I Think I Finally Got It

DO you know I have been reading books and articles on race and critical race theory (CRT) and now a subset of CRT called "colorblindness" for several weeks now. I think I finally get it! Oh my goodness. Let me see if I can put this on paper.

Colorblindness in institutions such as schools is a way to mask race. No one wants to talk about race in school because if you do you could be labeled a racist and nobody wants to be called that! Colorblindness is failure to admit that a particular group of people are truly at a disadvantage and there is a need for targeted help for this group. But in order to truly serve a particular race group, those in charge have to be able to talk about race, look at it, and be willing to acknowledge that unique services for this group are needed.

You know this was really hard for me to wrap my head around and to really look at colorblindness. I honestly could not see it. During all of my readings I kept mentally pounding my head against the wall saying to myself why can't I get this in my head and make it stick? It was always there but it was so illusive because I was trained to think a certain way. A neutral way where I accepted the belief system that everyone should be treated equally. I couldn't get that I was contributing to the problem of race by the decisions I was making.

Although I kept trying to treat everyone the same, I knew this was not possible no matter how hard I tried. I accepted that I am brown but my education gave me more options but I found that I still could not help students of color the way I wanted to in the past. Each time I did try to do something specifically for students of color I was confronted by other teachers and leaders that I should not be treating them any different than white students who were poor. I think inherently I knew that I was being stumped and every once in a while I would act on the belilef that race truly was the issue but I couldn't articulate the colorblindness that I encountered in the system. And yes I fed into the belief that poverty was a big part of the problem. This was another foil that took away the significance of race.

But sitting in my living room early this morning while my husband was washing dishes it struck me that I was guilty of colorblindness. Yes me, a brown woman, was committing the sin of race by allowing colorblindness to continue unchecked in schools. The language of equality, neutrality, and everyone is to be treated equally are all terms of colorblindness. Policies of zero tolerance places students of color at a greater disadvantage because they are being consequences without directly looking at the inequities which occur in this action. The vicious circle of blame and accountability did not have an entry point of targeted education and support that was needed to work with our students of color more effectively.

You know writing about it I had to go back to several conversations during this rewiring of the brain as it relates to race that I knew this was a problem. In my administration meetings at school I would bring up race in conversations about programs, curriculum, teaching strategies, discipline, attendance, and parent involvement. My administration partners and teachers were uncomfortable with these conversations. But over time I began to learn how to feel my way around talking about race as a way to really look at the dilemmas in our school. I remember feeling frustration whenever teachers or my peers would interject that the students of color are no different than students of poverty. Whenever this happens the chances are greater that the issues of race will be ignored again and the laser like focus is on the wrong area and therefore the support these students need is missing once again.

While I was doing this I was still trying to more fully comprehend colorblindness and what this really meant to me and what I needed to do to better facilitate change in my school. But how could I do this if I myself didn't know how to talk about removing the colorblindness lens if I couldn't show others, who did not look like me, what to look for? When are we going to be bold enough to talk about race? It really is liberating and solutions are real when we can begin to do so. To say that we are colorblind is to say that race does not exist. If this is so than I do not exist. And I know that is so not true.

What words or vocabulary do we use that perpetuate racism under the guise of colorblindness. What is most amazing to me is that now that I comprehend colorblindness I feel free! I now have tools at my disposal to better support my white counterpart and yes even people of color who have been blinded as I was blinded. If you can imagine a boulder being removed from my shoulders you can imagine my feeling of lightness. What an incredible experience of change.

Is this called transformative learning? I don't know....but I know that I am not the same person was even an hour ago.

A Bitter Sweet Christmas Eve

Thirty-seven years ago on Christmas Eve I was only 16 and looking forward to a fantastic Christmas. My dad just retired from the Army after 25 years and after 3 tours to Vietnam. I didn't see him very much growing up but each time he came home it was like having Christmas.

Our Christmas tree this particular year in 1974 was so huge that it took up one-fourth of our family room. My brothers and sisters were still really young and all we could think of was opening our presents. I remember me and my brothers shaking every package under the tree and trying to peak into the sides hoping to get an idea of what we were going to get the next day.

Later that evening, my mom and dad gathered us together to perform the story of the Savior's birth. I was the oldest and in charge of playing all the music. My brother Faofua grudgingly did his part as King Herod, and my brother Lloyd Lee and Esela were the wiseman. My younger brother Ruben was a shepherd and my sister Naomi was the angel Gabriel with my sister Lisa as Mary. Since we were short on family members in my family to act out all the parts, it was fun to see my brothers switch parts to be Joseph and other wiseman and other angels.

This particular Christmas Eve was full of laughter and lots of special thoughts because my dad was home and we were going to be together for quite awhile because he was done with the military and now working for the IRS in the accounting department. Life couldn't be better.

The next day...my dad died from a sudden heart attack on the top of a hill where we were snow tubing. That Christmas year forever changed all of us.

Today as I reflect on this Christmas season I find myself sad to know that dad is gone. Although so many years have passed since the death of my daddy, the pain while dull is still present. I can still feel the tears welling up as my mind recalls the events of those two days. My mother rocking her husband's head on her lap and stroking his hair. Me, running down the hill we were on to the old St. Benedict's hospital to get an ambulance. No cell phones in 1974. My mother's parents arrived the next day stricken with grief and then the week long details and drudgery of preparing for dad's funeral. I never thought I would be picking out my dad's casket and looking for a burial plot with my mom.

