Dear Eleni and Molly,

Hello, daughters young and slightly less young. I’m writing you (and cc’ing my teacher, Elka) as an assignment for my second language acquisition (SLA) class. I am to describe some of what I’ve learned here at SIT thus far. I’m still eligible for a passing grade if you don’t e-mail me back, but I’d sure love your response(s). But don’t refer to me affectionately as “Ho-Baggy”; it’s not good for my reputation.

After reading all this, the teacher will learn not to give me a writing assignment; you two, however, already know how I go on and on and on…

What I’ve Learned: A Story by Ginna

After three weeks at SIT, I’ve already learned things about myself, language, teaching, learning and my peers. My initial expectation that this experience will change me is starting to play out.

The Setting

SIT and Vermont are beautiful. I love living in my barn in the woods. The social climate at the school is, as I expected, one of tolerance, diversity and open curiosity, which you know is my kind of place. I’m a little disappointed that everyone is younger than I. I can’t tell you how many times people have asked if I’m a teacher — which wouldn’t be bad if I was a teacher. It is so strange to be myself on the inside yet appear as something wrinkly on the outside. So I’ve become more self-conscious than usual, aware that I’m being stereotyped in a role I don’t like. A good lesson, I suppose, since it’s something so many people experience. Sometimes I wish I could hang out with someone who understands what it’s like to have over fifty years under one’s belt, and to have a half-a-century-plus old face that belies the scraps of youth within. But it’s okay.

My New Peeps

These students, most of whom are between the ages of you guys, are smart and, as a whole, wise. With experience beyond their years, they inspire me with what they know and think. Just like you two do. I really couldn’t ask for a nicer group of peers. At least so far, so good. It’s a wee bit unnerving to know that the 25 of us strangers will be closely together for ten months. It feels like walking into an arranged marriage. I expect there will be many trying times and many rewarding ones. One of my favorite things about the people I’m with is that there’s a lot of laughing in and out of the classroom. The teachers are witty and the students have a sense of humor to match.

I’m enjoying talking with people from around the world. I’ve always liked listening to and bouncing ideas off of others. I haven’t done that with young people as much and have been surprised at the confidence they have, since it’s something I lack, even with all the things I’ve accomplished over the years. (I was famous in radio once, remember? But no one here knows that.)

I hesitate to write this since a teacher is watching, but most of all I’ve been impressed with the faculty so far. They are outstanding educators, and they have hefty academic credentials (which they don’t advertise, since they act as colleagues rather than superiors). Next week I start a bunch of new classes, and hope I’m equally satisfied. I’m taking Theater for Social Change, Language Analysis and Lesson Planning, Teaching the Four Skills [Do you know what those are?], Approaches to Teaching Second Languages, and Kiswahili.

My Life as a Group

During the first week we had endless team-building exercises and small-group work that helped us get to know one another. I enjoyed the icebreakers (e.g. going in a circle and remembering everyone’s name and one thing about them). I made some friends that way. It’s interesting, the way we’re drawn initially to people with similar interests. When I heard that Genevieve (whom I hadn’t met yet) likes hiking, I immediately gravitated to her. I’ve learned that’s an initial phase of group-forming behavior: we seek out people who are like us in some important way. As time goes on, we begin to diversify.

Some of the team-based problem-solving is harder. In one game, “Raging River,” we pretended to be crossing a… well, you know. It began with cacophonous group developing strategies which lost all meaning once we began to cross the “river.” I’ve always thought I’m good at collaboration because I’ve done well with it before, but I’m finding these group exercises to be difficult. In my work, since I like order and detest rambling meetings, I’ve tended to begin with the establishment of roles and responsibilities. But that doesn’t happen in our groups. Sometimes I try to get the group to build a foundation but so far I’ve gotten drowned out by more assertive voices. In any given exercise there has been some amount of tension as people struggle to be heard while others unilaterally take control. So one of my biggest challenges involves finding my role and being heard, while remaining open to new ideas that oppose my own. I tend to worry that any contribution I make is seen as domination. I’m recognizing a fine line between controlling and contributing. Anyhow, with Raging River — despite initial chaos and some tension — we ended with laughter and exuberance. As we crossed, we spontaneously grasped each other’s hands, which was kind of moving to me. You’ve seen the picture I put up on my blog.

