Learning from Waiting

Wait Time

Well this well worn educational phrase had taken on a whole new meaning as of late, and it does have to do with learning (mine), but not in a classroom, unless we get all poststructural about it and make Cape Town my new classroom. Please, Mary.

Richard and I are sitting on the pavers outside an office building, sitting with four indigenous winos. They are pouring from a plastic jug, maybe beer, the color of urine at any rate. We are not here to share. Our car sits a few feet to the left of us, refusing to take us home. The garage is on the way.

I started this day harried, but purposeful. The English Academy of Southern Africa is sponsoring a conference at Peninsular Cape University of Technology. I took the city bus to the city terminus, and with map in hand, took off walking in what turned out to be the wrong direction. I never did orient the map to square with the street names on the posts in view. Finally, two transit officials, taking pity on the goof looking in all directions with multiple maps, sent me in the direction of PCUT. I would have been on time for the plenary, but it had started early. The plenary was a wide-ranging talk on language policy and practice in SA; about the need for multiple languages for different social contexts. The speaker, Stanley Ridge, was a distinguished looking white academic who was advocating for English as a lingua franca. His argument, delivered in a schoolish, upper class British English, was a sound one. But he was assailed by questions. One Indian academic passionately questioned Ridge’s  unexamined use of English, that it was the language of (world) colonization, and (I think in a Humboldtian vein) talked about how the language (English) imparts a dominant cultural framework even while it is used as a lingua franca, and I think, as the route to emancipation. Ridge deferred reaction, but did make the interesting point that language itself cannot embody a spiritual (my paraphrase, and nod to von Humboldt) predisposition. Language can’t do anything on its own. Rather, it is the use of the language. It was an interesting dodge. Another point that I had written down during Ridge’s presentation was languages can be “equal in law,” but in use languages are never equal. To explain, he set up Ijuro’s (that can’t be the spelling) hierarchical model of language contact in a multilingual society. Everyone has a local everyday language. This level is connected and superceded by a second level, called central languages that are practically used to connect all of the local languages. So in Nigeria 98% of the languages (think typology) are local in nature. These many languages are then represented centrally by, in the case of Nigeria, three central languages, xhosa, Yoruba, and ______. Then at the next level, hyper central, a single language is used to represent across all the other languages. In this case, it is an adopted language, non-indigenous, English. While the particular languages may vary, both historically for a given region, and certainly geographically, the model holds constant.

A second paper, based on the presenter’s MA thesis was not so good. The methods were contaminated by a priori assumptions in her interviewing, the definitions for literate practice in the homes presumed an academic model, and then found parents’ work with their kids wanting. In the meantime, an extensive amount of parent/child language work, where the computer game was the narrative prop, went unanalyzed and disregarded. A “major finding” of her study was that fathers don’t do any literacy with their children at home. Yet, she reports on the extensive social interaction over competition embedded in gaming. James Gee would have had a field day here. I also was disappointed that the finding that mothers did all of the storybook reading in the home was not interrogated. Wendy Luttrell’s research on basic and remedial reading in colleges generated the catchy phrase “Literacy is women’s scut work.” So the fathers don’t do it because they can get away with not doing. Further along this line, the “preferences” reported by the kids are that they like picture books and fairy tales. But is this because that is what they have been exposed to? Barb Peterson is making me aware that there is much to learn about kids’ pleasure and choice in reading about bugs, eyeballs, and other things science. If that engagement is there, if the books were available as a choice during parent reading time, would kids want to hear more about, say, fossilized dinosaur poop, or owl pellets? It is likely that the literacy habitus for the home is a function of what is done, not what is said about what is done. She reported that parents do not appear to value media literacy because there is no meta-talk between parents and their kids while watching TV.  Well, if someone is talking while I watch TV, they are usually asked not to. Did I say politely?? Parents in this “well-resourced” sampling see literacy as “work.” There is no talk about reading for pleasure. Indeed, if these are two career middle class families, literacy may be about work. If a child sees daddy working on the laptop, and wants a chance to use it, daddy will trump with “Daddy’s doing his work…” When mommy is reading to the child, what is it that she does? What intentionalities are in the mommy’s head when she engages in the 15 minutes she must do every day?? If the session is treated as work, performed as work, it is little wonder that reading is not equated with pleasure. And finally, parents tended to off-load the literacy work in two directions: the media takes care of it automatically; and literacy is the work of school time.

