#CriticalConsciousness

[monriatitans]

STUPIDITY QUOTE 16

Thursday, April 11, 2024

“People will often absorb and learn from your advice but then quickly dismiss it as ‘common sense’. The thing about sense though is it’s not that common.” – Torron-Lee Dewar

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The purpose of the Stupidity Quote series is to shine a light on the stupidity of humanity. And to have a laugh, if possible. For more details, click here! Enjoy what I do? Please consider supporting via Buy Me a Coffee! Like what you see and want to know when there’s more? Click here to subscribe for updates and/or hit the Follow button!

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[cunyappliedtheatreblog]

Countdown Profile: Week 4 Alexis Jemal (’21)

Alexis Jemal, JD, LCSW, PhD, clinical faculty member at Hunter’s Silberman School of Social Work, and member of the MA in Applied Theatre class of 2021, talks with Michael Wilson (’11) about her hunger for justice, finding applied theatre, and how she’s just getting started. 

Okay, we’re recording 

The first thing I want to put out there is that I don’t have all the answers or know how all these pieces fit together. I consider this journey to be a work in progress. That’s how I’ve always led my life and have ended up where I am today. It may sound, I don’t know how it will sound at the end, whether it seems it all fits together… 

I’m a many-interested person myself, from anthropology to theatre, and now photography. There’s a connective logic I feel intuitively, but it might not look like it from the outside. I do believe that we attract passionate, interdisciplinary people to the program. 

Exactly. 

I welcome that complexity. 

It is complexity! Which I have found not always welcome or understood. Even in my doctorate program, for example, they’re trying to fit you in a box. They’re trying to say who you are as a researcher. Do you do this, do you do that?

 At first, I started out in law, because I wanted to help people. The main message in my personal statement for law school was: “stealing bread is wrong, whether it’s done by the king or the man living beneath the bridge.” I had read this passage in a sociology textbook. That made me think about inequity, and how, well, the king will never be prosecuted for stealing bread…

I went to law school because I wanted to be an advocate for the man, woman, child, person who lives under the bridge. I loved law school. But then I had a bunch of internships at places, like in the chambers of a Federal District Judge, at the New York Civil Liberties Union, at MFY Legal Services in New York that provides legal services to indigent people, and the Public Defender’s Office in my home county in New Jersey. And I kept seeing injustice after injustice after injustice. A person who is getting evicted from their house, yes, you could help them not be evicted, legally, but that wouldn’t help with their mental health issues, or their substance abuse issues. It wouldn’t help with the trauma they’ve experienced in their family history, or the macro sociopolitical issues that are harming them.

 So I figured, social work is where I really want to go. I ended up first working at this place at Rutgers called the Center for Behavior Health Services and Criminal Justice Research. That’s when I learned I was interested in research, because we were testing psychosocial interventions within the women’s prison in New Jersey. I was really seeing the intersection [between] the intrapersonal, interpersonal, the mezzo, the macro…everything was interacting. I thought, this is what I want to do. I want to be on the frontlines but I also want to be a researcher. I was one of two students that were admitted to the first PhD MSW program that Rutgers started—one foot in front of the other, the stars just kind of aligned… In my doctorate program, I was not planning to go into a professorship. I wanted to do more the non-profit route. But I began to consider how going into social work education could be advocacy in a way that I get to help shape future social workers. I could be that change that I want to see in social work.

 Thank you for sharing that. I’m inspired by that.

 It all intersects. To me, social workers have no excuse. We are the only field, as far as I know, to have an ethical mandate to address oppression. When any social injustice occurs, we should be the first responders. Instead, we’re trying to be psychologists, or something. 

Technically, at Silberman School of Social Work, I am clinical faculty. I get to, in my class, bring the message of how clinical work and social justice need to be integrated and practiced. Like: “I get it, you guys want to go out and you want do therapy, but you will be interacting with multiple systems, and there’s no way around it. So how are you going to practice with an anti-oppressive lens?”

