5 posts tagged “family”
My daughter has decided to idolize Sleeping Beauty. The Disney Corporation has launched far too much propaganda in the form of Halloween costumes, fruit snacks, and lame picture books--and it's eating my daughter's brain! Who has more influence: me or Walt D? I don't wear make-up, rarely style or even comb my hair. I wear jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt with comfortable shoes almost every day. Where did my daughter get the idea that she needs a ball gown and flowing hair?
I started my podcast project for Digital Writing intending to record my husband creating a sports talk show (his secret fantasy job). We didn't have enough time to pull together research for that one, so I decided to record my family talking on Sunday afternoon and see what I could make of it. Of course, Sophie wanted to talk about the Disney Princesses while coloring a picture of them.
I'm going to discuss my process and teaching applications in another post. For this one, just enjoy Sophia's little outlook on life as a new follower of the very old Cult of Domesticity (and pray with me that it doesn't last).
Credits
The following audio files (in order of their use) were included in this podcast for educational purposes:
"Someday My Prince Will Come." (sample) Carlos Franzetti Trio. Retrieved from <<http://www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/1607215>> 11 Nov 2007.
"Someday My Prince Will Come." (midi) Retrieved from <<http://www.freewebtown.com/bce30082/CW_Post.mp3>> 11 Nov 2007.
Jordan, Barbara. "1976 Keynote Address to the Democratic National Convention." (excerpt) Retrieved from <<http://www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/politicalspeeches/barbarajordan1976dnc1997.mp3>> 11 Nov 2007.
Clinton, Hillary. "Commencement Address at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University." Retrieved from <<http://www.freewebtown.com/bce30082/CW_Post.mp3>> 11 Nov 2007.
Hill, Anita. "Opening Statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Clarence Thomas." (excerpt) Retrieved from <<http://www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/speeches/anitahill.mp3>> 11 Nov 2007.
Anthony, Susan B. "Speech on Women's Right to Vote." (excerpt) Retrieved from <<http://www.learnoutloud.com/
Free-Audio-Video/Social-Sciences/Gender-Studies/Speech-on-Womens-Right-to-Vote/22919#>> 11 Nov 2007.
Canterbury, Sue. "Georgia O'Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction." (excerpt) Retrieved from <<http://www.artsmia.org/circling-around-abstraction/>> 11 Nov 2007.
Dickinson, Emily. "Hope Is a Thing with Feathers." (excerpt) Becky Miller, rdr. Retrieved from <<http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/22444>> 11 Nov 2007.
"Someday My Prince Will Come." (sample) Stay Awake: Various Interpretations Of Music From Vintage Disney Films Sinead O'Connor. Retrieved from <<http://www.artsmia.org/circling-around-abstraction/>> 11 Nov 2007.
Transcript (created in Celtx)
Disney Princess or Cult Leader?
SOUND: "someday my prince will come" (jazz version)
VOICE: (Mom) Sophie, when you grow up do you want to be a princess?
VOICE: VOICE: (SOPHIE) I WANT TO BE SLEEPING BEAUTY.
VOICE: (mom) Why do you want to be sleeping beauty?
VOICE: (sophie) cause she's my favorite!
VOICE: (mom)When I was little, I wanted to be encyclopedia brown or maybe jane pauley.
VOICE: (mom) Why is she your favorite?
VOICE: (sophie)She has all the things I want to be.
SOUND: change to midi version of "someday my prince will come"
VOICE: (MOM) WHY IS SHE YOUR FAVORITE?
VOICE: (sophie) she has all the things I want to be.
VOICE: (mom) like what?
VOICE: (sophie)like her dress, her necklace, her hair, her crown...
MUSIC: transition
VOICE: (MOM) I grew up in the 1970's i guess i just had different role models.
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (barbara jordan) What is different, what is special? I, barbara jordan, am a keynote speaker.
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (MOM) what does cinderella do after she has babies?
VOICE: (SOPHIE) have babies.
VOICE: (MOM we haven't done that ending in a while, have we? Remeber how I used to say she goes to college and gets a job?
VOICE: (SOPHIE) uh-huh.
VOICE: (MOM) do you like that when I say that?
