On-Campus Event: Late Blog Penalty

Hello,

As I write this, it is the Friday before Finals Week and I couldn't be happier that this semester is finally coming to an end. This semester has been a pretty difficult one for me, as is evidenced by the fact that I am waiting until now to complete my last two blogs. 

So, for my on-campus event I chose to attend my friend Colin's biology honors thesis presentation. Colin and I studied abroad in Mexico together during last summer. I knew that he was very busy this year because most of the time when we ran into each other, he was either coming from or going to the laboratory. For a double humanities major, it is sometimes hard to realize there is this whole other area on campus where they do experiments and write lab reports...ick. 

Colin's honors thesis was over the reproduction habits of pomacea insularum, or the apple snail. From what I could gather during the presentation, he was studying their reproductive habits in order to evaluate their potential as an invasive species. Not only was his presentation informational and enjoyable, but he also took his project a bit farther by using the shape of the snails' shells (logarithmic spiral) as a metaphor for their reproductivity, which delighted me because metaphors are something that humanities majors DO understand. He used the shape to show how rapidly the snails could expand in number, even though many of the snails never make it to adulthood. Then he showed the potential implications this has for the snails to be an extremely invasive species.

His experiments were mainly focused on what type of surface the snails prefer to lay their eggs. He tested many surfaces, including the two different kinds of natural plant surfaces where their eggs have been seen, wooden rods of varying shape (i.e. cylindrical, rectangular) and some metal rods, also of various shape. All of his surfaces were of different length in order to examine the issue from all different angles. If I remember correctly, the snails didn't lay any of their eggs on the metal surface and their was a wide distribution on the plant and wooden surfaces. Also, I don't think there was a height preference displayed by the placement of the egg shoots. He told us a story about one of his excursions to collect a plant species on which the snails could lay their eggs. On this particular occasion, he had to travel to Houston to collect the plant and upon seeing a pond with the species growing around it, they stopped and asked a homeowner if they could go through her backyard to access the pond. Once they were collecting their specimens, Colin saw the plants near him rustle as if something was moving through them. Once he let his eyes scan to the area, he saw an alligator moving towards him in the water. He was standing in muck wearing golashes and while trying to get out of the muck and to safety, he had to leave one of his boots behind in the muck. From then on, one person was collecting specimens and the other was on alligator watch.

It's been a fun (and busy) semester. Ready for summer!

Catch ya on the flipside,

Brady

March 10th Reading Blog

Hello everybody (aka Dr. G),

I wasn't able to attend the first half of the March 10 meeting as I was attending a mandatory study abroad session. I am completing this blog over the assigned readings for the day in order to offset my absence. I hope that this blog post finds you well. I know that writing it suited me as I was laying on my bed in my house, taking a couple days of rest before finals week.

I'm not a big fan of reading the transcripts of dialogues, which is one reason why I like the style of the piece, "Is the Welfare of Disadvantaged Children Improving?" Rather than presenting the issue with the two people engaged in a dialogue, it merely presents the writings of each side. My stylistic preferences aside, I thought the sides were distinct and each side was represented by a more-than-capable person. I would have to say that I don't think the welfare of disadvantaged children is improving, but not for the same reasons as Bennett. I don't think it is the decline of the traditional family or some type of moral confusion that is hampering improvement in the disadvantaged children's welfare. I think that the problem lies with failed policies that haven't addressed the issues that need to be addressed, not in some arbitrary measurement of moral stability.

I read an article a while back that talked about how rich people are more likely to be healthy and fit than those who are not rich. This surprises me none in the least, especially when looking at the prices of the healthier fresh foods. There are many other reasons that Gary W. Evans', "The Environment of Childhood Poverty," identifies some of these as: increased chance of exposure to violence and an increased presence of television programs instead of books or computers. This all seems to stem from their status as disadvantaged children. Most parents of these children do not have time to engage in learning with their child, as many of them are merely concerned with putting food on the table.

I'm not sure how well the class conversation went for these first two articles, but the third article ("Is Spanking Detrimental to Kids?") had its discussion pushed back to the next meeting, at which I was present. Our entire cohort engaged in the conversation, each one of us defending our ideas. I liked this activity because it got a lot of the class talking and it helped give our group a more group-ey feel, rather than being a basic three-man show.

I was spanked as a child and every school I have ever attended has practiced corporal punishment, so I can see both sides of this argument. One the one hand, spanking does seem to have a negative effect of the psyche of a child. One the other hand, it seems to stop the behavior immediately. I really feel that a child's development depends more on their own discoveries and through talking with a parent than it does on pain enforcement. 

