Self: On-line Identity

Who am I on-line?
How do I “see” myself?
Am I vulnerable and exposed?
Do I dance fearlessly
                  amongst the bits and bytes
                                      shaping a self?
How do you see me?
Am I male or female?
          black, white or purple?
          ugly or beautiful?
Am I smart?
         stupid?
         academic?
Who am I on-line?

Identity

The sense of ego identity, is the accrued confidence that the inner sameness and continuity prepared in the past are matched by the sameness and continuity of one’s meaning for others.  (Erikson, 1993/1950, p. 261)

[Mead] makes a distinction between “mind” or “self,” and the “I” and the “me.”  If we equate identity with mind or self, then the self is constituted by the “I” and the “me.”  The “I” is the individual part of the self characterized by the capacity for spontaneity.  The “me” if the social part, comprising the internalized role of other.  So in a sense, the “me” is the society in the self.  And the “I” is the refelexive and creative component, playing a responsive role in the formation of the “me.”  (van Manen, 1996, p. 92)

        For Ricoeur, identity includes two interpretations:

self-sameness (identit_du m_me; in Latin, idemidentity) and selfhood (identit_du soi; in Latin, ipse identity).   The identity of one-self (soi-m_me) differs from the identity of the self (le soi)….  The identity of the self as m_met_ (self-sameness) changes on the inside as well as the outside…. While the identity of the self as ips_it_ (self-identity) has not really changed.  (cited in van Manen, 1996, pp. 99-100)

[It is] constant reinterpretation of the past (the narrative self-reinterpreting memory of itself through creative imagination, such as through story) or recategorization of its identity (the biographical self-seeking a sense of order or unity).  Thus the notion of inner self depends on the possibility of self-generating subjectivity.  And yet, the inner self needs an other to affirm its sense of continuity and identity. (van Manen, 1996, p. 100)

        Each theorist’s view of identity suggests an identity that is singular.  A post-modern view of identity suggests that each person has multiple identities.

In postmodern times, multiple identities are no longer at the margins of things.  Many more people experience identity as a set of roles that can be mixed and matched, whose diverse demands need to be negotiated.  A wide range of social and psychological theorists have tried to capture this new experience of identity.  Robert Jay Lifton has called it protean.  Kenneth Gergen describes it as a saturated self.  Emily Martin talks of the flexible self as a contemporary virtue of organisms, persons, and organizations.  (Turkle, 1995, p. 180)

the solitary is displaced and distributed.  Traditional ideas about identity have been tied to a notion of authenticity that such virtual experiences actively subvert.  When each player can create many characters and participate in many games, the self is not only decentered, but multiplied without limit.  (Turkle, 1995, p. 185)

Who Am I On-line?

Virtualization, the transition to a problematic, the shift from being to question, necessarily calls into question the classical notion of identity, conceived of in terms of definition, determination, exclusion, inclusion, and excluded middles.  For this reason virtualization is always heterogenesis, a becoming of other, an embrace of alerity. (Levy, 1998, p. 34)

The Internet is an identity laboratory, overflowing with props, audiences, and players for our personal experiments.  Though many people stay close to their home self and just tinker with a few traits they wish they could improve, others jump over the line between impression management and deception.  (Wallace, 1999, pp. 48-49)

Identities within the [on-line] community are produced primarily by the way in which the participants insert themselves in the discourse.  (Mitra, 1997, p. 59)

We reduce and encode our identities as a screen, decode and unpack the identities of others.  The way we use these words, the stories (true or false) we tell about ourselves (or about the identity we want people to believe us to be) is what determines our identities in cyberspace. (Rheingold, 1993, p. 61)

A number of indicators appear on-line through which identity is constructed.  Their common characteristic is that they do not immediately create clear forms of identity that are identical to offline identity.  Rather, they create a number of resources through which offline identity can be imported or recreated by which do not mandate that off-line and on-line remain the same.  These components are of two types, identifiers and style….  Identifiers are the addresses, names, self-descriptions and more that designate contributions to cyberspace.  Identifiers can be divided to the extent they are chosen  [signatures, handles, self-portraits] or imposed [email]….  People gradually can attempt to choose their style as much as they like, they can work at it and can develop any number of convincing on-line identities based on the relevant group, but whether a style works or not, whether it is in fact a ‘correct’ style is determined by others.  Most styles are recognized without conscious effort from their authors, a style is usually simply the typical way someone interacts on-line.  (Jordan, 1999, pp. 67-71)

        Identity is not only fixed by my self-expression, it becomes part of a generative process both in an individual and group sense located in time and place.  I can stand outside of my identity and see it performed on-line in the WCC space.  I can reflect upon myself as it takes shape on-line.  My identity also becomes part of a larger whole.

Communication at once fixes our identities but also provides us with immutability and mobility.  It can do so because it provides the means of self-expression, means which not only express but also articulate and circulate and, ultimate, transcend self.  In CMC [computer-mediated communication] (real-time or not) our words become our “seconds,” alter-egos whose lives we follow as they move from one message thread to another, continually quoted (and thus alive) or archived (at rest) or forgotten (and thus dead).  Our selves, on the other hand, log on to see what our words have wrought, what other words/lives (from other selves) they may have generated.  (Jones, 1997, p. 24)

I think what I said on line was that I knew what I was talking about.  I was able to keep up with everybody.  That's how I kind of hoped I would be.  See there's a new aspect--to be seen or to be--for them to get the image. (Martha)

I think we have three choices [in dealing with on-line identity].  We can present the real persona, a fake persona, or a combination of the two.  I would say many people chose the combination of the two because they didn't want to expose weakness to an uncertain audience especially when we felt like we were being evaluated.  So you show all of the good, your best decisions, show your questions, but not your weaknesses.  It's a very careful thing. (Helen)

