achievement.

If we are to inculcate an incremental theorist's mindset, it means we need to change the kind of praise we give. Rather than telling our students they are smart when they get the right answer (an entity approach), we should emphasize their capacity for growth and new learning. A recent Washington Post article discussed the process of fine-tuning praise in schools:

[Carol Dweck’s] studies, embraced in [schools in Montgomery County, MD] and elsewhere, have found that praising children for intelligence — “You’re so clever!” — also backfires. In study after study, children rewarded for being smart become more likely to shy away from hard assignments that might tarnish their star reputations.
But children praised for trying hard or taking risks tend to enjoy challenges and find greater success. Children also perform better in the long term when they believe that their intellect is not a birthright but something that grows and develops as they learn new things. (Chandler, Jan. 15 2012)

After all, this is true -- learning new skills fosters new neural connections and increases our brain's complexity. We are always capable of growth and improvement, and emphasizing this capability provides a mindset that gives us a sense of control and promotes greater success in the long run.

Yet in another local story, the District of Columbia is looking to improve education in struggling schools by providing incentives for effective teachers to move to schools in which students are performing poorly. Holding aside the obvious difficulties of measuring "effectiveness" in teachers, this constitutes an entity approach to the problem: Let's find the good teachers and move them to the underperforming schools where they can promote student learning and success. What if we were to take an incremental approach, and focus on how to help teachers improve in all of the school districts? We could take the money that would have been poured into incentives for high-performing teachers, and use it provide resources and professional development for teachers in the challenged schools. The excellent teachers throughout the system could well be among those resources, providing mentoring and support for other teachers to grow and develop their ability to promote student learning. As Cosby Hunt (a former DCPS teacher) said in a recent Washington Post article:

“The question is not how can we look to a few superstar teachers to serve as our fix-it crew, but rather, how do we raise the effectiveness of all our teachers?” (Turque, Jan. 23 2012)

Exactly. After all, if an incremental approach works for our students, why wouldn't it work for teachers? We need to stop looking for the gifted few and start promoting lifelong learning and development for everyone. In other words, let's stop waiting for Superman** to swoop in and save the day. We need to start working on our own improvement and growth instead. Maybe we can't all be superhuman, but that doesn't mean we can't do well enough to get the job done . . . and with practice and help, we'll do even better tomorrow.

Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life. ~Henry L. Doherty

*A shout-out to my sister (different sister from the one mentioned in my previous post) who just started learning banjo.

**OK, this is an obvious reference to the documentary film, Waiting for Superman, which I just saw last weekend, but no particularly pointed commentary on the film is intended. In some ways, the film is about looking for exceptional educators to save the day, but not in the same way as the proposed DC initiative. I have very mixed feelings about the film, but that's a tale for a different post.

References
Chandler, M. A. (Jan. 15, 2012). In schools, self-esteem boosting is losing favor to rigor, finer-tuned praise. Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/in-schools-self-esteem-boosting-is-losing-favor-to-rigor-finer-tuned-praise/2012/01/11/gIQAXFnF1P_story.html?hpid=z3

Dweck, C. S. & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256-273.

Madden, J. (Jan. 24, 2012). D.C. to lure top teachers to underperforming classrooms. National Public Radio. http://wamu.org/news/12/01/24/dc_to_lure_top_teachers_to_underperforming_classrooms

Stigler, J. W., & Perry, M. (1990). Mathematics learning in Japanese, Chinese, and American classrooms. In J. W. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds). Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development (pp. 328-356). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Turque, B. (Jan. 23, 2012). Educators say it will take more than dollars to lure effective teachers to struggling D.C. schools. D. C. Schools Insider, Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/educators-say-it-will-take-more-than-dollars-to-lure-effective-teachers-to-struggling-dc-schools/2012/01/23/gIQARMwkLQ_blog.html

The power of names

2012-01-22T20:24:00.000-05:00

Lore and legend has long held that true names have power. From the Egyptian gods of the netherworld to Rumpelstiltskin, deities and supernatural beings of all kind can be controlled, dismissed, or invoked through saying their true name. To know something's true name is to know its shape and thus do we leash it and make it bow to our will.

But what is a true name? Proper names seem particularly unlikely as true names. Inherited or given at birth, these are merely arbitrary handles that seem to have no connection to our inner self. But at times these names, random syllables as they are, become part of our selves. The name has been attached to us and we grow attached to it. As we become entwined with our name, we may come to see it as at least a fragment of our inner self.

Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable. ~W.H. Auden

Of course, if our names hold the shape of our true self, then those who share our name reflect upon us, for good or ill. When Bear-Stearns was implicated in the subprime mortgage debacle, I felt vaguely culpable somehow, even though I have no affiliation with the company whatsoever. I was startled each time I heard "my" name on NPR. My sister, Julie Wiener, blogged about the challenge of being a Wiener, particularly during Weinergate. (She's technically my stepsister, hence the different last name.) As Eric Weiner wrote in the New York Times:

With all due respect to Shakespeare, a rose by any other name just isn’t the same. We look in the mirror and see not a generic person but a very specific one. We see Ted, and Sarah, and José, and yes, sometimes we see a Weiner. Names don’t merely describe. They invest meaning. The river of semantics flows in both directions. Call someone a nincompoop often enough and long enough and they start to believe it. There is no such thing as “mere semantics.” Names matter. (Weiner, June 7 2011)

My name, Stearns, has the benefit of not moonlighting as a generic term, so one might think it would elude the affiliations of food and sex attached to Wiener/Weiner. Perhaps so, but while I don't have a hot dog jingle with my name attached, I, too, am linked to any number of commercial products. Think of all those Stearns & Foster mattresses! And really, what are we to take from this ad campaign? (I guess it's a compliment, of sorts.)

Interestingly, the first hit on Google for my last name is for Stearns life jackets -- I had no idea that I was a Life Jacket Expert. Add to that the motor brakes, packaging, and banking, and we Stearns seem to cover the gamut of goods and services. I certainly take pride in my Stearns family lineage, decorated as it is with important personages and fine achievements. However, in the public discourse, "my" name is inextricably entwined with capitalism. Perhaps I should be pleased to reflect the longstanding tradition of providing goods and services for those in need, but I want my true self to be more than a mere outgrowth of the marketplace.

I turn, then, to my first name. Surely my given name will be more my own than the inherited family name that I share with so many others. Except that my given name is even more common than my last name. There were always two or three girls named Deborah in my class in school. At least I could differentiate myself from those who went by "Debbie," as my parents ensured that I never answered to that nickname. If my true self by any name be known, surely it could never be . . . Debbie. (One of the faculty members in my graduate program sometimes called me Debbie, and I flinched each time he did so. His less-frequent tendency to call me Barbara was more welcome, quite frankly.)

In the Bible, Deborah was a judge and prophetess, an independent woman whose story inspired The Song of Deborah. She is known not for her relationship to an important male figure, but for her own achievements. Her name means "bee" in Hebrew. (When I stand in our garden, surrounded by busily humming bees, Q is wont to call me beekeeper.)

Bee on the hyssop in our front garden (2009)

But is this ancient figure the woman who is evoked by the name "Deborah" in modern parlance? I suspect not. The name has become so commonplace that virtually everyone knows someone named Deborah, and it is that person who is elicited by the name. Here I do not battle a central, capitalist namesake, but a thousandfold crowd of Deborahs, all unknown and unknowing. When I am introduced to someone new, which Deborah is invoked? I cannot tell. I will not, in this endless line of Deborahs, find my true self.

Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit. ~Salman Rushdie

I hold that my true self cannot be named. There is no single appellation that will encompass who I am. Or perhaps my true self holds a secret name, to which even I am not privy. This name cannot be simple, for I am complex. It must reflect my many selves to embody all that I am and all that I can be. In the end, it may be that we spend our entire lives in discovering our secret true name, and it is only with our last breath that the final syllable of that name is inscribed.

References
Weiner, E. (June 7 2011). Weiner like me. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/08eweiner.html?_r=1

Wiener, J. (June 13 2011). Wiener and Weinergate. The Jewish Week. http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/julie_wieners_mix/wiener_and_weinergate

Teaching toward a better world

2012-01-16T11:08:00.001-05:00

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose tireless dedication to a world free of bigotry, poverty, and hatred helped bring us the civil rights movement. I cannot do justice to the man or the movement, nor can I improve upon the many wise and profound words that have been said by and about him, so I will not try. I want, instead, to take a moment to reflect on my own commitment to social change.

I sang for social change from 1989-1994.
(I'm in the middle in the back row.)

One of the tensions I struggled with in graduate school was how to reconcile my academic career with my goals of social activism. I had been involved in the anti-apartheid movement in college and was deeply committed to feminist activism, as well. As I worked side by side with activists, striving for a better world, the rarefied air of academia seemed distant and irrelevant. While I loved the intellectual challenge of my coursework and research, it was hard to see how it would contribute to social change. Even if I engaged in research directly related to social problems, it was rare to see such work actually impact people's lives. I felt torn. I wanted to live the life of the mind, immersed in theories and esoteric ideas, but I needed to know that I was working toward social change. I could not see how a career as an academic could fulfill both.

It was teaching that saved me. Yes, my research might never change the world, but in my classroom, I would touch the lives of hundreds of students. Each of them could be a seed of social change, carried out into the world. I might never know how many of these seeds would bear fruit, but I could create a classroom in which students would be informed and empowered as social change agents. That would be my contribution to a better world.

I've just begun reading Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks. She articulates a vision of teaching as empowering and healing.

"The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy. [. . .] I celebrate teaching that enables transgressions -- a movement against and beyond boundaries. It is that movement which makes education the practice of freedom." (hooks, 1994, p. 12)

Her words have re-energized my commitment to creating social change through my teaching.

I create a better world by giving my students the tools of social change. They learn about effective ways of reducing prejudice, building better relationships, and creating meaningful and satisfying lives through social engagement and helping others. They learn how to find information and think critically about it so that they are not at the mercy of those seeking to manipulate them or coerce their behavior. They learn to identify and resist the psychological, situational, and social forces that can push us to behave in ways that do not meet our needs or serve our goals. They learn about existing inequities and how to address them at a personal and societal level. Beyond the specifics of the course content, they also learn that they are worthy of respect and that their voice can be heard. They become more confident and mature. They learn more effective communication skills, which are fundamental to any social change effort. They continue along a path of education and growth that will empower them to pursue their goals more effectively and give back to their communities. They learn that they can make a difference and that we all need to work for positive change if we want to see a better world.

This day, I re-dedicate myself to making a positive difference in the world. I thank my colleagues for the work they do to create more freedom through education. I thank my students who work with me to envision a better world and who carry that vision into their lives and communities. Thank you for taking on the struggle, for engaging with difficult issues, for taking responsibility for our future. We are all the agents of change. We can create the world we want to have.

References:
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge: New York, NY.

Exuberant enthusiasm and concomitant excess

2012-01-15T22:51:00.001-05:00

So often we are advised to practice moderation. "All things in moderation," they murmur, urging us to sample pleasures in small portions. We are assured that excess is bad; after all it is, well . . . excessive.

I've never been good at moderation. I'm full of bubbling enthusiasm that inspires me to fling myself wholeheartedly into one activity after another. I go from a passionate pursuit of teaching perfection to months of extreme gardening only to then throw myself into a grandiose creative project. There is no temperate jogging for me -- I'm always running full-tilt.

I've never forgotten some words of wisdom my undergraduate class received during our college orientation. We were urged to pursue our passions intensely. If we enjoyed a writer's work, we should read everything we could find by that author. If mathematics intrigued us, we should immerse ourselves in the study of mathematics. I found this advice deeply compelling. The idea of plunging headfirst into something, letting it take me over completely, fit my approach to life. Moderation be damned! If we are going to do something, let's really go for it, fully and without reservation. I wanted to meet life with exuberant enthusiasm, not cautious reserve. Indeed, in my first year of college one of my friends gave me a sign that reads, I Am Subject To Bursts of Enthusiasm. I have it on my shelf today as a badge of pride.

Caricature of me from around 1995

After all, sometimes it is only by embracing a project with unfettered fervor, holding nothing back, that we are truly able to achieve our vision. The dancer must be filled with the music and commit him or herself fully to the dance. To give only a modest effort or to keep part of one's self back undermines the piece, sapping its energy and diluting its impact. Even then, sometimes one dancer is not enough to realize the full potential of the music. Sometimes the dance requires that we fill the stage with dancers who throw themselves utterly into the piece. Would anything less excessive be enough to produce this?

Exuberance is contagious. It spills over to those watching, lifting our hearts and inspiring us to join in. The flash mob phenomenon is a great example of large-scale enthusiasm. Observe the vigor of the dancers, and then notice the smiles on the faces of those watching. Would moderation evoke such joy?

It is not only dance that benefits from enthusiastic excess. Think of large-scale artwork -- enormous sculptures and vast murals. When I saw Monet's paintings of waterlilies at L'Orangerie in Paris, I was awed by the immense size of the canvases -- they had a much more significant impact than the smaller reproductions I had seen. I had the same reaction while walking through the Louvre and seeing large-scale originals of the paintings I had only seen in textbooks. It is only through the grandiosity of size and scale that these pieces are fully realized.

Would these experiments be as compelling if they used only a modicum of sticky notes? Absolutely not! It is the profuse volume of sticky-notes, the sheer excess of sticky-notes, that lends it the playful exuberance that makes the project so wonderful.

It is passionate intensity that spurs me on to big projects. The oversized garden, the bead-encrusted costume, the holiday baking frenzy: I couldn't take these on without the eagerness that consumes me with each new project. What begins as a small project can swiftly snowball under the influence of my rampant enthusiasm. It is not enough to make a few linen napkins; I must make them in every color of the rainbow. Deciding to create online self-tests quickly spirals into writing about a hundred questions each week. The simple notion of buying some apples and pears at the farmer's market to share with my colleagues turned into a weekend of purchasing a vast bounty of fresh fruit from three different farmer's markets to fill a basket for each member of my department.

September, 2011

Of course there are costs to my giddy enthusiasm. Overcommitment, exhaustion, material excess . . . yes, these are my companions as well. Half of the seed packets I buy each year languish unopened in the shed. My shelves are filled with books I haven't even opened. My textile studio is stuffed with supplies that were purchased to fulfill some creative vision that has yet to be realized. Half-finished projects abound, relics of enthusiasm that faded too soon to see their completion. My back cries out after days of gardening; my feet ache from a week of dancing.

Yet I suffer it all gladly. I cannot imagine a life that is not filled with exhilaration. In those moments that I am consumed with a vision, it feels as though every atom of my being vibrates to the same clarion call. Purpose surges through me; there is no space for doubt. I am more thrillingly alive in those moments than a lifetime of careful moderation could ever bestow.

Perhaps my path strikes you as dangerously high-spirited, even impetuous. Enthusiasm is all well and good, you say, but we must be mindful of consequences as well. Think it through before careening off in a headlong rush toward some hastily-conceived goal. I know. I can hear the voice of reason, too, although sometimes it is a weak cry that falls on the deaf ears of my ebullience. I cannot excise my exuberance, nor would I wish to. I choose to embrace my enthusiasm. But perhaps I can try to do so . . . in moderation.

Holiday Cookiepalooza 2011

In the meantime, I offer you a copious quantity of cookies (why have just one when you can have a whole plateful?) and another spirited flash mob dance.

Writing is Life

2012-01-14T23:48:00.001-05:00

Montgomery College student

In recent years, colleges have been asked to prove the utility of a college education for the job market. Of what possible use are liberal arts courses? After all, a course in philosophy or literature does not seem to facilitate the development of specific job skills. The typical rejoinder is that such courses teach broadly useful skills, such as those involved in research, writing, or analytical thinking. This is indeed true. Beyond these skills, though, taking on the challenge of college courses teaches life lessons that extend beyond the academic environment. Take my my students' experiences of completing a research paper, for example.

As I mentioned previously, my Fall 2011 Psychology of Human Sexuality class participated in a pilot Writing Fellows program, a collaboration between Montgomery College and the Universities of Shady Grove. Upper-level undergraduate students from USG were trained as writing tutors to help MC students with their writing assignments in several Psychology classes (two sections of Abnormal Psychology also participated in the pilot program).

My students wrote papers in which they used scientific research related to human sexuality, choosing their own topics and the format of the paper (newspaper article, brochure, etc.). This assignment always had a requirement of submitting a first draft for feedback prior to the final draft; I have found that revision is especially vital for this type of research paper, as it is challenging for many students. For the Writing Fellows program, I added a second opportunity for revision and they got feedback from me and from the writing fellows. As part of the final draft, I had my students write about their experience with the revision process. I quite enjoy reading these types of reflection pieces, in which my students discuss their experience of completing an assignment. It is rewarding to hear about what the students gained from the class, and it gives me a chance to think about how to improve the assignment to better support their learning. It was also clear from these reflections that researching, writing, and revising the paper taught them important life lessons. Take this student's reflection, for example:

"The transformation my research has undertaken since I initially wrote my first draft is dramatic. Initially, I intended to write a paper exploring the recidivism rates of pedophilia. However, after feedback from Dr. Stearns regarding my initial draft, I decided to shift the focus of my paper and to examine pedophiles’ reactions to their treatment. While writing my first and second draft, I struggled with properly incorporating studies into my paper. Accordingly, I met with Dr. Stearns on two separate occasions to seek guidance with this dilemma. After our conferences, I felt confident of my ability to properly incorporate research into my paper, and I believe that my final draft reflects that.

The entire research process has been a long and strenuous one. However, because of the requirement to hand in multiple drafts, and our opportunity to meet with the writing fellows, and privately with Dr. Stearns to discuss our papers, I feel the overall quality of my writing has measurably improved. Because of the feedback I received, my paper is now better organized, and more polished. In fact, having the opportunity to revise my paper boosted my confidence in my writing, and relieved much of the stress commonly associated with research papers.

All in all, I feel the process of revising was beneficial. Had I not been given the opportunity to revise my paper multiple times, it would not be of the quality that it is today. This experience taught me the importance and value in revising a paper. I now understand how critical the process of revision is to writing a polished college level paper.”

What did the students learn from completing the research paper? Quite a bit, as it turns out.

It takes work to complete a project, but you are more capable than you might think.

In her keynote speech at AFACCT, Rebecca Cox discussed the research from her book, The College Fear Factor: How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another. She found that many of the community college students she interviewed feared that they weren't capable of succeeding in the college environment. In order to avoid being exposed as inadequate, these students did not ask questions or attend office hours, and even failed to submit assignments for fear that their "stupidity" would be revealed to the professors (Cox, 2012). These strategies are deeply problematic, of course, as they impede the students' ability to learn and succeed in the academic environment.

I am thus especially pleased to see that some of my students left the class with increased confidence in their academic capabilities.

“Going into this essay I wasn’t very confident of my ability to write a scientific research paper and now I feel like if I ever needed to write one again I would have the confidence I built in myself to write one if I ever needed to in the future.”

Indeed, another lesson they learned is that there is no surer way to become more confident and capable than to just jump in and try. Confidence is built through mastery experiences, in which we learn from experience that we can succeed. As one student wrote, "It feels good to write again and here’s hoping to bigger and better papers for the future."

You can succeed, but you also have a lot to learn.

“Commenting on a film, Roger Ebert – a self-proclaimed life-long film-lover, and my favorite movie critic – once commented that the more films he watched, the more he realized how much there was to know about films, and – in comparison – how little of it he knew. I feel similar when it comes to writing a research paper. In the process of writing this research paper I have learn [sic] a lot. Perhaps most important of everything, writing this paper has laid bare the deficiencies in my writing skills and how much more there is for me to learn. [. . .] I have learned that my skills in writing a research paper are very lacking. It is something I will seriously work on going forward. This is something I definitely plan on improving, since I am now seriously considering pursuing a degree in psychology (or at least making it a major life-long interest).”

Confidence is important, but overconfidence is not helpful. We need to have a realistic understanding of our skills so that we know what areas need improvement. Many times we fear having our limitations exposed, and we may avoid taking on a challenge for fear that we will be revealed as inadequate. Being aware of these "deficiencies" need not be discouraging, though, as long as we know that we can grow and develop our skills further. It is all right that we haven't fully perfected our skills yet; we just need to commit to improving them. And remember, that we don't have to do it all alone.

You can get help.

“Thankfully the professor was always willing to comment on the drafts. . .”

