rhetoricat

When I saw this article in the New York Times, my first thought was: What about the kids who don’t have laptops? Happily, I discovered during the reading of the article that the school being discussed–Empire High School outside of Tucson– had started issuing laptops instead of textbooks in 2005.  In other words, all students have laptops that enable them to take advantage of the available WiFi. Because the school serves many of the exurbs of Tucson students spend hundreds of hours on the bus each year (and we all know how long drives make us cranky). As a better illustration of  why students spend so much time on the bus:

The Vail District, with 18 schools and 10,000 students, is sprawled across 425 square miles of subdivision, mesquite and mountain ridges southeast of Tucson.

School officials came up with the idea during their own long drives in which they took turns driving so that they could work on their laptops during the ride.

Karen Cator, director of education technologyat the federal Department of Education, said the buses were part of a wider effort to use technology to extend learning beyond classroom walls and the six-hour school day.

Apparently the result of the change has been largely positive. “Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.” And while not all students use their laptops for homework at all times (not so surprising), they are still occupied and, in my opinion, still learning how to use technology to behave in more constructive ways.

And for those who argue that technology keeps people from enjoying the simple pleasures of the world, I leave you with this:

A ride through mountains on a drizzly afternoon can be unpredictable, even on the Internet Bus. Through the windows on the left, inky clouds suddenly parted above a ridge, revealing an arc of incandescent color.

“Dude, there’s a rainbow!” shouted Morghan Sonderer, a ninth grader.

A dozen students looked up from their laptops and cellphones, abandoning technology to stare in wonder at the eastern sky.

“It’s following us!” Morghan exclaimed.

“We’re being stalked by a rainbow!” Jerod said.

Well, technically it’s already Saturday, but I forgot my new resolution to post interesting links that I’ve happened upon during the week but didn’t have a chance to post. I didn’t originally choose a specific theme, but the world of academia seems to be a constant.

• How to complete your PhD (or any large project): Hard and soft deadlines, and the Martini Method is an interesting blog entry written by Shane at Academic Productivity. The title is fairly self-explanatory and certainly relevant to me at the moment.
• University social media policies makes an interesting point about how expectations for discussing topics online differ from those expectations in the F2F world. Specifically, Kevin Gamble of High Touch explores the issues confronting those of us who do not obscure our identity online when commenting, blogging, etc. and how we may be viewed as representatives of our university.
• Writing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy for the Academic Job Search contains tips from Tomorrow’s Professor’s Blog, a collaborative resource developed by MIT and Stanford.
• Cal Newport’s category Tips: Paper Writing at Study Hacks. Some of these posts may become required reading for my students.

Hope everyone finds these edifying!

The notoriously awful 4chan, home of Anonymous, has been blocked by Verizon. (From what I understand this is only on their wireless network, but I’m not entirely sure.) Regardless, as much as I truly hate them and their misogynistic tenets and peculiar ideas about what constitutes “lulz.,” I can’t condone any type of censorship. The following article on Gizmodo provides more information.

Verizon Has Blocked Access To 4chan, But What Are They Gonna Do About It? – Verizon 4chan – Gizmodo.

To read more about Anonymous and their oh-so-unimpressive exploits, check out my paper, “Healing as (We)blog in a ‘Show Tits’  or ‘GTFO’ World”. (Not my best work, but it gives a general overview.) You might also want to check out the digital version of my poster session–“A Rape Culture in Cyberspace”.

According to a recent book by Susan Clancy, The Trauma Myth, childhood sexual abuse is not traumatizing. In fact, according to Clancy, children may even enjoy it. Let me begin with this caveat: I have not actually read Clancy’s book. I read the Salon.com interview discussing her book. While Clancy is clear to point out that sex with children is a crime, her primary argument is that it does not result in trauma or PTSD. This is the “myth” she is referring to. According to Clancy

Most victims do not understand they are being victimized, because they are too young to understand sex, the perpetrators are almost always people they know and trust, and violence or penetration rarely occurs.

My first response to this is: of course they don’t understand that they are being victimized, they’re children and since, as Clancy notes, the abuse is usually perpetrated by people (and I would add “adults”) that they trust, they may very well think that it’s normal. Not consciously knowing that one is being victimized is quite distinct from the reality of being victimized. Many children who experience physical abuse at the hands of parents are also frequently unaware that they are being victimized. Quite simply, if it is the norm in their household, they assume that it is the norm in all households. Does this make the abuse less “wrong” or traumatizing? Furthermore, I wonder how Clancy defines “violence.” I would argue that all acts of sexual abuse are violent by nature. Perhaps these children aren’t being beaten, but they are certainly being coerced and forced to do something that they cannot freely consent to.

