It's Friday afternoon and I'm getting ready to leave the office a little early to start helping with the moving process. We need to be out of our current place by tomorrow evening, so tonight we'll start packing our belongings and cleaning up.
It's hard to believe that my first month has almost passed. It's been a busy time, but I feel much like I am still getting into the groove of a new lifestyle down here. It'll probably seem like that for a while longer, with a new house bringing a new commute, new routines, more packing and unpacking. Luckily we'll get the rest of our stuff next week, too, which has been held in Tacoma with the moving company for the past three weeks. It's funny what you miss when you don't have it. The top three items that I miss are: 1) my espresso maker 2) my chef's knife and 3) my saucier. I think once I get these things back, I'll feel more at ease. It reminds me how central a kitchen is to my concept of a home.
It also makes me realize that we probably brought way too much stuff with us via the movers. Other than items like the ones above, we've been fine without many of our everyday belongings. It's so hard to know when you're leaving for six months, though. You probably can't really know what you're going to need until you are there. And we probably simply live with way too much stuff. Hopefully, we'll weed through what we brought down and donate a lot to charity before we take off for Alaska again. There's no sense shipping something again if we don't really need it, is there?
It's been another good week in academia. I got some good news on Wednesday when I learned I'd be getting a full refund of my tuition and textbook cost for the qualitative research class that I had to drop. With this refunded, I'll be able to take more classes next quarter. I'm already starting to think about what classes I'd like to take, and what will be most useful to me in the future.
Yesterday, I had a great conversation with David DuBois, a mentoring researcher who's also on a fellowship through the WT Grant Foundation. David was a big support to be during my application process and I've learned a lot from the conversations I've been lucky enough to have with him. His fellowship has embedded him at Big Brothers Big Sisters, both at our national office, and in the Metro Chicago agency. We are coming into this fellowship from opposite sides of the research/practice divide and it's interesting to compare notes about our experience. We talked about some possible collaboration yesterday and I'm excited to see where that might lead.
And today, I met with one of the PhD students here at PSU to start looking at some of the data gathered from participants in the Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring. He showed me how to code the questionnaires using an analytical software called AtlasTi. I'm excited to dive into the data soon and try my hand at coding the questionnaires from the second year of the Institute. Hopefully we'll be able to learn something of what happened as a result of the Institute back at the participants' home organizations. I've been trying to read about qualitative research methods on my own to prepare for this. I imagine there will be a lot of trial and error as I get into this and hopefully I won't mess anything up while I am learning!
To start thinking more about how research actually gets used in a practice setting, I've also picked up this great book recently, Diffusion of Innovations, by Everett Rogers. He's an academic, but the book is written in a very clear fashion, with lots of real-world examples. So it feels rigorous but accessible at the same time. Besides helping look into how the Summer Institute has functioned to diffuse innovation, I'm hoping it gives me more ideas about how a research guidebook would best be used to diffuse concepts in the mentoring field.
Today was also my second fencing class. Class got canceled week when the teacher threw his back out. This week, we learned how to hold the saber, how to advance and retreat, and how we should stand in en garde. He made us keep poses for a very long time to start to train our muscles. I have a good feeling I will feel some muscles I never even knew about before long. It's a good class though, and I''ll be excited to test our new moves out when we get suited up next week.
Besides moving this weekend, I've got some homework for classes on Monday and Tuesday. I'll also be evaluating the applications for our new Mentoring Research Advisory Committee (or whatever it's title finally becomes) at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. We're creating a committee of peers from around the Big Brothers Big Sisters network to read research articles, discuss them, and make recommendations to our network. It was great to see the amount of interest in research out there. We received 23 applications for eight open seats. I'll be meeting with Keoki Hansen, BBBSA's Director of Research and Evaluation, on Monday to compare our scores and pick who will be on the committee. This committee is one of the ideas I proposed in my fellowship plan and it's great to see it starting to take shape. I'm excited to see what changes this committee might bring to our national network.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Beauty
It's Wednesday morning, and usually I would be spending the day with Jessica and the kids. Today, I'm on campus to attend a discussion group in the psychology department. I met a professor there and he's invited me to participate in their monthly discussion groups. This month I'm interested in attending since the paper to be discussed is on prevention research and how it gets used in the field. I'm hoping to get some ideas from the discussion on how I can think about the Summer Institute as well as my proposed research guidebook for mentoring professionals. I''ll stay home tomorrow, to be able to go see Celia at her soccer lesson in the morning and then take some phone calls from home.
I've really been enjoying my statistics class lately, and have even started to look forward to doing homework problems. I'm also trying to use the homework as a way to teach myself R, an open-source statistics program. All this statistics has brought back many of the fond feelings I had for math growing up. I was a bit of a math-head in my primary school years. At first, I loved the sense of accomplishment from solving a math problem. Having a final answer to a problem brought happiness and relief. Maybe it was an illusion, but I liked the promise certainty that working math problems held. Later, as I continued in math in high school, I began to love the beauty of math. I found logical proofs stunning in their completeness and geometry beautiful in its clarity. Surely the world is a complicated place, but math has a way of boiling it down to a more perfect whole.
I started to regain this sense of beauty as I learned about the central limit theorem. When we first starting discussing the normal distribution in statistics, it was a pretty picture, but I really didn't believe that anything in the world fell into the classical "bell curve" type picture. But then we learned that when you take a random sample of a population, and your sample is big enough, you always have a normal distribution of the sample mean. Wow. Suddenly this beautiful curve had real meaning. Suddenly the randomness of the world could be tamed with this elegant mound. Now that's something to be excited about. Maybe it's the very complexity of the world that makes such elegance appealing. Maybe that's what we are all looking for in this world - something we can hold onto that's fixed, immutable, predicable, real.
It feels good to get back to my mathematical roots. It kind of feels like finding an old self. I was well on my way to majoring in Math in college when suddenly I stopped enjoying it during my freshman year. My Differential Equations II class seemed to be all about weeding out the weak. I wanted to find beauty and instead I found competition and the desire to succeed in math to advance in the world. So I dropped Math and went to find beauty in English and History. And I really haven't used my math skills ever since. Who knows what finding this old lost self will bring to my life.
I've also continued to read whatever I can, and have lately picked up an introductory manual to qualitative research, by Corbin and Strauss, The Basics of Qualitative Research. I'm hoping this will give me enough of a background to start looking at the qualitative data gathered under the Summer Institute.
Last night I also finished Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. I highly recommend it, especially to my friends in teaching and academics. I'm not sure I believe all of Gladwell's arguments, but he provides some interesting food for thought to think about how success happens in this world. I especially liked the way he ended the book with a call to action. The world doesn't have to be this way, and maybe with a few changes, we can open up a lot of opportunity to more children around the world.
Lastly, on the food scene, I've discovered that many of Portland's good restaurants do a happy hour with reasonable priced small plates. So I stumbled into Ten-01 last night before my evening class and had some delectable cauliflower gratin and a chorizo burger with pickled shallots, provolone, and spicy red sauce. I've also found a decent coffee place near my office, called Katie's Cafe. The use Illy coffee, which always seems to make for a quality cup. And now that there's some evidence that coffee prevents dementia, I have even more justification for my caffeinated quest for excellence.
I've really been enjoying my statistics class lately, and have even started to look forward to doing homework problems. I'm also trying to use the homework as a way to teach myself R, an open-source statistics program. All this statistics has brought back many of the fond feelings I had for math growing up. I was a bit of a math-head in my primary school years. At first, I loved the sense of accomplishment from solving a math problem. Having a final answer to a problem brought happiness and relief. Maybe it was an illusion, but I liked the promise certainty that working math problems held. Later, as I continued in math in high school, I began to love the beauty of math. I found logical proofs stunning in their completeness and geometry beautiful in its clarity. Surely the world is a complicated place, but math has a way of boiling it down to a more perfect whole.
I started to regain this sense of beauty as I learned about the central limit theorem. When we first starting discussing the normal distribution in statistics, it was a pretty picture, but I really didn't believe that anything in the world fell into the classical "bell curve" type picture. But then we learned that when you take a random sample of a population, and your sample is big enough, you always have a normal distribution of the sample mean. Wow. Suddenly this beautiful curve had real meaning. Suddenly the randomness of the world could be tamed with this elegant mound. Now that's something to be excited about. Maybe it's the very complexity of the world that makes such elegance appealing. Maybe that's what we are all looking for in this world - something we can hold onto that's fixed, immutable, predicable, real.
It feels good to get back to my mathematical roots. It kind of feels like finding an old self. I was well on my way to majoring in Math in college when suddenly I stopped enjoying it during my freshman year. My Differential Equations II class seemed to be all about weeding out the weak. I wanted to find beauty and instead I found competition and the desire to succeed in math to advance in the world. So I dropped Math and went to find beauty in English and History. And I really haven't used my math skills ever since. Who knows what finding this old lost self will bring to my life.
I've also continued to read whatever I can, and have lately picked up an introductory manual to qualitative research, by Corbin and Strauss, The Basics of Qualitative Research. I'm hoping this will give me enough of a background to start looking at the qualitative data gathered under the Summer Institute.
Last night I also finished Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. I highly recommend it, especially to my friends in teaching and academics. I'm not sure I believe all of Gladwell's arguments, but he provides some interesting food for thought to think about how success happens in this world. I especially liked the way he ended the book with a call to action. The world doesn't have to be this way, and maybe with a few changes, we can open up a lot of opportunity to more children around the world.
Lastly, on the food scene, I've discovered that many of Portland's good restaurants do a happy hour with reasonable priced small plates. So I stumbled into Ten-01 last night before my evening class and had some delectable cauliflower gratin and a chorizo burger with pickled shallots, provolone, and spicy red sauce. I've also found a decent coffee place near my office, called Katie's Cafe. The use Illy coffee, which always seems to make for a quality cup. And now that there's some evidence that coffee prevents dementia, I have even more justification for my caffeinated quest for excellence.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Week Four
It's hard to believe that my fourth week is already here. The next thing you know, these whole six months will be over. I wonder what I can do to make this whole thing slow down...drink less espresso? Nah! That's not even worth thinking about!
Speaking of which, I've decided to go on a quest for the best espresso in Portland. This town has plenty to options to consider in that regard. I thought Seattle had a lot of coffee shops until I came here. But I've also found that the quality is pretty varied, and that I don't really like the popular local roast, Stumptown. Their espresso tastes sour to me. So I've decided I need to try all I can to find something that suits my palate, within a reasonable distance of home and campus.
So far my tops have been Spella Caffe, a food cart on SW Alder and 9th, and the coffee counter at Pastaworks on Hawthorne. Spella roasts their own beans and pours a rich and chocolately espresso. The use a ristretto shot, and I favor a little more liquid. And they are only open from 9-4. So it's not perfect, but it sure is good. Pastaworks uses Illy coffee and pulled a smooth shot. The man Illy was dedicated to perfection in coffee. He died last year, unfortunately, but his passion for the perfect cup of espresso lives on in his company.
