| in america 13 part 2 - 2007 june | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
June 12 2007 (cont.) Dreams both nights. Something about Frank. a ladder I had to climb to an attic where people had shoved things up without entering. When I got to the top a long ladder down. I was supposed to climb down carefully, not falling past the gaps where rungs were missing. At the bottom something about talking to a man who could fix me. Last night a wall-hung bookshelf with Joyce's archives. My folder is at the top left, first in the row, but there's not much in it. Other people have thick files. Margo's letter last week, my distress, a couple of days thinking more, reply sent, this morning her response. So we're calmed down. she says now the question is what does progressive ed need to be. Do I know anything about that - she keeps thinking we can collectively come to a policy that doesn't back down and shows IMA's leadership at [the college] and still is legally safe, etc. Why do I think that's not possible. Because people do it the way they can, the way they are. Anyone's intention is the same, get good work out of the student. We can't define good work though we can recognize it. We're in a position to recognize it because we've done it. We're hired because our CVs show evidence of it. We know how we got to it in our own case. Everybody ran away from saying what it was in their own case when I suggested that in a meeting. So what is it in mine: working with Joyce, Louie, men, Tom, the book, about attachment. What difference does it make intellectually. When I learned to process I learned how to process intellectual crashes too. Restructuring. I learned the nature of restructuring. And got coherence and authority. So personal development was doing what was needed, the core thing. Getting that core thing is what therapists are supposed to be good at, but therapists may be worse at it than friends because they are trained in applying theory. I know more than Margo thinks I can know - ie the book does. [Hi Ellie, Notes in blue below. are you having to give someone assurances that you are adequately curbing me? Is someone going to be asking to see evidence? No one has asked me about you at all. You are officially under no cloud whatsoever. I am not being asked to do anything re you (or any other faculty member). In fact, neither this particular situation, nor anything directly related to it figures in any direct communication to me (like "doing therapy" or "not having clear boundaries" or anything along those lines). In other words, this whole area was not part of my evaluation. I have heard nothing that would make me believe that you are on the horizon of any senior admin person in this or any other regard. It is all more amorphous than that. Everything I have heard about Kabba [the new dean] indicates that he is thoughtful and considerate and has a good heart. I am hopeful that this will translate into his being able to draw his own conclusions regardless of what he is directly told, or what innuendo passes his way. I have no idea what those innuendos might be, if any. My guess is that if nothing new comes up in the shape of a problem with a student, no one will even think to mention anything to him directly or indirectly. (We have a lovely opportunity to start out right with Kabba who is the speaker at our graduation.) given the evidence both you and I had during the semester we weren't wrong to think she was doing well. Yes, I agree with you. She is the quintessential tricky case. She fooled everyone all the time until she completely fell apart. I am willing to bet that she fooled all her therapists all of the time also. But as I thought about it, I realized that this is the very reason we need some clear safeguards in place. The formality of the study plan structure and packet exchange are part of what defines the nature of the relationship and I mention them in the context of this note to you because I had come to see that piece more clearly myself. Not that having them in place would have necessarily changed the outcome, but they are a good helpful piece of structure. When she emailed freaking out it didn't occur to me to say, I'm legally barred from talking to you about this. But it would certainly occur to me now. I guess I would hope that you would not just distance yourself by referring to the legality. I would hope that you would refer to other things-depending on the needs/personality of the student-like your own limits in terms of therapeutic knowledge, the importance of having good support (professional and otherwise) physically close to hand, that your job is to help her see the connections between her inner work and degree criteria/study plan/academic goals, that you can help her. I think you can talk with a student about almost anything but what matters is how that conversation takes place, what role it has in the overall study plan, what the needs are of the student, what kind of transference is going on, a whole host of things. That's kind of horrible isn't it. When she got paranoid we all did. I see what you are saying and agree that one response was to become afraid that she would sue. That wasn't, of course, the only response. When I think about it I remember seeing that there was also concern for her welfare, a lot of confusion about what was going on and why it was going on, hasty wrong-headed assumptions being made, concern for your welfare, and concern for the program - all these from different faculty and a couple senior admin at the time. I had a psychotic student this term and I handled her with tongs: I did not engage. Maybe we should talk about this in more detail at some point? There might not be a need to be so very disengaged. It's that whole pendulum thing - I don't want you to swing too far in the opposite direction and become a Ralph - we have one and he does good work - but we do not need two. b. I have not thought of the more personal transactions I've had with students as therapy because I've thought of them as fellow-feeling. There was a note in your journal that referred to yourself as