Education Today

(cross posted on my other blog, Mad Girl in the Attic)

Lately on YouTube a video by Dan Brown has sparked a lot of discussion. His video An Open Letter to Educators can be seen here. Also one of my favourite responses can be seen here.

Now this video and subsequent responses have got me thinking about a lot of things about the Academy today. To me the Academy should be focusing on teaching critical thought, constantly questioning norm, pushing boundaries to create new knowlege, not just consuming pre-made knowledge wholesale.

I feel like, especially at my own university, that the focus of the upper admin is to make as much money as they can. They no longer care about the quality of scholar they turn out, they care only about the bottom line. This means cutting jobs, having less tenured professors, having larger classes and tutorials, all in search of the almighty dollar.

This is especially apparent within the Humanities. Programs are being cut left right and centre. It is hard enough to get into classes that are needed and once you are in them they are often too large to be run effectively.

It has also extended into the library system. There is a large push for e-material over paper material. Jobs are being cut and retirement packages offered over and over again. More space is being allocated as “study areas” and less and less space is being allocated for books.

The worst part about the whole thing? Is that the university isn’t allowing the students to know what is on the agenda. They only release information to the student body once the mechanism has been set in motion and cannot be stopped.

With this in mind I have an urgent announcement for all McMaster Students. It has been recommended that Innis Library be closed.

This would mean that all of the Innis collection would be moved to Mills and there would be even fewer service points for all students. Business students would have to go to second floor Mills for research help from librarians who may or may not have experience in the area of business research. This would mean that the Research Help at Mills would be used by at least 3 extremely diverse faculties.

Even more people would be going to Mills for reserve material. This would lead to longer lines and less time for the student assistants to help each patron.

As both a student and employee of McMaster University I find it disheartening that all that really seems to matter to the upper admin is the bottom line. I feel as though they forget that without students, without employees, there would be no University, just empty buildings.

The bottom line isn’t the be all and end all Mr George and associates. Nor is the quantity of students who can be pushed through the system on a diet of memorized facts.

The quality of education is what matters. And your budget cuts will only hinder our growth as learners in the future.

Book Review: Trumpet by Jackie Kay

Trumpet is one of the books I have to read for my theories of Gender and Sexuality class. Overall it was an easy read and part of me didn’t want to put the book down. Not because I liked it though, but because I found this book frustrating and infuriating.

The book follows the life of the wife and son of a famous jazz trumpeter Joss Moody after his death. He has a secret though, a secret that not even his own son is aware of. Joss Moody was born Josephine Moore.

I know that there are people who aren’t accepting of queer and trans gender people but I felt like there was little critique of that. It was just kind of accepted as the way things were. Those who did accept that Joss was who he was are presented in a way that they are some how separate from society at large but that their words can be used against them to continue the anti-acceptance diatribe that is present through out most of the book.

I found it hard to like any of the characters. I wanted to like Joss but there wasn’t really enough about who he was for me to feel an affinity towards him. Millie seemed bland and consumed by her husband’s death, which, though understandable, made it hard to connect with her as well, as she did not seem to express her feelings short of living in her own little world. The son and the reporter were infuriating individuals, even though the son is slightly redeemed at the end.

Also, the whole use of pronouns through out the book really got on my nerves. Maybe it’s just me but there is something so disrespectful about using ‘she’ for someone presenting as male, especially after their death. Or assuming that someone is trans because it gets them off or that they were just hiding.

As I always learned it sex is between the legs and gender is between the ears and the two don’t have to “match” in the way society thinks they should. In fact I believe that gender is not a static thing but is in fact fluid and can change.

“Whose Counting” and Who Counts?

A reflection on the article “Whose Counting” by Sara Ahmed done for my Feminist Theories class.

I recently had a discussion like this one about queer theory. A prof here believes that difficult problems need difficult language and thus his class is reading the more complex, abstract and at times confusing theorists. It is my personal belief that though this kind of theory should exist and that at times new language, not necessarily difficult language, is needed as this type of theorizing encounters new problems not previously address. I do not believe however that this should be the only type of theorizing that is privileged as such. I think that because feminism (and queer theory for that matter) deal with issues that affect the general population it should be accessible to everyone regardless of literacy of education. Granted not all theorizing can be accessible to everyone everywhere, but as Ahmed points out, things like poetry and children’s stories could be, and in my opinion should be, included in the umbrella of theory.