But you don't need perfect coffee when the company is good. I was lucky on Friday to have some bad coffee with two colleagues from the local Big Brothers Big SIsters agency here in Portland (BBBS of Columbia Northwest). Seeing them was like seeing family. It reminded me of how much I miss the Big Brothers Big Sisters world and all my comrades back in Alaska. I hope to be able to connect with the local agency more in the future. I can't believe that I'm actually looking forward to being part of their Bowl For Kids' Sake in a few months. It'll be a fun way to get to know their agency a little better and raise money for their high-quality organization.
Friday also brought a fantastic lunch with an old friend. We went to Clyde Common, a stylish European gastro-pub near Powell's Books. They restaurant is quite open, with long benchlike tables set for community seating. The kitchen is open to view and you can even talk to the cooks. They use local seasonal ingredients and assemble them into pub food with significant panache. I had one of the best oyster po-boys I've ever eaten there (and as a Louisiana boy, I've eaten my share). They called it a po-rich girl, and they added bacon and red pepper aioli. My only wish is that it had more oysters. The chef said that people here didn't like it so rich, so she had to cut back on the oysters. The food is great here, but I guess it's not Louisiana.
Okay, so you are starting to wonder if I'm writing a food blog and not a blog about my fellowship. Well, it couldn't hurt to write a little about food now, could it? It's kind of hard to separate out food from the experience I'm having here. I think it's been one of my biggest lifestyle changes, moving to a place that actually had decent dining options. Juneau is a wonderful place, but don't put it on your list for dining travel. For some reason, a dining out culture just hasn't taken hold in Juneau.
I'm actually a little overwhelmed by all of the food options here. It's starting to make me kind of twitchy. How will I try it all in our limited time here? How will I avoid spending all our money on viands and tasty beverages? I really started to worry when I discovered that we will be soon living near Pastaworks, a high-end Italian deli on Hawthorne. It brings me right back to my junior year in Bologna. I can see spending way too much money there in trying to quench my nostalgia.
Besides eating, thinking about food, and planning my next meal, I've also been doing quite a bit of reading. I've been reading more youth mentoring research papers, as well as some papers on how information travels through social networks. In preparation for looking at data from the Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring, I am reading what I can on how research gets used in practical settings. It seems like a very large field of inquiry. I'm trying to get my hands on Diffusion of Innovations, by Everett Rogers, one of the seminal works in the field.
On Friday, our reading group had a great discussion of "Building Relationships with Youth in Program Settings," by Morrow and Syles and "An Exploratory Study of Youth Mentoring in an Urban Context: Adolescents’ Perceptions of Relationship Styles" by Langhout, Rhodes, and Osborne. I'm still not quite convinced by Langhout, et al's findings. I feel that they made a lot of assumptions as they worked with the data gathered in the 1995 P/PV Outcome Study. And I guess I'm concerned by some of their recommendations for the field, such as "it appears that adult mentors should be trained to be less like peers and more like good parents." I can understand how they found that some structure in mentoring relationships related to positive outcomes. But I worry about comparing the role of a mentor to that of a parent. To me, that language evokes too much of a prescriptive, authoritarian role model.
As I'm learning more in my classes, I'm also starting to understand the statistical parts of these research papers more. When I first read these research papers, I had no idea what all these little greek letters stood for. Now each time I read a new paper, it seems like I am understanding just a bit more about how the paper was produced. I probably know just enough to be dangerous at this point. I'm starting to understand just enough to start to question the assumptions made by the authors, like why did Langhout drop a scale from their analysis that described how youth-centered the activities were? We know that have a youth-centered focus is a good practice for creating strong mentoring relationships. So why was this area exclueded from their analysis?
I've also been reading more of Tom's work, to be better prepared to look at the data in his recent School-Based Mentoring study. He also recommended I read
"The Test of Time: Predictors and Effects of Duration in Youth Mentoring Relationships," by Jean Grossman and Jean Rhodes. This paper, released in 2002, looks at the 1995 P/PV Outcome Study data set. The authors took the data and broke the matches into cohorts of different match length. Then they compared the outcomes of the youth across different lengths of match. As you might expect, they found that the longer matches (especially 12 months or longer) correllated with increased positive outcomes for the youth. But they also found significant negative effects from matches that closed early, including increased alcohol use among matches closing in less than six months.
This is a striking finding. This study should be required reading for every mentoring professional. As a field, we like to talk about the positive impact we can have on the lives of youth. But I don't think that we consider often enough the potential negative impact of youth mentoring. It is a fragile thing to place a stranger into the life of a child, especially a child that has faced adversity already in life. We need to know that short-term matches can have a negative effect on youth and do whatever we can to avoid disappointing youth with one more failed adult relationship in their life.
I better wind up and stop preaching. There's some statistics homework I should get a head start on. Until later.
Speaking of which, I've decided to go on a quest for the best espresso in Portland. This town has plenty to options to consider in that regard. I thought Seattle had a lot of coffee shops until I came here. But I've also found that the quality is pretty varied, and that I don't really like the popular local roast, Stumptown. Their espresso tastes sour to me. So I've decided I need to try all I can to find something that suits my palate, within a reasonable distance of home and campus.
So far my tops have been Spella Caffe, a food cart on SW Alder and 9th, and the coffee counter at Pastaworks on Hawthorne. Spella roasts their own beans and pours a rich and chocolately espresso. The use a ristretto shot, and I favor a little more liquid. And they are only open from 9-4. So it's not perfect, but it sure is good. Pastaworks uses Illy coffee and pulled a smooth shot. The man Illy was dedicated to perfection in coffee. He died last year, unfortunately, but his passion for the perfect cup of espresso lives on in his company.
But you don't need perfect coffee when the company is good. I was lucky on Friday to have some bad coffee with two colleagues from the local Big Brothers Big SIsters agency here in Portland (BBBS of Columbia Northwest). Seeing them was like seeing family. It reminded me of how much I miss the Big Brothers Big Sisters world and all my comrades back in Alaska. I hope to be able to connect with the local agency more in the future. I can't believe that I'm actually looking forward to being part of their Bowl For Kids' Sake in a few months. It'll be a fun way to get to know their agency a little better and raise money for their high-quality organization.
Friday also brought a fantastic lunch with an old friend. We went to Clyde Common, a stylish European gastro-pub near Powell's Books. They restaurant is quite open, with long benchlike tables set for community seating. The kitchen is open to view and you can even talk to the cooks. They use local seasonal ingredients and assemble them into pub food with significant panache. I had one of the best oyster po-boys I've ever eaten there (and as a Louisiana boy, I've eaten my share). They called it a po-rich girl, and they added bacon and red pepper aioli. My only wish is that it had more oysters. The chef said that people here didn't like it so rich, so she had to cut back on the oysters. The food is great here, but I guess it's not Louisiana.
Okay, so you are starting to wonder if I'm writing a food blog and not a blog about my fellowship. Well, it couldn't hurt to write a little about food now, could it? It's kind of hard to separate out food from the experience I'm having here. I think it's been one of my biggest lifestyle changes, moving to a place that actually had decent dining options. Juneau is a wonderful place, but don't put it on your list for dining travel. For some reason, a dining out culture just hasn't taken hold in Juneau.
I'm actually a little overwhelmed by all of the food options here. It's starting to make me kind of twitchy. How will I try it all in our limited time here? How will I avoid spending all our money on viands and tasty beverages? I really started to worry when I discovered that we will be soon living near Pastaworks, a high-end Italian deli on Hawthorne. It brings me right back to my junior year in Bologna. I can see spending way too much money there in trying to quench my nostalgia.
Besides eating, thinking about food, and planning my next meal, I've also been doing quite a bit of reading. I've been reading more youth mentoring research papers, as well as some papers on how information travels through social networks. In preparation for looking at data from the Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring, I am reading what I can on how research gets used in practical settings. It seems like a very large field of inquiry. I'm trying to get my hands on Diffusion of Innovations, by Everett Rogers, one of the seminal works in the field.
On Friday, our reading group had a great discussion of "Building Relationships with Youth in Program Settings," by Morrow and Syles and "An Exploratory Study of Youth Mentoring in an Urban Context: Adolescents’ Perceptions of Relationship Styles" by Langhout, Rhodes, and Osborne. I'm still not quite convinced by Langhout, et al's findings. I feel that they made a lot of assumptions as they worked with the data gathered in the 1995 P/PV Outcome Study. And I guess I'm concerned by some of their recommendations for the field, such as "it appears that adult mentors should be trained to be less like peers and more like good parents." I can understand how they found that some structure in mentoring relationships related to positive outcomes. But I worry about comparing the role of a mentor to that of a parent. To me, that language evokes too much of a prescriptive, authoritarian role model.
As I'm learning more in my classes, I'm also starting to understand the statistical parts of these research papers more. When I first read these research papers, I had no idea what all these little greek letters stood for. Now each time I read a new paper, it seems like I am understanding just a bit more about how the paper was produced. I probably know just enough to be dangerous at this point. I'm starting to understand just enough to start to question the assumptions made by the authors, like why did Langhout drop a scale from their analysis that described how youth-centered the activities were? We know that have a youth-centered focus is a good practice for creating strong mentoring relationships. So why was this area exclueded from their analysis?
I've also been reading more of Tom's work, to be better prepared to look at the data in his recent School-Based Mentoring study. He also recommended I read
"The Test of Time: Predictors and Effects of Duration in Youth Mentoring Relationships," by Jean Grossman and Jean Rhodes. This paper, released in 2002, looks at the 1995 P/PV Outcome Study data set. The authors took the data and broke the matches into cohorts of different match length. Then they compared the outcomes of the youth across different lengths of match. As you might expect, they found that the longer matches (especially 12 months or longer) correllated with increased positive outcomes for the youth. But they also found significant negative effects from matches that closed early, including increased alcohol use among matches closing in less than six months.
This is a striking finding. This study should be required reading for every mentoring professional. As a field, we like to talk about the positive impact we can have on the lives of youth. But I don't think that we consider often enough the potential negative impact of youth mentoring. It is a fragile thing to place a stranger into the life of a child, especially a child that has faced adversity already in life. We need to know that short-term matches can have a negative effect on youth and do whatever we can to avoid disappointing youth with one more failed adult relationship in their life.
I better wind up and stop preaching. There's some statistics homework I should get a head start on. Until later.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Getting to Work
It's Friday morning and I couldn't sleep past six. So I'm trying to write a bit before Ferguson wakes up. We'll see how far I get.
This marks the end of my third week at PSU. It finally feels like I'm settled in and starting to focus on the work to be done. I've had to spend a lot of the last three weeks just figuring out the logistics of life, transportation, class registration, etc. It felt like a watershed moment to have my first in-depth meeting with Tom yesterday, where we lined out some of the research projects that I will be working on under his guidance.