What does this have to do with my dissertation journey? Life goes on regardless of where you are in the dissertation process. There are so many distractions and it would be so easy to just give up. But then something happens and you realize that you have to complete the hard journey. Today, someone wrote to me about one of my blogs and thanked me for what I wrote. I never think about the impact my writing has on people. Only that I write to try to understand why I live and why I think what I think. On days like these, I feel really close to those who matter and am glad for everything that comes my way. Life is good.

I Am Guilty of Perpetuating Racism

I was reading an article by Charles R. Lawrence about how we minorities perpetuate racism. He was laughing with his black friends during an Amos and Andy comedy aired on the radio. His father said that he didn't like the show because it poked fun at the Negroes. Another story he shared spoke of how his kindergarten teacher was reading a comical story called, "Little Sambo" and the plight of a little black boy with a minstrel mouth who was running around a room with a stack of pancakes because a tiger was chasing him. Charles was the only black student in the class and all the kids were laughing at the story while he was experiencing a knot in his stomach called pain and anxiety. Charles was Little Sambo and he realized he has much in common with him. So as the class was laughing at Little Sambo he realized they were laughing at him.

Reflecting on the innocence of children and even as adults I had to ask myself, "So what?" Why is it so bad to laugh at these various stories when we all know it is just fun. Besides as members of the race don't we have a right to laugh at ourselves? Life is so hard as it is and laughing at the silly things we do is comic relief. I know I have done it, my family has done it, and so have my friends. But then Mr. Lawrence made a point that was worth remembering. He said, it isn't only the white people and the institutions that perpetuate racism, we, the victims, do so as well. And this was definitely food for thought.

The import of making fun of our own race in the moment of innocence has also instilled in ourselves and our children that we have internalized racism and our own stereotypes. I pondered how I was guilty of this in my own home with my children and recalled several times when we sat around the living room and kitchen table laughing at our cultural experiences we each had during the day or week. These stories while funny actually confirmed the stigmas about Pacific Islanders.

The message at the end of the "funny session" was:....Pacific Islanders are big. They love to eat. They don't think about the next day. They are lazy. They use their strength and not their brains. They are just dumb. And they are funny as heck. They are illiterate. And they just don't get the jokes. You don't hear jokes about them working as professionals or as students getting an education. You don't hear about the love they have for their own or the sacrifices parents make for their children. You don't hear about the service their youth give to their parents without a care about their own health. You don't hear about them doing well in school.

It's quite different than Comedy Central who as a white comedian, they wear the jacket of comedian and can take it off and they are still seen as privileged and polished. Whereas for the comedian of color, they never take the jacket off. What they poke fun at is also what they are in the eyes of the beholder and the listener.

Can we really talk about colorblindness with these differences in how we also perpetuate race? As I begin to isolate the areas I am choosing to focus on in my dissertation proposal, I keep finding myself scrutinizing my own racialized history. In this case, Mr. Lawrence's point of minorities perpetuating racism runs deep in my thinking. What messages did I personally teach to my own children during my own comedy session in the comfort of our home? How have I continued this problem in working with my white peers and constituents at work and at school? In the effort to bring race to the conversation, I find myself in a dilemma of my own part I have played in this perpetuation. I am guilty and I didn't even make a profit.

Over the Top Stress

I am so stressed and i cannot even write. But my professor said I had to keep my commitment of writing which I am attempting to do. So I just have to get this off my chest just so I can keep moving forward and get past the most incredible anxiety I am feeling right now.

So I had this most fabulous meeting with my Chair and another member of my committee to talk about a way to narrow my focus on my dissertation proposal and to identify a pathway that made sense. He helped us to identify three lenses. Looking at a model of a professional learning community could use a critical relevant evaluation lens. This is a program evaluation lens that I could use that looks at a program to look for gaps in cultural relevancy. I really liked this advice because it provided the right structure I needed to see the elements that I could recognize as being culturally relevant in a program or model in this case that is sterile. You see the language in just about anything to do in education that is supposed to be used across schools has to be generic enough in order for it to be useful. In the case of a professional learning community there is a need to be almost prescriptive so that school leaders and teachers across the nation could apply its principles and get the sense of some hand holding. But there is a concern that too many schools are applying the principles without sensitivities to the students at the PLCs initial stages because too many schools are just trying to learn how to become a learning community.

The dilemma...the students are not the focus because teachers are too busy learning how to become a learning community and complete the products that are required of them. Now this is my assumption and there in lies the problem. So using the cultural relevancy evaluation instrument would assist in looking at PLCs at the onset for this need.

Another dilemma....I cannot find the darn evaluation. So as a novice researcher trying to get my proposal up and running this is a serious inadequacy and I just cannot go running to my Chair every time. And time is always the issue. So I will have to solve this problem. Anxiety is starting to mound.

The next lens my committee member said to use was a subset of Critical Race Theory (CRT) on colorblindness. As I am going through all of my articles I can see that I will need to beef this up. But this advice is right on the money but a task that I knew had to wait for a couple of days. So a spent some time setting up the proposal chapters up and what I wanted to write in each section or at least set aside the sections for me to fill in during my designated writing time.