It can be daunting to realize that our skills are not as proficient as we thought. It feels as though we aren't up to the task of accomplishing our goals. But remember that there are many resources available; committed teachers and tutors are there to help you succeed. One of the keys to success in college (and in life) is knowing how to get the resources you need. Indeed there is quite a bit of research indicating that success in college is as much a function of noncognitive skills, such as the willingness to seek help and availability of mentoring, as it is a function of intellectual abilities (Allen, Robbins, & Sawyer, 2010).

“I believe that my writing fellow helped me through this process of writing the paper and that I couldn’t have done it without her. [. . .] She gave me some good advice and when I went to edit my old essay I found myself writing a whole new essay that I feel very confident turning in thanks to [her].”

I've noted before that most significant achievements require support and assistance from others. Learning that help is not only available, but that it is sometimes necessary, is also an important lesson. We often hold an unrealistically individualistic vision of success, assuming we can (and should) be able to do it all alone. However, being aware of the need for help and available resources for getting assistance is a critical component to success.

“In working through this assignment I came to the understanding that my meager set of eyes will not be enough when attempting to construct college research papers. It will be of great value in the future for me to utilize the writing resources provided by the institution I am attending.”

I couldn't agree more; finding and using the resources available to you will make all the difference in the quality of the finished product.

Just because you think something works doesn't mean it actually does work.

"Through this experience, it became clear that what might make perfect sense to me might make absolutely little or no sense to the audience I am writing for.”

There is often a gap between intention and resultant effect. I may believe I am conveying a particular message, but my audience doesn't get that at all (a fact made painfully clear to me early on in teaching). This is often a difficult lesson to learn, because what we meant to achieve seems so patently obvious to us; it's hard to understand why it wouldn't work just as we think it should. Students frequently come to me, puzzled by the fact that their hours of studying are not met with high exam scores. It's hard for them to hear that the way they are studying is not effective for learning the material. Clearly, they intend to learn the material, but that doesn't mean they actually do learn it.

“The format of this assignment was very helpful in the sense that I was encouraged by you (and my writing fellow) to take an honest and critical eye to my paper.”

It is that honest and critical eye, both our own and others', that helps us improve our work. Sometimes it can be hard to hear that our effort isn't working well, but this feedback is ultimately conducive to achieving our goals. As one student said, “The best feedback I received was from my professor which did sting at the time, but she had mentioned that I was not focusing on my topic.” While it can be uncomfortable at times, we have to be willing to learn from experience and change when necessary. Whether it means changing the focus of your paper or changing career goals, flexibility is a vital skill to success, as well as personal growth.

You can improve upon your first attempt (and your second attempt, and so on). Review and revision is critically important for improving the final product.

So often, we expect that our first effort will be all we need. One draft will result in a polished paper. But any seasoned professional knows that the first attempt will need to be revisited and revised, often multiple times. This is not just true of writing, but of any substantial project -- it is through reflection and revision that we create a high-quality finished product. It is through this process that we learn and refine our skills, so that we are more effective in future efforts. I was pleased to see that most of the students understood the value of revision.

“When I wrote my first draft, I knew that it would need many revisions. For this reason I was incredibly grateful that we were doing two drafts before handing in the final paper. [. . .] In general I found the whole revision process useful and necessary. I’ve learned to pay careful attention to the wording in my papers so as to make it easy to read and understandable. Also I should pay careful attention to the substance in my paper to make sure my information is adequate and pertains to the intended topic.”

While most students get experience with revising papers in English classes, they often don't translate that experience into their other classes. Many students write papers right before the deadline, essentially turning in their first draft and precluding the process of revision. Would we assume that a musician could perform a song successfully the first time? Obviously not -- it is through ongoing and sustained practice that musicians are able to produce the most nuanced performance.

“For my first draft, I had gathered some ideas in my head and just began writing. No kind of paragraph structure or solid theme, just a bunch of my ideas jotted on paper. [My writing fellow] had helped me gather my main points so I can eventually form a decent theme for my paper, that came after my 2nd draft. . . After the Writing Fellows, I went to Dr. Stearns for more help. Thanks to her I had finally formed a narrative theme for the paper so I didn’t have multiple ideas scattered around the place. She was very helpful in locating more primary and secondary sources for my paper and it’s always a good feeling to have a professor/doctor be genuinely enthusiastic to help a fellow student.”

This process is typical of writing. We begin with a jumble of ideas, and it takes time and reflection to turn that chaotic mess into a readable narrative. The students grasped that the revision process was not merely an arbitrary hurdle, but actually improved the quality of their work.

“I feel that all these drafts, discussions with people, and reading all of these comments helped my research project become a greater result as a whole. I now wonder what my research project would look like if I had two more drafts after this. This truly has impacted me in believing how important revision is and how much a transformation your work can take after doing so.”

This same student said, "It humbled me to see that there could never be enough critiquing done to a paper." Absolutely true -- we can always refine and improve. For some of us, it's hard to know when to stop the revision process!

What you learn from one project will help you with other projects.

“. . . I have noticed that when writing papers for other classes I now pay more attention to my writing and how I phrase and structure sentences.”

Every teacher hopes that the student is able to generalize their learning. We hope that what they learn for one assignment will help them with other assignments and what they learn from one class will translate into other classes. For most of us, what we learn from a significant project is more than just the specifics of that task. We acquire broader skills of thinking, research, and communication. We learn how to structure our time, what aspects of the task require greater attention, and how to find the necessary resources to help us through the process. We learn about our capabilities and limitations, as well as how to make best use of our skills and available resources to compensate for our weaknesses. By learning how to take on a significant and complex project, we gain skills that will be vital to success in our lives more broadly.

What can students learn from a research paper? They learn about life. Life is challenging at times, but they are capable of meeting that challenge. As they reflect on their experiences, it will be clear that there are areas of needed growth and change, but there will be other people there to help them through the rough spots. They will need to be persistent, to keep working at it, and to learn from their experience so that they can do better next time. College isn't just about the particular content of one's classes. It is a crucible in which students learn the lessons that will stand them in good stead in all their future endeavors. College, as with all education, is not just job training; it is preparation for the rest of our lives.

References

Allen, J., Robbins, S. B., & Sawyer, R. (2010). Can measuring psychosocial factors promote college success? Applied Measurement in Education, 23, 1-22.

Cox, R. (January, 2012). The College Fear Factor. Keynote Address, Association of Faculties for Advancement of Community College Teaching (AFACCT) conference. Rockville, MD.

Sparks, S. (December, 2010). Experts begin to identify nonacademic skills key to success. Education Week.

Losing the lecture?

2012-01-09T21:06:00.003-05:00

When I was a college student, most of my classes were lectures. I had some excellent professors, who gave inspiring, entertaining, and informative lectures. I sat in the front and took notes furiously, trying to get every word down. I still have some of those notebooks, somewhere in my archives.

In graduate school, when I began teaching, I wrote lectures. I interspersed some demonstrations and some discussions, as well, to engage the students further, but I stayed within the lecture format, by and large. After all, that is what professors did -- they organized the information and delivered it through lecture.

In recent years, though, I've shifted away from lecturing in most of my classes. In part, this came from a desire to engage students in discussions of complex issues rather than have them passively absorb information. One semester I spent four hours of my Psychology of Human Sexuality class lecturing about female sexual anatomy and physiology and it seemed like a phenomenal waste of class time, particularly since the information was readily available in their textbook. Given that I can't possibly cover all of the material in class, making myself a conduit for information from the textbook struck me as a poor use of class time, which is, after all, a limited resource. I wanted the students to grapple with debates, learn to apply the concepts, to actively engage with the material, and lecturing was not reliably accomplishing those objectives.

from http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com

I'm not the only one moving away from lecturing as a teaching technique. In a recent NPR story, several physics professors described lecturing as ineffective and a "waste of time." Students weren't learning basic physics concepts through lecture. Listening to someone talk is too passive, and what we know from research is that one must actively process information to learn it. Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur now uses peer instruction, in which students work in groups to solve physics problems. The idea is to have students read the text in advance to get the information, and then use class time to work on making sense of the information, generally the more challenging part of learning.

This Doonesbury cartoon reminds us that information is widely available
(and that students may not be paying attention to lectures anyway)
from http://math.sfsu.edu/beck/images/doonesbury.lecture.google.gif

But, as the NPR story notes, "ask anyone involved with efforts to lose the lecture and they'll tell you they encounter resistance. Sometimes the stiffest opposition comes from the students." Resistance from faculty makes sense. First of all, lecturing is an efficient way to cover information, so we would have to give up some of the topics we now include in lectures. In addition, we'd have to throw away years of work spent crafting and revising our lectures, give up the anecdotes and jokes that are meant to seem spontaneous, but are instead polished routines designed to elicit appreciative laughter. The Powerpoint slides, with the perfect images we hunted for and the bullet points arriving in ideal timing for our stories -- all gone. And what are we to replace this with? Must we now embark upon yet more labor to design the classroom activities that will serve as instructional in the absence of lecturing? It seems a daunting task.

Why would students oppose the loss of lectures, though? For one thing, listening to a lecture is less work than active learning. Students would have to arrive for class prepared to work, having completed the reading and ready to fully engage their cognitive resources for the entire class. In addition, students often come to college expecting lectures. In interviews with community college students, Rebecca Cox found that their model of college involved having the professor, an expert in the field, impart information through lectures.

Students interviewed by Cox expected their professors to present “essential facts and clear explanation of the textbook.” As a result, many of these students “seemed wholly comfortable as passive recipients of professor’s expert knowledge” in the traditional lecture format. (Moltz, 2009)

When professors didn't lecture, some students complained that there was no teaching going on at all.

In other words, lectures are comfortable for everyone, professors and students alike. So why change? Oh, right, because they may not be the most effective instructional tool. Note the difference between lecture and guided discussion here in this clip from Third Rock from the Sun (not that I'm recommending his rather discouraging evaluation of his students' capabilities, mind you):

But change is possible. In my upper-level classes, I don't lecture much at all. Classes involve a range of activities including discussion (more or less structured), question-and-answer, working in groups to answer questions or apply the material, student presentations, brief writing exercises, and yes, some lecturing. I still stand as the expert in the room and most of the discussion happens through me; I talk quite a bit even now. I have some ideas for how to decenter myself somewhat to give students a more active role, but mostly, I'm happy with the format of these classes. It's been a gradual process; I didn't give up lectures all at once, but instead, just replaced them bit by bit each semester. My students seem happy with the classes, and I think they are more engaged and learning more from the format. I'm still tweaking and revising, adding an activity here or changing things around, but I don't miss the lectures. Indeed, I enjoy myself enormously in these classes -- at its best, the heady energy of dynamic discussion is an intoxicating rush, such that I lose track of time if I'm not mindful.

That brings me to my General Psychology class, the last bastion of lecturing in my teaching arsenal. My format here is still predominantly lecture-based, Powerpoint slides and all. I've been more reluctant to give up lecturing in this class, for a variety of reasons. First of all, students in this introductory class are less likely to read the text, so it would be more challenging to have them come to class prepared for active learning exercises. They are also more likely to assume that the material covered in class represents the sum total of their required knowledge, so I feel more bound to cover the full breadth of topics I expect them to learn. It is always a struggle to manage the sheer amount and diversity of material for this class. Every time I cut something from my lecture, I mourn the loss; one more interesting concept the students won't learn, one more area seemingly marginalized. (After all, if I don't cover it in class, it must not be important.) I want to share it all with them, and shifting away from lecture will inevitably mean giving up some of the topics I now cover.

Yet in many ways, these students are the most in need of active learning techniques. They often lack the metacognitive skills that are fundamental to success in college classes. Many have little knowledge of how to learn material on their own from the text, and they often assume that they understand the material by virtue of hearing it once in lecture. They need more than lectures for effective learning; they need to engage with the material and practice applying the concepts. So, over the years, I've added in concept check moments, to see if the students understand the material before we move on. I've written worksheets and created online quizzes so students can apply the concepts to real-life examples. I created space for discussions. I have demonstrations and video clips to make the material more vivid and personally engaging.

In short, I've been chipping away at lectures for some time now as I've added in active learning exercises. As with my other classes, I'm making it a gradual process rather than a radical shift. I'm currently challenging myself to develop a series of new activities for my winter General Psychology class, so that every class has at least one active learning component. On the second day of class, I asked students to explain the concepts of correlation coefficient and p-value in a specific example. This generated some new questions and clarifications. Afterwards, I asked the students if they felt that they understood the concepts better than they had in the previous day's lecture and they affirmed that they did. In an effort to explain the purpose of the activity and to reinforce good study skills, I then reminded them of the central importance of active processing information for effective learning.

Of course, I was also reminding myself.

Being a good teacher doesn't mean being the best lecturer; it means facilitating the students' learning. As I noted in my recent article, it is important to explore new ideas and be open to changing one's teaching practice. I needn't decide to give up lecturing altogether; I'm just exploring my options.

References:

Carey, B. (May 12, 2011). Less talk, more action: Improving science learning. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/science/13teach.html

Hanford, E. (Jan. 1, 2012). Physicists seek to lose the lecture as a teaching tool. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/01/144550920/physicists-seek-to-lose-the-lecture-as-teaching-tool

Moltz, D. (Nov. 18, 2009). 'The College Fear Factor'. Inside HigherEd. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/18/fearfactor

Stearns, D. C. (2011). A teaching-centered career for the aspiring intellectual. In Bubb, R., Stowell, J., & Buskist, W. (Eds.). (2011). The Teaching of Psychology in Autobiography: Perspectives from Exemplary Psychology Teachers (Vol. 4). E-book on the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (APA Division 2) website. Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/tia2011/index.php

Interrogating Museum Exhibits

2012-01-07T09:33:00.002-05:00

I just gave a talk at the AFACCT conference with some of my colleagues about our experience with the Smithsonian Faculty Fellowship program at Montgomery College. It was a wonderfully interdisciplinary panel, reflecting the diversity of perspectives in our SFF cohort (Marcia Bronstein, English/ESL [moderator]; Genevieve Carminati, English and Women's Studies; Marissa Prosser, Anthropology; Michael Tims, Biology; and me, Psychology). We each discussed the museum assignments we created for our students and how that facilitated their learning as well as how that reflected the various communities that interconnect through the SFF program. I talked about what I learned from the museum curators about reading objects and images.

Reading Objects

"We need to develop the ability to suspend our reliance on conventional abstractions so that we can look at things anew, and in a careful, critical way. . . The capacity for fresh, critical observations is the basis of good research, and as your students advance in school that skill becomes increasingly vital. But being able to see the world clearly and to ask good probing questions of it is as important in a whole variety of non-academic life situations as well." (Shuh, Teaching Yourself to Teach with Objects, 1996, p. 7)

Shuh describes the process of reading objects by making careful observations and asking questions based on those observations (e.g., why? what are the implications?). He uses the example of a styrofoam cup, and through this process of interrogation, comes to see that:

"The Styrofoam cup has quite a story to tell if we’re able to listen. It’s a story that is not only about Styrofoam cups, but also about us, about some of our values and the choices that we make, about some of our limits and possibilities, and about some of the crises that characterize our world." (Shuh, 1996, p. 11)

In other words, when read carefully, even seemingly trivial everyday objects can reveal a great deal about the culture from which they emerge.

Reading Portraits

LL Cool J

Oil on canvas, Kehinde Wiley, 2005

National Portrait Gallery

One can read portraits through a similar process of careful observation and questioning (Reading Portrait Guide for Educators, 2009). Begin by describing what you see in the portrait (e.g., pose, objects, setting, attire, color). Then analyze the portrait, asking what these aspects tell us about the person being portrayed and the artist, in their cultural and historical context. When the SFF fellows visited the Americans Now exhibit, for example, the curators helped us read the portrait of LL Cool J by Kehinde Wiley. Noting the massive size of the portrait and the formal pose (evocative of Sargent's portrait of Rockefeller) as well as the family crest in the upper right corner gave me new insight into the intent of the artist to imbue the subject with authority and power. Without the guidance of the curators, I wouldn't have looked as carefully at this portrait, nor would I have gleaned so much meaning from it.

Messages in the museum

The curators gave me greater awareness of the backstage of a museum exhibit. No longer did I view the museum as source of objective truth, a mere collection of objects to be scanned and dismissed. I began to see museum exhibits as intentionally created to convey a message to the viewers. The choice of objects and text, what was included and what was omitted, all emerged from the interplay of curators' motives and sociopolitical forces. Exhibits could be (indeed should be) critically examined and interrogated. The curators at the National Museum of the American Indian state this explicitly:

"This gallery is making history and, like all other makers of history, it has a point of view, an agenda.
What's found here is our way of looking at the Native American experience.
What is said -- and what you see -- may fly in the face of much you've learned.
We offer self-told histories of selected Native communities. Other communities, other perspectives would have produced different results. . .So view what's offered with respect, but also with skepticism.
Explore this gallery.
Encounter it.
Reflect on it.
Argue with it."
-- Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche) and Herbert R. Rosen, Our Peoples: Giving Voice to Our Histories, National Museum of the American Indian

My assignments

In keeping with the theme of the 2011 SFF cohort (The Politics of Identity: Race in 21st Century America), I created assignments that required my students to interrogate a museum exhibit representing a particular racial/ethnic group. After visiting one of the specified Smithsonian museum exhibits, they then wrote a paper in which they analyzed the objects, images, and text in the exhibit to illustrate how that racial/ethnic group was represented in the exhibit and what effect the exhibit would have on viewers' perceptions of members of that racial/ethnic group.

Our Peoples exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian (photo from virtualtourist.com)

I got my first hint that this assignment might actually work while on my initial museum trip with my students in the Spring, 2011 semester. As we entered the Our Peoples: Giving Voice to Our Histories exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian, we stood in front of this array of figurines. I asked the students why the curators created this display. We discussed a variety of possible meanings and intentions behind the figurines. They are diverse, representing the diversity of Native American tribes. They are many, just as there were and are many Native Americans. They are artistic creations, representing the skill and talent of Native American artists. They come from the past, but still exist in the present, representing Native American traditions and the perserverance of the Native Americans themselves. As curator Paul Chaat Smith says of this display, the "key ideas here are ancient, always changing, tens of millions of people, and incredible diversity" (Presenting Evidence, 2005). Rather than passing by the display with a quick glance, we looked and questioned and discussed it for quite a while.

In fact, the students revealed excellent powers of observation in their discussions of the exhibits. They often commented on details that I had missed. For example, one student from my Psychology of Women class analyzed the representation of men and women in the African Voices exhibit. He noted in one of the sculpture displays that while the male figures were often depicted standing, "[m]ost of the women that were sculpted by the artist are in a kneeling position that is universally understood as a submissive stance. The only woman subject that is not kneeling is the 'Palm Wine Seller', that is only because she is balancing a basket of fruit on her head and nursing a child while traveling to the market, a multi task that would be difficult to carryout [sic] on one's knees" ("The Carver Among Us", African Voices). I had seen the exhibit four times and it had never occurred to me to consider the postures of the sculpted figures. Another student, observing that the initial photo display of Native Americans in Our Lives: Contemporary Voice and Identity included a diverse array of women of all ages and appearances, noted that this might have been influenced by the fact that there were female curators for this display. I hadn't noticed this fact, nor had I thought to consider the curators' gender as a factor influencing the display.


Breakfast Photograph by Satomi Shirai, 2007

The students were also able to connect what they saw to broader sociocultural meanings, such as stereotypes. In analyzing representations of Asian-American men and women in the exhibit Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter at the National Portrait Gallery, one student provided this discussion of Breakfast by Satomi Shirai:

"The woman that is literally bending over backwards in front of the man might be a representation of how Asian American females figuratively bend over backwards for men in a society that values masculinity and denigrates femininity. . . While the fully clothed man is sitting in a seemingly comfortable position, the woman is completely nude and awkwardly balancing on a sphere. This somewhat suggests passive domination, which relates to the stereotype that Asian American women should be complaisant. Asian American women are challenged by their traditional role as quiet, obedient Asian woman [sic], or living up to expectations of stereotypical modern American woman who are [sic] more opinionated and independent. Although the woman in Breakfast depicts this struggle, Shirai does not seem to offer immediate resolution, emphasizing the currency of the issue and the notion that there is no definitive answer to the question of how Asian American women should behave in our society."

It was clear from reading their papers that the students understood that these exhibits, objects, and images were intentionally chosen with particular communicative goals in mind. They grasped that the exhibits were shaped by the motives of the curator or artist to convey a particular impression.

"One thing that [African Voices] was trying to show about the African people was that they are becoming more modern of a continent and less isolated from the world. There was a display of money used throughout the different countries in Africa . . ."

"[Our Peoples] tells the tale of a people who had not only a wealth of gold and material goods, but also a wealth of culture. For example, on display was a great collection of beautiful golden artifacts created by Native Americans . . ."

