me and mendeley

During my PhD, especially when I had to write the twice yearly progress reports, I would proudly boast that I had a 'good information management system for my expanding research resources and [was] maintaining my electronic bibliography via Endnote or Mendeley'.  And as I recall it took some discipline on my part to keep this 'dream alive'. I remember using my Fridays' to sit diligently and clean up my bibliography either in Endnote or in Mendeley, which I switched to in the first year of my PhD. But since submitting my thesis I haven't even clicked on the Mendeley icon on my desk top. I feel a bit guilty because this tardy behaviour highlights the lack of discipline and interest I have in doing all the good things, that good, publishable academics are meant to do. In fact the reason I'm been drawn to writing this blog, is the fact that I've resisted clicking on that icon for the past three or four days. I need to compile a reference list for something I'm writing. I know I should do it all in Mendeley. I know this is a good period to spend some quality time with the bibliography. To give it the love and attention it deserves. But. I also know it's in a mess and I will need to deal with that mess. Apparently the PhD process was meant to instill all these wonderful ways of doing things, that should set you up as a good, solid, independent researcher - the kinds of things that make for good academics in the long run. I used to take pride in, at least, partaking in these activities and rituals - signalling my immersion into this way of being. Now I just keep putting it off, discarding my old ways - almost in defiance. Knowing full well, that this superficial act of defiance, is like pissing in the wind. All the piss eventually ends up in your face.

reunions and wrong-side of the bed days

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday morning. I've learnt the hard way that there is nothing to be done on mornings, days like that. Best to just accept that the mood will not improve irrespective what comes at you during the day. Often on these kinds of days, if I can, by 12 or 1 o'clock I just get back into bed and sleep. But I didnt have this luxury yesterday. I spent the morning at UCT library, battling with paragraph and argument structures for the long-suffering paper I hoped I could have finished a long, long time ago. But never mind, I have a plan to get the paper into a presentable, proper draft 1 form by the end of the week. It's the holidays, but I'm going to alleviate my guilt doing at least an hour of writing work a day until Christmas. The plan is simple, 1 to 2 hours in the morning, rest of the afternoon on the beach or assigned to some or other Christmas chores. Perfect.

High jinx with Desiree. 

Then I found myself at my old high school in Silvertown at around 2pm. The school itself had a bit of a face lift so on the outside it didnt look anything like it did when I was a pupil there in the mid 80s. I bumped into people I knew, who went to school with me and as one would expect, the odd person who clearly knew me, but who I had absolutely NO CLUE who the hell they were - even after they gently, but enthusiastically provided some background information. I also managed to talk to two of my teachers, who at the time were very instrumental in supporting and nurturing me. We talked about the good grade I got for History (an A on the higher grade, thanks to the power of rote-learning) and that I was possibly the only person in my English  class that understood the matric Shakespeare play we were doing that year. They remembered my 17 year old-self better than I did. That fearlessness that once defined who I was. But these were two classes I really enjoyed because of the teachers who taught them. Today I'm off to another reunion of sorts, with my first cohort of technikon students. Some of them have managed to stay in touch with each other over the almost 15 years since they met, and they sort-of invite me to their get-togethers. Of course I'm deeply honoured and humbled that they still want to see me, and invite me into their lives. I'd like to think I'm that teacher that played a nurturing and supporting role at some stage of their learning lives

weary

It's that time of the year. Three more days to go before I am officially on leave. And I've taken to the departmental culture - so I've already downed-tools and been on a virtual go-slow since last week. No planning for 2015 - what needs to happen in 2015, can wait for 2015. I've tried to conjure up my energy and interest reserves, I've compiled lists of things to do, did some rudimentary weekly planning and made an attempt to clean my office, rearrange my filing and tell myself I need to write some reports, so that I can draw a neat line under 2014. But I'm not convinced that anyone will read the reports I write, so whenever the idea of writing the reports fills my consciousness, I quickly find something equally unproductive to do. All of this has significantly contributed to the weariness and general despondency filling me up. It doesn't help that my body-clock is also completely out of synch. I can't sleep at night, wake early, start to fade by lunch and can hardly keep my eyes open, let alone do anything that remotely requires some cognitive functions, then start to perk-up again by 3pm. Let the holidays come I say, because then if all of this is my daily reality (except of course the angst about writing a report), I can legitimacy say - its fine I'm on holiday, who cares.

learning spaces

I've always imaged studying at university was about learning new things, being challenged to consider differently, to shift and change how you think and act. This drive to learn more, understand better, became the impetus, driving my pursuit of learning until I got to the PhD - the pinnacle of academic learning. A year after been deemed successful at achieving this learning 'outcome' I wonder where the true learning spaces are in academia. Are they created in the conferences, symposia, colloquiums and seminars we are encouraged to attend and participate in? Are they found in the classrooms we facilitate and manage? Or maybe they are lurking in the corridors, staff common rooms, colleagues' offices or noisy coffee shops - the informal spaces were fellow academics, researchers or teachers combine personal catch-up stories with reflections and ideas about theories new and old. Increasingly I'm finding the formal university space rather barren and void of learning. While the informal, entanglements of the unlikely, often peripheral spaces where those imagined notions of learning, that brought me to where I now find myself, are becoming the real, the authentic sites.

and now on a more positive note

I haven't been a very active blogger these past few weeks. I'm conscious that a common thread in my narratives has been that of negativity – a discourse of ‘dooms and gloom’. There is some saying that goes something like 'if you don't have something good to say then don't speak'. This felt applicable to me. So I haven't used the blog.

 
But on Sunday I had occasion to feel positive and affirmed about myself as academic, researcher and person. I went out to lunch with both my Masters and PhD supervisors. Two wonderful, thoughtful and supportive women academics and researchers, who have both played, in different ways, such influential roles in my academic becoming. What felt so affirming about sitting alongside both women, while we drank beautifully, blushed wine, and watched the waves in Kalk Bay crash violently and determinedly against the restaurant windows, causing us to respond instinctively as each wave thundered against the window panes - was that I could sit so, 'fretlessly' and talk about everyday things. Our relationships had shifted. A shift that had more significance for me with respect to one of my supervisors. A testament, I thought, to possibly, my capacity to survive and be deeply reflective about what had gone before, rightfully carrying new insights and reframed perspectives. I felt a sense of not being burdened by the past, even though it’s scars act as palpable reminders.

now you feel it, now you don't

It's amazing how quickly you readjust to 'normal' after being away from it for a while. It's like muscle memory or ingrained mental maps that allow you to go into almost automatic mode. Not thinking, not feeling. I've come to realise, this year, that any break from my normal work does wonders for my soul. But I'm just as susceptible to ingrained mental maps/muscle memory/intuitive responses irrespective of the positives associated with these breaks. So it's taken me almost a week to prioritise my writing. The plan is that it will stay my priority until the end of the academic year in early December.