Helen:   The bigger words you use, the more scholarly you sound.
Sally:    It is part of your identity on-line.
Martha:  And the harder it is to understand you!
Helen:   There's more control over the virtual identity.  You can choose what you want people to know.
Martha:  Also on line we don't have to worry about what we look like or are wearing. I think you can create a new person on line.
Helen:   I can say that I am loved and revered and respected by all faculty.  I'm not.
Emma:   Personally, I was myself online and have continued to be.   I'm honest and sincere, but can get spunky when the need arises.
(On-line focus group)

While “scholarly” language may be used to create an academic persona, it may not be appreciated by other students who perceive the persona as drastically different from the “real” person.  How do students decide whether to create a new person or to be themselves?

        Students in IET participated in traditional classes as well as participating in the WCC as a supplement to their courses.  They knew many of their fellow students by face and/or name.  How does a name shape my impression of another?  Does this impression change in an on-line environment?

The obvious starting point in creating an identity is in the choice of a name.  Mysers (1987) writes that names are “transformed into trademarks, distinctive smells by which users are recognized as either friends or enemies within an otherwise vague and anonymous BBS [on-line bulletin board system] communication environment.”  (Baym, 1995, p. 154)

Walther and Burgoon (1992) suggest that the creative enhancement of naming counteracts the inordinately high levels of uncertainty about one another in a computer-mediated space.  (Baym, 1995, p. 154)

[In a soap opera discussion group, r.a.t.s.], the soap opera is continually assessed for socioemotional realism, which entails a good deal of self-disclosure from participants on highly personal topics.  The use of real names helps to create an intimate environment in which this kind of disclosure can be voiced.  This intimate environment also makes it appropriate for people to build identities through explicit self-disclosure.  Participants individualize themselves by taking on different roles within the group.  (Baym, 1995, p. 155)

How Do Others See Me?

        Students shape their identity for others.   They want others in the WCC to respect them for what they know.  They want to appear to be intelligent.  They fear being seen as stupid.

But if you're doing an academic thing, I always knew that the teacher was looking over my shoulder.  I was always afraid of saying something wrong or saying something stupid and being judged as stupid by the rest of my class. (Helen)

I was so scared, personally, to ever let them know that I didn't know who I was or that I was confused in what I was doing because you were supposed to know what you were doing.  I just didn't want anybody to think any less of me intellectually.  I guess like I was a fool.  I still, personally, whether it's on-line or not, because I just feel like I can never get the word out right to explain how I'm feeling or describe how I'm feeling or my thoughts or theories without sounding ignorant.  On-line it was a little easier because I could use a thesaurus or use a dictionary and I could use all that and post it. (Sally)

        Because of their underlying fears, students are self-conscious about how they are perceived.  To post a message in a WCC can be perceived by students as taking a personal risk.  They feel vulnerable and exposed.

The higher the risk of what I would post, then, more often I would check.  Usually I would check the conference every couple of days, but if I put something that I really cared about or was really interested--if I had some real investment in it, I would check every single day to see if somebody had said something and it was so disappointing when I would find out someone had posted something completely unrelated to what I had just said.  It was crushing. (Helen)

It was totally out there, out there.  You might as well have been standing naked in the middle of the front lawn or the White House lawn or something.  You are just out there for anybody who has access to this conference space.  (Sally)

I felt too exposed.  But then as you think about it maybe that is what should have been done because there were probably a lot more people out there like me and pretty much didn't care at that point in time.  And yet there were still those eyes, then big vulnerability following after that. (Emma)

The more you reveal, the more vulnerable you are.  But, it's a double-edge sword. There's a greater chance of your getting hurt, but at the same time people take away more things from that. (Helen)

Others

I am not alone.
I am part of other.
I see
   touch
   begin to know in body
                 that the world
                        is we…
                            part of one.
I know…
I am not alone
              other is there.
 

By ‘Others’ we do not mean everyone else but me--those over against whom the “I” stands out.  They are rather those from when, for the most part, one does not distinguish oneself--those among whom one is too.  This Being there-too with them does not have the ontological character of Being-present-at-hand-along-‘with’ them within a world.  This ‘with’ is something of the character of Dasein; the ‘too’ means a sameness of Being as circumspectively concernful Being-in-the-world.  “With’ and ‘too’ are to be understood existentially, not categorically.  By reason of this with-like Being-in-the-world, the world is always the one I share with Others.  The world of Dasein is a with-world.  Being-in is Being-with Others.  Their Being-in-themselves-within-the-world is Dasein-with. (Heidegger, 1962, p. 154)

I see certain use made by other men of the implements that surround me, that I interpret their behavior by analogy with my own, and through my inner experience, which teaches me the significance and intention of perceived gesture.  In the last resort, the actions of others are, according to this theory, always understood through my own; the ‘one’ or the ‘we’ through the ‘I’.  (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 348)

        The search for Other begins within a socio-cultural context.  The context situates and gives meaning to the Other.  The Other acts within the context.

Just as nature finds its way to the core of my personal life and becomes inextricably linked with it so behavior patterns settle into that nature, being deposited in the form of a cultural world….  In the cultural object, I feel the close presence of others beneath a veil of anonymity.  Someone uses the pipe for smoking, the spoon for eating, the bell for summoning, and it is through the perception of a human act and another person that the perception of a culture world could be verified. (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, pp. 347-48)

        How do I know Other exists?

