In case you didn’t know already, I’m not a professional writer. Maybe it’s obvious, I don’t know. Nevertheless, here’s a little inside baseball. I don’t get any credit for any of the education blogging or posting that I do. I don’t get any credit for editorials or anything else. As a faculty member in the so-called Ivory Tower, all of this stuff is lumped into what’s called “service.” So, according to the laws of promotion and tenure, I am serving the community at large with my Interweb contributions. I apparently serve my community with my awesome knowledge in a myriad of other ways, like sitting on committees, reviewing proposals, and other miscellany. All of this writing, all the connections I make, does not amount to a hill of beans unless it contributes to better teaching or some kind of scholarly venture. Nevermind that online, and NOT in academic journals, is where all the action is in education reform.
But I always laugh when the assumption is, right out of graduate school, that we need to write. Write, write, write, so much writing, so little time. And our advisors and mentors actually convince us, without any formal training, that we can actually write, and write well. We complain about all the writing that we have to do and then brag about the new book chapter we’re going to write as a result of a conference brainstorming session over crappy finger foods and cheap red wine. Part of the problem here is that many of us did not receive formal training in good writing, despite the pressures to write so much. Sure, we’ve been counseled on academic writing and the formula of the academic article. But not on making education writing accessible, readable, and interesting. That comes with talent that some have and some don’t.
This is where the education-journo comes in. They know how to write, they’re trained to access information. Empower them with a little knowledge about a subject, say education, let them observe a few classrooms, follow people around, and boom, you have an education “expert” who can write and effectively communicate ideas. Take Richard Whitmire. Here, again, he gets it all wrong. He has his journalistic pulse on a very narrow stream in the overall conversation on education. He then assumes that it’s an entire one half of the reform story, with the other half uninterested in reform, which is patently untrue. We, as educators, have a real problem when it comes to messaging. I’m doing my best, but I’m only one person. What to do?
Hello Julia, how’s it going? I suppose in my role as a newbie, and being so close to some of the epicenters of education reform in both DC and Baltimore, I think the frequencies of education research and more mainstream writings are no longer intersecting. Here’s just one thought, and I could be wrong. Take gender, for instance. I read a lot of great discussion about increasing representations of masculinity, of reducing bullying by tackling homophobia. I also see constant and very tiring debates about how many more letters we need to tack on to LGBT, is it LGBTIQQ, or is it LGBTIQQDLEUFEUENVKD? It’s kind of like Pi, isn’t it? While those conversations occur, and are useful, schools are still segregating boys and girls. They’re still in the dark ages. So is it not time to slow down some of the ridiculous nuance in education research, where every graduate student and academic views some new inane TV show or text through a gendered lens as if looking at that particular show is going to somehow crack the code? “We’ve never looked at the Jersey Shore through a socio-curricular lens before, so perhaps this is it!” I get it, that’s where many like myself have earned their analytical chops, but academics are getting hammered in the mainstream press and other publications, so it’s about time we adjust our tactics.
Some of us do try. And when we teach, we do this “translation” as well. I think it is important to practice BOTH forms of writing about our chosen vocations–academic and popular. Translation is inevitably just that–an approximation. Nuances and maybe even accuracy often get lost. And yet, we also gain insight, expand sources of input and, perhaps, engage voices normally silenced or ignored. It is a lot of juggling. I don’t fault the academy for being wary of popular (or translated) writing. Research and researchers do speak an odd and somewhat obtuse language–sometimes for very good reason. The fine points of a sound “finding” can become completely distorted through an ideological lens or through the pressure to conform to a media, an audience, or a popular gestalt of an era.
It’s good to keep our conversational channels open. It’s also good to remember how easily research gets hijacked by “common sense.” Bravo for you for doing service. I’ve seen outright theft of scholarly research done in the name of “making it accessible.” Good ideas, important understandings “translated” and then literally marketed to school people who just want to do better, quickly, effectively. Again, in the cause of the quick fix, the real solution gets betrayed.
What I find, as I do both kinds of writing, is that they wind up informing each other. As a newbie, even in my maturity, I see that I am “in process” as a communicator of ideas. Here’s to ya, Shaun. I’ll meet you on the e-waves and in the journals, too!