Corpo/Realities in Times of Educational Crisis: Trauma, Consumption and Dialogue in Au Revoir Les Enfants

AbstractThere are numerous Holocaust documentaries, novels, memoirs, and movies depicting the endangered lives of Jewish children during World War II. As viewers and readers, flipping the pages or watching the images onscreen forces us to consider our place in relation to those individuals who have seen the unthinkable. We consume their stories, their testimonies – their vivid remembrances which transcend the place and space of fading-memories to become re-imagined, and lived-again through the painful acts of telling. We become witnesses to the stories told by these witnesses of true horrors (Felman & Laub, 1992). Louis Malle's (1987) film Au Revoir Les Enfants forces us, as viewers, to undertake this difficult task through the eyes of a nearly-silent protagonist – a Jewish boy named Jean Kippelstein, hidden in a private Catholic school in Vichy France by the school's headmaster, Father Jean, in 1944. The relations between Father Jean and his pupils are all complex and unravel over the course of the narrative, culminating in a final tragic scene with fatal consequences.I contend that for filmic testimonies such as Au Revoir Les Enfants, the body of the endangered Jewish child is the operational and educational site of trauma. The narrative is fully able to “make the suffering body the small, focused universe of the tormented and a vehicle for rendering unimaginable experience tangible to readers” (Vickroy, 2002, p. 33) as it stands-in for an immeasurable collective experience. Describing acts of consumption signposted throughout the film, I assert that Au Revoir Les Enfants stands in as a social and bodily topography of education in times of crisis. The film works subtly to remind us that the trauma of the Holocaust is a collective as much as personal experience; it forces viewers to construct an ethical and critical consciousness about events otherwise washed away through time, dangerously finding redemption through history's fading memory.Taking place in a school where bodies are literally made uniform by dressing alike, the body of the Jewish child stands out as the site of displacement, dysfunction, perhaps even dys-embodiment –embodiment that is not quite right, that is called into view and put into harm's way. Bodies in this film are writ large in the classroom and become the site/sight of education about the im/possibilities of universalizing the bodily experience. Treatments of the body become visceral narratives that tie together layers of national and personal trauma. Employing Leder's (1990) argument about the dis-appearing/dys-appearing body, I interrogate the filmic signposting the body as simultaneously consumer and consumed, excessive and grotesque, and ultimately, wholly transgressive.However, I also suggest that films such as Au Revoir Les Enfants remind us about the possibility of opening up the educational dialogic (Buber, 1947/2002) on account of the body's powerful, central place. This is not to say that the transgressive body can be saved; rather, that the film forces a reflection about the possibilities of learning about alternate life experiences – including danger, death, and disability – through the bodily conditions inseparable from those who experience them. To that end, the relationships in the film illustrate both the possibilities and failures of the dialogic within education at its most vulnerable times and in its most endangered spaces

Sound Before Symbol Strategies and Beginning Band Performance Skills

Beginning instrumental instruction often ignores the common elementary pedagogical practice of teaching by sound before symbol, instead focusing on learning through notation. This paper provides a literature review of peer-reviewed, correlational, and experimental control-group studies, that examine the effects of sound before symbol teaching strategies on the development of beginning instrumentalists’ performance skills. Limited research on this question has been conducted; search results generated fourteen peer-reviewed studies and seven dissertations with beginning instrumentalists as participants. Research has found a significant relationship between using the sound before symbol strategies of tonal pattern training by ear, improvisation, echo, rote, and playing by ear, and the development of rhythmic, ear-playing, and sight-reading skills of beginning instrumentalists. Findings suggest that rhythm skills are efficiently developed when instruction includes melodic and rhythmic patterns that are taught by ear, and rhythmic accuracy increases with instruction without notation. Additionally, sight-reading skills have been found to increase as a result of learning tonal patterns by ear. Ear playing skills are also developed when tonal patterns are taught prior to introducing notation. The results of these studies suggest an opportunity for further research and provide guidance for changing curricular resources and pedagogical practices of beginning instrumental teachers

Des redditions d’amour bienveillant : Des engagements dialogiques en cours de mathématiques