Yesterday I stumbled back into the writing and was left feeling immensely frustrated and irritated at myself. It felt like I could not put two sentences together, let alone articulate my view on deficit discourse. After an hour or so of, what felt like, hammering my head against the wall I put the writing aside, deciding to come back to it later in the day and then to jot down in bullet point the salient points I wanted to make. Returning to my notes and bullet list today, it all came together. A totally different experience. Ok so I can write a few paragraphs about what deficit discourses are and how they manifest in the South African context. Not too bad actually. And so I move onto the next section...

thinking retreat in Uppsala

I've been in Sweden for just under a week. My visit was meant, amongst other things, to serve as a little writing retreat. I was hoping to refine the article I'm working on after getting some feedback on it last week. But things haven't really worked out as I hoped. I haven't done much writing. The process has been slow and I've been distracted with completing unrelated administrative 'stuff' linked to my day-job. But I have done a lot of thinking. I've had the time to mull over my ideas, do some supplemental reading, question the logic of my arguments. Think about how to say things differently. So I guess all is not lost. Oh, and I've made good progress in getting through series 1 & 2 of OITNB. 

wasted

Its getting close to that time of the year when things start to slow down - students are finishing off their final lectures and the department shifts into final exam mode. The final push to mark and submit marks and then, the academics in my department relax and wait for the year to pass. For me, this period is increasingly representing a time when I write in the open. When no one is watching me. When no one in very interested in doing anything much and I sneak-in my writing. Make it mainstream, instead of that thing I try to do on a Thursday away from the office or on Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons. But, unsettlingly, in plotting forward towards this period, I've had to take stock of the past year. It's depressing as I feel I've done so little intellectually engaging work. I have so little to show for the year past. My first post-PhD year. On my desk sits some of the books I bought over the past 10 or so months. Many haven't been touched, thumbed through. Some I've only managed to read a few pages, maybe a chapter. Reading is meant to be the lifeblood of what I do as an academic, what defines me, what I actually enjoy. And yet I feel as if I haven't even succeeded at it. It's easier to justify not having any writing outcomes, but no reading? Well that's another matter.

lots to say, not so much energy to say it

I haven't blogged in a while. I have lots to say, something practically everyday, but little energy to say it. In the mornings I rehearse what I want to say, write about, imagining that when I get home that evening I will sit quietly and write down these thoughts, ideas, reflections. But always by 9pm I'm spent. My brain can't function and all the wonderful, insightful thoughts floating around with such clarity in the morning have disappeared. I imagine making time during my working day - carving out a little reflective space - but, certainly over the last two weeks, my days have been consumed by rushing around trying to complete various administrative and organisational tasks. But I also attended a very interesting conference last week which really provoked some compelling and challenging questions about the types of conferences I go to, the egocentric nature of academia (and its personalities) and what value I gain from going to these events. Nevermind, maybe it will come back to me. I'll reclaim a Saturday morning at my happy place or a Sunday afternoon at my special cafe and capture those thought-provoking, insightful observations and perceptions worth sharing.

all is not well in academic publishing

On Sunday I received an e-mail telling me, and another 15 or so authors, that a book publication we had been associated with since 2011 was no longer going to be published because the collection editors could not reach agreement over how to acknowledge their contribution. The editor from WAC Clearinghouse sent this first e-mail. This email was shortly followed by an 'explanation' email from collection editor 1, who had, in particular been in regular contact with me over the last two years. I responded offering my feelings of disappointment but also noting that given her explanation, I understood the seemingly principled position she had taken. Given my evaluation of the situation presented by these emails, everything smacked of a battle of egos at the expense of the 15 or so authors whose work would no longer see the  light of 'publication' day. Then another e-mail today from collection editor 2 - also to explain her interpretation of the fall-out that had occurred between these two academics, which resulted in the publisher pulling the volume because of the impasse. Then a response from the editor 1 - saying something like 'hope you can find another place to publish your work'. This new information has not seen me shift from my initial feelings that this whole sad, sorry affair was essentially a selfish battle of egos.

I'm completely pissed off. I feel like hitting reply all and SCREAMING at these two idiot editors and imploring them to think less about themselves, and who offended who more, and think more about everyone else so negatively affected by this really ridiculous and disastrous turn of events. This impasse occurred right at the 11th hour - with the publisher trying to negotiate an amicable solution and get the final sign-off.

Unfortunately, its not so simple to re-jig the chapter to make it more suitable for publication in a journal. This piece was written specially for this special volume coming off the back of a conference that happened in 2010. So things are dated and a lot of what I've written here was published in HERD in 2012. So although the argument is fundamentally different, I rely on the same data, and thus I run the risk of self-plagiarism - especially if I want to publish in a journal. For now I'm still blowing off steam. What I do or don't do with this written piece will have to wait until my head is clear.
It's a novice researcher and academic writer's response; to be so pissed off and irritated by such bad behaviour simply because I need the publication so badly. Otherwise I could just brush this whole unfortunate escapade aside and say knowingly 'I could have seen something like this happening. Oh well, who cares!'

time to write

Finding the time to write or working out how to be most productive at my writing tasks has always been a tricky aspect for me. My general sense, gathered from the fellow players I've encountered in the academic writing game, is that the more time and effort devoted to the task the better the result. Specifically the more time devoted to the task in a single day / sitting the better. So you can't have a productive writing day without being dent over your desk or your laptop from 6am to 6pm. It's almost the equivalent of the 'no pain, no gain' mantra used by gym fanatics and the like. That approach never really worked for me and I remember that at the height of my PhD writing only being able to manage, at best, maybe 4-5 hours of sustained and hard intellectual graft on any give day. And now given all the other things competing for my time and draining my energy (especially intellectually) the idea of sitting down for a full five hours on any given day simply to write feels both a luxury and an impossibility. So I'm rather excited and encouraged by the advice offered by Tanya Golash-Boza. Maybe her approach just fits into my yoga-induced philosophy of ahimsa which I've tried to apply to all aspects of my life, with varying degrees of success (as much of my blog writing suggests). But I also appreciate the importance of building in and acknowledging the thinking time so vital to writing. For some all of this mumbo-jumbo might just be a cop-out for laziness or signal a poor work ethic. And this kind of moralistically-infused argument always leads to second-guessing and worse still, self-doubt. But, if I've learnt anything from my four decades on this planet, it's to carve out your own path, to be confident in the choice you've made and also the manner in which you choose to navigate that path.

balance?

Eventually equilibrium comes. At the start of the last week I decided I would write. I resolved to set aside whatever was happening at work and focus on my writing. And just after lunchtime on Monday, I was in my happy place at UCT and I think that set the tone for how I approached the rest of the week. I soon forgot the intensity of the feelings resulting from the events that caused my wobble. The issues -  gender discrimination, feeling undermined, disregarded in my professional space - have not gone away, and neither has my anger about how it insidiously creeps in and infects the 'ways things are done' in my department and institution. If anything I have resolved to consciously keep it on my agenda, to be vigilant and to be challenging. Sometimes people need to know that they have to display an appropriate degree of sensitivity to issues of diversity and discrimination and that not everyone buys in to a Victorian value system. And so it continues and in the continuing, often with the mundane and the everyday, that the humanity returns and in this I found that my validation (the validation and affirmation I seek) can come from many places. Often times there is enough elsewhere (like with  my friends, mentors, at conferences, seminars or research presentations) to go around to support and sustain me as I engage with those less engaging and enabling environments and/ or personalities.

and I knew I wasnt alone

Thanks to LR, who shared the following with me, http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/sexistsa-academic-spaces-are-far-from-safe/, my suspicion, that what I experienced last week is probably just the milder tip of a massive, menacing iceberg, was confirmed. Unfortunately, the student story captured above, makes my 'little rant' seem like a pleasant stroll on a Sunday afternoon. So proud to see that these women students are actively challenging the patriarchy and sexism they encounter within the SA university context, even though taking such an confrontational and oppositional stance, will probably  place them firmly in the firing line. Aluta continua!

wobble

At the beginning of the semester I was determined that my new positive attitude would rise above all the crappy institutional, departmental, personality-defined politics and culture I encountered. This past week threatened to seriously derail my plans. While I'm not 100% sure why this week, in particular, so threatened my new-found positive attitude, as the week unfolded, a series of events all conspired and quietly coalesced to once again force me to question why I work where I do, whether I want to continue to be there and why, in certain instances, I react so poorly at what I get confronted with.