 So that’s the teaching. I’m also a researcher, right? My interventions are always grounded in critical theory, liberation health models, restorative justice-type practices. They’re always about developing critical consciousness. 

For my dissertation, I wanted to create a scale of Paolo Freire’s critical consciousness. As a doctoral student I was developing an intervention called Community Wise, that’s grounded in critical consciousness theory. Community Wise is a group intervention, it’s fifteen two-hour weekly sessions, for people who were recently released from incarceration. It’s supposed to reduce HIV STI risk, criminal reoffending, psychological distress, and substance use. And it’s grounded in critical consciousness theory, meaning that we have these critical dialogues, and we have capacity building projects, where the participants work on some type of project together. 

The theory is called transformative potential: a scale of critical consciousness. The heart of the theory is that…when people [social workers] design interventions, like substance abuse interventions, they’re trying to get these people to use substances less, but really, what we’re arguing, is substance abuse is a symptom. It is not the issue. The issue is oppression. If we can find ways to get at the root of the issue, then substance use will decrease.

 And there’s the Freirian piece: you’re there to challenge people to develop critical consciousness, that’s about reading the world.

 Exactly. We’ve all been socialized to blame the individual. The participants have been socialized that way, as well. “When I come out of prison I should be able to get a job, I should be able to do this…I have all these skills, I have all these certificates.” And it’s like, “dangit, you don’t need another certificate. What you need is for people to stop discriminating against you and give you a job!” 

One of the questions I ask people sometimes is, “could you have done everything right and still things have gone wrong?” And the answer is, well, “yes.” And that tells you it can’t be 100% about you. 

I am concerned with the health of marginalized people. I want my work to be a healing agent. And it always has to be multi-systemic. 

So, that’s what brings me to applied theatre. 

How? 

I saw psychodrama at a social work conference. And I was immediately impacted by it. Everything started to collide in my head. From, role theory…we’re all on the stage, different roles that we play…to, just that art itself, whether it’s dance, whether it’s painting, just has a way of breaking down boundaries. How I see applied theatre fitting in [my work] is that it integrates healing from trauma that’s associated with oppression AND raising consciousness and getting people to act against inequity.

 And I have always been a creative writer…I’ve always felt I didn’t know how to integrate my academic and creatives sides…but applied theatre is the perfect way to integrate both aspects of myself. It seemed to all merge here. 

I have several ideas. I wrote a story when I was thirteen or fourteen about hair. I know that for, especially black women, there’s so much trauma at the roots. Every time I read this story I can’t help but to cry. It’s a tear jerker. I think about how this [the exploration of hair] could be used with theatre as a healing agent for the people who participate in the drama, devising [an original piece of theatre around hair], but also it can impact people who are watching it. 

Telling your story is healing, but also empowering. And unifying. It could build empathy, you could know people in a way that you didn’t know them before. 

Thank you. Thanks for bringing me up to what seems to be a frontier for you now. 

Yes. It seems to bring together all of my interests, from education to consciousness raising to community organizing to healing, to health. To creativity.

 Now switching gears, what does it take to keep going as an interdisciplinary person in a world of siloed work? 

Yeah, that’s…I believe that my work will be more effective [because it’s interdisciplinary], I guess. But I do battle. You know, it’s not like just going into carpentry, where I can just work with the person’s mind, and forget their health, because you know…people can’t be sliced. People can’t be separated like that. We’re complex and we’re a mess and that’s humanity. 

What gets you up each day to keep doing it?

 People are fascinating to me. I could sit and people stare, and guess, what happened there? When I’m driving and see a home, and I can kind of see in laughs—like I’m peeping—I wonder, does that family eat dinner together? Is there violence? My mind wanders. And, I’ve always been a person about justice. I’ve always been a champion for people who didn’t have power, since I’ve been young. To stand up for people, to stand up for justice. I don’t like people to be in pain or to suffer. My name, that’s connected to Alexander, defender of mankind. And that’s how I’ve felt. I’ve always been about justice and equity.

 Okay. Well, as I’m listening, I’m so struck by your accomplishment and knowledge. I really admire what you’re up to. 