My drama over dropping the class seems to be coming to a close as well. I submitted the paperwork yesterday to drop the class and petition for a full refund of my tuition. I must say I was a bit upset on Tuesday when I found out that dropping a class this week means I would only be subject to a refund of forty percent of my tuition. But luckily there is a process to petition for a full refund for extenuating circumstances. And thankfully the professor helped me fill out the required forms. I am hopeful for a full refund. I also missed the deadline to return my textbook. Hopefully, the bookstore will accept my request, as well, and refund me the $140 I paid for the text that was required for the class.
I've also been processing what happened with the class more and am starting to come to a resolution. In the end, I think the professor's reaction says more about the professor than it does about me. I may have blundered a bit, but I attempted to rectify my actions. Instead of giving me some guidance and allowing me a chance to succeed in the class, the professor chose instead to eject me. This may have been done out of concern for the rest of the class. And maybe that's the fair thing. But in the end, I think I should have been given more of a shot. I think I could have learned a lot and added to the classroom discussion.
It's also been interesting to think about my reaction to the whole thing. It finally dawned on me that just because someone's a teacher in an academic setting doesn't mean that I should place so much of my self-worth in their hands. I keep thinking about the refrain of one of Don Juan, the Indian, one Johnny Vidacovich's songs:
...
Careful who you idolize
Caution when you pick a guru
Attention, look inside for the true you
...
To that point, the longer I am here the luckier I feel to have Tom Keller as my mentor. He has been incredibly supportive, helpful, and patient with me as I've undertaken this adventure. He's done so much to make this experience possible for me. And now that I'm here, he's done whatever he can to guide me and help me on my way. To top it off, he's a master in his field. January is National Mentoring Month and is a good time to take stock of all the mentors in our lives. I was glad to have a chance to thank Tom yesterday on "Thank Your Mentor Day." Making this transition without Tom's assistance is pretty much unthinkable. Just thinking about where I would be without his support and guidance here at PSU reminds me how important mentors are in my life and in all of our lives.
For our reading group today, we read two pieces about the qualities of mentors and mentoring relationships. The first is one that I've wanted to read for a while, by Morrow and Styles. It is one of four studies undertaken by Public/Private Ventures in the mid-1990's to understand the field of youth mentoring. In their piece, titled "Building Relationships with Youth in Program Settings," Morrow and Styles described their qualitative study of 82 mentoring relationships across eight Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies.
They found that the approach of the volunteers made a big impact on the longevity of the matches and the frequency of match meetings. Through their interviews, they were able to classify volunteers as either developmental or prescriptive. The developmental volunteers focused more on building the relationship with the youth while the prescriptive volunteers focused on "fixing" the youth. Understandably, the developmental volunteers were the ones better able to keep a mentoring relationship alive for an extended period of time.
It was great to finally read the piece. I had heard about these two typologies of mentoring relationships for years, so it was nice to finally go to the source and understand them more fully. One of the great things about the report is the inclusion of so many quotes from volunteers and children. As I read the different voices, I could think of so many similar statements from matches that I have gotten to know in Alaska.
The study also opens a lot of questions about what it takes to put together a successful mentoring relationship. Certainly it's important to take a developmental approach and center the match on the needs of the youth. But how much structure should the mentor provide? How does the mentor grapple with their increased level of power in the relationshi? Unlike a peer, the mentor knows more and has more control over the relationship than the mentee. So how does the mentor focus the relationship on having fun and building the relationship around the needs of the youth while also providing some of the knowledge and wisdom that comes with greater life experience?
We read another study for this week which I continue to grapple with: "An Exploratory Study of Youth Mentoring in an Urban Context: Adolescents’ Perceptions of Relationship Styles" by Langhout, Rhodes, and Osborne. I read this paper in December for a discussion of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada's Research in Trends Committee, of which I am also a member. I am still having a hard time coming to terms with the findings from this study (especially the finding that relationships characterized by unconditional support had a negative effect on youth) and I'm hoping today's discussion will provide greater insight for me.
I'm really enjoying having the time to read so many youth mentoring research papers right now. After meeting with Tom yesterday, I'm understanding how important it is for me to get immersed in the literature. Hopefully, I'll be working on two projects with him - one to look at data from a school-based mentoring program study he completed and another to look at data gathered from participants in the Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring. In the school-based study, we want to look at the characteristics of the Bigs and Littles and see what effect these had on the mentoring relationship. In looking at the Institute data, we want to see how participants went back to their organizations and were or were not able to bring research to bear in their practice setting.
To prepare for helping on these projects, I need to get grounded in the literature. So I will be reading all I can about these topics. I also am eager to get immersed in the data from the different projects. It feels great to start diving in!
I'm also excited today to be reconnecting with some peers from the mentoring field, having my second fencing class, and meeting a relocated Juneau friend for lunch today at Clyde Common. It seems to be popular with the local foodie crowd here. Maybe I will post my review at a later date.
Until later.
This marks the end of my third week at PSU. It finally feels like I'm settled in and starting to focus on the work to be done. I've had to spend a lot of the last three weeks just figuring out the logistics of life, transportation, class registration, etc. It felt like a watershed moment to have my first in-depth meeting with Tom yesterday, where we lined out some of the research projects that I will be working on under his guidance.
My drama over dropping the class seems to be coming to a close as well. I submitted the paperwork yesterday to drop the class and petition for a full refund of my tuition. I must say I was a bit upset on Tuesday when I found out that dropping a class this week means I would only be subject to a refund of forty percent of my tuition. But luckily there is a process to petition for a full refund for extenuating circumstances. And thankfully the professor helped me fill out the required forms. I am hopeful for a full refund. I also missed the deadline to return my textbook. Hopefully, the bookstore will accept my request, as well, and refund me the $140 I paid for the text that was required for the class.
I've also been processing what happened with the class more and am starting to come to a resolution. In the end, I think the professor's reaction says more about the professor than it does about me. I may have blundered a bit, but I attempted to rectify my actions. Instead of giving me some guidance and allowing me a chance to succeed in the class, the professor chose instead to eject me. This may have been done out of concern for the rest of the class. And maybe that's the fair thing. But in the end, I think I should have been given more of a shot. I think I could have learned a lot and added to the classroom discussion.
It's also been interesting to think about my reaction to the whole thing. It finally dawned on me that just because someone's a teacher in an academic setting doesn't mean that I should place so much of my self-worth in their hands. I keep thinking about the refrain of one of Don Juan, the Indian, one Johnny Vidacovich's songs:
...
Careful who you idolize
Caution when you pick a guru
Attention, look inside for the true you
...
To that point, the longer I am here the luckier I feel to have Tom Keller as my mentor. He has been incredibly supportive, helpful, and patient with me as I've undertaken this adventure. He's done so much to make this experience possible for me. And now that I'm here, he's done whatever he can to guide me and help me on my way. To top it off, he's a master in his field. January is National Mentoring Month and is a good time to take stock of all the mentors in our lives. I was glad to have a chance to thank Tom yesterday on "Thank Your Mentor Day." Making this transition without Tom's assistance is pretty much unthinkable. Just thinking about where I would be without his support and guidance here at PSU reminds me how important mentors are in my life and in all of our lives.
For our reading group today, we read two pieces about the qualities of mentors and mentoring relationships. The first is one that I've wanted to read for a while, by Morrow and Styles. It is one of four studies undertaken by Public/Private Ventures in the mid-1990's to understand the field of youth mentoring. In their piece, titled "Building Relationships with Youth in Program Settings," Morrow and Styles described their qualitative study of 82 mentoring relationships across eight Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies.
They found that the approach of the volunteers made a big impact on the longevity of the matches and the frequency of match meetings. Through their interviews, they were able to classify volunteers as either developmental or prescriptive. The developmental volunteers focused more on building the relationship with the youth while the prescriptive volunteers focused on "fixing" the youth. Understandably, the developmental volunteers were the ones better able to keep a mentoring relationship alive for an extended period of time.
It was great to finally read the piece. I had heard about these two typologies of mentoring relationships for years, so it was nice to finally go to the source and understand them more fully. One of the great things about the report is the inclusion of so many quotes from volunteers and children. As I read the different voices, I could think of so many similar statements from matches that I have gotten to know in Alaska.
The study also opens a lot of questions about what it takes to put together a successful mentoring relationship. Certainly it's important to take a developmental approach and center the match on the needs of the youth. But how much structure should the mentor provide? How does the mentor grapple with their increased level of power in the relationshi? Unlike a peer, the mentor knows more and has more control over the relationship than the mentee. So how does the mentor focus the relationship on having fun and building the relationship around the needs of the youth while also providing some of the knowledge and wisdom that comes with greater life experience?
We read another study for this week which I continue to grapple with: "An Exploratory Study of Youth Mentoring in an Urban Context: Adolescents’ Perceptions of Relationship Styles" by Langhout, Rhodes, and Osborne. I read this paper in December for a discussion of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada's Research in Trends Committee, of which I am also a member. I am still having a hard time coming to terms with the findings from this study (especially the finding that relationships characterized by unconditional support had a negative effect on youth) and I'm hoping today's discussion will provide greater insight for me.
I'm really enjoying having the time to read so many youth mentoring research papers right now. After meeting with Tom yesterday, I'm understanding how important it is for me to get immersed in the literature. Hopefully, I'll be working on two projects with him - one to look at data from a school-based mentoring program study he completed and another to look at data gathered from participants in the Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring. In the school-based study, we want to look at the characteristics of the Bigs and Littles and see what effect these had on the mentoring relationship. In looking at the Institute data, we want to see how participants went back to their organizations and were or were not able to bring research to bear in their practice setting.
To prepare for helping on these projects, I need to get grounded in the literature. So I will be reading all I can about these topics. I also am eager to get immersed in the data from the different projects. It feels great to start diving in!
I'm also excited today to be reconnecting with some peers from the mentoring field, having my second fencing class, and meeting a relocated Juneau friend for lunch today at Clyde Common. It seems to be popular with the local foodie crowd here. Maybe I will post my review at a later date.
Until later.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Inauguration Day
Yesterday Barack Hussein Obama became the 44th President of the United States. I watched the ceremonies at home with Jessica, Celia and Ferguson. The rest of the day was all a blur.
These were my favorite moments from the inauguration:
Seeing the amazing throng of people on the Mall.
Hearing the inaugural poem by Elizabeth Alexander. "...What if the mightiest word is love?.."
Watching Reverend Joseph Lowery close the ceremony with his benediction - " ...That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."
These were my favorite moments from the inauguration:
Seeing the amazing throng of people on the Mall.
Hearing the inaugural poem by Elizabeth Alexander. "...What if the mightiest word is love?.."
Watching Reverend Joseph Lowery close the ceremony with his benediction - " ...That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."
Monday, January 19, 2009
Rejection
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day and the end of a long weekend. I'm looking forward to going back to class tomorrow and getting back in the swing of my studies. We had a wonderful weekend, though, blessed by the visit of one of my old college friends and her family. And on Saturday, I got to cook for a dinner party, one of my favorite things to do. We had our weekend guests, plus some other friends in town from Seattle, and one of my other college friends who lives here in Portland. Eight adults and eight children. It was a lot less chaotic than I thought it would be, but maybe my view was warped since my head was mostly in the stew pot. I made beef in barolo, one of my favorite dishes.