Fortunately, I can answer the first two questions without flinching, but unfortunately, the answers will reveal a less than honourable or principled side to me. In many ways it was a slow build-up - little bits of things, possibly over many months, that unfortunately, depleted my tolerance levels. To my credit and maybe a testament to how my new positive attitude has actually changed how I deal with things, instead of highlighting my inadequacies or suggesting that somehow I'm at fault - the past week saw me confront, and challenge face on (sometimes), the insidious, patriarchal, sexist underbelly of the department and institution. Some examples from the past week to illustrate exactly how this plays itself out in my work space: Seeing myself and other female colleagues being relegated to the ones who arrange the catering and venues; Being summoned into a management meeting to 'recount' the logistical arrangements for a curriculum development workshop - even though the programme leader, for whom the workshop was devised and who was present in the meeting, was fully briefed on the what's and how's of the workshop; Witnessing how a senior female colleague was jokingly, invited to 'strut her stuff' on a imagined runway in a formal workshop venue; Then the final straw - when a member of the institutional executive management, with all seriousness, challenged an all women audience, at a women leadership in higher education meeting to interrogate 'What was wrong with women?' Would anyone challenge black academics to question 'What is wrong with black academics?' I wonder? I'm depleted, really. The fact that I was able to challenge and raised my voice to counter some of these viewpoints, almost feels insignificant.  I think the extent of discrimination, of all kinds, but especially towards women (both students and staff) within my working space and so reflecting the higher education sector in Cape Town (dare I say South Africa) and the arrogance of those who perpetuate it cannot be underestimated. But, I won't take it laying down and I won't be polite and intellectual about it either. So as we say here on the Cape Flats their 'ma se p$%*!

discernment

Earlier this week I was once again surprised by my poor level of discernment. I had signed-up for a ‘writing for publication’ training workshop run by our Research ‘promotion’ Department. Knowing who was running this course should already have kick-in my internal early warning system. But I wanted to challenge my own prejudices and remain open to the idea that I could learn from such an engagement even if the underpinning philosophy or pedagogy, guiding these types of skills & support courses, did not sit comfortably with my own views. Second warning bell sounded very loudly when I entered the workshop venue and found that the physical arrangements of the furniture and the state of the furniture itself was so poorly suited to ensuring that the budding academic writers would be able to sit comfortably and write for more than 10 minutes at a time. The final straw come after I had subjected myself to the first hours of the work and the facilitator started to ask different participants to read her slides aloud as a way of bringing some variation to the presentation.

To be fair – this kind of thing, where you get a generic, one-size fits all, laundry list of rules/conventions associated with being successful with your academic writing endeavours or journal writing, can be (is) beneficial to certain people. But, I need something more. My understanding of writing (all writing) as a deeply embedded social practice, means that I want an opportunity to discussion and share how issues of context, power, status, ideology, identity become infused, influence and shape the activities of trying to write an article for a journal. Instead of rules and regulations, there are principles and practices that have worked well for those more experiences. Sharing these, alongside the difficulties, challenges and pitfall can be a valuable way of building the confidence of the novice writer. Then, just creating a really comfortable, conducive space to simply write is equally beneficial. So this little event didn’t work for me, but I really should have shown better judgement in deciding to attend the event in the first place and trusted myself more. Yes discernment – I really should exercise some more of discernment, especially in the work context where it would definitely go along way in saving me some unnecessary irritation and precious time.

a PhD by another name

At the risk for coming across as a snob and slightly superior - I'm becoming increasingly annoyed when people, particularly at my institution, deliberately conflate a Dtech degree with a PhD. All of a sudden, despite prescriptions by national government that suggest the opposite, my institution appears to be offering PhDs. Colleagues I know who have completed or are completing their doctoral studies at our institution, talk about their PhDs. In our internal media publication this week, reference was made to systems being put in place to increase the amount of PhDs graduating from the institution. I read a draft of a journal article written by a recent institutional Dtech graduate, that blatantly referred to their study as a PhD research project. Surely all of this smacks of dishonesty. They know they aren't doing a PhD, nor did they graduate with a PhD and they know our institution doesn't offer PhDs. I'm all for recognising and acknowledging the merits of a particular qualification based on the defining parameters of that qualification, but when you pass one qualification 'off' as another, you inadvertently draw unnecessary attention to the quality, status and worth of the qualification being airbrushed away. The status of the replacement nomenclature becomes elevated, while that of real qualification diminished. Or maybe for the people doing it, they're actually hoping their Dtech qualification is conferred with the same status as the PhD.  Now it could be that the term PhD is the more common and familiar, so more likely to be in people's consciousness. But, the same could be said in other countries where PhDs and other professional doctorates make-up the qualification mix. Yet I've never heard an EdD mistakenly, or otherwise, referred to as a PhD in England. So is this parlance a South African phenomenon? And more importantly, why is this causing me so much irritation? Maybe underlying this little outpouring of irritability is a superiority complex which I should acknowledge. I don't really want my PhD conflated with a Dtech, thank you very much. Status, or rather the perceived deferential status of these two qualifications, is really at the heart of this (my) problem. But this conflation exercise, as I describe above, isn't doing anything to address the status inequality, rather I think it simply perpetuates it.

the trouble with a PhD

Doing a PhD changes you. You never come out of the process the same person who went into it. The trouble though, is that the 'change' is unknown or unpredictable. Most universities, like the OU, outline their expectations for the type of PhD graduate they hope the process will produce. So it's fairly reasonable to assume that 'out there' are a 'standard' set of characteristics or dispositions, which a fairly large group of interested people, expect someone with a PhD to possess. Now some can embrace all these changes and in fact, they change in ways that almost map on directly to these expected characteristics deemed important. They meet their own expectations and those of others, of the person you're meant to become as a result of the PhD. And I think when that happens, it's great, because of course it validates the process and makes all the sacrifices,one invariably makes when embarking on such an intense learning process, worthwhile. There is a sense of achievement and personal reward and fulfillment. I'm glad to say I know a few people who have experienced the PhD in this way, and have revelled in the many positive and validating outcomes of the PhD experience in both their personal and professional lives. The positive personal impact of the PhD is undeniable.

Others, struggle more with the changes that have occurred and even more importantly, with the expectations of change and types of changes, others expect. I've always been wary of the changes that might happen to me as a result of the PhD, and in many ways this is what kept me from embarking on the process sooner than I did. I was scared that I would change in particular ways - not that I knew exactly how these changes might manifest - I was just apprehensive. And while you can sometimes see or experience how you are changing, while in the middle of the whole thing, I think the full extent of your metamorphosis is only fully realised when you have to re-immerse yourself into 'normal' life and start to bump up against your own new view of the world and the reconfigured expectations of others. I'm feeling this conflict and discomfort profoundly at the moment. I'm trying to work through my own internal conflicts about the changes that I've undergone, but find I'm also confronted by having to negotiate and mediate other people's expectations of me, Lynn with the PhD.

I had an e-mail just yesterday from a friend of mine in England - we did our PhD's together at the OU. He never went back into higher education after he completed his doctorate and is now working voluntarily for an archeological society. He too spoke about the trouble the changes that the PhD demands and is responsible for, and the difficulty with settling back into old environments post-PhD. It's reassuring to know, one can just cut-out your own pathway and that all those letters 'behind your name' don't need to prescribe or determine who you are, what you do and who you want to become.

will it be better?

I'm back at my desk after a four week absence. A European summer, it appears, is very good for me. I've embraced the prospect of the next five or so months, at this desk, from a position of calm and determination to ensure that  my agenda becomes the priority. But this doesn't meant that I will relinquish my responsibilities to my employer, just that I will work smarter to ensure that those responsibilities don't overwhelm me with feelings of guilt or sap all my time. A week in and I think it's okay. I'm not sure if my outwardly projections give any indication that I have a new attitude, but it's more my internal talk that has registered the shift. A main priority is to write - to get an article ready for journal submission come the end of the year. Then I have another collaborative writing project that will culminate in a chapter submission in December and three conference presentations between September and December. So it's pretty busy but my aim is to keep my focus, energy and organisational management strategies squarely on ensuring that these my priority tasks take centre-stage, while I also making sure that my routine institutional work also gets done. Can I get sufficiently organised and 'selfish' about integrating my research and writing aspiration with my institutional obligations? Can I become more efficient and not get sucked into the malaise that envelopes me at work? Only time will tell.

sleeping on the job

I'm on a 'summer' holiday in winter. Summer because I'm currently writing this in the Northern Hemisphere, looking out at the green trees and blue skies outside. When thinking about my holiday away from the 'chilly' institutional context down South, I fantasised about writing each morning and making some headway with my plan to use writing to effectively pull me out of the soul sapping downward spiral I found myself in. As I head into the final five days of my Swedish Summer, I've have to acknowledge, yet again, how distant a fantasy is from reality. To date I've spent maybe three mornings doing anything remotely academic or writing inspired. Lots of ideas, sans action. Of course I'm disappointed. An OU friend who came to visit, reminded me of how lucky I am to have 'free' moments for writing during my normal 'working' time. I felt a tinge of guilt at not fully exploiting that time. Free time without motivation or inspiration is thus a sad thing.


