When I first did my summer study program in Trois-Rivières, Québec in 2017, I tried to figure out how long it had been since I'd been anywhere in Québec. I wasn't even sure. I knew it was pre-9/11. I finally decided it was probably 1999 or 2000. I used to enjoy going to performances of the Montréal West Operatic Society (now sadly defunct). I'm not sure why I stopped going to Québec. The first few years after 1999-2000 I was newly divorced and just keeping my head above water financially. Eventually I got picked up full-time at Freeport H.S., so got back to getting my French on during the summers of 2005 and 2006 through a summer immersion program at Université Sainte-Anne in Pointe-de-l'Église, Nouvelle-Écosse (also known as Church Point, Nova Scotia). It was an absolutely fantastic fun program where I learned a lot. It's a tiny campus right on the ocean in the middle of freaking nowhere -- a beautiful part of freaking nowhere. So it was ideal for an immersion experience; no distractions. There were 400 of us if I recall correctly, ages 13 to 70's, and there was something to do in French every waking hour; classes in the morning and constant activity in the afternoon and evening and on the weekends.
Summer 2017 was coming up, and I wanted to get my French on again. But as much as I had loved my two Université Sainte-Anne summers, I had already worked through all the levels of French they offered. There was nothing left for me to do. So I looked elsewhere, and Google searching called my attention to the Road Scholar program at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. Exact same immersion model as Université Sainte-Anne; class in the morning, excursions and activities in the afternoon and evenings, and out-of-town excursions on the weekends. I didn't know the city of Trois-Rivières but noted that it was exactly at the midpoint between Montréal and the city of Québec. Sounded good.
And it was. - so much that I repeated the program in 2018 and 2019. I've had the same fantastic teacher for all three years, and he has taught us as much about Québec culture, history, and life as he has about the French language. Outside of class, it hasn't strictly been an immersion experience as a lot of English has been spoken by participants, and the organizers have sort of looked the other way. This is a trip sponsored by a for-profit company, so they were inclined to give people what they wanted, as opposed to Université Sainte-Anne which was an academic program with credits granted so they had standing to enforce the all-French rule.
So even if the program wasn't in French as much, why have I fallen in love with Québec over the course of this program? First, I've had great French learning experiences my whole life thanks to fantastic teachers and professors, so I was predisposed to love a place right over the Maine border which is all French-speaking. Second, the people really are different in more qualities than the language they speak. Québec people are more physical and warm than their anglo counterparts. People kiss on both cheeks when they meet. People seem to be a little more direct in their communications too. Over my years in education I've learned to filter every word that comes out of my mouth or my keyboard lest someone take something the wrong way. It's so refreshing to just say what needs to be said and know that it will be received as intended, even if I'm saying it in my second language.
There is music everywhere, and people appreciate Québec folk music as much as whatever is popular at the moment. And the folk music is up-tempo and lively. I've heard very little English-language popular music when I've been there over the past three years. Finally, there is overt pride in their culture and language, and a certain strength of character and resilience that comes from the fact that they have had to fight to maintain French as their language. I truly did not understand that at first. I thought the French and English-speaking communities co-existed peacefully kind of on the scale of a Coke-or-Pepsi preference. Not so. My teacher over the past three years and the grad student who was my online tutor over the past school year have taught me a lot about the social history of Québec. It's more than just hockey and snow. There is rich literature and folklore borne out of their struggle to maintain their language and culture. And for a province / culture of 8 million people, there is a LOT of art-music-literature. Fun fact from my teacher who is an author and singer-songwriter (fun fact about the fun fact: I played on two tracks for his new album!): 3000 sales is considered a best-seller in Québec.
Here's a live video of the big hit of 2015 from the annual Québec music awards ceremony. When I asked my tutor for suggestions for Québec songs to learn to sing and play on guitar, this was the first one she mentioned. The group is the super-popular Les Cowboys Fringants, which means "The Frisky Cowboys." Their music is a mix of folk rock and Québec traditional. Note the violin and accordion in the band. The song is "Marine marchande," which means "Merchant Marine." In the tune, a man and woman in a couple are calling each other horrible names, the man says he has signed up for the merchant marine to get away from her, he goes and he's miserable, he says he wants to come back to her, and she says forget it, she has a new girlfriend who lives upstairs and is keeping his side of the bed warm. The refrain says "Let's drink, let's drink, let's drink, my throat is on fire, let's drink, let's drink, let's drink for all the unhappy couples, let's drink, let's drink, let's drink, just one more, babe, I've enlisted in the merchant marine." A cultural note about the "couple" thing particular to Québec: a much higher percentage of man-woman couples never get married in Québec than in English Canada or the USA. Something like one-third. People are in decades-long committed relationships, have kids even, and never get married. Québec French has something American English doesn't and really needs: a word for a committed non-married partner, any gender person or couple. It's "conjoint / conjointe" (in its grammatical masculine / feminine forms). And people also use it for their partner they're married to. So calling someone your "conjoint/e" means they're your partner with the marital status or lack thereof irrelevant. Pretty cool. O.k., here's the video!
Les Cowboys Fringants, "Marine marchande"
As for Trois-Rivières itself, it's a city of 137,000 and I'm not really a city person. Portland is plenty big enough. But what I like about Trois-Rivières compared to Montréal and Québec is that, in fact, I have to do everything in French. Montréal has a large English-speaking community and Québec has a ton of tourists. Trois-Rivières has neither. So I never, ever, ever hear or see English when I'm out and about. I'm learning more because of that. And as cities go, it's clean, it's safe, and it has a nice riverfront downtown area and a cool music and theater scene -- needless to say, right up my alley. I told someone once that the only thing I missed when I'm there (besides family and friends) was living less than 200 yards from the ocean as I do in Portland.
Corollary to that, I love that I'm learning all the time. Every day I pick up lots of new stuff: vocabulary words, conversational expressions, info I need for daily living, cultural or current events references. Sometimes it's a challenge; I find that when I have to interact with someone out in the city as opposed to on campus, I kind of steel myself before the interaction. I make sure I know the vocabulary I need to ask for what I need, and I hope like crazy that I'll understand what they say back to me. I don't always. But I can almost always get the gist. Once in a great while someone will switch to English; that's discouraging for me because it means that I wasn't successful at executing the interaction in French. But I just remind myself that they're doing it out of courtesy. And the longer I'm there, the less it happens, and the less it will continue to happen.