I remembered at this point in the early literacy talk, Gail Canella’s theorizing about the way we take up children’s “empty” lives by re-creating them for our particular needs. In this vein, Canella writes of the academic child, one who completes school work in home time. School extends its control over the child by sending homework home. And then creates a narrative of “good parenting” that sees that this time invasion is accomplished.

Quick comments coming from 2 other papers:

David Robinson did a close read of the South African National Curriculum Standards for literacy. Year 12 students are required to read one of 3 novels, none of which is written by a South African (The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Animal Farm). Yet, the NCS claims to valorize SA culture in the learning literacy. He also points out that the NCS requires reading from a critical stance, but does not locate which stance. This troubled him. Maslin pointed out that the NCS, and other policy documents in literacy, do not intend to furnish the policy with plans. Rather that is the work of districts, schools and teachers to instantiate what is meant by critical stance. In these little interstices manifestation, I see big trouble, the potential to create problems, not that that is bad thing. When a teacher adopts a particular flavor of criticism, it comes with some historical, political baggage. Using a feminist deconstruction probably raises few eyebrows since women are well on their way to becoming full persons. Yet, it is not difficult to imagine a more traditional social context, say the state of Utah, where “liberal” construction of womanhood may not be so celebrated. To make it more complex, what if the adopted stance of the teacher toward criticism is one of social justice, based on sexual identities. One could make the case that women are entitled to control over their reproductive capacities. One could make the case that the Defense of Marriage Act in fact disenfranchises gay and lesbians in long-term relationships. So, when interrogating a novel, is it even possible to take a perspective like “OK, what if the married couple in the story were two men? Would that change the dynamic set up by the author? What can this tell us about how gender, and sexual dimorphism is present in the story, but not interrogated as an influencing factor?” The basic question: is THAT kind of critical reading possible, tenable?

The other reaction from Robinson’s paper came to me in the form of a question is related to Aronstam’s “literacy is work” theme. Perhaps it is more like “literacy must be (perceived as) work. So the question:  Why do we resist our ludic engagement with reading, or our pleasure with the text? Is there some imagined lurking, hedonic potential in literature that must be denied, guarded against? My questions here emerged after a slide crediting Bloom with commentary on the fact that literacy can’t be counted on to change the world, that reading may just be selfish pleasure. This is connected then with Ridge’s opening plenary that literacy, language itself can’t do anything. It is all in how we use it. I think we must daily, and without awareness work through these palimpsests of literacy. We still read to uncover the word(s) of god as revealed to us in the scripture. Before the printing press, this stuff had magical power and effectively controlled the masses. We still have reading from the enlightenment. Reading makes one a better person. Leading to the scientism of the enlightenment. Reading will solve the problems. Then with late modernism, reading, intellectualism IS the problem. Reading will transform the culture, right the political wrongs. “Reading the world, read the word.” But with the dissipation of capitalism (demise of Protestant work ethic, diminishing material assets, and the colonial intent of globalization), post structuralism back reads the texts for their implicit biases.  All of these past reasons and contexts for reading all still exist in how reading functions. And nowhere is anybody having fun, at least not in reading that is official.

That last bit on the invocation for critical reading by Robinson also connected with an abysmal paper by a fourth presenter. With no topic it is hard to summarize, but one complexity in the paper is her role as a “transformational” teacher. Here’s the rub, and it’s an old story. As the instructor for a course that requires transformational reflection, she is caught in the web of her own intents. First, the students’ opportunity structure for criticism is completely a function of the teachers’ largess. Students’ can be critical to the point of the teachers’ discomfort. This exploration occurs within a classroom, a power-based context. Criticism happens to the extent that the teacher allows it to happen. The teachers’ comfort zone is limited by issue of content –the stuff were are talking about (“no blood, guns or gays”) and by style – you can’t be “rude” when you are critiquing. Well there goes the embodiment of your critical response. Besides, when working with students marginalized by language difference, the first way that novices in criticism may participate is through “negative,” passionate claims for redress.  “That’s not fair!” shouted into the room may be an individual student’s breakthrough. But it may not match a teacher’s need for decorum, avoidance of “conflict” in the classroom, or the need to just be nice. What happens when students’ explorations causes discomfort for the teacher?