The next lens was on leaders who really understood the need for cultural relevancy and recognized colorblindness how would they move this knowledge forward among their teachers. He recommended I look at a dissertation for the methodology of an instrumental case study. I did. As I read over the dissertation I was thinking this is good. I can see where this could be a good way to go. And continued reading. Anxiety started to mount. A survey? Interviews? Observations? Stats? This was a mixed-methods dissertation. I could see that it made sense to do a case study on a PLC but I wasn't prepare to go to this extent. So needless to say the nightmares are back and my anxiety is high. This is stressful not because I don't want to do this but because it is going another direction I wasn't planning to do. So now I wonder if I have too. This is how I resist when I don't think it's the right way.

The dilemma is whether or not I have to go this way. If so, I will...... But I will need to get some feedback as to whether it really is because I am really sick to my stomach. Why, I think deep down inside it is really because I cannot afford to and this is a deep sense of inequity that I am feeling personally. The irony is that I might have to give up my studies because I could not afford to keep paying tuition. And I am fighting this like I have for the last several years. But I don't know that I have it in me any more. So the stress is keep going or to quit and regret this decision for the rest of my life. My husband and I have to work through the finances every single semester. But I just don't know.

I just wanted to do a study on PLC discourse. Isn't this still possible?

Citations Frustration

You know....I often find myself in a muddle thinking about the basic mechanics of just gathering research articles for a paper. Ugh. I just wish I had more time. There are some articles that are just hard to find. With all the technology on finding articles and storing them you would think this would be no problem. There is something to be said about just finding the time to develop the skill of cataloging citations. Take a deep breath. Take the time. Do the task. Thank goodness for a professor who is helpful. But I am hampered each time I work on Zotero because my computer will not allow me to use it even after it is downloaded. Time to find an expert.

The Race Fear

There is something frightening about talking about "race." My dissertation quest has taken a turn for better or for worse. Who knows. I just know it is the right thing to do. I feel like I am looking down the barrel of a shotgun and staring right back at me are the bullets of "race." I have to face this fear of race because I have lived with it but I am not intimately acquainted with it. Frankly I am petrified to even open this box. Although I am a brown woman and have had to deal with race all my life, I never really had to experience race like black or Latino women. When you are a Pacific Islander most people talk about us in terms of being "Hawaiian" and the media has painted us as exotic and desirable. You could say we "passed" to some degree and gained access to many "white" experiences because we were not like "them." Now there will be many in my community who would disagree with me. But they did not have my experiences. Perhaps my experiences were tempered with a religion that advocated for loving one another. While many of them failed horribly at it, for some reason I was able to be like water and ebbed and flowed. This came naturally but I bet if I deconstructed my survival skills I believe I would encounter many private moments of being strategically friendly and purposely working my way into the white man's world over the years. I think this is called fitting in...after a lifetime, these survival skills are normal and switching from one world to another without giving race a second thought was a walk in the park.

Yet, racism does exist. In my case it was micro discrimination we felt in not being seen or heard in the matters of knowledge and professional aspirations. It was more a feeling of knowing I was dismissed. In a school organization, racism is supposedly non-existent. Bless my teacher friends for struggling so much in trying to reach all students. But who has time to deal with race? We are so busy with learning how to learn that we don't learn about the elephant in the living room. Racism is truly experienced in systems or organization. But for some of us who have not been the primary target in race discussion. We can say we get it but do we really? For me I have spent my entire life living among the white race. I ate with them, learned from them, was a part of their lifestyle and embraced their white ways. So why would I think that I would have been denied all that was offered to my white friends? But I know there are others like me who take race for granted. We know it is all around us but living in America it is just the way it is and it will never change. Or, we only know it from an individual experience and do not see its subtleties in our everyday experiences. What of us? Being brown, I have been able to get by. I get upset when I see racism in its raw form. But when I have to describe how race effects me at work and in the very decisions I have to make, I consider myself a novice. This is a very vulnerable position to be in as it means that I am inadequate in something I am expected to know and understand. I failed to see the evidence, but they were there.

In my doctoral program, I couldn't accept that race was perhaps the central cause of systemic problems in literally every organization. I was blind in seeing how policy was written to write us out of the picture. I couldn't see that people of color were not wanted among the whites or that what we thought was important was not the same for them. I believe I bought into the notion that racism didn't exist in school systems. Yet, in reflection, I knew that race did exist. I saw it in student achievement...I saw it among teachers who claimed they did not see color...I felt it when discipline reports indicated more students of color were being suspended from school...I experienced it when what I believed need to change was how teachers were teaching their diverse learners and shut down quickly because this change meant more work. Who was I fooling? Only myself and in turn I missed so many opportunities to make a difference in education over time.

It sounds like an us against them whenever we talk about race. When speaking about race it is so raw, so cold and heartless, and ugly. But isn't that the point? Our white counterparts who are in power and in the green could not be viewed as racist otherwise they would have mutiny on their hands. So how to make it palatable among their constituents while promoting their hidden agenda? How to make race or the talk about race go away so they could get on with maintaining our stronghold in world economics? Well, you can either never discuss it or make it invisible....neutral if you will...to make people believe that race doesn't matter because we are all working together to solve problems.. particular problems in education. I have to be part of this change and now is my chance. But this means learning a vocabulary of clarity centered on race. It also means leading the charge to inform, teach, and celebrate in the knowledge of race to examine the issues in education.