As I write this, I'll be back and forth between Portland/Freeport and Ellsworth for most of the rest of the summer. After that, still up in the air at present, but I'm checking out a few options. I should know soon. But I'm following news from up there, corresponding with a couple of new friends, and playing lots of lively Québec music on my phone through my car speakers whenever I'm driving anywhere. I'm lucky to have three places where I feel like I'm at home.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Friday, July 12, 2019
The colorful world of Québec swear words
I'm going to start this post the same way I did the last one: I have wonderful friends. The news from my last post about my program being cancelled for fall was a downer, and I so appreciate the messages of support I've gotten from folks. Thank you soooooo much. I'm working on a Plan B; nothing is settled yet.
I'm coming home for the weekend. Anyone going to be around? This weekend trip home was already planned before anything hit the fan, but the opportunity to spend time on my home turf and think about stuff will be good too. The reason for the trip: two of my former students directed an independent film, "Invisible Things." I was a financial patron and an extra in a few scenes, so I got invited to the première Sunday night, and I'm not missing it. So I'll be home sometime Saturday and heading back to Québec Monday morning.
Now to the topic of this post: "the colorful world of Québec swear words." Definitely not for delicate ears and far from school-appropriate. Being retired, I can survive a breach of professionalism. :)
In all cultures, the most taboo language reflects the cultural taboos. Québec culture was very strongly influenced by the Catholic Church for most of the last few centuries. So the most taboo words are words from the church. So it follows that words that are completely innocuous to us are highly offensive when used as expletives. It cracks me up!
Now to the illustration that I'm still cracking up over. There is an excellent museum here in Trois-Rivières devoted to Québec popular culture. Part of one exhibit is devoted to, sure enough, these swear words which are unique in the French-speaking world. Check out this photo of the exhibit:
I walked around the corner and saw this and started cracking up laughing. This is the unhibited nature of the Québécois! Now I want to spell out an equivalency for you just to illustrate how startling and how hysterical this was. Imagine that you are attending a museum exhibit on American culture. You walk into a room, and there in huge block letters on the wall you read: "Fuck, Shit, Goddammit, Son of a Bitch, Asshole, Dickhead, Jesus Christ." This is exactly what you are looking at in the photo: Québec swear words with that level of offensiveness! They started with "tabarnak," which is the big kahuna of swear words which is why I started my list with "Fuck." Coming out swinging!!
What do they mean literally? In order of the photo, it's "tabernacle" or church; "host" like the communion host or wafer; "ciborium" which is the box that holds the host; "chalice" which is the communion drinking cup; "sacrement" which is the same in English; "viarge" which is "virgin" referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus; and "Christ." Yes, indeed, those are Québec's most taboo swear words.
You do hear people say "Fuck" up here but it has no power to them. They think they're saying something with about the offensiveness level of "damn it."
I wanted to make a funny post after my last super-serious one. I hope you find this as hilarious as I do!
I'm coming home for the weekend. Anyone going to be around? This weekend trip home was already planned before anything hit the fan, but the opportunity to spend time on my home turf and think about stuff will be good too. The reason for the trip: two of my former students directed an independent film, "Invisible Things." I was a financial patron and an extra in a few scenes, so I got invited to the première Sunday night, and I'm not missing it. So I'll be home sometime Saturday and heading back to Québec Monday morning.
Now to the topic of this post: "the colorful world of Québec swear words." Definitely not for delicate ears and far from school-appropriate. Being retired, I can survive a breach of professionalism. :)
In all cultures, the most taboo language reflects the cultural taboos. Québec culture was very strongly influenced by the Catholic Church for most of the last few centuries. So the most taboo words are words from the church. So it follows that words that are completely innocuous to us are highly offensive when used as expletives. It cracks me up!
Now to the illustration that I'm still cracking up over. There is an excellent museum here in Trois-Rivières devoted to Québec popular culture. Part of one exhibit is devoted to, sure enough, these swear words which are unique in the French-speaking world. Check out this photo of the exhibit:
I walked around the corner and saw this and started cracking up laughing. This is the unhibited nature of the Québécois! Now I want to spell out an equivalency for you just to illustrate how startling and how hysterical this was. Imagine that you are attending a museum exhibit on American culture. You walk into a room, and there in huge block letters on the wall you read: "Fuck, Shit, Goddammit, Son of a Bitch, Asshole, Dickhead, Jesus Christ." This is exactly what you are looking at in the photo: Québec swear words with that level of offensiveness! They started with "tabarnak," which is the big kahuna of swear words which is why I started my list with "Fuck." Coming out swinging!!
What do they mean literally? In order of the photo, it's "tabernacle" or church; "host" like the communion host or wafer; "ciborium" which is the box that holds the host; "chalice" which is the communion drinking cup; "sacrement" which is the same in English; "viarge" which is "virgin" referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus; and "Christ." Yes, indeed, those are Québec's most taboo swear words.
You do hear people say "Fuck" up here but it has no power to them. They think they're saying something with about the offensiveness level of "damn it."
I wanted to make a funny post after my last super-serious one. I hope you find this as hilarious as I do!
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
the honeymoon is over, the challenges begin ...
I have wonderful friends. Two people checked in on Sunday: "hey, haven't seen any posts from you, all o.k. up there?"
Welllll, let's start with this story ... I found out during a meeting with my advisor today that my academic program for fall is going to be cancelled due to low enrollment. They typically get the majority of their students from China, and due to tensions and problems, no Chinese students will be enrolled. There was something about students from Brazil dropping off, too, but I didn't catch all of that. It's not unusual for me to miss information when someone's talking. I can follow TV and radio news, lectures, etc., because people are trained to speak clearly, but in casual conversation people are more, well, casual. -- especially in my case. Because I speak with confidence (I stop short of saying "I speak well"), people assume I understand everything they're saying. Ha.
I'd been wondering why I hadn't gotten a tuition bill yet. Now I know.
So, my choices:
1. Enroll in classes for francophones. My advisor suggested it. It will be twice as expensive and 1,000,000 times more challenging. I don't know if I'm capable of doing college-level work for native French speakers.
2. The French school has a two-week private tutoring option. Five hours of one-on-one instruction a day. I know one of the instructors who does that and would really enjoy working with him. I wouldn't be able to come on my Canada study permit (like a student visa) since I wouldn't be a full-time student. (UPDATE: Turns out that's not true. I can be a part-time student on a study permit. Whew...) Without the study permit, I would have a six-month time limit after which I would have to come home. (UPDATE: I can renew the study permit. Turns out part-time is o.k. Whew again ...)
3. Cut my losses and come home now.
So there's that.
Plus I've been dealing with plumbing problems in my apartment, specifically a shower that only ran hot water, no cold. And it was HOT. Took a week to resolve that. I was fretting wondering whether I had made myself clear to the landlord what the problem was. I contacted my landlord again yesterday morning and he came right over and fixed it. He thought his plumber had taken care of it. Message to me: don't wait a week next time I have a problem. Plumbing or home problems suck anyway, and layering a language barrier onto that just compounds the stress.