the therapist. It is possible that you were joking, but it did not read like that given the overall context of your work with MB. [Naturally I want the website up because I figure so beautifully in it - I'm so deft and right. I cd get famous as the therapist who saved Millie. I cd get clients who'd pay me on therapy scale. But having been saved she wants to play and have fun. Okay, let it go.] I agree that your approach of sharing how you have handled a situation is not what a therapist usually does! The alternative seems to be to see them in distress and confusion and know what would help and refuse to say it because one is covering one's ass. Perhaps you know what would help. I think anything offered with humility is probably just fine. Along with the caveat, I am no therapist but this worked for me. I have certainly shared things I have learned from co-counseling (which is to me a great example of somatic processing and reintegration) on quite a few occasions. And I try to do that with humility - because I cannot possibly know for sure what will be helpful to someone no matter how similar their situation may seem. And I always make sure to suggest they get local help (professional/personal). I do my best not to move into the position of being their partner in the co-counseling situation. Committing myself to being supervised into ass-covering feels worse than shameful I am trying to say that you do not need to commit yourself to ass covering. You do need to find a way to do what you do so beautifully that backs off the edge of the cliff that you fell over with MB. But not so far back that you aren't doing the work that we - the program - want to be doing. I don't know all the elements that will shift and recombine for you personally. (And we will work these out partly together and, I suspect, partly in the program collective as we discuss, for instance, the excellent examples you gave in your therapy and education memo.) I do know that I have no intention of leaving the conversation until you as a faculty member and we as a program (and eventually we as a college) have a much clearer idea of how we can do this work with depth, wholeness, rigor, humility, transparency, and legality. are you ever going to say to people, This is too timid, indirect, impersonal, polite? Or are you only going to say to me, This is too courageous, direct, generous, personal? What I was working out so carefully in my note to you was coming to an understanding of how to move forward so that we as a faculty and as a program do not give up what is precious to us. I see the resolution to this question in our collective wisdom. I have no intention of looking over your shoulder about everything you do. (Although I love reading whatever you write to your students - just for the pure art of your prose - I have no intention of being so self indulgent.) Most of the faculty check in with me on an as needed basis about tricky situations with their students. Or interesting situations. Or situations that might shed light on something we have been talking about. I hope you will do the same. And yes I do check in with folks who are too impersonal and work with them on how to open more to, deal better with the more personal aspects. I can't say that I have helped move any mountains there, but over time, all of us move each other if we stay open to it. And what makes this faculty precious is that we all do stay open. I will add that if (when) we come to greater clarity/specificity about what the program means for the "being" criteria, it will be a lot easier for me to guide faculty to guide students whether there is "too little" or "too much" emotional material/revelation. There will always be a range and sometimes great personal differences in how we work (and you are right to suggest that students - returning students - have a idea of who to turn to for certain kinds of work and who to avoid). At the same time we collectively need to be a lot clearer about what that range is, and what its impact is on helping student's with degree criteria. Then I as the imperfect PD will find it a lot easier to help the faculty help the students. I was overjoyed to have found a boss who didn't want me to be small. Got that right. This crisis is like what happens to everyone in early love, I think, and then again and again. There's open-hearted trust, and then there's a disaster, and then there's a choice whether to withdraw from trust into cynicism and concealment, or to find a way, with more complexity, to save open-heartedness so there can be real strength rather than bluff. I know you want the latter, because that's your way. So let's get this to feel right. That's beautifully put. I can see that there have already been a number of misunderstandings and I have caused you stress about some things that are not real. I hope this reply will set those matters straight. If not, then we will certainly keep on communicating. I count on that. we have already put a lot of time into it and it's all been superficial because people are personally so scared of it, and professionally feel so amorphous a threat. My best guess is that this conversation, as long as it might appear to have been, is really just beginning. The whole of higher education - well, some of the more enlightened parts anyhow - is beginning to shift around these very questions of "being/personal development". It is kind of time for this now. I know that [the college] will not be in the lead - though perhaps I will be presently surprised. I do feel that IMA can be in the lead at [the college] and we need you especially. I need you especially because we have had these conversations, and because you have been so very, very clear in your memos on basic sanity and education and therapy. So, that is where I finally arrived. I am taking this out of the realm of you and me, and the particulars of the MB case, and into where it belongs, which is a program (and college) discussion about the fundamentals of holistic progressive education. There is going to be a lot of disagreement and hashing things out and lots of difference in personal style. But we will eventually come to a much fuller understanding of the "being" criteria. And of the faculty's role in helping a student meet that criterion. Do let me know if this response helps clarify and de-stress. Fondly, Margo] 13 [Justin] el thanks. ferocious gratitude. shared momentum: forthwith! horns bellow in the fog! to the current (waves) ~~~. champing for sleep, no shortage of passion - almost as though the semester's begun of itself. 