VOICE: Voice: (sophie) no. she doesn't go to college when she gets old.
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE:(hillary clinton) my mother had never gone to college and she very much wanted me to do that.
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (mom)do you think sleeping beauty is smart, sophie?
VOICE: (sophie) she says...she's not smart. because she thought the owl was her handsome prince but it's not.
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (anita hill) what happened next, and telling
the world about it are the two most difficult things, uh, experiences
of my life.
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (MOM) do you think sleeping beauty has a job?
VOICE: (sophie) she has a job to work.
VOICE: (MOM)work where? doing what?
VOICE: (sophie) work at her house.
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (actor/ susan b. anthony) not we the white male citizens or we the male citizens, but we the whole people...
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (MOM) would you like to be an astronaut?
VOICE: (sophie) no.
VOICE: (mom) would you like to be a teacher like mommy?
VOICE: (sophie) uh-uh.
VOICE: (MOM) would you like to be a singer?
VOICE: (sophie) uh-uh. uh-uh.
VOICE: (MOM) would you like to be a princess?
VOICE: (sophie) uh-huh.
VOICE: (MOM) would you like to be someone's mommy?
VOICE: (sophie)I wanna be sleeping beauty!
VOICE: (mom) do you want to marry a handsome prince?
VOICE: (sophie)yeah, sleeping beauty's handsome prince!
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (curator) o'keeffe was always an abstractionist. the difference though from any of her contemporaries though is she always kept her subject matter grounded.
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (MOM) what else do you want to be besides sleeping beauty?
VOICE: (sophie) that's all I wanna be.
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (reader/Emily dickinson) hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.
MUSIC: TRANSITION
VOICE: (mom) maybe it's not about role models. maybe
it's not about a generational divide. maybe it's about how i wasn't
stalked when I was a child by media giants leveraging their licensed
characters across everything i see, hear, and touch.
MUSIC: "Someday My prince will come" sinead o'connor
My Digital Writing professor introduced me to Voice Thread, which allows users to record commentary attached to uploaded images. Multiple users can comment on the same image. I uploaded a family portrait I found from 1979 (I think--but it could be 1980 if you critically analyze the hair:).
Using this image is a risky venture because my parents very bitterly divorced 20 years ago, and none of us generally talks about the time before The Divorce. But I took a risk and sent this image to my mom, dad and two sisters inviting them to comment on the family portrait. Surprisingly, I'm really curious about (and not at all afraid of) what they have to say. Click here and you can listen, too.
If this is too much reality TV for you, then just think of ideas for how you could use Voice Thread in your classroom. For instance, why use Voice Thread instead of iMovie to record a character portrait and monologue? Because anyone who visits the Voice Thread can leave a comment--another way to do discussion and feedback.
If you have an idea, please post one:).
I've wondered for a long time why I let my children have--and love--this particular edition of the Bible. To be honest, I'm a fair-weather Christian. I don't read the parts I don't like. (The parts I don't like are the ones inconsistent with what I consider to be the greater truth of the New Testament.) Anyway, I let Sophie have this Bible. Why did I do that if I disagree with its cartoonish optimism and down-right silly portrayal of women?
Because some day she will learn to read, and she'll be struggling in a high school English class as she tries to read Faulkner or Joyce or any other great Modernist. She'll read Jonathan Edwards, and Beowulf. She'll read the Inferno. Appreciating just about any artful Western text (visual or word-based) she encounters could rely on prior knowledge of these Bible stories. I want her to have a fully complicated cultural literacy.
I suppose it will be up to her someday whether or not to believe what she reads, and ultimately to make that decision I think she needs to own and read her Beginner's Bible.
Many of you know that my son suffered a profound sensorineural hearing loss, we think at the end of July. After my initial panic and flurry of research, I am at peace with his disability. After all, if some disaster is to befall my child, this couldn't have been a better one. He still has normal hearing in one ear. He's already developed strong speech and language skills. I'm home on sabbatical so that I can make time to deal with appointments and assessments and his newly complicated transition into kindergarten. My husband and I, as career teachers, have extensive experience working with special education systems and have taught students with the same disability as our son.