[I knew the person] to the extent that I knew there was a person, an actual person versus a fictitious person, somebody I could identify with.  (Betty)

It is precisely my body which perceives the body of another and discovers in that other body a miraculous prolongation of my own intentions, a familiar way of dealing with the world.  Henceforth, as parts of my body together compromise a system, so my body and the other’s are one whole, two sides of one and the same phenomenon, and the anonymous existence of which my body is the ever-renewed trace henceforth inhabits both bodies simultaneously.  (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 354)

I perceive the other as a piece of behavior, for example, I perceive the grief or the anger of the other in his conduct, in his face or his hands, without recourse to any ‘inner’ experience of suffering or anger, and because grief and anger are variations of belonging to the world, undivided between the body and consciousness, and equally applicable to the other's conduct, visible in his phenomenal body, as in my own conduct as it is presented to me.  But then, the behavior of another, and even his words, are not that other.  The grief and the anger of another have never quite the same significance for him as they have for me.  For him these situations are lived through, for me they are displayed.  (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 356)

Care

        The Latin word for care is cura.  “Burdach calls attention to a double meaning of the term cura according to which it signifies not only ‘anxious exertion’ but also ‘carefulness’ and devotedness” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 243).  Care for Heidegger is not restricted to one meaning of the word.  It is the existential meaning of Dasein.

Because being-in-the-world is essentially care (Sorge), being-amidst [bei] the available could be taken in our previous analyses as concern (Besorgen), and being with the Dasein-with of others as we encounter it within-the-world could be taken as solicitude (Fursorge). (Heidegger, cited in Dreyfus, 1995, p. 239)

        Concern (Besorgen) is described by the translators of Being and Time “to stand for the kind of ‘concern’ in which we ‘concern ourselves’ with activities which we perform or things which we procure” (Heideggger, 1962, p. 83).  In Heidegger’s reference above, he uses bei to describe concern. What does it mean to be bei or “amidst”?  Polt suggests that

bei means “at” as in “at home” or “at my friend’s house.”  “Amid” may be the best translation.  When Heidegger writes that Dasein is bei the world and the entities in it, he means that, at least in everydayness, we are at home amid the things of the world.  (Polt, 1999, p. 46)

Dasein finds “itself’ proximally in what it does, uses, expects, avoids--in those things environmentally ready-to-hand [available] with which it is proximally concerned. (Heidegger, cited in Guignon, 1993, p. 126)

What is proximal in a WCC?  Can I feel “at” or “amid” on my computer screen?  Are digital representations “things”?  Does Other become a thing or object in WCC text?  How do I “care” or have concern within an on-line environment?

        Concern in directed toward things, but solicitude is directed toward Others.

Being towards Others is ontologically different from Being towards Things which are present-at-hand.  The entity which is ‘other’ has itself the same kind of Being as Dasein.  In Being with and towards Others, there is thus a relationship of Being from Dasein to Dasein.  (Heidegger, 1962, p. 162)

Everyday solicitude maintains itself between the two extremes of positive solicitude--that which leaps in and dominates, and that which leaps forth and liberates.  (Heidegger, p. 159)

Avoiding the Other

        Instead of seeking the Other out to connect, I can choose not to let the “Other” into.  I can ignore the Other--avoid what the Other shows me about myself.

But because solicitude dwells proximally and for the most part in the deficient or at least the Indifferent modes (in the indifference of passing one another by), the kind of knowing-oneself which is essential and closest, demands that one become acquainted with oneself.  And when, indeed, one’s knowing-oneself gets lost in such ways as aloofness, hiding oneself away, or putting on a disguise, Being-with-one-another must follow special routes of its own in order to come close to Others, or even to ‘see through them’.  (Heidegger, 1962, p. 161)

The other’s gaze transforms me into an object, and mine him, only if both of us withdraw into the core of our thinking nature, if we both make ourselves into an inhuman gaze, if each of us feels his actions to be not taken up and understood, but observed as if they were an insect’s.  This is what happens, for instance, when I fall under the gaze of a stranger.  But even then, the objectification of each by the other’s gaze is felt as unbearable only because it takes the place of possible communication.  (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 361)

        For Heidegger, the Other is part of Being-in-the-world.  Other is not separated from me.  Other is Being-with.  The Other is part of the socio-cultural context in which Dasein is embedded.  I know the Other by what the Other is doing.  Merleau-Ponty suggests that we know the Other through our body that interacts through doing.  Who is “Other” in a WCC?  How do I perceive Other in an on-line environment where bodies are left behind?  For students in WCC, the Other takes three distinct forms: faculty, students and outsiders.

Faculty

They are different
               expert
               full of authority.
They hold the power
                       to guide
                       to nurture
                       to humiliate.
They have words
                  that cut
                  open doors
                  remind me of who I am.
“They”
are
Other.
 

[In the WCC], they [the faculty] would jump in from time to time to clarify or redirect or comment. Well, it was like a teacher listening in on a class discussion.  On one hand, I felt like it was appropriate because they're suppose to be leading and directing and they're the knowers and we are not.  And so if we're going off on some strange direction or not understanding what the purpose of the space was for, then I feel like it was their position, they had the authority, to come in and say, "Well, think about this .…" Because sometimes people get off on these terrible tangents and it would just kind of get ridiculous.  (Helen)

Faculty Presence

It was this thing, this presence that's hulking around [in the WCC].  It is the epitome of the "instructor.”  I mean, it doesn't have a face.  It doesn't have an identity of any individual.  It is just a cosmic "instructor.” (Anne)

        I can easily objectify a person into a generic type created from experience and expectations when I do not know about the person.  In the WCC, the students do not know much about the faculty.

