In 1989 I was sitting at a hotel overlooking the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon when a book fell off the shelf onto my table. I thought that this library themed bar was full of fake books, but it wasn’t. On my table sat The History of the Johnstown Flood, published in 1889, the year of the flood itself. I picked it up and began to read, as my martini grew lonely. This book was amazing and dramatic as it chronicled the eyewitness accounts of Johnstown residents as they were overcome by a wall of water one hundred feet high and watched it demolish their town. I read about sixty pages into the book before slipping it into my bag and stealing away with it. I wondered why this book had chosen me? How did it manage to fling itself into my world and what was so special about this story that I needed to know about it? This book was the driving force behind my first master’s thesis in the field of disasterology and cross cultural/international management. During spring break from school, most of my classmates were making plans to go to some warm place for all kinds of debauchery, but I was set on a rainy hike in the Pennsylvania Mountains tracing the path of the great flood, and visiting the museum. Just as today, poor people were the ones who mostly died, and in fact, the flood could have easily been prevented had regular upkeep been a priority of the rich robberbarrons of the time. I use this story to illustrate that I am very open to different ways knowledge can be discovered and experienced. What I stumble upon, what chooses me, or what I choose to learn often has equal importance to my life.
When I was a child I spent a great amount of time with my maternal grandmother who was not only a great cook, but also an accomplished singer. In her balmy kitchen during the holidays we would cook together with nothing but her old 78 phonograph keeping us motivated. She had a collection of about 40 records and we would play them as we made the usual holiday comfort foods. Over the years I learned every song on every album. By age twelve I was literate in Al Jolson, Kate Smith, Ethel Merman, Glen Miller, The King and I, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, and many others. I would ask her about her life when she was young and about the family histories. I learned more than any twelve year old should about many things, but it served me well. As a teenager and adult I was often complimented as to my song choices and my feel for them during performances. I had become a professional just like my grandmother and her songs still live within me as a special kind of artistic reference. I try and use music in any form in my teaching and done so successfully with rap contests and slam poetry events in my hometown.
The theatre has been the most influential single literacy force in my life. Sparked with my love of singing, I was drawn to the stage as a way to express myself and to find a level of social safety in a conservative suburban community. I have always been a very spiritual person and have been moved my certain playwrights in particular. I have done more research into characters in plays in preparation for a role than I have ever done in any formal academic class. The responsibility of “ being” true to a person or character has always been a value as an actor. I am not much into method acting as I feel it is emotionally untruthful, but rather prefer the work of Gratowski and Meisner who approach performance as a kind of channeling. The focus is on the individual as an instrument of human experience to which nothing is beyond reach. The idea is based on a level of consciousness that can be tapped into at will, or with training, that will allow any experience of any person to come through the actor. It sounds more “other worldly” than it is, but I prefer its supposition of connectedness to a method of masks or transferred experience. For me it makes theatre more sacred, transformational, and process focused. I like to teach from the assumption of a connected experience as a way to build empathy in my students and encourage the use of their emotional imagination.
Thornton Wilder is a writer who explores this kind of universality of experience and his work; The Skin of our Teeth is one of my favorites. In this play a family travels through time beginning in the ice age and progresses to Armageddon. In each epoch of time human relationships are examined and the natural world is deconstructed. This play won the Pulitzer in the 1930’s and seeks to ask questions about man’s role in the universe. My favorite moment in the play takes place at the Atlantic City pier right before the end of the world. The main female character, Mrs., Antrobus, takes a small bottle out of her purse, while facing the audience and gives what is known as the famous bottle speech. I will paraphrase. She states that in the bottle is everything a woman knows and that someday it will be found and opened and it will change the world. She then tosses the bottle into the ocean, turns, and goes back to her family. I come back to this metaphor often and wonder how many people have such gifts and insight but have never had the opportunity to share it, or live in societies where they are by nature devalued. I wonder how many of my students may have knowledge like that of Mrs. Antrobus and how I can help them realize its potential value, not just at a time of world crisis, but for their everyday goals and relationships.
I am a great fan of the work of Stephen Sondheim and especially of his show Into The Woods. The first act of this musical/operetta is an interweaving of many different fairy tales whose characters set out to make wishes a reality. The second act is an account of what happens after they get their wishes granted. It is a clever and adult show that explores the darker side of fairytales and the values they teach to children. It makes me reflect on how I was limited by what was taught to me as a child and how other children are subtlety shut down by societal norms, prejudice, and shaming. Sondheim’s use of language and his sophisticated lyrics are not only a pleasure to listen to but also an artistic challenge to perform. Plus, and most important, they are highly cross-referenced and literate. I use lyrics in my classes often when I teach and try to learn about foreign cultures through their music when I travel. This has been very helpful in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
This interconnected theme is also represented in my favorite fiction book, A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving. In this book, an ill-formed child has the fortune or misfortune of seeing the moment of his death, and lives his life as a progression of events toward that eventuality. His fate known, his reflections and actions are influenced by this vision. How he makes typical life choices is distinctly different from his peers and his self-concept is intricately connected to his relationship to others along with the possible consequences of his interactions. It is a deeply moving story and one that reminds me that each of us plays crucial roles in each other’s lives and that even if your fate is known, or you think it is, you still have an obligation to live fully and be a witness to the lives of others.
