Tag: thinking

Posted in Learning, Life

On success …

Posted on by Sharon

I’ve been reading a lot this week about the ways young people define success; I’ve also been reading about the aspirations of adolescent girls.

I’ve therefore been thinking quite a bit about aspirations and success.

What is success? Well, according to the year 7 students in Wendy’s study it’s a lot to do with having a goal and achieving it (it’s also, according to them, about fame and wealth). Wendy is another success story, but I’ll leave that for another day.

And aspirations? For the year 10 girls in Cherie’s study, there was a sense of uncertainty, a lack of clarity around their aspirations for the future. They had ideas/fantasies, but no concrete goals they were actively planning to achieve. There were so many options for them, that they found it difficult to project themselves one year or 10 years into the future and choose which of those options felt right for them. The girls had difficulty visualising life as anything but what it is now.

I empathise with that view. Do you? Can you imagine yourself 10 years older: what you’ll look like, what you’ll be doing, where you’ll be living, what kind of relationship you might be in (particularly if you aren’t in one now), where you might have travelled to? Could you have done that when you were 15 or 16?

I certainly couldn’t. I never imagined I’d be a university lecturer, for instance. I can’t believe I’ve been one for so long that I’m eligible for long service leave! It wasn’t something I had as a goal. Being a lecturer wasn’t something I strived for, or planned for, or worked towards attaining. It wasn’t on my to-do list. My life just led there. It’s just what happened.

For those of you who are planners, that might seem unnatural, not the proper way of doing things, it might even seem wrong. For those of you who have known me for the longest time (and I’m talking almost 40 years here. Yes, Michelle, it’s been that long) you might think I made decisions that inevitably led me to that destination – but if I did it was never with that destination consciously in mind. I didn’t at any point say “I have aspirations to be a lecturer”. It simply wouldn’t have occurred to me to aspire to that kind of role.

I don’t generally set goals. I hate the question “where do you see yourself in ten years’ time?” No, not hate. Loathe. I loathe that question. I don’t know where I’ll be in ten years’ time, but ten years ago I didn’t know I’d:

* be married (to the most fabulous man I know)
* be living in Burnie (and loving living here)
* have (almost) six more grandchildren than I did at the time
* have my doctorate
* be employed full-time as a lecturer
* have had the opportunity to be a Course Coordinator (and in so doing help change some lives)
* have had the privilege of being the Director of Student Engagement (and help to change a few more)
* have travelled to Paris (twice), been to Germany to visit Elke (twice), spent a week in Venice with Sarah and Ben, caught the train around France and Italy by myself, or been proposed to on the London Eye
* have seen Macbeth at the Globe Theatre in London, Les Mis on the West End, or Loch Ness
* be a student again, this time studying Media Communication.

And more … much more. I wouldn’t have thought of some of those things ten years ago, let alone planned to achieve them if they’d been goals – and look how much I would have missed out on. So for me, that’s a clear justification for not living your life according to five or ten year plans. I know others will see it differently, and I’m not saying they’re wrong, I’m just saying that I don’t live my life that way.

So … and I’m getting to the point now … imagine how surprised I was in November last year when I set myself a goal. Just one mind you, but it was a big one. It was one I wasn’t convinced at the time I could achieve, but I set it nonetheless. I couldn’t “see” myself into the future to see how I would look or feel if I achieved this goal, but that didn’t stop me from setting it.

And it didn’t stop me from working towards it.

You see, I’d become increasingly unhappy with my … physical self/weight/appearance/being treated by strangers as stupid just because I was fat. I wrote the following earlier this year as part of an assignment for university:

Lizzie* was fat. Morbidly obese, according to the chart in her doctor’s office. She’d
been that way for years, apart from the time, five years ago, when she lost 12 kilos.
Since then she’d managed to put on 20. Or more.