I have another friend who is truly connected to what she needs at a very intuitive level, looking at my summer experience through her eyes, I've spent my summer in ways that I needed, even if my brain and rational self might have suggested I needed a whole range of 'other stuff'. So it's all good, and it will all be good. Next week at this time I will probably be sitting in a boring meeting, without a t-shirt and kikoy, but wrapped up warmly in layers upon, upon layers of clothing and insulation (and not only from the cold weather). I suspect I'll be better prepared for whatever comes my way, and that is probably be the value gained from how I've spent this summer holiday.

elephants in the room

The elephants in the room today were race and power. But aren't they always,...in the room? The workshop focus of the symposium today was really a stroke of genius and a wonderful attempt to invite conversation and dialogue. But the elephants were having none of it. None of the conversation and none of the dialogue. My head was dull from not having slept last night. I couldn't shut my brain down and I knew I would suffer in the morning and so I did. As a result I couldn't see and I couldn't really anticipate the movements of the agitated elephants in the room. I noticed them but couldn't make sense of their behaviour. 

Academic spaces, like the one I was in today, are fertile grounds for power struggles. People parade and stake out their intellectual space. I am a Bernsteinian. I'm an academic literacies person. I am female. I have a PhD. I am a practitioner. I'm interested in the student. I'm interested in the curriculum. I'm using LCT. I dislike Karl Maton. I am black (or coloured, or white, or indian). In these uber-polite environments it's the person who wields their power through the eloquence of their words and the conquering up of theory to support their position that gets to dominant. Better still if they are able to evoke ontological debate and philosophy. Those unable to engage in this manner are simply present in the room, but definitely not guest of the party. That's the power first and foremost and how it is exercised. 

So what about race? Did my silence today have anything to do with my race? Or did it have more to day with my inability to communicate (or let me be frank, my intellectual incapacity to take up the debates)? To say that my perceived inability to engage in the conversation in the ways necessary to be recognised as a 'guest', is because I was denied the privileged of good schooling and opportunities because I'm black and grew up in apartheid South Africa, is condescending and deeply offensive and suggests a clear lack of understanding of the multiple factors that act to silence or amplify peoples' voices in any given situation. Such a view while tinged with the realities of being black, is limited and simply airbrushes, me Lynn, and all my agency (and that of my family) out of the picture. Yes I always mentally count how many black academics are in the room and my observations suggest that both in SA and aboard, typically, we are in the minority. But I'm not convinced that how we behave in these sittings are only determined by the colour of our skin. But I can understand and recognise that power evoked around race is still contentious and needs to be brought to the surface. I don't have the answers and feel that I might be 'outting' a somewhat assimilationist or dare I say 'colonised' view on race in SA through my articulations here. What I do wonder is how the symposium space could have been reconstructed in such a way to ensure that everyone felt more equal (on whatever grounds) and more comfortable to speak and voice their ideas. But maybe seeking equality in academia is an elusive notion and that's why the elephants in the room will always be allowed to go 'bos'.

walk like an egyptian

Today I attended a symposium organised by colleagues at UCT. I did a short presentation focusing on how my PhD research incorporated the academic literacies and Bernsteinian perspectives. Surprisingly for me, the presentation itself was well received. I got some really complimentary comments, mostly about the research approach I used and how I was able to articulate what I'd done. Thankfully no real questions about the specifics. Although at the end of the day someone did 'corner me' and ask a question about the very specifics I was hoping would be overlooked. And I did struggle to provide a coherent, intelligent response, because as I realised, when mumbling through bits and pieces of what I did almost three years ago, I actually don't remember. No, maybe this is an unfair portrayal for my intelligence (and memory). What actually happened here is that I haven't yet considered how to mediate or translate the specifics of what I did during my fieldwork, or how I came to the interpretive stance I took to my analysis work, outside of what I wrote in the thesis. Without the steady, slow progress of the argument constructed by the structure of the thesis I was a bit lost.

This brings me to walking like an egyptian or rather walking, talking and behaving like a PhD academic. These events that bring together academics to discuss and debate a scholarly issue are very much like a particular kind of performance. You have to walk like an egyptian and my nervousness and anxiety before such events is usually because I'm never really sure whether I'll be recognised or perform appropriately as 'that' egyptian. Or indeed if I want to be a darn egyptian in the first place. When I was a masters student (and to a lesser degree a PhD student) or when I went to conferences as a 'practitioner' I felt less pressure to try to be the 'academic', 'scholar', 'Dr' - the egyptian in Egypt. In this early post-PhD phase I've become increasingly conscious of my identity and the identity projections of everyone else in the room. And so the mumblings I described above bother me even though I have a reasonable explanation for my response. Your thesis always needs mediation and translation especially when you are presenting it, or parts of it, to an audience not made up of your supervisors or examiners. A lesson I'm learning slowly and sometimes a bit painfully. But when in Egypt you have do what the egyptians do, no? The trouble though is that it's not always clear what that actually means, and to construct your own path through this environment, no matter how many times you've visited before, can be a risky business. But never fear, for now at least I'm an academic with a PhD and tomorrow I get another chance to trying out my own special walk, talk and way of being.

nothing will work unless you do

I read a lot of Maya Angelou in my early and mid-twenties. I was going through a 'feminist' phase, although saying this now sounds so wrong, implying that I'm no longer a feminist. Well it was a phase where I took a more hardline approach to all things gender related. In retrospect I was simply working out who I was and how I, as a black woman related to the rest of the world.

In the last two days I've been lucky to spend some time with two good friends/colleagues talking about me and my professional life post-PhD in direct and indirect ways. Reading some of the many obituaries and famous quotes from Maya Angelou I was drawn to this one 'nothing will work unless you do'. In both these chats the issue of writing as a survival and personal affirmation strategy came up, again in direct and indirect ways. I've put serious academic writing off for too long, citing all sorts of reasons not to make it a priority. I have to do the work to solve the problems I encounter, even if that work isn't what I initially expected it to be.

I like this image.
She looks directly into the camera,
open, unassuming, comfortable.

Maya Angelou to the rescue once again? Which makes me wonder if I've already figured out all I need to about how as a black woman I relate to the rest of the world.

structure and agency

I have just a few common-sense observations and reflections to make about this oft discussed and theorised concern  - structure and agency.

