Monday, September 24, 2018

"This is My Fight Song" - Self-Discovery


Vol 3 No 3

Last week, the blog focused on vulnerability and how it’s okay to be uncomfortable sometimes.   As a rule, I send the blog around to various folks, including Honors faculty.  One of them. Dave McGuire, responded with this:

[T]here is also a lot about self-discovery in Honors, how we each have huge tracts of dimly sensed, vast shrouded tracts of as-yet unknown, unrealized potential self that we sometimes yearn to plumb—also scary, perhaps—we might find things we did not expect, or that contradict or threaten the persona.

I love this idea of self-discovery as one of the characteristics of Honors.  It’s actually folded into the idea of reflection and how, in Honors, we try to focus on ourselves as learners in any context.  By doing so, we can break down the walls that separate one discipline from another and can help us transfer learning strategies from one class to another.  We also try to foster a sense of life-long learning – that we will never stop being curious, being exploratory, being passionate delvers into the world around us.  But perhaps one of the core aspects of this that is largely unstated is the fact that it’s not learning in the sense that we are acquiring knowledge.  It’s experiencing the world.  It’s understanding as much as we can.  It’s resisting the urge to fall into a resigned existence formed on habit and comfort.  Thoreau once said that “[t]he mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” and this is the fate from which we would save as many as we can.  To do this – to experience the world with all its glory and its grimness – we must also understand ourselves.  Sometimes, looking inward is the hardest direct to look and doing so from the comfort of a supportive classroom or a gathering of fellow students can ease that process.

It is a classroom in which a student can comfortably refer to her own “gay little feminist heart” with no fear of reproach.

It is a reflective essay in which a student can realize that the wrong environment “can throw [her] so off kilter that [she] do[es] not have the mental capacity for anything other than mindlessly playing with [her] phone”

It’s a male student who realizes that a course that is solely about women “may not affect me directly but certainly matter to me greatly”.

It’s a student who comes to realize “[w]e are all motivated by not only our mental state, but our circumstance” and who feels comfortable discussing her own battles with mental illness in a class about women who face the same battles and make horrific choices as a result.

Last week, I was at a scholarship dinner with the recipient of an award and we happened to be seated at a table with the Provost of FLCC.  He asked her what it was about Honors that was so appealing to her and she immediately responded with “Honors is home.”  From there, she went into a lengthy description of what Honors courses, faculty, and students were like and her passion for it was no less than her passion for conversation about her major, her educational plans, and her desire to teach at a community college.  I’ve seen so many students come through Honors and have some powerful conversations about Tolkien, about Women Who Kill, about the power of memoir, about the beauty of literature, about the future of the world.  But I’ve seen just as many students share heart breaking and uplifting stories about who they are, where they’ve come from, what they are afraid of, and the very things that make them vulnerable.

Not that it is all the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night worrying, or gives me goose bumps as I listen.  Sometimes, it’s just a simple realization that they love a subject more than they thought.  Or that maybe math isn’t outside their skillset.  Or that writing papers doesn’t have to be a painful chore every time.  Even these little self-discoveries are worth savoring, for they may be a ripple in the pond that makes for big changes down the line.  Or maybe, it just made that student's Monday a little bit easier*.

Like a small boat
On the ocean
Sending big waves
Into motion
Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion



 *Apologies for this late blog…I had some family issues that were pressing…and, as we all know, sometimes life happens when we are busy making plans.

Friday, September 14, 2018

(Un)Comfortable


Vol 3 No 2

I recently polled my Perspectives on Tolkien class and my Composition I class – both Honors – and asked them to give me one word they thought of when they thought of Honors.  Now, these classes, for the most part, are made of up two different groups of students.  Tolkien is small – just 9 students – and most of them are not new to Honors or to the college.  The other class has 19 and many of them are brand new not just to Honors, but to FLCC altogether.  All of them knew they were signing up for an Honors class, though, so they had heard SOMETHING about it prior to registration.  The Tolkien class each gave me two words because they wanted to not be limited (and I complied).  Here are the compiled words.


Amazing
Uncertainty
Homey
Stressful
Advanced
Fun
Gifted
Outlet
Home
Refreshing
Powerful
Exclusive
Curiosity (appeared twice)
Advanced
Drive
Rad
Freedom
Open-Ended
Unique
Unique
Welcoming
Learning
Terrifying
Extraordinary


Now, part of me wanted to leave a few of those words off the list – like stressful and terrifying – but I knew I couldn’t do that.  And, quite frankly, I’m not sure that I really DO want to leave them off.  They aren’t the most positive words, of course, but they aren’t necessarily as negative as they may appear.  Last year at the National Collegiate Honors Council, I heard someone say something to the effect of “Come in and make yourself uncomfortable” and that has stuck with me.  I’m also reminded of Eleanor Roosevelt’s advice to “do one thing every day that scares you.”  Being challenged and afraid and uncertain do make us terribly vulnerable…but there is something powerful in vulnerability, too.  So, yes, an Honors class may challenge you to face things that scare you – like having to participate in class or not being able to ‘hide’ in the back – but you’ve chosen to do that because you have some of those other things in the list.  You are also amazing and unique and you have a penchant for learning.  You will very quickly learn how welcoming Honors is and how much it can come to feel like home. 