According to her interview, Clancy does believe that childhood sexual abuse is harmful but that the resulting psychological state is not traumatic. She cites the fact that few people seek treatment for the abuse in adulthood and that most of them first describe the experience as “confusing,” which she says is “a far cry from trauma.” She also notes that shame is part of the reason people don’t come forward about their sexual abuse. This is one of the few points that we agree on. However, Clancy argues that the shame isn’t so much a result of the abuse but rather that victims don’t see their responses as consistent with what they see portrayed in the media and pop culture. In other words, their response to the abuse isn’t identical to cinematic representations, etc. I disagree. The shame does not come from the fact that their responses may be different from those of others (although that may be a factor; I can’t say since I’ve seen no research on this) but is instead the result of feeling as though they are somehow to blame for the abuse.

I’m trying to not have a knee-jerk reaction to her argument, but knowing what I know makes that difficult. I’m sure that this is something I share with other researchers and survivors. Unfortunately, many of the comments posted on the Salon site reflect agreement with her argument. Certainly there are those who disagree and they have posted their refutations, but I am saddened by the number of people who dismiss the traumatizing effects of childhood sexual abuse.

In all honestly, I will probably not read Clancy’s book. I have neither the time nor inclination. This is a song that, sadly, I have heard before.

And when I say fight, I mean research and write. For me, fighting (in the sense of working to accomplish something) is particular to who I am–a scholar, a writer, a teacher. As many of you know (or will discover from reading my blog), my research deals with psychological trauma. I research trauma because I believe that the people who have experienced trauma matter. That they deserve to have their voices heard. That their experiences have not been in vain.

While watching a rerun of one of my favorite television shows, Criminal Minds, something important occurred to me. My research focuses on those who experience what I call “personal” traumas. All trauma is personal, so when I say “personal trauma” I mean people who have experienced trauma as a result of individual acts of violence like sexual assault, childhood abuse, and domestic violence. One of the reasons that I focus on them is because of the stigma that is still associated with these traumas. For a long time all traumas and their aftermath, PTSD, were stigmatizing. Soldiers returning from war were seen as malingerers rather than as victims of the trauma of war. Since Vietnam PTSD has become a recognized psychological disorder and since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is greater public awareness of psychological trauma and with that awareness comes less stigma. However, it is important to note that the lessening of stigma does not alleviate the pain of trauma. The pain is real; it remains a living memory that haunts the individual who has experienced it. People who experience trauma during “public” acts of violence, like war and terrorist events such as 9/11, are more accepted as “real” sufferers. Their stories are less taboo, and their experiences tend to be validated more. Validation certainly helps. In fact, validation and awareness help to alleviate some of the sense of alienation felt by those who have experienced trauma. In spite of that, the reality of the trauma and the suffering that it engenders does not go away.

The fact that I focus on personal traumas and thus do not focus on the trauma of war compels me to write this post. While I am not researching and writing about soldiers and veterans who blog about trauma, their experiences are not unimportant to me. In fact, one of the reasons that my dissertation deals with blogging about trauma is due to reading the blogs of soldiers and talking to them. My original dissertation idea actually focused on veterans. I wanted to study narrative ability in people who’ve experienced trauma, and I hoped to conduct my study through the VA. Unfortunately, my qualifications do not include a PhD in Psychology, and the IRB isn’t keen on letting rhetoricians study protected populations. As a result, I returned to an earlier research idea conceived when I began stumbling on trauma blogs. I was researching blogging and continuing my research on trauma when the two somehow converged. I became interested in this counterpublic (to use Michael Warner‘s term) who were loosely connected through their strategic use of blogging. The subgenre of the trauma blog became the research topic for my dissertation, yet I chose to exclude the blogs of those traumatized as a result of war or terrorist attacks. Partly this was practical, I needed to limit the number of blogs that I used in my analysis. The other reason for this choice was more ideological in nature. Drawing attention to those who speak out about traumas that are still highly stigmatized will hopefully lessen the stigma or, at the very least, draw attention to these survivors brave enough to speak out.

In the future I hope to apply the same research strategies to the blogs written by veterans.

As a photographer and self-proclaimed lover of snow, I found this PBS article interesting. (Not to mention cleverly titled: “Winter Forecast: Art to Blanket Region” –especially given the hyperbolic language of recent Weather Channel forecasts in which the “epic” snowstorm was discussed ad nauseum.) In 1885 Wilson Bentley was the first person to ever photograph a snowflake and I don’t mean in the beautiful fluttery “I’m in a snow globe” sense. Mr. Bentley ingeniously found a way to “jury rig” (as the article author describes it) his camera and microscope enabling him to photograph, in detail, a single snowflake. And, according to the article, Bentley photographed more than 5,000 snowflakes before his death in 1915.

