invisible//teaching//visible
speech delivered on 05-03-19
I met Lesley in September 2015 and ever since then I have been looking for an opportunity for us to drink tequila together. And finally here we are.
Lesley once said I was disruptive every where I went, and its true, I can be a wild card, so I bet shes just a little nervous right now……
I started my undergrad studies in 1992 as a 17-year-old. At the time, I had no language to define or articulate the systemic homophobia and gender oppression I experienced in university. I’m talking about the kind of oppression that had the power to seep into my bones until my right to an education became an inaccessible privilege. It took me a ten year social work career, and then another ten year carpentry career to really see the primary function of institutional oppression. This kind of oppression is meant to run interference with ever learning the language to articulate the impact of oppression. Without this language, how can one ever have the confidence to take a seat in grad school?? When I figured that out, I applied for grad school. This is when I met you and you introduced me to the language I needed to define my own experience, my own identity.
In learning this language, I have become specialized in recognizing the invisible, particularly invisible gender identities. In recognizing the invisible, I’d like to speak for a moment about your invisible teaching. There are teaching skills honed to a point in a classroom, and there are invisible teaching skills infinitely expanding into community beyond any individual student, classroom, or institution. Invisible skill I have been the beneficiary of. Skill needed to supervise a grad student carrying the burden of academic oppression. It took great finesse for you to academically hold space safe enough for me to learn again how to listen, to talk, and to trust, throughout every step of grad school. I’m talking about teaching from your place of power-with equal parts courage and curiosity.
When you told me you were retiring, I did my research. I sought insight from my elders-the women who are my touchstones. They spoke of resilience in lifelong educating, a time to bask in the accumulation of your wisdom, a time to share deeply the breadth of your knowledge with community more expansive than one student, one class, or one institution. We are waiting to read the thoughts you are about to write about.
Lately I’ve been on a kick of quoting Audre Lorde, so let’s raise a glass to Lesley and in the words of Audre Lorde, “To whom do I owe the power behind my voice? What strength I have become.”
To Lesley!