Thank you. People think I’m humble or something, but I don’t feel like I’ve done much, yet. People are always in awe of the DEGREES. It’s like, yeah, but the degrees mean nothing if you don’t do anything with them. So I’m hoping that I do make a difference…so far I feel like I’m laying groundwork. I’m in the preparation stage. 

Rapid fire round. A fiction author or book that’s lighting up your imagination? 

That is hard to say, because, I’m so ashamed to admit this, but I don’t read as widely as I’d like. Because, I’m usually reading journal articles and papers. 

Alright, fine. But did you read Octavia Butler at all? 

So that’s the funny thing. I just took this writing course at Medgar Evers in October. It was every Monday night. And I write kind of sci-fi stuff. 

Aah [of course, just like Butler]. 

That’s my genre. I started looking up African-American sci-fi writers, and of course she pops up. So I have several of her books on my kindle but I have not read one yet. But I do know who she is. 

There’s someone else who was perpetually fascinated. And so personal…so interested in each person’s wounds and psychology, and also so curious about social change. She used dystopias that are not so far away as a metaphor for interrogating the present. She used the arts as a reflecting surface for society.

 I’ve been warned that I sound a lot like her…the teacher was like, “I don’t know if you should read her, because it may…” So I’m like, “do I or don’t I?” 

Well you’ve given me a writing challenge, because I have a full article here on your work on critical consciousness and a full article on your reflections on the value of theatre. 

And so I’ll tell you this last part so it wraps it up. I have this research project I’m starting to get into now…with women, they’re going to do auto-ethnography. Researching their own lives and experiences with different types of oppression. And the last part that I’m hoping they do—I’m going to present it to them, but it’s up to them—is to do something with applied theater. Somehow incorporating what they’ve learned from their autoethnographies into some type of applied theatre format. So that’s kind of where it’s going. That’s it. 

For now. Thank you so much. 

Thank you for listening.

[peraltacolleges]

Please watch the #PeraltaColleges Town Hall on #RacialLiteracy and #CriticalConsciousness: June 4, 2020 https://bit.ly/PeraltaRacialLiteracyCriticalConsciousness or search Peralta College’s YouTube channel youtube.com/peraltatv @berkeleycitycollege @collegealameda @laneycollege @merrittcollegeofficial @californiacommunitycolleges https://www.instagram.com/p/CBCCg-NBIbb/?igshid=xuj2m2jt75h

[klovesyou]

"no body ever does real transformation for fun...you do it only when your back is so far against the wall that you have no choice anymore." - elizabeth gilbert • • even my fortune cookie knows i'm running out of other options 😂...change is the only course.. • • 🍄hoping the mushies can guide me🍄 • • ...along with all the signs + synchronicities. for example, yesterday after an exchange with a neuroscientist who wanted a date with me (whip-smart + attractive, but i'm gathering that our frequencies + needs don't currently align), i end up unexpectedly listening to a neuroscience lecture from a friend who's in the process of writing a dissertation on learning theory + applied neuroscience. coincidence? maybe in your world, but in mine...i just took away that i need to actively trigger diffuse mode in my brain more often. exercise + meditation. the universe has been giving me these messages for months now...the messages are in the sychronicities! • • and upon listening, it sent off all kinds of ideas around learning being developmental (piaget) + ideas around critical consciousness theory (freire) + processes of individuation (jungian psychology) + how can we apply this all meaningfully to teacher learning??? and then watching the agroecology documentary sent off more ideas about rhizomatic + healing paradigms for holistic well-being + how that might apply to helping adults understand interconnectedness + ready their minds for creating new neural pathways + re-wiring our subconscious for substantive + sustainable transformations in our psyches...which should lead to intentional, conscious living + changed actions...of course which i'm currently backing myself against a wall with cause change is so. freaking. hard + scary.😳 • • ...and what roles do mycelium + rhizomatic structures play in connecting ideas between humans??? 🤓 🍄🌱🌲🐛🦋👁️🔮🙏🏼 • • ❤️💛💚🖤 #signsandsynchronicities #synchronicities #mycelium #rhizomes #learningtheory #transformation #microdosing #knowledgeisarhizome #criticalconsciousness #spiritualactivism #spiritartist #dissertationlife #picassojasper #neuroscience #diffusemode #stayopen #therearenocoincidences #beingabrataboutchange #imanerd https://www.instagram.com/p/B4QEcKhHOWP/?igshid=dgsrx1ikz78u