I imagine mathematics to be a place of loving kindness and dialogue. In completing the above prompt for this Special Issue of JCACS, I invoke a fraught history of teaching and learning, drenched in contradictory feelings of love, hate, sadness and joy. Though pedagogically rigorous, many days in my classroom have been marked by tension, anxiety, and even cruelty, in the name of producing elegant, beautiful solutions to cleanly explicated problems. Determined to change these dynamics, I embarked on a recent journey with my high school mathematics students to cultivate a mindfulness practice of loving kindness by exploring new ways to engage in dialogue and open up possibilities for self-reflexivity. In this paper, I offer a rhetorical analysis (Felman, 1982) of my pen-and-ink graphical journal entries from past and present, alongside student drawings and reflection cards that were the result of new dialogic approaches in teaching mathematics. Through an emerging loving kindness pedagogy, this work begins to reveal the kinds of defences that fill the playground of psychic life unfolding in the mathematics classroom, as well as possibilities for future learning.J'imagine que les mathématiques soit un lieu de l’amour bienveillant et de dialogue. J'invoque une histoire chargée d'enseignement et d'apprentissage qui sont abondés de sentiments contradictoires d'amour, de haine, de tristesse et de joie. Bien que rigoureuse sur le plan pédagogique, de nombreuses journées dans ma salle de classe ont été caractérisées par la tension, l’anxiété, et même la cruauté, au nom de la recherche de solutions élégantes et esthétiques à des problèmes clairement expliqués. Résolue à changer cette dynamique, je me suis récemment lancée dans un projet avec mes élèves de mathématiques du secondaire, dans le but de cultiver une pratique axée dans la pleine conscience de l’amour bienveillant, en explorant de nouvelles façons de dialoguer et d’offrir des possibilités d’auto-réflexivité. Dans cet article, je propose une analyse rhétorique (Felman, 1982) de mes entrées de journal, écrites à la plume, au passé et au présent, ainsi que des dessins d'élèves et des cartes de réflexion, résultant de nouvelles approches dialogiques. A travers une pédagogie de l’amour bienveillant émergent, ce travail commence à révéler aussi bien les types de défenses qui régissent la vie psychique qui se déroule pendant le cours de mathématiques que des possibilités d’un apprentissage futur

Disruptions To The “Modeled Minority” In Engineering: Why Do Some Asian American Students Leave Engineering?

Asian American students are the largest non-White racial group in US undergraduate engineering, but they are often labeled as the model minority. This stereotype confines them to STEM majors, limiting their access to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Little attention has been given to why some Asian American students leave engineering. To address this gap, a pilot study using semi-structured interviews aims to explore the reasons behind their decision to leave the field or change their major. The study seeks to contribute to engineering education scholarship by promoting more inclusive learning environments for Asian American students and providing recommendations for better support from faculty, administrators, and staff

Healthy Homes Neighbor to Neighbor Model

Ensuring the over health and well-being of a community is dependent not only on the healthcare professionals and resources in that community, but also the accessibility and reach of healthcare knowledge. Healthy Androscoggin established The Neighbor to Neighbor Healthy Homes Program in 2018 in order to spread awareness about environmental health risks in the homes of New Mainers by promoting community-held healthcare knowledge. The New Mainers working with Healthy Androscoggin are community members who have recently resettled in Maine from different African origin countries. The aim of the Neighbor to Neighbor Program, which is a branch of the Healthy Homes Initiative, is to identify and mitigate the most prevalent environmental health risks in the homes of New Mainers in Lewiston, Maine. Healthy Androscoggin collaborated with ambassadors from different African origin countries to educate their friends, families, and neighbors in order to share the Healthy Homes Education and behaviors that are affordable, attainable, and long-lasting. Healthy Androscoggin created and administered two surveys over the course of three weeks in order to evaluate the initial transfer and retention of healthcare knowledge among participating neighbors. Through a partnership between Bates College Environmental Studies Program and Healthy Androscoggin, we developed a third survey that was conducted eight months after the initial Healthy Homes Education session. The third survey aimed to identify what Healthy Homes behaviors were difficult to maintain, if the neighbors remembered all of the information from the initial education session, and if participants noticed changes in their personal health. The surveys consisted of both ‘yes/no’ and narrative questions in which ambassadors followed-up with neighbors about their experience in the program. The results from all three surveys were analyzed in order to recognize the current environmental health concerns among New Mainers, determine the overall success of the health education model, and inform future directions for the program. One major finding from the third survey was that 100 percent of the participants noticed changes in their overall health over the eight-month program period. In addition, 80 percent of the participating neighbors shared their Healthy Homes education with friends, family, and peers not formally enrolled in the program. This demonstrates that the program will continue to function even without the initial education provided by Healthy Androscoggin. Furthermore, this suggests that Healthy Androscoggin successfully promoted community-held healthcare knowledge about environmental health risks in Lewiston was established. Survey 3 also identified a new health concern among New Mainers that had not been explicitly addressed by the program. Some participating neighbors were concerned that their homes were not equipped with carbon monoxide detectors or that the existing detectors were not 3 functioning properly. Perhaps the most noteworthy findings from the third survey was that the Healthy Homes information assisted participants as they searched for new homes, thus encouraging tenants to advocate for their health. One third of participants from Survey 3 moved to new homes over the course of the eight months and explained that their decision to move and criteria for a new home was informed by the Healthy Homes Education. Lastly, multiple neighbors expressed a need for additional support when communicating with landlords about hazards such as lead and radon exposure. This alludes to the broader, systematic barriers that prevent those who are disproportionately impacted by environmental hazards from gaining true autonomy and control over their health. It is clear from the survey results that individual and community actions were successful in promoting community held healthcare knowledge. However, these actions can only go so far without structural, social, and political support