So, back to the wait:  I’ve been entering the campus with an access card that registers as Mema Saiman. No problem with getting through the campus gates’ electronic recognition that opens the gates. But then I tried to check some books out of the UWC library. I did not look like Ms. Saiman, whoever she may be. The librarian repeatedly scanned my card, looked up, and told me “It’s not you.”  After several unsuccessful phone calls, she left with the card now shared by me and Ms. Saiman. The librarian returned with what can only be a half frown and half smile. “We now have a problem” she said and sent me to the administration building, where cards are assigned. At the time of initial access card issue, Avril, the office manager in Linguistics, took me into the office of the Card Queen, a large, imposing woman with scads of braided extensions and serious black glasses. But today, sent by the librarian and without Avril, I am democratically waiting in a line with students. Right now, I am 30^th in line, with one clerk manning one of 8 windows. The other 7 are not manned and we are all waiting together. My nagging doubt is that my initial card had to be secured between 8 and 10 am, the only time when access cards are issued, and only by Ms. Extension. It is 12:50, I have already been in line for 15 minutes, and we are stationary. I don’t spend much time waiting, in lines, on line. There is a character trait, or disposition that is required of students. The need to wait is always there. The line is getting longer, but that is not so important as they are behind me.

Earlier, I had spent some time in the library browsing in education, sociology and anthropology. The holdings were very limited, so I cherry picked a few newer texts. These now wait for me at the circulation desk. The cataloging system is dewey decimal. I thought everybody used the Library of Congress system. But now I wonder, is this a US convention?  I don’t remember Australia at the University of Queensland, but I think it was LoC.

I think that any movement in this line is the result of compression, not completed service. No one is leaving. Well, we are inching up. It is 1:07 and I am now number 13. Yes, I counted. Now there are two clerks working. We will move twice as fast! I am actually lightened by the appearance of the second clerk. Now, I am 10^th, now #4.  I am waiting at the window. I am told by the second, new clerk that the person who does the access cards, Ms. Extensions, is at lunch. She is the only one who can do the cards. As clerk #2 and I speak, I recognize Ms. Extensions returning, I insipidly wave my card, and she does not notice me. I tell the clerk “That’s the one!” a little too loudly and point. The clerk does her best not to react to my enthusiasm. I realize that I can get my books from the library, get my list of seminar topics to Avril, and still catch the last bus back to my apartment neighborhood. The clerk leaves with my card to the office of “access cards.”

With my re-authorized card, I return to the library with my identity intact. I think that I no longer share life space with Mema. I will miss her, but she was a complexity I could not have if I wanted books. I present my card proudly, it is scanned, and the librarian informs me that I am still Mema Saiman. I go back to the administration building with a print out that proves I am Mema Saiman. I no longer feel the need to be democratic toward the line of students, some of whom I recognize from my previous visit as a member of the under class. I march up to the access door, rap the edge of mine and Mema’s access card against the glass of the door. It is loud, insistent, like a woodpecker working in a glass factory. I get access. Then the fun really starts. While I am a specific problem, it seems that I also belong to another group of access delinquents called the Mosaics. From what I can hear of the phone call between the Queen of Access (Ms. Extension with the threatening glasses), I am just like the Mosaics. There is a “ghost in the system,” and I am its manifestation. The call is protracted. During this time that I watch helplessly, standing like a delinquent student before a fact finding principal, it occurs to me that the last bus to Mowbray leaves shortly after 2:00pm, and I still don’t have the books that I now really want. I pick up that Grace, the librarian who won’t give me and Mena our books, can’t do the job. And Ms. E is now talking to Trevor. He is a man of action, as Ms. E asks for my card, and tears the clear adhesive cover from it. While talking with Trevor, she motions me to sit in front of the digital camera. All of this, mutilating mine and Mean’s card, directing me where I am to sit, and chasing down the ghost, while the phone is propped on her shoulder and disappears into her ropes of hair. I sit. The camera snaps, a card is spit out of a machine. It is laminated. I am handed a card and told to ask for Trevor if Grace can’t handle it. All without hanging up. I’m off, offering thanks (For a solution? Not yet. For recovering my identity? Not yet.)

Trevor is waiting for me when I enter the circulation desk area. We figure out who we are, and then I become a test case for discovering the particular characteristics of this ghost, in the machine. Trevor is convinced it is a zero that has been attached to my id number, and encoded on my magnetic strip. But knowing is not fixing. I am given a non-active student’s id, Jeremy somebody. I hope because my gender assignment is in synch with expectations, I will get my books. Yes, that must have been it. The books are scanned, my card is scanned, and I hurry out the door. I made the bus with 5 minutes to spare.