One of the best things about teaching in the Vera seminar is how curious you folks are, interested in Big Ideas and interested in teasing out the connections between all these Big Ideas. This also makes it hard, especially with your tired, end-of-semester brains, to figure out a tight, manageable idea for your final project. I loved the Big Ideas of the folks I spoke with yesterday, but everyone, and I gather this is true generally, still needs to figure out a smaller idea about which to build his/her class. What I told Dani, Popy and Ruby yesterday is that one way to do this is really to zero in on the text that you choose. Unless you select
The Big Book of Everything, chances are the text that you select will have its own smaller focus, but one that, hopefully, can lead to a larger discussion of those Big Ideas (racism, economic injustice, sexuality, Evil). It is tempting to try and figure out your topic, and big questions first and then look for the text to support that. But I'd argue that you should look for a text (video, song, painting) that is really interesting and start from there. For example, I just love that Orwell essay. It's fun to read, beautifully written, and full of Big Ideas on the relationship between truth, language, politics, ethics, etc. Similarly, the Straker piece touches the Big Ideas of racism, apartheid, sexuality, guilt, the thorny relationship between politics and psychology, etc. But it is also an essay about the interaction between two people and so it gives a smaller, solid footing for these larger conversations. "In a Grove" (you knew I was going to stick that in there) is just a short story, but it got us talking about why we believe who we believe, what our underlying assumptions are when making those judgments and why, despite "knowing better," we still want one story to be True. Find the text and it will help you figure out your next steps.
And, because this leads into the Spring Final Project, you will have a chance to find other texts and grapple with Big Ideas in that context. But don't try to do all that now. The Fall Final Project is really about how to design those two hours to get students from A to B. What texts are you folks thinking about? Share your ideas and help your classmates. What problems are you encountering? What kinds of classes do you like best (either Vera or in other courses)? What kinds of activities are successful (educational, thought-provoking) and what kinds of learning leave you cold? One of the most enjoyable student-led Vera classes was on the topic of prison privatization. The student gave each of us a role (Mayor, Wal-mart owner, resident, etc.) and some background information and the class was like a Town Hall meeting about the proposed prison. Super enlightening -- and fun. We had a few closet thespians in the seminar who embraced their roles.
Pace Popy's post, this is your chance to empower yourselves! (Sorry Professor Waterston -- see blog archive if you're curious...)
18 comments:
I'm usually the 5th to 8th person to comment on the blog, but I guess this time around I'll bat first.
This idea of having an opportunity to teach next semester is bittersweet! The opportunity to teach is honorable but planning is a complete dread. Sitting back and thinking about how I'd like to design my lesson for the past couple of days has been a completely difficult task, especially when it’s designed for Verons. We are all bright and that’s what makes the experience so nerve-wracking.
I wanted my lesson to touch base on trauma and how it shapes the experiences of offenders. I wanted the Verons to critically read, Primo Levi's, article "The Gray Zone." Levi, in his article argues that individuals who encounter trauma have impaired judgment. Bearing that in mind, I'd like the class to apply that concept to social justice in their journals. This'll be the journal entry for my lesson. My assumption is that when offenders serve their sentences, prisoners learn to adapt to the prison lifestyle and forget how to function outside prison walls. They will put themselves in situations that they are comfortable and familiar with, even if it’s not the best choice. This also will apply to life outside the prison walls. I think this outcome is a result of the trauma from their experiences.
For those that read my post, I've been very passionate lately about empowering offenders to change willingly. In the spring, I'd like to help my agency, CASES, launch a class where clients can be supported and equipped with positive decision-making skills. This will allow them to become active thinkers, and just really sharpen their consequential thinking skills. I'd like to coordinate a lesson where Verons will have the opportunity to participate in a hands-on activity where they will be given the opportunity to role play and act out different scenarios, in which they will be the clients at CASES and will figure out what are the positive and negative outcomes of their actions.
