Beware false solidarity.

Es algo que me he luchado entender, de verdad

!!!!

If this is your reaction, how can you say that you love "God" or any other person?!?

eso motherfucker!!!

Yes!

As is the case for so many indigenous peoples in North America (and beyond), they are not past. Nahuatl, and the Nahua people who speak it, are still present in Mexico. Their roots are ancient, but they are not past.

And what exactly do we mean, as teachers, when we say we're putting pedagogy first? What types of exercises might we do to identify and evaluate our pedagogical values and practices?

It's crucial to remember not to "conflate one's identity with one's position." I'm serving as an interpreter for faculty with administration in my position as associate dean. I'm not the associate dean in terms of identity. This feels different than the way people take on faculty service--that tends to be more conflated with identity. Should it be?

If anyone comes back to this between now and when we complete the second section of Unit 5, we'll be reading some of the archival records from the Mechem Papers then*

Would the case of La Ascensión in 1892 fit this criterion? (Hernández's essay on "Violence as Communication") Or, is terror dependent on what type of message is intended to be conveyed?

Do these just get piled on?

Does this work?

Is part of the reason for this "disconnect" that they don't envision themselves playing active roles in larger communities (state, national, global)?

How else might students report/evaluate their findings? Digital platforms? Interactives? Games?

This is a good set of "big questions" to consider for our History program. What others would we add/how might we refine these?

And, in addition to thinking about how historical study can help us imagine the future, how can we help students effectively look to the past to draw valid conclusions about the present? (I think that's a vital step along the pathway that connects past and future.)

Looking for metapatterns in the context of complex systems as well as ambiguities/uncertainties.

What else composes "the historical method"?

What is "the historical method" and how do we teach that method to the students in our classes?

What makes History the perfect candidate for this type of thinking, connecting to the future?

Their new framework: the eight abilities, experiential learning, mastery and assessment.

Are we thinking in revolutionary-enough terms? What would it look like to completely break down our conceptions of curriculum, learning, humanities, etc., for the Academy? What structures will need to remain in place?

I love the idea of curriculum-as-process, not a static definition. Who has a stake in shaping the curriculum process? Faculty, students, administrators, . . . .

19th century socialist thinkers saw the market and laisseiz faire as the source of the problem of inequality. That thinking shifted during the 20th century--technocrats (Friedman, etc) framed the problem in terms of "poverty" rather than inequality and sought to bolster the market to benefit all (at least in the 1970s). The focus on poverty meant that people thought in terms of the symptoms of the issue rather than the foundation of the issue itself.

This quote is a great statement of the ways that democratization decommodification of key human good could strike at the cause of inequality that lies in the market itself.

MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter are examples

This might be a straw-man perspective, but I think that beyond DH practitioners, few of us explicitly recognize this crucial aspect of DH scholarship and practice: the "humanistic tools" be applied to our understanding of technology.

This reminds me of Ruha Benjamin's analysis in Race After Technology.

We must take special care to ensure that the biases of analog, colonial knowledge production are not replicated in the digital (re)production of knowledge.

Digitizing "is more than a matter of creating a digital copy." Digitized materials are curated in the collections in which they appear, to one degree or another.

Crucial to note that she always appropriately qualifies the promises of the postcolonial digital archive as possibilities. Technology itself does not ensure equity and the recovery of silenced perspectives--we must make it do that work.

The two types of "postcolonial digital archives" she considers: postcolonial DH scholarship and archives produced through Twitter hashtags. These types of digital archives offer the possibility of "rewriting power dynamics that control archives and influence which stories are told."

The central problem of power and the archive: certain stories are privileged while others are diminished, silenced, or erased.

This is an insight claimed by transnational approaches to historical knowledge. Risam's point is that the decentralized and fragmentary nature of the archive--that researchers need to consult multiple, varied repositories--should apply to all investigations of the past.

n. 2: "I summarize the debates around the following categories: a gradually militarized zone, a haven for individual deviants as in the western genre, or a mutually permeable utopian space according to the border theories in the 80-90’s academic field."

I hadn't thought of the border as defined in these ways, necessarily--especially this characterization of academic border studies.

It seems that these aren't tied to the highlights . . . Link to "Viva Obama" story in Aztlan: https://www.utne.com/arts/cartoonist-lalo-alcaraz-and-viva-obama-5323

Great article from The Daily Lobo

I hadn't characterized dams in this way, but I like this way of looking at them. Dams are a type of border wall on a border river.

This is a fascinating case of the border itself having agency of sorts to force the hands of two nation-states. Indigenous peoples and Hispanic colonists long knew that el Rio Bravo meandered. That local knowledge was not part of the decision making that created the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, however.

Love this--teaching, whether online or not, is contextual. No one practice will always be "best."

