Scattered thoughts & a letter to R.R.

1. 1.     Process Pedagogy
2. 2.       Practical Applications for classroom use
3. 3.       1^st sample assignment

a.       Literacy autobiography: "Why do I need examples given to me as cookie crumbs? I'm no fucken mouse" -- where is this tension coming from, what is the real issue?

                                                               i.      Rodriguez- what happens when you intellectually and/or economically, surpass the beings that brought you into this world?  Beautiful moments- “education as a tool” …”for a moment I felt guilt”..if only it was just a moment!

                                                             ii.      Shen- what happens when you are caught between two completely, seemingly, opposing ideologies (seemingly?? facetious? No I’m jumping to abstraction and sacrificing detail for the sake of bigger picture…but you can’t do that…only if you can’t jump from “A beginning” to “F uck you” back to “Ohhhh” and feel like you never moved at all). Ironic since China & America are both oppressive capitalist imperialist fucks.  I mean, what...jk…not really.   Shen, your people use the guise of “community”, Americans use the guise of “individuality”.  Who is fucked harder, you and the warm feelings of solidarity, or us and our sick obsession with uniqueness?    HA!!!!  Wait, don’t we owe them like billions of dollars? Who, America or China?  If only I started with a topic sentence!!!! UGH 

                                                            iii.      Mellix- what happens when you start to fuck wit da way u write & talk n’ shit, moreover, what happens when u realize that the relationship between language and power is sick as fuck- like-  life altering, identity shattering, I need to find the pieces of my self to find a way to survive, and by survive I mean… exist. But have you ever lived? Huh?.... clarity, Amanda, work on it.

                                                           iv.      Flynn-  essentialist feminist bullshit. Constructing an argument--- get it, “constructing”.  What you attempted to do, rhetorically, is the reality- a construct biased by your life’s experiences ,your wants, your needs, your insecurities, your beliefs… CONSTRUCT.  My lady scholar, where in the fuck was Helene and Judith???!!!!  Just saying…   #cixous #butler 

                                                             v.      Student examples-  FASCINATING.  Not the students, no, the context. The prompt. The set-up. The instructor. The course. The year. The moments that led to those drafts…  before an end, a beginning- what is literacy? What is an autobiography? Who am I?  …. Toooooo mushy. “don’t need to bleed on the paper” but what if blood is all I have? What if lying suits me? off topic. Tangential. No, it’s a freewrite. *snap snap* *and the kick drum kicks*

Dear Richard, Richy?, Rick?, Mr. Rodriguez? Prof. Rodriguez? Dick?

I remember one day I was visiting the parentals for a weekend and we started to talk our usual banter of politics, education, learning, society, pop culture, conspiracy, religion, esotericism, music, social media, entertainment and domesticity. 

From that line alone, you’d think I grew up in a house of “learn-ned doctors” (name that quote?!..... STEPBROTHERS)  COL (chuckle out loud) I’m chuckling because ironically my father is paramedic, I mean E.M.T but I say paramedic cause everyone gets that easier and my mom’s a nurse, I mean insurance claims something or another but she used to be a nurse and that’s easier too… to…? …. What was I saying again?

Oh yeah, you mention a few things:

1) education blew your mind and you struggled to relate to your mom & dad & culture 2) kept these feelings to yourself because of “embarrassment” and thinking “maybe I’m the only one” (counterproductive to that whole being smarter now thing, no?) 3) your guilt for your lost mother, father- mather?- tongue was “momentary”. 

I’m going to stick with this only because, dude, I fucking feel you!!!  (do you get panic attacks about it sometimes too? You are depressed too, right? Anxiety? Shame-guilt complex? Insomnia? Silence eats you at family gatherings, gotta leave early on account of, “lots of work to do”?) Ya no puedo platicar sin verguenza, asi que me callo hasta silencio consume.  

So we are at the dinner table, and we are talking about God and gods and what not, and I say something along the lines of… religion has brought me to my knees and convinced me my rise shall be epic, shall be grace granted as my ephemeral transforms into eternal. But I was never, nor will ever be, not standing. My body bending by my soul’s expansion is grace personified.  I am, as He was.  I think Allah, and Krishna, and Zeus, and Buddha are one and the same- I don’t mean that exactly, but oh, how I really mean it exactly.   

BLASHPEHMY.    He & I kick it on the regular ever since I started doing that thing..what is it called again? Oh yeah- “being educated”. 

My mom never cried or broke down or disowned me or begged me to stop.  She listened and I saw her eyes glisten with… the very sick feeling I felt every time I was in a class and a Professor started talking about the values and beliefs of my life as if my world was a simpleton’s construct.  Foucault, Derrida, Freud, blah, blah- have literally shattered my world and to make matters worse- they sent me as their messenger to be the one to stick a dagger through the hearts of my mother and father.  Funny, how at times, teenage and hyperbolic, I “hated” them for their…ignorance. 

Now I hate you, academia.  For they thought you were the better, the way out. They trusted you to teach me to be better. But all you taught me was to divide and conquer, and guess what? I’m really fucking good at it. 

I’m a monster.

But see, Richard.  I accept my demonization.  You my friend, still sleep with fear in your heart. 

Or maybe I am just projecting because I still can’t get over the void that separates me from them.  

Two things that fuck us up, fucked me up-  "family" and "education" or is it "literacy"...ha