In both of these excerpts, the students articulate that the object (money or gold) reflected a choice on the part of the curator as part of trying to convey a particular message about the people being represented.

Somali aqal in the African Voices exhibit, National Museum of Natural History

However, the students understood that there might be a disconnect between the goals of the curators and the impact on the audience. We had a vibrant discussion about whether African Voices succeeded in portraying Africans as modern and diverse, or whether the viewers would maintain an impression of Africans as homogeneous and primitive. For example, the curators intended the Somali aqal (pictured above) to feature a "centuries-old architectural form that remains viable in the early twenty-first century" (Arnoldi, Kreamer, & Mason, p. 29), but some of my students believed that it would be seen as primitive. Their interrogation of the objects led them to question the efficacy of the curators' message.

Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown
© James Hinton, Collection of the Artist
The Struggle for Justice, National Portrait Gallery

The students also thought about the possibility that an object or image could have multiple possible effects or even mixed effects. Would this photo of Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown feed the stereotype of African-American men as aggressive, because of the presence of guns, or would it challenge that stereotype, due to their smiling faces and casual demeanor? In their papers, the students explored the question of whether the effect of a particular object or exhibit could differ across different audiences (e.g., depending on the pre-existing attitudes of the viewer).

"For example, people with high implicit racism may quickly view the picture of James Farmer to represent anger, whereas, I first perceived his facial expression as confidence." [The Struggle for Justice, National Portrait Gallery]

James Farmer

Alice Neel

Did it work? Yes!

"I sometimes rush too quickly through museums and this assignment made me slow down and appreciate all the items of an exhibit. Some of the things I will pay attention to are how the exhibits are laid out, who curated them, and how images and text are used and what message they are sending." (Montgomery College student enrolled in Psychology of Women)

In short, the assignment was successful in fostering greater engagement with, and critical thinking about, the sociocultural meaning of objects and images and their implications. My students not only revealed more careful and thorough observations, but they also replaced unquestioning acceptance of the surface meaning of objects with an interrogation of the objects and images. This encouraged the students to be aware of the impact of their own choices of objects and images, for example in their self-presentation.

The assignment also increased the students' awareness of the active role of viewers in interpreting exhibits, objects, and images. Rather than assuming that viewers would receive the intended message, students understood that such messages could be lost, misinterpreted, or distorted. This led them to examine their own experience with the exhibits and consider how their preconceptions and beliefs might have shaped their interpretation of the objects and images. Quite a few students discussed what they learned from the exhibit as challenging their own stereotypes.

"Honestly, I thought that I entered the museum free of stereotypes [about Native Americans] . . . but that was not true. I actually found that my vision of Native Americans was limited to people with square shaped faces and olive skin. Fortunately as I was venturing through the museum, my view of the indigenous peoples of the Americas gradually changed. [. . .] Instead of looking at the color of a person's skin or the features that grace his or her face, I will celebrate the way that he or she may live, without hastily classifying such people into groups based on trivial outward differences." (Montgomery College student enrolled in Social Psychology)

As an additional bonus, the students generally found the assignment highly engaging and meaningful. They enjoyed the trip to the museum and they often connected with the exhibits at a personal level, discussing the ways in which their experience was reflected in the museum exhibit.

"I was surprised to realize the type of impact that the assignment had on me as a whole. It seemed to be not only educational, but also personally applicable. . . Being a Hispanic minority in the United States, I can personally relate to many of the struggles that Asian Americans are faced with based on the literature and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery exhibits. . . Perhaps the most fascinating part of this exhibit was the fact that all of the works were done by contemporary artists that were all Asian Americans. This makes the messages for the audience come from a unique autobiographical standpoint, which truly enriches the experiences. It's as if the artwork is telling a story that is based on true life, although it is often surreal and deeply captivating." (excerpts from one Montgomery College student enrolled in Psychology of Women writing about the experience)

Want to try it yourself?

This type of assignment could be used with objects or images brought into the classroom, online images, or other media. To be successful, though, preparation is key. It helps if the instructor is familiar with the item(s) to be analyzed, to effectively guide the interrogation. The instructor should also consider how the exercise fits into pedagogical goals. I tied my assignments to material on stereotyping to connect the exercise with psychological concepts and research, but instructors from other disciplines should tailor their assignment to fit their own discipline and pedagogy. It is also critical to prepare students, giving them the opportunity to practice interrogating objects and images. I found the experience of providing my students guided tours of the exhibit invaluable, as it helped me direct the students' attention and engage them with probing questions. For most people, the interrogation of objects and images is a new skill, and they will need support to develop these critical thinking skills. It is essential to engage in sustained interrogation of the objects or images, as this will result in deeper insight and critical thinking. Don't forget to help students notice what is missing, as well as what is present, in the objects and images. These lacunae can often be highly informative in the analysis. For example, students noted the lack of information about controversial historical events in the exhibits, and we discussed possible reasons for these absences.

It behooves us all to develop the skills for careful observation and critical evaluation of the messages around us. Particularly in this, the information age, it is essential that we become more critical consumers of all types of information. So the next time you visit a museum, or look at an ad, or see a poster, look at it carefully. Think about it. Question it. Challenge it. You'll be surprised at what it tells you.

"I don’t see a trip to the museum as boring and tired now I see it as a [sic] enormous classroom with knowledge and fun. Next year I will take my whole family to the museum and share what I have learned from this experience. I want my son learn from gender and ethnicity and the reason curators set up the exhibits the way they do." (Montgomery College student enrolled in Psychology of Women)

References
Arnoldi, M. J., Kreamer, C. M., & Mason, M. A. (2001). Reflections on "African Voices" at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. African Arts, 34, 16-35.

National Portrait Gallery Education Department (2009). "Reading" Portraiture Guide for Educators.

Shuh, J. H. (1996). Teaching Yourself to Teach with Objects. In The Educational Role of the Museum. Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (Ed). Routledge, NY, pp. 80-91.

Smith, P. C. (2005). Presenting Evidence.

Stearns, D. C. (2012, January). Fostering critical thinking through interrogating museum exhibits. Paper presented as part of a panel entitled, Using the community in community college teaching: Dialogues on racial and cultural identity at the Association of Faculties for Advancement of Community College Teaching (AFACCT) conference, Rockville, MD.

Exhibits Discussed
African Voices, National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC.

Americans Now, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC.

Our Peoples: Giving Voice to Our Histories, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington DC.

Our Lives: Contemporary Voice and Identities, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington DC.

Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter, National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC.

The Struggle For Justice, National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC.

Looking back on 2011

2012-01-02T21:42:00.002-05:00

Rabbit on our driveway (6/2011)

New Year's Day is traditionally a day of new beginnings. I love new beginnings -- the excitement of starting fresh with the allure of pristine new projects. Accomplishments are just over the horizon, glittering in the near distance.

But taking stock of where we are means pondering the past as well as looking to the future. Yet I'm less likely to mull over tasks completed than to dream of what is to come. So I'm challenging myself to spend some time thinking back over what I've done. Rather than compile a list of individual achievements (as in Lisa Call's 100 Accomplishments for 2011), I wanted to think about how my activities fit into my goals. Perhaps I'm considering my cosmic footprint for 2011 (to borrow a concept from fellow blogger and academic Jill Kronstadt, whose blog is really worth reading). So in the larger sense, what did I do in 2011?

I honored the relationships that matter to me.
I spent time with family, friends, colleagues, and students. Family gatherings included celebrations for my sister's graduation from medical school and my father's birthday as well as various visits from immediate and extended family, some of whom I haven't seen in quite a while. Following my grandmother's death, I helped with the arrangements, including organizing a memorial service for my maternal grandparents and was pleased that so many relatives and friends were able to attend.

Memorial for Richard and Margaret Driessel, West Bend WI (Photo by Robert Otto)

I contributed to my communities.
I finished the new website for the Psychology Department (Rockville Campus). I expanded and redesigned the pages to include more information about the faculty and additional resources for our students. I also created a blog and Facebook page for the Psychology departments (of all three campuses). The CMS doesn't allow for much design creativity, but Q created terrific banners for the web page and blog and a logo for our FB page. I'm hoping to build an online community for those interested in psychology, so I have been posting all kinds of interesting links on our FB page; the blog hasn't been as active, but I'm planning to post more often in future. I was also a member of the search committee for a new faculty member for our department and I organized the annual Women's Studies Silent Auction to raise funds for the Women's Studies Scholarship fund.

I'm proud to continue to be an advocate for LGBTQ issues at the college. I helped facilitate our first Safe Zone trainings in the spring and fall semesters (a shout-out to my colleague DJ McCullough who did the lion's share of coordinating this effort), and I participated in two In Our Own Voices panels related to gender and sexual orientation. Montgomery College held its first LGBTQ History Month in October, and I participated in (and helped organize) events for the Rockville campus, including a showing of an episode of the television show TransGeneration and a panel discussion entitled "Is Homophobia Dead?". The college released an anti-bullying statement and contributed a video to the It Gets Better project, and I was one of those included in these videos. These are really inspiring videos, and I'm pleased that so many faculty, staff, students, and administrators participated (including one of the students from the People's Alliance, the LGBTQ student club I advise). These efforts were featured in an article in the Metro Weekly (including a quote from me).

Along with some of my fabulous colleagues, I was also one of the guests in the MCTV Campus Conversations episode on "Being LGBT on Campus" (our segment begins at around 10 minutes).

I learned new things.
My single richest source of learning last year was the Smithsonian Faculty Fellowship. Our readings and meetings with curators provided me with new insights into the challenges of designing museum exhibits and their role in public education. I learned a great deal from my museum visits (as you can see here, here and here) and I hope to continue this as a regular practice. Our fellowship theme of racial identity also provided much food for thought and my faculty colleagues were a fount of information and insight not only about issues of race/ethnicity, but also broader questions of pedagogy. Beyond these museum experiences, my voracious reading habits and love of podcasts and documentary films also provided opportunities for learning. I've learned quite a bit through my search for psychology news articles for our department's Facebook page, for example, and I saw some excellent documentaries as part of my search for relevant teaching films. And, as always, I learn so much from my colleagues and students, as well as from teachers, friends, and family; thank you all for sharing your knowledge and insights unstintingly.

I helped others learn and grow.
As part of teaching my usual round of classes, I redesigned my course websites as part of our transition to the Blackboard platform and included new links and resources for learning. I also created new assignments based in museum exhibits for two of my classes (yet more museum visits, now with students). This semester, I participated in a Writing Fellows pilot program for one class, a joint project between Montgomery College and the Universities of Shady Grove, in which USG students were trained at writing tutors and helped MC students improve their writing.

Outside of classes, I coordinated the Psychology Brown Bag series, and our faculty led stimulating discussions about the state of psychological science, social intelligence, motivation, psychopathy, and the sexual double standard. We also were very fortunate to have Dr. Hani Miletski as a guest speaker, discussing her experiences as a sex therapist. We generally have 30-60 students, faculty, and staff in attendance and we all get a chance to learn something new. I also hosted high school student interns through the Psychology Internship program (one in the spring and four in the fall) and co-coordinated the annual MC V-Day program; I really enjoy these one-on-one interactions with students because I get to see them grow and come into their own voices. I value the learning shared among colleagues, as well, and it was a genuine pleasure to give panel presentations with my faculty colleagues (Dr. Andrea Brown and Prof. Genevieve Carminati) at two different conferences last year. Our papers were very well-received and I think we made a great team; we learned a lot from each other and our papers complemented each other well. In fact, it went so well that I submitted another proposal and we will be presenting together again in a few months at the Southeastern Women's Studies Association conference.

Some of my students outside the National Portrait Gallery

I was recognized for my work and I helped recognize others' work.
As I've mentioned previously, I won a number of awards last year and was featured in articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Washington Post. I also received recognition from the Montgomery College Board of Trustees and from the Montgomery County Council. In short, it was a big year for honors and awards for me. I'm pleased about that, of course, but I'm even more pleased that I was able to help in the recognition of others' achievements. In addition to writing recommendation letters for students and faculty, I served as one of the judges for the 2011 CASE Professor of the Year awards and for the online publication of the Montgomery College Outstanding Student Writing in the Disciplines.

I tended hearth and home.
It was a big year for house projects. In addition to my usual round of intensive gardening, we had a host of home repairs completed (trust me, the specifics would be boring) and embarked upon an unforeseen bathroom renovation (that is thankfully almost finished). We also spent quite a bit of time working on designs for the renovating rear parlor/textile studio that haven't yet been implemented.

Jacques de Jardin, the latest addition to our garden (a gift from Q)

I created things.
In addition to my digital creations noted above, I also made textile creations and sold them through my Etsy shop and at the Montgomery College Arts and Crafts fair. I serged an array of linen dinner napkins and flannel burp cloths, as well as creating another fiber fantasy scarf, and I began a new series of inspirational bags that are still in progress. On the academic side, I wrote an article entitled, "A Teaching-Centered Career for the Aspiring Intellectual" that was published in The Teaching of Psychology in Autobiography: Perspectives from Exemplary Psychology Teachers (vol. 4), and I completed and submitted an article on guilt and shame with my colleague Dr. W. Gerrod Parrott for a special issue of Cognition and Emotion.

One side of my table at the MC Arts and Crafts Fair (12/2011)

I enjoyed myself.
There were outings to movies and shows, wherein we saw acrobats and actors, singers and dancers (including a killer bunny). There were quiet hours spent reading or watching critters cavort outside the window. And, of course, I enjoy most of what I do; friends, family, work, and home. I am deeply fortunate to have a life in which purpose and pleasure are richly embedded and entwined.

So to 2012, I say, bring it on! I'm ready.

From the Reston Zoo (7/2011)

Another reminder of why I love my job

2011-10-17T22:52:00.001-04:00

My Psychology of Human Sexuality class today included discussions of the following topics:

Pros and cons of Kaplan's and Master's and Johnson's models of sexual arousal and response
Possible evolutionary explanations for the existence of the female orgasm, including a round of laughter at the aptly-named "upsuck" hypothesis; the concept of androcentrism in scientific theories was also introduced after a student described two male-centered theories of the functions of female orgasm
Whether orgasm and ejaculation are separate functions in men and how this might be relevant to multiple orgasms and orgasmic capacity prior to puberty
The lack of scientific evidence for some popular claims related to sexuality and difficulties in researching claims regarding sexual enhancement (e.g., "I've heard this would work to create a non-ejaculatory orgasm in men -- does it?")
The biochemical and neurological factors involved in sexual arousal and response, including hormones, neurotransmitters, and brain activation (including some discussion of the use of chemical castration for sex offenders that opened up the question of what motivations underlie rape and sexual assault)
Changes in sensory experience during sexual arousal (eliciting a discussion of testicular sensitivity during and after sex)
Whether there are genuine aphrodisiacs, what would constitute an aphrodisiac (e.g., given alcohol's effect on sexuality, can it be characterized as an aphrodisiac?), and why so many cultures seek aphrodisiacs (why are chemical substances sought to elicit sexual response, rather than the stimulation of the senses, and how does this relate to the increasing influence of the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S.?)
Pros and cons of research on rats in understanding human sexuality
Comparisons of sexuality across different primate species
Discussion of the varied functions of sexual behavior in non-human animals (elicited by a student asking whether animals engage in anal sex, and if so, why)
Whether pheromones exist that influence human sexuality, distinguishing between research on the influence of scent cues on menstruation or mate selection vs. their influence on sexual response (including a mention of the market for used panties in Japan and whether some trees in spring smell like semen)
The influence of learned cues on human sexuality, revisiting the nature-nurture debate
Similarities and differences between men and women in their patterns of sexual response and a reminder of the diversity of human sexual response

And that doesn't even include the student who brought up a book he is reading about Tantric sex and the "spiritual penis." All this intellectual stimulation in just 75 minutes -- did I mention that I love my job?

The eye of the beholder: Interpreting art

2011-10-16T15:59:00.002-04:00

"Art is not meant to be merely decorative or beautiful; instead, it can be a question, an argument, a proposal, a resolution." -- Hye Yeon Nam

Last weekend, I took some of my Psychology of Women students to see Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter at the National Portrait Gallery. It was an interesting and thought-provoking exhibit and we had a number of conversations about the potential meanings of the various works. We were often left with many unanswered questions. I was particularly struck by a four-part video self-portrait by Hye Yeon Nam, Walking, Eating, Drinking, and Sitting. We stayed for some time in front of these pieces, talking about what we noticed, what feelings they evoked, and what they might mean.

Eating

SelfPortrait_Eating from Hye Yeon Nam on Vimeo.
Each of the pieces evokes a sense of awkwardness. The simple tasks of eating, drinking, sitting, and walking are revealed as a difficult struggle. We see her physical discomfort, the ache of her shoulders. However, the artist's face is impassive, showing no frustration. Are we to admire her persistence in the face of these difficulties? Or does this merely reveal an ingrained acceptance of these impediments as "natural", even when they could be addressed?

Drinking

SelfPortrait_Drinking from Hye Yeon Nam on Vimeo.

Should we see her awkwardness as an inevitable aspect of the human condition or as a self-imposed choice (why not get a glass without a hole in it)? Or are we to see her as victim to the social narrative that tells her what is "appropriate" behavior, even when that creates unnecessary impediments? One can easily see a parallel to femininity and the ways in which women's behavior is constrained through social norms.

In Walking, for example, I see the awkward gait of the dictates of women's attire: the high-heeled shoe, the bound foot, the narrow skirt, the corseted waist that robs her of breath. Yet not only are women told to endure these constraints, they are required to move with grace, as though unhindered by the strictures of fashion. By making this awkwardness visible, we can come to see the daily ways in which women's bodies are restrained and burdened through gender roles.

Walking

SelfPortrait_Walking from Hye Yeon Nam on Vimeo.

Sitting

SelfPortrait_Sitting from Hye Yeon Nam on Vimeo.

Those surrounding the artist seem oblivious to her obvious physical discomfort. There is no offer to help or even a sympathetic glance from the other diners. Is this to mean that our inner experience may not be visible to others -- the feelings of awkwardness or discomfort not even seen by those around us? (This might be comforting, in that we avoid the humiliation of public exposure, but it also means we are all truly alone, unable even to have the sympathy of others.) Or does it merely reveal the callous acceptance of the struggles going on around us? Perhaps one can see the experience of disability here, in which the everyday challenge of navigating the world goes unnoticed. Even if noted, we may do nothing, fearing our assistance may merely exacerbate the awkwardness of the situation.

The artist also references her experience of immigration. She notes:

In the videos, I seek to portray the difficulty of living in this 'room' that is America. Self-Portrait is an attempt to literally represent my psychological and bodily displacement as a means of representing the experience of immigration to non-immigrants. Since moving two years ago, I now feel as if I live in a different skin. Many of the simple tasks that seemed inborn to me in Korea are now completely foreign. My body, as a result, feels different. I feel like it occupies both Korea and the United States and my arms and legs feel incredibly elongated, as if I cannot see the end of my body. This space of being neither here in America nor there in Korea is precisely what I try to convey in Self-Portrait. http://www.hynam.org/HY/sel.html

And yet, while I have not been an immigrant, the pieces still speak to me. The artist has taken part of her experience and translated it so that we can see its universality. And isn't that part of the power of art (and literature and science) -- to connect our own individual stories through the narrative of the piece?

What I like about these pieces is their provocative nature -- they pose more questions than they answer. Do they call for social change to create more space for diverse ways of being? Should we criticize her for not changing her environment, or is she to be lauded for persisting in the face of difficulty? The works are compelling, but without clear resolution. I enjoy works that get me to think, but they need not provide simple, clear messages. Indeed, these works would be less powerful to me if they framed their message too directly; they would become pedantic and off-putting.

"With her patient and resolute response to the difficult situations she encounters, Nam provides a reminder that 'fitting in' requires consistent negotiation between the self and perceived expectations—a challenge to which we can all relate." http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/encounter/nam.html

In other words, these works speak to the discomfort we have all felt, but they call us to connect with the experiences of others, as well. By making these inner struggles visible, we are able to see them more clearly.

Butterflies and the Big Bang

2011-04-30T18:27:00.002-04:00

Last week's trip to New York included a visit to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. It was raining and there was a long line to get in, but Q's mother took us around to a different entrance and we avoided the wait. First stop, the Butterfly Conservatory, full of beautiful butterflies.

Display cases featured exquisite specimens (dead, sadly, but beautiful)

Did you know that their multicolored wings are made up of many scales, each of which is only one color, and which look suspiciously like beads when seen close up? Hmm. . . there is a seed bead project in there somewhere, I'm sure.