Sincerely,

Brady

Final BGCG Session

Okay,

I wanted to take some time to distance myself from our conflict-resolution program at the Boys and Girls Club of Georgetown so that my thoughts would be coherent and well thought out. Having taken that time, I do feel like I can look back at the program and deem it successful, something I could not even have imagined myself thinking after completing our final session on Tuesday, April 14. 

I feel like taking some time to evaluate the program and the individual sessions allowed me to see that our central goal remained intact throughout the program and that some of the participants probably absorbed some small sliver of the things we were saying. To repeat the old adage, I feel that if we had a positive effect upon just one the participants' ways of dealing with conflict, then we must considers ourselves successful. There were many obstacles to completing the program, as well as the presence of unanticipated complications which caused the restructuring of the curriculum. The fact that things didn't really happen as planned only served to increase my appetite to participate in more civic engagement projects, as I feel that with a new group of children we would be able to learn from our mistakes and put on a better program. That's the thing about civic engagement: even though the program didn't achieve the ambitious goals we had set for it, it did serve to give us real-world experience and to illuminate the frustrations and the joys of civic engagement.

We had originally planned to conduct two sessions during the same week to introduce the participants to conflict resolution and to allow them time to understand the concepts behind the process before our third session, in which we had planned to take the participants to a ropes course. But, the third session fell apart due, basically, to lack of interest from the participants. Also, some amount of culpability lies with the Club's administration and their failure to emphasize the importance and rarity of opportunity of the event and to mobilize the participating kids to return parental release forms and make sure they showed up on the Saturday of the ropes course. 

As our third meeting had to be canceled, the program was changed to four sessions rather than five, with the next club session concentrating on teamwork activities where the participants could utilize their conflict resolution skills to communicate effectively with their peers and reach the common goal of, in the case of the game Human Knot, undoing the "human knot" created by the crossing of their arms. Then, it seems that Daniel decided to sit in on the meeting and periodically stop the activity to interject with tidbits about how it emphasized aspects of peer mediation. What? Peer mediation? We hadn't yet spoken of peer mediation and now, we have all of 30 minutes during the next session, whose lesson plans have to be completely changed, to teach the participants (the number and individuals of which changed each session) how to, basically, act as authority in situations of conflict between others at the Club. So, during our final session we did this as well as we could while still using the same vocabulary as the first three sessions. 

I do think that our program left its mark on the Club, whether it be through some of the kids simply thinking about what they say prior to speaking, or through the lessons learned by the administration about working with outside programs. I hope that this program not only served to teach the participants the message inherent in its name, but also to provide an interesting case study about interaction between volunteer programs presented by external sources and the Club itself. 

Brady

Student Works Symposium

Helloooooooooooooooo,

Oh, wow. The end of the semester is near. Another year of college under my belt. Yet, when I arrived at the Student Works Symposium paper session, I felt like I had accomplished absolutely nothing.

I was expecting to see the Capstone and thesis presentations of seniors packed into a 15-minute time limit, but seniors made up only a slight majority of the participants in the Symposium, if even that. There were underclass-wo/men (from here on referred to by its patriarchal name), dressed in suits and running around carrying laptops and notes and standing next to their research posters. This left me wondering if my degree plan was hiding some strange, necessary class involving underclassmen research that I had not yet taken. After ruling out this option by looking at my degree plan, which I keep in my planner, I moved on to the next option: that all of these underclassmen had some required research class inside their majors. While this was true for some of the presenters (coughResearchMethodscough), I found that the majority of underclassmen who participated in the event were just presenting research projects for the purpose of getting their hard work out there. And then, after both of my options for explaining the proliferation of underclassmen were proven incorrect, I felt like a lazy bum who will never get accepted to graduate school, work at a fast-food restaurant to pay off my student loan debt (not that there is anything wrong with working at a fast-food restaurant) and never realize my full potential as a human being. Yay!

What the symposium made me realize is how incredibly lazy I must look in contrast to all of my peers' overt display of a semester's worth of hard work. Since then (haha, last week), I made a promise to myself that I would: 1) watch less television and reduce my time spent mindlessly-surfing the Internet; 2) be more productive during the day so that my awake hours didn't steal from my sleeping hours and cause me to not only walk around in a zombified state, but also cause my body to prematurely age; and 3) get on a diet to jump start my "getting into shape" hope, also giving me more energy and a healthier immune system to prevent sickness.