You didn't know what their [faculty] biases were.   But yet, you didn't know what their experiences were either.  You didn't know that. (Emma)

You always felt like “big brother’ was watching, the professors, you know.  I always felt that way.  I was so scared, personally, to let them know that I didn’t know what I was doing or that I was confused in what I was doing because you were supposed to know what you were doing.  (Sally)

I think it [comments] was because I didn't understand his [George’s] personality very well.  I come from a different background.  My family was very different than what he appears to be.  But not knowing him personally, I don't really know if I'm right or wrong about that.  But his purpose, I think he had good intentions. The purpose was there to make you think better, to make you think deeper and in a broader sense.  But not knowing the individual very well, sometimes he came across as being very cold and I felt it. (Betty)

I don't want to say somebody didn't do this right [teaching in WCC] or somebody did, because I know a lot of it [WCC] was like [Cindy’s] baby.  She did most of it, but I don't know how she felt, per se, about it.  But I think that [George] was very successful in getting people to think.  I see [Cindy] in a different light than I see [George].  It is not that I respect her any less than him, but I see him in a more traditional format where I guess I see her in a non-traditional.   She's an advocate.   They're both advocates of the non-traditional program [IET], but she is more representative of a professor in a non-traditional program.  She is very approachable, very open and it's a lot easier for me to hear from her.  [I would think when she would say comments about my work], “I don't see how you could possibly come to that conclusion.”  Whereas [George] saying it I would feel like, "you're right, I'm wrong."   I don't know why.  (Sally)

I think she [Cindy] tried to make an example of it though because here’s a posting against the whole posting system and it was kind of her baby.  She had done everything with it and probably seemed like she had to defend it and almost with an underlying angry tone. (Sally)

I think every now and then [Cindy] would come in and say something or other, but you know they [faculty] were reading [messages], but it wasn’t as intense. (Martha)

George is not very involved in the WCC from the students’ perspectives.
George would contribute occasionally.  He was in conference, but with one foot in, one foot out.  (Helen)

It was our conferencing.  He [George] did not get on too much. (Emma)

But despite this perception, the students also have a sense he is always present listening and watching.

We knew he [George] was sitting there watching and listening.  We just never knew when he would pop up.  We just waited to see what would tick him off enough and he would decide to say something.  We knew he was listening because he would address several people in the conference [WCC]. (Helen)

        When I leap in, I take away care from the Other and leap in for the Other.

This kind of solicitude takes over for the Other that with which he is to concern himself.  The Other is thus thrown out of his own position; he steps back so that afterwards, when the matter has been attended to, he can either take it over as something finished and at his disposal, or disburden himself of it completely.  In such solicitude the Other can become one who is dominated and dependent, even if this domination is a tacit one and remains hidden from him.  This kind of solicitude, which leaps in and takes away ‘care’, is to a large extent determinative for Being with another, and pertains for the most part to our concern with the ready-to-hand.  (Heidegger, 1962, p. 158)

He [George] was looking for his own ideas and the whole example of, “well, you need to consult the text…” led me to think that he really wasn’t considering her [another student’s] answers because he didn’t first say something validating like, “You make a good point but what about this part…?  If you’re interested in learning more you might.…”  It was just judgmental and not directive.  There was this sense of being ordered to do something and equals do not order each other. They suggest.  (Helen)

I think that if Cindy hadn’t posted immediately after me in response, I think some people would probably say, “I totally can see what you’re saying.”  Not to, put Cindy down or anything for doing that.  It needed to be addressed, obviously, or she would not have done it.  But I think that there is never a sense of, “I don’t know what we’re talking about.  I don’t know what we’re doing.”  (Sally)

This kind of solicitude pertains essentially to authentic care--that is, to the existence of the Other, not to a “what” with which he is concerned; it helps the Other to become transparent to himself in his care and become free for it.  (Heidegger, 1962, p. 159)

I think there were times when he [George] stated something like, “You’re way off base….” In one of the conferences [WCC], he kept saying people could not distinguish authority in epistemology versus authority in moral professionalism.  But they were having a problem separating the two.  It was just confusing keeping moral professionalism out of epistemology, but there was a place for it.  I could hear him almost because it was over and over again, almost like, “All right people, come on, you are still not making the connection.”  He kept saying, “I see a lot of you are still thinking.  We need to move away from this.”  I heard it more not as a scolding, but more of a “Come on already.” (Sally)

I never saw a comment from him [George] that said, “I really agree with this totally.”  I don’t think he really meant it that way, I think he meant it more like a questioning thing for us so that we could explore it further instead of just being superficial. (Betty)

Students

In class,
             we’d almost touch shoulders,
             whisper between the teacher’s breaths,
             cringe when confronted,
             celebrate discoveries.
             We’d tell stories
                            in small groups
                            during breaks
                            between classes.
             I’d know your face
                            your name
                            your voice.
On-line
             you speak through typewritten text.
             I draw your image from memory and imagination.
             Your body is absent.
             I guess your gender
                         your body language
                         your tone.
             We tell stories over email
                                    on the phone
                                    in the computer classroom
                                    and wait…
                                    for someone
                                          to respond.

You couldn't tell that [student differences] on the conferencing [WCC] unless you knew the person.  Which we go back again to knowing the person, knowing the people (Emma)

Can you know somebody on-line?  For me it's having a real not a virtual but a real  experience.  I think a case can be made for getting to know somebody through mail and through e-mail, but for me I know somebody when I've shared experiences, real experiences. (James)

        How do I know other students exist in an on-line environment?  Does the appearance of text identified with a student’s name suggest the student exists?  For John, he knows the person through a “real” experience rather than a virtual experience.  What is a “real” experience and how is it determined?  Can virtual or on-line experiences be “real”?