Unfortunately, I am ending the weekend grappling with personal rejection. It seems that I will no longer be enrolled in the qualitative research class any more, at the request of the professor. So tomorrow, I have to figure out how to drop this class and retain my full-time status, even though the add class deadline has passed.
It's been a hard experience to be asked to leave a class, particularly one that I was enjoying so much. It was really exciting to me to learn about all of the different qualitative research methods and to think about the different paradigms that inform them. I was enjoying all of the readings for the class and I found the class discussions incredibly stimulating. Probably the hardest thing of all though is to feel personally rejected by a teacher.
All my life, teachers have been important mentors to me. Starting with Mrs. Willa in the third grade, I've had a special bond with many of my teachers through the years. It seems like at every stage of my childhood, there was a teacher that provided an important source of support to me. In many ways, I think I also learned to ingratiate myself with the teacher, aiming to be the "teacher's pet." To be rejected by a teacher is something I'm completely unfamiliar with. And frankly, I'm really not sure how to deal with it.
What's also difficult is trying to understand why I'm being asked to leave. After speaking with the professor, I am just not able to add it all up. The reasons given just don't seem to compute. I'd really like to understand the situation better, so I can hopefully avoid the same mistake in the future. So I've contacted the professor again, trying to get more of an explanation.
I've also been doing a lot of kicking myself. Why couldn't I have taken more time to learn the environment, assess the situation before shooting off my mouth? Why did I get so involved in the classroom discussion, when maybe I should have taken a back seat to the regular PhD candidates? Through the years, I seem to have developed a classroom style where I ask a lot of questions and don't hesitate to interject myself in the conversation. Most teachers seem to like a lot of interaction from the students. But in this case, I seem to have misread the situation and talked too much too soon.
It's funny to look back and remember that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up with the other students. But I didn't really expect that I wouldn't fit in. I've always thought of myself as someone that fits into an academic world. Maybe my 15 years in Alaska has warped my sense of reality, or changed my style into one ill-suited for academia. The term "passing" keeps coming to mind. Maybe I need to learn better how to "pass" as an academic for these next six months. But then that seems disingenuous. If I can't be myself in this environment, then I am losing the opportunity to have others learn from my experience as well. Isn't there something that I bring with my real-world experience that would be beneficial to my fellow students?
Like other rejections in my life, I'm sure I'll get over this one. But it's not really much fun. I just hope I can learn something from the experience. Maybe the days to come will give me greater insight on why this happened. Maybe as the months go by, the words of the professor will ring more and more true. And I'm sure, like all other doors that shut, this one too will open another. Now I will have more time to devote to other pursuits. I remain committed to getting the most out of my time here, to learning as much as I can over the next six months or so.
On a more positive note, it looks like we will be moving out of our current living situation at the end of the month. We found a nice little house in the Hawthorne area that scored a 95 on the walkability scale. We'll be a few blocks from a Powell's Books, Ben&Jerry's, a Fred Meyer, and lots of coffee shops. And it's only two to three miles from campus. We'll be relocating at the end of the month.
Tomorrow is also a huge day for our country. I will be thrilled to watch the inauguration of our 44th President in the morning. As I watch his speech tomorrow, my thoughts will drift north to my compatriots in Juneau. We've been through a lot together to get to this moment. How sweet it will be.
sign of a full house
Unfortunately, I am ending the weekend grappling with personal rejection. It seems that I will no longer be enrolled in the qualitative research class any more, at the request of the professor. So tomorrow, I have to figure out how to drop this class and retain my full-time status, even though the add class deadline has passed.
It's been a hard experience to be asked to leave a class, particularly one that I was enjoying so much. It was really exciting to me to learn about all of the different qualitative research methods and to think about the different paradigms that inform them. I was enjoying all of the readings for the class and I found the class discussions incredibly stimulating. Probably the hardest thing of all though is to feel personally rejected by a teacher.
All my life, teachers have been important mentors to me. Starting with Mrs. Willa in the third grade, I've had a special bond with many of my teachers through the years. It seems like at every stage of my childhood, there was a teacher that provided an important source of support to me. In many ways, I think I also learned to ingratiate myself with the teacher, aiming to be the "teacher's pet." To be rejected by a teacher is something I'm completely unfamiliar with. And frankly, I'm really not sure how to deal with it.
What's also difficult is trying to understand why I'm being asked to leave. After speaking with the professor, I am just not able to add it all up. The reasons given just don't seem to compute. I'd really like to understand the situation better, so I can hopefully avoid the same mistake in the future. So I've contacted the professor again, trying to get more of an explanation.
I've also been doing a lot of kicking myself. Why couldn't I have taken more time to learn the environment, assess the situation before shooting off my mouth? Why did I get so involved in the classroom discussion, when maybe I should have taken a back seat to the regular PhD candidates? Through the years, I seem to have developed a classroom style where I ask a lot of questions and don't hesitate to interject myself in the conversation. Most teachers seem to like a lot of interaction from the students. But in this case, I seem to have misread the situation and talked too much too soon.
It's funny to look back and remember that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up with the other students. But I didn't really expect that I wouldn't fit in. I've always thought of myself as someone that fits into an academic world. Maybe my 15 years in Alaska has warped my sense of reality, or changed my style into one ill-suited for academia. The term "passing" keeps coming to mind. Maybe I need to learn better how to "pass" as an academic for these next six months. But then that seems disingenuous. If I can't be myself in this environment, then I am losing the opportunity to have others learn from my experience as well. Isn't there something that I bring with my real-world experience that would be beneficial to my fellow students?
Like other rejections in my life, I'm sure I'll get over this one. But it's not really much fun. I just hope I can learn something from the experience. Maybe the days to come will give me greater insight on why this happened. Maybe as the months go by, the words of the professor will ring more and more true. And I'm sure, like all other doors that shut, this one too will open another. Now I will have more time to devote to other pursuits. I remain committed to getting the most out of my time here, to learning as much as I can over the next six months or so.
On a more positive note, it looks like we will be moving out of our current living situation at the end of the month. We found a nice little house in the Hawthorne area that scored a 95 on the walkability scale. We'll be a few blocks from a Powell's Books, Ben&Jerry's, a Fred Meyer, and lots of coffee shops. And it's only two to three miles from campus. We'll be relocating at the end of the month.
Tomorrow is also a huge day for our country. I will be thrilled to watch the inauguration of our 44th President in the morning. As I watch his speech tomorrow, my thoughts will drift north to my compatriots in Juneau. We've been through a lot together to get to this moment. How sweet it will be.
Friday, January 16, 2009
The End of Week Two
It's Friday and I'm taking the bus home. Mt Hood is standing tall among the Cascades, collecting the last of the day's light in it's icy faces.
It's been a tumultuous week. I'm looking forward to visits from friends this weekend, and a little bit of a break from the intensity of my school experience. I am definitely learning a lot about making the transition from the world into the academy. I haven't been totally successful in the transition so far, but I am learning from my mistakes.
Speaking of mistakes, I was stunned to hear excerpts of President Bush's last press conference in office this week. I don't want to get political in this blog, but I simply can't comprehend his unwillingness to admit to any mistakes during the last eight years. To err is human, right? We all make mistakes. I make them daily. I only hope I can learn from them and avoid the same mistakes in the future.
Yesterday, I treated myself to some acupuncture. I had found a practitioner when I was here for the Summer Institute for Youth Mentoring. She worked on me soon after my emergency appendectomy, when I was feeling quite out of sorts. Seeing her then made me feel a lot more put back together. So I wanted to go back and see her as soon as I could. My sleep has been a wreck for the past year or so and I still suffer from TMJ. But sure enough, I slept like a baby last night, and could barely stay up past 10 pm. If you are every looking for a practitioner in Portland, I highly recommend Armstrong Acupuncture.
Today was my first day in fencing class. There are about 30 other students in this PE class. After hearing some background about the fundamentals of fencing, we practiced collapsing in case we feel faint. We also practiced our hand movements by tossing tennis balls to a partner and did a little work with a dowel in place of a saber. I think I will like this class. It should help with my concentration skills and hopefully connect my mind and body a little bit better. Maybe it will also finally give me some of the grace I've been looking for all my life.
After grabbing lunch at a wonderful Saudi food cart on campus, I needed a little pick-me-up. So I went to my new favorite place in Portland, Cacao, for a shot of european drinking chocolate. It's delicious, like drinking a melted dark chocolate bar. It brings me back to the hot chocolate I had in Italy, but it's even better. And it provides enough lift to get you through the rest of the day when you're starting to drag around the lunch hour. But my little jaunt for chocolate made me just late enough to force me to break my little rule. So instead of taking the stairs, I took the elevator to the ninth floor of my office building to meet Tom and the other graduate students in the independent study group I'm in. I promised myself I would take the stairs every day I go to the office in appreciation of the spectacular view from my desk (see photo below). But I'll probably have to break the rule every now and then in respect for others.
Our study group is planning on reading a host of research papers on youth mentoring over the next eight weeks. For this week, we read two papers which discussed some of the basic ways in which youth mentoring programs work. In reality, we know very little of how mentoring programs work to achieve impacts in children's lives. There is some theory from child development and psychology that postulates some of the processes through which mentoring operates. But a lot more study is needed to determine how mentoring programs actually function in the lives of youth. While this may be an exciting opportunity for researchers, it's a little frustrating from a practitioner's point of view. It would be wonderful to know exactly how mentoring works so that we can adjust it to have the maximum impact for each child we serve.
We started a very interesting discussion about the qualities of successful mentors. So next week, we're going to read one of the fundamental studies on youth mentors, by Morrow and Styles, as well as a more recent study looking at the amount of structure provided by different mentors and how successful they are.
It's been a tumultuous week. I'm looking forward to visits from friends this weekend, and a little bit of a break from the intensity of my school experience. I am definitely learning a lot about making the transition from the world into the academy. I haven't been totally successful in the transition so far, but I am learning from my mistakes.
Speaking of mistakes, I was stunned to hear excerpts of President Bush's last press conference in office this week. I don't want to get political in this blog, but I simply can't comprehend his unwillingness to admit to any mistakes during the last eight years. To err is human, right? We all make mistakes. I make them daily. I only hope I can learn from them and avoid the same mistakes in the future.
Yesterday, I treated myself to some acupuncture. I had found a practitioner when I was here for the Summer Institute for Youth Mentoring. She worked on me soon after my emergency appendectomy, when I was feeling quite out of sorts. Seeing her then made me feel a lot more put back together. So I wanted to go back and see her as soon as I could. My sleep has been a wreck for the past year or so and I still suffer from TMJ. But sure enough, I slept like a baby last night, and could barely stay up past 10 pm. If you are every looking for a practitioner in Portland, I highly recommend Armstrong Acupuncture.