Okay, enough of that bitching and moaning. Let's move on to the rest of the Symposium. I saw a paper session first, then went and mingled with the poster presenters in the Bishop's Lounge. Most of the posters presented a graphical representation of some aspect of the student's research, which led me to believe that a large majority of these presenters were from science majors. Yet again, I had misread the situation. These students came from a wide-range of majors and represented many different departments. However, what was most puzzling to me about the Symposium was the lack of communications majors presenting their research. Not a one communications major presented at the Symposium or, at least, they did not list their communications major next to their names in the schedule. After realizing this, I think that I finally came to the correct explanation: that all communications majors are either lazy or find this event too passé to be worthy of their attention (or a combination of both). Obviously, this is not the correct explanation. I think that the correct explanation probably has to do with a communications departmental lack of encouragement to participate, because I honestly didn't know what this Symposium was until I attended.

I also attended the gallery exhibit, in which the art of SU students Casey Grier, Sarah Reesor and Bernardo Schirmer. Of the three, I thought Grier's, "Shades of Inequity," exhibit was the most compelling. Her art display drew its inspiration from a research study she conducted about inequalities observed in the classroom setting. Her piece, Least Restrictive Environment, is constructed from wood slats painted to represent the cornucopia of differences shown in the makeup of a classroom, accomplished by using pink, blue and varying shades of skin tone colors to create a unique identity for each slat in terms of gender, race, sexual identity and, on some of them, disability. It was a beautiful ode to the hope of a non-discriminative future for our children and subsequently, society.

Whew...long-winded,

Brady

JDA Lecture

Howdy Ya'll,

To start off with, I want to make plain the fact that in this blog I will not only be talking about the lecture and readings and my relation to them as a college student, but I will also be expressing my raw feelings and reactions in relation to the lecture and, less so, the readings. My initial reactions will serve as my starting point and should not in any instance, unless otherwise specified, be interpreted as my definitive opinion of these specific issues.

While watching the JDA lecture, I was constantly searching within my knowledge base for some material with which I could analyze the issue that faced me. But, in hindsight, the thing that provided me the most effective way of analyzing the issue were my own emotions in relation to it.

To be frank, I had a hard time paying attention to the parts of the lecture when Eli Clare was speaking, due to the pace and general fragmentation of his speech. This, in contrast to my ability to listen and interpret the speech of Matt Richardson. I think that the juxtaposition of a speaker who, for me, was easily understandable and one who was not so easily understandable provides a good framework to analyze their point of valuing bodies. As an effect of my listening habits, I carried away more from Richardson than I did from Clare. Thus, I valued the speech of Richardson more so than Clare. This devaluing of Clare's words came from my arbitrary standard for judging "good" speech. Richardson was able to communicate more effectively with my sensibilities, thus enhancing my perception of him as a good speaker. For me, their speaking abilities decided which "body" would be valued more than the other. In this case, the devaluing of Clare's words line up with the talk about what bodies are valued in society, his disability causing his speech to be devalued in my mind. What is interesting about this is that my mind's ability to appreciate the speech of each person depended upon their speaking ability, not upon the content of their actual speeches. Thus, I could very well have walked away from the viewing of the speech with a very different view of the issues than I would have had I read a transcript of the dialogue, where Clare's disability would not have been evident.

I used the previous example of my reactions to get at the issue of devaluation. I think that the valuation standard with which certain bodies are placed above others is only a arbitrary standard. Imagine if Clare's way of speaking was the "normal" way of speaking and Richardson's speech was the one affected by his disability. Would Richardson's speech still be considered, by me, as the superior and more valuable one or would its difference from the "norm" cause me to feel like I was being forced to listen to it? Here, the argument that there is some universal aesthetic style that forms the basis for all our standards falls to pieces. We only operate on culturally-defined standards that could change at any moment. So, it is unfair that a devaluation of Clare's speech occurred for me, as his speech might have, in another context, been the more striking contribution to the dialogue.

Thanks for reading,
Brady

1st BGCG Session

Woah...what a week this has been! I know that everyone on campus is really busy and really tired at the current time, but it seems like my professors just all got together and talked about how best to screw me over by giving me really full plate this week. On top of all my school work, this week was also the beginning of my, Cait, Megan and Laurel's mini-/crash-course in Conflict Resolution with the Torch Leadership Group at the Boys and Girls Club of Georgetown. Our first session went pretty well, but there is definite room for improvement, in terms of what the Torch Club members get out of the sessions and also what we get out of these sessions.