        The IET students participate in face-to-face classes that meet on three days during the semester and intensive two-week summer institutes.  It is during this summer institute that the students begin to know each other.

At the first summer of our program, there was a real bonding.  We were all in this thing completely.  And when we came out of it, two weeks of eight-hour days later, we knew each other better certainly, not as best friends but we had a good feel for one another.  (James)

When I would read a message I would think about the person that I had seen in class that went with the message and I think it helped us to get to know each other. (Betty)

Because you don't see the people [in WCC]. (Emma)
And, what is seeing?  What does that do for you? (Paulette)
It just puts that bond there.  It puts a person with a name. (Emma)

As long as I knew them beforehand or they had a face to attach to the name they had an identity to their response. (Helen)

        When re-membering a face, students fill-in-the-gaps--constructing the other student from memory.  The other student becomes an on-line composite.

There's a lot of things you use to fill in those gaps.  You use your history with them [other students], personal experiences, what you would do in that situation, or how you would feel if you were coming that way.  Do you have a good relationship with this person?  Are you like, on a fence?  Do you like this person? I mean there's a lot.  You could find a lot of things upsetting and offensive.  Or, you could get defensive.  Or, you could just blow it off.  Or, not even think it was anything, that's just that person.  In order to fill in those holes, you have to use a lot of things, your experience and theirs.  (Sally)

        If students are unable to re-member the Other in a WCC, how can they know the other students?

You have to imagine everything [in WCC].  Like, I had to imagine this person saying this, even if I knew them, the reality is constructed from what I see.  The hard thing for me was when I didn't have a visual peg.  I could have a name, but that name was absolutely meaningless to me.  I could say, "Okay, Mary Jane Doe has said some real interesting things.  She's obviously very religious.  I should probably should avoid x, y and z when I'm talking to her.  But, I couldn't keep those names straight from one conference [WCC] to another.  I couldn't say, "okay, there's that Mary Jane Doe, she was the religious one ..."  I could not do that. (Helen)

When you're on-line if you don't know the person, you still assign them an identity, a personality, a voice.  (Sally)

Imagination is what, above all, makes empathy possible.  It is what enables us to cross the empty spaces between ourselves and those we teachers call “other” over the years.  If those others are willing to give us clues, we can look in some manner through strangers’ eyes and hear through their ears.  That is because, of all our cognitive capacities, imagination is the one that permits us to give credence to alternative realities.  (Greene, 1995, p. 3)

        All of the students in the IET program are K-12 teachers.  This common professional experience provides avenues for knowing and understanding the other students.  It is rooted in a cultural context.

Because I have heard people say "I don't want to seem stupid.  I don't want to ask any questions because I don't want to sound stupid about technology." Some how teachers get the sense that they should know how to do it without anybody telling them how to do it or showing them how to do.  (Betty)

The lived experience of the teachers is that power dynamic [faculty in authority] for the most part.  We wouldn't think of having our students being equal partners with us.  I even tell the kids, "I've passed the sixth grade, you have yet to accomplish that feat that's why you need to sit your butt in the chair and listen to me." (Helen)

We would kind of bounce ideas off of each other [in WCC] and that was the nice thing about it.  I think it was just very supportive.  Even though you might not always agree with everything, you still felt like there was a support group there who would understand some of the things that they went through as teachers.  (Betty)

It was wonderful to have this gold mine of information from the people in my cohort, but there was trust in the sense of taking things into my classroom like, "What do you do when this kid does this? What's your opinion?" (Helen)

Other Students Are Not Known

        Again, I ask the question, how can I know an-other in WCC?  Who are the other students?  What do I really know about them?  If I don’t connect a face to a name, do I know the Other?  Do I know their gender or their race if I do not recognize the student’s name?

I'm still thinking about the time I got flamed [in WCC] by [another student].  And, of course, that made her stand out to me.  I thought she was a he.  And so I was absolutely stunned --I had built up this nasty, cynical male--to find out that in fact [another student] was a nasty cynical female.  (Helen)

If I do not even know your gender, what else could I be missing about you?   What else do I not know?

        When I recognize your name connected to a message, do I know you?

I would go for months and I wasn't able to do it [conferencing] at all.  I would have to borrow someone's [login and password to the WCC] who did have access.  And then, it wouldn't be my name up there, it would be whoever the computer I used to gain access.   Nobody knew it was me that commented.  (Betty)

        Students are afraid to reveal themselves in the WCC.

People are afraid to show their real selves.  I  don't think that they feel that if they tell the truth that people are going to go yes and agree.  I think that is what our fears are.  So people had to put up facades to keep themselves from getting hurt and not being made to feel like their problems were. (Helen)

I think we have three choices [in a WCC].  We can present the real personae, a fake personae, or a combination of the two.  I would say many people chose the combination of the two because they didn't want to expose weakness to an uncertain audience especially when we felt like we were being evaluated.  So you show all of the good, your best decisions.  You show your questions, but not your weaknesses.  It's a very careful thing. (Helen)

When you throw a new idea out there, it is either picked up or dropped and there's either a "voice", meaning the voices of other students chiming in to support or banter around or disagree with or somehow chew on or validate that idea.  There's a voice there.  What's worse is nothing because I feel completely insignificant.  There were many times, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that felt this way, where I would think hard and I had this really novel approach and nobody would say a word and it disappeared into the great beyond.  I'd think, “Alrighty, I blew it on that one.”  It would make me more hesitant to contribute.  (Helen)

The first time it happened it was like, nobody cared and then you go through the emotion.  First, nobody cares what you had to say; everybody can't stand you-- all those kind of emotions.  Then you go through, “Well, they just don't understand what I'm talkin' about.  They're not gonna get in on that conversation.”  Then you go through, “Maybe I didn't know what I was talking about.”  Then you were going through, “The thing is, okay.” (Sally)

I didn't feel that I needed to open up to these people who would probably number one never get to me and number two may not even care.  (Emma)

Outsiders

It is a tribal line
          imaginatively drawn
                                thick and firm
           marking
           in-side and out-side
           our-side and the other-side
        a boundary of behavior--
                               we do
                               you do
        a gateway
           through which
           you must stay
                           out-side
                           harbored-in
                                           your
                                           in-side.

