Diane Hodges wrote:
And the thing is, Helena's writing doesn't improve the
> situation even as it illuminates the depth and frustration of the
> problem(s). In fact, helping Samantha won't really make a difference in
> the big picture
> either, and I can't help but think that if Samantha weren't a foxy redhead
> with those "eyes" peering over her LSATs, the idea of helping her out
> wouldn't even be an issue.
>
Diane speaks to something that bothers me, too. "Helena's writing doesn't improve the situation...."
However, (I've just finished a revision of my paper and sent it off to Labor STudies Journal), while
my writing doesn't improve the situation, the project itself does, for sure. We had 81 graduates of
the Building Bridges classes in the first two cycles; of those, 47 committed to apply to union
building trades apprenticeship programs; of those, nearly a year later, it looks as if at least 18 and
maybe 22 are actually either working union or in apprenticehsip programs. This means that we've taken
"guys off the street" -- which, in Chicago, is pretty specific -- and made the path between where they
started and where they need to go clear enough so that they have been able to move from total
unemployment or pizza delivery or stocking grocery store shelves at $6-7 an hour, to learning a
skilled trade and getting wages of $12-18 an hour (startgin wages -- up to $35 an hour as a
journeyman) plus health insurance for their families, plus pensions. That's a big jump. THey're going
from being basically marginal to being able to afford to buy a house, take a vacation, own a car that
works. THis is a big deal. Also, we have challenged the resistance to organizing minorities within the
building trades unions and extended union standards to cover more workers.
True, this was NOT done by my writing. It was done by the people who are working on the project. I
often ask myself what my role in it is. My conclusion is that my role is to represent the
establishment -- the Univesrity of Illinois. When I show up at something, Reverend Haynes introduces
me as "Dr. Worthen from the Univesrity of Illinois" and that seems to make a difference. I have a file
drawer with stuff in it that is filed. I know how to use a computer. I have email and fax and the
ability to photocopy stuff and distribgute it, and take notes. I'm sort of the information manager for
the project. The stuff I write does ME a lot of good -- it will form some of the links that
everntually will (maybe) get me tenure, but the stuff I write probably does't do anyone else any good
but me. When I come to our advisory board meetings (montlhly, down at the Carpenters' Apprenticeship
site) and say, "We've had a paper accepted at such and such a conference," people look at me and have
no idea what I"m talking about. Last June when I went to Amsterdam and brought our project there,
what I was doing was a complete mystery to the rest of the peope working on the project. This spring
(March 2003) we're going to have a little conference of groups around the country that have done
various versions of this kind of project -- women and minorites combined wiht unions combined with
some sort of link between training and construction apprenticeship agreements -- and I"ll bring some
of our people out to that -- at that point, the relevance of the academic world will seem a bit more
tangible.
So Diane is right, thta the WRITING does diddlybop to improve the situation. If anything, it makes
people look at me funny ("How does SHE get to go to Amsterdam? Unto those who have it shall be given,
right?")
But the project, I am going to assert, actually DOES boost some people into good jobs, and that's
worth doing.
Whether it happens because they're actually learning math, or because we've carved out a path and
marked it clearly so they can follow it, is another question.
Incidentally, for doing the revisions on my paper on the project, the reviewers told me to get rid of
all the Activity Theory stuff. So I did. Now it just describes the project without a hint of what the
principles were that guided the analysis. And -- while I'm at it -- Joe Berry and I had another
article published in this fall's issue of Labor STudies Journal about adjunct teaching in the higher
education industry. THis article was also shaped by AT, but doesn't mention AT by name at all.
However, thinking using AT made it possible for us to sort out two conflicting activity systems which
we then analysed. There are two responses to our article (printed int he same issue) and BOTH of these
guys merged these two activity systems, blurring the conflict. One wanders elsewhere in his response,
the other denies the existence of conflict. More on that another time, if anyone is interested. You
can order free ndividual copies of LSJ by looking it up on line.
Happy trails -- Helena
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 01:00:06 PST