In the literature it's always wonderful to see the little person (aka - the agent) overcome or subvert the negative and even tyrannical  impact of the society or the institution (aka - the structure). Of course all of this plays itself out in complex and diverse ways and as Margaret Archer and other theorists (like Bourdieu, who a good friend reminded me about recently) have shown us, the relationship between the structure and the agent is also interceded by culture. And I won't even try to pretend that I know anything about more psychologically informed understandings of these interactions. BUT theory-schemory when it comes to trying to understand your own place in an organisation and why it is you behave and react to events,  incidents and people in the way you do. It's safe to say that I have enough of a common-sense understanding (and experience to back this up) to know that the environment that I live and work in will affect me as a person and in someways impact on, and direct how I response to what I encounter. I'm fast realising however, that irrespective how agentive you are as a person, you are still operating within a broader system that WILL either constrain or accentuate your level of agency. Also the conditions in environment can distort your ability to realise your agentive potential. It can also act to reframe and reconstruct your inability to use this agentive quality as a personal failing and in so doing turn the spotlight off the features inherent in the structure that directly act against this agentive potential. As I write this I imagine that somewhere in the literature, someone has already described this process in more elaborate and eloquent ways, and with just the right sprinkling of theoretical concepts and constructions to give it the necessary air of credibility and validity. I wonder though if anyone has ever written about how being caught in this process actually makes you feel, and how understanding these processes, no matter how rudimentary that understanding, offers no buffer against the person impact on its detrimental effects.

20 years on

I wanted to write about the 20th anniversary of South Africa's first elections two weeks ago, but all I did was think about what I could say. Today I went off to vote in our 4th national election since becoming a political democracy. Maybe it's the conversations, debates and slight turmoil about who to vote for, that has accompanied me over the last few weeks, that crystalised today in my determination to put my thoughts down.

Thelma a few days before
the inauguration of
Nelson  Mandela

In 1994, for me and most my family it was a foregone conclusion who we would vote for. This was accompanied with much optimism, enthusiasm, even euphoria about the fact that as a country we had reached this momentous landmark despite the bloodshed, destruction and turmoil that had defined the 'struggle years'. I remember desperately waiting to see the results tally and wishing the ANC would get the two-thirds majority that would once and for all show the previous apartheid government (and the rest of the world) the faith and confidence the South African people had in it's liberation movement and political party. Nothing could dampen the feelings of positivity and deep hope for a different kind of future, one defined by equality, for everyone in the country.

Today I went to vote at a Bridgetown voting station. I grew up in this apartheid era 'council area' and accompanied my sister and brother-in-law who still live there. On our way back after voting we were reminiscing about the 1994 elections and my sister made a very simple, but poignant statement. She said it was so sad that after only 20 years all that has become of the expectation, hope, optimistism we felt then, is now, only a bitter taste felt in our mouths.

The last time I voted for the ANC in a National Election was 2004. For the local elections I had unfortunately, already lost faith in party and especially its personalities, before that. But I think in 2004 & 2009 the debates about who to vote for were more predictable. People like me who were a bit pissed off or irritated with the ANC, made a token gesture of either spoiling our ballots or voting for an obscure, small independent party. It was a silent, person statement. This time around the dissatisfaction with the political context was more widespread and had entered the heartland of the ANC support base. I'm defining 'support base' here as people who, while dissatisfied with particular policy or tactical  decisions made or who had issues with certain personalities in the ANC, are by and large still loyal supporters (for whatever reasons). In the last few weeks there have been all sorts of calls, even by ANC stalwarts, to vote tactically, and in so doing give the ANC a wake-up call. For me it's been hard to respond to these calls and debates. In principle I could agree, but on the question of who to vote for I was very unsure. It's one thing to make a personal, and very silent, statement in a voting booth, but a completely different thing to possibly direct your vote towards an opposition party that you find morally irreprehensible, simply because you want to send a clear message to the ruling party without watering down the opposition.
My dilemma today.
My choice about which political party to vote for is still emotionally charged and undeniably scarred by my history. Just like I was unable to vote for the ANC because I see it distorting the ideals it held in such high regard a mere 20 years ago, I was unable to put aside my personal and political beliefs when selecting which opposition party to vote for. As it can be said that most political parties stand on shaky moral ground anyway, does it really matter? Unfortunately for me, at this moment, it still does. I tried to pick the best of the baddies and as a result I probably didn't do my bit for helping to develop a more robust opposition.

Melissa's ink-marked thumb

Waiting to vote for Melissa

My niece, Melissa, who was born in November 1994, and therefore a true 'Born Free', voted today for the first time. So a special moment for our family and maybe symbolic too. I'm forced to acknowledge that the political landscape has changed in the past 20 years, and this is positive too. In a way the fact that Melissa had the option to choose an alternative to the party I voted for 20 years ago is an indication that, politically and socially, our country is able to accommodate the necessities of change. And in a small way I feel, through the act of Melissa voting today, the same positivity and optimism we all felt the first time we went to the polls, in what also seems like a life-time ago.

doing it on the fly

As a PhD graduate I'm meant to take a scholarly, systematic and structured approach to all my academic related activities. I'm suppose to think carefully about my pedagogic or research practices and approach them in ways that are befitting of the knowledge and skills I developed as a PhD student in the UK. Instead I've embarked on two 'on the fly' projects. One, a pseudo mini-research project exploring student transition and another, an ad-hoc 1st year writers' circle support group. One could see these activities in one of two ways; a) I'm completely arrogant, highly confident and self-assured so therefore dismissive of the need to follow procedures, structures, scholarship - I know what the problems are, I know how to fix it and the literature can't tell me, anything I don't already know; b) I'm a practitioner confronted by a concern, a problem and I've acted in a responsive manner. I, however, think there is a third way. I'm a practitioner with a deep scholarly disposition, very aware of the 'shortcomings' of my hastily prepared research and pedagogic projects, trying desperately to find the time needed, to give both my projects the kind of academic and intellectual 'thinking' time they need, they deserve. I'm an aware practitioner and I know how these projects can be strengthened to fulfill all the rigours demanded by a critical scholarly community, of which I am also a participant. But needs must. And this is a way for me to feed my intellectual curiosity and keep my teacher identity alive and kicking in an otherwise barren environment.

taking the weekend off

The PhD experience instills a strange discipline or guilt  - depending on how you want to view it. Your work is a constant feature of your life, and if you are doing a full-time PhD the days of the week are practically indistinguishable from each other. Basically, weekends don't exist. I had a rule of working a six-day week. Since I was relieved of my teaching responsibilities my weekends have pretty much become weekends. Unless I've been working on some or other writing project, my weekends have become a time when I do the things normal people do on a weekend. I was surprised to acknowledge last week, that I did not check my e-mail for practically most of the weekend. More surprising is that it didnt really bother me. Of course there is that niggly bit of something I feel, a slight discomfort at doing 'nothing' or having 'nothing' of value to do (reframed this means that only real academic work - aka, writing or research - is of value). Last time I wrote about how writing and identity are two sides of the same coin, a similar claim could be made that academic work and identity are two sides of the same coin. So is it any wonder that my work, or guilt, or discipline associated with my work follows me into the weekend?

so you want to be an academic?

I've been wondering if I'm really 'cut-out' to be a proper academic. I spent the past Easter weekend vacillating between being repulsed by my clunky, unsophisticated and inelegant writing and getting excited about all the other article possibilities I could pursue. I couldn't help thinking, is this really what I want to do? The struggles I have with my writing really touch a raw nerve and expose the contradictory feelings inside me about being in academia. I accept that writing and publishing is central to what I have to do in this field, and I want to do it. I have things to say that I think are important and significant, and that I feel other people would be interested to hear/read about my thoughts and ideas. But another part of me just wants to be a teacher, a practitioner, a facilitator - focused only on giving students a better, more meaningful learning experience. But I think there is another issue central to the act of writing that overshadows these feelings about whether or not I want to be in academia. When the writing scholars, like Ivanic and co, talk about writing being intimately linked to identity and the self, they are absolutely correct. Nothing exposes my insecurities, self-doubts and uncertainties more than my writing - which is then amplified when my writing is viewed, judged and evaluated by others. Given that this judgment and evaluation is part and parcel of what defines academia, it appears, that if I don't accept the order of things, I will forever be in a state of internal conflict. So do I REALLY want to be an academic?

not teaching anymore

My teaching responsibilities have been 'revoked' - revoked isn't the write word, but I'm tired and don't feel like thinking about a word that might lessen the significance of this action or allow me to come across in a more polite, sensitive, considered tone. I won't go into the political motivations that brought on this decision or the fact that in this instance, I truly feel that I capitulated. I accepted my 'redeployment' (I word I used when explaining the new arrangements to my students) and breathed a sigh of relief for all the wrong reasons. Now when confronted with the reality I feel differently. I can't seem to ignore the symbolic resonances of this action. At the time I just wanted the problem and the stress to go away. Now I feel an amplification of the dissident position I embody. There is a hint of shame, again. Was it easier to say yes to not teaching, than deal with the fall-out of trying to confront the retrogressive and static approaches and attitudes to teaching and learning and student support? Teaching isn't a chore for me - it makes all the abstract theories I've studied for so many years, come to life. It challenges me to be critical about those very abstract theories that excite me when I read them, but are reconstructed differently in practice.