From Wikimedia Commons

We saw many different types of butterflies in the tropics of the conservatory:

Just a reminder not to remove the butterflies from feeders, brought to you by this Owl butterfly.

This specimen (a moth, I think) is being held by one of the museum staff, who said it might be dehydrated.

This is a moth, not a butterfly, but what beautiful colors!

Snake's Head Moth

This one has wings of stained glass . . .

The veining of the wings is clearly visible in this shot:

After lunch and a tour of the African Peoples and the Human Origins exhibits (more about that in another post), we went into the Rose Center for Earth and Space where we explored the development of the universe from the Big Bang:

and cruised past some planets, including Jupiter:

Q explained how stars develop over time and where black holes come from (more thoroughly than the museum film did -- I learned a lot). We wandered through the Hall of Planet Earth, which included the Willamette meteorite from Oregon, named Tomanowos by the Clackamas Indians (who are part of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde today).

The museum text stated that:

According to the traditions of the Clackamas, Tomanowos is a revered spiritual being that has healed and empowered the people of the valley since the beginning of time. The Clackamas believe that Tomanowos came to the valley as a representative of the Sky People and that a union occurred between the sky, earth and water when it rested on the ground and collected rainwater in its basins. The rainwater served as a powerful purifying, cleansing and healing source for the Clackamas and their neighbors.

Side note: Having spent this semester learning about museum exhibits had made me much more aware of museum design choices. This is a good example of how relevant contextual information made me much more interested in the exhibit item. I was first struck by the sheer size of the meteorite, but reading about its meaning to the Clackamas made it much more interesting to me.

After the museum, we took a walk through a soggy Central Park and found the lovely Swedish cottage with the Shakespeare Garden behind it.

Is it just me, or are these flowers giving us the finger? That's NYC tulips for you . . .

From the heavens to the earth, we saw it all. Many thanks to Q's mom for such a full and enjoyable day.

The value of dissent

2011-04-29T22:59:00.002-04:00


Contemplating the journey (Sagrada Familia by Antonio Gaudi, Barcelona)*

In my Psychology of Human Sexuality class on Wednesday, we had an intense discussion about sexual assault. We talked about a number of commonly-held beliefs about sexual assault, including the issue of whether women are "asking" to be raped when they dress in sexy outfits or when they invite a man into their home. One of the students (I'll call her Pat -- not her real name) was of the opinion that women should be held accountable for such choices. She argued that women should be aware of how these behaviors will be viewed by others in our society, and stated baldly that she had less sympathy for a rape victim who had dressed revealingly. I (along with other students) challenged her assumptions regarding the cultural meanings of any given behavior and made the case that nothing justifies assault. She acknowledged some of our points but was unpersuaded and stuck to her opinion with considerable passion.

It would be easy for me to see this interchange as a teaching failure -- I failed to convince Pat to give up her belief. I failed to persuade her that such beliefs reflect a cultural mythology that justifies rape through victim-blaming. Certainly, I find such rape myths deeply problematic, part of a larger societal system that normalizes sexual assault and silences victims who believe they are somehow at fault for their victimization. Yet while I am utterly opposed to Pat's beliefs about rape, and I strive to eradicate such myths at every opportunity, I still consider this discussion a success.

Why? Because, even though it was abundantly clear that I didn't agree with her, Pat felt comfortable expressing herself in my class. She spoke out without fear of being belittled for her opinion. That tells me that I have created a space in which we can have honest, vibrant intellectual debate. Given the controversies that surround much of the material we cover in class, I expect that there will be divergent points of view among the students. It is important to me that I not quash these differing opinions, but rather create a climate in which students feel able to express themselves and engage in the discussion, even when they are in disagreement with each other or with me. In fact, I encourage students to disagree with the readings and with me, as this encourages critical thinking skills and enhances understanding of the key issues. The students who embraced one or more of the rape myths provided an excellent opportunity for the other students to formulate reasoned arguments against such beliefs. Indeed, other students argued with Pat (and with each other and with me), but the discussion remained respectful even when strong emotion was involved.

Respect is the key element. I strive to create a classroom in which we respect each other, in which each student's contributions are valued. We can disagree, even be impassioned in our disagreement, as long as we remain respectful of each other. I take my student's comments and perspectives seriously. I invite them to think about the issues and to weigh in on debates in the field. I try to create a sense that we are all collaborating in the intellectual enterprise -- to be sure, I am the acknowledged expert and I take the lead in discussions, but we are all contributors and I want my students to take ownership of the intellectual work we do. Even when a student's belief is factually incorrect, or when their comment is somewhat off-topic, I don't dismiss or trivialize their contribution. I find a way to weave it into the main point or connect it to the psychological theories we are discussing.

The product of our discussion in Social Psychology about the complex web of factors that influence aggression (4/27/2011)

In the end, my job is not to make my students agree with me. I frequently remind my students that they don't have to agree with any of the theories we discuss; they merely have to understand them. As Bill Beattie states: "The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men." It is far more important to me that my students gain the ability to think critically than it is to get them to agree with any particular viewpoint. I hope to move students from uncritical acceptance (or knee-jerk rejection) to thoughtful consideration and questioning. I do not strive to convince my students of the rightness of my opinions, only of the importance of critical thinking and of relevant evidence.

As I have said before, college is not merely or primarily a place to learn facts; it is a place of change, of transformation. Of course, I cannot say how a student will be changed (or not) by their experience in my class. The transformation need not be immediate; change often takes time. It may be months or years before the ideas in a particular class have a demonstrable effect. All I can do is provide relevant information and diverse perspectives to try to get students excited about learning and engaged in critical thinking.   Those goals were well-met by our discussion, in which the students were enthusiastic participants, providing diverse perspectives, experiences, and relevant information. Maybe I didn't change Pat's mind, but in many ways, that is irrelevant as a measure of success; indeed, her dissent provided a crucial springboard for a more sustained, in-depth discussion. And who knows what change might emerge in the future as a result?

"My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects."
              -- Robert Maynard Hutchins

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education."
              -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Transformation at the Butterfly Conservatory (American Museum of Natural History, NYC)

*I love this photo of one of the spiral staircases at the Sagrada Familia -- it gives a sense of the winding path we take in life, often into darkly unknown recesses. The Sagrada Familia itself has been a work of many decades, reminding us that we must be patient when we undertake great tasks.

Working

2011-04-22T01:15:00.001-04:00

I'm a big fan of musicals, and one I have been listening to recently is Working by Stephen Schwartz, based on the book of the same name by Studs Terkel. I saw a campus production of Working in college, and immediately fell in love with the show. A friend gave me a bootleg audiotape of the Broadway album and I listened to the music over and over. The Broadway cast album did come out on CD, but seemingly only in a limited run; even used copies of the CD are pretty pricey. I was finally able to find a used copy of the CD for a not-too-outrageous price, and I've had great fun reconnecting with the songs.

Working appeals to me for many reasons. It's based on Studs Terkel's interviews with American men and women about how they feel about their work, which he compiled into a best selling book. There just aren't many sociological studies that get turned into musicals. (Although Rachel Maines' captivating book on the history of the vibrator, The Technology of Orgasm was recently made into a play, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) . . . so there may yet be hope for one of my scholarly works to be seen on Broadway.)

The musical represents a broad array of different types of work through the voices of twenty-six different workers, from the corporate executive to the parking lot attendant, from the trucker to the waitress. The narrative is not limited to paid work, as there is a poignant song by a housewife, and it is not limited to adults, as the newsboy sings about his experience of delivering papers.

One of the themes of the musical is the desire to have our work recognized. In "Something to Point To", each person sings about how their work has contributed to a particular building. The building serves as a visible sign of our labor, the visual representation of our achievement.

Everyone should have something to point to
Something to be proud of
Look what I did
See what I've done
I did the job
I was the one
Everyone should have something to point to
Some way to be tall in the crowd
Proud

When our work is not recognized, it can be a painfully invalidating experience, as the song "Just a Housewife" illustrates.

I don't mean to complain at all
But they make you feel like you're two feet tall
When you're just a wife
(Just a housewife) . . .
You're a "whiz" if you go to work
But you're just a jerk if you say you won't
(Just a housewife)
People say that they think it's fine
If the choice is mine
But you know they don't
What I do, what I choose to do
May be dumb to you
But it's not to me

The workers strive to make meaning of their labor, and most of them are proud of their work. Even those who do work that might seem trivial or unskilled to others sing of the prowess and dedication they bring to their jobs. "Lovin' Al", the car park attendant, brags about his smooth operation of the cars (Lovin' Al is a wizard), and the waitress sings about the artistry she brings to her work:

I tell everybody that I'm a waitress and I'm proud.
Somebody comes up to me and says, "Hey you're terrific.
How come you're just a waitress?" Ya know what I say to them?
I say, "Why? Don't you think you deserve to be served by me?"

It's an art
It's an art
To be a great waitress
To do without leisure or rest
So I zoom
Through the room
With a flair no one else has
An air no one else has
I swear no one else has
My lilt
When I say
"A la carte"
You can see it gives me a glow
Ev'rytime I prove I'm a pro
Maybe I'm not quite
Michealangelo
But I'm not just a waitress
I'm a one woman show

At the same time, the musical doesn't shy away from the negative aspects of work, which can be boring, alienating, or oppressive. In "Nobody Tells Me How", an older schoolteacher bemoans the changing standards of teaching:

The way I've been teaching for forty-some years
Is no longer "effective" or so it appears
Well, damn it!
It worked for me then, so what's wrong with it now?
They say I'm supposed to "keep up with the times"
But nobody ever tells me how....

One of my favorite songs, "Millwork" by James Taylor, powerfully expresses the dreary tedium of factory labor, and even hints at issues of social class that are rarely discussed in the United States:

Millwork ain't easy; mill-work ain't hard
Millwork, it ain't nothing but an awful boring job
. . .
Yes, but it's my life has been wasted,
And I have been the fool
To let this manufacture use my body for a tool.
I can ride home in the evening,
Staring at my hands
Swearing by my sorrow that a young girl
Ought to stand a better chance

So may I work the mills
Just as long as I am able
And never meet the man whose
Name is on the label

It be me and my machine
For the rest of the morning
For the rest of the afternoon
And the rest of my life

Certainly no musical can represent the full range of work experiences, but I think Working does a good job of providing a snapshot of American labor. We try to find meaning in our work and we want to have our efforts recognized and validated, even when the working conditions are difficult. The musical challenges us to find ways to make work more humane and more fulfilling, an ongoing issue even today. Having worked in various jobs over the years, including many years of food service work, I count myself fortunate to have challenging and engaging work that I find deeply meaningful.

In uniform for one of my first food service jobs (circa 1983)

The Crowd that Makes the Renowned

2011-04-19T23:07:00.003-04:00


The 2010 U.S. Professors of the Year who are also ΦBK at the Capitol Hill reception. Pictured left to right: ΦBK Associate Secretary Scott Lurding, Lendol Calder, Deborah C. Stearns, Andrew W. Kindon, Betsy A. Bowen, Mike Veseth, Frances Tiller Pilch and ΦBK Secretary John Churchill.

It's been a big year for me, a year full of accolades and recognition. I was named the 2010 Maryland Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). This is one of the most prestigious awards honoring professors, and the only national award for undergraduate teaching. As a result, I was also featured in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education and in a spot on MCTV, Montgomery College's television station.

Footage from my class was even included in a promotional film for Montgomery College that played in local movie theaters (you'll see me at about 1:44 minutes).

It was a tremendous honor to receive this award, and very gratifying to have my work recognized. But, to be honest, I also find it a little uncomfortable to have so much attention focused on me, in part because it misses the collaborative nature of any successful effort. It's true that I work hard and strive for excellence in what I do, but I could not possibly accomplish my goals without the support of colleagues, administrators, students, friends, and family. Yes, I am the founder and coordinator of the Psychology Brown Bag Series at Montgomery College, but it is successful because my wonderful colleagues generously contribute their time and expertise as speakers, as well as advertising the events in their classes. Of course, we'd be talking to ourselves were it not for the enthusiastic attendance of students, faculty, and staff, who regularly fill up the room with vibrant discussion. Speaking of rooms, we depend upon the support of administrators and staff, as we use the resources of the college for each Psychology Brown Bag. Our administrative assistant, Linda Hankey, and our student aides provide vital help with setup and cleanup. Q makes the pesto (from a family recipe) that I use for the ever-popular pasta that I bring. In other words, I may be credited with running this series, but it takes a village to make these events happen.

In an individualistic culture, like ours, we tend to laud individual achievement, giving less attention to our intrinsic interdependence. As I toured the National Portrait Gallery, for example, I was suddenly struck by the way in which the majority of the portraits were depictions of the person alone, with no others in the frame. It was a surprise to see those few portraits that did include more than one person. In an exhibit like The Struggle for Justice, that frames the struggle for equal rights as primarily the accomplishment of famous historical figures, rather than a broader movement that required the efforts of many to enact social change. In other words, we remember the leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. as instrumental in the civil rights movement, and we forget the thousands who marched with him and worked with him.

Collectivistic cultures, on the other hand, tend to emphasize group identity, rather than personal identity, and stress the collaborative efforts needed to accomplish the task. After winning a medal, Olympic athletes in individualistic cultures like the United States focus on their personal attributes (e.g., strength, speed, determination) as critical for success. In collectivistic cultures like Japan, Olympic athletes include a more holistic focus that includes the role of others (e.g., coach, family) as well as their own personal attributes in their success (Markus et al., 2006). I was intrigued to learn from the curators at the National Portrait Gallery that there are few portrait galleries outside of the United States and Western Europe. It may be that the whole notion of portraiture emphasizes the individual, rather than the group, and thus would be more consistent with an individualistic culture.

Of course, both perspectives hold a portion of truth. The individual runner crosses the line through her own effort and that of countless others who provided the essential support that facilitated her success. My tendency is to lean away from the relentless focus on the individual that characterizes our culture, to remember the many different contributions needed for any successful endeavor. Given the necessity of collective effort, then what am I to make of my own role? It is clearly hubris to claim that my success is merely due to my own efforts, so on what merits am I singled out for praise?

Perhaps my role is that of catalyst. The Psychology Brown Bag Series is not solely the result of my effort, but I did suggest the idea to my colleagues, drawing inspiration from the coffee hours that Dr. Henry Gleitman held when I took his General Psychology course as an undergraduate and my love of intellectual conversation. I encourage my colleagues to present in the series, and most semesters, I give a presentation myself. True, I couldn't do it without a whole lot of help and support, but maybe it wouldn't have happened without my instigation. In that sense, I like the framing of the On Her Shoulders We Stand award that I received this semester from the Women's Studies Program at Montgomery College, as it emphasizes the ways in which we rely on others for support and inspiration. I don't stand alone; no one does. I am proud, however, to be able to play a role, however small, in lifting up others and facilitating positive change, just as others do for me. After all, the role of the educator is to be a catalyst for change -- to create opportunities for learning, for growth, for transformation.

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." --- William Butler Yeats

"Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself." --- John Dewey

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." --- Nelson Mandela

Bibliography

Markus, H. R., Uchida, Y., Omoregie, H., Townsend, S. M., & Kitayama, S. (2006). Going for the gold: Models of agency in Japanese and American contexts. Psychological Science, 17, 103-112.

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

2011-04-16T00:12:00.004-04:00

f you haven't yet gotten to see the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, you should definitely make time to see it. It's an amazing installation, merging textiles, traditionally female handicraft, environmentalism, and mathematics. I also love the way the artists invited members of each community to contribute to the project. Margaret Wertheim describes he project in this TED talk:

I had visited the exhibit briefly about a month ago, but was able to explore it more fully yesterday. I think I could spend hours looking at all the different textures, colors, and shapes, identifying individual contributions and appreciating the gestalt of the various reefs that were created. The reefs are incredibly beautiful and lush.

The contributions also used a wide variety of materials, including recycled materials like audiotape, plastic cutlery, and food wrappers.

Look at these lacy creatures that are so evocative of jellyfish:

And these urchin-like creations with kelp or seaweed around them have an almost Seussian quality:

As always, I am a sucker for beadwork, particularly with this luscious texture.

The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef is currently on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History until April 24. There is even a Coral Reef Family Festival tomorrow (March 16, 2011). Of course, the museum is totally free of charge (as are all the Smithsonian museums). I am so glad I got the chance to see this amazing exhibit.

The Life of a College Professor

2011-04-01T22:03:00.003-04:00

Before I became a college professor, I didn't understand the broad scope of the professorial role. I think it's hard to appreciate all that a job entails until one is immersed in it. Even though my father is an academic, and I grew up hanging around his office, sitting in on his classes, and helping to administer exams and mailing out the journal he edited, I don't think I grasped all that professors do.

Over the last week or so, for example:

I have, of course, taught my classes, held office hours, and responded to student email. I revised classroom activities and lecture notes. I prepared course materials, updating and xeroxing handouts, as well as identifying resources for students to complete an assignment (I watched several documentaries and searched for online resources). I wrote an exam. I graded online self-tests and writing assignments. Midterm grades were due, so I had to compute and submit those grades. I turned in textbook orders for the fall semester.

Official Montgomery College photograph by Sanjay Suchak

But teaching is only part of the story, as I do quite a bit outside of the classroom. I coordinated two events this week. We had the second in our Spring 2011 Psychology Brown Bag series on Wednesday. My colleague Dr. Donald Palmer facilitated a terrific roundtable discussion on Psychology in 2001: The State of the Art/Science?, in which we talked about the role of research in answering important questions of human experience and the increasing use of medication to treat psychological disorders. I had already completed most of the advertisement for the event earlier (putting up fliers, posting the event in the online college calendar and newsletter, as well as on Facebook), but this week I took care of refreshments, which involved shopping for food, cooking and baking, and I coordinated set-up for the event (with help from my psychology colleagues).

The V-Day performance was also on Wednesday (busy day!). Along with my colleague, Prof. Genevieve Carminati, I coached the student and faculty performers, coordinated advertisement and ticket sales, and completed the programs. We had rehearsals virtually every day over the last week (even one on the weekend) and I spent time rehearsing my own piece. The preparations paid off, as the show went very well; the performers did a great job and everyone seemed to have a good time.

I am on the hiring committee for a new faculty position in the psychology department. The committee met to discuss the process and I began reading applications this week.

I am also the faculty advisor for the People's Alliance club, the GLBTQQIA student club on the Rockville campus of Montgomery College, which meets weekly. We have such interesting discussions! This week, I ordered pizza for the students and we talked about a variety of topics, including the different terms for one's significant other (we discussed the merits of terms like partner, my man, boyfriend/girlfriend, gentleman friend) and the upcoming Safe Zone training.

St. Louis U logo

What is the Safe Zone, you ask? This is Montgomery College's new program to increase support for GLBTQ students, faculty, and staff. I have been on the committee that has been working on the Safe Zone for the last year or so, designing the program and garnering administrative and faculty support. Next week, we are having our first Safe Zone training for interested faculty and staff to become more informed and visible allies, so I arranged a meeting this week for those of us who will be doing the training (I will be involved, although the training will be led by my colleague from Counseling, Ms. D J McCullough). We have also been discussing (via email) what the logo should be, and we may have a logo design contest.

I am involved in several other professional development programs, as well. I am the campus representative for the Writing in the Disciplines program, and I spent some time this week participating (reading and posting) in an online forum for our faculty to discuss issues related to student writing. There were some wonderfully thoughtful discussions that showed real engagement with the issues -- I am truly fortunate to be able to learn with (and from) such talented faculty colleagues.

Research department at the National Museum of Natural History -- don't you want to look inside the drawers?

Oh, and I am thrilled to be a Smithsonian Faculty Fellow this year, a program within the Paul Peck Humanities Institute. We read relevant articles and meet with Smithsonian museum curators to discuss ways in which we can connect our students with the museums. This week we read a stack of articles about the impact of the culture wars on museums and one fascinating discussion of how to "read" objects in preparation for our visit to the National Portrait Gallery on Thursday. The curators and museum staff were very knowledgeable and did an excellent job of providing background for the exhibits and encouraging us to envision related assignments.

Rosa Parks (1983) by Marshall D. Rumbaugh; part of the National Portrait Gallery's exhibit "Struggle for Justice"

I also worked a bit on my own scholarship this week. I am presenting at the Mid-Atlantic Women's Studies Association conference next week (for two different panels), so I am preparing for those presentations, and I began working on a revision of a paper co-authored with one of my colleagues at Georgetown University, Dr. W. Gerrod Parrott, about the social functions of guilt and shame.