Some of the kids in the group showed a real interest in listening to what we had to say and providing insightful, constructive feedback during the activities. But others showed more of an interest in answering their cell phones and carrying on conversations with their friends during the middle of our session. I think that we decided as a group that this next meeting would set down a ground rule that everyone has to silence their phones when they are in the sessions, a rule which will also apply to me and the fellow members of my group.

I bought cookies from Wal-Mart before the session and they ate less than half of them. So, this next time they get cookies again...Haha!

We took extra care in preparing the specific aspects of the activities we have planned for today's meeting, even though we had to go off-topic at some points last week in order to gain their attention. So all our well-thought-out plans might go to waste, just depending on how the kids respond to the activities and the scenarios we have chosen.

Tuesday's session focused mostly on helping the Torchies get oriented with the concepts we were talking about. In today's session I hope we are able to keep their attention help them to start identifying conflict in different scenarios and also helping them to realize when it might be best to walk away from a conflict. I think that being able to recognize when, despite repeated attempts, the lines of communication between yourself and another person have been broken.

In everything that we talk about, we are trying to emphasize the concept of Wants versus Needs. In short, not only being able to recognize that all of us have a good amount of Needs in common, whereas the Wants change in terms based upon whom is being asked. Thus, we asked the kids during our Tuesday session to try to remember what we had talked about that way we don't have to start from scratch.

Our next meeting is in less than hour and, just like last time, I am feeling a little nervous. I just feel like I could have an adverse effect upon these Torchies, despite our high goals for what the program could be. I am writing down all the thoughts that pop into my head in reference to our curriculum in hopes that I will have a stroke a genius (smartness, haha). But, I really don't think that we will need a stroke of genius, as I have a good feeling about today's meeting. But I am a glass half-full kinda guy...

Brady

Blog about the (Insert Family Name of Outrageously Wealthy Individual Here) Symposium

Unfortunately, I was only able to attend one session at the Brown Symposium due to the fact that I judged in a debate tournament on Friday and Saturday and had to drive home on Thursday. I actually only stayed in town long enough to meet with the GLCA New York Arts Program representative, who was holding an information session on Friday which I was unable to attend but kindly agreed to meet with me. But anyway, I digress from the Brown Symposium lecture.

I attended the first Brown Symposium event held at 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning. Baylor professors of sociology, Dr. Christopher Bader and Dr. Paul Froese, gave my talk entitled, “Images of God and Views on Science: Findings from the Baylor Religion Survey.” I was pleasantly surprised by the talk. I was expecting to be bored out of my mind and to leave immediately as soon as they opened the floor for questions. But, I had obviously chosen a good talk to attend because these guys knew how to keep an audience interested and involved.

One particular part of the talk that I found interesting was the section where they had audience members verbally shout out their reactions, using descriptive adjectives, to different images of God shown on the screen. I was reminded of the scene from The Da Vinci Code (2006) in which Tom Hanks’ character is giving a lecture over his book and he asks people to shout out what the picture makes them think of. I feel that this activity gives the audience a general insight into who the person doing the shouting might be. Maybe this is due to the fact that I believe in the power of words, semantics, over people and I study this almost every day as it represents one of my areas of concentration in my college education. Most interesting to me is that when I tried to visualize what God might look like, I couldn’t see a specific face. Later on in the talk I would find out that this is not an uncommon occurrence.

The most intriguing part of the talk, for me, was when they passed out the small “God Questionnaire” to the members of the audience. I scored in the low range for both categories, God’s Judgment and God’s Engagement scores. This made my God a Type D God, or a distant view of God in which I refer to God not as a He, but as a Force that is above the affairs of this world (paraphrased from slideshow). My view of a less-engaged God, as they stated, says that I would believe that God set the natural world in motion, but has not since interfered with worldly affairs. I think this is very interesting in terms of our cohort’s topic because this hinges on how each and every one of us (atheist and religious, alike) come to understand the world.

I liked that they kept their talk short, because any time someone is talking in front of a large audience, that isn’t forced to listen, it is hard to keep their attention focused for very long periods of time. I also loved the questions at the end of the session, as they came from all different directions in terms of where individuals sat on the science/religion line. This was my first Brown Symposium lecture (no, I didn’t go last year), but I most definitely do not plan on it being my last.