Lizzie knew that she was fat; she could feel it. When she laughed, her whole body
wobbled; Lizzie didn’t like that, so she stopped laughing. Her knees creaked under
her weight: with each stair she climbed or descended Lizzie was accompanied by a
painful musical chorus. Lizzie’s eyes grew squinty and her best friend commented,
rather rudely Lizzie thought, that she must be turning Japanese. Lizzie’s mummy-apron
grew bigger by the day. Her arms, her thighs, her wrists, her elbows … fat.

Fatness oozed from her shoes with every step.

In her fatness Lizzie was lumpy, unlovely, lost. Far beyond chubby or plump, Lizzie
was fleshy, hefty, corpulent.

And, unhappy.

*The name was changed to protect  … well, me.

So, yes I set myself a weight loss goal. By October 12, 2013 I wanted to weigh a lot (lot) less.

Daniel, son number 2, was getting married to Cathy in Byron Bay. I knew there were whales that went past Byron and I didn’t want to be one of them.

It was a goal I was determined to make.

******

I didn’t make it.

But I was close. Really, really close.

I came home from Byron even more determined to reach the goal I had set myself in November last year.

On Monday last week I was 800g away from it.

By the Wednesday I was 400g away.

On Monday this week, I was 600g away. Ouch! That really hurt.

On Wednesday I was 100g away. It was so close … but not quite there. I wanted to see the actual number I’d been striving for on the scales, not settle with ‘close enough’.

You can imagine my trepidation on Friday (yesterday) when I stood next to the scales with my health coach standing beside – prodding me to get on them.

What if I’d put on weight? What if … ah, this was no time for what ifs. I just got on.

Result? I’d blitzed it! I hadn’t just gone down by the 100g I needed to make my goal; I’d dropped 900g and was well on the way to achieving the next (much, much smaller) weight loss goal I’d already decided on.

So, here I am. Forty-nine weeks after having set my goal. Still full of determination and resolve but 35.5kgs lighter.

Yes, dear reader, you read that correctly: 35.5kgs.

In one way I’m horribly embarrassed that there was that much of me to lose, but that really doesn’t stop me feeling proud of myself for losing it.

It was an aspiration. To weigh less, to not look like a whale at Daniel’s wedding, to not embarrass him in front of Cathy’s family (which I hadn’t met).

I had a goal: a particular weight I wanted to be at a certain time (which meant losing 34.7kgs in just less than a year).

I had a plan: an eating and exercise one.

I was determined. Through this process I’ve been re-introduced to my determination. It’s pretty strong!

I worked hard and didn’t let anything deter me.

I didn’t stop when I didn’t make it, or when it got hard, or when the weight  wouldn’t move, when my body wouldn’t move, when my knee groaned harder than it had ever groaned before, when others around me ate cake or musk sticks or spearmint leaves or Turkish Delight (thanks Rochelle and Emma), or even toast and vegemite (thanks Mum, but no thanks).

I was determined. I was initially determined to do it for Daniel, but then it got to the point where I was doing it for myself. And my determination didn’t waver.

And I made it. Two weeks late, but hey, I’m not going to quibble.

I set a goal. I worked hard to achieve it. I made it.

If this is what success feels like … I like it!! I might not have fame or wealth, but this feeling of satisfaction more than makes up for that.

******

If I was brave enough I’d put up before and after shots.

You’ll notice from their absence that I’m not yet that brave!

******

I have to acknowledge Tim, my wonderful husband, for his unfailing, constant support, encouragement, and belief in me. You’re the best and I love you to bits!  

Thanks Helen and Robyn and Carolyn. You are the best encouragers! You always noticed and let me know that you noticed and that meant a lot to me.

Thanks to Warren and Ben for your quiet support and pride in me. You’re both like Dad/Grandad … you don’t say much in words, but your actions speak loudly.

Thanks to Rochelle for being my exercise buddy for a short time. It helped push me just that bit harder. I don’t do ‘love pats’ at boxing anymore thanks to you!

