mccomas, June 19, 2002 at 4:53:37 AM CEST

Learning Future

How can I continue to forge my professional and academic development? How might I inquire (research) into my learning in an ongoing manner? How might my professional and academic development and practice be informed by my ongoing research? How do I respond to opportunities for inquiry (research)? How do I meet my own learning needs?

"Geez," I wonder silently, "who wrote these prompts?"

It is always instructive for me to participate in the responding...and this is really a good one for me to sit and think about. At the outset I want to say that one of these days I intend to pursue another degree, but I'm not clear on when that is going to be and not quite certain which degree it might be. Until then, however, there's much for me to do. One of the things I realized earlier this evening, as I was mentally preparing a response to this prompt, was the fact that when students are in the midst of their more concentrated learning periods, I'm in a low-learning cycle. When students are in their lower-learning cycles, I'm in a high learning cycle. That is to say, that during the regular school year, when students are packed up with classes, reading, and writing, I'm doing the least amount of reading and writing because my time is consumed with the business of teaching. On the other hand, during the summer when students typically take low class loads (or no class loads), I shift into high gear, doing massive amounts of reading and writing and learning. Now, don't get me wrong, I do some learning during the regular school year, but because my time is so limited, I have to be quite choosy about what I do...and generally what I do is become a researcher of my classes. I observe everything I can and make notes about what I observe. I think about those notes periodically, and try to do some writing about what is happening in my classes. Because of these cycles, I try to ensure that the learning I do in my high learning cycle is complementary to the work I do in my low learning cycles. Conversely, I want the work I do in my low learning cycles to contribute to the work I do in my high learning cycles. I think this relationship between my learning in both the high and low learning cycles defines how my practice is influenced by my research (my practice being that of teaching).

My own learning needs? I'm a bit selfish at times about it, especially during my high learning cycles. I work for hours on end sometimes to the exclusion of those little daily chores that somehow fall to me. But I know that I work better in a concentrated manner. I wish I wasn't that way, but it's the way I've worked for years and years and years. Attempts to change that working style have been unsuccessful if not downright disruptive. I love research and always respond positively to opportunities (do I respond to too many opportunities?). I tend to see questions in a variety of situations and stories, in fact, I tend to create questions as way for me to enter into thinking about something.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me, with each discussion prompt that I respond to that I am aboslutely, positively, 100% a geek.

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mccomas, June 19, 2002 at 1:28:44 AM CEST

Personal Values

What were some of the values and attitudes toward education expressed in your family? How have these influenced your thinking and your practice (as a student)?

I've worked on this prompt before and I always wish I had a clearer sense of the values expressed in my family. The things I remember are implicit values, those shown to us by example. I remember my parents as literate people. My father was a banker and had an Associate degree from (then) Marshall College. He was an articulate man, a reader. My mother was a high school graduate, but when I was in elementary school I remember her taking courses at the local high school that were offered by a nearby community college. She was intelligent, articulate, and also a reader. She was also an artist...a painter...and later in her life she went to work for an art museum as the director...a place where her natural intelligence and artistic sense came together in a perfect blend. We received the Reader's Digest Condensed books, the Reader's Digest, National Geographic, and another finance magazine but I cannot recall its name. Virtually none of my aunts or uncles had graduated from college, very few had even attended.

I always did quite well in school, don't ever remember any serious discussions about grades in my elementary years. College was never discussed, just assumed. I went to a very small school (my class in high school had 64 students) through my sophomore year. Since the school was so small, there were really only two options...vocational (those kids took shop and mechanical stuff) and college prep...there was no in-between. I didn't necessarily realize how well I was being educated until we moved between my sophomore and junior years. This time I was in a much larger school (my class had about 365 students) and I found it to be a little easier than my former school. I went into the college prep curriculum and graduated with a high ranking in my class (convinced I would have been higher if I'd gone to the second school for the whole four years!).

