"I cannot see my way clear. I cannot see the blackboard": Deconstructing personal failure stories

In this article, a failure identity story of a student counsellor is deconstructed. Self-data on the experiences of her six-year-old self in a school were generated through an outsider witness ceremony, as suggested by White (2007) in Maps of Narrative Practice. The data take the form of a rescued speech poem, as proposed by Speedy (2005). The article reflects on the process of data generation and of using a failure conversation map, as discussed by White (2002) in his paper “Addressing personal failure,” to analyse and deconstruct the failure identity/ies available to the student counsellor. The process of the research, the writing, and the analyses of the failure story contributed to the development of an ethical counselling practice by the student counsellor

A Poststructural Autoethnography: Self as event

This thesis takes the form of a poststructural autoethnography. It explores self as event in order to illustrate the fluid nature of self identities, and is informed by the writings of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. In tandem with these theorists, I turn to the work of Michael White, narrative therapist, in my use of his Migration of Identity map (White, 1995) and the eight-point conversational map he developed to address personal failure (White, 2002). The launching points for my research were selected stories that significantly shaped my life, specifically two storylines of how I became mired in problem stories of blame and failure that lead to exhaustion and burnout. Taking a poststructural narrative therapeutic perspective has opened up space to bring forward subordinate, alternative stories that were previously overpowered by problem stories. In the process of troubling the discourses, and sedimented practices of those events and their subsequent effects, I have had opportunity to open up the possibility of transformation – taking off in lines of flight. Through plugging in to Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts, I also explore a professional relationship I had with my plastic surgeon across the decomposition and re-composition of facial identity. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1987) made transformation possible, a freeing up of the constraining lines of force, movement that takes the research subject (my self) into different territory of being. The research became an opportunity to explore a migration of identity and to act to open the possibility for conceiving of self as fluid, a work in progress, self as a work of art. Writing plays an important part in this research and in bringing the self into existence. To this end, the thesis charts the course of a journey of compassionately witnessing self, and in the process, both reveals and troubles the positions offered and refused by the subject. Finally, this autoethnography is a journey towards ethical reflexive practice as it connects me to my desire to do the right thing – to become an ethical counselling practitioner, and to highlight the movement of becoming. I understand this reflexivity to be a continual process that makes possible a questioning of practice that explores effects of the work I do, how it contributes to others’ lives, and how others contribute to my life. I explore the process of becoming different through this witnessing of self, and, in the process, discover how this makes a compassionate witnessing of other possible. Witnessing of other brings me closer to doing hope in community, while, at the same time, scales it down to make it do-able, reasonable hope. This heightened awareness makes possible the witnessing of sparkling moments in therapeutic conversations and makes visible the possible in the impossible, and the impossible in the possible

GASTRONOMY AND OTHERNESS IN ALPHONSO X’S WORKS: FOOD IDENTITIES IN CARTOGRAPHY

This thesis investigates Alphonso X\u27s General Estoria, Estoria de Espanna, Cantigas de Santa María, Siete Partidas, and other writings in the alphonsine corpus to illustrate the concept of classification through diet. The work of this thesis is to reveal the gastronomic connections between central and peripheral relations in cartography. Through food symbolism and dietary behaviors, cuisine functions as the purveyor of an unrivalled sketch of a text’s characters and the social conditions of the text’s production. Once unraveled, these highly socialized norms of consumption confirm that diet and identity are inextricably linked and lead to a greater understanding of medieval Iberian cultural relations and attitudes revolving around food and the perception of the civility of the world

Give to You/Fill My Cup

At the core of my project is the assertion that the human voice functions as an instrument. During my time at Bard, my musical practice revolved around an exploration and desire to use singing as texture, as a solo instrument, and as storytelling. I wanted to challenge what it means to be a singer in a band setting, a setting that often illuminates gender in startling ways that limit the creativity and confidence of non-male players. Through this concert series, I wanted to show the singer as a player, an artist, and as integral to the work. I composed 14 original songs, each with different channels for incorporating the voice. For example, “Like a Dream” was written after an intensive study of hard bebop jazz. I aimed to create nimble and complex melodies that rang like horn lines, rhythms that took advantage of the song’s inherent spaciousness and ran over the bar line, and instrumentation whose main job was to support that vocal. “Another Day” does not follow a classic chord progression. Instead, the chords follow the vocal line, augmenting the harmony without necessarily adhering to a key signature. “Badlands” integrates my education in drums and electronic production with a vocal melody based on accents that elicit a popping and percussive effect. Behind each song is the hope to communicate something new with the voice, through range, dynamics, placement, and breath. Running in confluence with my fundamental beliefs around the voice as an instrument is expression through lyrics. In my concentration in Gender and Sexuality Studies, I have studied how performing with words sets vocalists (who are often non-men) apart in their musical practice. The themes running throughout my two concerts play with the idea that the lyric can say as much as the music, that the choice of sounds, use of vowels as belts, and consonants as percussion all enhance musical meaning. Fascination with the tiny decisions around the performance of the words, from where I choose to reverberate them in my placement, to their consonance or dissonance with the rest of the band, encapsulates a large piece of my project. These are some of the foundational ideas and methods I employed to craft this concert series. However, beyond the intellectual and academic concepts, my music is hugely driven by feeling and a need to communicate and process through sound. Each concert presented a kaleidoscopic array of experiences stitched together by my guiding principles surrounding the female voice. Give to You traced cycles of growth, stagnation, self-reflection, and non-linear evolution of my confidence within interpersonal relationships. It dealt with questions of female resiliency in “Where Do I Put My Love?” which is a song about my capacity to share energy and the worry I have about putting it into the wrong place. The song’s elongated solo structure and rising dynamics depict the gradual and probing nature of those themes. “Connective Tissue” was inspired by a positive change in my perspective in regards to my sensuality and body. It describes ease felt with my physicality, that I had for the first time felt recognized by someone else. Its repetitive introduction led by all-female singers felt apt, as I hoped other women might relate to my experience. “Time Capsule \u27\u27 made use of scattered lyrics to fall through memory. It relied nearly exclusively on the voice to transport the listener through time and feeling, which I attempted to augment by the use of four octaves of range and inconsistent rhythms. “Mad”, “Secret” and finally “Like a Dream” detail first love, in its loving with abandon, giving all I have, seeing the world in color, heightened awakeness. In its hope. My second concert, Fill My Cup, treads with more caution and angst through a similar field of experience and experimentation. The songs are perhaps more self-assured in subject matter, dealing less with confusion and more with power. The themes underpinning this concert are in some ways, the aftermath of completing three years of work and self-reflection in Give to You. The thought in my mind was that I would rather be full than empty. Fill My Cup ponders how one might choose to do that. My creative direction this semester was colored by the urge to fill different empty spaces. A concert of more extremes, it is broken into two parts. The first half grapples with the erratic and tenuous experimentation I have sought out to fill loneliness or control change. Whether it is by “saying yes to things I don’t believe in” punctuated by united vocal harmonies in “Come Over Anyway” or by “looking for a place that speaks shelter” crooned on the full chords of “No Shame.” The second half seeks a more balanced future for myself, one where I can live presently and celebrate the filling of my days and heart with small things that add up to big feelings. Songs like “Think of You” and “Morning” engage with consistency and reciprocity. The metaphorical filling occurring is of coffee cups between lovers or with the intoxication of meeting someone new. The preciousness and fleetingness of these moments is something I have always wanted to capture musically. This concert series has led me to engage with these ideas of fullness and try to form a more comfortable relationship with emptiness. Harnessing these experiences and repurposing them in song and through the voice helps feels like a gift, feels like a dream