For example:
Action: Smoking Marijuana
Negative Outcome:
-Increased TLC level
-Positive results may increase your chance of
serving a prison sentence
-Increases your possibility to be admitted to a rehab program
-Extends your time with the alternative sentencing program
Positive Outcome:
-Escaping Strains & Stressors
-Relaxing Nerves
By seeing these outcomes, participants will be able to obtain decision-making skills. Consequential thinking allows for better decision-making and that is what I'd like the seminar to get out of this.
Oh, and before I forget. I was recently reading Michelle Alexander's Book, The New Jim Crow, where she argues that prisons are the new Jim Crow for African Americans. Given that the incarceration rates in the United States of America for African Americans are vast, I thought it would be interesting to also read this text. Maybe I can reshape my objective to how do institutions and trauma shape the experiences of repeated offenders. What do you all think? All of your feedback will be deeply appreciated.
Thank you, Popy, for beginning this stream. Primo Levi is certainly an example of an author who brings many ideas to the table, complicating the dynamic in generative ways. In addition to echoing Prof. Reitz's "supremacy of the text" reminder, I want to also mention a couple of things to keep in mind when thinking about your topic.
1) perspectives need not be either/or, polemical arguments. There are many stakeholders in any scenario and, if you present their positions as the nuanced affairs they are, you will have a rich set of narratives rather than an episode of the Bill O'Reilly show.
2)Popy, you are right: planning a lesson is a lot of effort. However, the students are supposed to be doing most of the work once you set the trap, uh, I mean the appropriate atmosphere. Think less about what you are going to "present" than about what you hope the students will take away from the class. What do THEY have to do in order to learn something?
I've now gone from Serial Killer to Domestic Abuse to Gender Differences on Extreme Crimes. I want to attempt to focus on the difference between female and male of killer. By extreme crimes I mean murder, kidnap and serial killing. Crime is symbolically a a masculine world. One of the products of this is when women do heinous crimes, we are hesitant to call them "evil" where if male did it, it would automatically be considered "evil." I also want to cover that a person's childhood has an extreme effect on their future criminal behavior.
I think our class has really focused on non profits and social justice theories so I wanted to instead focus on the actual criminal as a person. With the extreme crimes it's better to understand the persons past. Most criminals commit crime out of need or a product of their past. Although it's never an excuse to harm others, it gives a look into their past as to why they're committing the crime in the first place.
There are so many things I wish we could discuss! My original ideas were quite different and impossible to combine. It is so hard to pick out an idea where you feel most passionate about and weigh which one you feel is more important. After all, injustice is everywhere. In a way, I want to teach a Vera Institute of Justice class (Vera Main) and talk about ALL the projects and why they are ALL important.
So I began to think of theories and what is ideology behind the evils of injustice. I found my answer in Deep Ecology. Anthropocentrism discusses the way in which humans consider themselves the center of the universe. The need for human domination over everything on Earth is one of the key problems developing in the environment today. Deep Ecology discusses the understanding that all living things work together as a whole in order to survive. It is the understanding that humans are alive due to the expense of other living things. This understanding would bring significant change in how humans interact with other humans, their interactions with animals and their relationship to the environment. I want to incorporate the theory perspective of Deep Ecology and Animal Law (policy).
I originally thought this topic would be too far from our original topic of Social Justice, but I think the very reason why I question its importance is the very reason why it is important. For my main objectives of the class is to evaluate some of these anthropocentrism ideas.
Here are some questions I want to discuss (possible journal entries):
1) Why is human domination independent from animals and the environment?
2) How could a better understanding of our relationship with animals change our perspective on social justice?
3) Why does animal ethics/law matter for human survival?
4) How do we evaluate the treatment of other living things and their rights? Based on intelligence, appearance, or its usefulness to humans?