So my task to understand race while a bit frightening is actually exciting. I feel like the cat who is curious. And we all know what happens to the curious cat....if you don't...curiosity kills the cat. LoL. Gotta love this journey.

So in my more formal writings I will begin immersing myself in what is race? what does it matter? and how can this knowledge make a difference in education? Wish me luck.

Insider and outside which is it?

My writing seems to be going in circles. I have already had several meetings with my chair and she keeps saying that I am making great strides in finding my voice. Most recently the subject for my proposal is now on professional learning communities.

In schools these professional communities are comprised of teachers who come together to learn from each other about their teaching experiences such as what do they want students to learn, did they learn it, and if not, what are teachers doing about it. Well this may seem like a very simple process but it really is a huge change from what teachers have done in the past. They just decided what they want their students to learn and in the privacy of their classroom they teach how they wanted to teach without any bother from other educators and teachers.

Well times of changed. The classroom is a fishbowl and the teacher and students are seemingly under a significant amount of surveillance 24/7. The pressures to make sure students learn are increasingly difficult to bear so the idea of teachers coming together to help each other help their students is pretty much a novel idea.

Well, here I am focusing on the inequities in education and struggling with several ideas. One in particular where I know that even with the professional learning communities working in schools, something is still wrong. How do I know this? Well, more and more of our students of color are still dropping out or going to alternative programs or are graduating by the skin of their teeth through the packet program (buy a packet complete it and earn a quarter credit towards graduation)

In my struggle to understand why this is happening, I still hear many teachers say that it is the fault of the students because they are lazy or don't care. Their mama's don't care because they never come in to the schools and so the list continues. But seldom if ever do I hear that teachers are at fault. Teachers always believe that the strategies they selected is perfect for learning and that if most of their students are learning then why can't these other students learn too. Of course "these other" students makes you wonder if they even know who theses students are too.

But my chair turned to an article about tempered radicals. It was significant to me because I for once could see that my struggles of being a professional in schools and having multiple identities where important. This term "tempered radicals" is about individuals who are in the inside of organizations who know how to apply and use the language of the system as a professional but is also an outsider who is aware of external tensions that are operating in the margins. This marginalization is important because it keeps this tempered radical sharp to support small changes that would positively impact the organization to increase opportunities of achievement for individuals who may have been marginalized or not understood.

If ever there was a need for this article it is now. I have come to appreciate the importance of being on the inside of an organization. My struggle which I expressed with my chair wasn't that I wasn't happy with school reform only that there were some parts that we should not assume will serve each student, particular students of color. There are hidden value systems and beliefs that are written in a neutral language. It is the language that we assume supports all students when in reality the language dismisses even misses many students who are on the margin of education and never make a connection. The are held hostage. And although we expect our teachers to make this connection the dilemma is whether or not the teacher has the capacity to use new tools such as building relationships, knowing their students, looking for student teacher connections to partner in learning. Administrators should be at the forefront of this challenge, but who will help the administrators in this role? I believe there is limited capacity on their part which is a dilemma all by itself. It is here in this crossover that I believe I should work to make a difference to support our teachers. This will indirectly be a support for students in the margins of learning.

Am I Sitting in the Smart Chair?

I have been working on my proposal for the last several weeks. And again I find myself at the beginning feeling like I am starting over. I was working on deracialization and how the language of neutrality suppressed references to race and what this should mean to educational leaders in our country today. Yet I had to ask myself the question, "So what does that really mean to me?"

I just spent two full days attending the Dufour conference on professional learning communities and I really believe that the presenters, who are recognized education icons in the education industry, felt strongly about these significant processes designed to support learning in schools. I kept thinking about my dissertation content throughout the presentations and had to reflect on just how much I also bought into the Dufour concepts over the last several years. The Dufours kept reinforcing the importance of making sure students who didn't quite learn "essential skills" for any content and the bottom line to solving this problem is to make sure additional time and support were provided. As I listened I kept thinking is this a good thing? How do professional development with good intent, which in this case is very successful, is not be enough in the language of social justice?

After I had spent my time in three presentations listening to the Dufour, husband and wife team, present messages of building strong learning communities among teachers and overcoming resistance to the nay sayers, I decided to attend another presentation by Jack Balderman on how to motivate disengaged students. In this particular presentation, I felt like I was in a vacuum of the same rhetoric I had heard in years past. The presenter kept engaging the teachers to talk about what they were doing to engage and motivate students. I was expecting him to give us something unique and different, isn't that why I go to conferences? We did pay $629. Instead, I was thinking, "Here we go again....another day of rhetoric and self glorification of how another white teacher (there were very few teachers/administrators of color there) was going to share his/her pearls of wisdom on how he/she motivated one student." I wanted to get up and leave, but the teacher I was with, was completely enthralled and was soaking up the ideas and because she is a white female teacher I just couldn't leave. Everything inside of me, came to a screeching halt in my own personal judgement of the process, and that I had failed to recognize that I was acting in the position of "inclusion" meaning I already knew this language and took for granted that everyone else did too. But here, right next to me was a teacher, who like so many other teachers who were also present was experiencing a moment of empowerment and inclusion that I had taken for granted.