        In the IET program, there is the Prince William site and the Arlington site.  At each site classes are named by their graduation year.  The class is divided into four to five cohorts of 20 students each.  The students in this exploration of WCC experiences were part of the Prince William site and the ’98 graduation class.  The classes met in traditional classrooms in a non-traditional schedule during the year.  The WCC provides the opportunity for ongoing discussions and connection to the students in a class between course sessions.  WCC spaces are created for each class and each cohort within each site.  The boundaries in these spaces are drawn by naming both the site location and class spaces within the site location space.  While the spaces are identifiable, the boundaries are permeable.  Anyone can enter any space in the WCC.

        While faculty hoped the students would share ideas across classes and sites, the students identified with their class and cohort spaces.  They are the spaces most relevant to the students.  Their WCC course assignments are in this space.  All of their on-line interactions take place here.  The students who are in the same traditional classes are assigned to this space for class discussions.  The students feel anyone who is not part of their class are out-siders.  For these outsiders to enter their class space, they are inappropriately intruding.

Every now and then somebody would write something, somebody from Arlington who you don’t even know would butt in.  It was like, “Oh, by the way…”  and then slam them or like a parent without tact. You scratch your head and say, “What the hell are you doing here?!” (James)

        The students also are hesitant to enter the in-side space of other classes.

There were some people I knew who would browse through the Arlington conferences, but I wasn’t really interested because I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t know any of the professors.  I just wasn’t interested in pursuing and looking at the ideas if there wasn’t any relevance to me personally. (Helen)

I would have felt weird even looking at the conference space.  I didn’t do it. I never looked at the Arlington conference space.  I didn’t want to.  It was their domain.  I didn’t want to look at it or even contribute to it.  (James)

        While any person is Other to me, there are degrees of “Otherness.”  The out-sider is remote.  The proximity to the out-sider in WCC is determined by the relevance of the WCC space.  If the WCC does not have the name of my class on it, it is not relevant to me.  The space is out-side the context set aside for me.  It remains distant and outside my proximity.

Knowing oneself is grounded in Being-with, which understands primordially.  It operates proximally in accordance with the kind of Being which is closest to us--Being-in-the-world as Being-with; and it does so by an acquaintance with that which Dasein, along with the Other, comes across is understood in terms of what we are concerned with, and along with our understanding of it.  Thus in concernful solicitude the Other is proximally disclosed.  (Heidegger, 1962, p. 161)

Interactions

Conversation

We talked
       back and forth
                in patterns
        sometimes connected--
                                      words woven into a fine carpet,
        sometimes disconnected--
                                      fragmented pieces of colored fiber.
We spoke of topics
                    sometimes
                                    prescribed
                                    personal
                                    intellectual
                                    relevant--
                                               fibers and colors changing.
No rules of warp and woof
                   each intuiting
                   the structure behind…
                                        when to speak
                                        what to speak
                                        how to speak--
we talked.
 

We fall into a conversation, or even that we become involved in it.  The way one word follows another, with the conversation taking its own twists and reaching its own conclusion, may well be conducted in some way, but the partners conversing are far less leaders of it than the led.  No one knows in advance what will “come out” of a conversation….  Conversation has a spirit of its own, and that language in which it is conducted bears its own truth within it--i.e., that is allows something to “emerge” which henceforth exists.  (Gadamer, 1994/1960, p. 383)

Three basic semiotic types of conversation can be identified by using the Jakobson (1970) model.  The first one is the monologue.  A monologue occurs when there is a single sender and one or more passive receivers.  The lecture qua lecture is a good example of a monologue.  The second type of conversation is a dialogue.  In case of the dialogue, the sender and the receiver take turns.  This is the basic model of all dyadic oral communication.  The third and final type of conversation is the discussion.  In the discussion, we have one person who starts as the sender and multiple receivers.  While it is important for all receivers to take turns as senders, in the discussion the initial sender still usually retains control of the conversation.  (Shank & Cunningham, 1996, p. 29)

        Conversation comes from the “Latin root comveriere, com-, together, and veriere, to turn” (Webster’s, 1979, p. 400).  Together we turn.  I turn to face you; to acknowledge your presence.  Together we take turns in the conversation.  It is an acknowledgment of both contributing to the conversation--a back and forth movement.  A conversation is not one person speaking, but two interacting together.  Is conversation different in an on-line environment?  How is the conversational structure changed?