Some of the readings I am looking into are Warwick Fox’s Deep Ecology For The 21ST Century, Michael E. Zimmerman’s Introduction to Deep Ecology, Arnie Naess’ The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement or Earth First! by Judi Bari. These readings are introductions to Deep Ecology and some critical theories revolving around Deep Ecology. I am still trying to decide which animal trial I want to use to demonstrate animal rights and anthropocentrism ideals. We can play a game where we evaluate the importance of living things according to different categories, such as intelligence or appearance. Perhaps during this time we could reveal some of the misunderstandings of animals and their intelligence. Should intelligence be weighed as a factor of how much rights are given to a living creature?
Popy, I like the idea of reading the New Jim Crow and concentrating on how institutions and trauma shape the experiences of re-offenders. I like the empowerment idea, but it might weigh too much on empowerment, negate responsibility from the institution and only weigh individual responsibility. I am not sure if talking about both empowerment and a structural violence would be too broad for a 2 hour class. Somehow I feel separating the two and thinking that one does not reflect the other would do it an injustice. Good Luck!
So I came into the last class with what I'd thought was a pretty solid draft of my lesson and the paper to back it up (Marginality, from a mainstream sociology perspective and a radical feminist theory perspective? What was I thinking?) but I'm back to square one. It was that "end-of-semester brain," made duller by panic over grad school applications...due in DAYS....
I'm happy to see that everyone is as unsure about what to do as I am! Popy, you asked for feedback. I like the idea of reading Primo Levi, but I think the equation of a prison sentence and a concentration camp experience is a bit uncomfortable. I'm not completely clear about what you mean by "trauma" here. Is it the trauma of the prison experience, similar to Levi's trauma in surviving the camps, which may be problematic? Or some other trauma that might've lead up to the crime? I also think the Michelle Alexander reading would be great, but I don't think we could engage with that book without talking about race. If you're interested in that book, maybe something about "mass incarceration" would be good. It's not about trauma, but you could check out some theories about it. Alexander's has to do with how it's structural racism; Loic Wacquant (The Penalisation of the Poor, I think is the essay) argues that it's about the State's response to economic/social insecurity (poverty) brought about by neoliberal economic policy; Christian Parenti and Angela Davis talk about how the drive for corporate profit is involved (the prison-industrial complex argument). Just an idea, since you're interested in Alexander. If you do trauma, I'd just say be careful about the prison experience/concentration experience thing. Whatever you end up doing will be great. Good luck!
As for me, I've decided to go with the militarization of the police force. It's a timely issue that's been getting a lot of press and it's become very visible in real life with the Occupy movements. This nation has a rich history of rising in protest of social injustice. On one hand, the police have always been there; the batons and fire hoses used on protestors of racial injustice during the Civil Rights Movement, e.g., were just tools of violent repression of peaceful protest that were just as effective as high-tech riot shields and pepper spray. But on the other, the sheer scope of the weaponry available to domestic police forces across the nation now, is unlike anything we've ever seen before. In terms of large-scale social justice, this is significant because the police really are powerful enough now that they could stop a million-man march if they wanted to or were ordered to. They have tanks! What are the police now? Crime fighters? Peace Officers? Public Servants? It's hard to tell when, well, they have tanks! What I'm struggling with now is how to frame this issue and how to turn it into a lesson and what I want the class to get out of the lesson. So, the readings I've chosen clearly outline that this is happening, but what does it all mean? That's where I am.
Any criticisms, ideas would be welcomed!
Hearing you guys speak on the difficulty of planning a lesson and going back and forth with deciding on topics lets me know that I am not alone. One thing that we can't accuse the professors of saying is that this was going to be easy. If any of you guys think as I do, you must have a new found respect for our professors in how they plan and present such thought provoking lessons week after week and make it look so easy.
After struggling with deciding on a topic, I have decided to plan a lesson based on the Fatherhood program that I am involved with at my agency. Fathers that return home from prison and the many obstacles they face which may ultimately lead to recidivism. I am struggling with finding a interesting, thought provoking reading on this topic but thanks to professor Stein, I may be able to come up with one. I guess my search tactic was to blame. I didn't know whether to Google or go to the library to find the best reading. Many of what I came up with happened to be articles which mostly presented one point of view on the subject matter. To give you guys a heads up, I am thinking of requesting an at home viewing of a film titled South Central (1992) which is based on this very topic.
