Synthesis Statement
There is a quote sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein, “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” When it comes to the diversity of cultures and ways of knowing this quote rings true. Clearly I will never stop learning about how different people approach education, and it is fair to say that I will never truly understand exactly how others see the world. However, I believe that empathy is one of the great strengths of humanity, it is what makes possible the complex societies we live in. As an educator, it is essential that I empathize with the students and faculty I work with. Doing so helps me better understand their situation and come to a better critical understanding about how to act with purpose.
I have chosen to use my CCE 577 Learning in Adulthood class Action Research Project Narrative/ Case Study to represent my learning towards this outcome. I think it is most appropriate because interviewing a learner from a very different background from myself, in this case a black woman originally from the Caribbean island of Saint Thomas, allowed me to get a better understanding of myself as a learner. Even though I had known and worked with this individual for years, there were things I did not realize and small assumptions that I did not realize I had.
Using theoretical frameworks as a way to critically understand my interviewee as a learner was a useful way for me to better understand her as a learner and also highlight the similarities between us. My interviewee could be viewed through the lense of operating with a multidimensional black identity development model (Sellers, Smith, Shelton, Rowley, & Chavous, 1998, as cited by Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2013). She coped with the stigma of a marginalized identity, though interestingly many of those stigmas seemed to be more closely associated with her Caribbean cultural background rather than her race, and she had a strong association with the history and culture of being black. My interviewee spoke about how small things, like dressing for the Northwest climate, tended to set her apart from others or about how one of the main difficulties about being a black woman living in Bellingham is that she has difficulty finding a hairdresser.
Gender was also an interesting dynamic with this action research project. While my interviewee did not highlight gender as a major issue in her educational journey it was useful to look at the chronology of her education using Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule’s (as cited by Merriam et al., 2013) categories for women’s ways of knowing: silence, received knowledge, subjective knowledge, procedural knowledge, and constructed knowledge. It was especially interesting to hear about how she has used silence as a coping mechanism. It is also clear that while she can operate in the dimension of constructed knowledge, wherein she appreciates knowledge as contextual and is a co-creator of knowledge, she will also opt for a procedural knowledge approach when needed. In attempting to better understand my interviewee’s learning journey, including the similarities and differences with my own journey, I believe that it helps me better empathize with the other learners I will work with in my career.
It’s important in my work as a librarian Western to be able to appreciate the diverse paths that bring learners to interact with me. Some of this diversity is visible or audible, but that kind of a view on the diverse paths of learners at Western is overly simplistic and often not deep enough. As McIntosh (1988) has very effectively demonstrated, as a white male I grew up with certain privileges in today’s society. However, I think it is worth taking a broad view on our identities and social privileges and barriers that we all effectively have an invisible knapsack that constructs our identity and shapes us as learners. Adult learners don’t come to Western preprogrammed with the academic literacies they need to succeed. If they did, I would be out of a job. Instead, they need to be invited into the scholarly community and learn how to access, evaluate, and use information. It is essential for me, in my work, to be able to empathize and try to understand where a learner in coming from in order to better understand what they need. There is the old maxim that people don’t know what they don’t know. That often makes it hard to express a need, so as a librarian it is not unusual for me to spend some time getting to know a students context in order to help them better engage in library research.
I have chosen to use my CCE 577 Learning in Adulthood class Action Research Project Narrative/ Case Study to represent my learning towards this outcome. I think it is most appropriate because interviewing a learner from a very different background from myself, in this case a black woman originally from the Caribbean island of Saint Thomas, allowed me to get a better understanding of myself as a learner. Even though I had known and worked with this individual for years, there were things I did not realize and small assumptions that I did not realize I had.
Using theoretical frameworks as a way to critically understand my interviewee as a learner was a useful way for me to better understand her as a learner and also highlight the similarities between us. My interviewee could be viewed through the lense of operating with a multidimensional black identity development model (Sellers, Smith, Shelton, Rowley, & Chavous, 1998, as cited by Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2013). She coped with the stigma of a marginalized identity, though interestingly many of those stigmas seemed to be more closely associated with her Caribbean cultural background rather than her race, and she had a strong association with the history and culture of being black. My interviewee spoke about how small things, like dressing for the Northwest climate, tended to set her apart from others or about how one of the main difficulties about being a black woman living in Bellingham is that she has difficulty finding a hairdresser.
Gender was also an interesting dynamic with this action research project. While my interviewee did not highlight gender as a major issue in her educational journey it was useful to look at the chronology of her education using Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule’s (as cited by Merriam et al., 2013) categories for women’s ways of knowing: silence, received knowledge, subjective knowledge, procedural knowledge, and constructed knowledge. It was especially interesting to hear about how she has used silence as a coping mechanism. It is also clear that while she can operate in the dimension of constructed knowledge, wherein she appreciates knowledge as contextual and is a co-creator of knowledge, she will also opt for a procedural knowledge approach when needed. In attempting to better understand my interviewee’s learning journey, including the similarities and differences with my own journey, I believe that it helps me better empathize with the other learners I will work with in my career.
It’s important in my work as a librarian Western to be able to appreciate the diverse paths that bring learners to interact with me. Some of this diversity is visible or audible, but that kind of a view on the diverse paths of learners at Western is overly simplistic and often not deep enough. As McIntosh (1988) has very effectively demonstrated, as a white male I grew up with certain privileges in today’s society. However, I think it is worth taking a broad view on our identities and social privileges and barriers that we all effectively have an invisible knapsack that constructs our identity and shapes us as learners. Adult learners don’t come to Western preprogrammed with the academic literacies they need to succeed. If they did, I would be out of a job. Instead, they need to be invited into the scholarly community and learn how to access, evaluate, and use information. It is essential for me, in my work, to be able to empathize and try to understand where a learner in coming from in order to better understand what they need. There is the old maxim that people don’t know what they don’t know. That often makes it hard to express a need, so as a librarian it is not unusual for me to spend some time getting to know a students context in order to help them better engage in library research.
Artifact
References
Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1997). Women’s ways of knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind. New York: Basic Books.
McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. Presented at the Virginia Women’s Studies Association Conference and the American Educational Research Association Conference, Richmond, VA; Boston, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED335262
Merriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., & Baumgartner, L. M. (2013). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide (3 [ebook edition].). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Sellers, R. M., Smith, M. A., Shelton, J. N., Rowley, S. A., & Chavous, T. M. (1998). Multidimensional model of racial identity: A reconceptualization of African American racial identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(1), 18–39.
McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. Presented at the Virginia Women’s Studies Association Conference and the American Educational Research Association Conference, Richmond, VA; Boston, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED335262
Merriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., & Baumgartner, L. M. (2013). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide (3 [ebook edition].). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Sellers, R. M., Smith, M. A., Shelton, J. N., Rowley, S. A., & Chavous, T. M. (1998). Multidimensional model of racial identity: A reconceptualization of African American racial identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(1), 18–39.