http://thosewhocanproject-blog.tumblr.com/
http://scalar.usc.edu/works/re-visualizing-care/interludes-intro?path=index
I spent numerous hours exploring the 3 sites that were assigned to us this past week. I am absolutely amazed, and enlightened to see “research” beyond the traditional academic format of words on paper.
“Re-visualizing Care: Teachers’ invisible Labor in Neoliberal times” by Victoria Restler- to use art as a way to convey the invisible carework of urban teachers and bring to light the “unequal distribution of teachers’ caring burdens and responsibilities across race/class/gender/culture/and language in urban schools” is socially conscious work. One, teaching is not just a job, teaching is an art. It is a craft. And when one becomes a teacher and goes through life as a teacher, you develop a certain aura and set of life experiences that can’t be easily and clearly articulated. There is so much to capture in one’s experiences that can’t necessarily be captured exactly and precisely by just words.
The “Those Who Can” project was especially eye opening, thought provoking and inspiring to me.
- “I can’t teach in a police state”
- “How does one quantify self-discovery and purpose?”
- “15 minute informal observations don’t make me a better teacher, embedded support and reflection over the course of a career do.”
This project is connected to Victoria Restler’s work in which she explains that her collaging methodology is used in a way to “preserve multiple meanings and diverse perspectives” and “to make the often hidden work of analysis and interpretation, visible” (Restler, 2017).
Browsing through all of this visuality inspires me to explore the ways in which the freedom dreams, cultural identities, racial identities, family history & backgrounds, socio-emotional make-ups, and socio-political knowledge of my students layer upon each other’s’ minds, bodies, voices, thoughts, feelings, sensibilities and positionality within the world both inside and outside of school.
What would the silence between the overlapping voices mean? How does meaning and interpretation change when the same word is repeated over and over again?
What would the bridge to from one freedom dream to the next be made out of? Something material? Something figurative? Or both?
What if two completely opposite dreams are juxtaposed? Would they speak to each other or would they remain side by side in silence? Would they move closer, ensuring no extra space is between them or would it slowly crumble at the corners?
What if I scanned and printed all the freedom dreams i’ve collected on the same exact type of paper and placed them in a tub of water and recorded its movement? Which dreams would float? Which dreams would push other dreams? Which dreams drift away? Which dreams centers itself?
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