Today was my first day in fencing class. There are about 30 other students in this PE class. After hearing some background about the fundamentals of fencing, we practiced collapsing in case we feel faint. We also practiced our hand movements by tossing tennis balls to a partner and did a little work with a dowel in place of a saber. I think I will like this class. It should help with my concentration skills and hopefully connect my mind and body a little bit better. Maybe it will also finally give me some of the grace I've been looking for all my life.
After grabbing lunch at a wonderful Saudi food cart on campus, I needed a little pick-me-up. So I went to my new favorite place in Portland, Cacao, for a shot of european drinking chocolate. It's delicious, like drinking a melted dark chocolate bar. It brings me back to the hot chocolate I had in Italy, but it's even better. And it provides enough lift to get you through the rest of the day when you're starting to drag around the lunch hour. But my little jaunt for chocolate made me just late enough to force me to break my little rule. So instead of taking the stairs, I took the elevator to the ninth floor of my office building to meet Tom and the other graduate students in the independent study group I'm in. I promised myself I would take the stairs every day I go to the office in appreciation of the spectacular view from my desk (see photo below). But I'll probably have to break the rule every now and then in respect for others.
Our study group is planning on reading a host of research papers on youth mentoring over the next eight weeks. For this week, we read two papers which discussed some of the basic ways in which youth mentoring programs work. In reality, we know very little of how mentoring programs work to achieve impacts in children's lives. There is some theory from child development and psychology that postulates some of the processes through which mentoring operates. But a lot more study is needed to determine how mentoring programs actually function in the lives of youth. While this may be an exciting opportunity for researchers, it's a little frustrating from a practitioner's point of view. It would be wonderful to know exactly how mentoring works so that we can adjust it to have the maximum impact for each child we serve.
We started a very interesting discussion about the qualities of successful mentors. So next week, we're going to read one of the fundamental studies on youth mentors, by Morrow and Styles, as well as a more recent study looking at the amount of structure provided by different mentors and how successful they are.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Wednesday
First off, I'd like to thank everyone who's been reading my blog and letting me know about it. It's especially nice to see people post comments here. Please feel free to respond to what I am writing about, especially if you think I'm full of it, or if I am missing something obvious. I'd like this blog to not only help me reflect on my experience and let others follow along, but also to allow others affect and help direct my experience by giving me suggestions and responding to what I am writing about.
Since Monday and my experience divulging about my blog in class, I've had a lot of different thoughts about blogging. It was interesting to ask my other two classroom professors about how they felt about my blogging about class. Neither of the other two had any qualms about it. One professor said it wasn't a problem as long as I wrote about positively about them (with a smile). The other responded with shrugged shoulders and said,"I don't care. It's about freedom of speech."
I've also researched online, and it seems that the idea of a blogger's code of ethics has been swirling about without a clear resolution. I guess that would be a hard thing to resolve right? It's probably hard to imagine a more independent class of citizens than bloggers. Maybe Alaskan handtrollers, I don't know. In any event, a few people seemed to have attempted to put together a code of ethics, and debate has ensued. One that I liked from an organization called Cyberjournalist.net can be found here. Interestingly, some undergraduate students in Singapore even studied the question of ethics in blogging in 2005. A post describing their research can be found here.
I would hope that anyone I offended would let me know and let me make amends. But it doesn't always work like that. And I could harm someone in this blog and they might never know about it. But they would still be harmed. It's a tricky business. Like with the rest of life, I guess you just do your best to act justly, thinking critically about your actions, and pray for forgiveness for your shortcomings.
As for my classes, things are going smoothly. I feel myself getting more into the groove. Today was my day at home, and I tackled my first piece of homework for statistics. I actually enjoyed doing the problems. It feels good to use the math side of my brain again, which has probably withered much since I gave up my mathematical passions as a freshman in college. I've also been trying to keep up on my reading. As I get into the workload, I'm impressed at how much work these PhD students can put in. Time will tell if I can keep up.
On Tuesday, I signed up for fencing class for PE. I added an hour of PE to round out my schedule to a full-time load of 12 credits. I thought it would be fun to try something that I might not ever have the chance to do again. I really wanted to sign up for water polo, but the times conflicted with my class schedule. So on Friday, I will get my first introduction to the world of epees. Those who know how much of a klutz I am may be concerned. Here again, I will do my best to do no harm. En garde!
Since Monday and my experience divulging about my blog in class, I've had a lot of different thoughts about blogging. It was interesting to ask my other two classroom professors about how they felt about my blogging about class. Neither of the other two had any qualms about it. One professor said it wasn't a problem as long as I wrote about positively about them (with a smile). The other responded with shrugged shoulders and said,"I don't care. It's about freedom of speech."
I've also researched online, and it seems that the idea of a blogger's code of ethics has been swirling about without a clear resolution. I guess that would be a hard thing to resolve right? It's probably hard to imagine a more independent class of citizens than bloggers. Maybe Alaskan handtrollers, I don't know. In any event, a few people seemed to have attempted to put together a code of ethics, and debate has ensued. One that I liked from an organization called Cyberjournalist.net can be found here. Interestingly, some undergraduate students in Singapore even studied the question of ethics in blogging in 2005. A post describing their research can be found here.
Since many of bloggers think of themselves as quasi-journalists, a lot of these ethics codes pertain to journalistic practices. The authors of the above-mentioned study, Andy Koh, Alvin Lim, and Ng Ee Soon divided bloggers into personal and non-personal bloggers. Personal bloggers (like me) were more likely to believe that minimizing harm was important compared to non-personal bloggers. Interestingly, both personal and non-personal bloggers felt that accountability was one of the least important of the four ethical priniciples listed. And both groups were ambivalent about the need for a code of ethics.
So I guess I'll have to figure this out on my own, without a clear standard of ethics to go by. I will do my best to minimize harm to others and respect the privacy of the people I come into contact with. But I am sure I will mess up along the way. And for that I am sorry.
When my maternal grandmother would come visit, she would always say the same thing when she left, "please forgive me if I have offended you in any way." She was a dear, sweet woman, and wouldn't have ever harmed anyone intentionally. But she cared enough about the effect of her actions that she always apologized, whether she caused harm or not.
So I guess I'll have to figure this out on my own, without a clear standard of ethics to go by. I will do my best to minimize harm to others and respect the privacy of the people I come into contact with. But I am sure I will mess up along the way. And for that I am sorry.
When my maternal grandmother would come visit, she would always say the same thing when she left, "please forgive me if I have offended you in any way." She was a dear, sweet woman, and wouldn't have ever harmed anyone intentionally. But she cared enough about the effect of her actions that she always apologized, whether she caused harm or not.
I would hope that anyone I offended would let me know and let me make amends. But it doesn't always work like that. And I could harm someone in this blog and they might never know about it. But they would still be harmed. It's a tricky business. Like with the rest of life, I guess you just do your best to act justly, thinking critically about your actions, and pray for forgiveness for your shortcomings.
As for my classes, things are going smoothly. I feel myself getting more into the groove. Today was my day at home, and I tackled my first piece of homework for statistics. I actually enjoyed doing the problems. It feels good to use the math side of my brain again, which has probably withered much since I gave up my mathematical passions as a freshman in college. I've also been trying to keep up on my reading. As I get into the workload, I'm impressed at how much work these PhD students can put in. Time will tell if I can keep up.
On Tuesday, I signed up for fencing class for PE. I added an hour of PE to round out my schedule to a full-time load of 12 credits. I thought it would be fun to try something that I might not ever have the chance to do again. I really wanted to sign up for water polo, but the times conflicted with my class schedule. So on Friday, I will get my first introduction to the world of epees. Those who know how much of a klutz I am may be concerned. Here again, I will do my best to do no harm. En garde!
Monday, January 12, 2009
A Stopping Point
Today was a tumultuous day. For starters, I needed to get downtown in time to mail my film off to the JUMP film festival in Juneau. Entries are due tomorrow, so I figured that I could overnight mail it today if I got to Fedex in the morning. I spent the wee hours Friday and Saturday nights editing so it would be ready for submission. I am still figuring out which open source programs are good and which ones are buggy. The first video editor that I was using (Kino) would crash on me literally every time I used it. So I switched to KDenlive which seems to be marginally more stable. It was so frustrating to lose my work time and time again on Saturday night. I finally learned to save my work after every change I made to the project, but it was still annoying to have to restart the program every 10 minutes.
Thanks to edits from Jessica and a few friends, I finally got it into decent shape and it was ready to send this morning. I got to FedexKinko's (when did that happen? last time I used them in college, they were two separate companies...) in plenty of time to print off the submission form and mail it off. But then I re-read the submission guidelines and figured out I needed to send it in a different format. So I bought another CD and began to burn another copy. Waiting for that, I decided to multi-task and check my email. Wrong. My computer froze up and I had to spend precious time re-booting and getting things back in order. So when I finally got ready to mail it off, my class was about to start. Then the Fedex people told me it would cost $36 and they couldn't even guarantee overnight to Alaska (even though there are daily flights between Seattle and Juneau...). Outraged, I ran over USPS and sent it Expressmail for a cool 16 clams. All this to say I had to run to class and I was still ten minutes late. I hate being late. Punctuality is a value I hold dear.
I apologized to the teacher and tried to catch my breath. Again the class presented a terrifically engaging subject matter. Before long I was caught up in the discussion and remembered that I wanted to ask my classmates how they felt about my blog. It seemed to be very appropo to the subject matter, which dealt with how to think about research through all of the possible paradigms. Central to new theories of research is how research subjects can participate in knowledge creation. I should have thought how to approach this better, but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. So right during the discussion, I broached the subject of my blog and asked the professor and classmates how they felt about me writing about the class.
Boom. I had just dropped a bomb. We spent the next half hour discussing the topic, as I felt more and more remorseful. Looking back, I should have brought the subject to my professor before class and ask how to handle the topic. It would have given the teacher an opportunity to direct me in the best way to broach the subject. Instead, I took up valuable class time with this topic and created a spirited debate.
So I need to re-think this blog. I need to figure out how I can write about my experience while respecting the privacy of others and honoring the precious space of the classroom.
When I first conceived of the blog, it was to help me reflect on this fellowship experience and help others connect with what I am doing here and possibly learn through my experience. I had envisioned recording my interior monologue during this fellowship to help me make sense of what I am encountering here. But as I blog more, I find myself wanting to write about my interactions with others. Clearly, I am not alone in this endeavor. But what are the ethics of writing about others in this public space? Before mentioning someone in my blog, I need to get their consent. But what about the other issues? Can I write about the ideas that I discuss with others without infringing on their intellectual property rights? By keeping a blog and letting others know about it, how does that change their interactions with me? Will they have their guard up more? Will they feel as free to be forthright with me?
It also makes me reflect on my role here in an academic setting. I have a hard time being quiet, as many people know. So I have enjoyed geting involved in the classroom discussion and responding to the teacher's questions. But today, it was like I rolled a hand grenade into the class. So I am rethinking how I need to approach this experience. Here I am, inserting myself into a small cohort of PhD students. They are building a shared experience and an intimate intellectual discovery. And there I go disrupting everything and pulling their inquiry off-course.
