another reason i love my job
Just got finished with a department meeting and besides the normal teasing and silliness, we spent a chunk of time talking about issues of race and gender and disability — specifically the overrepresentation of African-American boys and men in special education. Danne, one of the faculty members here, shared some of her work with us as well as other research — namely that huge discrepancy in the education that African-American males receive. What I liked best is that she turned it on us and asked us, specifically, how we, as professors, teacher educators, and people, were acting to change that. A gutsy move and an important one — making the issue powerful and tangible in that we need to know and think about our own role in these issues. That’s one thing I absolutely love about the people I work with is that they don’t back down from struggling with the tough questions and engaging the heavy lifting, time and time again. Too many places I think faculty have their own niches and voices and live very separate, parallel lives whereas our group is an intersecting, tangly, fun, supportive, and cantankerous web. Which is, of course, the very best kind.
March 2nd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
I’m jealous of your faculty meetings. Ours are basically forums for the Dean to tell us all the wonderful things he’s been doing. No real converstations goes on. Last meeting we were supposed to sit through a presentation on “Multiple Intelligence Teaching Approach.” The dean brought in some consultant to teach this stuff to us. he said it was paradigm shifting. I looked at the website and decided it was bs. basically gardner’s stuff layered with the brain-based research stuff. so i skipped the meeting: maybe it’s closed-minded of me, but i had better things to do than sit through a rehash of what looked like the old “4-mat” stuff. the funny thing is, no one has asked me where i was or said, that i missed a great presentation.
anyway, i’m so glad you love your colleagues and that you have great conversations in your meetings.
G.
March 3rd, 2006 at 4:18 pm
I feel really lucky to be in this environment, especially after being in different schools across all my graduate work and seeing such a range in terms of faculty collegiality. Of course, we don’t all get along and there are people who never attend meetings and plenty of infighting in other places I have no idea of, I’m sure. Humanity will out, after all. My department is supportive and funny and just keeps trying and coming back again, that’s what I love about it. At the bottom of it all, these are people who just care so much, you know?