Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Conversations on Hope in a Hostile (Educational) Climate and Tools for Empowerment through Appalachian Studies: Part 2
Session Abstract or Summary
The ASA Young Appalachian Leaders and Learners (Y’ALL) Committee and the Education Committee are co-sponsoring a panel devoted to tools for educators. We will facilitate a welcoming discussion regarding classroom tactics and experiential learning opportunities to encourage civic engagement and promote social and environmental justice with students possessing a variety of ideologies. As educators and learners in the region, we are deeply invested in the sustained growth of the Appalachian Studies movement as a liberating and educating force. However, we realize many of our pedagogical and scholarly practices may repeat the violences of the systems we hope to move beyond. We ask conference attendees to join us in the task of confronting the neoliberalization of higher education institutions, as well as the “global economy,” while allowing space for true dialogue and discussion from different viewpoints. We hope those who attend this panel will leave with tools for maintaining hope through the hostile neoliberal institutionalization of “the knowledge project.” Additionally, we want to explore teaching approaches that do not alienate any student but instead create safe spaces for honest, respectful dialogue for our region and the greater world.
In Part 1, pedagogical approaches and the lived experiences within Appalachian Studies classrooms are exchanged through conversations about specific courses from both the instructor and student perspective. We continue the conversation in Part 2, where we explore Appalachian Studies as a tool for empowerment within the neoliberal era by closely examining methods and outcomes utilized in place-based pedagogy.
Presentation #1 Title
(Re)Creating Hope and (re)Writing the Appalachian Narrative
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
This presentation will ask questions about rural stereotype threat--not only within a historical (mis)representation of the hillbilly trope but within a present day Hillbilly "Elegy" trope, punctuated by documentaries such as Heroin(e) and other media texts that exploit Appalachia as weak, destroyed, and hopeless. Appalachia is not a foregone conclusion--and we must present opportunities for students to rewrite the rural narrative. A critical pedagogy of place (Gruenwald, 2003) and conscientização (Freire, 1970)--the idea of being critically awake to oppressive forces--will serve as a theoretical frame to critique and deconstruct the neoliberalization of education that devalues the importance of the local and historied identities of place, and allows for the pervasively negative and damning stereotypes of Appalachian people and places. Without a critical literacy frame for evaluating these tropes, students are unable to reinhabit (Gruenwald, 2003) the places they value or to engage in social action that serves to sustain health, economy, and education in Appalachia. How can they recreate a vision of hope or rewrite the narrative on what it means to “live well” within a place when the most vocal narratives are ones shaped by fear and trauma?
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Amy Azano is an assistant professor in the School of Education at Virginia Tech. Her scholarship focuses on rural literacies, place-based education, and opportunity gaps for special populations in rural schools.
Presentation #2 Title
Reading the Appalachian Landscape: Place-Based Pedagogy For Community Development, Empowerment, and Social Change
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
My paper will explore the concepts of sense of place and landscape reading as vehicles to foster student engagement with Appalachian places and the communities who are intrinsically part of these places. Engaging broader conversations about place while also drawing upon reflections and critical insights from my own classroom assignments and the place-based teaching modules I am co-developing for my department’s teaching and research farm in Ashe County, NC, I will explore how place-based pedagogy can empower students. Place-based pedagogy can ultimately help students develop bioregional thinking, critique neoliberal notions of value and community, and enhance sense of place.
In my introductory course to sustainable development, students are introduced to the concept of place as pedagogy through a landscape “reading” project. Students ask critical questions about place and are encouraged to view their landscapes as “text” and crucial to environmental knowledge production. Students will ultimately tell a creative story about their landscape, and through this assignment, stories become grounded in place and allow students to envision sustainable alternatives, environmental activism, just futures, and dynamic social change. For example, students might tell a story about how a new intentional community might occupy a particular part of Watauga County, NC, or how their hometown can become more spatially and socially equitable.
I will also discuss how place-based pedagogy is represented on my department’s teaching and research Farm. Through teaching modules that engage students in themes like forest commons as forest humanities and the links between soil erosion and cultural erosion (and thus soil conservation and cultural conservation), the farm teaching modules demonstrate the ability of place-based pedagogy to help students connect local, tangible places to larger Appalachian land issues like accessibility, environmental inequality and resource extraction, and overdevelopment.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Cody Miller is an instructor in the Department of Sustainable Development at Appalachian State University. He is currently a doctoral candidate in environmental history at the University of Maine, concentrating on the intersections between soil conservation, environmental knowledge production, and sense of place in 20th-century Appalachia. Cody earned a B.A. in History from Virginia Tech; an M.A. in History from the University of Maine, and an M.A. in Appalachian Studies and Sustainability from Appalachian State University.