The point is, I'm disappointed and I wonder now, if I shouldn't have fought harder to retain a teaching role. Maybe I need to find other ways, other places to fulfill my teaching needs. Maybe! A residual feeling, a nagging thought at the back of my head keeps coming up though; Why do I continue to be the square peg trying to fit into a round hole. When will I find that freaking elusive square hole?

doing it all wrong

It's Friday evening, it's late. I'm sitting in bed with a fairly large'ish glass of red wine. It's been a both long and short week. This conflictory statement maybe, bests sums up the week's events. But, this isn't what's foremost on my mind or what this post is about. Amidst the crisis that unfolded on Monday was a little e-mail about the outcome of the peer review process linked to a little paper I submitted for a conference proceedings publication. In South Africa an academic can attract a smallish research subsidy for papers included in particular types of conference proceedings. Motivated by the possibility of attracting this subsidy and thereby accumulating some publication credits, I decided, in a carefree, happy moment, at the start of the year, to submit a paper. This was to lay the foundation for how I completely did it all the wrong way. On reading the peer-review reports, there was absolutely no way I could hide away from the fact that I had messed up the whole freaking process. Firstly, the paper was rushed. I'd be the first to admit that it was a difficult paper to write and a difficult one for the general audience of this conference to 'get' (even if I was able to write it exceptionally well). The amount of time I was able to spend on the paper was not commensurate with its level of difficulty. I remember I submitted the paper with probably one hour to spare before the final deadline. I just didn't give it enough time - I didn't allow the argument to brew (not the intellectual argument per se, but the written construction of that argument) and I didn't accommodate for more 'critical feedback' moments with a wider range of 'critical friends'. Secondly, I was messing with the stock-formula of paper submissions - I went for a conceptual rather than empirical argument. How arrogant and over-confident of me! Only the top scholars can and do take that this approach and even they encounter serious hurdles in getting this kind of paper published. Then finally, and this is probably the most crucial part, this submission attempt failed to take into account my own writing process - what I need to do get to a fairly polished piece of writing.

The feedback itself was brutal leaving me feeling ashamed that I submitted such a clearly unfinished, unrefined piece of writing. But, on Friday night with my glass of wine besides me, I feel sufficiently motivated, calm and accepting of this aspect being an academic, and I will give the paper another go. 'Good' writing comes with practice, I need the practice and the intellectual stimulation. Sometimes you have to get things wrong; if you don't how will you ever get them right?

the life blood that sustains me

I have to talk. Talking defines who I am. I think if I was denied the opportunity of expressing my thoughts, feelings, ideas, emotions through talk I could easily shrivel-up and die. The importance of this aspect what makes me, me has been brought into sharp focus over the past two days. On both days I had a chance to talk to colleagues/friends. On both occasions the topic was an aspect of academic life and on both occasions I was given the chance to talk, but more importantly I had to flex my intellect, think deeply and take in the wonderful stimulation offered by this 'simple' interpersonal interaction.

How wonderful it is to share in this most basic human interaction. I've raised the wonder of this taken-for-granted activity because it is what is so obviously missing from my current professional life. Last night I imagined what I might become if I was constantly immersed in an environment where I was challenged and stimulated intellectually. I remember why I loved my adult education diploma and all the taught masters' courses I even took. Because of the wonderful opportunities it granted me to read something and then discuss it with peers. I have to grapple with the theories or arguments presented on paper, express my opinions about it, listen to what someone else thought, then respond or counter their position. At the same time work through my own understanding of these very theories and arguments - and learn, learn, learn. For me talking and learning go together - whether its learning of the academic or personal kind. Now, sitting alongside my glass of red wine, writing this, I feel content.

my students

With an assignment looming one suddenly gets to see your students in ways often hidden from direct view. This strange period in the academic calendar also offers the student an opportunity to seek out and engage with their lecturers in ways probably unimaginable when they first walked through the classroom doors. Over the past two weeks I've had some interesting encounters with my students - moments that have forced me to think differently about these individual human beings, their struggles, their experiences and their expectations. Here are short descriptions of some of these moments.

A rather proud Xhosa student of mine came to my office after class to tell me that his father had died the previous weekend in a car accident. I felt a slight sting of shame, as just 40 minutes before, I had rebuked him for not having done the preparatory readings for the session. He explained as best he could, while trying to maintain an emotionless disposition befitting of his status as the oldest son, how hard it was for him to have to inform his mother and sisters of his father's death. He was also preparing himself to be in the company of his mostly female immediate family as all the funeral arrangements were made and the eventual ceremony in the Eastern Cape attended. We spoke about the possibility of an extension and I explained what procedures he needed to follow for this request.

On the same day another male student of mine spoke to me about his rather tenuous accommodation situation. He was living in a single room in Khayelitsha in a house of a friend of his family. He didn't know the family personally and unfortunately it wasn't suitable - not least because of the travelling and the expectations that he had to help-out with the housekeeping - both these factors were impacting on this studies. He clearly needed to move out, but had not been very successful in securing alternative accommodation options. As a first year student, his chances of getting into a residence at this late stage were slim. This week I received an e-mail from him asking for an extension and explaining that he had to move out and was practically homeless.

During a remedial assignment preparation session I scheduled with my classes I sat with a group of about five mostly Xhosa students. They kept calling me Ma'am - something that had occurred throughout the term even though I specifically asked students to call me 'Lynn' at my first class. Again I said rather sternly 'Don't call me Ma'am, my name is Lynn'. Maybe because of the intimate setting, they immediately expressed their discomfort. 'We can't call you Lynn, it's disrespectful' someone said. Now, I know this, right? Most of my students have had 12 years of schooling, mostly in some or other township where authoritative rules always apply. They also come from a highly hierarchical socio-cultural environment where children, young adults and students need to know their place in relation to adults and especially lecturers at the university. Even in our department its very unusual for students to be on first-name terms with their lecturers. They lamented at how their parents would be most disapproving if they knew, their sons and daughters were calling me on my first name. We had a long discussion about the different ways in which respect can be shown. Through my attempts to convince these young people why it REALLY was ok to call me on my first name, I had to reflect on my own reasons and underpinning philosophies for this stance. I was reminded of my adult education inspired humanist values and how this simple (almost unthinkable) action so strongly attempted to signal an egalitarian approach to education. As a lecturer I really don't need a title to signal my status and power - surely its already conferred on me by virtue of the institutional structures which both my students and I are apart of? But of course while I know this, I'm also critical of this stance. The question for me of course is, shouldn't I be more accepting of my students, their socio-cultural background and find ways to alleviate their discomfort rather than accentuate it by insisting on these rather foreign naming conventions? Well no! As we discussed, different contexts call for different practices and we all have to get used to this in our daily interactions with people in different settings. They will have to come to understand that in my class calling me on my first name is not a sign of disrespect and doesn't in any way diminish my authority. Of course this rule might not apply to my colleagues and their classes and my students will have to change their approaches accordingly. As we ended our conversation one of the young men in the group sheepishly said 'Yes, Lynn' and everyone else giggled nervously. Later, thinking back on this short interaction which forced me to really consider an almost unconscious aspect of my classroom practice - I felt grateful that my students could help me reconnect with this practically hidden, but defining aspect of my teaching self.

