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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}[ interviewer ] do you think that there's been any, that there's any connection for you or any um sort of relationship
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}between literacy, so reading and writing and making meaning and your personal identity?
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}[ Bowen ] well that's interesting. Um, what happened--so we did qualitative journal study looking at 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}essentially a phenomenological model on how counselor education 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}teaches multiculturalism to predominantly white counselors. Our primary demographic is
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}um middle to upper-middle class white females, um, and heterosexuals,
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}um so we decided to, you know, question and I don't know if you've read Alice McIntyre's work, "Making Meaning of Whiteness,"
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}but it was probably the last like largely published seminal work on white educators having discussions and talking about white talk
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}and white discourse and how we encounter the Other in the classroom. And so you know, one of our passions is--one of my passions--
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I do multicultural work in the Multicultural Center here-- is questioning how we foster those growth-orientated conversations and how we 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}put people in the position where they [ inaudible ] discomfort but they're not so uncomfortable that they shut-down. Um
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}and so I was you know talking with my qualitative research professor, and I was like, I just feel like we're missing something here
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}'cause I don't know that the journals are a true reflection of learning. To me it seems more like they're learning professional
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}discourse and they may already have this insight, but they just didn't have the language. And of course we're not grading them but we're also reinforcing that language
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}so I don't know if their end product result is actually them learning about multiculturalism or just learning the discourse by which we talk about it in our
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}profession. And he said, that's absolutely what's going on. It's a ten-week course
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}they're-that's, that's, that's probably what's going on, shouldn't say absolutely. Um but he said you know one things you have to
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}consider is that writing is not your thoughts on paper. Writing is an articulation, a
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}mode of expressing yourself, and if you're a poor writer, that mode of expression and thought is not open to you. And I thought
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}oh my gosh, I had never-I just never, I had never thought of it like that. Um because for me
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}-my mom was an English major and second grade school teacher and part of that was she was an English teacher in secondary school systems
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}and um taught for 29 years, and I remember when I was in eighth grade, 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I scored in the 36 percentile for writing on one of our standardized exams. And I thought, well that's--at the time I know I didn't know this word but--
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I said there's something not right about that--I would currently say its incongruent because all of my other scores were great and I said well I just feel like I've really been taught
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}how to write. And so I said, mom, will you teach me how you learned to write in like the 1960s? And so we took a summer 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}and I wrote four research papers for her and I learned how to diagram sentences, which really helped me, and I memorized prepositional phrases and helping verbs and all these little tips
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}and tricks to improve my writing. And I scored in the 98 percentile the next year, which really to me
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}taught me that writing skills are not fixed. Um and I'm still increasingly impressed because I'll still send papers 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}to my mom sometimes, and they'll come back bloody, but they'll come back bloody in more sophisticated ways
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}so it's not missing simply grammar rules anymore, it's 'when you split the sentence here with this comma, it changes
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}the meaning in this way. Do you really want to do that?' And having these higher level discussions around like so
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}when it changes meanings of sentences. And so yeah I mean as a prof--as someone who
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}wants to be part of the professoriate, and someone who is constantly editing other documents and also doing some communication things around
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}how do we communicate this to our university community, how do we communicate this to external people, and constantly
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}learning the nuances of language that allow us to so that, um, it's incredibly powerful. But I also know that
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I'm in a position to really take advantage of that, and I was thinking about--so I went on this other date the other day
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I date a lot--I mean just because I'm like why not? you know if you're an interesting person and you're decent and good, like why wouldn't I give you a chance?
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}You may not be right for me but hey we may be friends. So I went on a date with person, and 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}his background was like inner city New York, and at some point in his life had joined a gang and
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}was very smart, you know, you could--and I say that in terms of, he was able to convey meanings effectively in ways that I was like
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I get what your talking about even though you're not using the appropriate terms. And I think that at one point he made a joke about a tracheotomy
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}'cause we were talking about breathing and respiration, and I thought, it's very sad to me
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}that, you have not be afforded the formal education that I've been afforded because 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}you're obviously bright enough to do something with it but the futures of your life have been limited because you weren't um
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}invited into this system of privilege. And so for me, 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}again, um, I, I I don't know. So the other piece that I often think about is when we talk about
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}white privilege and people who are excluded from that because they're say from Appalachia. Um I know [ inaudible ] not everyone from Appalacia but
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}there are people who, who never get to take advantage of that privilege because they've been disenfranchised in other ways. And so
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}one of my biggest belief, beliefs is, that when you control the very way in which people learn information and the information they have access to 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}you cna actually control their future. And that's scary. You know, you can limit the opportunities, you can limit the very way in which they
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}perceive the world because they have no way to open their eyes, if that makes sense.
