Pure Manaʻo

I  have moved from doctoral student to dissertation chair in five years. It is a scary leap (or in this case, PLUNGE) into the unknown. I learn from the other chairs. I seek advice from my mentor and I laugh nervously when the program asks me to talk about things like my theoretical lens or my methodology. But I go into those scary, dark corners and learn as fast as I can because there are doctoral students that rely on me to get it together and figure out ways to help them meet these head splitting deadlines that seemed easier for me when I was the student. I can control myself. I cannot control anyone else. I know how to push myself to get my act together. I talk about this semi abusive self talk here a lot. But how to show both compassion and actionable support for others is difficult. I am trying not to fall apart. First, our Ed.D. program incorporates two (2) capstone projects in their 3-year cohort program. What that means is that besides spending about a year in a consu...

While I am saddened by the loss of Toni Morrison (2/18/31 - 8/5/19), the power of a writer is that their message lives on to teach more generations in the future.  When I heard that she had passed, I thought about those students I had that were assigned her books for summer reading in my AP Language class back in the 90's. I assigned Bluest Eye  one summer and Beloved  another summer. I always held my breath until school started because I thought that if I were ever challenged by a parent or an administrator for my controversial choice, I would go down swinging and be willing to be fired for my choices. I also wonder what my students really thought about my choices.  I saw one of my alumni a few years back and she said that what she remembered from my AP class was that I had them read the most interesting, non traditional literature. Nice! I even gave my youngest son Beloved   to read when his 8th grade English teacher said she wanted them to r...