I recently watched a student struggle with some of these concepts even though she was a firm believer in Honors and fully endorses all that it offers.  Folks who know Jill Bond know that she is one of the most prolific delvers into Honors, but it’s not always an easy path even for her.  As part of FLCC’s Women’s Initiative on Leadership, she read Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly:  How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way we Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.  She was not a fan of the book at first, even going so far as to say that she “despised and rejected this entire ideology since vulnerability has never quite seemed to work out.”  The more she reflected, however, the more she realized that “Brown was right when she said vulnerability is the key to creativity and inspiration, since the more I shared my work and received feedback on it, the more motivated I was to continue working and striving towards increased skill and ability.”  In the end, she vows to “actively try to be more vulnerable since clearly it is helping in the creation of my own artistic and academic pieces.”  

This is a powerful realization and a testament to what Roosevelt encourages of us.

While I remain committed to curiosity as the cornerstone and tagline of Honors, I wonder if it has two other core concepts.  “Come in and make yourself uncomfortable” may not be the most welcoming of messages, but it is something to realize about Honors.  Being uncomfortable isn’t such a bad thing if you know that you are in a safe place in which to push yourself beyond your comfort zone.  And inviting students to be vulnerable may not encourage them to join us in Honors, but what if they come and find themselves ‘at home’ – then, perhaps, they can feel comfortable enough in their discomfort to reveal who they are and where their passions lie.  After all, our passions are close to our hearts as well as being close to our minds.

Come to Honors and share with us…you might find yourself feeling vulnerable and terrified and stressed – but, more importantly, you will feel welcomed and supported.

Come in and make yourself (un)comfortable.




Thursday, September 6, 2018

Welcome Back!


Vol 3 No 1

Welcome back, returning students and welcome to FLCC to all you new folks!

Honors has so many exciting things to talk about and we hope you are all rested from a summer that was satisfying in whatever it provided for you.  We also hope you’re looking forward to a fulfilling and productive semester at FLCC and that Honors will be an active part of those plans!  Speaking of which, we have a number of dates for you to put on your calendar…

Before we do that, though, we want to remind you that it is NOT too late to add an Honors class to your schedule!  There are plenty of seats in our two seminars and from what we’ve heard, they’ve already started strong and enjoyable!  One – Games and Storytelling – meets on Tuesday nights and has some great speakers and activities lined up.  The other – on Wednesday evenings – is about food.  How can you go wrong?  There are also seats in Perspectives on Tolkien (ENG 230), MAT 101 and Psychology of Killing (SSC 215).  Remember…just change the prefix to HON on WebAdvisor and you can see what’s out there.  Check with the instructor ASAP and good luck!

Now for those dates…

SEPTEMBER 13 from 10:00 – 2:00Table Day in the hallway outside Stage 14 – and guess who is going to be there?  That’s right – the new HONORS CLUB.  Head on over to see what SWAG is there and find out how you can participate.

OCTOBER 30 from 5:00 – 7:00Fall 2018 Honors Studies Dinner in Stage 14 – open to ALL students who are part of Honors or just curious about it, this dinner has giveaways and a few guest speakers from the college who will voice how much Honors is valued at the college.  Then we hand over the microphone to students to talk about their experiences and answer questions.  You may also hear about next semester’s classes as well.

DECEMBER 5 from 10:00 – 5:00Fall 2018 Honors Studies Convocation Poster Session outside Stage 14 – All Honors Students are invited to create a poster born from the work being done in Honors courses.  More information on this later in the semester, but be brainstorming how you could illustrate the work you are doing and show off the kinds of things we are doing in the world of Honors.

DECEMBER 5 from 5:00 – 6:00Fall 2018 Honors Studies Convocation Presentations in Stage 14 – Four students will take 15 minutes to orally present their Honors work to anyone in attendance.  As with the poster session, more to come on this as we get into the semester.

There will be many more things that we do this semester and the blogs will go back to their weekly schedule, so you have those to look forward to as well.  We will talk about Honors matters, invite guest bloggers, celebrate accomplishments, invite you to various opportunities and events, and generally celebrate Honors.  In the meantime, don’t forget these important things:

Have a GREAT semester and remember….stay curious!