14 What is it about Monica - listening to her voice on the phone, conference call - What a stupid discussion What stupid leadership A horrible voice - but why - her voice is like thin aluminum foil, hard and crushed - weak - unbearable - when she talks I need to escape - I do escape, I hold the phone away from my ear, I tune out - she stammers away, abstractly, stupidly on and on - [Faculty meeting notes - "personal development" discussion #2 10.19.06 CG: EE did a great job of setting up the questions, and thanks to JS and RL for their follow up responses. JS pointed especially to #6 of EE's questions. What's the burning question that people want to look at most? KC: The Faculty Council is now constructing a faculty handbook and the administration needs even hypothetically to lay out for us some of the cases that they have settled out of court with students who have tried to sue the college, so that we know where the legal stuff happens. And something to that effect should go into the handbook. MR: They may not be able to give us the details, but they may be able to give us some guidelines. You could mention this to Peter Hocking, who is on the faculty handbook committee, on which I also serve. CG: Other questions, issues? KC: I'd want to ask JS, do you have some kind of definition, guidelines for yourself where you know this is therapy and this is not? JS: Yes. To me the question that is most important is what is good teaching. I think that therapy is the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. I don't know and I don't have any sense that anybody I know at [the college] is diagnosing and treating mental illness and in that sense running afoul of boards overseeing the practice of mental health and therapy. On the other hand, I think there is a sense in which any good and positive relationship in our lives has a therapeutic element. Having a good friend is therapeutic; having a good teacher has an element of liberation, of positive feeling, whatever. So, I think that there's a capital T and a small t and they can get muddled together. You can think of the concept of depression. Anybody might say, "Oh I felt so depressed" but that's different than someone saying in a clinical sense, that somebody's experiencing a bout of depression. To some extent I think it's tilting after windmills to try to define therapy and avoid doing it, and I see it much better to say, what is good pedagogy, what is good teaching, what is good advising, and really focus ourselves on that. Then look at that and then say, 'Well, in this area a student could misconstrue that they're being treated for a mental illness or they're being asked to discuss this kind of thing.' KC: Doesn't the question of the advisor's level of disclosure influence that in some way? I think that all of us disclose to some extent in order to encourage a student, but where is the line between where we disclose and where we're doing our own work instead of doing it in the service of the student? LW: Is that really an issue-how much advisors disclose? JS: I think that's an issue of what is good pedagogy, and I think there's a place for it and you could ask the same question about what is good therapy, that there's a certain point where certain kinds of disclosure done in certain ways can be extremely helpful and beneficial in both pedagogy and therapy. I don't think the issue is disclosure itself; it's what's the goal you're aiming for and how do you know if you're getting there, and probably also what are your methods for correcting and attuning what you're doing as you're going along, e.g., if the student feels, 'hey, you asked me this question and I don't want to talk about that; it stirs up whatever.' We may have different ways of dealing with that, but we also need to respect it because if it gets down the line where the student says, 'Well you made me relive all this traumatic experience in my life and I'm more messed up now than I was'... [It's important] that there be some structure around the process; it's not a therapeutic structure; it's not therapy. But it does involve a relationship. CG: The last time we talked we asked, 'What do we see as our role in personal development, what is it we do? Or what is it that we see that we're supposed to do?' This time we said that one of the things we'd be focused on would be drawing that boundary a bit more, with the understanding that we all may draw that boundary differently as far as what's out of our realm. And I think that JS's question put that in a really good frame for us. So, I'll state that again: What is good teaching and pedagogy and advising in regards to the personal development criterion? TK: JS, I found what you said very, very helpful - the distinction between the clinical use of a term and one that's not clinical. And for me, thinking about my years at [the college] and what I've just been through this round with students, intimacy is the key thing that I look at when you say good pedagogy. When there's intimacy, creativity and many good things happen. A student may not want to enter into that relationship but when it happens it's helpful for everybody. And anything that blocks that intimacy, for example if I'm not vulnerable when I write my response, that's not so good; but if I'm a bit vulnerable it's helpful. All those things that we talked about we do differently, but I get nervous when anyone suggests that we can draw a line, especially that the law should draw a line, or that I might think that the student I'm writing to might one day try to sue me or something. That chills the sense of intimacy. EE: I have something to add that I do find