Finally, thanks to Carolyn and Delicia and Eve. Your support has been amazing. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Posted in Learning, Studying, Writing

Being …

Posted on by Sharon

This year I took on a new identity … not, I hasten to add, in a witness protection kind of way. Nothing that dramatic! … but a new identity nonetheless.

I could say that I took on a new role … but with new roles comes new identities. We can choose to define ourselves by our new roles/identities, and thus think about ourselves differently. Being an academic means particular things. Being an under-graduate student means almost the polar opposite. We may choose to act in ways that are consistent with our new role and that might lead to inconsistencies in how we portray ourselves to the world. Will I be student today, or teacher? What does it mean to be a student in an online environment where I don’t get to spend time with my teacher or my peers; when I don’t get to hear their voices or even see what they look like? It’s a disconcerting experience. On the other hand, what does it mean to be a teacher in an online environment where I don’t get to spend time with my students, when I don’t get to hear their voices or see what they look like? Experiencing that as an online student heightens my awareness of that ‘disconcerting experience’ as a teacher of online students. 

In addition to thinking about myself in a different way and considering if I will act differently to signify this new role/identity, others see me in that new role and make different kinds of connections with me, or think about me in particular ways and so have their own view of who I am (which might not bear any relation to who I am when inhabiting a different identity/role).

My university tutors do not see me as a colleague; as someone who, like them, teaches in an online environment. They see me as a student – a distant one, it has to be said: one who doesn’t appear to be very engaged, who forgets to read her unit outline, who leaves assignments till the last minute, who doesn’t follow the requirements of the task as closely as she should, who doesn’t engage in conversations online, who hasn’t made connections with other students in the online environment.

For those of you in the know, why didn’t you tell me it would be like this? 🙂 If only you’d told me to read the unit outline carefully and repeatedly, or that I’d need at least 10 hours per week per unit to do full justice to the work I needed to do, or that learning to use new software is time-consuming and requires a great deal of independent learning and commitment and energy, or that coming home from work and having to study till late is exhausting, or that trying to find information when it’s in ten different places in the online environment is one of the most frustrating parts of the whole experience (it really isn’t all that difficult to put all the information required for weekly activities in the one place), or that reading all the other students’ posts can be mind-numbing and take up all the time I’d set aside for study (and seriously, do 18 year olds really like talk in that like annoying way where they like say a lot without like saying anything at all, you know, sort of, I guess, do you get me? Despite my student status I am still a teacher and despair over the abominable use of language on public discussion boards).

Not that it’s all bad of course. In one subject (Writing Professionally – actually I don’t know if that’s the name of the subject because for some reason I haven’t looked at the unit outline properly to even know what the unit is called), the tutor gives general feedback on our ‘writing watches’ (which are assessed) and on two occasions has encouraged other students to read my work for its ‘quality and depth’ (you have no idea how embarrassed I feel writing that). We had to do three ‘writing watches’ across the course of the semester – responding in a systemically functionally linguistic way to something we’d read. I chose to respond to:

1. an article in a photography magazine

2. an essay by Richard Flanagan which appeared in The Monthly (the article was on David Walsh and MONA which I’d just been to, so it seemed fitting)

3. a blog post titled The oddest English spellings, part 20: The letter “y” from the Oxford University Press’s blog. It was interesting. Seriously!

These writing watches were practice for our exam. Yes, you heard that right – exam. I had to sit an exam.

Why didn’t someone tell me how stressful that is?! That you spend days and nights thinking about what the questions might be, what the text choices might be, what you know (or rather, don’t know) about systemic functional linguistics and how you’re going to write “pages” on it in two hours?

But I did it and wrote (typed) five pages of blather about an advertisement for Income Protection titled Confessions of a financial adviser. An interesting way to spend a day, particularly when you’re at home and the phone keeps ringing just as you think you have the modality worked out!