Popy, your topic is interesting and I think it sought of intertwines with mine. Possibly the professors will assign our lessons one after the other.
I have a class now so I will blog again later.
By the way, on the day I teach my class, I believe that everyone who sits in that class would be subjected to my authority. I may request that the professors write a 50 page essay on the effects of assigning such strenuous tasks to students during finals! Singled space! 1 font! :)
Popy, I think your plan as it is already sounds great. My only suggestion is if you are going to have us read The New Jim Crow, it might be better to choose a specific chapter or passage rather than the entire book (or give us at least a week or 2 warning).
Robert, I don't remember if we talked about this in class, but one of the subjects that has come up multiple times in my comparative policing class this semester was whether law enforcement requires guns. My professor is a London Metropolitan police officer who finds it shocking that any country's law enforcement would use guns. He tends to talk about the differences between the UK police and the US police in handling riots. If you wanted to be more specific, maybe you can look into weapon usage?
My topic is about internet censorship. The internet is probably the most random place to not physically exist in our world, and I want to create a class around the regulation of it. I think most of us would agree that free speech is a very important human right. However, even free speech has some limitations. In the US, the main limitation that we have all learned about is the idea that we can't endanger others by lying; such as screaming fire in a movie theatre or bomb in an airport. In the UK, the limitation is far as restricting the use of curse words if there is a single person who would be offended by the words. In other countries, the censorship of language has moved onto the internet.
With the recent corporation lobbyists trying to get the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) as laws, even the US will be prone to internet censorship. The main themes of the class will probably focus on why there should or shouldn't be censorship of the internet and the importance of free speech in different countries (Mexico for their drug cartel problems, Egypt for their political problems, America for our economic problems).
I have no problems finding videos and shorter news articles about internet censorship in specific countries, SOPA, and PIPA. However, I really need to look for a few good scholarly articles to put everything together. Maybe I am still being too broad in what I want to do, but the most important thing right now is to find that article.
I am caught between two interesting topics which are affirmative action and how its usage affects our society or institutionalized racism and how it affects the works of social justice. Interestingly the one book which covers both of these topics is Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow". Right now I am leaning towards the topic which covers the usage of affirmative action in our society. I have accumulated a few interesting articles about this subject. Another book which covers the usage of Affirmative Action is "Bottom at the faces of the Well" by Derrick Bell. Despite the amount of readings I have on my topics I am open to new readings and criticism as well.
Dani I don't know if you have any readings about your topic but Cesare Lombroso has written alot about women criminals. Although his views are outdated and completely off these views played a large role to how murderers who were women were being punished and viewed by society. Plus tru tv has made it their duty to profit off of women who kill.
Robert your topic is something which is plastered almost everywhere in our society today. When the Occupy Wall St. movement first started almost every day America got the opportunity to witness some power hungry and nervous police officers. Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC made an interesting comparison claiming that these overreactions by police officers is more common in certain areas then others. One way you frame this issue and how to turn it into a lesson is to ask whatever happened to community policing vs the shoot first ask questions last mentality which is present now/or militarization.
Much like Popy, I am both happy and a little frightened at designing a class. My subject is so contraversial and very interesting. It's sure to spark a debate among the Verons and I find myself smiling inside because I can hardly wait to hear everyone's thoughts. You were right Prof. Reitz, the reading is imperative in narrowing a more focused question that I'd like for the class to answer, however, there are so many good articles and literature on my topic and It is becoming increasingly hard to stay focused on one aspect. I find myself a little stuck....
I would like to discuss sexual identification with specification to the disenfranchised population.