In addition to my family, there were some significants points of light regarding education and learning along the way for me. Elsie Shively, the school librarian at my elementary school and at the public library (she split her time there), encouraged my appetite for reading. She often would put aside books for me that she thought I'd like and she always encouraged me to read beyond my grade level (I did my first book report in fourth grade on an adult work of nonfiction called "The Healing Woods" -- my fourth grade teacher didn't quite know what to make or me or that report). I literally read hundreds of books each summer...hauling 9-10 home about every 3-4 days. Next came Mrs. Sherman, my high school math teacher at the small high school I attended. She stood out to me because of her love for math and the way she treated the girls as equals in her class. Mr. Gormley, my physics teacher at the new high school, made physics come alive for me, encouraged us to explore alternative topics outside the prescribed curriculum, and gave equal respect and time for girls and boys. Mrs. Deibel, my chemistry teacher, gave me my first C. My dad grounded me for six weeks for that little breach! In spite of the C, she stands out to me because she so patiently tried to help me understand the concept of the mole and I never, ever could get it...the whole concept was too abstract for me. (It wasn't until I had audiology in college and learned about the decibel that I realized what the heck she had been talking about with the mole!) Dolores Johnson, whom I've referred to in another writing, because she taught me what it means to be a teacher and what it means to keep questioning, asking, reading, writing, and learning.

I hold these people up, even Mrs. Deibel, because they represent to me the best that education has to offer. They glorified and honored an academic life...a life of learning. They reinforced the values my parents displayed in their lives, and they encouraged and nurtured me to go after what I needed. It's possible my students understand who I am better by knowing these things about me. I understand myself better by thinking about these things. I had forgotten what a voracious reader I really was...I had forgotten how it felt to be on equal footing with the males in the class...I had forgotten how it felt to not be able to "grok" (come to know) something...I sometimes forget how important it is to have someone believe in you.

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mccomas, June 19, 2002 at 1:27:34 AM CEST

Personal History

Why do you want to become a speech-language pathologist? What was it about being a speech-language pathologist that drew you to this profession?

I'm going to start this discussion off with my personal story (well, part of it at least...and it's not always pretty).  I came to college with the intention of becoming a medical technologist (I don't know why I wanted to do that, I just got it into my head somewhere).  I managed well my first year but the fall semester of my sophomore year was a different story (well, many stories...most that I really do NOT want to share).  To make a short story out of those many stories, by the end of that semester it was clear that I needed another major.  I came back to school with absolutely no idea of what I wanted to do.  My Resident Advisor, and the girl in the room next door to me in the dorm were both majoring in Speech Pathology.  I had seen some of the things they had worked on (screening folders, phoneme cards) and began asking them questions.  During that first week back, I made a decision to change to Speech Path, went through add/drop and picked up 21 hours, had to get a job because of this little disagreement about financial support with my father, and the rest, as they say, is history.  The really interesting part of this question for me is really not in that part of the story...the interesting part comes from me thinking about what drew me to teaching.

In the early 90's I attended a Writing Across the Curriculum workshop.  Back then, many of the attendees were from the English department (it's much more diverse now in terms of disciplines represented).  One evening, a bunch of these English folks were sitting around talking about how they wanted to be writers and that they were just teaching until they made it as writers.  It was clear that this was the feeling of the majority.  Suddenly, out of the corner comes this strong, clear voice that said, "I was called to teach."  That gave me goosebumps because in that instant I woke up to the same realization...that I had been called to teach.  The voice was Dr. Dolores Johnson in the English department who has since become a dear friend, mentor, fellow writer, and personal cheerleader.  In that moment of quiet courage I learned what it means to be proud to teach and I've been a different, better I hope, teacher ever since. 

Needless to say, teaching has been a good fit for me.  My work here at Marshall has enabled me to explore and research in areas of interest...specifically the ways that language, writing, teaching, learning, and technology intersect and what happens as a result of those intersections.  In one of postings from last week I talked about this in more detail and explained what kept me coming back for more!

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