smart.....

When I was in high school, I doubt anyone would have called me smart. I was not voted most likely to succeed, nor was I in the top ten percent. I was however voted "personality plus" by my senior class. That is me... fun, cute, great to have at a party. Yes. Smart, intelligent, thoughtful - Not so much.

When I decided to become a teacher - it seemed like a good fit. I like kids, I am fun and easy going, particularly patient. Few go to the college of education with aspirations of an academic life.

It wasn't until very recently I had begun to consider that, in spite of nearly completing a PhD, I have never really thought of myself as being smart. Getting through this program requires hard work and perseverance.

All of this to say that I have realized that many of my choices have been influenced by a fear that someone is going to figure out that I am not really that smart. I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine and we discussed the parable of the talents, and after letting me know that she thinks I am one of the smartest people she knows, she reminded me that it doesn't matter how smart I am, but whether like the good servants in the parable I choose to use my intelligence (and my other gifts) to the glory of God.

Yesterday was a crappy day (literally- the boy flushed the toilet and flooded our bathroom), I was struck with the reality of how difficult writing this dissertation is and by how no matter how smart I am I will NOT be able to complete this project without submitting to the Lord. This is, after all His work.

So after cleaning up the literal mess. I began the work of cleaning up the messes I have created elsewhere, realizing I need God's help with both.

What am I doing here?

I am figuring out the balance between thinking and writing. Writing helps me think and thinking helps me write. SAM reminds me that both are important. Right now I would rather not do either.....

When I talked to SAM about what to do regarding my literacy questions. He reminded me that I have a committee for a reason and suggested that I send that piece of my diss. to the literacy person on my committee. I spoke with her and she was very helpful. She helped with that piece and gave me some suggestions that improved the quality of the entire piece.

I have revised my deadline and I am now looking at an April 1st defense. I am trying to get a draft of the finished product to SAM by the end of February. He will send it back to me and I will spend Spring Break revising it so I can have it to the committee by March 20th.

I keep fussing with chapter 4 and feel like I have done a sufficient job of looking at the data I have for one of my teachers. I need to finish chapter 4 this week. - I will spend the next few days with the data and send 4 to my reader by Sunday.

I still need to tackle chapter 5 and the Significance.... oh and by the way I am teaching an undergraduate class this semester. What am I doing?

thinking vs. writing

I have been doing too much thinking lately.... thinking as a means of avoiding writing is insidious.

It works like this.... it is important to think through what you are going to write to ensure that you are clear and concise. It is important also that your writing is connected to what has already been said but brings something new to the discussion. Thus reading is an important part of the writing process - but twice recently I have been distracted from writing by thinking.

1) one element of my dissertation is the unique teaching practices of Margaret Anderson. I am using the lens of "third space" to explore her teaching. BUT the authors of the original piece use a bunch of terms such as "heterglossia, discourse and identity" which I don't want to take the time to explain or explore. I get stuck thinking about the critical nature of the original piece and whether or not it really fits what I saw happening in the classroom and it does but I just spent an hour thinking and now it is time to go home......

2) success and reading.... As an early childhood person - somehow the topic of reading is off limits to me.... reserved for the language and literacy folks, but perhaps not - perhaps the notion of reading (literacy development) is an important success for the students in these classroom aside from the success they are experiencing on the reading TAKS test. I just went to find two books on the literacy elements and haven't written a word.

Now perhaps all of this thinking is necessary and important and ultimately productive BUT I just want to finish this thing.

How writing a dissertation can negatively impact your itunes movie watching.

yesterday, while I should have been working on the dissertation (because the boy is with Grandma this week), I decided it would be more fun to download The Queen from itunes and watch it while I folded laundry (writing it out does prompt one to ask, is that really a good use of your time? Oh well). It seems the dissertation gods were watching because the movie would not download - why you ask? Well - my computer was too full - that is right. My computer, which has something like 50 GB of memory (which is A LOT of space), was completely full - too full for Her Majesty to make an appearance so I could fold my bloody laundry. And if you have written a dissertation (or have an obsession with video taping kids, or puppies or something) you will know what was taking up all that space. You guessed it - Videos of my participants teaching and learning with their students (plus a few of the boy learning to walk)- 47 GB in total. HOLY COW!
That is a lot of video.

My solution. Delete the data. What? NO. Are you crazy?! I will be using that data to write articles for the next few years. Lucky for me my husband is a nerd. I moved the data to our home server and removed it from my computer. Don't worry SAM, our network is password protected, so no worries about confidentiality.

In the end, we went out to dinner and I watched Her Royal Highness while I folded laundry late into the night.

And so I begin the new year with a clean house and a clean computer. As for the dissertation.... I keep plugging away. Revising and writing most days and continuing my quest for itunes viewing.

who is driving?

I met with my CoL last night. It wasn't nearly as hard and it was just as helpful. SAM gave me some good feedback both at the meeting and in his comments on the paper itself.

The most important of which was not to let the data drive the argument. Here is what he wrote on the paper.


You are letting the data drive your argument, rather than you drive the argument. What are the central features of othermothering? Identify those, then use the data to show how Rose othermothered & how this contributed to good teaching and academic success.

Wow... that means a concise narrative with a purpose, rather than a rambling story with unnecessary, albiet beautiful details. I still have quite a bit of work to do but rather than feeling discouraged I feel energized. I WILL DO THIS.

I still need to work on my presentation.