For some years now, I have hosted student interns from local high schools, who work with me as part of their school's Psychology Internship program. That involves supervising the intern, providing relevant work, and completing quarterly evaluations of each intern. My student intern this year is quite keen on library research, so this week I got her involved in the library database search for the guilt and shame paper, as well as having her help put up fliers for the upcoming events. I completed her quarterly evaluation this week, as well.

I spent a bit of time this week wrapping up this year's Women's Studies Scholarship Silent Auction; a few people still need to pick up the items they won in the auction, and I need to complete the final paperwork.

Collegiality ranks high on my list of priorities; I believe in supporting my faculty colleagues, just as they have always supported me. To that end, I read and commented on a curriculum proposal for a new course in the Women's Studies Program, and I am writing recommendations for two of my faculty colleagues who are being nominated for an award.

All that, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some activities. To be fair, this week was unusually busy. But most of my weeks, even those less overfull, involve a range of different types of tasks. It can be a bit difficult to juggle all these different "hats", and I worry a bit about losing track of things. On the other hand, I am rarely bored -- it is wonderful to be involved in so many different types of projects, and I find that they inform each other in a variety of ways. One of the aspects of being a professor I particularly value is the degree of choice I have in my work. I choose to pursue these activities because they are meaningful to me and I feel that I can make a significant contribution in these areas. I find very little of my work onerous, and that is a rare and precious quality in the workplace. I love my work in the classroom; I value the personal connections I make with students in extracurricular activities; I am inspired by my faculty colleagues and I am eager to share my expertise with them just as I benefit from theirs; I am gratified by the enthusiastic reception my events and programs generate from the college community; I am passionate about the pursuit of ideas and I often think that my very sustenance comes from the life of the mind. I cannot imagine a better career for me.

"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." -- Theodore Roosevelt

The Meaning of Moaning

2011-03-25T01:22:00.001-04:00

It's that time again -- V-Day season -- and I'm working with students and faculty to put together the Montgomery College production of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues", which will be on Wednesday, March 30 at 7:00pm in the Theatre Arts Arena at Montgomery College (Rockville, MD). I'll be performing with a new piece for me, one I have wanted to perform for a while. This monologue features a sex worker, a dominatrix who works exclusively with women, and who is obsessed with women's moans. I particularly like the narrative because it includes a fascinating analysis of the source and meaning of moaning, which appeals to my intellectual nature. At the end, she demonstrates an array of different types of moans. This typically elicits howls of laughter from the audience and can be a show-stopper when done really well. (But no pressure, right?) I'm enjoying the challenge of working on this piece, but it also got me thinking about our reaction to women's moans. Why do they generate such a strong response?

Our response to women's moaning is, in part, reflective of our broader cultural ambivalence regarding sexuality, and women's sexual pleasure in particular. Our culture has considerable discomfort about public displays (or even discussions) of sexuality, so this litany of moans is bound to be a little uncomfortable for some. Moreover, we have particularly ambivalent attitudes regarding women's sexual pleasure. In many (but not all) cultures today, women are expected to experience sexual pleasure; indeed, part of a heterosexual man's sexual prowess is measured by his ability to bring his female partner to the height of ecstasy during lovemaking. Yet, if she is too demonstrative in her pleasure, she risks being seen as wild, oversexed, loose, a bad girl: a slut. (The remnants of the sexual double standard at work here.) In other words, she should enjoy sex, but not too much. So women's moaning is fraught with meaning, as it is presumably evidence of her sexual pleasure. She mustn't moan too much or too loud, but some discreet moaning will be met with approval, even approbation . . . if it is genuine.

As a demonstration of pleasure, moaning is also suspect, since it can so easily be faked. Women's sexual pleasure is often viewed with suspicion. Given the significance of women's sexual pleasure and our general belief that women don't want or enjoy sex as much as men do, it is easy to understand why we think women may "fake" pleasure. (This fear is not unwarranted: One study [Elliott & Brantley, 1997] found that 60% of heterosexual, and 71% of lesbian or bisexual, college women reported faking orgasm at some point. On the other hand, we could be suspect of men's pleasure, too, as 17% of heterosexual, and 27% of gay or bisexual college men reported that they had faked orgasm at some point.) The classic scene from the film When Harry Met Sally in which Sally gives an extended performance of sexual pleasure that is obviously fake illustrates the cultural anxiety surrounding signs of women's sexual enjoyment.

In her book Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible", Linda Williams (1989) argues that the central dilemma of pornography is how to represent women's sexual pleasure. While (presumably authentic) male pleasure can be visibly demonstrated by erection and ejaculation, "the visual terms of the cinema do not allow the female protagonists of hard-core films to authenticate their pleasure" (Williams, 1989, p. 32). While the woman may moan and writhe in the film, how do we know it's for real? Hard-core films then rely on other cinematic mechanisms to putatively reveal women's sexual pleasure, often using displays of male pleasure as though they are intrinsically representative of female pleasure (hence, the use of the money shot).

So it is not surprising that the litany of moans given on stage during "The Vagina Monologues" would generate a strong reaction. The monologue highlights the sexual pleasure of women, about which we already have considerable ambivalence (too much = slut; too little = frigid). The sexual pleasure is being given by a woman to another woman, with no man involved. If women don't need men for sexual pleasure, that threatens men's status as the ultimate source of women's sexual pleasure and undermines one of the core pillars of masculinity (as defined in our culture). The moans in the monologue are obviously fake, highlighting the concerns about the authenticity of women's sexual response (if she can fake it this convincingly on stage, then maybe all my lovers have been faking it too). In other words, the monologue foregrounds anxieties about the authenticity of women's sexual response, which further undermines the degree to which a man can be sure of his sexual prowess, and hence, his masculinity.

With all that going on, of course we guffaw -- what else can we do? Eve Ensler has found a way to get to the heart of our cultural anxieties surrounding sex and gender, but in such a way that we can laugh at ourselves. The humor is deftly woven through the show, giving us a way to release some of our discomfort as our assumptions regarding women's sexuality are challenged and we learn about the diversity of women's experiences. The show is a powerful experience, for performers and audience alike, but it is also a lot of fun. I am, as always, struck by the capacity of V-Day to educate, transform, and entertain.

I hope to see you at the show!

References:
Elliott, L., & Brantley, C. (1997). Sex on campus. New York: Random House.

Williams, L. (1989). Hard core: Power, pleasure, and the "frenzy of the visible." Berkeley: University of California Press.

Color Junkie

2011-03-20T19:05:00.000-04:00

"The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most." -- John Ruskin

As I've mentioned before (here and here), I love color. I am drawn to bright, deep colors, compelled by them. Walking through the drugstore, my eye would be caught by the luscious metallic colors in the nail polish aisle. The fact that I hardly ever wore nail polish seemed immaterial -- how could that compete with these gorgeous shiny bottles? I finally bowed to the inevitable and gave them all away last year and have resisted buying more (thus far).

Recently I've been getting my color fix through fabric. I love making burp cloths, for example, because I get to put together bright flannels and chenille with contrasting colors of thread for the serged edging. Having the fabrics run under my fingers makes my soul sing.

I also had fun choosing fabrics to make linen dinner napkins. Who needs boring, white napkins when you can have every color of the rainbow at your table?

And, of course, my fiber fantasy scarves are full of color and texture and sparkle -- what a joy to put so many different colors together. It's like creating a symphony; each color has to live in harmony with the rest. You can see pictures of my first fiber fantasy scarf here, and pictures of my fringe madness scarf here (check out the riotous color). I'm working on a scarf now in blues and greens, turquoise and teal (oooh, love that combo); I'll post pictures soon. I also made one in earthtones with copper accents and a bit of red for zing:

And, of course, colorful flowers are always a delight. In the midst of winter, my Christmas Cactus offers a profusion of bright pink petals that look ready to take flight.

November, 2009

And one can find cut flowers and bouquets everywhere.

From a bouquet we sent to my grandmother for her last birthday (November, 2010)

Blue roses (on display at Cedar Ridge for their gala event, November 2010)

Isn't this bouquet from my father and his wife lovely? (November, 2010

Now that spring is here, brightly blooming flowers are popping up in my garden; Q says they are like fireworks, exploding into full bloom one after another.

I want to live a life infused with color. Why shouldn't we be surrounded by gorgeous color in everything we do? I believe that everyday items should be beautiful, so that we can have joy in our daily activities. My philosophy is similar to that of the Art Nouveau movement, which held that art should be a part of everyday life. Of course, napkins and burp cloths and flowers are not art, but they remind us that the elements of art (color, design, value, meaning) can be found all around us and that our environment impacts our experience. We should design all aspects of our environment purposefully to enhance the quality of our lives. For me, that means a life rich with color.

"The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color." --- Hans Hofmann

"Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the making of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter." --- Paul Klee

"Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment." -- Claude Monet

If you need a burst of color in your life, check out the items for sale in my Etsy shop.

Resistance or affirmation: What is queer?

2011-03-16T19:47:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, I attended a conference at Morgan State University (in conjunction with BMore Proud) entitled Intersections: Sexuality, Gender, Race and Ethnicity. It was great to connect with others engaged in issues of sexuality, and I was part of a panel discussion on the complexities of sexual identity. I talked about the fluidity of women's sexuality and how that presents challenges and opportunities for the traditional models of coming out in psychology and the GLBTQ community. The other panelists included Dr. Andrea Brown, who talked about the intersection of race/ethnicity and sexual identity, with a particular emphasis on the role of the black church, and Genevieve Carminati, who discussed the (often ignored) role of social class in women's sexuality. I think we did a good job of exploring the theme of the conference and I am always inspired by working with my fabulous colleagues.

The keynote speaker for the conference was Dr. Antonia Randolph, a sociologist from the University of Delaware who discussed her research on hip-hop and what it says about race, gender, and sexuality. Her main theme was that there are "queer" elements present in hip-hop that challenge the mainstream ideals of gender and sexuality. She wasn't claiming that hip-hop artists are actually gay/lesbian/bi, nor even that they are necessarily going to be allies for GLBTQ issues. She was merely claiming that there are themes within the hip-hop subculture that are not consistent with mainstream heteronormativity.

This (infamous) kiss between Lil Wayne and Baby, for example, illustrates the strong affection male hip-hop artists openly express for each other. These close bonds between men may be coded as similar to father-son relationships, as part of a broader construction of kinship among those in street culture. Lyrics of hip-hop extol these male-male relationships, indicating their primacy even above the traditional family unit involving wives and mothers (fathers are typically absent in the world of hip-hop, replaced by the paternal care from those in the street culture).

I don't know enough about hip-hop to say whether the themes Dr. Randolph identified are typical or not. What struck me was the question of whether these are, in fact, "queer" -- that is, do they fundamentally challenge the values of mainstream culture? At one level, she is correct to say that these are non-normative, in that American (heterosexual) men are generally prohibited from expressing strong affection for other men; this affection should be directed toward heterosexual relationships and those of the nuclear family which are supposed to be the most important and central bonds for men (and women).

Yet at another level, the hip-hop narratives were completely consistent with the dominant paradigm of American masculinity. These hip-hop artists glorify a masculine subculture in which they are independent from (and dominant over) women. There is a long tradition of all-male enclaves, from the fraternity to the gang, and it has been commonplace for men to form strong bonds with each other, even though they may not always express their affection openly or directly. While it is true that the nuclear family is strongly valued in our culture, there is also a tension between the vaunted masculine independence and the ties of the nuclear family. To be a man is to be free and answer to no one, certainly not to a woman. Express too much affection for your mother and you risk being labeled a "mama's boy"; for your girlfriend or wife, and you are "whipped." Heterosexual men tread a delicate balance in our culture. They must establish heterosexual credentials by forming intimate bonds with women, but maintain their independence from women at the same time. By rejecting the nuclear family bonds for those of the street culture, male hip-hop artists stake out their masculinity. I'm a man, I can do as I like: I don't answer to my mother or my girlfriend or my wife.

So we are left with the question of whether these close relationships among men in hip-hop are countercultural or culturally normative. Do they resist cultural pressures, "queering" the text, or do they epitomize normative masculinity? I suspect they may be both. Cultural representations and practices can have multiple layers and convey divergent messages simultaneously. Our attempt to resist a cultural norm may simultaneously affirm and reject that norm. By prioritizing their relationships with other men, hip-hop artists may decenter the nuclear family as the putative core of a man's life. By doing so, they highlight the tension that the nuclear family represents for constructions of masculinity, and they create an alternative kin network of the street that continues to reify and valorize traditional models of masculinity. These relationships are a bit queer at one level, but they also serve to reinscribe the core values of gender performance at another level.

Bibliography:

Randolph, A. (2011, March). Wayne loves Baby and other queer lessons from hip-hop: Notes toward a race and sexuality research agenda. Keynote presentation at Intersections: Sexuality, Gender, Race and Ethnicity, Baltimore, MD.

Brown, A., Carminati, G., & Stearns, D. (2011, March). Sexual identities: Complex, contextual, and fluid. Panel presented at Intersections: Sexuality, Gender, Race and Ethnicity, Baltimore, MD.

Women's Studies Silent Auction

2011-03-07T23:35:00.000-05:00

The annual Montgomery College Women's Studies Program Scholarship Breakfast is on Wednesday, Mar. 9 (8-9:30am), which showcases the achievements of Women's Studies students and faculty. In fact, this year, I am one of the faculty being honored -- I will be one of three faculty members receiving the On Her Shoulders We Stand Award. This award is given to those who have contributed significantly to the Women's Studies Program, and I am tremendously pleased to be receiving this recognition. It is truly an honor to receive an award for doing work that is so meaningful to me and that I love so well. I am fortunate to have such wonderful colleagues and fabulous students, as well as an incredibly supportive partner, who doesn't complain about my long hours at work and shows up every year for our V-Day production. Thanks, Q!

The event is also a fundraiser for the Women's Studies Scholarship fund, and I am coordinating the silent auction part of the breakfast. Thanks to our generous donors, we have a wonderful array of items for the auction, and all proceeds from the auction go toward student scholarships. The auction has a diverse range of items, including jewelry, ceramics, textiles, vintage items, stained glass, watercolors, housewares, and accessories. If you see something you want, I am happy to arrange a proxy bid for you. Just email me by Tuesday, Mar. 8 at 5pm to let me know what item you wish to bid on and how high you are willing to bid. Click on the individual pictures to see more details about each item, including the estimated value and the minimum bid.

My contributions to the silent auction included some of my own textile creations.

Set of four burp cloths (green and blue bubbles)


Set of four burp cloths (red stripe and bookbinder red)

Set of four autumn leaves placemats with matching tangerine linen napkins

Let's hope for enthusiastic bidding so that we can fund even more scholarships for next year!

The power of stillness

2010-08-11T13:38:00.009-04:00

One of the lessons I have learned from dance is the importance of stillness. Beginning dancers often assume that one must be continuously in motion -- keep moving, keep moving, fill up the music. But constant motion is wearying to watch and gives the viewer no time to rest. Of course, pauses do more than just give the audience a breather. Stillness provides a frame for motion. When the dancer stops moving, it serves to accent the previous move -- it lets the viewer know that something important just happened. Even the most spectacular move will not be appreciated by the audience unless they are given time to absorb it and the pause that lets them know how amazing it was (think of the "ta-da!" moment, for example). Dance also needs stillness for structure, just as language uses punctuation to break the continuous stream of words into meaningful units. Similarly, we use pauses and changing tempos to create phrasing in dance.

But these moments of stillness are challenging. As one of those people who can become uncomfortable with silence, I tend to want to fill up every moment with sound and action. Pauses create anxiety in many dancers, because they worry that the audience will get bored. We tend to think of stillness as an absence -- without movement, nothing is going on. Nothing could be further from the truth. When executed well, the pause is filled with meaning: with the memory of movement and the anticipation of movement, with the persona of the performer, with the connection between performer and audience. The quiet moments require that we have confidence in ourselves -- confidence that we alone, without the distraction of movement, have a strong enough presence to compel the viewer's interest. In this way, stillness requires that we make ourselves vulnerable; stripping off the cloak of our dance technique and putting aside our bag of tricks, we expose our self, the self we embody for performance, to the audience.

This excerpt from George Balanchine's ballet, Apollo, uses moments of stillness to create tension and heighten emotion, as well as to highlight beautiful poses.

In this piece by the spectacular dance company Momix, stillness is essential for the illusion of defying gravity. Tension is created as we wonder whether the dancers will be able to hold their position. We are able to focus on the one dancer who is moving because all of the other dancers are immobile. Notice, too, the moment at about 1:30 when the dancers hold a new position for a long moment, and the audience applauds. This is the the "ta-da!" moment I mentioned earlier. Later in the piece, moments of stillness highlight particular poses and shapes created by the dancers.

In life, as in dance, I want to keep moving, striving, doing. I don't like to just sit still and do nothing. But I'm coming to realize that we all have (or should have) pauses in life, when we are not doing, but merely being. While they may feel unproductive, these moments give us a chance to reflect on the past and envision the future, as well as to fully experience the present. Of course, just as in dance, there are more and less effective uses of stillness -- we need to fill these pauses with meaning, not just hang around doing nothing. If you find your life overfull of activity, perhaps it is time to cultivate moments of quietude. If you find yourself in a prolonged pause, make it a meaningful one and recognize that sometimes it is all right just to be, suspended between moments of doing. I suspect I will always enjoy action best, but I'm learning to appreciate the value of purposeful inactivity. Perhaps someday I can learn to live as comfortably in stillness as I do in motion, even if only for a moment, when I am my only audience.

Cease and desist

2010-08-08T22:18:00.000-04:00

Dear Brain,

I hope this letter finds you well. I would like to begin by thanking you for the excellent service you have thus far provided. I have had little cause for dissatisfaction over these many years and have come to rely on you for everything from motor control to memory (although I must say your performance in the memory department has been rather spotty at times). Whenever I have needed you, you were there.

It is, therefore, with a heavy heart that I must register my current complaint. It must seem to you a rather trivial matter, given your otherwise exemplary performance. Indeed, I have tried my utmost to simply ignore the problem and hoped that you would resolve it spontaneously. But my patience has been stretched to its breaking point. I have reached the limits of my goodwill and cannot turn a blind eye to such egregious behavior on your part.

I have endured more than a month of near-constant replay of the same tune. It is more than I can bear. True, there have been moments, even whole days, during which I was not plagued by the endlessly repeating musical loop. But just when I think it is over, when I hope to be truly free of this torture, I find myself whistling the refrain under my breath. I have done everything I know to end this cycle. I can find nothing -- no other music, no mental trick -- to successfully expunge this earworm. I even attempted to replace one song loop with another to no avail. I must, therefore, respectfully ask you to take immediate action to end your musical barrage.

It wouldn't be so bad if the music were more complex or varied. There are some songs I could happily listen to every day. Frankly, what bothers me most is the sheer inanity of your choice. I ask you, honestly, who wouldn't be irritated by incessant replay of the theme song from I Dream of Jeannie -- a show I haven't seen for at least a decade, and one which at best is silly and might more accurately be described as puerile. I mean, really -- I'm not asking for high-brow classical music, but this is just embarrassing. What are you trying to communicate to me? Am I supposed to dress up in chiffon and live in a bottle, devote myself to servile submission to my "master" -- or are you just encouraging me to watch more television? I cannot decode the message, if any, that is being conveyed, and I have had enough.

As of receipt of this letter, I demand that you cease and desist your musical assault. Prompt action on your part will ensure that no punitive action will be taken against you. Should you fail to respond in a timely manner, I am prepared to settle this matter formally in court. I deeply regret the necessity of this letter, but you have left me little recourse. I hope that we can resolve this amicably and return to the mutually satisfactory relationship we have had in the past.

Sincerely,

Deborah C. Stearns, Ph.D.

When is it enough? Searching for meaning

2010-08-06T18:16:00.001-04:00

Eye by M. C. Escher (1946)

When you look back on your life and contemplate what you have accomplished, will it be enough? Will you have achieved enough, done enough, been enough? What is enough?

These are the questions that plague me. I have always struggled with the question of sufficiency (or what I might call "enoughness"). Am I smart enough? Am I attractive enough? Is my work good enough? I sought evidence, some kind of standard against which I could determine my quality. Unfortunately, there is no clear standard for "enoughness," because it depends on what one means by enough. Enough for what, exactly? Is my work good enough to pass the class is a different question from whether it is good enough to get the top grade. The questions never get resolved for me because I don't know what I mean by enough. I don't have some concrete goal or clear comparison that will provide a definitive answer for the question. Essentially, this stands in for the existential question of my worth: Am I good enough to justify my existence?

