Field Notes: July 23, 2002

I'm behind on my field notes. Last Wednesday we had our first real discussion about Social Action. I handed out copies of the principles and asked people to read them. Then I talked about how we hoped people would find a focus/problem/issue by the following Monday. I made the point that the morning writings were designed to help them narrow the field and that they might want to work from those writings to a final decision.

There were lots of questions and one of the things I really liked about this discussion was that I felt perfectly comfortable telling them that we didn't really know the best way to introduce them to social action, that we were simply experimenting. I remember saying something about knowing that people probably need introduced to social action in small doses and that, not being mind readers, we weren't actually sure of what size doses to be giving them. What really struck me was how people didn't seem to realize that they had problems and issues already in mind. They didn't see their concerns as valid material for inquiry. As I listened to people talk I tried to help frame the questions I thought I heard them saying, and I know that was enlightening (at least I think I know based on non-verbal expressions) for a couple of people. By stating the questions I thought I heard I was validating their problems/issues/concerns and showing them they did have real questions worth pursuing, I think. I left the writing project with plans for them to work on the changing your mind assignment on Thursday.

I was gone Thursday-Monday and arrived late on Tuesday morning (and out of sorts, not prepared and not rested). While I was at the doctor's office that morning with Christopher, I started doing a morning writing since I had missed that and I wrote about my difficulty with re-entry. When I arrived at writing project, finally, Doug was in the middle of his demonstration (an amusing one, at that, about stupid laws). In my notes I have written "Betty Gail?" because I noticed she wasn't there. Later I was to find out that she had "changed her mind" and decided not to finish for personal reasons. I simply couldn't seem to get into the swing of things, but at 11:00 we broke into our response groups. Doug, Beth, Diane, and I went outside the library and began talking.

We're all having trouble seeing what this project looks like, what shape it should take, what form it might be. Beth is noticing interesting things that people are thinking about and she spoke for a long time about Marlene. Clearly Beth's interest is sparked by Marlene, but I didn't sense that she was that convinced of the idea we had earlier (that I had actually and shared with them the night before writing project started) about selecting an individual to study. As I listened to Beth and as she talked about herself and her discoveries, I kept thinking about what she had said at Border's. She wondered how two teachers who had not "done" social action in their classrooms could actually figure out how other teachers could come to understand social action in their teaching practice.

Doug said he had ranted to Beth and shared some of that. Then he said, "I'm not much of a social action person." This sparked a lot of conversation because I disagreed with Doug's perception of himself. In fact, I believed that if he was ranting about something in the school system that meant he found something to be unfair or inequitable in some way and that is social action fodder! We talked for a long time and these words were written down in my notes: socialism, capitalism, ownership, motivation.

Diane talked about empathy and tolerance.

Marlene: Wonders why only two students out of many entered a writing contest. Wonder why students hate writing/school/English.

Tonda: Interested in ways to encourage students to be open to others; fairness (I note the words "tolerance and respect")

Vickie: Interested in finding ways to find similarities among students (I note Thomas Merton--Union and Division.)

Jeanette: How do we get kids to not be mean to each other?

Bethana: How to help students take pride in who they are and the work they do.

Martha: Bad behavior in the classroom (I ask questions and write in my notes: How to reduce....[bad behavior in the classroom])

Toodie: How to be more authentic and how to increase student responsibility

Amy: How to genereate intellectual patience in students (I have in my notes: use writing to deal w/ issue...power [unclear what I meant by this])

Beth: Roller coaster emotions...confidence, competence/power...multi-genre approach

Doug: Schools not preparing students for the outside