We also had to do weekly ‘word watches’ (which were assessed). We had to find two unfamiliar words each week and write about them: what they mean, where we’d read/heard them, their derivation, and we had to use the words in a sentence.

At first I found this difficult. I don’t want to sound like a pompous git (unlike some people I know), but in the everyday, normal, regular reading I do I don’t come across too many words which I don’t know. So I determined to try harder.

Here are my words (you, clever reader, are quite possibly aware of their meanings and already sprinkle them through your everyday conversations. I, on the other hand, did not).

  • Eupraxis (thank you David M)
  • Conation (actually, I did know what that meant because I’d written about it in a journal article published last year, but until I wrote about it I didn’t know what it meant)
  • Heuristic
  • Prevaricate (actually I wavered on this quite a bit)
  • Mendicant (it had been in the news – Tasmania is a mendicant state apparently)
  • Noetic (nothing to do with Christmas)
  • Rendering (a word from my Graphic Design unit)
  • Misandry (its opposite had been much in the news)
  • Chirographic
  • Contumacious (if my mother had known this word when I was a child I’m sure I would have heard it a lot!)
  • Whovian (my sister is a mad one of these)
  • Gonzo (I’d been to MONA and learnt this word while wandering the subterranean halls. Tim already knew it. He’d read Hunter S. Thompson apparently)
  • Metaredound (don’t ask me)
  • Analogous (I actually had heard this word, but I wanted to use it in a way I hadn’t used it before and that was in relation to colour: analogous harmony)
  • Indigent (thanks Germaine)
  • Calumniated (and again)
  • Emic
  • Etic (yes, they are related)
  • Eschatology
  • Ratiocination (I had to listen to this a number of times to get the pronunciation right. Thanks YouTube!)
  • Contingent (used in a way I didn’t understand – of all people, by my husband, in a journal article we wrote some time ago. I hadn’t told him I didn’t understand the way he used it as I didn’t want to look stupid!)
  • Hegemony (with a soft ‘j’ sound for the ‘g’)
  • Picayune
  • Ludology (nothing to do with Ludo as it turns out … although …)

So there you have it. New words to pepper through my dinner-time conversations. Feel free to use any of them, particularly in ways that are inventive and thus deeply satisfying.

I am a student and I am learning things. That’s what students do isn’t it? Isn’t that the purpose of being a student? It’s why I decided to be a student: to learn something/s. And even though I’ve said ‘the message’ countless times, it’s always different when you’re on the receiving end of it. The message is: learning can be hard. And it isn’t always fun.

But it is satisfying.

Being a student not only challenges my own identity (I have to flip between student and teacher on a regular basis and I am very conscious of not being a teacher in my student role – which is partly why I don’t engage on the discussion boards: I don’t yet have the student language down pat. I’m too caught up using teacher language and saying teacher things and I don’t want to do that as a student).

Being a student also challenges how others see me.

Some people, on first hearing that I am a university student again, thought (and said) “are you mad?” and other equally dis/en/couraging words. My new role was something they wanted to reject – it was ludicrous, or unnecessary (especially at your age), or just plain silly. I have a PhD, why would I want to be an under-grad again? That’s something young people do. I should do some serious study, not a bachelor degree in an area I potentially know a little bit about. Why, for instance, am I doing Professional Writing (that’s its official title – I thought I’d better check) when I have had a number of journal articles, book chapters and conference papers published?

I guess I feel that I can always learn more – and I did. Heaps in fact, and that’ll help my writing when next I write something for publication. 

On hearing that I am a student again, other people saw me differently. They made a different kind of connection with me. Some, because of their own identity as ‘student’ (or perhaps, student-in-the-not-too-distant past) applauded my decision – I was now one of them, a member of a community of adults who are (or were) university students. For those whom I’ve taught – who have been my own students – the connection is even closer. Their teacher/lecturer/colleague is now in the same position they recall so clearly and thus our connection is strengthened. There’s a shared understanding … and as I give advice quite freely about being a student, I also imagine there’s a little bit of mirth around my stumbling attempts at student-hood.