reclaiming my research day

At the institution and especially department where I work, there is this mythical thing called a research day. The institution, who is keen to show the outside world that it is serious about having a strong research culture and is supportive of its fledgling researchers, is keen in it's official discourse to acknowledge this thing called a research day. Once inside the department however, this 'thing' is more elusive. So I have a research day. But it's something that's said in a whisper and acknowledged almost half-halfheartedly - like some who smiles deceptively when they say 'sure everything is ok'. Since the start of the academic year all my other work and administrative responsibilities have all but swallowed my research day. I had hoped this special day would allow me to stay connected to all things conceptual and provide the antidote to the impoverish intellectual environment of my day-to-day work environment, where the concept of 'the academic' is a expletive concept at best. Today, however, I reclaimed my freaking research day - well almost. I went to work, but at 12 pm I left the building and came to sit in one of my favourite and productive places for all things academic. I managed to revise an abstract for a regional colloquium I'm involved in. Today I've also been reminded that I have to take charge of the pathway I want to construct for myself and if there are particular 'tools' at my disposal it's up to me to use them to service my own needs. But this attitude also requires strength of will, especially within the context of my current position, and I will have to work hard to keep my strength up.

Lynn the school ma'am

One thing I was really appreciating about my new teaching self was the fact that I've been so relaxed. Especially about the expectations I had about my students. In my previous teaching life, before the PhD, I was such a reactive teacher. Very demanded, critical and hard. Setting the bar very high and expecting my students to rise to the challenge. I often got 'upset' at them because they seemingly refused to do the right thing in class or take their learning seriously. At the time I had very clear motivations for this aspect of my teaching behaviour; motivations I thought (and in certain respects still do feel) were honourable and came from the right place. While today I still believe in the those underpinning values that drove certain aspects of my practice, I don't feel compelled to exert too much pressure on my students, or demand that they conform to strict rules of appropriate learning behaviour that I strictly enforce. It's their learning experience and they should be given the opportunity to exert as much control over what and how they learn (within the structures that the university has created).

On Thursday I felt all these new grand ideals slip from my grasp as I morphed into Lynn the school ma'am. As it happened I could hear the voice in my head say...'No! don't go there' and as with so many other moments like this in my personal life, I told the voice firmly to shut up and I went 'there' anyway.

It had been a frustrating lecture from the moment I stepped into the class. The students just seemed distracted and as the hour passed it felt like I had to stop every 10 - 15 minutes to get them to calm down, get them to concentrate on the discussion at hand, encourage them to participate in the discussion or respond to a question I had posed, or ask one or other group to stop talking. Then as I tried to talk through the last slide which outlined the small homework task, there was a rush of students to the front of the class, smartphones in hand taking photos of the slide. I make all my slides available on Blackboard either before or within an hour of the lecture. This sent me over the edge. I couldn't help but wonder if students at other, more prestigious, universities would react and behave like this in their lectures. And then I started my rant. Almost embarrassingly I turned into the delittling parent  - using their power to scold the child but at the same time seek retribution by transferring the blame back onto the child. Afterall it was the child's poor behaviour that had forced the parent to respond in ways that was clearly demeaning for the parent. Welcome back the old Lynn. I'd like to suggest that the frustrations of the multiple challenges I had to deal with during that hour were to blame for my outburst - but I think it's an easy response and one that all too quickly vindicates and absolves me from all wrong doing. But it is challenging teaching where I teach. It's even more challenging trying to maintain my learning and teaching philosophies that value and reinforce active and critical learning while also placing a humanist ideal at the centre of all I do in the classroom. So I didn't do too well on Thursday but I hope I can keep Lynn the school ma'am at bay...for now anyway.

a day of rest

During my PhD I had this unspoken rule that for at least one day in the week I would not work on my thesis. It was a rule I introduced to give myself the illusion of a breathing space, that would allow me to step away from the thesis that consumed my head, my being. I always imagined that I would never again be in a position where work would take over my life in this way. Now that I'm teaching again and trying to carve out a space to do writing work as well, I've quickly found myself in this position where the rules I applied to my PhD, especially about working on weekend, have been completely discarded. I'm working everyday of the week often until 10 pm at night and still not getting everything I need to do done. I keep thinking, as I did during my PhD, that I'm simply not using my time effectively. That I'm just inefficient. Unfortunately my default is always to blame myself, although I know a lot of the tensions I'm experiencing at the moment are reflected more deeply in how academic work is conceptualised in the vocational higher education sector in South Africa and the particular constraints I'm facing in my department. But on the face of things, I just cannot find more hours in the day to stay on top of all the tasks I need to do. And I'm becoming deeply resentful of how much of my supposedly free time I need give up to get my basic work-relate tasks done.I'd always imagined that working like this was reserved for my PhD and not my full-time job! At the moment I've basically abandoned any aspirations for writing this term and I'm deeply pissed off about it. I love being in the classroom again, I just wish there was a way that my teaching did not become the obstacle to my writing.

that immediate response

When your teaching goes right - the response is immediate. Your students connect with you, with the content you're trying to explain, with how you've designed the session to help make the content understandable. You feel a reassurance that everything needed to make your lesson engaging, active, interesting, understandable has all come together and for most of the students the desired effect has been achieved. Even if you have one of these 'connected' session in every term or semester, it's enough to give you the inspiration and energy to deal with all the other times when your lessons pass by uneventfully. I had one of these 'connected' sessions last week and the effect on my psyche and confidence was just so uplifting. So many behind-the-scene aspects related to my work conditions have played havoc with my sense of purpose and confidence in my role as academic, that having this very positive and immediate feedback from my students was just what I needed last week. While I fear this description of events and its effect on me is now bordering on the cliche, this simple classroom engagement has release an overwhelming feeling of hope and possibility - that maybe I still have something worthwhile to offer, even if  only to the unsuspecting 70 odd students who happen to have me as their Communications lecturer.

there is no fence around the university

Last week I asked my first year class in 'Communications' (I will have to say something more about this subject and its peculiar place in the university of technology curriculum landscape sometime) to write a very short narrative piece that described and reflected on their first few days at the university. What many students shared about their experiences in their written work brought into sharp focus how fundamental, awkward, weird and wonderful this move between school and university is for many students. Highlighted were many of the assumptions I made (and I'm sure many lecturers do too) about students' understandings and perceptions of university and their lived experiences of schooling. In many ways exposing the fallacy that high school in South Africa somehow prepares students for their life at university. Students marveled (and I'm not being condescending when I use this adjective) at the size of the buildings, the resources available (like the library, its books, the computer labs), the number of students and the fact that there was no fence around the campus or school bell - so they could come and go as they liked but also monitor the time for different lectures themselves. All of this has made me think that we really don't start at the point where students are at and make no allowances for the adjustment they need, just to the day-to-day arrangements and practices of the university, of the department. We just rush in with the content of our subjects as we know and understand it, thinking little of how all of this might be taken on and experienced by our students.

hello my name is Dr Lynn Coleman and I'm your lecturer

Is lecturing just like riding a bike - you never forgot how to do it? I felt completely self conscious about myself and what I was saying today. I met my students today - well they met me. I remember doing similar introductions to first years, in particular, in the course where I taught before the PhD but I don't remember feeling this self conscious about myself. I think the less than positive self awareness stems from the fact that I feel very much like a newbie myself. I've never taught in this course before, nor have I taught most of the content. Of course I know I CAN teach the content, it's just five years outside of the classroom (and deeply immersed in the role of a student) can alter your self confidence about your teaching.