chilling. When I was writing up the embodiment studies mission statement and how it all fits into [the college], I said that one of the reasons that it's suitable to [the college] was the intimacy of the advising relationship, and Margo said that I had to take the word intimacy out because admin was nervous and she felt that they would take that word as implying that we were doing something improper. I find that worrying. TK: I'm glad you mentioned that. It was exactly what I feeling. I talk about intimacy; I don't talk about personal development. I have my way of talking; we talk to each other in a certain way. I'm feeling under pressure not to use certain words, and the words I most intentionally use are the ones I shouldn't use, apparently. If there are people in admin who are uncomfortable with what we do, that's a different issue. MR: I might just pop in briefly here to say that I went through my files earlier today and found some very interesting articles that I could scan and send people. These articles reflect on Goddard's history. One of these is a transcription of a talk given by Carl Rogers in 1968 on the implications of psychotherapy for education held at [the college] College: "Significant Learning in Psychotherapy and in Education." He talks about a number of issues - way back in '68. He acknowledges that there are the conditions of learning in psychotherapy and that they may have application in relation to education. All of these have been influential to Goddard's pedagogy. There's the idea of really working with a significant problem that is meaningful to student (or the client), and there's the teacher's realness He says, "this involves the teacher being the person that he is and being openly aware of the attitudes he holds." So there's that about the teacher, but there's also a sense that that's available if it's suitable and helpful to the student, not something that is imposed. Interestingly enough, this is so early on in the game that he never really talks about the potential problems of boundaries. TK: Does he use the word "intimacy"? MR: He does not use the word "intimacy." He talks about "realness." I have another article that is written by Will Hamlin back in 1989-90 about what progressive education means at [the college], in which he traces the different influences including the dynamic psychology coming through from Kubie, developmental psychology and that kind of thing. So, I can make this available to people, and I think that would give us some support for our pedagogy that embraces the whole person and the power of the relationship between learner and mentor. I don't think we have to defend that. But I think the questions then may be more, well, are there ways in which we can understand the role of the teacher, and where the problems of boundary overstepping may take place. Also we might consider, if we think about the work we do, what kind of guidelines do we give ourselves. I think that might be helpful. CG: This gives us a good place to respond to the question: "How do you know what is appropriate in guiding a student's personal development? How do you negotiate those boundaries? What is it that you do as advisor? I bring this up because I know that we all have a very deep understanding between us, but I think that on this issue we may have a little suspicion about each other. I think it would help to understand where each of us is coming from. How do you know what's appropriate or what you should do in guiding a student's personal development? Could we each speak to this question and each just listen to one another? Starting in the high Northeast this time. LW: I don't have any hard and fast rules. It really depends on the student. What I have right now, fresh in my mind, is a student who should be in therapy instead of sending me packets. She's sent me personal writing, and I wrote back to her with suggestions about what she could do to make it work better as a piece of writing, and she wrote back and said I don't need that right now, I just have to get it all out. My feeling is that as a teacher of writing, if the student is not willing to talk about the elements of writing, structure, form ... if the student just wants to get something out on paper, I have no function. There's no way I can help her; we don't have a two-way relationship. And, in her case she was pretty clear that she needs to do it for therapeutic reasons. So, basically, my feeling is ok , do it, but I don't see how this is going count as part of your [the college] work; there's no reflection on the writing, and you don't want feedback on the writing. If the purpose of the writing is to help you come to terms with something in your own life - period - this is not why we're here. For me, in terms of writing, I think it's about the materials. If you are not engaging with the materials of your craft or your art, and if you're refusing to engage with those materials, then what are you doing? In this case, for me, it's nearly therapy and it doesn't belong in an MA program. KC: In other words, you're saying that the student is not learning anything. LW: Yes, that's part of it. CG: So, that's part of how you know what is appropriate. LW: Then there's the other side: there's the woman who's writing about Israel and Palestine, and at the same time she's writing it, she's going through very traumatic personal stuff and has never brought herself into anything she's done. She's fought for every political struggle in the world, except for women. And her traumatic stuff is abuse stuff. I'm trying to encourage her to bring that more into her work because I think the work will be stronger for it, and I think there's an element of escapism, too, in her not having brought it into the work ... maybe escapism isn't the right word. MR: How would you invite her to do that in a way that would be part of the craft of the work, or in terms of the material? LW: I'm not sure this is one that works in terms of the materials, but her conception of the novel has been pretty much along traditional lines, so I'm also encouraging her to think of it as more