In Notre Dame des Neiges (Montreal)

By what metric do we judge the quality of a person's life? This requires that we identify the purpose of life, a thorny question to be sure. One of my colleagues believes that the meaning of our lives is to be found in the quality of our relationships with others -- we live to love and be loved. Some have argued that we are meant to seek happiness:

“I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy” -- Dalai Lama

Or perhaps not:

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.” -- Dalai Lama

Maybe we are meant to fulfill our potential:

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'" -- Erma Bombeck

Or perhaps we should savor our life and seek diverse experiences:

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Maybe it doesn't matter exactly what we pursue, as long as we have some goal:

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose." -- Robert Byrne

Spiral Clocktower -- Escher Droste by Sam Rohn

But whatever life's purpose, whether love, happiness, service or savoring, we are still left with the question of what constitutes enough. If you follow Erma Bombeck's guidance, how do you know if you have fully met your potential? Did you produce your best work? Were you your best self, or could you have been better? For Emerson, how much of a difference do we need to make to have lived well? If we make a slight difference in only one person's life, is that sufficient? Can Eleanor Roosevelt be sure that she has tasted her experience to the utmost? Maybe she could have savored life more fully.

I can list my achievements and contributions, but I don't know if they are enough. Couldn't I have done more? Surely I wasted time that could have been better spent. Perhaps I should have spent more time with my students -- or maybe less time at work and more time with my family and friends. Maybe I should have focused more on one pursuit, rather than trying to do so many different things. How do I know if I have done enough? I'm searching for a sense of inner certainty that would indicate that I am on the right track, but I find only doubt. My only certainty arises from knowing that some accomplishment is definitely not enough. Without the feeling of certainty, I search for some external metric that could answer the question. I look to awards, accolades, affection, any of which might indicate success, but none of which tell me if I have done enough.

Courtesy of Mark's Weblog

Maybe I'm not supposed to have the answer. Maybe it's engaging with the question that matters. After all, the open question could inspire further effort -- if I knew that I had done enough, I might get complacent and rest on my laurels. My lingering doubt provides a driving sense of anxiety -- you're not done yet, do more, try harder, keep going -- the dire threat of failure, of a meaningless and unfulfilled life, lurking at every moment. True, this worry is unpleasant, but perhaps it is useful. I believe in the importance of living an examined life, and unresolved questions keep the examination process ongoing.

But perhaps the anxiety is merely a distraction. Rather than being a goad to greater achievement, one could argue that these worries leach energy from my life's work. I spend time dithering about whether I've done enough instead of just getting on with it. What could I have gotten done with this time I've spent rambling on about my existential angst, for example? If I could come to some zen-like peace with the question of my worth, would I really stop working, or would I be even more productive?

It's a moot point, as I simply don't know how to dismiss the existential questions; I have no answers and I can't make the questions go away. The existentialist and humanistic psychologists would argue that we all confront these issues -- we must face the inevitability of our death and the threat of meaninglessness as part of psychological growth. It may be too much to ask for a definitive answer, but I could wish for a tentative one, some ballpark estimate of my life's cumulative worth as a crumb of comfort in the face of my mortality. Instead I simply ride out the ebb and flow of doubt, presuming that I am doing things right (all the while fearing that I am not). And I hope that, when I am at the end of my days, I will be satisfied with what I have made of of my life. I suspect, though, that at least some degree of doubt will follow me always, as I cannot imagine myself disentangled from the uncertainty that permeates my existence.

How about you? How do you establish whether you have done enough?

Summer days

2010-08-01T14:13:00.000-04:00

An afternoon splashing in the pool at my father's house with my brother and his kids

Watching butterflies and dragonflies flutter and dance

Surrounded by colorful flowers

I come home smelling of chlorine and memory.

Creating in chalk

2010-07-30T23:57:00.000-04:00

I rarely take commissions, but while hanging out with my niece and nephew . . .

My niece asked me to draw an "alien picture" of her -- does this look alien enough?

And we created a curving hopscotch board that had 40 squares.

There's nothing like spending time with children to bring fresh inspiration . . . or is that desperation? ;-)

Fiber fantasy scarf: Fringe madness

2010-07-30T01:08:00.001-04:00

I spent a couple of weeks sewing in preparation for a show, and I was excited to make more of the fiber fantasy scarves. I had so much fun working with the recycled sari ribbons and yarns that I wanted to make another scarf using them. I had two main goals: to create a diagonal line that avoided the typical vertical or horizontal layout of fibers and to create a more open, less dense feel for the scarf. So I laid out the sari ribbon on the diagonal, looping it back and forth. In between, I laid out recycled sari yarn and commercial yarns and ribbons, but without filling in the space fully.

I used free-motion stitching to make stylized flames in red, orange, and yellow threads, and then used heavy gold metallic thread to stitch spirals along one long edge of the scarf. The flame design doesn't really show up on the scarf, but the gold metallic shows up nicely. If I want the stitching to show up on these scarves, I need to use heavy-weight thread in a contrasting color -- otherwise, the thread blends into the other fibers of the scarf.

I used a different water-soluble stabilizer for this scarf (Aquabond). I found the adhesive to be a bit weaker, but it rinsed out more easily than the Aqua-Magic I had used previously, which tends to leave behind adhesive residue. After rinsing out the stabilizer, I had to untangle the fringe (which was quite a task). Then I trimmed the fringe and hand-knotted it on all four sides of the scarf. This took a long time, but turned out to be a good task to keep me from being antsy while waiting for a doctor's appointment.

Overall, I'm pleased with how this turned out. The colors are fabulous -- the recycled sari ribbon and yarn really has intense, luscious color -- and I think the fringe gives it nice movement. It's a long scarf (about 6" wide and 54" long), which means it can be worn in quite a few different ways. At the show, this scarf attracted attention -- a number of people touched it, picked it up, tried it on. Seems like a sign of a successful design to me! The scarf is for sale in my Etsy shop.

Clearing space and finding words

2010-07-29T16:50:00.003-04:00

As she came near the second of these alcoves she stopped skipping. There had once been a flowerbed in it, and she thought she saw something sticking out of the black earth- -some sharp little pale green points. She remembered what Ben Weatherstaff had said and she knelt down to look at them.

"Yes, they are tiny growing things and they might be crocuses or snowdrops or daffodils," she whispered.

. . .

She did not know anything about gardening, but the grass seemed so thick in some of the places where the green points were pushing their way through that she thought they did not seem to have room enough to grow. She searched about until she found a rather sharp piece of wood and knelt down and dug and weeded out the weeds and grass until she made nice little clear places around them.

"Now they look as if they could breathe," she said, after she had finished with the first ones. "I am going to do ever so many more. I'll do all I can see. If I haven't time today I can come tomorrow."

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Writing requires space. I don't mean just physical space (with a nod to Virginia Woolf) -- I mean mental space, as well. When my life is overfull (of projects, meetings, plans, and deadlines), I simply don't have the mental space to write. To some extent, this is due to the very limited time that is left over after all of the urgent tasks have been addressed. However, scraps of time remain -- a half hour here or there -- and writing could take place in those times. But my mind is filled with the minutiae of work and home, and I cannot clear away the mental clutter of everyday life to construct threads of meaning. I have enough time to live my life, but not to put it into words. When my present is stuffed to bursting, I seem to develop a tunnel vision, seeing only what is in front of me. There is no room for detours into the infrequently traveled, often fragmentary side paths.

Yet again, I have forgotten the lessons from the garden. I fail to thin, weed, or prune, and my life becomes overfull. Of course, the act of clearing space itself takes time -- my long hours weeding in the garden can attest to that -- and becomes yet another contribution to my crowded schedule. Task upon task, each of which is important and clamoring for priority, squeezing out the extras. After a while, the habit of writing is lost, and even writing a blog post seems like an insurmountable task.

I miss writing, though. Processing my life, putting it into a formal narrative, creates a deeper understanding than that allowed by fleeting thoughts or casual conversations. In graduate school, after my advisor and I had discussed an idea for a while, he would say "Good. Now go write it all down." He knew, and I learned, that the writing the ideas down often revealed gaps in the theory or created new ideas to pursue. Writing helps create emotional meaning, as well, as I have found in my other blog. In addition, writing endures: Even the ephemeral text of the internet is captured and can be replayed, living beyond the moment of publication.

So I promise to write, but the to-do list is never complete and the words remain fragmentary. As time passes, writing seems more and more distant, more unlikely. Until the day when the must-do tasks remain ignored and incomplete; the weeds and dust and piles of paper are left for another day. Writing takes precedence, for once, and I reconnect with my inner narrative.

New bloom

2010-03-10T09:15:00.001-05:00

Just when I thought you would never bloom again, you surprise me. You remind me that we hold within us the promise of new growth that can burst forth at any time. Delicate and ethereal, you have the drive to flower that cannot be denied. You give me hope.

Mud cloth vest: How long did it take you?

2010-03-07T01:09:00.003-05:00

Vest back

Vest front, collar turned down

My latest wearable creation is a cross-cultural fusion, representing the global marketplace at its best. I used the pattern for a traditional Tibetan panel coat from Folkwear, with the outside panels from handwoven mud cloth from Mali and commercial black linen fabric, which were then embellished with batik-dyed bone beads from Kenya and cowrie shells. The vest is lined with a cotton print that has a hand-dyed look and cream-colored linen fabric. The facings are in a wine-colored linen fabric. I can see that this is yet another example of my penchant for wearing costumes.

Back of vest, half-beaded.

See the difference the beading made?

Vest front, half-beaded

The beading made a huge difference in this piece. Before the shoulder pieces were beaded, the vest wasn't particularly flattering. The visual weight took the eye downward, toward the wider part of the panels. I tried out a couple of different fabrics for the shoulder pieces, but none of the colors looked right. (I don't have much in the way of earthtones in my fabric stash.) In the end, I went with a heavier-weight black fabric (cotton? silk? I'm not sure). This helped support the shoulder line of the garment, but didn't create much visual contrast with the rest of the vest. Once I sewed the bone beads and cowrie shells on the shoulder pieces, the shoulders gained greater visual weight and looked wider, creating more balance with the width of the bottom of the vest. I also like the way that the batik-dyed bone beads blur the line between the black and white spiral mud cloth piece and the shoulder piece.

Vest back, detail of beading

Vest, front left shoulder, detail of beading

Vest, left side

I knew I wanted to put the spiral bone beads under the arm to connect with the spiral mud cloth fabric of the front panels. I also wanted some more cowrie shells, and I figured putting them underneath the spiral beads would camouflage the slight puckering of the linen fabric underneath the shoulder accent piece. This ended up becoming a line of cowrie shell and spiral bead fringe, which has a lovely movement and sound as the shells bump into each other. As a happy coincidence, this creates a visual line at the waist, which is flattering, particularly in a loosely fitting garment like this. Who knew?

Armhole, beading detail

This vest is a great example of why I have trouble answering the question, "How long did it take you to make that?" First of all, I don't keep track of my hours in any precise way when I am involved in a lengthy project. Second, I tend to work on multiple projects simultaneously, and I may put aside one project for months (or even years) before getting back to it. This tends to happen when I hit a snag in the design or construction process.

Vest front, opened to show lining

I started making this vest a year ago. It took me a day or two to cut out the pattern pieces; this process was complicated by the fact that I was trying to maximize the visual impact of the mud cloth design from three separate pieces of mud cloth. There were a few places where the weave needed to be reinforced, so I backed those sections with a piece of cotton fabric, using fusible web. I also had a hard time finding a lining fabric, as I have little in my fabric collection that fits with the muted earthtones of the mudcloth, so there was some hunting and pondering time in there. I don't remember how long it took me to sew the panels together, but I put in extra time serging the raw edges of the fabric to keep the handwoven fabric from raveling. Unfortunately, just as I was serging the last seam on the lining, I ended up cutting into the fabric. Argh! This kind of snag is what usually makes me put the project aside until I feel ready to deal with it again.

Closeup of patch on lining

What with my work schedule and other projects, I didn't get back to this vest until a month ago. I've been on a mission to finish up my works-in-progress, so I pulled this project out as the next to be completed. I decided to put a patch on the cut section of the lining fabric, so I had to hunt through my stash again to find a complementary fabric. The cotton print with cowrie shells seemed perfect, so I fussy-cut a patch and fused it onto the lining, using a decorative stitch to anchor it. It actually looked neat, kind of like a postage stamp or a designer label. In fact, I liked it so much that I was sorry to see it partly covered by the facing. It's nice when a mistake turns into a design feature.

The next challenge was basting the outer layer and the lining together. The outer layer had stretched quite a bit more than the lining, and I ended up basting, ripping out the basting, and re-basting, which took quite a bit of time as it was all done by hand. Once that was fitted together, it was time to do the facings and the neckband, which I hand-basted, machine stitched, and then hand-tacked to the lining. The facings and neckband alone took several days to complete, largely due to the hand-stitching. It helped that we were snowed in, so I had a week to work on the vest (between bouts of shoveling snow, that is).

Auditioning beads

Then I auditioned various possible shoulder fabrics in between sewing cowrie shells by hand on the neckband. I finally chose the black fabric and hand-stitched the shoulder pieces in place. It was clear that it needed more beading, so I tried out various bead arrangements (more pondering time here). After deciding on the bead design, it was just hours and hours (and hours!) of hand sewing the beads and then the whole garment was finally complete.

I could, of course, try to estimate all the time involved in the design, construction, and embellishment of the vest. But that isn't even the whole story. Really, this vest began a decade ago, when I first had the idea of making a panel coat from mud cloth, and I began my search for the fabric and beads. I got gorgeous pieces of mud cloth from African import stores in Georgetown and purchased bone beads in Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan (neighborhoods in Washington, DC). I searched online for cowrie shells of the right size and color -- I only found the ones I used here quite recently. Or maybe the story really began twenty years ago, when I made a Tibetan panel coat for my sister and dreamed of having one of my own (I probably should have kept that one and given her something she would have liked better -- I doubt she got much use out of it). How do we count the hours of imagination and dreaming and looking for supplies?

This is why I never know how to answer the question, "How long did it take you to make that?" except to say . . . "A long time."

How well do you know yourself? The limits of introspection

2010-03-06T10:32:00.000-05:00

Think back to a recent choice you made -- maybe you were choosing among different posters to put up in your home, and you liked one better than the others. Now think about why you made that choice, and tell me what it was about that poster that you liked best. How you do you figure out what motivated your behavior? Well, you just look inside yourself and describe that inner process. Surely you would know better than anyone why you do what you do. Right?

Introspection by Joe Xuereb

Not necessarily. We tend to think that introspection results in accurate self-knowledge, but we often don't have access to our internal processes. In those cases, we simply make up plausible reasons for our behavior and confidently believe that we have derived these from accurate introspection (this is called the introspection illusion). Johannson and colleagues, for example, asked people to choose which of two photographs they liked best and then asked them to explain the reasons for their choice. Unbeknownst to the participants, though, the researchers switched the pictures, so the participants were actually explaining why they liked the picture they hadn't chosen. Yet, rather than noticing the switch, participants simply confabulated explanations, identifying aspects of the non-preferred photo as the reasons for their choice (e.g., "I liked this one because he has blue eyes," when in fact they had chosen a picture of a brown-eyed person).

[By the way, if you are positive that you would notice the switch of the pictures, check out this video and this video, both of which illustrate inattentional blindness. Most people think they would notice the change, but few people actually do.]

Introspection by Gregory Beck

We simply don't have direct access to many of our psychological processes, as they happen rapidly and outside of conscious awareness. So you may really not know why you do what you do. But that doesn't stop you from making up some plausible story to explain your behavior. These stories may then shape what we do, as we strive to be consistent with our perceived motives. Let's go back to the poster you picked out for your home. Suppose you made a gut decision; you just picked one you liked without analyzing your reason for choosing it. Your friend, on the other hand, thought about the options and made a reasoned choice based on conscious thought. Who is going to be more satisfied with their choice later on? Chances are, you will be more satisfied than your friend, at least according to studies conducted by Tim Wilson and colleagues. Wilson's resarch has found that analyzing the reasons for our feelings and behaviors can actually be unhelpful, because we may change our attitudes and behavior to match the story we made up about ourselves.

No one is claiming that introspection is always inaccurate, but it is clear that we don't have access to all aspects of our inner life. So what to do? It seems to me there are a couple of options here.

Hand with Reflecting Sphere MC Escher

Trust your instincts (sometimes): Much of this research supports the idea that we are better off going with our gut when we make choices, at least in some situations. The unconscious processes may be a better match for our real preferences than the carefully-thought-out reasons we craft to explain our choices. However, there can be costs in following instincts, as well, in that we are prone to biases in our thinking and may make choices that do not meet our broader, long-term goals. Our gut is not particularly rational, after all, and relying solely on instinct can result in poor choices at times. We may like that car merely because we have seen it in advertisements, not because it is a reliable vehicle. So, instinct might be useful in guiding decisions at times, but I do not think we should rely on it in all cases.
Don't overthink: The implication of Wilson's research is that conscious analysis of our feelings and behaviors can result in faulty self-knowledge and impaired decision making. So clearly, he would argue that we shouldn't overthink our decisions. Again, though, this needs to be qualified. There are certainly some decisions that are improved by careful thought, and self-analysis can be helpful at times. No one is arguing that thinking is always counterproductive, merely that when we are being driven by unconscious cognitive processes, self-reflection can be misleading.
Embrace uncertainty: When asked why I feel the way I do, I'm quite likely to say "I don't know." I know this response is frustrating, but I want to be mindful of the limits of my knowledge. The introspection illusion comes from the fact that we don't know what we don't know. So maybe it would help for us to resist the desire to confabulate and be willing to admit ignorance. The challenge here is to know when we are gaining accurate self-knowledge through introspection, and when we are confabulating. Quite frankly, I'm not sure we can tell which is which. So maybe it's a good idea to live with a certain amount of uncertainty at all times.
Be open-minded: One way of dealing with our lack of certainty is to strive to be open-minded. Even when we do have a theory regarding our motives or feelings, we can still be open to other explanations. In general, though, we aren't terribly open-minded. We work to maintain our beliefs by searching out and remembering confirming evidence and ignoring or deflecting contradictory evidence. So being open-minded requires active work on our part to counteract our natural cognitive tendencies. That doesn't mean we have to throw out our beliefs every time they are challenged, but it does mean we should take extra time to consider contradictory evidence and alternative theories. So if someone suggests that you might have a different reason for your feelings or behavior, give that idea a chance before you reject it out of hand.
Don't rely on introspection alone: If there are multiple possible explanations for our behavior, then how can we decide which one is correct? Rather than just looking inward, we can also examine our responses over time. If our feelings and behavior don't seem consistent with our conscious explanations, then it is worth re-examining our theories. When we moved into our house, I had the idea that neutral, off-white walls were ideal, as that gave us the freedom to display any artwork we liked without fear of clashing with the color of the wall. But every time we have painted one of the rooms a bold, striking color, it makes me happier. It turns out that my oh-so-reasonable belief that I would prefer neutral paint schemes was just wrong -- it doesn't fit with my real experience and feelings. So, in keeping with my goal of open-mindedness, I threw out my neutral-paint theory and reshaped my self-image to fit my actual patterns of experience. Friends and family can also be useful sources of data, particularly insofar as they might recognize patterns that we haven't seen (although their image of us may also be biased).

In short, introspection is not an infallible source of self-knowledge. Self-reflection and analysis can produce faulty explanations for our feelings and behaviors, particularly when we are influenced by unconscious processes. There are some contexts in which self-analysis may lead us to second-guess our instincts and make inauthentic choices. We needn't throw out introspection altogether, but it behooves us to be aware of its limitations and be less confident in our introspective conclusions. You may not know yourself as well as you think.

Note: This post was prompted by a comment I posted on Katherine A. Cartwright's blog about the role of introspection in the artistic process. Check out her blog for terrific intellectual discussions about art.

Introspection by J. W. Baker

Further reading:

Johansson, P., Hall, L., Sikström, S., Olsson, A. (2005). Failure to Detect Mismatches Between Intention and Outcome in a Simple Decision Task. Science 310 (5745): 116–119. PDF

Wilson, T. D. (2002). Strangers to ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wilson, Timothy D. (2003). Knowing When to Ask: Introspection and the Adaptive Unconscious, in Anthony Jack, Andreas Roepstorff. Trusting the subject?: the use of introspective evidence in cognitive science. Imprint Academic. pp. 131–140. PDF

Wilson, T. D., Lisle, D., Schooler, J. W., Hodges, S. D., Klaaren, K. J., & LaFleur, S. J. (1993). Introspecting about reasons can reduce post-choice satisfaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19, 331–339. PDF

Women's Studies Silent Auction

2010-03-02T00:43:00.001-05:00

The annual Montgomery College Women's Studies Program Scholarship Breakfast is on Wednesday, Mar. 3 (8-9:30am), which showcases the achievements of Women's Studies students and faculty. This is also the main fundraiser for the Women's Studies Scholarship fund, and I am coordinating the silent auction part of the breakfast. Thanks to our generous donors, we have a wonderful array of items for the auction, and all proceeds from the auction go toward student scholarships. If you see something you want, I am happy to arrange a proxy bid for you. Just email me by Tuesday, Mar. 2 at 5pm to let me know what item you wish to bid on and how high you are willing to bid.