So then I thought I should be quieter, and try to attend class and not ask any questions. I vowed to be more of a wallflower for the next class. But that didn't last long. Before I knew it, there I was again asking questions of the professor.
So I'm still wondering how to approach my classes. How can I get the most out of this experience and not negatively affect the experience of others? I will need to think some more about this.
So I'll end this entry still a bit flummoxed. On the positive side, I did figure out the school pool today, which was remarkably empty over the noon hour (followed up with some excellent falafel from a street vendor). It's comforting to start to get my exercise regimen in order. I think it's been one of the stresses of the move to lose my routine. I'm gradually figuring out when I'll have time to run and swim, and that feels good. I even found a trail that traverses some nearby parks on Saturday (complete with a few resident coyotes, it seems).
Celia is eager to see the coyotes. Maybe we will look for them tomorrow before I go back to campus.
Thanks to edits from Jessica and a few friends, I finally got it into decent shape and it was ready to send this morning. I got to FedexKinko's (when did that happen? last time I used them in college, they were two separate companies...) in plenty of time to print off the submission form and mail it off. But then I re-read the submission guidelines and figured out I needed to send it in a different format. So I bought another CD and began to burn another copy. Waiting for that, I decided to multi-task and check my email. Wrong. My computer froze up and I had to spend precious time re-booting and getting things back in order. So when I finally got ready to mail it off, my class was about to start. Then the Fedex people told me it would cost $36 and they couldn't even guarantee overnight to Alaska (even though there are daily flights between Seattle and Juneau...). Outraged, I ran over USPS and sent it Expressmail for a cool 16 clams. All this to say I had to run to class and I was still ten minutes late. I hate being late. Punctuality is a value I hold dear.
I apologized to the teacher and tried to catch my breath. Again the class presented a terrifically engaging subject matter. Before long I was caught up in the discussion and remembered that I wanted to ask my classmates how they felt about my blog. It seemed to be very appropo to the subject matter, which dealt with how to think about research through all of the possible paradigms. Central to new theories of research is how research subjects can participate in knowledge creation. I should have thought how to approach this better, but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. So right during the discussion, I broached the subject of my blog and asked the professor and classmates how they felt about me writing about the class.
Boom. I had just dropped a bomb. We spent the next half hour discussing the topic, as I felt more and more remorseful. Looking back, I should have brought the subject to my professor before class and ask how to handle the topic. It would have given the teacher an opportunity to direct me in the best way to broach the subject. Instead, I took up valuable class time with this topic and created a spirited debate.
So I need to re-think this blog. I need to figure out how I can write about my experience while respecting the privacy of others and honoring the precious space of the classroom.
When I first conceived of the blog, it was to help me reflect on this fellowship experience and help others connect with what I am doing here and possibly learn through my experience. I had envisioned recording my interior monologue during this fellowship to help me make sense of what I am encountering here. But as I blog more, I find myself wanting to write about my interactions with others. Clearly, I am not alone in this endeavor. But what are the ethics of writing about others in this public space? Before mentioning someone in my blog, I need to get their consent. But what about the other issues? Can I write about the ideas that I discuss with others without infringing on their intellectual property rights? By keeping a blog and letting others know about it, how does that change their interactions with me? Will they have their guard up more? Will they feel as free to be forthright with me?
It also makes me reflect on my role here in an academic setting. I have a hard time being quiet, as many people know. So I have enjoyed geting involved in the classroom discussion and responding to the teacher's questions. But today, it was like I rolled a hand grenade into the class. So I am rethinking how I need to approach this experience. Here I am, inserting myself into a small cohort of PhD students. They are building a shared experience and an intimate intellectual discovery. And there I go disrupting everything and pulling their inquiry off-course.
So then I thought I should be quieter, and try to attend class and not ask any questions. I vowed to be more of a wallflower for the next class. But that didn't last long. Before I knew it, there I was again asking questions of the professor.
So I'm still wondering how to approach my classes. How can I get the most out of this experience and not negatively affect the experience of others? I will need to think some more about this.
So I'll end this entry still a bit flummoxed. On the positive side, I did figure out the school pool today, which was remarkably empty over the noon hour (followed up with some excellent falafel from a street vendor). It's comforting to start to get my exercise regimen in order. I think it's been one of the stresses of the move to lose my routine. I'm gradually figuring out when I'll have time to run and swim, and that feels good. I even found a trail that traverses some nearby parks on Saturday (complete with a few resident coyotes, it seems).
Celia is eager to see the coyotes. Maybe we will look for them tomorrow before I go back to campus.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Possibilities
Today was another day of opening new possibilities. It was Friday, and I started out the day with a meeting with Michael Garringer and his colleagues from the National Mentoring Center. I had spoken with Michael during my project development about the idea of a research handbook for mentoring professionals. He was very supportive of the idea and helped me write the project into the fellowship budget.
Today, I visited with Michael and his colleagues and we talked about the possibilities of such a guidebook. After talking with them in detail, it actually seems that such a manual would fill an unmet need. There are many mentoring programs around the country being started without any idea of the existing research on mentoring programs. There also seem to be a lot of professionals in the field who could use a guide to help them understand how to read research papers and also gain a better grasp of research principles that can be adapted into their everyday work. There have been a few attempts to synthesize the research into salient bits for practitioners, but the field seems to lack more of a practical, how-to guide to bringing research more fully into program practice.
It was exciting to talk to the friendly folks at the NMC and think about the possibilities of the guidebook. They loaned me some materials from their library and invited me back to use their facilities if I needed them. I hope to get a good sense of what resources are available in general to the mentoring field, so that I can do the best I can not to duplicate something that's already been published.
I also had the first meeting of my colleagues in the independent study group that Tom has put together. I will be meeting with Tom and two graduate students once a week to discuss research articles that we're reading and other projects. We're going to start out grounding ourself in some of the mentoring research, and then work to incorporate readings on each of our areas of interest. This group will help further our individual projects, but also I think create some great synergy between the four of us. I can already sense that this will be a dynamic group and create more possibilities of inquiry for me during my fellowship.
I closed the day at a potluck party held at the home of my office, the Regional Research Institute. It was nice to meet some of the people I will be seeing on a daily basis and break bread with them. Unfortunately, I couldn't make anything, but I did happen upon a breathtaking chocolate store a few blocks from the office. And even better, the chocolate bar that I brought was barely touched, so I have leftovers for weekend munching!
I'm not sure if it has to do with the fellowship, but I feel like I'm entering a more creative phase in my life. Just last week, I entered a poetry contest in Juneau. I've never submitted a poem for anything before. This contest is one that results in poetry being placed in Juneau's buses. I always love reading poetry on the bus. And this weekend, I am working on a video to submit to a local film festival in Juneau. Maybe it's just coincidence that all this productivity is happening as I start my fellowship, but I don't think so. I hope that I can find more creative outlets throughout this fellowship and beyond.
Today, I visited with Michael and his colleagues and we talked about the possibilities of such a guidebook. After talking with them in detail, it actually seems that such a manual would fill an unmet need. There are many mentoring programs around the country being started without any idea of the existing research on mentoring programs. There also seem to be a lot of professionals in the field who could use a guide to help them understand how to read research papers and also gain a better grasp of research principles that can be adapted into their everyday work. There have been a few attempts to synthesize the research into salient bits for practitioners, but the field seems to lack more of a practical, how-to guide to bringing research more fully into program practice.
It was exciting to talk to the friendly folks at the NMC and think about the possibilities of the guidebook. They loaned me some materials from their library and invited me back to use their facilities if I needed them. I hope to get a good sense of what resources are available in general to the mentoring field, so that I can do the best I can not to duplicate something that's already been published.
I also had the first meeting of my colleagues in the independent study group that Tom has put together. I will be meeting with Tom and two graduate students once a week to discuss research articles that we're reading and other projects. We're going to start out grounding ourself in some of the mentoring research, and then work to incorporate readings on each of our areas of interest. This group will help further our individual projects, but also I think create some great synergy between the four of us. I can already sense that this will be a dynamic group and create more possibilities of inquiry for me during my fellowship.
I closed the day at a potluck party held at the home of my office, the Regional Research Institute. It was nice to meet some of the people I will be seeing on a daily basis and break bread with them. Unfortunately, I couldn't make anything, but I did happen upon a breathtaking chocolate store a few blocks from the office. And even better, the chocolate bar that I brought was barely touched, so I have leftovers for weekend munching!
I'm not sure if it has to do with the fellowship, but I feel like I'm entering a more creative phase in my life. Just last week, I entered a poetry contest in Juneau. I've never submitted a poem for anything before. This contest is one that results in poetry being placed in Juneau's buses. I always love reading poetry on the bus. And this weekend, I am working on a video to submit to a local film festival in Juneau. Maybe it's just coincidence that all this productivity is happening as I start my fellowship, but I don't think so. I hope that I can find more creative outlets throughout this fellowship and beyond.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Digging In
It's Thursday of my first week of school and I can't really believe I'm here. I feel like a kid in a candy shop, like a convict released from prison, like a refugee arriving on friendly soil. I mean no disrespect to the job I've left. I just feel so lucky to be here that the air is just that much sweeter, even though I'm in the city. And I can't get this silly smile off my face.
On my second day of class, I got a little deeper into numbers with my second statistics class. We learned a few basic concepts and then went to the computer lab to enter some data into SPSS, a common statistical software. With the fellowship, I purchased a new computer for my use here and beyond. I took the bold move to go Microsoft-free and loaded Ubuntu 8.10, a version of Linux on my new machine. It is wonderful to be in the open source community and this machine works like a racehorse. But now I'm wondering if I should purchase SPSS for this computer, or if I should learn R like my buddy Charles is recommending. R is an open source statistics program that seems a bit hard to learn, but also seems much more powerful. I guess I need to figure out if it's worth my time to learn R or if I should just stick to using SPSS on the computers in the lab here and keep my new machine totally open source.
But I digress. After statistics, I took the streetcar down to one of Portland's holy sites, Powell's Books. I remember it from an earlier visit. I think the only way to approach the place is to go there with one book in mind. If you try to explore the whole store or just wander around, it's enough to make your head explode. Since I couldn't find a used copy of the textbook I needed, I got out of there as quickly as I could to mitigate any undue damage to my pocketbook, and indeed my brain.
On the way back to campus, I needed to grab some food before my three hour class that started at 5:30. I stumbled upon Kenny and Zukes, a seemingly upscale Jewish deli in downtown Portland. They served me probably the best reuben I've ever had outside of Katz's deli. It had a pile of some amazing pastrami on it. Like my cousin Joe used to say, "it's the meat that makes the sandwich."