[dombrassey]

"Inciting hate crimes is not protected free speech." From the UC Berkeley statement: "In our view, Mr. Yiannopoulos is a troll and provocateur who uses odious behavior in part to “entertain,” but also to deflect any serious engagement with ideas. He has been widely and rightly condemned for engaging in hate speech directed at a wide range of groups and individuals, as well as for disparaging and ridiculing individual audience members, particularly members of the LGBTQ community." #edgeofhegemony #statism #criticalconsciousness #allyship #radicalism #antifascist #liberalism #neoliberalism #generalstrike #fagsforpussies #gay #queer #theorist #teachersofinstagram #scruff #queerfamily #queerfam #oakland #sfbayarea #endwhitesilence (at Aunt Mary's Cafe)

[phantomtutor]

I did not realize that it was two parts to the journal.  However the instructions did state that it was  two parts.  One personal and one professional.   Our Professions Story by inquiring into the personal, institutional and cultural assumptions of ourprofession. Through decolonizing experiences, students individually, and as a collective, build criticalconsciousness as emerging social work professionals, and develop the skills to assist clients in this sameprocess It is fine that I need to create a new order for this.   ORDER THIS PAPER NOW. 100% CUSTOM PAPER CategoriesAPA 7th edition, English Leave a Reply Cancel replyYour email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Email * Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Post navigation Previous PostPrevious Week8 https://cheatography.com/davechild/cheat-sheets/regular-expressions/  WhenNext PostNext I had attached the ufo_sightings_large.csv In this assignment, you will investig

[radicallyimaginingmyclassroom]

In this video Dr. Jose Medina explains the importance of teachers using Translanguaging.

[thewitfire]

What is Critical Consciousness? An Overview

What is Critical Consciousness? An Overview. #Criticalconsciousness #Consciousness

Critical consciousness, critical, or critical in Portuguese, is an innovative educational concept developed by Brazil’s educationalist and developmental theorist Paulo Freire, based on post-Marxist philosophical and critical analysis.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com Theories of Critical Consciousness

According to Freire (1990), a critical consciousness of education is the…

[educationtopten]

How can you design learning experiences that help kids understand themselves and their place in the world? 5th grade teacher Jess Lifshitz shares how she creates inquiry experiences that help kids develop understandings about personal identity, bias, moving beyond a single story, and seeing what isn’t there (critically studying history). #criticalconsciousness #teachingcriticalconsciousness #tipsforteachers #teaching #equityineducation

via Education Quotes https://ift.tt/3g4XmoO

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[not2mis]

The eastern rim of the Navajo Nation is hit with lethal drilling.

[bringmebooks]

criticalconsciousness replied to your photo: Right this moment, I’m feeling beautiful, like I...

This is a really powerful post. I hope you can find the beauty that radiates from you :))

Thank you so much. :) I am trying. 

I am pushing myself across the planet once again, returning... to somewhere ... and attempting to start all over again 

What else is there to do? <3

[peacocktales]

criticalconsciousness replied to your photoset: I straightened my hair for fun, and wanted to show...

it looks nice!

Thank you!

[loseyoursoultonight]

I go to Cal State LA :) it's a special session which is why it was $997!!

[educationtopten]

How can you design learning experiences that help kids understand themselves and their place in the world? Jess shares her lesson planning process, how she ties real-world lessons like these back to her standards and curriculum, and how she uses inquiry to support students in uncovering truths for themselves. #criticalconsciousness #teachingcriticalconsciousness #tipsforteachers #teaching #equityineducation

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