In the typical Internet communication setting, we have a much different set of circumstances, thereby requiring a model of a different mode of conversation.  It starts with a number of players.  There is the starter, or the initial sender, who begins the sequence of communication that is eventually called a “thread.”  A thread is a series of computer-generated communications that start on a particular topic but that might lead in many directions before the discussion is done.  Once a thread has been started, though, it is no longer under the starter’s control.  This is because the mechanics of the Internet do not require turn taking.  From the oral side, it is as if everyone who is interested in talking can all jump in at once, but still their individual voices can be clearly heard.  From the written side, it is as if someone had started writing a piece, but, before he/she gets too far, people are there magically in print to add to, correct, challenge, or extend the piece.  Since the “feel” of the Internet communication is still oral, this form of communication has been called multiloguing, to retain the link with its oral.  (Shank & Cunningham, 1996, p. 30)

Well, it's [the conversation in a WCC] a leap, follow or get out of the way as far as the conversation goes.  You're either in it or you're not.  I got more things out of conversations that I actively contributed to than when I didn't.  When I would print it out, it was--I wouldn't agree with the fact that it's a book because a book has some sort of sequence or logical order--whereas the conferences would just be connected, maybe to the conversation above it or two above it but it was a little.  It was a bunny trail.  (Helen)

I think that in the computer the place is just having to scroll back.  The fact that it's up front makes it more immediate.  It’s [WCC] like you are having a round table conference with various people and they're all in the same place at the same time.  Even though conversations might shift, as long as it remains within the context of that topic or whatever they're talking (which it usually doesn't) you can jump back and forth between the previous comments.  I don't think there's any one person talking that isn't the immediate topic [in a WCC].  It's more fluid. (James)

        The structure of the conversation leaps into a logic that is driven more by the topic than sequence. It retains the fluidity of an oral culture open to response.  “No one knows in advance what will come out of the conversation” (Gadamer, 1994/1960, p. 363).  How does a change in conversational structure alter the way we make meaning in the world?  Ong (1988) suggests it is an evolutionary process.

The evolution of the media of communication, with the continuous psychological reorganization which this evolution entails, was implied from the very beginning by the very structure of actuality.  Because of its impermanence, the spoken word needs supplementing.  Writing, particularly the alphabet, supplemented it while at the same time denaturing it….  The fragmentation of consciousness initiated by the alphabet has in turn been countered by the electronic media which have made man present to himself [sic] across the globe, creating an intensity of self-possession on the part of the human race which is a new, and at times an upsetting, experience. (Ong, cited in O’Leary &Brasher, 1996, p. 246)

        Time and geographical distance are collapsed and recast (Brey, 1998).  The conversation is always available to re-call and re-examine.  The computer becomes the conversational memory stored in bits and bytes.  With multiple voices all “speaking” at once, the spatial quality of topic rather than sequential ordering recorded in turn taking forms a structure from which meaning is made in the conversation.  We all offer as well as contribute expertise gathering it within the group.  In a virtual community, a collective intelligence (Levy, 1997) can be formed.  This structure is cast within specific Internet software spaces.  The WCC software dictates the multiloguing conversational space where students turn to communicate with one another.

In a [WCC] it's like a conversation, even though I keep saying it's not, but it is like a conversation because you exchange ideas.  (Martha)

There was a tight personal space when the rare occasion happened when what you said was buffered by two people that you knew, then there was a sense of conversation. (Helen)

It [WCC conference] was never like a book to me.  It was more like individuals in a conversation.  (Betty)

There's no rhythm to the language [in a WCC].  There's no turn taking.  (Martha)

I guess maybe because at least in a back and forth E-mail or in Caucus [WCC] it's like a conversation. (Martha)

Occasionally, there would be somebody that we might talk back and forth a few times, but it never was an awful long time.  (Betty)

Time

        Time is reinterpreted to the immediacy of the text or graphics as they appear on the computer screen.

There seemed to be levels of immediacy [in WCC].  The most immediate is when you're on the screen contributing to the conversation.  Less immediate or still in the conference is when you have contributed, but aren't in it at this moment.  Not being in it is having not posted anything at all.  (Helen)

Helen links time in terms of immediacy to place, being “on” the screen or “in” the conference.  Time and space while shared in virtual community is tied for the individual student to her/his personal actions within the WCC space.  Can there be a joint sense of conversational time in an asynchronous WCC space?

        When students do not return to the WCC space and the conversation for a period of time, they feel outside of the conversation.

The conferencing [WCC] is just like time.  So if you miss something, you're out of the conversation.  You’re little comment you made four days ago might no longer apply.  Or if you want to comment about something the person that commented about your comment three days ago, the comment might just be completely out of context from the last comment in the conference. (James)

Language

        The pedagogical structures created by faculty within the various WCC conferences dictate the type of conversational language that is used by students.  Most of the conference spaces are structurally open.  Students respond to conference topics that are covered in traditional class meetings (e.g., pop culture), professional areas to discuss teaching, or cohort spaces.  The language in these conferences is more casual and personal.

It [pop culture conference] was more conversational.  It was not very intellectual.  There was some intellectual discussion to it but not as much. (James)

The cohort conference [WCC] was conversational.  It was like “How ya doin'?  Blah, blah, blah."  There was nothing intellectually stimulating at all about it.  But nonetheless less it was kind of fun. (James)

Students have to decide on which language is appropriate to the pedagogical setting.
We were putting on our tuxedo language for the [academic related conferences in] Caucus [WCC] where we were being graded and evaluated on our contributions, then we put on our blue jeans for the cohort discussions.  (Helen)

Conferencing was difficult for me because of the high/low brow conversations, like not being sure if you were on the topic of the conversation. (Emma)

It's so hard, that fine line between personal and that collegiate community of discussing. (Sally)

Is there a particular language that promotes conversation and learning in a WCC?   What language conventions should be created before students enter the WCC?  Should the students be part of the decision process?

        Since WCC is a space connected to an academic program, several students felt the language of personal stories was often inappropriate or superficial for an academic setting.