I'm not going to lie: I hit kind of a low before the weekend. The plumbing thing sucked. I went to a hotel for a few days just to get away from it. Even though I'm in (and halfway through) a three-week Road Scholar class with mostly Americans studying French, I'd been feeling a little isolated and questioning my decision to do this. I saw lots of fun photos of family and friends online doing their thing on the Fourth and missed what was apparently a fantastic family gathering. Even though family and friends are only a social media post or a text away, I miss people. I live alone and am happy living like that, but that doesn't mean I want to be alone all the time.
So I made sure to have an awesome weekend. I got out of town and went to the Mauricie national park about a 40-minute drive due north of here. I did that both Saturday and Sunday. Two beautiful days. I took my journal to write in to sort some stuff out, and also took my guitar just to hang out outdoors and play and replay the small list of songs I know (I've only been playing for eight months). Here's where I sat and played for a really long time on Sunday. There is a beautiful small lake behind the gazebo.
There are many beautiful spots in the park which is actually pretty small. It never ceases to amaze me that Canadian national and provincial parks are never, ever, ever crowded.
Then at night I went to the last two nights of the Festivoix music festival. Saturday night I heard a group that is really popular up here, Kaïn (check them out on YouTube). They're billed as folk rock but I'd call it country rock. The crowd was having a blast and so was the band. Everyone recognized all the tunes and was singing along -- except me, but I was having fun watching people have fun! Sunday night, the closing night of the festival, I went to the performance by Jean-Michel Blais, a pianist who accompanies his piano playing with electronic sounds. (Check him out too.) I had my doubts about that before I heard it, but I really liked it. The common thread between the two very different performances was that the performers engaged with the audience a lot and kept expressing how appreciative they were of people's attendance and support. Cool.
So I've come out of the funk I was in. I very, very rarely get in a funk so it was weird. I didn't enjoy that. Well, I guess no one does or it wouldn't be called a funk.
I have no idea how I'm going to resolve the academic problem. I'm not going to decide tonight. It's late and I have the All-Star game on in the background. I'll focus on that for a few innings. The American League is ahead. As it should be. I'll watch baseball for awhile tonight, and tomorrow I'll start figuring out how to play the academic curve ball I've just been thrown. With thought, planning, and a little luck, I'll knock it out of the park.
Welllll, let's start with this story ... I found out during a meeting with my advisor today that my academic program for fall is going to be cancelled due to low enrollment. They typically get the majority of their students from China, and due to tensions and problems, no Chinese students will be enrolled. There was something about students from Brazil dropping off, too, but I didn't catch all of that. It's not unusual for me to miss information when someone's talking. I can follow TV and radio news, lectures, etc., because people are trained to speak clearly, but in casual conversation people are more, well, casual. -- especially in my case. Because I speak with confidence (I stop short of saying "I speak well"), people assume I understand everything they're saying. Ha.
I'd been wondering why I hadn't gotten a tuition bill yet. Now I know.
So, my choices:
1. Enroll in classes for francophones. My advisor suggested it. It will be twice as expensive and 1,000,000 times more challenging. I don't know if I'm capable of doing college-level work for native French speakers.
2. The French school has a two-week private tutoring option. Five hours of one-on-one instruction a day. I know one of the instructors who does that and would really enjoy working with him. I wouldn't be able to come on my Canada study permit (like a student visa) since I wouldn't be a full-time student. (UPDATE: Turns out that's not true. I can be a part-time student on a study permit. Whew...) Without the study permit, I would have a six-month time limit after which I would have to come home. (UPDATE: I can renew the study permit. Turns out part-time is o.k. Whew again ...)
3. Cut my losses and come home now.
So there's that.
Plus I've been dealing with plumbing problems in my apartment, specifically a shower that only ran hot water, no cold. And it was HOT. Took a week to resolve that. I was fretting wondering whether I had made myself clear to the landlord what the problem was. I contacted my landlord again yesterday morning and he came right over and fixed it. He thought his plumber had taken care of it. Message to me: don't wait a week next time I have a problem. Plumbing or home problems suck anyway, and layering a language barrier onto that just compounds the stress.
I'm not going to lie: I hit kind of a low before the weekend. The plumbing thing sucked. I went to a hotel for a few days just to get away from it. Even though I'm in (and halfway through) a three-week Road Scholar class with mostly Americans studying French, I'd been feeling a little isolated and questioning my decision to do this. I saw lots of fun photos of family and friends online doing their thing on the Fourth and missed what was apparently a fantastic family gathering. Even though family and friends are only a social media post or a text away, I miss people. I live alone and am happy living like that, but that doesn't mean I want to be alone all the time.
So I made sure to have an awesome weekend. I got out of town and went to the Mauricie national park about a 40-minute drive due north of here. I did that both Saturday and Sunday. Two beautiful days. I took my journal to write in to sort some stuff out, and also took my guitar just to hang out outdoors and play and replay the small list of songs I know (I've only been playing for eight months). Here's where I sat and played for a really long time on Sunday. There is a beautiful small lake behind the gazebo.
There are many beautiful spots in the park which is actually pretty small. It never ceases to amaze me that Canadian national and provincial parks are never, ever, ever crowded.
Then at night I went to the last two nights of the Festivoix music festival. Saturday night I heard a group that is really popular up here, Kaïn (check them out on YouTube). They're billed as folk rock but I'd call it country rock. The crowd was having a blast and so was the band. Everyone recognized all the tunes and was singing along -- except me, but I was having fun watching people have fun! Sunday night, the closing night of the festival, I went to the performance by Jean-Michel Blais, a pianist who accompanies his piano playing with electronic sounds. (Check him out too.) I had my doubts about that before I heard it, but I really liked it. The common thread between the two very different performances was that the performers engaged with the audience a lot and kept expressing how appreciative they were of people's attendance and support. Cool.
So I've come out of the funk I was in. I very, very rarely get in a funk so it was weird. I didn't enjoy that. Well, I guess no one does or it wouldn't be called a funk.
I have no idea how I'm going to resolve the academic problem. I'm not going to decide tonight. It's late and I have the All-Star game on in the background. I'll focus on that for a few innings. The American League is ahead. As it should be. I'll watch baseball for awhile tonight, and tomorrow I'll start figuring out how to play the academic curve ball I've just been thrown. With thought, planning, and a little luck, I'll knock it out of the park.