Bentley was a pioneer in the world of photomicrography and his techniques have been used since. I was particularly impressed by the fact that Bentley was self-educated and by his dedication. By all accounts it took him years to get the microscope-camera combination right. Then there’s the brilliance of the idea–what prompted him to want to photograph a snowflake. Granted, having grown up on a farm in Vermont, he certainly had a lot of time to contemplate snow. Still, I am intrigued by the mental process that led him to photographing snowflakes. Perhaps it’s the rhetorician in me, but I want to know the motivation that led to the act. Perhaps part of the answer is in this quote:

“Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind.”

Well, regardless of motive, the act itself is most impressive. I suppose we can thank Bentley for our knowledge that no single snowflake is identical to any other, truly amazing given the sheer number of snowflakes that have fallen on this earth.

One question remains: how did he keep them from freezing? I can’t find any lengthy description of his process. Extreme cold temperatures should have interfered with the camera equipment. Any illumination (if you will) would be appreciated.

Photo credit: Wilson Bentley’s work is in the public domain and this photograph was copied from a website in his honor SnowflakeBentley.com

For some time now I’ve been trying to implement the system known as “GTD” or “Getting Things Done.” Created by productivity expert (isn’t it awesome that we’ve become so incredibly busy that we now need experts in how to get things done productively?) David Allen, GTD has been written about exhaustively in the blogosphere as well as in print and electronic media. In fact, after the publication of Allen’s book Getting Things Done, the concept went viral, moving swiftly from the intended audience–business professionals–to the world of IT and other techno-geeks like me and then continuing to expand outward. Not surprisingly, given its popularity (which has reached almost cult-like status) among the techno-geek population, GTD has inspired a multitude of software programs and GTD-centric blogs. Since I read Allen’s book about three years ago, I have been trying (on and off) to implement the system with limited and certainly sporadic success. Given my research on cognition and writing and given what I’ve read  in the scholarship that explains how we process information in decidedly different ways when writing as opposed to thinking and speaking, I thought that writing about my process might prove helpful. At the same time, it seems that exploring the cognitive value of GTD, which relies primarily on writing to achieve maximum effectiveness, might prove useful in giving me the final push that I need to successfully integrate the system into my life.

To begin, a brief explanation of the system seems in order. GTD relies on the principle that we have limited storage space in our brain and that much of that space is being inefficiently used. Our “wet” hard drives, or brains, are filled with information that could be stored elsewhere. This information could be as mundane as “I need bread” or as significant as “how am I going to get tenure.” (Remember–I am looking at this from the perspective of an academic.) Allen asserts that while we have all of these ideas bouncing in and out of our consciousness and being stored in our subconscious, we are unable to focus and actually accomplish the tasks needed to achieve these task and goals. His solution: write it all down. Sound familiar, fellow academics? And when he says “write it all down,” he means “write it ALL down”–every single thing in your brain no matter how small or large. Once everything is out of your head, it gets processed and organized into simple tasks, projects, goals, etc. Once everything is organized, you set up a system to keep it that way by continuing to collect information and process it on a regularly scheduled basis.  [For a real introduction to GTD, check out Merlin Mann's Getting Started with "Getting Things Done" (which contains a multitude of other links and posts), David Allen's definition of GTD, the Business Week excerpt from Getting Things Done, and/or Wikipedia article on Getting Things Done]

Early Attempts to Get Things Done

My firsts attempts at implementing GTD included the filling of pages and pages on a legal pad, creating a set of GTD folders in my email inbox and on my computer desktop, and experimenting with a seemingly endless array of GTD applications. My first crucial error: getting overly absorbed in finding the right GTD software app. I spent so much time searching for, downloading, and experimenting with apps that I totally forgot to implement the system. To be fair, this is not an unusual problem for me. I do get entranced by new technologies and spend an abundance of time finding the “right” one. However, to be equally fair, this inevitably works to my advantage, helping me to better understand user needs and ultimately “hacking” a system so that it works best for me and in the case of teaching technologies, for fellow instructors and our students. Unfortunately, this was not the case with GTD. I couldn’t decide on one application and attempted to use them all simultaneously resulting in a system that I could not depend on. My mind was not at ease. On the contrary, it seemed more confused than ever.