elastic, to think about experimental writers who do more of a pastiche and could put elements of their own experience into an otherwise fictional piece of writing. So, in that sense, in terms of form and structure ... but this is more about personal development. I think that the reason I would carp on this with her is because she does seem to be someone who really kept herself and her own issues apart; she's done this most of her life. So, for her personal growth, that's what I'm thinking now. CG: Great example. FC: What LW just outlined is very good. I feel very much the same way, that if a student tries to put their personal issues front and center and engage me on that level and that's going to set the pace, I'm very much concerned that they're not addressing what the subject matter is, the academic component and so on. On the other hand, if it's just description, analysis, without their presence in it, then I have a concern that they're not including themselves in the work that they do. It's a very difficult walk, and I think a lot of it has to do with our sensitivity to, interaction with, judgment about and I frankly think there's enough of a consensus among ourselves about how we would respond or not respond. So, I'm not so sure about coming up with general ways in which we can very clearly work and interact with a student and demarcate the boundaries and all the rest of it. I think that when students start to go over the top with the personal thing, and it's just going to turn into a semester for them, or a couple of packets for them that's going to go nowhere, that we try to put the brakes on or we go to the program director. In my own experience, I have not had all that many students who have wanted to engage with therapy with me, so it's not then a big issue with me. TK: It's been so interesting listening to the two of you. I'm going to try to respond by building on that because I'm looking back to years and maybe a hundred advisees, and I think which one would I single out. But you raised two cases: the one who doesn't do the work and the one who doesn't put themselves in the work. I respond to the person in the context of intimacy, and I don't think in terms of personal development. I don't like using the jargon or I prefer my own jargon. If someone is not wanting feedback of any sort, I would not myself say, 'oh this person wants therapy'; in therapy you'd want feedback. LW: No, she didn't want feedback on the writing. She may well want feedback that I'm not willing to give about her healing. TK: Yes, so, this concept of the work seems to be central in how I work with advisees, and somehow I try to deal with writing at the level of first person, second person, third person, with the voice - 'you're talking to me, I found what you said interesting, but you seem to be talking to a general audience. Bear in mind that you have one reader, so why don't you try writing to me' - and that often helps. The person finds their voice; in some cases it's not a big deal; in other cases, it can trigger all sorts of stuff like someone who started writing in Spanish and had a nervous breakdown and went into therapy, and came out the other end and wrote a wonderful MA thesis. So I'm trying to say, in each case, if the intimacy is going in the right direction and things feel authentic to me, that seems good. If the other person is holding back that doesn't feel so good. The most extreme case for me was for someone who wanted to write down dreams. She developed her own theories of memories and dreams and was writing about that. Someone might have looked at that writing and thought it was all about therapy, but it didn't feel like that at the time. She certainly didn't think it was that; she went a long way, and there were no bad results. MR: Some of these examples make me wonder if we need to be clearer in study planning and in the kinds of things that we tell students to include in their packets. I'm not sure in any of these examples whether the students also did some reading or looking at other stuff to balance the personal outpouring. For example, TK in your case, if the student had been reading, for example, Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections, and some theory about that that she applied in relation to her own dreams, it would seem to me that would give it a frame. TK: That's precisely what she was doing. She was reading Jung, Freud, and so on, and developing her own theories alongside. MR: And you're not sitting there interpreting her dreams for her. It seems to me there is a way to work with personal stuff where you are not the interpreter or analyzer, that you can use the other part of the study, where people are reading other theories and having them engage with the theory and see what light that shines on their own experience. It seems to me that maybe a way to hold that kind of personal material, though if it became particularly ...This is not something that I encounter a lot because I don't really encourage it; I have to admit. The students who tend to come to me are not the ones who necessarily want to do deep out flowing of personal writing, for example. I did have one case that was very uncomfortable for me. We were working on the form of the thing, but the content of it was pretty disturbing to me. Working on the form gave a way to hold the thing, but the issue of secondary trauma did occur to me, and I wanted to say, 'why do I have to work with this person who's doing this kind of stuff, why do I have to read this stuff?' but that's a separate issue from what I think we're talking about. I think that this program, by naming that degree criterion "personal development" has really taken it to a farther step than I remember in the discussions of "knowing, doing, and being" that we had back in the '80s and maybe early '90s with Jack Lindquist and others. We had Mary Belenky giving talks about things. I think my understanding of the "being" part came more from her sense of "constructed knowing," where she says that "knowledge is understood to be constructed, and the knower is seen to be shaping the