I'm glad to see the wheels turning, and to read that several of you are heeding the warning to focus on the text. Believe me, you will have time to read more broadly in topic as the semester goes on. But for the purposes of class, a really good text is imperative. Think of it from the perspective of a student up late on a Wednesday night. Do you want to crawl through some hideously written scholarly thing or a provocative, creative and/or challenging thing that will wake you up on Thursday morning?
I agree with Simon that a chapter from a book is plenty. It is not out of the question that we would assign a longer work -- we did that for one student last year -- but it was a highly readable text.
Christine, I like the idea of thinking about animal rights. You could get very creative here in how you use your class time. But you do need to narrow your choice of texts (but keep these suggestions for your spring bibliography). I think even something like "Planet of the Apes" (only half kidding) could be a useful text -- at what moments do these fantasies/nightmares of the inversion of our biological hierarchies arise? What do the inversions say about our normative society? (I am teaching ALICE IN WONDERLAND right now and so am thinking about this a lot.)
Robert, I agree with Simon that a comparative approach could be very enlightening. If you liked the Dickens piece on Eastern, there are a lot of 19th century articles on police power that I found when writing my book.
Roberto, Paul Butler's LET'S GET FREE: A HIP-HOP THEORY OF JUSTICE is a fun-to-read text about race and criminal justice. We read it a few years ago when Butler came to speak at John Jay. I think it would raise some of the questions you are interested in and would work nicely with some stuff on prosecutorial misconduct that Thomas Giovanni is going to speak about.
Tim, I really like the idea of a movie (as long as access is not an issue). I've often thought that we should watch "Crash" alongside of "In a Grove"...
Good luck everyone. And it's five pages, people. The sky is not falling. Breathe.
Wow! It looks like everyone has shaped their topics more or less. I'm still stuck on two topics, but I have my texts already. Popy is right, all fellows are bright which makes this a nerve wrecking experience, however, the agency I have worked at has helped me narrow down my target population. I am still debating on the perspective, but by this night I'll have everything settled down. Good luck to all Verons!
I am so impressed with your support of one another and the way ideas are flying. I have spoken to many of you offline so I won't give a big run down of suggestions here except to say that I plan to be absent on the day that Demon Professor Fowler teaches.
I want to say that all your topics are really interesting and distinct from each other. For next semester, I am debating which topic to pick either racial profiling--applying or using Arizona's new law against immigrants or fraudulent marriages among immigrants. I want to focus on immigration because that is my interest. My only concern would be how do I connect fraud marriages to social justice?
To end the blog, I would like to say that we should all come up with fun, easy, and interacting assignments!
I want to support Timothy's efforts, so I suggest that as teachers of the course next semester, we all join in making a single absence from class grounds for failure of the course, and perhaps even revocation of tenure.
Any student/professor considering a planned absence next semester should think twice!
Very funny, Robert. You have now admirably (and frighteningly) represented the student "perspective" just as we hoped to give you a taste of the teachers' perspective. Yikes, makes me appreciate my own shabby shoes.
On a more serious note: Gary, your subject screams social injustice. What could be worse than having to marry someone to stay in the country, or to be subjected to the manipulations and extortions of third parties trying to capitalize on the situation? I thought the issues you raised in the last class were profoundly connected to social justice.
Thank you all for your feedbacks! I finally narrowed down my topic! :)I am amazed at the variety of topics we will be discussing. I am already looking forward to next semester! Great job everyone!
Also, Timothy, I love your idea on having Professor Reitz and Stein write a 50 page essay, singe-spaced, 1 font. Sounds like a bright idea to me! As for Robert, I love the consequences for absences! It made me laugh!
Thank you all for your feedbacks! I finally narrowed down my topic! :)I am amazed at the variety of topics we will be discussing. I am already looking forward to next semester! Great job everyone!
Also, Timothy, I love your idea on having Professor Reitz and Stein write a 50 page essay, singe-spaced, 1 font. Sounds like a bright idea to me! As for Robert, I love the consequences for absences! It made me laugh!
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