I am lucky to have had many positive influences on my literacy, but I have also had a few that were not so great. I was discriminated against in high school for being gay and most of my literacy issues stem from that abuse. I was told that I could not write, that I was stupid, and that people like me did not amount to much. This is theme I still struggle with now as I notice how invisible gay people are in most settings. I remember wanting to write about Kate Millet in high school and being told that I couldn’t because she was not a real author. She was real, but she was a lesbian. Being aware of how the dominant group could just erase you and your life achievements had me very careful about putting myself at risk intellectually or academically. I learned that my literacy was going to be found on my own and on my terms and not in any institutional setting. These experiences made me a cautious learner in college and keenly aware of who defines what groups are promoted and valued in academia and society. I am still very cautious about universities and colleges due to the enormous homophobia that still exists. I have learned that the more you are told you are safe, the less you are. Liberality has more to do with dominants trying to live up to their ideal of tolerance than it does actually making sure minorities actually have a fair chance at success. Perhaps this is why Freire means so much to me. He seems to buck the trend.
In relation to my discipline, history, I feel that I am fairly literate. My discipline is so broad that almost anything can fit into it. I am constantly watching the History Channel on TV, have many books on al kinds of subjects which I see as either having historic or sociological value, as well as music, videos, artifacts, poems, textiles, etc. Perhaps this inclusive breadth is really the challenge. I wish I had more things that could be directly related to a year of high school classes. Much of what I have is a bit overly specific for a general class.
I mentioned in this document that I have spent time in South Africa and Zimbabwe, but I have also worked in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Hungary, Guatemala, Uzbekistan, France, Italy, Holland. Croatia, and the UK. My time traveling and working in these countries have been the single most influential force on my global literacy. Learning customs, forming relationships, and having to work within cultural limitations has changed the foundation of my being. It has also changed my concept of what kind of literacy is important. There is a multilayered skill set of living in a culture other than your own and finding not only value in the people you meet there, but in yourself in a new context. My experience as a learner through meaningful travel, not just tour busses with Americans, has made me a fanatic for international education for teens not as a reward for privilege but as a technique for resilience building with “at risk” youth. I brought a group of 15 teens of this type along a loosely structured curriculum for 3 summers as a way to explore this concept, and it was wildly successful. I plan to do more of this kind of exchange work with high school students after I get established in NYC as a teacher. I also plan to bring South Africans into my classroom as well as other foreign nationals when appropriate.
This is an awkward paper for me. It is good to reflect on my own literacy, but after 40 years of learning its seems painfully inadequate, or least not very complete. I was a child a long time ago. Almost every week I have an experience that forms and changes me. I seek it out. I am always hungry for it. If anything, my self-directed nature can be a challenge in the pursuit of more traditional disciplines as I am used to being highly independent. A goal of mine is to experience a more collaborative sense of literacy and build the skills to facilitate that in my life and classroom.
When I was a child I spent a great amount of time with my maternal grandmother who was not only a great cook, but also an accomplished singer. In her balmy kitchen during the holidays we would cook together with nothing but her old 78 phonograph keeping us motivated. She had a collection of about 40 records and we would play them as we made the usual holiday comfort foods. Over the years I learned every song on every album. By age twelve I was literate in Al Jolson, Kate Smith, Ethel Merman, Glen Miller, The King and I, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, and many others. I would ask her about her life when she was young and about the family histories. I learned more than any twelve year old should about many things, but it served me well. As a teenager and adult I was often complimented as to my song choices and my feel for them during performances. I had become a professional just like my grandmother and her songs still live within me as a special kind of artistic reference. I try and use music in any form in my teaching and done so successfully with rap contests and slam poetry events in my hometown.
The theatre has been the most influential single literacy force in my life. Sparked with my love of singing, I was drawn to the stage as a way to express myself and to find a level of social safety in a conservative suburban community. I have always been a very spiritual person and have been moved my certain playwrights in particular. I have done more research into characters in plays in preparation for a role than I have ever done in any formal academic class. The responsibility of “ being” true to a person or character has always been a value as an actor. I am not much into method acting as I feel it is emotionally untruthful, but rather prefer the work of Gratowski and Meisner who approach performance as a kind of channeling. The focus is on the individual as an instrument of human experience to which nothing is beyond reach. The idea is based on a level of consciousness that can be tapped into at will, or with training, that will allow any experience of any person to come through the actor. It sounds more “other worldly” than it is, but I prefer its supposition of connectedness to a method of masks or transferred experience. For me it makes theatre more sacred, transformational, and process focused. I like to teach from the assumption of a connected experience as a way to build empathy in my students and encourage the use of their emotional imagination.