I love this statement. It reflects Sean Micheal Morris' reminder that, online, we don't teach to a screen but through a screen. Human beings are on both sides and are rooted in particular places.

Although I don't think that this was the intention, this phrasing using the word "priviledged" reifies the false notion that online learning will solve accessibility deficits simply due to its digital availability. Yet, as studies have shown, lack of digital infrastructure among disadvantaged populations means that the promise of online learning doesn't match the lived experiences of those that it hopes to serve.

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't pursue online learning--just that we need to be more cognizant of its limitations in the ways that we design online courses and programs.

Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams and Henry Trotter's article provides a great framework for considering these limitations. Although their focus is OER, the issues they outline apply to online modes of teaching and learning as well due to its rootedness in the digital.

Diametrically opposed to the goals of critical pedagogy.

I absolutely love this phrase: learning (or school) should be an "adventure in ideas." I've often worried about assignments that are focused on experiences (even Study Abroad) because I feel that the value is in the experience itself, not in the ways that I, as the instructor, am pushed to "evaluate" and quantify the experience. Once we do that, the value of the experience is lost.

Here's the problem in a nutshell, I think. How can we replace grades rather than find new ways to yield them?

Again, I'm ashamed to admit that my use of rubrics often reduces my feedback to students in this way. My comments become formulaic--I can count off what they didn't do that the rubric said they should have done. In no way does that measure or express learning, though.

I'm concerned that the turn toward "performance analytics" at various levels of higher ed (not just grades, but LMS tracking of time spent in the class, etc) will only intensify this issue.

"Tools" like Respondus are dealing with symptoms of the system in ways that don't address learning but instead promote the platform's bottom line.

The Crux . . .

I totally understand this position, but I wonder what else, along with professionalization, needs to take place to provide educators with the type of authority that would give weight to their voices? I'm thinking of the extent to which educators are disrespected at best and held in disdain at worse in our current moment.

Related to my comment above, hooks emphasizes that empowerment cannot come without a willingness to be vulnerable. And, most significant to me, as teachers we can't expect students to be vulnerable if we're not willing to share in that experience of vulnerability.

Engaged pedagogy means that the teacher's voice "is not the only account of what happens in the classroom." Students share in building a narrative that has genuine application in their lives.

This seems so simple and intuitive, but the resistance to education that connects mind, body, spirit, and overall life experiences is still present in academia, I think. What explains the pushback and hesitancy?

In order to create holistic learning communities, one has to become vulnerable. That type of commitment is frightening and uncomfortable for many.

Key terms from Freire that helped hooks understand the process and application of education as "the practice of freedom": conscientization=critical awareness and engagement, the realization that every member of the classroom should be an active participant

praxis: "action and reflection upon the world in order to change it"

When I worked on the American Historical Association's Tuning Project, we discussed the tendency of professors to discuss their research and teaching as two separate--even unrelated--aspects of their work. "I research x, y, and z, and I teach a and b." We hoped that through our work we could emphasize the centrality of teaching to History in higher ed.

Not a prescriptive pedagogy, but one that recognizes and celebrates difference while focusing on the synergies that exist in the classroom between learners and teachers.

To what extent do notions of "professionalism" and "seriousness" express a desire to control and oppress?

To me, this is telling. Even radical educators didn't consider the element of pleasure (or even student interest, I think) in their pedagogical values. I'm also sure that this wasn't the case across the board, but I think that hooks is correct to state that this type of thinking was prevalent even in the 1960s and 1970s.

I've heard diatribes from colleagues about how we, as faculty, are not here to entertain students. I don't think that's what hooks is exploring here, but it's what came to mind because I think that some would offer that critique. Instead, hooks is focusing on the wonder of curiosity that should inherently, I believe, formulate a large portion of learning.

Powerful.

I'm sure this is obvious, but I'm thinking about the extent to which the type of education hooks describes here is an extension of the assimilation project. I'm now reflecting on the extent to which my own teaching ever reflects or reinforces assimilationist goals . . .

Critical thinking is the antithesis of the "banking system of education."

The loss of agency expressed in these words powerfully touched me. She went from the classroom as a place of freedom and empowerment to a location where she could merely "respond and react to white folks."

In the face of pressures to "hide our politics" or "depoliticize education," I think it's instead crucial for us as educators to recognize that teaching and learning always has been political. We shouldn't shy away from that. And, most importantly, we need to recognize our implicit biases and the ways that the structures we work within either empower or oppress certain groups of students and teachers.

Use of "shared language" as a guide not a checklist to minimize the anxiety of all parties.

Observer bias

Need to know the purpose in order for observations to be effective.

Also, difference between summative and formative: do both the observer and instructor know?