My biggest hurdle in collaboration has been with my workgroup in Group Dynamics class.  I’m clumped with a group of five people, and find one of them to be exceptionally arrogant. S/he is very young, and cursed with a high-functioning brain without (yet) the humility to mediate it in socially sensitive ways. This person has shown the tendency to dismiss me when I speak and it’s starting to piss me off. S/he’s just a kid and I find myself thinking, “How dare you, you upstart.” But I can’t do that. I’m trying to be patient and calm and open, but I’m yearning for some R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  I’ve made attempts at bringing the issue into the light, but haven’t yet found the way. That’s something I need to learn, for this situation and others into the future.

Two-Layer Cakes

Let’s keep talking about me: my favorite subject.

Nearly all the classroom learning in my life until now has been based on cognitive processes: lectures and repetition and memorization and analysis. I’ve not been very good at them, unless extremely motivated. Psychology and anthropology: no problem. Statistics and early American history: gag me. You know about my early schooling as the class stupid-head for twelve years in my East Coast prep school. Add that to my sucking as a competitive athlete, and to my generally sweet nature [I used to be sweet, you know], and it’s no surprise I suffered socially. School was so boring (though I did okay in Latin, French and Spanish — until I discovered drugs and rock-and-roll). I was always taught by strict teachers who called me out for being slower than the others. I was afraid to speak up in class (we call that a “high affective filter” in our business), and I had to sit immobile on hard plastic seats for hours a day when all I wanted to do was draw pictures and play with Minute Mouse. The only exercise I got were the competitive sports that I dreaded — oh, that and Modern Dance with Mrs. Bell who wore so much perfume you could smell her from four blocks away. So naturally I couldn’t wait to get away from school. (You know I was the first one in the school’s long history to graduate a year early, don’t you? I was so desperate to get away that I blazed a trail out.)

Big surprise: for many years I thought I was stupid. I’m getting over it slowly. With not one but two extremely smart kids, I realize I must have made some contribution. Till a decade or two ago I was unaware that there are different types of intelligence and different ways of learning. My high school teachers were equally blind. Even the most cerebral person needs needs a variety of learning stimuli. As we’ve discussed in class this week, some do better with kinesthetic learning, others with visual or tactile cues, and so on. I’ve known about differing learning styles for a while, but not what it looks like to engage them.

Which brings me, at last, back to SIT. As the instructors are teaching intellectually difficult material, they’re also modeling teaching techniques. While I try to understand a theory, for example, my learning is kick-started by their innovative ways of communicating the information. In SLA class some of the content is particularly gnarly, so our teacher breaks us into small groups to discuss the material, or do some exercise related to it. It’s stuff I find interesting, though I get lost in it fairly often — and that’s even after I took an SLA class before my gallbladder went kablooey a few months ago.

It’s fun to compare the two SLA classes: this one and the one at UC Berkeley. The UCB class was interesting, but even after intense studying I’m still unclear on some of the key concepts and have already forgotten the much of what I “learned.” The teacher was essentially a lecturer, though it was a small, seminar-sized class and he did ask students for input. Here at SIT [this sounds like an ad], the teaching is highly interactive. We do exercises to help internalize the material. To pick yesterday’s class as an example, our SLA professor was teaching us about Lev Vygotsky. Molly-the-linguist: You know who he is, I imagine. Eleni-of-the-mighty-brain: You’d be interested to read his life story. Check it out. Anyhow, he was a child psychologist (among other things) whose ideas, while recognized as important during his life in the early 1920s, have bloomed again as relevant to many fields, including language acquisition. One of his many theories involve peer “scaffolding.” My highly simplified and incomplete definition is: the way we support each other’s learning through social interaction. The previous night we’d read a detailed article about Vygotsky. Instead of reviewing the material in class, our teacher began by helping us understand the time and culture in which Vygotsky worked in Russia. Then she broke us into groups and gave us each a piece of paper describing just one phase of Vygostky’s life. By the end of the class, after talking with each other, each group was able to present a more complete biography. That is, by the end of the class, we had lived an example of peer scaffolding (and other theories we have yet to learn). That’ll stick in my craw much more than just hearing about it would. Cool, huh?