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}Um, and so yeah I believe, it's not perfect, not everyone who as we talked a little bit before this
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}the literacy myth, everyone who is exposed to literacy has those opportunities but
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}to not have them, um, diminishes your chances of being able to succeed even more exponentally
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}as you can imagine. [ interviewer ] okay, so um what about you personally? 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}um how have you, or have you used writing or 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}research, 'cause you've talked a lot about research or reading as a way to sort of um sort of look
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}at yourself and figure out your own personal identity or find community or anything like that? [ Bowen ] um
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}so a couple things come to mind. One, I do this thing where I just write pieces and then try to get them published. 'Cause why not? You know, like why not.
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I wrote a piece on excellence to eminence and this university's mission, and an article Ricky Gervais wrote, like, on that eminence is fame but it's being famous because you're good at something
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}and it was the first time I really understood what that speech meant. 'Cause I was like, being well-known for something, blah blah blah blah blah.
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}Um I'm working on another piece on what it means to be a gay man doing outdoors adventure things and being a troupe leader and what it 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}means to be perceived in that way. Especially when I show up like with my mirrored and people are like, 'oh my god, you that!' I'm like, apparently
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I'm outdoorsy. Who knew? Like I didn't. And I honestly didn't. Um it was, it was a
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}great discovery for me. Um, so for me, writing is this way to express yourself uh and to let others
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}people in on a part of you that can then live separate from you, um, because
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I think we, especially in this age when it's so easy to produce something and--, like, like this digital narrative--just put it on a server somewhere
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}that snapshot of you at that time and the way that you were thinking is preserved and to go back and look at how you were thinking at that time is really fascinating
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I mean because you're essentially seeing how you were and how you were not only recording thoughts but how you were thinking about the world
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}because each piece that you write is an expression of that. Um honestly some of the psychological
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}literature is so fascinating. Have you ever um, "Psychopathology in the Hundred Acre Woods"? Where this
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}Well, it's just a kind of a fluff piece, but really not, and it goes around, because the definitions of mental illness and psychological illness has changed
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}over time. We have, working on our fifth DSM, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental disorders
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}And she pathologies each of the Hundred Acre Woods characters. So obviously Tigger has
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}ADHD, and Poo has some kind of cognitive delay or Alzheimer's,
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}uh, I can't remember which character has OCD, um, Owl is like narcissistic or something
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}like that, and it's just, it's funny but it really gives you insight into the ways in which just label people with thing as opposed to really
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}getting to know them as a person. Which in turn helped me understand the value of stepping away from standardized
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}instruments and really going to clinical interviews. But I was thinking like one of the pieces that came to mind
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}when you were saying what's really changed your thinking or development. Have you ever read the congenital theory of
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}morality? So I can't remember where I came across it, but I was just reading something 'cause I just
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}like to read widely, 'cause I just like to know what's going on in the world. And, essentially the congenital theory of morality is that if you're born
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}with it then it must granted by God and therefore it must be moral. And so I remember reading this and applying to
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}homosexuality and this need to say, well if you're born with it, then we should have rights because
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}you're born with. But if being gay was just okay--or transgendered or lesbian or anybody in the alphabet soup--
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}um then, it just is. It shouldn't matter if you
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}figured out you liked the same sex you know, you're thirty and it was a choice, "choice" for you
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}um or if you were born with and just never even thought about it. If it just was it wouldn't matter, and so I was having
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}I had, I was leading an outdoor adventure troop actually, and it was just a really neat group of students, and one of them asked, and he's like, "now this may be offensive," and I said,
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}'okay, first of all, you just threw an alabtross out there. If you have to preface something with, it may be offensive, or I don't want to piss you off--
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}but, I'm gonna take this as intended, which is a genuine question,' and so he asked me that
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}like, I gave him the, what I just told you, the congenital theory of morality, and he said but do you think it's
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}that you're born with it or do you think that it's a choice. And I said now you're trying to 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}get me to change my opinion and change the scope of the question. I gave you answer, you may not be satisfied with that answer 
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}but I am, and that's my answer. and he just went, I guess you're right. I didn't
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}think that I was still, picking at it. Um, yeah
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}so I, for me also, then that has just helped me really change how I encounter people and I choose to select
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{font:Arial}{size:14}{Plain}{textColor:65535, 65535, 65535}arguments versus how do we shape an argument into a constructive dialog that we can both hear each other. Um so yeah, no, literacy has given me great access to those types of things.
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