Fully sated, I sat in on my first class on research methods for social work. I'm taking this class to get a broad sense of how research methods can apply to social work. I've also chosen the professor for this class with an eye to getting some ideas about the research guidebook that I'd like to write. This professor does a good job of boiling down research methods into its essential elements. As I start thinking about a guidebook that will help other mentoring professionals incorporate research practices into their daily work, learning how someone else simplifies research methods for a broad introduction seems like a good opportunity.
This class is taught for MSW students and it's interesting to see the difference from the PhD classes I'm taking. The professor is a fun guy and it very much trying to draw the class into the subject matter. The smaller classes for PhD students seem already to have the engagement of the students and are maybe a bit more suited to having engaged debate within the class. It's good to see the difference and understand how research methods are presented to different levels of graduate students. I think it will help me conceive better of the different audiences for research and how this new world of academics operates as a whole.
On Tuesday, my mentor Tom Keller also showed me my new office.
Tom has two offices on campus and is letting me use the one he hardly uses. It's at the Regional Research Institute, an organization affiliated with PSU that does a lot of social work research. As I sit here and type, I can't believe that I actually have a view out of my office window, let alone a view from the 9th floor of the Willamette riverfront and Mt Hood on a clear day.
I've had lots of crappy offices in my time working at Big Brothers Big Sisters. When I first started, I had a window office. But then we started growing so quickly and space was at a premium, that I always took the smaller offices for privacy and gave my employees the bigger ones with windows to share. I once worked in a room with no windows slightly bigger than a closet. My last office was roomy, but it only had a tiny window that looked out onto another building. If it was a rare sunny day, there were about 10 minutes each day where I could feel the sunshine bounce off of the windows of the building next door and onto my face. So I will enjoy this spot immensely while I am here.
Today, Tom and I met again to talk about our work together. We are conceiving of two research projects to work on together. One that I will help on is analyzing some of the data gathered from participants in the 2007 Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring, which I attended. We want to see how participants went back to their practice setting and were or were not able to apply some of the research concepts that they learned at the Institute. I think that Tom is hoping my perspective as an attendee will provide some insight into the data gathered from the other participants. He also wants to get my ideas on helping design the 2009 Institute, which is thrilling to me since that's where this adventure of mine first took off.
We also want to look more closely at some of the data he's collected in a previous study of a Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring program. We want to look at the characteristics of the Bigs and the Littles and see how these impacted the strength and quality of the mentoring relationships. I am very excited by this topic since it seems to me we know very little about what makes for a good match. We match our Bigs and Littles primarily based on shared interests, geography, and parental concerns. But we know very little about what personality types make the best match or what questions we should ask during our participant interviews to get the right information to make the best match. It's exciting to think that I might be able to help build some useful knowledge for the mentoring field while I learn the ropes of writing a research paper.
Tomorrow, I'm going to meet with Michael Garringer at the National Mentoring Center to discuss my fellowship at the guidebook project in particular. I am hoping to use the resources of the center to publish the guidebook and disseminate it in the field. Then I will have the first meeting with Tom and my colleagues in our reading seminar. Two graduate students and myself will be immersing ourselves in the literature of youth mentoring research. Finally I will have a justification to read all those articles I've been wanting to read and the time to do it! This seminar will also provide a good foundation for the literature review I'll need to do in preparation for the research paper.
On my second day of class, I got a little deeper into numbers with my second statistics class. We learned a few basic concepts and then went to the computer lab to enter some data into SPSS, a common statistical software. With the fellowship, I purchased a new computer for my use here and beyond. I took the bold move to go Microsoft-free and loaded Ubuntu 8.10, a version of Linux on my new machine. It is wonderful to be in the open source community and this machine works like a racehorse. But now I'm wondering if I should purchase SPSS for this computer, or if I should learn R like my buddy Charles is recommending. R is an open source statistics program that seems a bit hard to learn, but also seems much more powerful. I guess I need to figure out if it's worth my time to learn R or if I should just stick to using SPSS on the computers in the lab here and keep my new machine totally open source.
But I digress. After statistics, I took the streetcar down to one of Portland's holy sites, Powell's Books. I remember it from an earlier visit. I think the only way to approach the place is to go there with one book in mind. If you try to explore the whole store or just wander around, it's enough to make your head explode. Since I couldn't find a used copy of the textbook I needed, I got out of there as quickly as I could to mitigate any undue damage to my pocketbook, and indeed my brain.
On the way back to campus, I needed to grab some food before my three hour class that started at 5:30. I stumbled upon Kenny and Zukes, a seemingly upscale Jewish deli in downtown Portland. They served me probably the best reuben I've ever had outside of Katz's deli. It had a pile of some amazing pastrami on it. Like my cousin Joe used to say, "it's the meat that makes the sandwich."
Fully sated, I sat in on my first class on research methods for social work. I'm taking this class to get a broad sense of how research methods can apply to social work. I've also chosen the professor for this class with an eye to getting some ideas about the research guidebook that I'd like to write. This professor does a good job of boiling down research methods into its essential elements. As I start thinking about a guidebook that will help other mentoring professionals incorporate research practices into their daily work, learning how someone else simplifies research methods for a broad introduction seems like a good opportunity.
This class is taught for MSW students and it's interesting to see the difference from the PhD classes I'm taking. The professor is a fun guy and it very much trying to draw the class into the subject matter. The smaller classes for PhD students seem already to have the engagement of the students and are maybe a bit more suited to having engaged debate within the class. It's good to see the difference and understand how research methods are presented to different levels of graduate students. I think it will help me conceive better of the different audiences for research and how this new world of academics operates as a whole.
On Tuesday, my mentor Tom Keller also showed me my new office.
Tom has two offices on campus and is letting me use the one he hardly uses. It's at the Regional Research Institute, an organization affiliated with PSU that does a lot of social work research. As I sit here and type, I can't believe that I actually have a view out of my office window, let alone a view from the 9th floor of the Willamette riverfront and Mt Hood on a clear day.
I've had lots of crappy offices in my time working at Big Brothers Big Sisters. When I first started, I had a window office. But then we started growing so quickly and space was at a premium, that I always took the smaller offices for privacy and gave my employees the bigger ones with windows to share. I once worked in a room with no windows slightly bigger than a closet. My last office was roomy, but it only had a tiny window that looked out onto another building. If it was a rare sunny day, there were about 10 minutes each day where I could feel the sunshine bounce off of the windows of the building next door and onto my face. So I will enjoy this spot immensely while I am here.
Today, Tom and I met again to talk about our work together. We are conceiving of two research projects to work on together. One that I will help on is analyzing some of the data gathered from participants in the 2007 Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring, which I attended. We want to see how participants went back to their practice setting and were or were not able to apply some of the research concepts that they learned at the Institute. I think that Tom is hoping my perspective as an attendee will provide some insight into the data gathered from the other participants. He also wants to get my ideas on helping design the 2009 Institute, which is thrilling to me since that's where this adventure of mine first took off.
We also want to look more closely at some of the data he's collected in a previous study of a Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring program. We want to look at the characteristics of the Bigs and the Littles and see how these impacted the strength and quality of the mentoring relationships. I am very excited by this topic since it seems to me we know very little about what makes for a good match. We match our Bigs and Littles primarily based on shared interests, geography, and parental concerns. But we know very little about what personality types make the best match or what questions we should ask during our participant interviews to get the right information to make the best match. It's exciting to think that I might be able to help build some useful knowledge for the mentoring field while I learn the ropes of writing a research paper.
Tomorrow, I'm going to meet with Michael Garringer at the National Mentoring Center to discuss my fellowship at the guidebook project in particular. I am hoping to use the resources of the center to publish the guidebook and disseminate it in the field. Then I will have the first meeting with Tom and my colleagues in our reading seminar. Two graduate students and myself will be immersing ourselves in the literature of youth mentoring research. Finally I will have a justification to read all those articles I've been wanting to read and the time to do it! This seminar will also provide a good foundation for the literature review I'll need to do in preparation for the research paper.
Monday, January 5, 2009
First Day of School
Today was my first day of classes. I feel like my brain has been stretched like a balloon, with a hand inside of it pushing and poking. It was a great day and I feel like my mind's appetite has been whetted and is now hungry for more.
My day started with navigating Portland's transit system to get to campus. I figured out which bus line to take and ambled out of the house with plenty of time to spare. When I got to the right corner, it took me a while to figure out where I was supposed to stand. Then I remembered I was supposed to have gotten bus fare before I left the house. I looked in my wallet and all I found were twenties. At this point, the bus was going to come in ten minutes. I could have raced home and tried to make it back in time for the bus, but I surely would have missed it. My other options were to beg the bus driver or pay make an $18 donation to the Tri-Met system.
So instead, I started waving a twenty dollar bill at the motorists who stopped at the stop sign. Probably five of the twenty cars who stopped rolled down there window enough for me to ask if they could break a twenty. The driver of the fifth car didn't have change but asked me how much I needed and handed me the two dollars. I asked "you're just going to give me this?" He replied, "yeah, Merry Christmas." I decided then there that these Oregonians are a friendly bunch. Granted, it probably would have been different if I didn't look like one of the area's mostly white middle class residents. But still I found the gesture quite welcoming and another good omen for our time here.
When I got to campus, I had enough time before my meeting with Tom to attend to some of my student life details. I went to the registration desk and made sure I was signed up for all the right classes. I got a student id, figuring this was probably good for all sorts of discounts. And I paid for a three month student pass on Portland's transit system.
Next I made my way over to Tom's office in the Graduate School of Social Work. It was great to see him again and start our work together. I could see the excitement in his face when he greeted me. We got started right away discussing what we wanted to accomplish together these six months. We looked at my class list and what research topics we wanted to pursue together. While we were talking about some of his previous studies, it suddenly struck me that I needed to learn not just about statistics and quantitative research, but also qualitative research. Some of his previous work that we had talked about digging into together involved qualitative research. I had also been quite impressed with some of the qualitative research presented at the 2007 Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring, particularly that of Renee Spencer.
So Tom and I looked at the offerings for qualitative research and figured out that the class would start in about twenty minutes. So we tried to track down the professor to see if she would let me into the class. We raced across campus, and found that the room assignment had changed. When we found the right classroom, the professor was very accommodating and welcomed me into her class.
It was thrilling. The class was small, with only four other students. All the other students were first year PhD students in the School of Social Work. When the professor introduced the course and said we would be exploring where philosophy and theory intersect with the mechanics of research, I knew I wanted to be there. Soon we got into questions of: what defines research? how do we find the truth? is there such a thing as truth? My mind lurched and keeled around, trying to get its bearings as it spun around in circles. This was exactly the kind of environment that I was looking for, one it which it's okay to ask the big questions, where it feels good to make my brain work in new and different ways, where my assumptions about the world are challenged and I have to look at life anew.
The two hours flew by and soon it was time to go to lunch. I remembered the Vietnamese restaurant nearby and dropped by for some yummy take out pho. I brought it over to the computer lab to get hooked up with my computer account and most importantly wireless access. Unfortunately, the system was down, so I went and ate my soup on the quad and watched people.