Presentation #3 Title
Appalachian Experiential Learning Courses in Environmental & Cultural Sustainability
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
I have developed and taught field-based January-term courses designed to teach environmental sustainability through the lens of Appalachian cultures. The blended short-term courses have been taught for four years in Cherokee, North Carolina and Pine Mountain, Kentucky. The Cherokee course focuses on providing sustainable materials for artisan basketry dyes and construction and learning basketry techniques. At Pine Mountain, the focus was the chemistry of natural dyes and on repairing hickory-bottom chairs. Scientific projects specifically addressed saving endangered cultural keystone plant species and maintaining cultural keystone practices. In addition, we focused on learning intercultural proficiency including cultural sensitivity, communication skills, openness to cultural diversity, and global mindedness. The courses accentuate people as part of the natural world with legacies of sustainable use, adaptive management, and local ecological knowledge. The human context increased participation of female students (40-83%) and minority students (20-31%), outnumbering traditional biology courses. Students’ scores were above average through the external Research in the Integrated Science Curriculum evaluation. In addition, this introduction to scientific research focused on applied cultural benefit has resulted in 33% of the students who took the course three years ago having already completed Masters Degrees and 25% enrolled in PhD programs in the sciences.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Sunshine Brosi is an Associate Professor of Ethnobotany and Forest Ecology at Frostburg State University in western Maryland where she runs the only Bachelor’s-level program in Ethnobotany in the US. She is also the President-Elect of the Society for Economic Botany; the premier ethnobotanical research society. She has a PhD in Natural Resources (University of Tennessee), a Masters in Forestry (University of Kentucky), and a BA in Environmental Studies (Warren Wilson College). Her research focus is on sustainability of Appalachian forests especially in preservation of rare, threatened, and endangered species and ecosystems. Sunshine grew up the middle child in a family of seven in Berea, Kentucky.
Presentation #4 Title
Transgressing Disciplines: Teaching to Create Space for Place and Personhood in STEM Driven Institutions
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
While teaching Appalachian Studies at institutions of higher education within the neoliberal age offers possibilities for personal growth and interdisciplinary project development, systemic challenges have shifted. Current “hot to” teaching literature and tactics for inclusive classrooms must acknowledge the radically shifting world of higher education on a local and global scale. In this presentation I address such shifts and the historical and disciplinary relationship between place-based education and the increasing neoliberal practices within of high-education and more current issues of freedom of speech and conscientious dialogue. Then, collaborating with STEM graduate teaching assistants and instructors to gather stories of experiences and practice, I share successes and failures in the classroom with regards to creating space for place and “the person in community” within STEM driven spaces. This leads me to explore the ways in which unfamiliar pedagogical practices and tactics can be more aptly applied in our classroom practices and disciplinary framing. I specifically look to bell hooks, Charles Olson (and other Black Mountain College instructors), and Paulo Freire.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Jordan Laney is a faculty instructor for the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech where she is a Doctoral Candidate in the Alliance for Social Political Ethical and Cultural Thought (ASPECT) program. She is a member of the Appalachian Studies Steering Committee, Graduate Teaching Academy for Excellence Faculty Scholar, co-editor emeritus of SPECTRA (peer reviewed ASPECT journal), and Bouchet Society member. Her interests include feminist methods, Appalachian music(s), alternative economies, and pedagogy.
Conference Subthemes
Education
(Re)Creating Hope and (re)Writing the Appalachian Narrative
This presentation will ask questions about rural stereotype threat--not only within a historical (mis)representation of the hillbilly trope but within a present day Hillbilly "Elegy" trope, punctuated by documentaries such as Heroin(e) and other media texts that exploit Appalachia as weak, destroyed, and hopeless. Appalachia is not a foregone conclusion--and we must present opportunities for students to rewrite the rural narrative. A critical pedagogy of place (Gruenwald, 2003) and conscientização (Freire, 1970)--the idea of being critically awake to oppressive forces--will serve as a theoretical frame to critique and deconstruct the neoliberalization of education that devalues the importance of the local and historied identities of place, and allows for the pervasively negative and damning stereotypes of Appalachian people and places. Without a critical literacy frame for evaluating these tropes, students are unable to reinhabit (Gruenwald, 2003) the places they value or to engage in social action that serves to sustain health, economy, and education in Appalachia. How can they recreate a vision of hope or rewrite the narrative on what it means to “live well” within a place when the most vocal narratives are ones shaped by fear and trauma?