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Trois-Rivières, Québec: the start of my "immigrant experience"
Bonjour! If you are reading this, you probably know the basics of my last couple of years. In June 2018, I retired from a 32-year career teaching mostly French and Latin. In September 2018, I returned to my school as a long-term sub for the 2018-19 school year for the Latin teaching half of my position because they couldn't fill it. My catch phrase all year was "#irreplaceable." My other catch phrase was "bonus year." I was delighted to have a year at a school I really did enjoy, with kids and families I really did enjoy, and with fewer responsibilities and time commitments, just pure teaching and doing the fun stuff.
So why have I just moved to Trois-Rivières, Québec for a year? There is a little bit of backstory to fill in here, too. I spent the summers of 2017 and 2018 here at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), at the École internationale de français (French Summer School). My particular program was sponsored by the Road Scholar organization, formerly Elderhostel, which I found simply by Google searching French immersion programs in Canada. I knew that I wanted to spend some of the summer of 2017 living in French, and really wanted to do it in Canada just because I like spending time in Canada. So I applied, got in, came here, and really liked it. The city is a clean and safe city of 137,000 with a cool art, music, and theater scene -- right in my wheelhouse! The university has an excellent reputation and the campus is also clean and safe. There were 40 of us and we stayed in on-campus apartments which were like new, four to an apartment with our own bedrooms and shared kitchen, living room, and bathroom. I tested into the advanced class; my instructor was outstanding. And several times a week we had excursions to museums, historical sites, parks, everything the area had to offer. The three weeks also included two Saturday trips to Montréal and Québec City, each about 90 miles away. To explain to people where Trois-Rivières is, I always tell people to imagine a straight line between Montréal and Québec City; Trois-Rivières is at the midpoint.
In 2017 I kept careful track of every hour I spent in class or on a sanctioned educational activity and used that for my teacher recertification hours for 2018.
I enjoyed 2017 so much that I came back for 2018. I was very pleasantly surprised to have the same outstanding instructor again. I had roommates that I really hit it off with, an English teacher from Arlington, Texas, a retired entertainment industry attorney from Los Angeles, and a nurse from the south shore of Boston. And I experienced it differently this time since I wasn't tracking contact hours for recertification credit. I was just here to enjoy being here.
And something else felt different in 2018. I noticed that I felt really comfortable making my way around the city, and I'm not a city person. Once I drove somewhere just one time, I remembered how to get there again with no problem, which isn't like me; usually I'm writing down distances, street names, landmarks, etc. because I know I won't remember and I have no visual aptitude at all. And not only did I feel really comfortable communicating in French with francophones (Canada term for people whose first language is French) on campus and in the city, I enjoyed the challenge. I mean, I was hardly ignorant of French having taught it for 32 years ... but I've spent almost all those 32 years teaching beginners. It never really put my French to the test. And I really enjoyed feeling like I was learning something new every day, as much about Québec culture and history as about the French language.
So that's why I'm back here. I wanted to put myself to the test. I could very easily have stayed at my school and transitioned from my half-time long-term sub job this year to continuing on as a day-to-day substitute teacher. Everything about my Maine life has been great. But I knew that if I settled into a routine next year of subbing and doing other fun stuff, I would be happy and have fun, but there would be no learning, no challenge. And I felt really called to look for a learning and challenge opportunity -- and specifically, here. Many of you reading what I'm about to say will think I'm nuts if you don't already ... but I am feeling very specifically called to be here at the UQTR. Not a specific reason. Just purely intuitive. I wrote a poem about it over the winter called "The Sirens' Song." Everyone reading this who knows me as a Latin teacher will no doubt appreciate the reference to the Odyssey. Here is the poem. (I write all my poetry in English and French.)
la chanson des Sirènes / The Sirens' Song
The ancient Greeks believed in the Sirens
who sang to sailors to seduce them and draw them to their island.
I know that they exist today.
But not in Greece.
They live in the St. Lawrence and St. Maurice rivers
and I hear their song every day.
Should I answer their call?
Les Grecs de l'Antiquité
croyaient aux Sirènes
qui chantaient aux marins
afin de les séduire et de les attirer vers leur île.
Moi, je sais qu'elles existent aujourd'hui.
Mais pas en Grèce.
Elles habitent le fleuve St-Laurent et la rivière St-Maurice
et j'entends leur chanson chaque jour.
Devrais-je répondre à leur appel?
So I don't know yet why I'm being called to be specifically here. But I'm giving myself until April 2020, the end of the university school year, to find the answer. I'll be taking classes with regular students in the École internationale de français. And I'll be looking for music opportunities too. Some have actually already materialized. That will be the subject of my next post.
So how is it going so far, four days in? I keep thinking that what I'm experiencing must be what it feels like to be an immigrant to the USA. Interacting with a landlord, a bank teller, a post office clerk, a store clerk, and a librarian in French definitely raises the bar from teaching a French I class. I'm soaking up new vocabulary all the time. I'm constantly on websites to find out key words I'll need before I need them. I haven't heard spoken English here even once. But that's part of why I wanted to be here and not Montréal or Québec City. Montréal has a huge English-speaking community and is truly a bilingual French-English city. Québec has loads of tourists. Trois-Rivières has neither tourists nor an anglophone (Canada term for people whose first language is English) community.
Even as much as I wanted this experience, there's an adjustment involved. I haven't understood everything that people have said to me, which is frustrating, and embarrassing if I think I'm answering the question they asked and that wasn't it. And I've found myself engaging in three "cheats":
1. I'm taking the self-checkout when I can instead of interacting with a clerk. I need to stop that.
2. I walked all over a store looking for light bulbs instead of asking a clerk where they were because I wasn't sure of the word for light bulb. I thought "ampoule" but wasn't sure. (It is indeed "ampoule." A lesson to me to trust my instincts -- just like I've been telling students to do for years!)
3. I can actually speak French very well (and am not just saying so myself, I get compliments from francophones on the quality of my French), but my speaking ability exceeds my listening comprehension ability. I have a little hearing loss and am wondering whether that's a factor. So I caught myself in interactions with a store clerk a couple of times speaking much more slowly and hesitantly in French than I do naturally so they would go slowly and speak clearly in return. I need to cut that out.
There is also the adjustment to being away from loved ones. I would have almost certainly been spending these last few days doing things with friends and seeing people I know wherever I go. I'm six hours away now. I have two friends up here, one of whom I met in the Road Scholar program, one whom I've known since University of Maine years. The former is out of town until Monday, the latter is busy moving, so neither is available. So I guess I'm more of a social creature than I realized as I've felt a little lonely and am not used to that at all. That will pass, of course, so I'm not in the least bit worried about it. I just surprised myself.
A really nice moment happened just when I needed it to: I was out for a walk on Thursday and the two Road Scholar program leaders from the previous years were driving by together, saw me, called out and waved, and did a U-turn to come say hi and give me a hug. That felt great at a moment when I'd been feeling a little isolated.
