Field trip...

8 October 2024: If I weren't so very tired, I would write something eloquent about the trip our GWST class took to DC today, visiting the White House, meeting with two young women who work there, and then getting a tour of the Museum of Women in the Arts. But I am very tired at the end of what has been a heck of an eleven-day endurance trial. 

The short version: it was a great day. 

Never gets old...

12 June 2024: So delighted to receive this in the mail today. (I think it actually arrived last week, but I kept forgetting to carry the package down to my office from the mail room and open it...)

Coming soon...

23 May 2024: This one's been a long time coming, but it was really cool to see proof in my inbox.

On snapping, missing male students, and other laughs...

22 January 2020: I'm having a heck of a fun time teaching my Gender and Women's Studies/Honors Seminar on gender and humor. Here's a sample exchange to illustrate why:

Me: Did the male student who just added [on Friday] disappear?
Student: Did both of the boys disappear?
Other student: Did we scare them away.
[Pause...]
Third student [quietly]: Oops.

Amazing.

Also today in class, on some sort of weird tangent, I was listing things I've never been able to do, including hit a three-pointer, tie my shoes the normal way, snap my fingers, and whistle. I also told them that anytime you tell people that those last two (especially snapping), they immediately begin doing it, as if to make you feel extra inadequate. After class, a student sent me this clip (of Peppa Pig being upset about not being able to whistle) which delighted me.

So yeah...good class!

Last day of GWST...

13 December 2018: What an inspiring final session of GWST we had today! The students discussed their overall experiences in the class and their reflection papers. Our main aim in our revisions to the class this semester was to get them to see themselves as agents of change in the world. We added a service learning requirement to the class and made some other changes. And today? Well, it sounds like it worked as student after student talked about seeing herself as someone who could make a difference, no matter how small And rather than stay discouraged by setbacks, they are determined to keep going. Amazing.

Wrapping up GWST...

29 November 2018: I taught my last solo-section of the Gender and Women's Studies class today, wrapping up by looking at some poems by contemporary LGBTQ+ writers. The students especially loved talking about "Dear Gaybashers," which is a fun, proud, and silly (in a good way) response to a ridiculous act of hate. Selected lines from our discussion:

"I mean, they are RAW hot dogs, which is so much worse."
"I just think...floppy."
"No. I get that part. That's just about dildos. It's this part I don't get..."

Ha!

We read these poems, too.

What fun it has been to work with these students on my third of the class this semester! They are bright, creative, open, and just an all-around good group. And when they talk about these kinds of topics, they give me such hope.

Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?

24 October 2018: Big thoughts swirling around my head these days, tinging a bit darker thanks to our Gender and Women's Studies class's visit to the women's prison in Maryland. It's the fourth time I've gone and it only gets harder each visit.

Back on campus, I found myself trying to get ahead on plans for my Young Adult Literature class, where we start YA poetry next week. What a treat to go back to Kenneth Koch's Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? and be reminded of what kids can do with great poetry. (Koch's book is about younger children than we address in my class, but his basic ideas transfer.)

Here's just one that stood out to me today, by Andrew Vecchione, who was in 5th grade, I think, when he wrote this (probably 50 years ago). It's inspired by Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning."

"Love is a Scissor"
Love is a like a scissor
When it's together it's happy
When it's apart it's sad
When it's rusty it has a sore throat.

Andrew gets it.

#Squadgoals

29 January 2018: At the end of a long day, it was quite nice to come home and find this waiting in my mailbox. And it is so cool to share the credit with my co-authors, two of the best colleagues I have at Shepherd.

Off it goes!

8 June 2017: "All done." --my friend Amy today, as she hit the button submitting the final version of our article, accepted for publication in Feminist Teacher.

Always a sweet moment to hit "send" on that final version of a publication, but this one--in a great journal, on a topic I really love, written with a fantastic colleague and friend--is a different flavor of sweet. And working with someone else like this--when writing is so often a solitary activity for me--involved so much listening, so today's post really hits this year's theme.

Re-reading Cranford

"'It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor,' said Miss Matty softly, as we settled ourselves in the counting-house. 'I only hope it is not improper; so many pleasant things are!'" Cranford, Chapter 4.

We have reached our penultimate book in my Women's Studies Seminar, Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford. I haven't read it since I was in grad school, although I did watch the BBC series a few years back. I remembered really enjoying it, but it's been lovely dropping back into it again. I think it's making me laugh more than in my previous reads, too. I hope the students like it, too.