known, and the goal is to understand the context out of which ideas arise and take responsibility for examining, evaluating, and developing systems of thought, to care about thinking and think about caring." So my understanding of that criterion was more about the theory, practice, synthesis - and the integration of knowledge into one's own framework. So, this idea of taking it beyond that into the domain of ... to call it personal development ... I'm trying to sit with that; I'm trying to get more comfortable with that concept as I listen to all of you. Of course, we want to see someone behaving ethically in their actions in the world, and integrating in that kind of way. So, I think I'm trying to come to that point of not being a little nervous about that phrase, but I have to admit that I have been. CG: KC, how do you know what's appropriate in guiding a student's personal development? KC: I think I don't. I have to say it's a crap shoot. I would start with an extreme personality like XXX who drove us nuts and who behaved very insanely. It's very hard. All I can say is that when I came onto this faculty, seven years ago, I was dealing with students who had been ditched by most members of the faculty as hopeless and I managed to turn them around by sheer bullying and a lot of humor. But apparently that doesn't work anymore at [the college]. From my experience, I've got people who are so fragile that I can't afford to do the kind of talk that I did then, and I'm finding myself very strapped in the way I'm responding to packets. I'm not myself certainly; I'm always aware that every one of my answers to students are the property of the college. LW: KC, you've been worked up about this issue. KC: Yeah, I am worked up about this issue. LW: Is it because of the college ... I've never been clear whether it's the college's attitude or whether it's coming from you. KC: I was Miss Innocent when I came on the faculty here. And I just blasted away at students in my own jolly way and apparently managed to do so. But as the years have progressed, I've been feeling that every one of my emails to students is the college's property, and that I'd better be careful what I say and I'm having a hard time with it. LW: Excuse me, if I had to monitor what I say to students because of the fear that the college would come down on me for being too intimate, or too pushy, I'd be furious. Is that how you feel while you're writing your packet letters? KC: Yes, that is how I feel these days. LW: But why, what's given you that impression? KC: Simply because I've run into a couple of students who've been major problems one way or another, and my responses to them at the time were very much me doing my best, and yet if I looked back upon them and they went to court, what would I do with those responses? Would they be deemed "irresponsible" by some lawyer? CG: Let's move to JS. How do you know what to do when guiding student's personal development? JS: I like what people have said. I think focus is on the work, rather than the person. And so you're responding to what is important in the work. Sometimes the personal piece is missing, and sometimes another kind of context is missing. I think the notion of engaging the student in a dialogue is very good. So as LW was saying about a student who just wants to spill, that doesn't feel like academic work or self-development, for that matter. I wouldn't think that's personal development. Again, I wrote a little bit about how I think about personal development as encountering the implicit self as opposed to explicit self. Basically I think about giving the students an option 'You could go here in your work, or it looks like this is missing.' I try to raise questions that they will engage with rather than making judgments about their work and what they're doing and not doing. So, I think that's how I try to approach the idea of self-development: give them options and things they can reach for and go for, to explore or look at in a supportive environment, also in the context of reading what other people are doing that may be related to what they're thinking about - that kind of thing. CG: RL, how do you know what to do, what's appropriate when guiding a student's personal development? RL: I don't see that as my role. I see my role as guiding the student's academic development. But in the course of that, maybe personal issues come up that need to be addressed. But, I tend to feel much in the way MR expressed, or how I interpret what she said. It's not my goal at the outset to guide their personal development. It's to guide them as students engaged in an academic program. However, as I said, the issue of personal development will often come up. I don't tend to get students who have this high on their agenda, so it doesn't come up for me a large number of times. In terms of my work with environmental studies, I think it's really important that people think about how they are situated as a person in relation to the work that they're doing, and I will work hard to encourage them to reflect upon that. That is an essential part of the identity essay. The kind of examples that EE gave in the last question #6 I think are right on target as to what is appropriate for us to be involved in and the question for me that I have to keep in mind as I'm working with students on that level, is "When is it time to back off?," at what point do I stop pushing an agenda that I'm bringing to the student?" I think that, in large part, is part of the craft of teaching. There's a judgment call there. If the student has deeply personal issues, at what point do I say, "I'm not the person to deal with these, and there's a point at which we need to bring in somebody who can deal with that. This is not an area in which I have much background.' So, I tend to see my work within the context of understanding the student's approach to their studies, approach to knowledge, and when pushing students to grow academically, the personal stuff is going to come up. But I don't seek out the personal aspects of it until they emerge from the academic content. EE: