a worm's dream

Perhaps I am the only Ph.D. student (though I doubt it) you'll find who would say I am doing my Ph.D. because my dream is to be a writer. And I have neither the confidence nor the courage to pursue this dream any way else.

The learner as the curriculum-maker

I was recently introduced to this idea in class. Many teachers struggle with the proposition that they could be curriculum makers in the classroom, many preferring to stick rigidly to the curriculum handed down to them by the curriculum specialists. So even more untoward is that idea that you should consider what your students want to learn and give them freedom to decide along with you what to learn.

But, I, having never been a school teacher, and having always, all my life, a learner, think that the learner as a curriculum maker is a wonderful wonderful idea. How sad that for so many years of my life, what I studied was dictated by the authorities, it was based on national interests, instead of my personal interests! How sad, that I spent hours learning things like differentiation and partial fractions (no offense to mathematicians), things they said were important for me, rather than perhaps pursuing something that may have more bearing on my future contribution to society.

Forgive that personal gripe. Today, I may not have a Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, or Oxford curriculum, what gives smart people their status, but what I am in control of is personally designing my own Shuyi-curriculum that fits me. I will buy any book I think I need to enrich my thinking. I will speak to anyone I think can help me achieve my goals. I will decide on my own how my journey will unfold. I will be my own curriculum-maker.

My secret to writing

"Many people who want to write are unconsciously seeking peace, a coming together, an acknowledging of our happiness or an examination of what is broken, hoping to embrace and bring our suffering to wholeness." - Natalie Goldberg, May 2015

Many found it incredible or even wrong when I told them the secret behind my Masters thesis. Yes, it was written to advance knowledge of the field and yes, it hopefully was of some benefit to education and teachers, but mainly, I did it for me. I wrote it to explore an area I was having challenges in my personal life and to bring healing, firstly, to myself.

That area I was struggling with was that of authority. My thesis was also about authority. The authority I was struggling with in my life was church authority - the authority of my thesis was government authority. Every time I wrote about government authority, I was drawing lessons for myself. Every time I drew lessons for myself, I changed the object and the context, and I was writing about government authority. By the time I finished my thesis, I had an answer for the educational world, but also for myself. It was alright to challenge authority, all sorts of authority, even scholarly ones. And I should be afraid of no one.

This experience was powerful. It taught me that by using intuition, abstraction, analogies, and simply the power of making connections, I can write about something I did not have direct experience with. I can draw upon my emotions and knowledge in a personal area of my life and apply it into a professional and academic setting. It taught me that academic work and writing can be a seeking of truth and a journey of healing. It was a powerful experience.

So this time round, I'm going to try something like that with my Ph.D. I hoped to tap on something even more primal, that innate need to tell our stories, and the ability of stories to heal - narrative therapy... But professionally, it will be about pedagogical content knowledge, how the teacher transforms her knowing into a telling, such that students can receive the telling and it becomes their knowing. It's a child-centered and progressive way of education, provoking students to think, because stories can yield rich meanings, both for the teacher and her students. And for me. :)

"Pay yourself first."

The daily investment of time is also crucial. Although he saw patients all day, Freud spent a couple of  hours writing each night. In an academic world whose demands keep your nose to the grindstone, your shoulder to the wheel, and your ear to the ground, it is difficult to climb that research ladder of success. Consider an old investment principle: Pay yourself first. Just as the first bite from a monthly paycheck should be invested in personal savings, the first (or some) part of each day should be earmarked for research. Remember, how you spend your days is how you spend your life.

Kenneth A. Kiewra (1994)

Your choice

You can choose to do your Ph.D., write your thesis, with a lot of love or with hatred.

You can choose these two years to be full of excitement and adventure, problem solving, and fun; or years of fear and torture, insecurity, afraid of being wrong, full of problems and obstacles.

You know... Today I decide that I want this work to be a labour of love. I want to do it with much heart and joy and little regrets. I want to be forgiving and grateful for this opportunity that will probably never come again. Remember, an unfettered opportunity to grow and learn, how rare to have it as an adult! Regardless how it pans out, I would have benefited from the process. It doesn't have to be a hastey, angry experience. It will be a period of sustained intellectual discovery and effort. And I have always found such experiences fun. So yes, doing a Ph.D. can be fun.

Are you ready?