Being a PhD student heightened my awareness of the student experience and I during my time as a student I was able to really reflect on some of my not so positive behaviours as a teacher. I'm determined not to make the same mistakes again and so I'm very mindful of my responsibility to be a good, positive teacher and role model. It did feel good to be in the company of young people again, even though I really struggle to identify with their taste in music, movies or having watching TV as a hobby. But hey ho! I suspect they might find it hard to identify with my lifestyle choices too.

being a teacher again

Next week I will once again become a teacher. I'm returning to the HE classroom after a five year absence. As I've been trying to work on my preparation for this move back into a role and identity I was most proud and happy to have, the complexities of how to embrace this old and familiar identity within the context of my current position in my department has been brought into sharp focus. Before I had almost complete autonomy over all aspect of the subject curricula I taught. I was the only person teaching the subject, it was my domain and I was indeed the queen of that castle. I could approach the subject content and its underlying philosophies and pedagogy in the way I saw fit. This year it's all very different. I'm one of three people assigned to teach the subject and it's not been easy negotiating for the opening up or creation of a space where issues related to the curriculum and pedagogy can be discussed. And I'm not happy with what I've seen. There are glaring omissions and misalignment in relation to issues related to choice of content, pedagogy, and assessment strategies and importantly to me, the lack of responsiveness to students and their needs and what they bring to the learning context. It hard for me to turn a blind-eye: in respect of my teaching I usually don't do half-measures, I don't easily settle for mediocre or anything other than active learning. I'm ruffling feathers because I'm asking questions about the nature of assessments, the lack of time devoted to orientation and induction into the subject content, the department, the institutional ways of being, the type of classrooms I'm required to conduct my lectures and practicals in, the validity of the promotion of a decontextual skills orientated philosophy to the course content. But next week I meet my students and I'm excited about that - I'm keen to see how my PhD experience will impact on my pedagogic practice and how the learner role I've occupied over the past five years will act to sensitize the teacher role I now have to step into again.

staff or student

On Friday I had to do this big'ish formal presentation to the staff in my department about my portfolio of responsibility in the department - i.e. my academic staff development function. This is the primary role I 'sort of' play in my department. I also have a big'ish administrative function associated with quality assurance activities linked to an institutionally driven curriculum development project. Then in between these two big'ish tasks I'm also expected to teach, and I want to do research (by no means a core requisite for academic staff in our institution). In this academic staff development role my energies are focused on helping staff to find ways of improving their teaching practices and to nurture an awareness and interest in the general scholarship of teaching and learning.

Later that afternoon in conversation with a colleague about a possible research project to explore engineering students' experiences and perceptions of learning mathematics, I realised that I'm still too interested in students and their experiences to shift my research agenda. I may work in academic staff development, but I don't want to research that aspect of my work. I'm still not ready to let go of the student as my central focus. This same ideal ensured that my PhD research was firmly grounded in the academic literacies tradition - to allow me to place the student in core position of my research design and to ensure that their perceptions and experiences directed everything else I did in my research and analysis. This strong leaning towards the student is a very common feeling shared by many of the academics I know and respect. We are constantly pulled towards all sorts of other enticing or not so enticing activities associated with our work in higher education, but the student is always king/queen - the alpha and the omega - the core element that defines our identities and usually gives us a reason to get up in the morning. I might have suggested that staff and their concerns somehow can share the same platform as students. But that's misleading because for now my interest, and especially my research interest, are firmly locked-in on the student.

maybe it's not all in my head?

A friend sent me this link from THE about the complexities of being an academic in current times. I read it and breathed a sigh of relief - it's clearly not all in my head, these feelings of disconnection, dislocation, uneasy I feel about my place in the academic machine and in particular the department where I work. And as the weekend arrives, after a very disheartening engagement with my boss, where the realities of departmental priorities that so clearly seek to sideline and marginalise the positive contribution I was hoping to make, become abundantly clear to me, I'm relieved because of the perspective and possibilities my PhD experience has allowed me to see.

that gap between the past and the present

Because of the PhD studies I was effectively away from the institution where I work for five years. I'm realising that, the gap between 'the past' and 'the present' is where insincerity, insecurity and cowardice play. I've lost a history, an understanding of how things work and how they have developed and progressed in that five year gap. I'm not sure I can make it up. I'm trying - and I've decided to bring the PhD into service to help me overcome the problems presented by that gap - especially my own insecurities related to having lost my footing in the status and other hierarchies in the department. But equally interesting and sometimes difficult for me to handle are the insecurities and insincerity I encounter from colleagues, which I feel ill equipped to deal with because of the 'gap' burden. Often when I'm unable to 'deal' with what is thrown at me I interpret my response as cowardice - because I fail to act even when I know I should, and I appear, to myself anyway, to take the easy route and slip out of view.

I've been told that my position as Senior Lecturer (one I earned through the newly introduced Ad Hominen promotion system at my institution just before I left) means that I should take on an 'academic leadership' role with a portfolio of responsibility - just like the other Senior Lecturers in the department - all of whom were appointed to a specific administrative post like to this title. While this phrase 'academic leadership' is being used to position this role - especially for my benefit - I can't help feeling a hollowness, bordering on insincerity in how it is translated in practice. My reading of the sub-text implies that I'm not or haven't taken on and acted rightfully in my assigned position within the department (so I haven't shown academic leadership). However, nothing in how the department is currently structured has created the possibility for me to act or be seen to act in this position. I still haven't been asked to join the extended management meetings - so one of the technicians in our department has a permanent 'spot' on this forum, but not me. Of course my response - which has been not to explicitly highlight this omission to the powers is underpinned by a willingness to sit under the radar and smile almost cunningly knowing that I'm therefore not required to attend boring 3-4 hours meetings and thus allowed to write instead or get on with other more important academic 'stuff'. I'm complicit in my own invisibility while realising that just like I carry the burden of the gap in my history, the institution/department still operates very much in the past where leadership and seniority is also constructive in administrative terms - just like the technikon environment which is the ghost of our present institutional self. So they want to play the 'academic' game and seemingly talk the 'academic' language that might suggest they are in 'the game' but really do they really have any sense of what it is?

new focus

Seems it didn't take too long to come up with an idea of how to take my blog forward. How to make it accommodate the new (old) things and activities I'm engaging in and the identities that are becoming part of me in the post-PhD phase of my life. Post-PhD being the operative phrase that is all important. I'm going to blog about what it means to be in this post-PhD phase, how the PhD is shaping, influencing, directing, contorting how I see myself and my work within the specific vocational higher education institution where I work and the broader local and international higher education context that I am also part of. So I'll be rambling on about my new teaching role (in the disturbingly titled 'Academic and Professional Literacies' arena) and all the other activities and tasks wonderfully assigned to the very non-descript 'Academic Support' job title I currently have. A taster of the open-endedness of this title, today the first day of the academic year I had two random (and I mean random) students find their way into my office (I've decided that for the next two week my door will remain closed at all times) and ask me for advice about their continued studies in my department or how they might get into the course even though their application had already been rejected. Now of course I realise these students probably come into my office because mine was the only door open in the corridor and they needed their questions answered, but maybe, just maybe they saw the name tag and underlying title on my door and thought - 'I have a concern that needs some academic support, and the person inside this office should be able to answer it'.

And so the post-PhD phase of my life and this blog begins and to celebrate I've given the blog a bit of a face-lift. I quite like it!

what now?

The corrections are with the Research School and I guess it's practically over - the PhD that is. So I've been wondering what to do with this blog. I'm not sure  - I started the blog as a way of reflecting on my PhD journey and now that I've reached my final destination I'm not what function the blog might fulfill. I don't want to stop blogging but I'm not 100% sure how to make the blog-transition from the PhD to my next journey. At this point I'm not exactly sure what they next journey will be or rather what story I want to tell about my life post-PhD. I'm gonna have to think about this a little bit more and possibility use the blog as a canvas for my explorations. The blog, my blog, I think is robust, it can deal with some eclectic meanderings - a little bit of this, a tiny bit of that and viola! Hopefully something new, yet familiar.