It's a complicated question for me because I don't really believe in the distinction between intellectual and personal work. It's partly because my professional contexts have been art and philosophy. I have such a strong sense of how in both of those areas the work is screwed up because of lack of personal work, how there can be centuries of totally wrong-headed philosophy promulgated because people have been holding on to certain kinds of dissociation for all those centuries. And so that distinction, I don't think .... I think that every student is presenting their own mixture of what they're willing to know, what they're not willing to know; what they're willing to feel, what they're not willing to feel, and sometimes a student may have been doing excellent work of the kind where they can synthesize whole bodies of reading and they can make a framework, and they're really good. But if they've come out of, say, two semesters of that and they come to me and I'm sensing that they would like to find out their own root, what it is about this topic that is their root into it, then I don't feel that it's illegitimate for them to spend the entire semester doing what some people would call personal work, because I feel that that is the only way they're going to get their head clear in the academic. In my experience it does happen that way, and that's probably as much as I need to say at the moment. LW: Can I ask you a question? In the situation that I described in which the student was spilling and not wanting feedback, would you just let a student like that do what she needed to do and not .... EE: Well, quite honestly, if I knew something about the area in which she was troubled, I would say to her, "In my experience, this and this," if she was doing something that wasn't working; but if I felt that she was really engaging with it and I felt like I had something to add, I wouldn't hold back from doing it. MR: May I ask a question? At what time would you suggest that somebody might need to get outside help? EE: Oh, I think that if they're doing anything deep, I would ask them off the top if they have a therapist. And I would suggest that they ought not to be doing it with me unless they did have a therapist. CG: My perspective draws on a lot of what other people have said. I feel like my role is, first of all, to encourage students to be very curious about whatever they're learning, whether it has to do with themselves, or some ... I feel pretty strongly about being very hands off when it comes to labeling what they're learning, and encourage them to find a way to name it, and to say what it means. It's kind of like if someone were telling me a dream that's very, very meaningful to them, I would think that they would have most of the keys as to why that dream is meaningful. And so, I draw those boundaries, and like Ellie, if someone wants to do deep work, I'm pretty blatant about suggesting that they get therapy or see clergy, whether it's the Zen center or the Catholic church, or find some type of outside help. I'm also pretty explicit with students about how I am not in a therapeutic role and I set very clear boundaries, for the most part, just for advising groups. Then I feel that because the boundaries are so clear, it really allows me to work with students with a lot of intimacy, too. And it's the intimacy that comes most of all from just listening deeply to someone. That kind of creates its own kind of intimacy, and also being very mindful of not imposing my agenda on him or her I sometimes give examples from my life, but they're short snippets. And I sometimes find myself writing examples and then going back over my letter when I edit, taking out most of what I just wrote. One of the things I'm always aiming to avoid is any situation where a student would feel that he or she needs to take care of me. Sometimes that's really tricky because you get these people who really want to take care of you. But they're basically driving their own personal development, and although I'm probably one of us who sees that up close, particularly if they're sharing journal entries or deep creative writing, like Ellie says, sometimes they have to go through the personal to get to what they're doing. I also try to look at what LW talked about, which is 'you're sharing this about your life; how does this relate to your work right now? Is this something that you just had to put out and have me witness, but not really packet work per se, and now you're going to go on and do what you need to do, or is this something that's going to directly inform what it is you're going to create?' Then I can talk about it as a process. But most of all I feel like I'm here to hold this container; it is a very intimate container, but it's the container for them to name and claim what it is they're doing. Well we're at the end of time, where do we want to go from here? LW: Thank each other for sharing. CG: It was great to hear what people think. LW: I think it was just a beginning. CG: A blatant suggestion I just wanted to throw out: in TLA we changed the term from "personal TLA practice" to "individual TLA practice" because so many people interpreted the "personal" as being my personal psychological practice, and we all got tired of reading about that. So, we might want to toy with the idea of changing "personal development" to "individual development." EE: What is it we're being nervous about "personal" - why would we want to take the personal out? LW: I think that's a very good question. Why don't we just shelve that question for next time. TK: There's the content of what we've said, the way in which we've said things to each other; everyone did this very thing we said we want our students to do. I find that thrilling. We take it for granted but that's walking the walk. JS: Is there anybody who believes that we shouldn't have a degree criterion called "personal development" - maybe not take that up for tonight but ... KC: Now that a faculty handbook is being created, all this stuff is relevant ... Would appreciate any thoughts you could pass on to the folks who are