There are probably rules about how long a blog post should be and this is probably it. So I'll leave these stories for the next post: what my living arrangements are like here, photos of my apartment and the neighborhood, and stories about how I've already found musical opportunities.
Two footnotes:
1. There are older posts on this blog that have nothing to do with this Trois-Rivières experience. Feel free to read those and comment on them!
2. I mentioned my poetry. Here is the link to my bilingual poetry site which has a lot of poems inspired by my summer 2018 experience here: http://sites.google.com/view/poetepoetdiane
I like to end my posts with discussion questions, so here we go:
1. Have you ever taken something on just because you felt called to as opposed to having a rational/analytical reason?
2. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt out of your element but knew it was a good learning experience for you?
3. Have you ever surprised yourself with your reaction to something?
I love it when people respond to my post in the comments, and I'd love to get a good discussion going, so please jump in.
I'll try to incorporate more photos in future posts; the following will be a good start!
So why have I just moved to Trois-Rivières, Québec for a year? There is a little bit of backstory to fill in here, too. I spent the summers of 2017 and 2018 here at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), at the École internationale de français (French Summer School). My particular program was sponsored by the Road Scholar organization, formerly Elderhostel, which I found simply by Google searching French immersion programs in Canada. I knew that I wanted to spend some of the summer of 2017 living in French, and really wanted to do it in Canada just because I like spending time in Canada. So I applied, got in, came here, and really liked it. The city is a clean and safe city of 137,000 with a cool art, music, and theater scene -- right in my wheelhouse! The university has an excellent reputation and the campus is also clean and safe. There were 40 of us and we stayed in on-campus apartments which were like new, four to an apartment with our own bedrooms and shared kitchen, living room, and bathroom. I tested into the advanced class; my instructor was outstanding. And several times a week we had excursions to museums, historical sites, parks, everything the area had to offer. The three weeks also included two Saturday trips to Montréal and Québec City, each about 90 miles away. To explain to people where Trois-Rivières is, I always tell people to imagine a straight line between Montréal and Québec City; Trois-Rivières is at the midpoint.
In 2017 I kept careful track of every hour I spent in class or on a sanctioned educational activity and used that for my teacher recertification hours for 2018.
I enjoyed 2017 so much that I came back for 2018. I was very pleasantly surprised to have the same outstanding instructor again. I had roommates that I really hit it off with, an English teacher from Arlington, Texas, a retired entertainment industry attorney from Los Angeles, and a nurse from the south shore of Boston. And I experienced it differently this time since I wasn't tracking contact hours for recertification credit. I was just here to enjoy being here.
And something else felt different in 2018. I noticed that I felt really comfortable making my way around the city, and I'm not a city person. Once I drove somewhere just one time, I remembered how to get there again with no problem, which isn't like me; usually I'm writing down distances, street names, landmarks, etc. because I know I won't remember and I have no visual aptitude at all. And not only did I feel really comfortable communicating in French with francophones (Canada term for people whose first language is French) on campus and in the city, I enjoyed the challenge. I mean, I was hardly ignorant of French having taught it for 32 years ... but I've spent almost all those 32 years teaching beginners. It never really put my French to the test. And I really enjoyed feeling like I was learning something new every day, as much about Québec culture and history as about the French language.
So that's why I'm back here. I wanted to put myself to the test. I could very easily have stayed at my school and transitioned from my half-time long-term sub job this year to continuing on as a day-to-day substitute teacher. Everything about my Maine life has been great. But I knew that if I settled into a routine next year of subbing and doing other fun stuff, I would be happy and have fun, but there would be no learning, no challenge. And I felt really called to look for a learning and challenge opportunity -- and specifically, here. Many of you reading what I'm about to say will think I'm nuts if you don't already ... but I am feeling very specifically called to be here at the UQTR. Not a specific reason. Just purely intuitive. I wrote a poem about it over the winter called "The Sirens' Song." Everyone reading this who knows me as a Latin teacher will no doubt appreciate the reference to the Odyssey. Here is the poem. (I write all my poetry in English and French.)
la chanson des Sirènes / The Sirens' Song
The ancient Greeks believed in the Sirens
who sang to sailors to seduce them and draw them to their island.
I know that they exist today.
But not in Greece.
They live in the St. Lawrence and St. Maurice rivers
and I hear their song every day.
Should I answer their call?
Les Grecs de l'Antiquité
croyaient aux Sirènes
qui chantaient aux marins
afin de les séduire et de les attirer vers leur île.
Moi, je sais qu'elles existent aujourd'hui.
Mais pas en Grèce.
Elles habitent le fleuve St-Laurent et la rivière St-Maurice
et j'entends leur chanson chaque jour.
Devrais-je répondre à leur appel?
So I don't know yet why I'm being called to be specifically here. But I'm giving myself until April 2020, the end of the university school year, to find the answer. I'll be taking classes with regular students in the École internationale de français. And I'll be looking for music opportunities too. Some have actually already materialized. That will be the subject of my next post.
So how is it going so far, four days in? I keep thinking that what I'm experiencing must be what it feels like to be an immigrant to the USA. Interacting with a landlord, a bank teller, a post office clerk, a store clerk, and a librarian in French definitely raises the bar from teaching a French I class. I'm soaking up new vocabulary all the time. I'm constantly on websites to find out key words I'll need before I need them. I haven't heard spoken English here even once. But that's part of why I wanted to be here and not Montréal or Québec City. Montréal has a huge English-speaking community and is truly a bilingual French-English city. Québec has loads of tourists. Trois-Rivières has neither tourists nor an anglophone (Canada term for people whose first language is English) community.
Even as much as I wanted this experience, there's an adjustment involved. I haven't understood everything that people have said to me, which is frustrating, and embarrassing if I think I'm answering the question they asked and that wasn't it. And I've found myself engaging in three "cheats":
1. I'm taking the self-checkout when I can instead of interacting with a clerk. I need to stop that.
2. I walked all over a store looking for light bulbs instead of asking a clerk where they were because I wasn't sure of the word for light bulb. I thought "ampoule" but wasn't sure. (It is indeed "ampoule." A lesson to me to trust my instincts -- just like I've been telling students to do for years!)
3. I can actually speak French very well (and am not just saying so myself, I get compliments from francophones on the quality of my French), but my speaking ability exceeds my listening comprehension ability. I have a little hearing loss and am wondering whether that's a factor. So I caught myself in interactions with a store clerk a couple of times speaking much more slowly and hesitantly in French than I do naturally so they would go slowly and speak clearly in return. I need to cut that out.