Sound Before Symbol Strategies and Beginning Band Performance Skills

Beginning instrumental instruction often ignores the common elementary pedagogical practice of teaching by sound before symbol, instead focusing on learning through notation. This paper provides a literature review of peer-reviewed, correlational, and experimental control-group studies, that examine the effects of sound before symbol teaching strategies on the development of beginning instrumentalists’ performance skills. Limited research on this question has been conducted; search results generated fourteen peer-reviewed studies and seven dissertations with beginning instrumentalists as participants. Research has found a significant relationship between using the sound before symbol strategies of tonal pattern training by ear, improvisation, echo, rote, and playing by ear, and the development of rhythmic, ear-playing, and sight-reading skills of beginning instrumentalists. Findings suggest that rhythm skills are efficiently developed when instruction includes melodic and rhythmic patterns that are taught by ear, and rhythmic accuracy increases with instruction without notation. Additionally, sight-reading skills have been found to increase as a result of learning tonal patterns by ear. Ear playing skills are also developed when tonal patterns are taught prior to introducing notation. The results of these studies suggest an opportunity for further research and provide guidance for changing curricular resources and pedagogical practices of beginning instrumental teachers

Surgical Removal of Metastatic Renal Adenocarcinoma to the Midbrain Tectum: A Case Report

A patient with adenocarcinoma of the kidney metastatic lo the quadrigeminal plate of the midbrain presented with acute obstructive hydrocephalus and early tonsillar herniation. Because the majority of these carcinomas are resistant to radiation therapy, only limited treatment choices were available. Initially, a ventriculoperitoneal shunt relieved the hydrocephalus and neurologic symptoms. After a short course of improvement, with decompressed ventricles demonstrated by postoperative computed tomography, the patient developed additional neurologic signs, leading to the decision to excise the metastatic tumor. Convalescence was complicated but the patient survived for six months, succumbing to respiratory failure presumably caused by lung metastases

Measurement Tools of Pediatric Nutrition and Health Suitable or Adaptable for Low- and Middle-Income Countries in Field Research Settings

Background: Micronutrient status, body composition, gastrointestinal (GI) functioning, and neurological functioning are important facets of pediatric nutrition and health. When studied in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), information about these elements is usually obtained via standardized surveys and traditional anthropometry. While convenient, these evaluations offer limited information that may be prone to error and bias. However, a variety of underutilized objective measurement tools exist which can promote a more objective, comprehensive, and deeper understanding of these aspects of pediatric nutrition and health in LMIC. Objective: Identify field-friendly, relatively low-cost, and portable tools that provide objective measurements of micronutrient status, body composition, GI functioning, and neurological functioning in young children. Methods: A narrative review of the literature was conducted to assess the state-of-the-art field-friendly research tools targeting micronutrient status, body composition, GI functioning, and neurological functioning in children in LMIC. Results: A number of field-friendly tools addressing the domains of micronutrient status, GI health, body composition, and neurological functioning were identified. While many tools remain to be fully validated, these tools have yet to be used to their full potential in field-based pediatric nutrition and health research in LMICs. Conclusions: More robust, field-friendly assessment methods will help to refine knowledge on the state of pediatric health of vulnerable children in LMIC. Such awareness could contribute to the design of interventions, programs and policies, and further research