on that committee. MR: One of the questions that I would like us to consider at some point: in the products that we receive from students - and this may be related to the terminology and how people understand "personal development" - are we getting what we want, or is it something else? Are our students misinterpreting that and giving something else? So, that would be another means to help guide our course in this discussion. TK: You did us a good service by invoking Carl Rogers, because Carl Rogers gives us a language in which to talk about the things that we actually do and I think there's going to be a danger in the coming months that we will revisit the word "personal" or there's been a lot of work done in trying to find the language for this criterion and then there's what we actually do which isn't quite captured by that language. Perhaps Carl Rogers is a better way to talk about it. I'd like to not let that get taken off the table. MR: So, would people like me to scan those articles? TK, KC, FC: Yes, it will give us language, give us a vocabulary. MR: Right, and it will also support us in what we're doing. But I must say I was also very interested, JS, in your suggestions about the new Bowlby (Alan Shore). Do you have any good articles about that, or chapters that you could share with us? JS: Well, he's got three 600-page books. If there's something I can come up with I will, but I'm not sure. MR: Well, if there's anything you could share with us from that point of view it sounds interesting, and current. Thank you, Caryn, for facilitating so beautifully, and everyone else for very thoughtful comments.] -
Ferrer sez vs 'mind-centred' = text-based, language-based, theoretical discourse, abstract description, segregated language hemisphere comprehensive graduation 'verticality,' integration Ferrer says "not personal healing but multidimensional inquiry and the collaborative construction of knowledge" Integration of what? not 'parts' - faculties, capacities, functions transformation altered mode of functioning Kri aikido - concrete, exact, alive, present Can speech have attention to the moment that aikido has? Can thinking? A way of doing anything and sensing More of the verticality she craves in every moment of education Rogers on psychotherapy and education - real contact with significant problems of his or her existence teacher who's congruent unconditional positive regard accurate empathetic communication successful communication goal to establish a relationship and context in which self actualization is possible 1950s at [the college], 10 years of discussion of relation of progressive education and psychotherapy report 1963 expanded notion of whole person to include 'unconscious processes' Women's ways of knowing former fac members - I then and there felt the galvanic circuit of thought close. Alexander Hamilton friends with Wordsworth extraordinarily rigorous intuition about the physical world, which he was able to express through remarkable uses of existing mathematics flair for the right philosophical standpoint [said of Einstein] 15 I'm in a KFC, Friday late aft, Clairemont, drinking pink lemonade thirstily. What's new - ticket for VT - ticket to Van - Louie brokering housesit at Esther and Richard's, for just the date I arrive. 16
17 Sunday morning. Tom seemed stupider than he has been lately. He was singing. Something on TV would start him on a song and he'd go through verses of it - he sings badly - I'd have to hear the words I was expecting relentlessly pronounced. He comments on newspaper stories when I'm reading next to him and I don't listen but he goes on without noticing. Dumb remarks. Is he using. Book says yes. I could snoop when he's at work. If I found something, then what. Take my chance to move. How. Not say anything to him, go to Vancouver, fly back at the end of the summer and not tell him. Buy a Cherokee, load it, drive somewhere. Where? Somewhere I could afford. Somewhere with warm winters. Somewhere I'd want to settle and dig in. Or.
What would I like to be like. The usual, goodlooking, strong, energized, smart, loving, effective, surprised, deep, secure. But what daily mind, of all the minds I know - I dreamed this morning that Jayem had done something she was proud of, a good performance, and came and flopped down beside me on the couch. I nuzzled my shoulder against her to say hello, welcome back. 18 What happened. Sunday morning on Tom's couch something on TV about Fathers' Day. I say "In grade 9 I got the medal for the highest marks in the county, I got a full scholarship to college, I got my PhD, my dad never once said ..." "Well done." "Yes." Silence. Tom changed the subject. "Can you give me a little more than that," I say. "You're always complaining about your dad" Tom says shortly. "I've never said that to you before" I say. "You say it all the time." I'm crushed. I walk into the kitchen. I get my things together out of sight. The French doors are open. I can leave before he realizes. I drive to Ocean Beach, antique store, lunch, beach. I'm not seeing much, dark and compressed. I know Tom is going to apologize and realize but I want to use this fearful hurt to look at my options, I want to hang onto it for a while. It's been good with Tom but I'm afraid I won't be able to jump if I'm with him. I've been a good jumper, it's been one of my advantages. (I could say that to him, I thought, and sighed.) Maybe there's another way to do it, maybe we could evolve into our changes. In a way, that has happened. I evolved into putting the journal up. At Starbucks, sun burning into my skin. I can write if I wear my shades. This morning I read the front pages of GW20-25. I so like them. The front pages taken together are something on their own. But who would read them, I'm holding that question the whole time I'm reading. I think of people I admire, it could be my gift to them. Le Guin, Tiles. But what about the other thing that keeps me from moving, a scruple it might be, maybe a right scruple. I am going to put up a gardens page - working on the design.
fading volume 13: 2007 may-september |