There is also the adjustment to being away from loved ones. I would have almost certainly been spending these last few days doing things with friends and seeing people I know wherever I go. I'm six hours away now. I have two friends up here, one of whom I met in the Road Scholar program, one whom I've known since University of Maine years. The former is out of town until Monday, the latter is busy moving, so neither is available. So I guess I'm more of a social creature than I realized as I've felt a little lonely and am not used to that at all. That will pass, of course, so I'm not in the least bit worried about it. I just surprised myself.
A really nice moment happened just when I needed it to: I was out for a walk on Thursday and the two Road Scholar program leaders from the previous years were driving by together, saw me, called out and waved, and did a U-turn to come say hi and give me a hug. That felt great at a moment when I'd been feeling a little isolated.
There are probably rules about how long a blog post should be and this is probably it. So I'll leave these stories for the next post: what my living arrangements are like here, photos of my apartment and the neighborhood, and stories about how I've already found musical opportunities.
Two footnotes:
1. There are older posts on this blog that have nothing to do with this Trois-Rivières experience. Feel free to read those and comment on them!
2. I mentioned my poetry. Here is the link to my bilingual poetry site which has a lot of poems inspired by my summer 2018 experience here: http://sites.google.com/view/poetepoetdiane
I like to end my posts with discussion questions, so here we go:
1. Have you ever taken something on just because you felt called to as opposed to having a rational/analytical reason?
2. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt out of your element but knew it was a good learning experience for you?
3. Have you ever surprised yourself with your reaction to something?
I love it when people respond to my post in the comments, and I'd love to get a good discussion going, so please jump in.
I'll try to incorporate more photos in future posts; the following will be a good start!
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Is it healthy to "never forget" 9/11?
As I write this on the 15th anniversary of 9/11/2001, there is a front-page story in the Maine Sunday Telegram reporting that we have arrived at the point in history at which high school students do not remember 9/11 because they weren't old enough, or in the case of the freshman class, hadn't been born yet. The question was posed as to how to teach 9/11 as a historical event when we teachers have horrifying memories of it, whereas to the students in class it's just an item on the timeline of U.S. history.
I've been asking myself for years now whether it's healthy to keep opening the 9/11 wound every year. Most of us have had traumatic or deeply upsetting events occur. Would it be considered healthy if we relived every detail every year on the anniversary date? I suspect not. To choose the most devastating example I can think of, I know people who have lost a child under various circumstances: stillbirth, cancer, accident. Of course they never forget their lost child; indeed, that lost child is always thought of as part of the family. And many families observe a ritual of their own design. One family I know takes balloons to their stillborn daughter's grave site on holidays. Another family goes swimming every year at their son's favorite beach on his August birthday. It is vitally important to these families that the memories of their child not fade. And it is wonderful that they have found ways to find solace and to come together to remember their child. But do they commemorate the grim circumstances of their children's deaths? I would imagine that any families who annually observed and relived the worst moments at the hospital or the scene of the accident would be urged to seek counseling and to heal from their trauma as best they could. And for 9/11, it is time to bring an end to photos and video in the media of the burning towers.
I commend the efforts of community groups who have taken steps in the direction of refocusing 9/11 by organizing blood drives or events to honor and thank police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel. I am less enthusiastic about reframing it as a patriotic holiday in view of the anti-Muslim sentiment that some elements of society persist in perpetuating. We have Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans' Day on the calendar of U.S. holidays. Little mention is made anymore on the anniversary of December 7, 1941 as a grim event in U.S. history. I personally will be relieved when September 11, 2001 also fades from public attention. Of course everyone processes grief and trauma in their own way and in their own time. As for me, my 9/11/2001 memories have become gray and indistinct like other bad memories from my lifetime, and I choose not to partake of the media coverage. Healing is healthier than obsessing.
Monday, September 5, 2016
Results of my social media survey: who is most vulnerable to abuse? Not whom you might think.
I conducted a survey of volunteers to ask about the impact of social media on their lives.
Demographics
The 25 survey respondents were contacted personally by me or invited by a family member whom I had invited. So it is skewed toward people in Maine or from Maine, all of whom either have a college education or are college students now. Yet I'm comfortable generalizing from the results, as the respondents were evenly dispersed through the age categories as I defined them (18 and younger being the youngest, 75 and older being the oldest), and between men and women (14 women, 10 men).
Noteworthy results
• 68% spend more than an hour on social media every work day or school day.
• 76% spend more than an hour on social media on a day of no work or school.
• 76% occasionally or frequently "get sucked in and find myself on longer than I had planned."
• 64% had suffered some consequence of being on social media too long. Tops on the list: not getting enough sleep. Next: not getting work / schoolwork / tasks done. Third: not spending time with people.
• 80% have unfriended or blocked someone, the most frequent reason being objectionable content of that person's postings. Only one respondent reported a negative consequence of having unfriended someone, a message with an angry reaction.
• 64% have wished they spent less time on social media.
• 40% have felt addicted to social media.
• 20% have experienced a negative impact on a relationship as a result of social media.
• 16% have temporarily deactivated a social media account. 24% have permanently deleted one. Reasons in descending order of frequency: got bored with it or tired of it, to avoid contact with a specific person or group, spending too much time on it.
• When asked in an open-ended question "What do you like about social media?", one respondent said keeping up with breaking sports news. All others mentioned connections with people, especially family.
• In an open-ended question, parents of adolescents reported concern about their children's social media use, not so much time spent as fear of negative consequences.
Harassment
I expected mostly young people to report having been victims of harassment or threats on social media. It wasn't. It was adult women in positions of authority or visibility. All the women respondents who fit that description had a harassment story. Most reported having to involve the police or Facebook administrators. That reflects what I have observed this presidential campaign season as well. Just considering cartoons and memes as opposed to more in-depth writing (which doesn't really have a home on social media anyway), anti-Donald Trump cartoons or memes tend to make fun of his physical appearance, while I have seen much more threatening ones directed at Hillary Clinton, the most disturbing one being a "Hillary Hunting License."
Mention was also made of harassment of gay people, but without further detail. I did not ask respondents to declare their sexual orientation on this survey, only their age and gender identification, so this would suggest a need for further research and investigation.
Solutions
• People of all ages would do well to ask themselves how much of their social media use is driven by the FOMO syndrome, an abbreviation I recently observed which, I eventually learned, stands for "Fear of Missing Out."
• For getting "sucked in" and spending too much time on social media with deleterious results, I would suggest people set limits for themselves and set an alarm on their devices. When the alarm goes off, that's it for the day.
• As with most issues, parents would do well to keep a dialogue going with their children. It is of little use for parents to be Facebook friends with their children for the purpose of keeping abreast of what those children are doing on Facebook as there are ample ways to conceal posts and activity from specific people.