My next class was a statistics class for social work researchers. Very different than the earlier class. But again, my mind started to spin as we discussed the ethics of conducting research and how important it is to follow principles when engaging human participants in social work research. I thought about my work at Big Brothers Big Sisters and asked myself if we followed these principles when conducting our own program evaluation.
I think we do pretty well in the area of informed consent and confidentiality with data at Big Brothers Big Sisters. But on the issue of voluntary participation, it gets a bit grayer. Sure we will allow a parent to opt out of a survey if they aren't comfortable. But at at a basic level, there is some information that we have to know to be able to serve a child in our program. So in effect, participation in our program requires us to collect information from a child whether the parent wants it or not (like the child's birthday and information collected during match support conversations). This might not be the perfect situation, but we aren't conducting a major research project, just trying to serve the children in our program the best we can.
So where do you draw the line? Where do you say that this information is necessary to our ability to serve your child in our program - and no, you don't have to give us that information if you don't want to. I am sure that I will have many more questions like this in the months to come, and I am looking forward to all the conversations I will have on these topics with my new peers.
Tomorrow is another session of statistics, and my first class in research methods for social work. Plus Tom will be showing me my office for the next six months. Another exciting day awaits!
My day started with navigating Portland's transit system to get to campus. I figured out which bus line to take and ambled out of the house with plenty of time to spare. When I got to the right corner, it took me a while to figure out where I was supposed to stand. Then I remembered I was supposed to have gotten bus fare before I left the house. I looked in my wallet and all I found were twenties. At this point, the bus was going to come in ten minutes. I could have raced home and tried to make it back in time for the bus, but I surely would have missed it. My other options were to beg the bus driver or pay make an $18 donation to the Tri-Met system.
So instead, I started waving a twenty dollar bill at the motorists who stopped at the stop sign. Probably five of the twenty cars who stopped rolled down there window enough for me to ask if they could break a twenty. The driver of the fifth car didn't have change but asked me how much I needed and handed me the two dollars. I asked "you're just going to give me this?" He replied, "yeah, Merry Christmas." I decided then there that these Oregonians are a friendly bunch. Granted, it probably would have been different if I didn't look like one of the area's mostly white middle class residents. But still I found the gesture quite welcoming and another good omen for our time here.
When I got to campus, I had enough time before my meeting with Tom to attend to some of my student life details. I went to the registration desk and made sure I was signed up for all the right classes. I got a student id, figuring this was probably good for all sorts of discounts. And I paid for a three month student pass on Portland's transit system.
Next I made my way over to Tom's office in the Graduate School of Social Work. It was great to see him again and start our work together. I could see the excitement in his face when he greeted me. We got started right away discussing what we wanted to accomplish together these six months. We looked at my class list and what research topics we wanted to pursue together. While we were talking about some of his previous studies, it suddenly struck me that I needed to learn not just about statistics and quantitative research, but also qualitative research. Some of his previous work that we had talked about digging into together involved qualitative research. I had also been quite impressed with some of the qualitative research presented at the 2007 Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring, particularly that of Renee Spencer.
So Tom and I looked at the offerings for qualitative research and figured out that the class would start in about twenty minutes. So we tried to track down the professor to see if she would let me into the class. We raced across campus, and found that the room assignment had changed. When we found the right classroom, the professor was very accommodating and welcomed me into her class.
It was thrilling. The class was small, with only four other students. All the other students were first year PhD students in the School of Social Work. When the professor introduced the course and said we would be exploring where philosophy and theory intersect with the mechanics of research, I knew I wanted to be there. Soon we got into questions of: what defines research? how do we find the truth? is there such a thing as truth? My mind lurched and keeled around, trying to get its bearings as it spun around in circles. This was exactly the kind of environment that I was looking for, one it which it's okay to ask the big questions, where it feels good to make my brain work in new and different ways, where my assumptions about the world are challenged and I have to look at life anew.
The two hours flew by and soon it was time to go to lunch. I remembered the Vietnamese restaurant nearby and dropped by for some yummy take out pho. I brought it over to the computer lab to get hooked up with my computer account and most importantly wireless access. Unfortunately, the system was down, so I went and ate my soup on the quad and watched people.
My next class was a statistics class for social work researchers. Very different than the earlier class. But again, my mind started to spin as we discussed the ethics of conducting research and how important it is to follow principles when engaging human participants in social work research. I thought about my work at Big Brothers Big Sisters and asked myself if we followed these principles when conducting our own program evaluation.
I think we do pretty well in the area of informed consent and confidentiality with data at Big Brothers Big Sisters. But on the issue of voluntary participation, it gets a bit grayer. Sure we will allow a parent to opt out of a survey if they aren't comfortable. But at at a basic level, there is some information that we have to know to be able to serve a child in our program. So in effect, participation in our program requires us to collect information from a child whether the parent wants it or not (like the child's birthday and information collected during match support conversations). This might not be the perfect situation, but we aren't conducting a major research project, just trying to serve the children in our program the best we can.
So where do you draw the line? Where do you say that this information is necessary to our ability to serve your child in our program - and no, you don't have to give us that information if you don't want to. I am sure that I will have many more questions like this in the months to come, and I am looking forward to all the conversations I will have on these topics with my new peers.
Tomorrow is another session of statistics, and my first class in research methods for social work. Plus Tom will be showing me my office for the next six months. Another exciting day awaits!
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Arrived
I'm sitting in the living room of our home for the next six months. We arrived in Portland yesterday after a three day ride on the ferry and a day in Seattle. We found a nice place in a residential neighborhood in Southwest Portland. It's the home of a PSU professor in Poland for a six month sabbatical. The timing was perfect and it is wonderful to have a fully furnished, comfortable home to house our little family.
It's interesting to inhabit someone else's home temporarily, though. I wonder how it will feel as the months progress. Will this start to feel like home, or will it always feel like we are just passing through? Will I remain an interloper and be happy to leave at the end of these six months? Or will I have started to put down roots by then and feel torn when it's time to go?
The ferry ride was a nice way to travel, particularly at this time of year. This winter has been cold and snowy, and the roads through Canada would have been challenging. Being with small children in a car for seven days would have been its own adventure, as well. On the ferry, we could walk around with the kids, catch a movie or two, recreate in the small play area, and even play games in our cabin. We were also fortunate to make friends with another couple from Haines, Alaska, who had two small children. My five-year old daughter Celia played with Galen, an energetic four-year old. And my 16-month old son Ferguson, didn't quite know what to make of 18-month old Miranda, but enjoyed her company nonetheless.
We couldn't have asked for better weather on the ferry. The short winter days were clear and mild, and the biggest seas we encountered were only four to five feet tall. It's rare to find such smooth sailing along the Inside Passage in the middle of winter. Typically the North Pacific churns out storm after storm this time of year. We were worried how Jessica would fare on the ride, since she gets motion sickness on many of our road trips. But she did just fine and we never even had to break out the seasick bands.
After spending the morning in Bellingham and interviewing some of the residents we met, we were able to spend the day in Seattle on the birthday of one of our good friends from Alaska. He moved south seven years ago and is now a successful school administrator on Mercer Island. He and his wife have two adorable sons. We are hoping to see them several more times during our time here.
One of the special bonuses for our time here will be the chance to reconnect with friends like Mark and our family. Another of my dear friends from college lives about two miles away. She was quite surprised to see me at her church this morning. I had found the church on the internet last night and had no idea Maureen even went to church. It felt like an auspicious start to our time here, to find the right church so soon, connected to dear old friends. Then later today, we went into Washington to visit Jessica's sister Jona, her husband Jeff and my two nieces, Lindsey and Nicole. I did pretty well at Dance Dance Revolution, I must say, but I was no match for my eighth-grader niece.
Tomorrow is the first day of class and I feel a strange mix of emotions. I'm excited, a bit anxious, a healthy bit scared, and totally curious. I have really no idea what to expect. How will I fit in? Will I do well in my classes? What will my classmates and colleagues think of me? Will I just be a bumpkin from Alaska, totally out of my league? Or will I be able to hang with the rest of the academic community?
More than anything, I am curious to see what will happen. I really have no way to imagine what the next six months will be like. I know that I'll be taking a statistics class, a research methods class, and joining a reading seminar. But I have no idea what they will be like, or what it will be like to tackle my research project with Tom Keller. I am fascinated to see how this will all unfold and I am totally open to what comes my way.
It's interesting to inhabit someone else's home temporarily, though. I wonder how it will feel as the months progress. Will this start to feel like home, or will it always feel like we are just passing through? Will I remain an interloper and be happy to leave at the end of these six months? Or will I have started to put down roots by then and feel torn when it's time to go?
The ferry ride was a nice way to travel, particularly at this time of year. This winter has been cold and snowy, and the roads through Canada would have been challenging. Being with small children in a car for seven days would have been its own adventure, as well. On the ferry, we could walk around with the kids, catch a movie or two, recreate in the small play area, and even play games in our cabin. We were also fortunate to make friends with another couple from Haines, Alaska, who had two small children. My five-year old daughter Celia played with Galen, an energetic four-year old. And my 16-month old son Ferguson, didn't quite know what to make of 18-month old Miranda, but enjoyed her company nonetheless.
We couldn't have asked for better weather on the ferry. The short winter days were clear and mild, and the biggest seas we encountered were only four to five feet tall. It's rare to find such smooth sailing along the Inside Passage in the middle of winter. Typically the North Pacific churns out storm after storm this time of year. We were worried how Jessica would fare on the ride, since she gets motion sickness on many of our road trips. But she did just fine and we never even had to break out the seasick bands.
After spending the morning in Bellingham and interviewing some of the residents we met, we were able to spend the day in Seattle on the birthday of one of our good friends from Alaska. He moved south seven years ago and is now a successful school administrator on Mercer Island. He and his wife have two adorable sons. We are hoping to see them several more times during our time here.
One of the special bonuses for our time here will be the chance to reconnect with friends like Mark and our family. Another of my dear friends from college lives about two miles away. She was quite surprised to see me at her church this morning. I had found the church on the internet last night and had no idea Maureen even went to church. It felt like an auspicious start to our time here, to find the right church so soon, connected to dear old friends. Then later today, we went into Washington to visit Jessica's sister Jona, her husband Jeff and my two nieces, Lindsey and Nicole. I did pretty well at Dance Dance Revolution, I must say, but I was no match for my eighth-grader niece.
Tomorrow is the first day of class and I feel a strange mix of emotions. I'm excited, a bit anxious, a healthy bit scared, and totally curious. I have really no idea what to expect. How will I fit in? Will I do well in my classes? What will my classmates and colleagues think of me? Will I just be a bumpkin from Alaska, totally out of my league? Or will I be able to hang with the rest of the academic community?
More than anything, I am curious to see what will happen. I really have no way to imagine what the next six months will be like. I know that I'll be taking a statistics class, a research methods class, and joining a reading seminar. But I have no idea what they will be like, or what it will be like to tackle my research project with Tom Keller. I am fascinated to see how this will all unfold and I am totally open to what comes my way.
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