I also think that critical theory should be taken into account when studying the criticized theory. For example, Ahmed sites that black feminists have criticized white feminism. I believe it is important when studying white feminism one must understand the criticisms of that approach. I believe that because the lives and experiences of women are fluid so too must be the theory that attempts to explain it, hence my agreement with Ahmed’s term ‘theorizing’ as opposed to ‘theory’. To truly understand a theory I think that one must understand the difficulties with that theory as well.

Is it possible that what is considered feminist theory differs from place to place, or even person to person? For me I feel that what some may call ‘queer theory’ could fit under the umbrella of feminist theory because queer theorizing has a direct effect on my life. Though I could understand how some women could see that post-colonial theorizing or theorizing on race could also be put under the umbrella of feminist theorizing, who actually gets to say what belongs there?

I think one of the things that Ahmed only briefly mentions is a discussion of the politics of publishing, especially in the academy. One possible reason for the privileging of complex theory maybe that those in the academy, especially those who give tenure and are in administrative positions, feel that anything that is not complex do not belong in the academy. Considering that many administrators in the academy are male is it possible that feminist with in the academy are being guided into only producing those theories which will be acceptable to the university administrators?

Also third wave feminism has seen much more self publishing, especially via the internet. Should these blogs and zines be considered important to feminist theory? Also these could be an example about how feminism is fluid as even 15 years ago we didn’t have the resources we do now to self publish and communicate our personal ideas to so many people around the world. As well there are many movements which do not have formal academic theory behind them. Some of these movements, especially grass-root movements have many people taking part. Aren’t these movements producing theory? Shouldn’t everyone be able to take part in a movement whether or not they are formally educated?

Also should theorizing be called feminist if the theorizer does not identify his/herself as feminist? Also if a theorizer calls his/herself a feminist does that automatically mean that all of his/her theorizing is feminist?

*Sigh*

So many questions and not so many answers…..

Norway Named Best Country for Women

So I was going to post this a while ago but have been overloaded with school. So I’m doing it now.

Forbes.com recently put out their evaluation of countries and their policies for women. 

The Global Gender Gap Report measures the size of the gender gap—the disparity in opportunities available for men and women—for 130 countries in four critical areas: economic participation and opportunity, health and survival, educational attainment, and political empowerment. A country’s rank is based on the overall score, which is expressed in a percent. The score represents how much of the gender gap the country has been able to close. A score of 100 per cent would represent perfect equality. The majority of the data come from various non-government organizations, such as the International Labor Organization, United Nations Development Program and the World Health Organization. – From Yahoo!

Norway was ranked number one for women with a score of 82%.  Finland, Sweden, Iceland and New Zealand ranked 2nd through 5th.

Where is Canada? you may ask. Surely we ranked in the top 25? No. The top 30? No. We earned 31st place. Disgraceful. We got 71%. We even ranked behind the United States who came in 27th.

Our ranking was hurt by poor educational attainment and by low political empowerment. I mean look at our House of Commons right now. Not many female faces there.  

And the Ivory Tower? Still mostly an Old Boys Club.

Education here actually widens the pay gap between women and men. Women with post secondary education earned 75% of what their male peers did. By 2005 it had dropped to 68%. (From the Canadian Labour Congress)

And yet we stand by and watch as the government takes away funding, as it seeks to oppress us. Something must be done. Something can be done. We must make our voices heard from the streets of small towns to the offices of the Prime Minister. We are citizens. Laws need teeth. We should no longer fear demanding our rights from employers. We should have protection, not even special protection, just the protection provided to every citizen by our government.

Stand up. Make yourself be heard. You are not alone.

Education

So I`ve been thinking about education a lot. Well, I`m kind of forced to because I have so many things to do for school. It`s just that a lot of the time I forget how fortunate I am to even be able to not to school. Not just post-secondary education but any education at all. Especially since I am a woman.

How many places could I have been born where I would not have had access for education? How many places would have been too expensive for me to go to school? How many places where it would have been illegal for me to even go to school?

This really frustrates me because I feel like there’s nothing I can do to help women have access to education. I looked around online for things I could do.

The one I could afford to do comes from the Miss G___ Project right here in Ontario. I could write to my MPP and ask that Women’s Studies be added to the High school curriculum. An amazing cause. In fact I’ve previously taken part in their Valentine’s Day phone in.

Most of the other ones involved money, much more money than I have. For Example, through Plan Canada I could pay $100 to support literacy training to two women in Rwanda or for $1225 I could give a girl a scholarship in Burkina Faso. I don’t have that kind of money…

Certainly there is something that I can do, that will feel like I am actually making a difference. I just can’t seem to think of anything…