Once I abandoned the quest for the perfect application, the confusion improved and I was able to implement some of the techniques. This is fairly typical for me. I am a self-help junkie (though only for self-help books that focus on organization and time management). I am a naturally disorganized person, which results in an unhealthy fascination with and extreme dedication to being organized. As a result I am an obsessive micromanager and constantly struggling macromanager. In some situations, this is quite beneficial. When it comes to organization as a teacher and in some ways as an academic, my detail-oriented nature is helpful. When it comes to overall peace of mind and organization in other aspects of my world, it results in constant struggle. Still, my continued devotion to learning about organizational strategies has been beneficial; with each system I learn about, I extract at least a few techniques and integrate them into my everyday life. Each system that I read about and attempt to implement improves my level of organization. GTD has been similarly helpful. At the same time it has been more frustrating than the other systems I’ve attempted. Specifically, the other systems seemed in many ways counter-intuitive and ultimately incompatible with my personality and my profession (most systems were created for 9-5 business folks not academics). On the other hand, GTD seems quite intuitive and meshes both with my personality and profession. So, why is it so difficult for me to integrate it into my life?

Unrealistic Expectations

Ultimately, the most difficult part of the implementation process is the “Jesus factor.” I expect the system to save me from all the difficulties of my life if I simply accept it as my savior. (Caveat: I know this isn’t really how Christians believe that people are “saved through Christ” but that it is the misconception, thus it fits well with my own. So, please, no offense to Christians meant.) In other words, the work part of it gets overlooked, especially the reality that it takes time to effectively implement any system. I want to jump straight past the collection of everything and just start using the system. As a result, I still have a lot of brain space filled with unimportant information or at least information that could be more effectively stored elsewhere. One aspect of this relates back to my previous issue–I can’t decide on what tools I should use. So, I just chose one and jumped straight into using it. My most recent attempt follows this model.

Merging Unrealistic Expectations into Software Applications

Now, on the one hand, I seem to have found a fairly good software application and am having some success in using it. Things is a task management/to do/organization application for Mac that is designed using the GTD methodology. Software designed based on an organizational system isn’t an entirely new phenomenon. I know that at the very least software has been designed for the Franklin Covey system.  GTD, however, has gone (as one of my favorite tv characters would say) “crazy viral.” In other words, there are already tons of apps designed specifically for GTD and even more that have been hacked to use the methodology. As with all applications, this has been done to varying degrees of success. Since I’ve tried out quite a few of them, I feel fairly confident in recommending Things.

Ultimately, Things allows me to create tasks on the fly (using a keyboard shortcut), set up projects, tag tasks based on what I need to complete them, include notes for the task, assign due dates, set up recurring tasks, and set areas of focus. So far I’m not utilizing Things to its utmost potential. For example, Things allows you to set up “horizons of focus” –areas of responsibility in your life. Right now I’m using tags to divide tasks by my various roles (e.g., “teaching,” “scholarship,” etc.). I am, however, collecting to do items as they occur to me (at least while I’m at my computer, which is most of the time) and filing them under projects as is appropriate. The projects that I have currently defined might be more accurately represented as “horizons of focus” under the GTD methodology. For example, I have “English 420 Spring 2010″ as a project, which is rather broad, as are other projects such as “job search” and “professional development.” Still, for right now these seem to be serving their purpose and since time is an issue, I’ll continue to use them until I have some extra time to learn the other ways of organizing these tasks/projects. One of the functions that I find most useful is the tagging feature. I use David Allen’s “contexts” for these. Specifically, I tag tasks based on where I need to be in order to complete them. “Do laundry,” for instance, would be tagged “@home,” while “pick up dry cleaning” would be tagged “@errands” and “pay credit card bill” would be tagged “@online.” Using those tags, I can sort items that I need to do  when I actually can do them. This keeps me from constantly looking at items like “do laundry” while I’m in my office on campus or at a coffee shop.

So far, so good. More to come… In my next post I’ll discuss how GTD works for academics and is particularly adaptable to organizing writing and research.

The following is an Animoto film representing Toni Morrison’s concept “rememory” as presented in the novel, Beloved. “Rememory” is the idea that past experiences are never really gone. Like traumas, they are types of living memory, and as Morrison’s character, Sethe explains, you can “bump into” someone else’s rememory.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Great news from The Library of Congress–they’re exploring ways to release open source software. Check it out on their website here.

While researching the use of Facebook in the classroom (I’m trying to find a way to create a version of my profile that allows me to be friends with my students while limiting the information that they can see and allowing them to limit the information that I can see. Not finding a way without creating an entirely new profile) I ran across an article about clear violations of free speech with regards to students using social media. Am I talking about posting status updates in the classroom? The use of disruptive technologies? Nope. I’m talking about a coach who required a student to provide said coach with her Facebook account information (including password), reading her private messages, and then penalizing her for the use of inappropriate language in her messages. Wow, I guess if you’re under eighteen freedom of speech isn’t allowed, even in the private sphere. Read about it at Citizen Media Law Project.