My best wishes,
Brady

"Tuesdays with Morrie" Blog

Sooooo,

In the matter of hours that it took for me to read Tuesdays with Morrie, I probably rethought my life plans at least ten times. This book seems to invite people not only to see the difference that a change (albeit one which eventually claimed his life) made in Morrie’s life, but also for readers to examine what a change in their own lifestyles might look like. Also, it is interesting that I read this book in the week following the inauguration of a president who was elected on a platform of change for the country. That one, however, we might have to wait to see what happens.

I have recently found myself in the same kind of situation that Mitch Albom, the author, found himself in during his college career. In the book, I think it was described as life constantly pulling, back and forth. I find myself being attracted to two completely different areas of work and as the clock on my college career ticks down (I know, still more than two years remaining), I am constantly struggling with which would be better suited to me. And not just that, but also, in which would I be able to effect a more tangible positive impact on the world around me. Even as we sit in our classes and discuss the “big questions of life,” my future is a subject which is under constant tension as each moment has the potential to pull it further in one direction or the other.

This book also applies very clearly to our Paideia cohort, Understanding Human Behavior. Morrie was a wise man who, in his last days, was able to describe the problem with modern U.S. culture in a blunt manner so that those of us who wished to hear it could. I do truly believe what he said about having to “create your own culture” if you wish to live connected to other people. American society has always encouraged individuality to the point where we almost advocate a radical individuality, in which anyone who does not find their identity independently – that is, free of familial restraints and any person who wishes to exert influence – is not accepted into American society. One can source the emergence of cliques in schools at early ages to this phenomenon. Not only are we forced to find an identity at an early age to fit in, but then we are also forced to be friends with only those who identify the way we do.

The goal of Paideia is to engage ourselves in our community in a way that not only the community benefits, but so do we. I feel like Morrie sort of lived this every day as a teacher, as do all teachers. He played an integral role in educating minds and gave more than was necessary because it only increased the amount that he received in return. Of course, I might be impartial as my parents are both educators who I have witnessed over the years, give themselves to their students more than was necessary only to have the benefits returned to them tenfold. Morrie taught me a lot, and I hope that his lessons will stay with me as I finally ease the tension when making my future career choice and allow myself to be pulled in one single direction.

Until class,
Brady

Pre-Emptive First Impressions

This is my first post of 2009, so here’s to a good year ahead for all of us!

Thinking about this topic is a little bit strange because, as of now, there seems to be no structure to our plans for the program, nor have we really introduced any concrete ideas for said plans. Of course, I also understand that much of this will be ironed out during the lunch meeting. So for now, I will just speak about my theoretical plans for the program and what it might look like, if indeed my idea of structure is what the rest of the cohort desires as well.

Because I don’t wish to be mauled by a large group of unruly adolescents or start my own backroom fight club like David, I feel that both myself and the children participating would stand to gain more if I was accompanied by at least one other member of the cohort. The only problem this creates, as I have previously expressed, is one of accountability. I want to be in a group with someone whom I know will be in attendance unless it is absolutely necessary that they not be. But each group need not only be two people and we don’t necessarily even have to split up into groups. I just want to know that when I attend, the others who are assigned to show up will also be in attendance.

I really have no preference to the issue of the number of students with which we will be working, but I am sure I will form a strong opinion by the end of lunch tomorrow after listening to what I am sure will two completely different standpoints on the matter. I do see how working with one child might give a person a chance to form a close relationship with that child; but on the other hand, if I am working with a group, then I am allowed to interact closely with a larger number of kids. Also, regarding the amount of time that I am willing to devote to this area of my life, I feel that I could give up no more than 2 ½ hours every week. I would imagine that if, as an entire group, we only visited the club once a week, then it would most definitely have to be for an extended period of time during the late afternoon. If we do decide to split up into groups, then the time can be shorter and scheduled on days and at times that best fit the schedules of those in the group.

We are assuming a large amount of responsibility in undertaking this project. We will be working with the children of Georgetown and hopefully, if nothing more, ensuring that they have a fun time after school. I value structure and preparedness when I enter into any situation, but as this is one which has the potential to impact the relationship between the university and the community, I think that our cohort should take extra care to make our civic engagement project a success. I have high hopes for the program, but I can also see where it might fail because of over-ambitious plans, which are not followed by action. There’s my little self-help/productivity nugget of wisdom for the day. Hope it is enjoyed!

'Til we meet again,
Brady