But that’s not all. As mentioned, every class has a dual level of teaching to it. On the surface, the professors teach academics. We learn theories and principles and trends in some pretty dense material. But simultaneous with the scholarly stuff, each instructor is teaching a second layer of material: how to teach. It’s very clever. My brain is always working on at least two levels of observation/absorption: trying to take in the material, while also watching how it’s being taught.

Our SLA teacher is sensitive to the mood of the classroom. A couple days ago she noticed an uncharacteristic lack of energy in the group, so she suddenly switched gears. Instead of sitting, we all stood up. Instead of talking, she worked with visual objects. She also pays attention to each person individually. When someone speaks she acknowledges their contribution. But not all teachers are the same. Our Turkish teacher (whom I loved) was a little harsher when we (I) failed to understand. And our Group Dynamics teacher doesn’t seem to notice the feelings of the individual learner, but is vigilant about the interactions at a group level. All of these approaches help my learning, and should also help my teaching.

What’s Ahead

As I start to think about my internship in January, the more intimidated I get. I’m learning that my ego needs serious rewiring. I need to build my self-esteem big-time. One of my colleagues got cranky at me yesterday, as Adi does, for always apologizing. I’m more aware than ever of this behavior of mine, and have begun my mission to control it.

To address my insecurities about teaching, these are things I’ve come up with over the past few days:

• Instead of feeling clueless when I hear about all the experience of my peers, I’ve decided to take advantage of their knowledge. They’ve agreed to let me pick their brains. Further, some of them talk as though they have extensive knowledge yet they’ve been teaching only a year or two, which encourages me to think that one gains experience fast when in the “frying pan.”
  

• I can (and do) attend closely the methods of my professors, and take copious notes about all ideas that particularly strike me as useful.
  
• I can ask for guidance from faculty.
  

• I still have three-plus months of classes ahead, ones designed specifically to enhance practical teaching skills.
  

• All my life I’ve undertaken difficult tasks that I didn’t think I had the skill to complete, from producing series of programs for NPR to developing major Web sites to rafting down Class 5 rapids on the Magpie with MacGyver to traveling alone in Guatemala. And I’ve always succeeded.
  

• As your auntie Katie suggested, the greater the anxiety the greater the potential for reward.

In conclusion, would you like to read the goals I’ve set for myself during the past week, based on what I’ve discovered so far? Great. I thought you would. They’re a little private, but you can read them anyway.

[Subject to change without notice.]

Professional Goals

• Learn classroom management skills.
• Be calm and mindful in the face of challenge and conflict.
• Learn how to feel — and act — a strong sense of self and confidence in a group setting, whether I’m participant or leader.
• Find the place where my interests in TESOL and culture intersect with my prior experience: in the classroom or elsewhere.

Personal Goals

• Gain some fluency in Spanish and/or the language of my internship.
• Heal my heart in the aftermath of profound losses during the past five years.
• Discover a new sense of purpose as I change career directions.
• Explore Vermont and southeastern Canada.
• Have my daughters visit me in Vermont!!!!!!

There you have it. Wake up now. I miss and love you both more than you’ll ever know. Thanks for reading.

—Your Ma/Mommy/Mama/Mamma-Ginna/Ho-Baggy

“One would hate to be paying attention if one didn’t have to.” —PN