I did some new kinds of lighting for some of the pictures, as well as using some different editing options in Photoshop, and I think most of the photos of the silent auction items came out quite well. Many thanks to Robin Atkins for her post on photographing beadwork, which inspired me to try out these new techniques.

Silent Auction Slideshow

There's Always Time for Love

2010-02-15T23:01:00.000-05:00

I've always loved making Valentine's Day cards -- when I was a child, I spent weeks making construction paper valentines for my family and friends. In fact, I gave Q a construction paper valentine when we first started dating (21 years ago). He still has it. In recent years, I've been making him fabric cards. This year, the huge snowstorms meant that we got to spend an entire week at home together, which was such a treat. So in honor of our "snowcation" together, I made a card entitled There's Always Time for Love.

The main fabric is an embossed velvet in a rich burgundy color, which I fused to a thin batting. Then I reverse appliqued the hearts, using images of clocks from three different commercial fabrics (I fussy cut the clocks). Then I fused the whole piece to a piece of Timtex (stiff interfacing). The edges of the hearts are satin stitched in silver metallic thread (YLI brand), and the satin stitching is extended into the center of the piece in a free-form pattern. It ended up looking like tree-roots, as though the hearts are growing together, which I hadn't planned -- but I like it. I fused a piece of one of the clock fabrics on the back and satin stitched around the edges in black -- I think I did about 4 layers of stitching before I was satisfied with the density.

It still felt like it needed something more, so I poked around in my bead stash and came up with the letter beads made to look like typewriter keys. These felt like they connected with the vaguely steampunk air of the piece. (Q is a big fan of steampunk.) Luckily, I had all the necessary letters to spell out "TIME". I fussed a bit with their layout and ended up moving the M to make the curve of the word feel smoother. I also found a silver charm with the slogan "Love Much" on one side and "Laugh Often" on the other. I originally put it in the empty left space under the biggest heart, but it looked out of place and disconnected there, so I moved it to "hang" from one of the lower loops. Then I added the blue heart in the middle, which provides a nice glowing center to the whole piece. All in all, I'm pleased with it, although I think some of my satin stitching is a bit less even than I would ideally like, and I suspect I could have added another stitch pattern to give a sense of overall movement of the hearts.

This was a more elaborate card than the previous ones I've made, so I feel that I've stretched a bit. I like the addition of beads (I think beads enhance almost every project, so that's no surprise). And Q liked it, which was the most important part.

How to Build a Satisfying, Long-Lasting Relationship (through Science!)

2010-02-14T10:00:00.018-05:00

Joined Hearts fabric card (Deborah C. Stearns, 2007)

It's Valentine's Day, when we extoll the wonders of romantic love. And yet, it is very rare that we see concrete, specific suggestions for how to actually build and maintain an intimate relationship. The couple falls in love, gets married, and lives happily ever after. Right? Isn't their love enough to sustain their relationship?

Alas, no. That heady feeling of falling in love (what psychologists call "passionate love") is not enough to keep a relationship going. The good news is that there is now extensive research on relationship satisfaction and longevity, and we know a great deal about the characteristics of happy couples who stay together (as well as unhappy couples who break up). So, in honor of Valentine's Day, here are some tips on how to build a satisfying, long-lasting intimate relationship from the science of intimate relationships.

Manage conflict effectively: Contrary to popular conception, even happy couples fight. Having more conflict does not, in and of itself, mean that the couple will break up. It doesn't matter whether you fight, it matters how you fight. John Gottman's research has found that the way in which couples deal with conflict can predict divorce with 90% accuracy. Basically, it comes down to this: don't escalate the conflict. Destructive communication tactics are those that make the fight worse, whereas constructive communication tactics de-escalate the conflict without avoiding it altogether. A harsh start-up for example, in which you come at your partner with angry criticism, is likely to result in either defensiveness or stonewalling (emotional withdrawal), which is probably going to make you even angrier and escalate the conflict further. Avoiding conflict can result in growing resentment and anger, which would be more likely to result in a harsh start-up -- it's better to deal with the conflict early on. On the other hand, starting fights for the sake of starting a fight (belligerence), is also a destructive communication tactic and should be avoided. The idea is to deal with the conflict without making the fight worse. Avoid angry accusations and sweeping criticisms of your partner, which tend to elicit defensiveness. Try listening to your partner and validating their concerns -- you don't have to capitulate, but at least you can empathize with their feelings. This will usually reduce anger and de-escalate the fight. If you or your partner are just too angry to deal with the conflict constructively, take a time-out and come back to it when you are calmer. If you are really having trouble breaking destructive communication habits, a couples counselor can help.
Share power equally: Egalitarian couples (those who have equal power), have greater relationship satisfaction than couples in which one partner has more power than the other. Do you and your partner have equal say over important decisions, or does one of you tend to have greater influence? Egalitarian couples share decision-making power. In Gottman's study of heterosexual couples, when a man was unwilling to share power with his wife, there was an 81% chance the relationship would end. Do you and your partner have equal responsbility for housework and child care? What about the relationship maintenance work, the "glue" that holds relationships together -- identifying and solving problems in the relationship, keeping in touch with family and friends -- do you share this work equally? Couples who share these responsibilities tend to be more satisfied than those in which one person holds primary responsibility for domestic and relational labor. This doesn't mean that you and your partner have to keep some strict accounting in which every task is appointed in turn, but it is worth thinking about whether the relationship is an equal partnership, both parties sharing equally in the duties and benefits of the relationship.

There's Always Time for Love fabric card

(Deborah C. Stearns, 2010)

Be good friends: Happy couples tend to say that their partner is their best friend. Gottman's research found that the quality of the friendship was a powerful factor in how satisfied men and women were with sex, love, and romance in the relationship. We tend to think of romantic relationships as utterly different from friendships, but we would do better to consider a romantic relationship as built on a solid basis of friendship. Rather than assuming that fiery passion is the key to successful relationships, we need to build intimacy, which is based on knowing your partner well and developing familiarity and companionship. Spend time together. Share your thoughts and experiences. Even idle chitchat and talking over the affairs of the day can provide a sense of connection. Don't worry if the flames of passionate love die down -- just make sure they are replaced by companionate love and intimacy.
Love and respect: You thought I'd never get to love, didn't you? But love does matter -- just not the passionate variety. What matters is that each person cares for and respects the other. Happy couples show fondness and admiration toward each other -- they sing each other's praises and talk about how wonderful the other person is. On the other hand, running the other person down or expressing contempt toward your partner is a bad sign. It may be commonplace for people to disparage their spouse, but it is not a sign of a healthy or happy relationship . . . it's a warning sign of potential breakup.
Positive times five: Gottman's research finds that happy couples have five times as many positive interactions as negative interactions when they are discussing an area of conflict. When the positive to negative ratio drops below 5:1, the couple is less satisfied and more likely to break up. That is, even when they are having a disagreement, satisfied couples continue to express praise, love, acceptance, humor, and caring five times more often than criticism, anger, disappointment, or other negative affect. Of course, when not discussing a conflict, the ratio was even higher, more like 20:1. This tells us two things. One is that negativity is very powerful and has a greater impact than positivity; one negative interaction requires five positive interactions to balance it out. The second is that a strong foundation of positive interactions is necessary for a good relationship and serves as a buffer against the inevitable moments of negativity.

Split Hearts fabric card

(Deborah C. Stearns, 2007)

Of course, this research is based on average trends, and each couple is unique. Further, the research is largely correlational, showing an association between certain relationship patterns and satisfaction, and this does not prove causation. But it does seem to make sense that if we express caring and respect for our partners, deal with conflict without escalation, and build an equitable and intimate relationship, we're more likely to be satisfied and stay together.

So, as you ponder whether to buy flowers or chocolates for your sweetie this Valentine's Day, take a moment to check in on your relationship and see if there is something you could improve. If you are currently single, think back on previous romantic relationships and consider ways in which you could make the next relationship better -- or use these tips to improve your relationships with friends and family, as most of this research could apply just as well to any relationship. The best gift, for you and your partner, is to build a strong and satisfying relationship. That's the gift that keeps on giving.

Want to read more about relationship research? Try these books:

Blumstein, P., & Schwartz, P. (1983). American couples. New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc.

Coontz, S. (1992/2000). The way we never were: American families and the nostalgia trap. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Gottman, J. M & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.

Johnson, S. E. (1990). Staying power: Long term lesbian couples. Tallahassee, FL: The Naiad Press, Inc.

Risman, B. J. (1998). Gender vertigo: American families in transition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Schwartz, P. (1994). Love between equals: How peer marriage really works. New York, NY: The Free Press.

Steil, J. M. (1997). Marital equality: Its relationship to the well-being of husbands and wives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Snow

2010-02-08T23:17:00.020-05:00

We've had more than 30" of snow in the last week -- it is truly "Snowmaggedon". The snow is beautiful. Every tree is frosted with snow, each branch outlined. The streets are fresh and clean, coated with a sparkling blanket of blue-white. I've seen this emerge even with a light dusting of snow, as we had last week. But this massive snowfall transforms the landscape. Our front yard is unrecognizable -- all of its distinctive landmarks are completely submerged, leaving only a homogenous, undulating snowbank, rising more than three feet above the ground level. The driveway hosts two enormous snowdrifts which completely obscure the cars within them. One neighbor's evergreen tree is bent almost double under the weight of its snow burden, and I could swear that another tree hosts a menagerie of snow beasts -- a snow walrus rests in the topmost branches, and surely that's a polar bear underneath it.

Walking through the neighborhood is equally disconcerting. The sidewalks have become corridors, flanked by high walls of shoveled snow. When there is no sidewalk to be found, we stagger through the drifts or follow the lone tire tracks of some adventurous traveler. It is quiet and peaceful. There is a friendly camaraderie that emerges among those of us braving the weather. Upon seeing a group of children making an igloo, I'm pleased to pass on my experience of using water to create an icy shell on top of the snow. We greet those shoveling their walks and chat with those out for sledding or cross-country skiing.

It is as though the world has been remade.

Why we need better sex education

2010-01-23T13:09:00.002-05:00

Every semester, I teach a course in the Psychology of Human Sexuality at Montgomery College. And every semester, I become more convinced that our system of sexuality education is dangerously inadequate. But wait, you say -- most public schools include sex education and there is so much sexual information readily available today, so surely students are well aware of the basics regarding sexuality.

Tell that to the young man who never had any sex education before my class. His parents opted him out of every aspect of sex education at school. That is their right, but they also failed to provide any significant discussion of issues surrounding sexuality at home, beyond the basic message of "don't have sex." He was so grateful for the opportunity to have access to real sexuality education in my class.

Tell that to the young woman who was sure there was something wrong with her because she couldn't have an orgasm through penile-vaginal intercourse. She spent years faking orgasms because she didn't feel comfortable talking to her partners about her inability to climax. For the first time, she is talking to her partner openly about how she responds sexually and exploring new possibilities for herself and her partner.

Tell that to the many students who were sexually assaulted, abused, or raped, but have never told anyone about it because they were sure it was their fault, or it wasn't "really" rape, or because they thought no one would believe them. They still suffer with feelings of fear, mistrust, anger, and doubt that can have a corrosive influence on their sexuality and intimate relationships. They tell me their stories, finally beginning to believe that what happened to them wasn't just "bad sex" and that they didn't deserve it.

Tell that to the students who have never learned effective relationship skills. The chapter on love and communication is revelatory -- they realize that they have routinely been using destructive communication tactics like stonewalling, criticism, and defensiveness, and suddenly the failure of their last relationship makes sense. Most report that they have never been taught communication skills in school, and few can identify even one couple in their lives who could act as a role model for a happy, successful relationship. They walk out of my class with concrete, scientifically-validated strategies for more satisfying and enduring relationships.

This doesn't even include the students who got misinformation about STDs through abstinence-only sex "education", who never learned about the full range of contraceptive methods available (or how to use them correctly), and who couldn't label basic sexual and reproductive anatomy accurately. We need to do a better job of educating young people about sexuality. We are leaving them dangerously ignorant and misinformed, without the knowledge and skills they need to make safe, satisfying sexual choices.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the future, though. President Obama has cut funding for abstinence-only sex "education" (or what one of my friends calls "ignorance-only" sex education), and the new appropriations bill focuses on funding effective sexuality education. In other words, there is a pool of money available to fund programs that have been "proven through rigorous evaluation to delay sexual activity, increase contraceptive use (without increasing sexual activity), reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted infections or reduce teenage pregnancy" [from the 2010 appropriations bill via Newsweek's blog, The Gaggle]. I am pleased to see an approach that cares about the empirical evidence of efficacy in sexuality education. This means that we will be shifting toward more comprehensive sexuality education, which is effective at reducing rates of teen pregnancy, and away from abstinence-only sex education, which has been receiving federal funds since 1981, despite its failure to reduce adolescent pregnancy or delay sexual activity.

But sexuality education needs to be more than just pregnancy and STI prevention. We need to provide the tools to develop sexual lives that are both safe and satisfying. Certainly, we need to provide effective, age-appropriate sexuality education about issues related to reproduction and health. But young people also need to know how to enhance pleasure and build strong relationships. They need education that builds sexual agency and effective communication skills -- not only will that help reduce unwanted pregnancy and the transmission of STIs, but it would also be an important step in our progress toward greater gender equality. Until those lessons are part of every adolescent's education, I'll continue to hear the stories that are proof of the inadequacy of our current system of sex education. And I'll continue to do my best to provide the kind of sexuality education I think every person needs and deserves.

Rain beads

2010-01-17T21:04:00.004-05:00

It rained today, and I love the way that the water forms beads along the bare branches. I didn't manage to get pictures of today's rain beads, but here is a photo of the rose bush outside my front door in November, 2009.

I see beads and adornment everywhere. Q and I met up with friends to see Avatar yesterday (in 3-D). It was a visually lush film, with all kinds of creatures and plants, but I spent a lot of it looking at the Na'vi jewelry and clothing. I started getting visions of new designs for beaded necklaces and fabric accessories. I'm easily distracted by bright colors and shiny baubles . . . it just made me want run back to my fiber studio and play with my stash. Instead, I'm still working on organizing and clearing out my office. I seem fated to be surrounded by piles of paper.

(I'm having a hard time) letting go

2010-01-15T12:03:00.058-05:00

I admit it -- I'm a packrat. But at least two or three times a year, I go through a major de-cluttering. I go through the piles of paper and sort through my clothes and books, trying to get rid of things I don't need or want. It's surprisingly difficult for me to part with these items, even when I haven't looked at them for months or years. When I finally do manage to dispose of the unnecessary items, it's great -- I feel energized, as though I've cleared the decks and I'm ready to go full steam ahead. Why, then, is it so hard for me to give up my stuff?

Some of it has to do with pragmatic issues. I might need this item in future, so I save it, "just in case." This can be a perfectly sensible mindset, but as almost anything could have some use in future, it doesn't help me sort out what I am likely to use and what I am unlikely to use. I also hate the idea of waste -- throwing perfectly usable items away seems wrong. In this respect, Freecycle has been very helpful. Rather than tossing something in the trash, I post it to the Freecycle list. In most cases, I've been able to find takers for all kinds of stuff that would be unwelcome at most traditional charity organizations. I feel better, knowing that I'm not contributing to landfill waste and that my unwanted things will find a purposeful existence in someone else's life.

But my response goes beyond simple issues of practicality. Letting go of these things means giving up hope. When I look at the boxes of data that are stuffed into the closet in my office, I still cling to the idea that I can publish the research, even though some of these studies were conducted more than a decade ago. The bins of fabric represent the potential for garments and quilts that I have long planned, but never begun. To give them away is to admit defeat, to bow to the ugly reality of failure, and I refuse to do so.

The simple fact is that I often have a strong emotional response to the idea of getting rid of things. How can I part with the collection of carved animals from my younger days, many of which were gifts from my family? To dispose of a gift feels like a rejection of the giver, disrespectful and crass. And what about the tattered puppets that so entertained me as a child, but which now languish in a bag in my closet? Would that I could find someone who might love them as I do, but their next destination would surely be the garbage can, and how can I consign them to that fate? I'm even unwilling to get rid of the small stack of worksheets from high school chemistry I found, impersonal and meaningless as they are. Letting these things go means letting go of my past. The link to my childhood is already so fragile that I hold these objects in hope that they will represent an anchor to that earlier life which I remember only dimly.

Indeed, it seems that I hold some items in hope that I could return to that prior self. I have a pair of rainbow toe socks in my dresser that I have worn only once. Why have these not been donated to charity? Because when I was a child, I wanted rainbow toe socks desperately. To my eyes, they represented the height of fashion. As an adult, though, I find these socks terribly uncomfortable. I have no idea why I own a pair -- did I buy them or were they a gift? -- but I keep them in hopes that they will give me the same joy today that they would have in my childhood. In one episode of the sitcom Mad About You, Jamie Buchman, bemoaning her current, dull self, said, "I used to wear hats!" -- indicating that she was once young and hip. She then attempted to recapture her former self by putting on a hat, as if by doing so, she could shed her existing persona and become again her former, cooler self. I can empathize. I, too, wore hats with blithe abandon in my young adulthood. And although I rarely wear those hats any more, they still linger in my closet, waiting to transport me back in time. We often imbue objects with magical qualities and perceive them as transformative, able to shape us into our idealized self.

In some cases, I have become the caretaker for someone else's past. My mother's doll collection resides in cardboard boxes, each doll wrapped in acid-free paper. A lovely, cream-colored vest, handmade by my partner's grandmother, resides in one of my dresser drawers. These are not items I cherish for themselves -- I care little for the dolls, which hold no precious memories for me, and the vest is not a style I would wear. But they are fragments of these women's lives, imbued with their departed spirits. I have been charged to hold them in memorium, to protect and care for their possessions, and I am no more able to carelessly dispose of these objects than would a museum curator or a funeral director.

My house is full and overflowing, but the process of divesting myself of possessions is a perilous path. Each object is richly textured with meaning . . . imbued with significance . . . full of memories. Disposing of these items speaks volumes about who I am, who I was, and who I could be. All too often, it's just easier to keep the stuff than to face those questions.

Bead Journal Project

2010-01-04T19:51:00.005-05:00

I decided to give my beading mania free reign -- I joined the Bead Journal Project. This is the brainchild of Robin Atkins, and is now in its third year. This is my first time as a participant, and I'm looking forward to creating a small beaded work each month. The project is so popular that there are actually three different blogs for it, to accommodate all the participants. I'm an author on the second blog, but you can see even more BJP at the first blog and third blog.

I posted my introduction and plan over on the BJP blog. I'm going to use the project to get back to my V-Heart series. I really enjoyed making the V-Hearts, and I actually started working on the series again this summer, so the timing is perfect. I'm looking forward to seeing where this takes me. Bead ahoy!

A fresh start

2010-01-01T22:16:00.006-05:00

Montreal, Canada

New Year's always brings a round of discussions about resolutions. People make resolutions or refuse to make resolutions. There are endless discussions of what resolutions will be made and why so many of them don't last beyond the first month.

I stopped making New Year's resolutions long ago, when I was in my teens. Perhaps I learned early that writing down those resolutions didn't result in change. Instead, it merely guaranteed that I would ultimately face the depressing realization that I seemed unable to embody the ideals I could so glibly commit myself to on January 1.

But here's what I started wondering today. Why January 1? Why do we make these resolutions on New Year's Day? What is it about changing the calendar that makes us want to change ourselves? There's something about a beginning that seems to open up the possibility for a fresh start, a rebirth into an improved self. After all, we so often start a new regimen -- a new diet, an exercise plan -- at the beginning of the week. Maybe there's just something about a new year, a new week, a new day that seems to allow for a change. The vista of a new year spreads before us, full of possibility, untouched by the failures and difficulties of the past. Perhaps we feel that we, too, are newly-born, able to do and be anything. Maybe we are willing to forgive ourselves for our imperfections -- rather than continuing to berate ourselves for our inability to succeed in the past, we can let that go and move forward on our path to self-actualization.