My training of how to motivate students was significantly different from those who were struggling with unmotivated students in their classrooms. I realized at that moment that I needed to be a moral leader who recognized that not everyone had the same skills of inclusion and motivation which I took for granted. It is this same skill that I continue to fail to be able to transfer because it is so automatic. My struggle in the transfer is evident when I see myself in the elementary position of writing down simple sentences in my proposal as I attempt to speak on a subject that matters so much to me. I want to be a leader who can awaken teachers and help them find the answers they seek to help students who are very different from them. I want to help them to develop strong relationships with students and teachers in order for authentic learning to occur from the position that diversity is central to our humanness.

I want to have a voice and give voice to other principals who do not look like me and who have not had the experiences I have had of straddling both the world of white and the world of color. I want to make a significant contribution to the significance of different and diversity while operating in the framework of common and conformity. For some reason, I believe this is possible.

Although, the conference was a good experience, I came away thinking about my own learning process during my experience as a graduate student. What kind of student was I in my graduate class? Yes, at first I felt empowered to be able to speak of my varied education experiences and I acknowledge that I would be considered a success story. Then why did I not feel successful in this graduate experience? I recall thinking that I needed the experience of critical analysis and the language of theory that was never part of my comprehension. My mode of learning while successful for the most part, lacked in the ability to recognize the language in textbooks and articles were biased to represent an opinion. I was a sponge that lacked the ability to discern the various power and powerless language which over time I finally can see, but the process was long and drawn out and did not fit the timeline of a graduate degree. This is what I face now. But with this recognition also came the understanding that I am finally getting it, or finally beginning to make the connection that I couldn't make in the past, because I somehow did not recognize the codes/connections of voice. I was quickly reminded that I was a victim of silence and didn't really see it. Or maybe I did see, but didn't know how to navigate the change in a manner that was suitable for me. But am I too late? I wish I could do a dissertation on this topic at times just because I am comfortable speaking this. But I want to speak about the disruption I feel because I believe there is a convergence of my experience with the experiences of other students who can also lend their voice to the solutions sought after in education.

The one experience today that made sense to me in this Dufour conference was Balderman at the front of the room, pointing to a chair and said, "This is the smart chair. Students who sit in this chair are the ones who struggle and who are eager to learn and who are willing to ask questions until they got the answers they needed to move forward in education. Anyone who sits in this chair, is smart."

Pondering this comment, I believed that I did not sit in that chair on purpose. I was not trained to question the information that was handed to me. Therefore, I was handicapped in my learning. Although, I learned and eventually found the courage to let someone see my inhibitions, at this graduate level of learning. I still believed that I should not have these struggles. But while I am struggling, it is not the struggle of "I don't get it." It is the struggle of, "How can I make what I feel and see and experience transparent and transferable?"

I have learned more in these last few weeks about myself and what I want to question. The perceived drawback which is related to limited time to meet my deadlines is that each time I get more information, I keep evolving. I feel like I am a moving target that I cannot pin myself down because I am changing at a rapid pace but not necessarily in the manner that I should as a graduate student as has been modeled for me. At times I wish I was like the other students, but then I only see their products and not their struggles, so this wish is probably an assumption that cannot be validated.

In my proposal I talk about neutral language and how it suppresses race dialogue. I then find that I have competing emotions about the national trend of common curriculum, standards, and assessments because I believe there are good pieces to this shift. As an instructional leader I can see the value of common standards and assessments in order to measure some level of progress.

But after this conference and all my reflections of the day, I still experienced frustration. I returned to working on my section of diversity this evening, and I think to myself, "Here I go again, reading and regurgitating, but I just don't feel it." So I went back to my first paper on deracialization and saw some good pieces, but I am still not satisfied. Why? So I reread the Grause article on which I wrote at the top "My cornerstone article" because this was the article that really hit at the heart of what I believed, but somewhere between my initial writing of deracialization and diversity I just felt that I had missed some connection. This sensation is beginning to become very obvious to me because I found myself experiencing sleeplessness and significant anxiety because I was grinding my teeth again. I really hope I have my teeth by the time I graduate. I do plan on graduating, but the elements of what I value has to be addressed if I am going to be able to defend in June.

In this search for what was wrong, I found an article by Shields on Dialogic leadership for social justice that finally helped me to make an important connection between what I thought was good in education such as Professional Learning Communities and also what was missing in these conversations which was the significance of diverse relationships and the role that leaders must play in establishing a critical moral and democratic environment for the building of these relationships that allow students and teachers alike to be included in all curriculum conversations that lead to the learning of essential skills. So my conversation about deracialization and diversity and the move for conformity all have to converge. I cannot sacrifice one for the other because I believe that both are relevant.

In this discovery I found the balance I was looking for as an educational leader. You see, I could not, in the many reform initiatives believe that teachers didn't care about their students, I could not accept in all my training that administrators were working hard just to satisfy district policy and expectations. I am in the heat of all these administrative daily demands and wanted so desperately to make a difference that would work within the system of change. And although I really believe that the language of neutrality does serve the dominant group and particular political agendas, I keep thinking that we, those who are being left behind, need access to this world of economic gain and that there is a need for our voices, languages, cultures, classes, and other diversities.