Assessing Spanish Proficiency of Online Language Learners after Year 1

[EN] Online (OL) second language (L2) courses are becoming more widely offered in the United States; however, little information exists about the effectiveness of OL L2 courses beyond one semester or course. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess Spanish students’ oral proficiency after completing one year of OL only L2 courses. At the end of year one, students (n=65) completed the Versant exam, which scored overall level of oral proficiency as well as four sub-categories: pronunciation, fluency, sentence formation, and vocabulary production. The results showed that 40% of OL Spanish students met the ACTFL benchmark of Intermediate-Low, while 49% scored Novice-High, one level below the benchmark. A portion (15%) of students not reaching Intermediate-Low scored within a few points of the benchmark. A majority of the students also met the benchmark for pronunciation and fluency, but not for sentence formation or vocabulary production. 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Simulation in the time of COVID 19

© 2020 The Author(s). This an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.The Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19), FFP3 (filtering face piece-3), COVID, shielding, powered air-purifying respirator (PAPR), donning, doffing... are aA plethora of words and acronyms little known to the simulation community which have been added to our lexicon. A year ago the pre-conference editorial referred to the challenges of an ageing population, complex treatments, limited resources, and out of hospital care. To those we must now add a pandemic which continues to have a colossal impact on society. The world has momentarily been paralysed in order to find strategies to minimise and control the spread of the virus. The economy of every country has suffered as our way of living, working, travelling, and doing business changed. The aims were to minimise the loss of life and not overwhelm the healthcare system. While many “routine” simulation sessions have decreased or even ceased, simulation- based education (SBE) which is directly relevant to dealing with the particulars of an infectious agent has greatly increased. In one of the author’s own hospital, simulation was used to prepare healthcare staff for doffing and donning personal protective equipment (PPE), proning ventilated patients, optimising patient pathways and much more. The pandemic has, in many ways, forced the simulation community to put its money where its mouth is. Years of extolling the benefits of simulation in terms of upskilling, rapid cycle learning and resilience was now put to the test. Even people who were slightly skeptical about SBE became advocates of “trying things out in a safe environment” and encouraged the delivery of training sessions during which clinicians could practise to ensure their own safety and that of their colleagues.Peer reviewe

Evaluating professionalism, teamwork and leadership in medical undergraduates

The complexity of healthcare is increasing due to new discoveries in the treatment of disease, the multiple pathologies of an ageing population and changes in working patterns and job roles. In addition, an increase in professional, regulatory and public scrutiny has led to revelations of poor care leading to preventable disability and death. Inquiries into sub-standard care have uncovered a number of professional lapses, in particular failures in teamwork and leadership. Medical undergraduates are future doctors. Their ability to work effectively within teams and to lead when necessary will therefore have a significant impact on the health of the population. In order to improve leadership and teamwork abilities we must be able to assess them. A literature review searching for a tool to assess teamwork and leadership in the medical undergraduate was carried out. As a consequence of an unsuccessful search, a tool was developed and evaluated, using data from existing tools and from a series of focus groups with medical undergraduates. The focus groups and an examination of the reasoning of assessment participants also informed a study on the justifications for failing to challenge poor performance by a more senior member of staff. The tool data showed adequate validity and reliability for formative assessments in a simulated environment. The focus groups and examination of reasoning highlighted the continued existence of the medical hierarchy, with steep authority gradients. This tool can be used in formative assessments, but further research is required before it is used outside the simulated environment and consideration must be given to psychometrics, feasibility and cost. The teaching and assessment of teamwork and leadership, should be given more time in the undergraduate curriculum and medical schools, regulatory bodies, deaneries and trusts should collaborate on minimising the unprofessional behaviours of senior healthcare personnel