One of the reasons I enjoy being an academic is that there are so many beginnings. Every semester is a new beginning, ripe with potential. I get that heady sense of endless possibility not just in January, but also in August and June. I can tell myself that this semester will be better than the last -- I will be more diligent and disciplined. I'll de-clutter my office. I'll exercise regularly. I'll read more, write more, do more.

Of course, this new beginning is both true and illusory. It is true in that every moment represents a fresh start. We can change our habits anytime we wish, and every day, every hour, every minute, gives us the opportunity to do better. Even if we failed a moment ago, we have the opportunity to succeed in *this* moment. In that sense, why should we wait until January to make resolutions? Make your commitment to improvement every morning -- no need to wait for New Year's Day.

But it is illusory in that we drag our past with us, whether we wish to or not. Making a resolution to change does not, in itself, enact any change. I'm still the same person I was before I made the resolution, and I'm in the same place, with the same stresses and challenges. We seem to think that making the resolution will be enough. We merely need willpower and the commitment to change, and we will become that better person we can see so clearly. But this ignores the many forces, internal and external, that act upon us. One of the truisms in psychology is that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. We are more likely to keep doing we have always done, and willpower may not be sufficient to push us out of our groove.

We always have the opportunity for change and growth and improvement. But real and sustained change requires more than a resolution. It necessitates a plan of action that takes into account the factors that influence our behavior. We can look to the future and its wondrous possibility, but we need to learn from our past as well, or we will probably find ourselves doomed to repeat it.

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T15:15:00.006-05:00

I've never been much into celebrating New Year's Eve -- it's just not a holiday that speaks strongly to me. Some years we've gone out to a party. One year we hosted a party. One year I had a gig. But our latest tradition is my favorite. We stay home, build a fire in the fireplace, and spend the evening together. Q does a great job of building a fire, and we have fun putting in special pinecones that make colored flames. A quiet, peaceful evening is just what I most need after the stresses of end-of-semester grading and holiday shopping. And I get to start the new year with my best friend and beloved. What could be more perfect?

I hope you all have as much fun as I will. Happy New Year!

Beaded bellydance bra

2009-12-05T15:02:00.019-05:00

I never got around to taking pictures of the dance costume bra I finished over the summer. This goes with the beaded bellydance belt I finished a while ago. I made the bra from a Kwik Sew pattern, using denim from old jeans, reinforced with stiff, fusible interfacing. The cups were then further reinforced with fusible fleece and two layers of buckram. I covered the finished bra with stretch velvet to match the belt. Then the beading began!

The motifs are all hand-beaded, one bead and sequin at a time. The motifs are a mix of glass seed beads of various clear and silvery tones, Swarovski crystals, and Czech glass beads, edged in sequins and more glass beads. The oval cabochons and the big triangular crystal on the top part are made of sew-on Swarovski crystals that were then caged with glass seed beads. The fringe is made with glass seed beads and three kinds of Swarovski crystals to make a pattern.

Under the fringe, I beaded a swirly design to match the design on the belt. It's hard to see in the picture, but this is a raised design. The fringe moves while I dance, of course, so this design peeks out under the swaying fringe.
The straps are too plain, and I'll probably do more beading there at some point. But the costume is wearable at this point -- in fact, I wore it for a performance in August, and it fit well and held up to the rigors of dancing. I also got a number of compliments from other dancers, so I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Winter has arrived

2009-12-05T14:16:00.009-05:00

Baby, it's cold outside -- a good day to curl up at home and stay warm.

And today, we got our first snow of the season.

Sex and cookies

2009-12-03T07:24:00.015-05:00

Yesterday's Psychology Brown Bag was great fun, as always. I posed the question of why gender equality and feminism are associated with higher sexual satisfaction for men and women than male dominance (e.g., patriarchy). There were great suggestions and questions from the students and faculty in attendance. We talked about the effect of gender roles, sexual scripts, education, relationship factors, communication, and more. We discussed the continued impact of gender roles in the U.S. -- for example, do heterosexual women feel comfortable asking men out, or are men still doing most of the initiating? It was a terrific discussion, and my closing comment was that they should go forth, be feminist, and have great sex. Better living through science. ;)

We also had light refreshments, because I think food makes for better conversation. Some of it I buy at the grocery store -- fruit, sunflower seeds, hummus, carrots, chips. Some of the food I cook. I usually make a batch of pasta with basil pesto -- this is the pesto we make from our own garden, according to my partner's family recipe, and it gets rave reviews. And then I bake some cookies or cupcakes or quickbread, as I'm a big fan of sweets.

By far, the most popular cookie I have ever made (and I've been doing this for a long time) is Seven Layer Cookies. I've had people propose marriage after tasting these cookies. I often make them for events because, in addition to being tasty, they are quick and easy to make. I got this recipe from my friend Becka in high school. She wrote it on the back of a flyer for Duff's Business Institute (which encouraged you to make a collect call to get career advice -- always suspicious); strangely enough, this flyer fits into my recipe card file perfectly. I made the cookies with Becka at one point, and her main advice was to make sure to get the condensed milk into the corners of the pan. I've come up with a few additional suggestions over the years -- it's easier to use boxed graham cracker crumbs instead of mushing up graham crackers into crumbs, for example, and greasing the pan facilitates the cookie removal after baking.

So many people have asked me for this recipe that I figured I would share it with all of you. Enjoy!

Seven Layer Cookies
1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 stick margarine or butter
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
6 oz. butterscotch chips
14 oz. sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
1 1/2 cup coconut (I use the sweetened kind that comes in a bag, not a can)
1 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (if you chop them small, they will be more likely to stick to the cookies and not fall off) [I consider this ingredient optional -- I often make these cookies without walnuts and they are just as tasty]

Grease the bottom and sides of a 9 X 13 inch pan. Melt the margarine or butter, and mix with the graham cracker crumbs. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan, making sure it covers the entire pan evenly. Sprinkle on the coconut, then the chips, making sure that they are evenly spread over the crust. Then pour on the condensed milk so that it covers everything (don't forget the corners!). Sprinkle on nuts. Place in oven (350 degrees F) for 30 minutes, until the top is light brown (the edges will be dark brown, crystallized, almost burnt looking). Take out, let cool. Cut into bars with a sharp knife. It's easier to get the cookies out of the pan if you cut around the edges of the pan first, and then cut into bars. These are pretty rich, so you might want to cut them into small bars (I usually cut them into 24 or 32 pieces, depending on my mood). If there are any left, store in an airtight container.

So now you can have satisfying sex and cookies afterwards! Just don't get crumbs in the bed.

World AIDS Day

2009-12-01T07:42:00.012-05:00

Today is World AIDS Day. There are so many things to say and so much that needs to be done -- more research, better access to treatment, eliminating the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is not just an epidemic because of its biological virulence. Cultural factors matter here -- women's disempowerment, sex tourism, sex trafficking, poverty, inadequate sexuality education -- all have to be addressed if we are to reduce the spread of HIV. But let me just take a moment to talk about one factor: sexual guilt and shame.

Shame and guilt surrounding sexuality are doing nothing to help contain this epidemic -- in fact, they only facilitate the spread of HIV. Guilt and shame lead to discomfort, silence, and denial.

Discomfort: Feelings of guilt and shame make us uncomfortable. So we become uncomfortable about sex -- unwilling to address it directly, speaking only in vague euphemisms. Uncomfortable going to get tested. Uncomfortable buying condoms. Uncomfortable using condoms -- research has found that those who feel guilt and shame about sex are less likely to use contraception consistently. Discomfort about sex doesn't stop people from having sex, but it does make them less likely to engage in safer sex. And when we are really uncomfortable, we don't want to talk about it at all, leading to . . .

Silence: When we feel ashamed or guilty about something, we don't want to talk about it. So we are less likely to talk to our partners about our sexual history (for example, men on the down-low). We are less likely to discuss testing with our partners prior to sex. We are less likely to negotiate safer sex practices with our partners prior to sex. We are less likely to talk to our children about sex, less likely to provide them with the comprehensive sexuality education they need to make educated decisions about their sexuality. And so silence results in the ignorance that continues the spread of HIV. It was this shame-based silence about HIV/AIDS that delayed any systematic response to the epidemic in the United States for so many years, and there is still a conspiracy of silence surrounding HIV/AIDS in many countries today.

Denial: We would rather not admit that we commit shameful acts. So if sex is embedded in shame, we try to deny our own sexuality. We don't admit to ourselves that we are sexually active -- which means we don't need to buy condoms, get tested, or talk to our partners. That doesn't stop us from having sex, but it means we are unprepared and more likely to engage in risky activities. When sex is considered shameful, government leaders deny the existence of stigmatized sexual activities (e.g., homosexuality, prostitution, sex trafficking) and go on to deny or minimize the issue of HIV/AIDS in their country.

I'm not saying that a shame- and guilt-free sexuality would cure AIDS or make HIV go away. But it would help us do what we can to protect ourselves, reduce the spread of the virus, and eliminate the stigma that it carries with it.

Patriarchy does not equal Pleasure: Sexism Makes for Bad Sex (Pt. 1)

2009-11-29T20:31:00.010-05:00

Courtesy of www.archives.gov

I'm in the midst of preparing for my upcoming Psychology Brown Bag discussion this Wednesday at Montgomery College, and I thought I would put some of the research together for those of you who can't attend. I'm starting with the claim that patriarchy (cultural systems that give men greater power than women) is likely to result in decreased sexual satisfaction, as compared to cultures in which men and women have greater equality. A bold claim? Perhaps so, but I've got the data to back it up.

In a survey of older men and women (40-80 years of age) from twenty-nine different nations, Laumann et al. (2006) found that men and women in countries with more gender equality (such as Western countries) reported greater sexual satisfaction than those in male-dominant countries (such as those in East Asia and the Middle East). In the Western nations, two-thirds of men and women reported that their sexual relationships were satisfying. In Middle Eastern countries, fifty percent of men and thirty-eight percent of women stated that they were satisfied with their sex lives (although there was some variability among the nations in this cluster), and in East Asian nations, approximately one-quarter of men and women reported positive sexual satisfaction. In other words, older adults living in more patriarchal nations reported lower sexual satisfaction than those in countries with greater gender equality, and this was true for both women and men. In other words, patriarchy doesn't just diminish women's sexual satisfaction, it makes sex worse for men, as well.

It is also worth noting that in all three of the cultural clusters, men reported greater sexual satisfaction than women, although the survey found greater gender differences in the male-dominant countries than in those with greater gender equality. "This pattern suggests that the type of gender regime is important for gender differences in sexual well-being, but true parity remains an ideal even in countries where beliefs about gender equality are more widespread." (Laumann et al., 2006, p. 158). Western nations may be more egalitarian, but they haven't reached true sexual equity yet. (We already knew that, right?)

Within any one country, some hold more patriarchal beliefs than others. If male dominance is bad for sex, then we would predict that feminists would have better sex lives. Of course, this flies in the face of widely held stereotypes that feminists are ugly, undesirable, and anti-sex. To the extent that feminism is viewed as anti-male, some might believe that feminists would have trouble in heterosexual relationships (Rudman & Phelan, 2007). However, Schick, Zucker, and Bay-Cheng (2008) found that female college students who more strongly endorsed feminist beliefs had a greater sense of their own sexual feelings (sexual subjectivity) and enhanced sexual motivation, both of which produced increased sexual satisfaction. In both college students and a non-student sample, Rudman and Phelan (2007) found that heterosexual women reported greater relationship health and sexual satisfaction when they perceived their male partner to be feminist, and men reported greater sexual satisfaction to the extent that they perceived their female partner to be feminist. Rather than impeding sexual satisfaction, these studies indicate that feminism enhances sexual satisfaction. (Of course, we need to replicate these studies and have more diverse samples and measures to be sure of their results, but still, the data are encouraging.)

So there you have it. Patriarchy is bad for sex and gender equality is good for sex. Now, to the interesting question -- why? I have my own ideas, which I'll be discussing on Wednesday, 1-2pm at Montgomery College in Rockville, MD. I'd love to hear your thoughts, though, so feel free to post a comment.

References:

Laumann, E. O., Paik, A., Glasser, D. B., Kang, J-H., Wang, T., Levinson, B., Moreira, E. D., Nicolosi, A., Gingell, C. (2006). A cross-national study of subjective sexual well-being among older women and men: Findings from the Global Study of Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 35, p.145-161.

Rudman, L. A., Phelan, J. E. (2007). The interpersonal power of feminism: Is feminism good for romantic relationships? Sex Roles, 57, 787-799.

Schick, V. R., Zucker, A. N., Bay-Cheng, L. Y. (2008). Safer, better sex through feminism: The role of feminist ideology in women’s sexual well-being. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 32, 225-232.

Why are these slides a funny color?

2009-11-07T11:29:00.012-05:00

I've been scanning in old slides that I got from my maternal grandparents. It's been fun to have more family photos from long ago, as I have very few photos from that era. But I've also learned the importance of color correcting these slides. When they are scanned in, they have a colored cast that is quite distinctive and makes them look dated. I have been using the color correction tool in Photoshop (I use AutoCorrect so I don't have to set the levels myself), and the difference can be quite dramatic. Here's the original scan of my mother and her parents (Christmas, 1962?):

Here's the color corrected version:

Here's the original scan of my brother and me (note my anxious look -- this shows up a lot in my childhood pictures):

Here's the color corrected version:

Here's the original scan of my brother (whose own son looks *exactly* like him at this age). I love this picture -- just look at that big grin!

Here's the color corrected version:

I'm curious about why there is this colored cast, though. It could be a function of the film developing techniques at the time (movies from the 1960s and 70s have a very different color cast because of changing film techniques, for example). Or it might have been done intentionally for slides, as a way of compensating for the effects of the warm light being cast by the slide projector (which would have been yellowish). Or is it just a function of these slides being old, and that the colors have changed as they aged? If anyone knows why these slides might be off-color, I'd love to know the answer.

Momix Dance Company

2009-11-02T21:56:00.002-05:00

What was I doing on Halloween? I was out with a zombie (Q), my father, and his wife. We all went to dinner at a new-ish restaurant in Clifton that serves nouvelle cuisine. The restaurant has been remodeled and looks spacious and elegant (although quite different from the previous establishment), and the food was very good. Plus, several of the wait staff complimented Q's zombie costume, so that was a good sign. (He did a great job with the makeup -- it was very creepy.) Then we went to see the Momix Dance Company perform the Best of Momix. I hadn't ever seen them perform, and it was truly magical. I've only seen a few dance performances that got me to say "wow" more than once during the show. They used props inventively, including what looked like a rolling jungle gym that the dancers climbed upon and spun around, a set of big bouncy balls for an adorable faerie-like dance number, and two dancers who performed in full skis. Even the traditional ribbon prop used in Chinese dance got new life, as it appeared almost as a neon tube, flowing in cursive shapes and spirals around the dancer. The whole show was mesmerizing -- the lighting, the costumes, and of course, the performers were just flawless. As with much of modern dance, I'm not sure if the music was as tightly integral to the dance performances -- in some cases, the choreography clearly coordinated with the music, and in most cases, the music cast a reasonably appropriate mood, but the dances weren't so uniquely tied to the music as in folk dance. The dancers were really amazing, though -- strong, flexible, and completely spot-on for each number. The performers got two standing ovations, and completely deserved them. You can see clips from another version of the touring show here. If you have a chance, go see Momix perform.

Today's visual inspiration . . .

2009-09-26T22:41:00.014-04:00

is all about COLOR! I love deep, intense, vibrant color. Stained glass windows can have wonderful and inspiring color, such as these from the Basilica Notre Dame in Montreal:

and this cupcake and ice cream shop, also in Montreal:

Of course, I also have lots of color at home in my fabric stash.

It's been a grey and rainy couple of days, and I guess I just needed a shot of color. We now return to our regular programming . . .

Fiber fantasy scarf

2009-09-13T21:53:00.033-04:00

So I finally finished the scarf I started a while ago. I had laid out various yarns and ribbons in a faux-weave pattern on a water soluble stabilizer, stitched them together and then added free-motion embroidery in purple and gold metallic threads. I hadn't liked the way it came out initially -- it was too wide, too short, and not drapey enough. So I put it aside and went on to other things. Then I got the idea that I could cut it apart and put in ribbon inserts to make it longer and drapier. So that's what I did this weekend.

The ribbon inserts and fringe are recycled sari fabric that I knotted to add interest and texture. I also added some more free-motion embroidery.

I quite like it now. Since I cut the initial scarf in half lengthwise, I have another section to play with. I haven't decided if I'll make another scarf like this or use it for something else.

In the meantime, I have all kinds of ideas for variations on this theme, so once I get through a couple of other projects, I plan to make some more scarves with this technique.

Bunny Drama

2009-08-18T19:15:00.015-04:00

First, the little bunny comes into the backyard and nibbles the grass and clover.

It catches sight of me, and freezes for a few moments (predator!).

Then it goes back to eating and hops around a bit. But everything itches!

To reach that back area, the bunny does a full-on Exorcist twist.

Then the little bunny suddenly jumps up and runs away. Why? Uh-oh, here comes a bigger bunny!

The big bunny catches sight of me, and stares (predator!).

The big bunny has solo access to the bean patch (absolutely favorite bunny food) for a while. But then, the little bunny approaches, slowly hopping through the carrot tops.

They nibble a bit. The little bunny gets closer and closer to the big bunny. They circle each other.

The big bunny comes up to smell the little bunny. It looks like they might get along.

But no! The big bunny makes a sudden move, and the little bunny becomes a leaping blur as it catapults over the carrot tops.

It looks like the big bunny has won this dominance contest. But here comes the little bunny again. . .

Getting closer and closer . . .

How will this end?

Karmic muffins

2009-08-17T22:54:00.001-04:00

Periodically, I give baked goods or other foody gifts to our neighbors. It just seems like a nice thing to do, particularly since we ask them to take in our mail or watch the house while we are away. Last summer, for example, I made tons of blueberry muffins and gave them to all of our (close) neighbors. Yesterday, our neighbor across the street came by with her son to bring us homemade banana muffins (with vanilla frosting and colored sugar, no less!). The bible says “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days” -- a way of saying that good deeds will bring you benefit. Well, I guess I cast my muffins on the waters, and they were returned with frosting!

We ate the karmic muffins, and they were delicious.

Grave statuary

2009-08-16T13:42:00.017-04:00

Why is it that so many of the statues in cemeteries depict female figures? From our meanderings in a cemetery in Montreal, we saw a number of beautiful examples of statuary, particularly female figures. We saw this one when we first came into the cemetery, and were struck by its lovely lines and the eloquent way it depicted grief -- "how original!" we thought. Then we saw several others with the same design, and figured there was some mortuary catalogue with this headstone as one of the designs. *Sigh* It lost some of its eloquence after that. But it's still quite pretty.

This one had a bit of added whimsy, since someone replaced her bow with a stuffed animal (honestly, it wasn't me!).

And, of course, angels could be of either sex (or sexless), but seem to be depicted as female or feminine in many cases:

I love the way that metal gains additional texture with age -- she almost seems to be weeping. I'm not sure what the significance of the large feather is, though.

So, why are women keepers of the dead -- why are we charged with grieving and mourning and watching over the graves? Is this found in all cultures?

Giving myself a hand . . .

2009-08-14T15:00:00.008-04:00

Well, more like 1100 hands. Illustrations of hands, that is. I scanned in 1166 19th-century illustrations of hands from one of the Dover publications of permission-free images. Now I have lots of handy (pun intended) digital illustrations for use in my artwork. Whee! Here are just a few of the illustrations from the book:

I love illustrations and clip art -- I get all kinds of ideas percolating when I look at them. I wish all the Dover books came with CDs, but at least I can digitize the images myself with the scanner. I have a number of other Dover books that I will scan in (in whole or part) when I have time -- that way I can build up a library of digital images to use when inspiration strikes me.

Today's visual inspiration

2009-08-13T11:24:00.003-04:00

From a cemetery in Montreal, Canada. I love the strong vertical lines in this statue, and the swooping curve of the trailing sleeves. There is something very elegant in the clean lines, and her pose is peaceful and meditative, without being too sorrowful. Again, I see the Art Deco influence in these statues.

Today's visual inspiration

2009-08-12T22:49:00.005-04:00

Art Deco details from the Hotel Clarendon in Quebec City, Canada. I think these types of designs would look fabulous as surface design elements on a garment -- I'd love to interpret them in gold foil or embroidery on a coat or jacket. I'm not usually drawn to Art Deco, but just look at those luscious spirals and elegant lines -- beautiful.