• For all of us: put the gosh-darn phone / tablet / laptop down and go engage with people, have a face-to-face conversation, get outdoors.
• Saving the most serious for last: people who are being harassed need to be vocal about it, report the harassers, and hold them accountable. The fact that women in authority or power are susceptible to this has implications far beyond the scope of this post. And the fact that people who are gay have felt threatened suggests that even though marriage equality has helped the world come a long way, the world has a long way to go.
Conclusion
Social media outlets are here to stay. People like the connection and the immediacy. But I'm not convinced that social media isn't doing as much harm as it is good due to harassment, time taken away from responsibilities and healthy activities, and the effect on relationships. If people will set limits on their use and call out harassment when they experience it or see it, those will be steps in the direction of a solution.
Demographics
The 25 survey respondents were contacted personally by me or invited by a family member whom I had invited. So it is skewed toward people in Maine or from Maine, all of whom either have a college education or are college students now. Yet I'm comfortable generalizing from the results, as the respondents were evenly dispersed through the age categories as I defined them (18 and younger being the youngest, 75 and older being the oldest), and between men and women (14 women, 10 men).
Noteworthy results
• 68% spend more than an hour on social media every work day or school day.
• 76% spend more than an hour on social media on a day of no work or school.
• 76% occasionally or frequently "get sucked in and find myself on longer than I had planned."
• 64% had suffered some consequence of being on social media too long. Tops on the list: not getting enough sleep. Next: not getting work / schoolwork / tasks done. Third: not spending time with people.
• 80% have unfriended or blocked someone, the most frequent reason being objectionable content of that person's postings. Only one respondent reported a negative consequence of having unfriended someone, a message with an angry reaction.
• 64% have wished they spent less time on social media.
• 40% have felt addicted to social media.
• 20% have experienced a negative impact on a relationship as a result of social media.
• 16% have temporarily deactivated a social media account. 24% have permanently deleted one. Reasons in descending order of frequency: got bored with it or tired of it, to avoid contact with a specific person or group, spending too much time on it.
• When asked in an open-ended question "What do you like about social media?", one respondent said keeping up with breaking sports news. All others mentioned connections with people, especially family.
• In an open-ended question, parents of adolescents reported concern about their children's social media use, not so much time spent as fear of negative consequences.
Harassment
I expected mostly young people to report having been victims of harassment or threats on social media. It wasn't. It was adult women in positions of authority or visibility. All the women respondents who fit that description had a harassment story. Most reported having to involve the police or Facebook administrators. That reflects what I have observed this presidential campaign season as well. Just considering cartoons and memes as opposed to more in-depth writing (which doesn't really have a home on social media anyway), anti-Donald Trump cartoons or memes tend to make fun of his physical appearance, while I have seen much more threatening ones directed at Hillary Clinton, the most disturbing one being a "Hillary Hunting License."
Mention was also made of harassment of gay people, but without further detail. I did not ask respondents to declare their sexual orientation on this survey, only their age and gender identification, so this would suggest a need for further research and investigation.
Solutions
• People of all ages would do well to ask themselves how much of their social media use is driven by the FOMO syndrome, an abbreviation I recently observed which, I eventually learned, stands for "Fear of Missing Out."
• For getting "sucked in" and spending too much time on social media with deleterious results, I would suggest people set limits for themselves and set an alarm on their devices. When the alarm goes off, that's it for the day.
• As with most issues, parents would do well to keep a dialogue going with their children. It is of little use for parents to be Facebook friends with their children for the purpose of keeping abreast of what those children are doing on Facebook as there are ample ways to conceal posts and activity from specific people.
• For all of us: put the gosh-darn phone / tablet / laptop down and go engage with people, have a face-to-face conversation, get outdoors.
• Saving the most serious for last: people who are being harassed need to be vocal about it, report the harassers, and hold them accountable. The fact that women in authority or power are susceptible to this has implications far beyond the scope of this post. And the fact that people who are gay have felt threatened suggests that even though marriage equality has helped the world come a long way, the world has a long way to go.
Conclusion
Social media outlets are here to stay. People like the connection and the immediacy. But I'm not convinced that social media isn't doing as much harm as it is good due to harassment, time taken away from responsibilities and healthy activities, and the effect on relationships. If people will set limits on their use and call out harassment when they experience it or see it, those will be steps in the direction of a solution.
Friday, July 22, 2016
Is social media really antisocial?
A friend of mine received a death threat from a fellow member of a Facebook group who didn't like her post - a death threat which included her home address. The group? Maine Birds. Maine Birds?!?! Aren't bird-watchers usually a pretty gentle and genteel bunch? Despite urging by me and many others to report it to the group admin, to Facebook, and to the police, she didn't because she feared further retribution. She's no longer on Facebook.
One of the stars of the new Ghostbusters movie (a remake with all four Ghostbusters played by women this time) was violently harassed on Twitter. Her offense? Being a black woman playing one of the original Ghostbusters. Despite overwhelming support for her in the face of the abuse in the form of a deluge of hashtags and positive tweets, she's no longer on Twitter.
An owner of two area restaurants posted on social media that open-carry gun users were no longer welcome in her restaurants. The Yelp sites for these two restaurants were overwhelmed with pro-gun posts from all over the country giving her one-star reviews. Presumably none of them had ever eaten there. But they weren't commenting about the food. They just wanted to drive her out of business. They didn't succeed.
Facebook does nothing about outrageous, harassing, or even criminal comments. Facebook has a vested interest in having as many visits and clicks as possible to bring in advertising revenue.
Twitter will disable an account that is disruptive, but only after much damage has been done.
UPDATE: About an hour and a half after I uploaded this post, I discovered an article published that morning on this very topic on the Washington Post site. It references the case of the Ghostbusters actor cited above (not using her name because the poor woman has gotten enough attention over this). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/07/21/what-it-takes-to-get-banned-from-twitter/?tid=pm_lifestyle_pop_b
Yelp, however, responded with a protocol called "Active Cleanup." This is a practice that started at Yelp last fall. When a business is in the news and people flock to Yelp to post a positive or negative review that has nothing to do with the quality of the product or service but is just taking a stand on the issue, Yelp will delete those reviews.
Social media had great potential to bring people together. But sites like Facebook and Twitter have been taken over by puerile loudmouths whose only interest is in harassing people because they find it amusing. Both sites host an abundance of fake profiles whose sole purpose is harassment. Anyone who stands up to the bullies online becomes a target of abuse as well, and the harassers proceed with utter impunity.