The key seems to be on developing leaders who are able to balance social justice on the concepts of democracy, diversity, and moral relationships. How to analyze textbooks for these concepts leading to developing moral leaders, forces me to sit in the "smart chair" and I am a student again while I feel the pressure to be the expert, otherwise, why write a dissertation?

My thinking process led me to believe that while the language of neutrality was centered on the political agenda of global marketization there was the conflict of the call for more diversity. How is it possible to seek for diversity and difference if the process for learning called for common, sameness, and conformity? It just didn't compute until we as social justice leaders infuse the language of diversity through the building of strong moral relationships of inclusion of difference, the inclusion, of safety to discuss our differences in thinking about concepts, the inclusion of self and how our past and experiences of economic strife and cultural dissonance can be a point of awareness and valued in better solutions than have existed in the past?

I believe this is where I need to center my dissertation topic. But now the task is to get my heart that is in this blog onto the paper that I must write. It is here that I must sit in the "smart chair."

Brain DUMP

I need a brain dump. So here it is. My brain hurts. I am grinding my teeth, I need to exercise but my treadmill is downstairs and I am too lazy to get to it. I had Farr's Ice Cream Burnt Almond fudge late last night and this morning my stomach hurts, and I am getting so excited about finally finding the article I needed for cultural diversity by John Ogbu.

Last night I was reading this great article by Ogbu and reflected on the irony of my excitement. You see, when I was pursuing my master's degree for Educational Psychology in the late 1990's, I came across his writings then and distinctly remembered loving his stuff. Who would have thought that I would make the connection again so many years later.

His detailed description about cultural diversity really helped me to tease apart one of the complexities of why it is that so many minority students struggle in school. I was quickly reminded of the reality that not all immigrants are treated equal. And not all immigrants have a love for America. You see for me, part of my struggle in the discussion about social justice was that I love America and my experience with the US education system was while not the best in the world, I had to grow into the realization that I was being marginalized and I was being discriminated against, but at the same time, I also believed that I had a responsibility to work through the issues of becoming a good student. I had friends, although I distinctly remember not being invited to many birthday parties when I was in Kansas, I just thought that I just was not popular because of my values of modesty that I practiced as an LDS 6th grader. It never crossed my mind that it was because I part of the reason was that it could have been that I was brown. And then again, maybe it wasn't that I was brown.

Anyone could go crazy thinking and rethinking the past and trying to find the single point that helps you figure out why it is that you might not have been really popular. I couldn't help it that I didn't have blond hair and blue eyes? At the same time, I have to question if that was even the problem? And then again, who really cares? I must have because, because here I am writing about this confusion at the sweet old age of 53. Oh, heck! (My children and husband said that I can't say Oh, my H..... anymore because it just isn't me anymore....hmmmm)

Anyway, back to cultural diversity, the aspect that is deep in my region of processing is the part regarding immigrants who involuntarily came to America, those who were colonized, and their primary relationship with the "dominant" country. Then I remembered thinking about the great Latino students in my several graduate classes who were so articulate and passionate about educational freedom, their rights, and the marginalization they personally experienced in their classes in Texas and in California but not limited to these states. I also remembered thinking that I just couldn't feel their pain and that I was nonplussed that these acts of discrimination were occurring, yet I knew they were occurring. I knew their stories were real, and I knew they needed to be as bold in class because I knew they truly understood the social injustices their nation of people were experiencing. But I didn't get it.

For the longest time, I still didn't get it. Now I have a comprehension of it, but I had to slowly taking the scales from my eyes and recognize the pieces of education that marginalized the Latinos and the African Americans that were in the same way marginalized the Pacific Islanders. Until I could do this, I could not make the connection I needed to find the right fire to battle in my life. I do have my stories of being marginalized in the classroom, the stores, at church. But my desire to fight back doesn't exist.

I believe that there is a reason for my particular point of view in that I also know how to walk with those who have marginalized me and know that the path I am taking is the right one for me to work towards creating awareness among those who I call my friends at work, in my past, and in my future.

You see, Pacific Islanders, while we have been marginalized and discriminated against, we have also been loved and appreciated and accepted. I truly believe that through the natural love and passion we have and the ability we have to integrate with many peoples is a gift and one if used properly can be a part of the solution to unity in our pursuit of maintaining diversity. I have always believed that the Pacific Islanders was the glue that could bring many cultures and race together worldwide. Go figure. I just think we are an awesome people and that we can truly make a difference. Although we are really good with fighting, we are are equally and if not better at loving others, and we don't even need a religion of any sort to do this. It is an inherent part of our nature. More on that later.

If you are wondering why I don't write more about cultural diversity in this forum, it is because I will be writing about the complexity of what I learned in another paper.

Gotta go get ready for work. Feel much better now.

Just how many ways can you say "race?"

Delving into diversity and just what it is....truly is mind-boggling. First there is the notion of diversity, then there is biocultural diversity, and linguistic diversity, and language diversity, and race diversity, and cultural diversity, and ethnic diversity, social diversity, and a host of other diversities that I just cannot keep tracking. I was getting a headache and thought how on earth am I supposed to get this into a working document? Just what are these philosophers doing? Don't they have anything else to do besides "think?" Oh, My Goodness!

