Welcome to The Spaces in Between, a weekly newsletter on culture, language, and technology written by Stephan Caspar. If you’re new here, then welcome, feel free to subscribe.
Hope that you’re well and had a good week.
This morning the sunshine floods through the blinds and I’m up early to drink coffee and write this newsletter. As you know, I usually write in the evenings, but last night I stayed up late and watched a film. Let’s see what all this daylight does for me.
The film I watched was Nomadland which was brilliant and beautiful. It is both a fiction film and a documentary with fictional characters inserted, that part-interview and work with “real” people playing gently scripted versions of themselves. It moves between these worlds as the title suggests, from person to person, place to place, working, sleeping, and revealing a side of America that is rarely shown on screen. Frances McDormand gives an assured, sensitive portrayal of Fern, a widow, working shifts in an Amazon Fulfillment Center (the word fulfillment here is chilling) and traveling in her van (Vanguard) through the badlands of South Dakota and later onwards to Oregon to work jobs, visit family and retrace moments in her life.
I hope you get a chance to see it. Tell me what you thought in the comments below or email me if you want by replying if you received this via email. It is lovely to hear from you and thank you for sharing and coming along on this journey with me.
Stephan
Teaching & Learning
I thought I would take a step back from the weekly updates of my teaching and learning, to think about the longer trajectory of scholarship and what the future might look like.
Looking ahead already to next semester and Spring 2022 when I will be taking a sabbatical to write, travel, and talk to colleagues elsewhere, hopefully, spending some time with some of our sister institutions here in the US and elsewhere. A plan is slowly starting to come together and I know that if I don’t put a few things in place now, then there won’t be the time or space to achieve some of what I hope to do.
It is the first time, I think in any role that I’ve had, that I have thought this far ahead. Now I have something approximating a three-year plan. The strategy in other jobs has been mostly reactive, as work comes in, we do it, refining systems to deal more efficiently with requests and making sure there is capacity for additional work. Scholarship is much more of a slow burn, despite how frenetic it seems at times. Truth be told, I was often frustrated working with academics, their processes seemed opaque and conversations seemed to move a such a slow pace, but I’m starting to see it now from the other side, that there’s so much piecing together of parts. Work can be solitary, collaboration means listening carefully. It is a much more forensic approach than I ever imagined.
I updated my Educate Spaces website this week, to include my reappointment portfolio (under Current Work). I also added this semester’s plan, which seems to be going okay, at least I have a better understanding of what I need to do, even if under current circumstances it is still hard to achieve.
Life Lessons
Following last week’s petition, I’m pleased to say that teachers in Pennsylvania have been bumped up to Tier 1A and are now eligible to receive vaccines. Across America, vaccine shots are now averaging around 2 million per day, at this rate, almost everyone eligible will have received at least one dose by October. However, this has also been the week where several states have lifted mask mandates and re-opening, crucially at a time when the CDC is bracing for a fourth wave to creep in before majority immunization.
It really is two Americas, divided along political lines to the degree that Republicans on Capitol Hill are voting unanimously against the American Rescue Plan that has overwhelming support across the country, including Republican State Governors and City Mayors, and by 77% of Americans and 59% of Republican Voters. It seems there are no policies on the right, that opposition means blocking everything (even when it goes against self-interest), and all that is remains is owning the libs.
It really is hard to reconcile these things and I say again that there is decency and understanding when you’re talking with people, on either side of the political divide. Our community might have purple tinges, but political talk doesn’t often figure on the sidelines of soccer games, or occasional socially distanced get-togethers. I hope that politicians’ attempts to divide will ultimately fail and people can get on with living side by side, fixing stuff, contributing, and working together. It’s the dream I suppose, we can’t go on like this forever.
Lost and Found
We played silly games in our LangTech class, wore hats, and played pass the banana. I couldn’t figure out sharing the screen so that everyone could see each other, (can someone remind me?) so I shouted directions and we managed to somehow get the banana around us all. Thankfully one of our group reminded us that this was an ideal activity in a language lesson. Phew, I mean, of course!
A few articles I read this week.
Crush your next virtual class is a useful reminder of some of the strategies for engagement that might have been lost through zoom fatigue. I particularly liked the call to open with a story that speaks to your audience. Too often we just get on with business and forget to settle in and reconnect.
Miguel Cardona has been confirmed as the US’s Education Secretary. At last, an educator, someone who has taught fourth grade, worked his way up from a principal and assistant super and who will lead at a crucial time, with school re-openings and catching up of lost learning a priority now and at least the next three years.
Having just finished collaborating on a paper about the use of video in HE teaching, and a call to make and use video in a playful way, this article about long videos on the ALT website had me nodding and agreeing. It speaks again to the challenge that exists between academics' instincts about video and the evidence that supports the implementation. I too think that shorter, focused content is more useful, but this is often met with incredulity by colleagues who enjoy presenting and think an hour of video is absolutely what students need. No… that’s simply not the case.
Thank you
Regular readers may know that I’m a big fan of poetry and look forward to new collections, including the Forward Book of Poetry. These poets and their poems charm or provoke, shatter or fill your heart with hope. I’m on a binge at the moment and have loved it. The Poetry Foundation is celebrating Women’s History Month with a fine collection of work that explores women’s history and women's rights.
The poem below isn’t from any of these sites but stumbled across it trying to find out more about the snowdrops that have popped up by our garden steps.
I have a weekend of garden chores and tidying ahead, hope that I get a bit of time to sketch or paint. We’re currently without a dishwasher at the moment, so I’ve been listening to a load of podcasts. If you’re a fan of HBO’s The Wire, then certainly recommend The Wire Stripped with Kobi and Dave, each week exploring an episode with chats with the cast and insights from fans. Still the greatest television show ever created.
I’m also hoping for a bike ride on Sunday if the good weather holds. There have been some rumored sightings of the Roundabout Popup Beer Tent on the Northside, so perhaps we should go and see what’s occurring (as they say in Wales - Happy St.David’s Day!)
Have a good week and I’ll see you next time.
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