The solution is for sites to exercise some social responsibility like Yelp has and push back. Reviews that only seek to harm the business are deleted. I would like to see Yelp delete the accounts as well, as those individuals are clearly abusing the terms of the site.
Another negative consequence of the proliferation of social media is the unfortunate consequence to news coverage. Users go for the quick take on the "trending topics." In-depth coverage takes second place. Thoughtful reflective posts receive the dismissive comment "tl;dr" which stands for "too long; didn't read." Discussion of issues is reduced to memes which are often juvenile in execution and expression. The goal of memes is to make their subjects look foolish or to stir up anger or hatred. The result is polarization and a lack of nuance in discussions of complex issues. In the online world, there are no complex gray areas; everything is black and white, short and not so sweet.
Finally, people spend significant amounts of time curating their personal social media accounts. I refer not to businesses for whom online advertising has become necessary to be successful, but to individuals and their Facebook, their Twitter, their Instagram, their Snapchat. Everyone with access to one's account is a "friend." Lines get blurred between close friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Superficiality is the standard. People live for likes.
Long ago, a mentor told me that if I pointed out a problem, it was incumbent upon me to suggest a solution. So here goes.
The first issue, online harassment, must be addressed by the sites that host it and by the law. Users must demand a level of civility and must protest when it is breached. The sites must delete the accounts and permanently block the e-mail addresses associated with those accounts, and must prosecute cases of criminal threatening.
The second issue, in-depth news coverage taking a back seat to tweets and memes, should be addressed in the schools. Starting in middle school and continuing through university, students should be required in English and social studies classes to research issues, to read material critically, to identify bias, to articulate a position on an issue, and to defend it with evidence. As a high school teacher, I know that some of that is already going on in some schools and some grade levels. I would like to see all of that become part of the curriculum in all schools. And I would like to see one further step: I would like to see students be taught to respond respectfully and thoughtfully to opinions they disagree with. Making respectful discourse part of the curriculum has great potential to reverse the tide of ever-increasing superficiality and meanness both online and offline.
As for the third issue, the impact of social media on personal lives and relationships, I am going to make that a topic of research starting immediately. Usually, I end these blog posts with "Questions for Discussion." This time, those questions are coming in a survey. If you wish to participate or to read the results, and I haven't been in touch with you by another channel, please comment below. And if anything in this post has struck a chord with you, please comment on that too. I would love to see this post in particular and my blog in general become a source of the respectful and thoughtful discourse that we desperately need to encourage in American society. Looking forward to reading what you share!
One of the stars of the new Ghostbusters movie (a remake with all four Ghostbusters played by women this time) was violently harassed on Twitter. Her offense? Being a black woman playing one of the original Ghostbusters. Despite overwhelming support for her in the face of the abuse in the form of a deluge of hashtags and positive tweets, she's no longer on Twitter.
An owner of two area restaurants posted on social media that open-carry gun users were no longer welcome in her restaurants. The Yelp sites for these two restaurants were overwhelmed with pro-gun posts from all over the country giving her one-star reviews. Presumably none of them had ever eaten there. But they weren't commenting about the food. They just wanted to drive her out of business. They didn't succeed.
Facebook does nothing about outrageous, harassing, or even criminal comments. Facebook has a vested interest in having as many visits and clicks as possible to bring in advertising revenue.
Twitter will disable an account that is disruptive, but only after much damage has been done.
UPDATE: About an hour and a half after I uploaded this post, I discovered an article published that morning on this very topic on the Washington Post site. It references the case of the Ghostbusters actor cited above (not using her name because the poor woman has gotten enough attention over this). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/07/21/what-it-takes-to-get-banned-from-twitter/?tid=pm_lifestyle_pop_b
Yelp, however, responded with a protocol called "Active Cleanup." This is a practice that started at Yelp last fall. When a business is in the news and people flock to Yelp to post a positive or negative review that has nothing to do with the quality of the product or service but is just taking a stand on the issue, Yelp will delete those reviews.
Social media had great potential to bring people together. But sites like Facebook and Twitter have been taken over by puerile loudmouths whose only interest is in harassing people because they find it amusing. Both sites host an abundance of fake profiles whose sole purpose is harassment. Anyone who stands up to the bullies online becomes a target of abuse as well, and the harassers proceed with utter impunity.
The solution is for sites to exercise some social responsibility like Yelp has and push back. Reviews that only seek to harm the business are deleted. I would like to see Yelp delete the accounts as well, as those individuals are clearly abusing the terms of the site.
Another negative consequence of the proliferation of social media is the unfortunate consequence to news coverage. Users go for the quick take on the "trending topics." In-depth coverage takes second place. Thoughtful reflective posts receive the dismissive comment "tl;dr" which stands for "too long; didn't read." Discussion of issues is reduced to memes which are often juvenile in execution and expression. The goal of memes is to make their subjects look foolish or to stir up anger or hatred. The result is polarization and a lack of nuance in discussions of complex issues. In the online world, there are no complex gray areas; everything is black and white, short and not so sweet.
Finally, people spend significant amounts of time curating their personal social media accounts. I refer not to businesses for whom online advertising has become necessary to be successful, but to individuals and their Facebook, their Twitter, their Instagram, their Snapchat. Everyone with access to one's account is a "friend." Lines get blurred between close friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Superficiality is the standard. People live for likes.
Long ago, a mentor told me that if I pointed out a problem, it was incumbent upon me to suggest a solution. So here goes.
The first issue, online harassment, must be addressed by the sites that host it and by the law. Users must demand a level of civility and must protest when it is breached. The sites must delete the accounts and permanently block the e-mail addresses associated with those accounts, and must prosecute cases of criminal threatening.
The second issue, in-depth news coverage taking a back seat to tweets and memes, should be addressed in the schools. Starting in middle school and continuing through university, students should be required in English and social studies classes to research issues, to read material critically, to identify bias, to articulate a position on an issue, and to defend it with evidence. As a high school teacher, I know that some of that is already going on in some schools and some grade levels. I would like to see all of that become part of the curriculum in all schools. And I would like to see one further step: I would like to see students be taught to respond respectfully and thoughtfully to opinions they disagree with. Making respectful discourse part of the curriculum has great potential to reverse the tide of ever-increasing superficiality and meanness both online and offline.
As for the third issue, the impact of social media on personal lives and relationships, I am going to make that a topic of research starting immediately. Usually, I end these blog posts with "Questions for Discussion." This time, those questions are coming in a survey. If you wish to participate or to read the results, and I haven't been in touch with you by another channel, please comment below. And if anything in this post has struck a chord with you, please comment on that too. I would love to see this post in particular and my blog in general become a source of the respectful and thoughtful discourse that we desperately need to encourage in American society. Looking forward to reading what you share!
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