Well, I finally determined in my simple little mind that I needed to just center this diversity question around the issue of race since I am going to be analyzing textbooks for their language of neutrality. As I was looking up several court cases related to race, I realized that race and diversity were used interchangeably and that the longer the document, the less I saw the term "race." You have to admit, it is hard to think about race and not get all 'skirmy in the tummy'...especially for our white friends. There are those few that you know work really hard to make life difficulty for the non KKK folks. But then there are those who really are invested in social justice but really don't know how to show that they are on the side of diversity.

So, as I continue to unpack the nuances of diversity, I am sure to discover the strands of language which are more palatable than the term "race." Yet, there is a constant snag the the neutral language or softer terms that disregard the legitimacy of race. It is in the form of data results reflecting a constant gap in student performance between white versus non-white students.

There are some beautiful pieces of the common core standard and assessments and professional learning communities but they truly need to include multicultural pedagogy with a focus on the shift in impact related to race. One thing I know primary social justice researchers are saying is that we don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water. This just means I have a lot of work to do to keep social justice on the agenda through my contribution of showing how social justice is still a side dish and not part of the main entree in this menu of education.

Oh well, just keeping you up to date. I had breakfast today, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, and dessert, and lots of water. Did I tell you the story of a great teacher who was teaching German in his US History class? Yes, that will have to keep for another day.

Just Thinking

It's early early Sunday morning and I was thinking about how crazy "thinking" can be. The more I read the more sleepless I become. I keep tossing and turning because my brain is trying to sort through everything.

It was pretty bad Thursday night. By Friday morning I was a wreck after four nightmares. When I woke up I chose not to eat breakfast and then the day got away from me. By 10:30 a.m. I was at school and was just about ready to give the morning announcements to 1500+ students and 100 teachers when I had a panic attack!

I couldn't believe it. My friend who is the resident school cop saw me and said he was going to call the paramedics to make sure that I wasn't having a heart attack. I said, "Alright already" and kept working until they got there.

They were really sweet, but I could have already told them what I already know. I wasn't having a heart attack, I just didn't have breakfast!. Well when I told my husband, he wasn't having any of my excuses. So I am now under his care to make sure I eat, sleep, and exercise. You gotta love this man.

He doesn't know that I am blogging at 3:31 in the morning. Well I got to go to sleep now.

Eternal Perspective on Diversity

Diversity in the general spectrum of coexistence amplifies that difference and opposition is necessary to achieve the highest potential of increase of any kind. For example, hybrids in biological developments are able to provide stronger, more creative products than if homogeneity were to continue. The same could be said of hybrids formed out of diverse forms of any creation.

The relationship of diversity and similarity as it applies to education is complex and difficult to unpack. What is diversity? The tendency to move to social contexts is too quick. One has to slow down and consider the context of diversity in terms of race. While it is accepted that Adam and Eve were the same, their children were of many races, for reasons that are accepted in the Christian world. Yet, there is no indication that God does not love all of his children and there is evidence that He does not respect persons based on color, meaning white children are not loved any more than children of color. If we were to base our notions of diversity on race diversity, then it could be said that even God’s children of color are legitimate heirs to all that God has to offer to all His children.

So in the context of race diversity and thinking of children in terms of a hybrid, this heterogeneity of diversity is critical in terms of all His children be allowed full access to their full potential. This can only happen when all of humanity loves, not tolerates, understands, and appreciates, even uses each others’ knowledge as a way to maximize their potential as children of our Heavenly Father. In other words, if He accepts us for who we are and knows our respective potential, why is it that we as His children are struggling to accept the value of diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, and culture?

I find this interesting in the broad spectrum of comprehending the need to cloak race with language that is designed to remove race out of critical conversations.

Obstacles are a Known Commodity

My husband said that I should keep a journal about my journey as a Ph.D student because I have had to struggle so much in just getting passionate about something worth getting a doctoral degree.

You know it is really sad when you have to think about the possibility of career suicide when you think about a topic. But that has been a dilemma for me. I already work in my field and the idea that I would say something that might anger my future employer is really not of interest to me because I still have to feed my family. So sad that you cannot express what should occur to right the wrong all because the consequences hurt those you love the most.

As I thought and struggled about what to do, all I can think was, what a crisis. I got a letter from my department chair who said that I had reached my 7 year mark and that I would need to justify why I should stay in the department. Ultimately that meant that I had to come up with a subject for my dissertation, get my Committee Chair to buy off on the idea, generate a timeline and then I am at the mercy of the people who were supposed to teach me something of worth. I think they tried, but I was still unpacking the nuances of my own life as it related to this degree that I am currently pursuing. This journey led reflections of the sacrifices and challenges me and my family had to make just to get me this far.

My mind reflected on how just this past week I was worried about how I was going to register for my 3-credit class because I had a block on my account because of a prior bill. When I tried to find out about the bill, I just kept getting the run round about how the university did not do their part so the legal aspect of this mess was that I ultimately was at the mercy of the university. Here I am trying to just graduate and figure out how to pay for this semester, when the dire humor actually hinged on just having the ability to register. This was just par for the course This single incident has been a constant throughout my entire career...worrying about survival while in pursuit of a lofty goal has been an added pressure.