Thornton Wilder is a writer who explores this kind of universality of experience and his work; The Skin of our Teeth is one of my favorites. In this play a family travels through time beginning in the ice age and progresses to Armageddon. In each epoch of time human relationships are examined and the natural world is deconstructed. This play won the Pulitzer in the 1930’s and seeks to ask questions about man’s role in the universe. My favorite moment in the play takes place at the Atlantic City pier right before the end of the world. The main female character, Mrs., Antrobus, takes a small bottle out of her purse, while facing the audience and gives what is known as the famous bottle speech. I will paraphrase. She states that in the bottle is everything a woman knows and that someday it will be found and opened and it will change the world. She then tosses the bottle into the ocean, turns, and goes back to her family. I come back to this metaphor often and wonder how many people have such gifts and insight but have never had the opportunity to share it, or live in societies where they are by nature devalued. I wonder how many of my students may have knowledge like that of Mrs. Antrobus and how I can help them realize its potential value, not just at a time of world crisis, but for their everyday goals and relationships.
I am a great fan of the work of Stephen Sondheim and especially of his show Into The Woods. The first act of this musical/operetta is an interweaving of many different fairy tales whose characters set out to make wishes a reality. The second act is an account of what happens after they get their wishes granted. It is a clever and adult show that explores the darker side of fairytales and the values they teach to children. It makes me reflect on how I was limited by what was taught to me as a child and how other children are subtlety shut down by societal norms, prejudice, and shaming. Sondheim’s use of language and his sophisticated lyrics are not only a pleasure to listen to but also an artistic challenge to perform. Plus, and most important, they are highly cross-referenced and literate. I use lyrics in my classes often when I teach and try to learn about foreign cultures through their music when I travel. This has been very helpful in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
This interconnected theme is also represented in my favorite fiction book, A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving. In this book, an ill-formed child has the fortune or misfortune of seeing the moment of his death, and lives his life as a progression of events toward that eventuality. His fate known, his reflections and actions are influenced by this vision. How he makes typical life choices is distinctly different from his peers and his self-concept is intricately connected to his relationship to others along with the possible consequences of his interactions. It is a deeply moving story and one that reminds me that each of us plays crucial roles in each other’s lives and that even if your fate is known, or you think it is, you still have an obligation to live fully and be a witness to the lives of others.
I am lucky to have had many positive influences on my literacy, but I have also had a few that were not so great. I was discriminated against in high school for being gay and most of my literacy issues stem from that abuse. I was told that I could not write, that I was stupid, and that people like me did not amount to much. This is theme I still struggle with now as I notice how invisible gay people are in most settings. I remember wanting to write about Kate Millet in high school and being told that I couldn’t because she was not a real author. She was real, but she was a lesbian. Being aware of how the dominant group could just erase you and your life achievements had me very careful about putting myself at risk intellectually or academically. I learned that my literacy was going to be found on my own and on my terms and not in any institutional setting. These experiences made me a cautious learner in college and keenly aware of who defines what groups are promoted and valued in academia and society. I am still very cautious about universities and colleges due to the enormous homophobia that still exists. I have learned that the more you are told you are safe, the less you are. Liberality has more to do with dominants trying to live up to their ideal of tolerance than it does actually making sure minorities actually have a fair chance at success. Perhaps this is why Freire means so much to me. He seems to buck the trend.
In relation to my discipline, history, I feel that I am fairly literate. My discipline is so broad that almost anything can fit into it. I am constantly watching the History Channel on TV, have many books on al kinds of subjects which I see as either having historic or sociological value, as well as music, videos, artifacts, poems, textiles, etc. Perhaps this inclusive breadth is really the challenge. I wish I had more things that could be directly related to a year of high school classes. Much of what I have is a bit overly specific for a general class.
I mentioned in this document that I have spent time in South Africa and Zimbabwe, but I have also worked in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Hungary, Guatemala, Uzbekistan, France, Italy, Holland. Croatia, and the UK. My time traveling and working in these countries have been the single most influential force on my global literacy. Learning customs, forming relationships, and having to work within cultural limitations has changed the foundation of my being. It has also changed my concept of what kind of literacy is important. There is a multilayered skill set of living in a culture other than your own and finding not only value in the people you meet there, but in yourself in a new context. My experience as a learner through meaningful travel, not just tour busses with Americans, has made me a fanatic for international education for teens not as a reward for privilege but as a technique for resilience building with “at risk” youth. I brought a group of 15 teens of this type along a loosely structured curriculum for 3 summers as a way to explore this concept, and it was wildly successful. I plan to do more of this kind of exchange work with high school students after I get established in NYC as a teacher. I also plan to bring South Africans into my classroom as well as other foreign nationals when appropriate.
This is an awkward paper for me. It is good to reflect on my own literacy, but after 40 years of learning its seems painfully inadequate, or least not very complete. I was a child a long time ago. Almost every week I have an experience that forms and changes me. I seek it out. I am always hungry for it. If anything, my self-directed nature can be a challenge in the pursuit of more traditional disciplines as I am used to being highly independent. A goal of mine is to experience a more collaborative sense of literacy and build the skills to facilitate that in my life and classroom.
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