But I have finished the semester, completed teaching and learning surveys (and been very honest – in a professional way – as all students should be), and am eagerly awaiting my final results.

I have also determined to be a better student next semester. I have already created folders for my two new subjects (one is Production Planning; the other is Visual Storytelling), downloaded the information from the course and unit handbook, looked up information about textbooks (I don’t have to buy any), and worked out what I do when I procrastinate (I work … yes, on my study days!).

Being a student: challenging, stressful, but ultimately satisfying.

What’s your experience?

Posted in Learning, Writing

Lesson #3

Posted on by Sharon

2004. Launceston, Tasmania. Lecturing to third year students I share with them an idea:

As a teacher

your job is to generate thinking

not control it.

I don’t know if it’s a truth (are there any of those left?) but it’s something I firmly believe. I hold that idea as a central tenant of my teaching. It’s important to me, part of who I am as a teacher. Part of my teacher identity.

****

 2012. Burnie, Tasmania. A first year student evaluation: Sharon wants us to think what she thinks.

I am caught by surprise. Shocked. Disappointed. Silenced. Immobilised. I can’t move on/get past it/let it go.

I want to, but it’s like a pebble that I can’t dislodge. Sharon wants us to think what she thinks.

I shake my head, and silently protest, deny it.

Has my position changed in the eight years since I taught the third years?

If it has, why wasn’t I aware of it? If it hasn’t, why aren’t students aware of it?

****

Today. Burnie, Tasmania. I’m puzzled. I have a situation and I’m not sure how to deal with it. It speaks to thinking and learning and power and control and authority and … and … and who I am and who I profess to be and student perceptions and clarity and lack of clarity and what I can/could/should do.

****

I learn through conversation: sharing ideas,talking them out, hearing an idea spoken aloud so that I can determine whether it’s an idea worth pursuing or if it needs to be tweaked or tossed aside. Through conversation I hear others’ ideas and determine how they might fit within my worldview or why they might not. I engage in conversation to understand, to learn.

I learn through questions: asking them and answering them. When I ask a question I want to know what the person I’m asking thinks, feels, values, believes. I want to hear their response. I ask to challenge my own thinking. I am interested in different perspectives, different ways of understanding an idea/concept/theory/practice, different values, different beliefs. I ask questions to understand and learn.

I learn through writing. I come to understand myself-others-the world-ideas-thoughts-traits-distinctions-dichotomies-polarities through writing. I use language deliberately. I think about the words I write with and the meanings of those words and the way one word/one idea/one thought fits with another. I think about cadence and rhythm and connection and clarity. I write to understand and as I write, I learn.

I think.speak.question.write.realise.

I don’t have answers. I have ideas.

That’s my realisation. Today. Right now. This moment.

****

Ideas can be challenged, adapted, re-formed, tossed aside, melded with others, stretched, explored, evaluated, weighed, talked about, shared. They can enrich and empower.

****

The puzzle: I am an academic. For some students that means I have authority. For some students it means I have answers. I contribute to the discussion online and some students think it’s a truth: definite, complete, authoritative. I float an idea. I suggest, propose, offer. There is conundrum inherent in my contribution. I write authoritatively, I am in control of my ideas, my words, my expression. I am an academic. I should know and therefore I should tell.

Should I?

I don’t have answers. I have ideas.

Ideas can enrich and empower. They can be shared, talked about, weighed, evaluated, explored, stretched, melded with others, tossed aside, re-formed, adapted, challenged. Even my ideas. Yes, even my ideas.

I want students to do their own thinking. I want them to think about the complexities within the books they’re reading in Children’s Literature, to make connections to what’s going on in the world around them, to be aware of the world around them, to see other people’s realities, to have ideas and share them and get to the crux of the story/character/plot/reality writ large on the page.

I share my ideas … not my answers.

Ideas can be challenged.

Even mine.