I guess if I am willing to take a stance on anything it would be that my beliefs about how God had His hand in my life has given me the added assurance that if I endure to the end, I will see the blessings that are in store for me and for that I am grateful. It doesn't matter how hard things get, what matters is how well I handle the tough things in life and arrive home with the gold.

The fight is not over yet.

What is social justice to me

So I settled on social justice. What is social justice in education? Have you ever felt that a topic was so huge that you just didn't know how to talk about it? But here is just a thought. Social justice is a living breathing element of rights, privileges, and entitlements that are found in society that are accessible to rich and the poor, the whites and the nonwhites, the old and the young, the heterosexuals and the LGBTs, and the able and the disabled. When we speak of social justice, however, we often find ourselves speaking about the social injustices that exist in our society because of unequal access that the majority of society have experienced in their lifetimes. I am a product of social injustice in education and I have a voice.

I will be chronicling my thoughts just so I can get a grip on what I want to talk about for my dissertation to help me get through this stage in my life. I am already stressed just writing about it. My vulnerability about my thinking tells me that I am afraid that someone will tell me that I am too simplistic or that I will not make sense, or that they would say, "so what" but that is a risk I take because I do believe there is something in my heart that is worth sharing. In the meantime, I am deep breathing.

School is stressing me out

I am working on a dissertation topic and I am struggling. You see I am not a brilliant student. I am not a great student. I am really pretty average. But because I am a brown, short, fat, Samoan woman, someone said to me, "You know...you really have something to say." Twenty-five years later I am still trying to figure out what I wanted to say. You see, I am in education and have been going to school since forever. I got a bachelor's degree and a master of science degree and I thought....what the blazin' trails...I might as well finish the journey and get a philosophy of doctorate degree since I am more than half way there. But there is one problem. I don't know that I have even said anything or believe that my words really could make a difference.

Here I am nearing end of my PhD journey and I find myself at the crossroad of,"Should I quit or should I not quit." Each time I try to quit I can't. During my journey I have found that I have so much in my heart and so much to say, yet I have a heart of a lion but the voice of a mouse. In so many ways I blamed this on my Samoan culture, of being seen and not heard, as well as on the Generation Boom era of women are seen but have no voice.

Finding my voice is killing me. I want so badly to break out of myself and just when I am ready to speak I stop myself, just like I have stopped myself so many times before. I am so well trained in being politically correct and not rocking the boat, that taking my rightful place in the education profession just hasn't happened. This need to be accepted in the white world has put me in precarious position of not being noticed when deep down inside I know exactly where I stand.

Digging through these multiple layer of awareness has stifled my personal progression and my professional acceptance in the world of academe. But just give me a minute. If there is one thing I am great at, it is enduring to the end and getting the prize.

Will the pain ever go away

Here we go again. Another day in back-pain hell. This tossing and turning has just got to stop. The excruciating pain is unbelievable and yet I still do nothing about it. For every toss and turn in bed, I am rewarded with a burst of shocking waves that just shoots through both of my legs. Living with this has caused me sleepless nights. So why don't I take care of this problem..... I guess the memory of more surgery is just too much.

You see, I blame the start of my back pain to the time when I was given an epidural in my back to block the pain that I knew I would experience in giving birth to my third son. But the epidural magic never kicked in...instead I felt every bit of the pain of birth. But worse, the doctor kept trying to get the needle in my back and was poking around in all the wrong places. It was probably a good thing that I couldn't see what he was doing, but my poor sweet husband was visibly turning white. That in and of itself was shocking because he is a brown man. I remember him saying, "Honey, don't move, just be still, okay." Later, he described this bloody mess to me and said there was plenty of blood to make any man sick.

Since then, I had never been the same. Like clockwork, when I walked, bent, knelt, laid, danced, worked, held my children, I would feel this shift in my back every week. And then it came. This nightmare that would never go away, and yes I was wide awake. This pure stroke of electricity ripping across my lower back and down through both of my legs. This excruciating shock was strong enough to drop me to the floor and left me sobbing. My children never really knew that it was unusual for me to raise them from my in bed, on crutches, or on a hard chair. Today, it is a dull memory of 11 years of despair after my back surgery. Life is so much better. But recovery is a real.... well you know what I mean.

But I really should go see a doctor, but who has time. I really have no time.

What the Blazin' Trails...

Who would've of thought that I would become a blogger! I have always wanted to write about whatever I wanted and that eventually it would make sense. But I never really thought about writing for anyone to see. This a huge risk as a boomer in her 50s but that should not stop you from reading this blog if you are a GenX kid. I am in a crazy stage of life right now and just need to get a few things off my chest. So this social outlet is a perfect setting for me. I just hope my supervisor doesn't try to follow this blog or he will just have to fire me. Oh well.

So you will be reading about my life in its current reality while at the same time reading on my reflections and life experiences that have shaped and molded me. Of course your posts are welcome, because I do want to know that someone is out there for real and that this blog might actually be entertaining. Now, if it is a sleeper, would you please stay awake long enough to write back. Okay.....so that's it. I have to go to sleep because this boomer still has a traditional job since my flight attendant days are over. Oh....that's right. I never was a flight attendant. lol.