My personal tragedy of the past 6 weeks is my total loss of trust and faith in those systems I rely on as a parent to keep my children well and safe. Of course, I'm generalizing. It's the doctors I no longer trust. But if I can't trust them, who can I trust? Do I have to be a mom, a teacher, and a pediatrician, too?
I was unable to get the attention and service I needed from our pediatric clinic because with 19 doctors on rotating schedules, I couldn't seem to see the same doctor twice. This worked fine as long as we were dealing with runny noses, fevers, and the occasional pink eye. But in the case of Josh's chronic illness and disability, no medical professional seemed to have time or interest in discussing my research with me, or even in explaining why those conditions I thought could be causes of this hearing loss weren't logical for Josh.
Then, I stumbled upon raisingdeafkids.org. Through the site's resource links, I sent out an initial query about our decision to place Josh in a Spanish immersion kindergarten. I received a dozen emails from experts in the field of second language acquisition and even a phone call from a professor at the U of M. The researcher that Professor Fortune referred to in her opinion also sent me a lengthy email about my son.
I sent another query about Josh's other symptoms after my ENT wanted to settle on a diagnosis of sudden deafness. Just yesterday, a pediatrician from the East Coast who works exclusively with deaf and hard of hearing kids, sent me her cell phone number. When I called, she explained that she had researched Josh's symptoms and may have found a link to a genetic condition called Muckle-Wells Syndrome. She advised me not to get my hopes up, but that if I decided to have Josh tested, she would like me to call her back with the results. A total stranger thousands of miles away gave me more information and support than the clinic I'd been visiting with kids for 6 years.
What is this place, cyperspace? I've been a bit of a curmudgeon about the Internet. Sure, I use it for quick research and keeping in touch with friends, but I've always thought it was more of a sandtrap than a valuable resource. What a waste of time, watching all those YouTube videos.
And here I am using the Internet to hold hands with strangers who are taking the time to care about my son.
I'm such a cheeseball. Pretentious too. I set all these goals for this year. I will write poetry, attend readings...blah, blah, blah. Joshie and I did paint his room, though.
We did go to Duluth and Gooseberry Falls, like always.
While Josh was visiting grandma and grandpa this summer, grandma noticed that Josh was having trouble hearing with his right ear. We weren't too concerned. He'd been swimming a lot and had been diagnosed with strep several times. It was probably an ear infection. At the beginning of August, he was just finishing up an antibiotic for strep, so we postponed checking his ear until he finished the drug. Besides, we had just pulled a deer tick off Sophia and were on pins and needles waiting for signs of Lyme's disease.
On August 20, a pediatrician at Josh's clinic screened his hearing. Josh was non-responsive on the right side. "His ear drum is moving normally, though," she said. "No sign of infection." Two days later at the ENT, we were still more worried about Sophie and her tick, possibly a little anxious that Josh would need his tonsils out because of the recurrent strep. I sat on the floor next to him while an audiologist examined his inner ears. Four hearing tests in a sound booth. Graphs and clicks on a laptop screen that were as mysterious to me as his ultrasound during pregnancy.
I tried not to look at him because I had the urge to reward him for pushing the little button under his left thumb each time he heard a tone. Surreptitiously, I watched his thumb. All through the tones on the right side, even the ones I could hear clearly, the thumb didn't move. He sat so still and patient, waiting for that lady to make a noise so he could push the button.
We have confirmed profound unilateral deafness for Josh. And Sophia did in fact contract Lyme's disease.
There is, of course, more to this story. Tests, results, rumination, insomnia. But my point is, thank God I didn't have to attend workshop week. Instead, I'm learning how to be a parent advocate instead of a teacher--setting up an IEP for my son, investigating sign language programs, taking my daughter's temperature, watching for rashes, interviewing new pediatricians. Tomorrow will be my son's first day of kindergarten and my first day back in college. According to my grand plan, I was to be a carefree student, a dedicated researcher of critical literacy, an intellectual, a poet again. But instead, I am who I am. A mother first.
Once, I wrote a poem about some disaster in my life, a conversation with God about what had befallen me. It was a little poem, not one of my best, but His reply stays with me: "It may feel like loss, but I'm God. Everything I give is a gift."