The first conferencing contained more personal kind of comments that had nothing to do at all with what we were doing in PWI [IET MA site].  It didn't focus in at all on what we were learning or what we were studying or what we were writing our papers about or even what we were talking about in class. (Betty)

I'm not really sure why it became that way.  I think just because people began to talk about classroom experiences, and they began to talk about children that they had in their classrooms.  Some they were bothered about [the experience] because they hadn't found the right way to approach them and get the information through to them. I thought it was personal. (Betty)

Conversation is a process of coming to an understanding.  Thus it belongs to every true conversation that each person opens himself [sic] to the other, truly accepts his point of view as valid and transposes himself into the other to such an extent that he understand not the particular individual but what he says.  (Gadamer, 1994/1960), p. 385)

Involvement
 

Well, I'd say that we're in the conference just like you're in a conversation if you have a sense of putting something forward and having a piece.  It is just like I'm sitting here.  I'm in our conversation because I'm actively contributing to it. You're in the conference if you're saying something, but you're outside of the conference if you're just observing because you're not actively involved in it. (Helen)

        Involvement begins with conversations between students.  How do we get students “wrapped-into” a WCC learning space?  A conversation begins with an initial posting or assignment from the faculty.  What will draw students into conversations in a WCC?

To conduct a conversation means to allow oneself to be conducted by the subject matter to which the partners in the dialogue are oriented.  It requires that one does not try to argue the other person down but that one really considers the weight of the other’s opinion.  Hence it is the art of testing.  But the art of testing is the art of questioning.  For we have seen that to question means to lay open, to place in the open.  As against the fixity of opinions, questioning makes the object and all its possibilities fluid.  A person skilled in the “art” of questioning is a person who can prevent questions from being suppressed by the dominant opinion.  A person who possesses this art will himself [sic] search for everything in favor of opinion.  Dialectic consists not of trying to discover the weakness of what is said, but in bringing out its real strength.  It is not the art of arguing (which can make a strong case out of a weak one) but the art of thinking (which can strengthen objections by referring to the subject matter). (Gadamer, 1994/1960, p. 367)

Response/No Response

I acknowledge your presence when I respond to you.   To respond is “to answer or reply, to act in return, to correspond to” (Webster’s 1979, p. 1543).  Correspond is from “the Latin, com-, together, respondere, to answer.  Correspond means to be in agreement, suit or match; to be similar, analogous, or equal; to communicate with someone” (Webster’s, 1979, p. 410).    I can not respond without answering the Other.  There is no response without the Other.  We depend on one another to have a conversation.  In a WCC, a response is a message posted in reply to something that has been posted by the faculty or another student.  If I am in the WCC observing and reading all the messages, I am still not part of the conversation.  I am not present for Other to respond.  We create meaning together during the movement within the conversation.

In dialogue spoken language--the process of question and answer, giving and taking, talking at cross purposes and seeing each other’s point of view--performs the communication of meaning. (Gadamer, 1994/1960, p. 368)

Nothing was ever laid down in rules, but it was almost like that's the way it should be.  It would be disrespectful to ignore the most recent comment. Well, it's almost like a snub.  Plus, I would look at it from my perspective.  I spent a lot of time thinking about how I'm going to respond to these things [WCC messages] and maybe doing some research and thinking about it.  I enjoyed it.  Part of the enjoyment was anticipating and waiting for responses from other people about my writing.  (James)

All I did was respond to the last couple messages because it kind of felt like a conversation where you had to jump in. (Martha)

It [in WCC] was, "Okay, let's see what somebody else has written."  You'd try and get on and respond to at least two or three above you, but you really wanted to respond to the first 15 above you.  That was frustrating.  You could respond to the first 15, but sometimes they'd forget where their thought pattern was at the time. (Emma)

Then there was always that chance of no one ever answering you.  I’d have a question.  I'd pose it again.  It was just, “Can anyone understand what I'm trying to say?  I don't get this."   There was always that possibility of not getting answered, of being overlooked.  (Emma)

The higher the risk of what I would post [in the WCC], then more often I would check.  Usually I would check every couple of days, but if I put something that I really cared about or was really interested, I would check every single day to see if somebody had said something.  It was so disappointing when I would find out someone had posted something completely unrelated to what I had just said.  It was crushing.  Then, I would go back a couple more times to see if someone in the second or third posting had gone back and said something about it.  Once there had been say three postings, I would know.  Once it was off the screen, I knew it was in oblivion.  (Helen)

Well, the first time it [no response] happened, it was like, nobody cared.  You go through the emotion. First, nobody cares what you had to say.  Everybody can't stand you.  Then you go through, "Well, they just don't understand what I'm talking about.  They're not going to get in on that conversation."  Then you go through, "Maybe I didn't know what I was talking about."   So then you were going through, the thing is, okay.  (Sally)

        My doctoral advisor, Francine, teaches traditional graduate classes that require pages of writing.  She spends hours pouring over her students’ work, writing penciled remarks in the margins. While she could be admonished to take less time on student work, her comments are gifts to her students.   Each student can hardly wait to get their papers at the beginning of class.  They pour over the comments nodding their heads as they read the praise, suggestions for further reading, and probing questions to consider.  Her comments are an affirmation that their writing has worth.  It is a conversation.  Given the student’s assumptions about the rules of discourse, how can these rules be changed to provide students with responses from both faculty and peers to their messages in the WCC?  How can we build care into a conversational space that is so random in its acknowledgement of Other?

        In addition to the discourse rules, why do students not respond to their peers in the WCC?  The students suggested that some of the messages were irrelevant.  Others just found many of the postings not interesting.  For Betty, she did not have anything she felt she could say.

I kept going back up to read little bits and pieces of things and then somebody would make a comment and I'd say, "Oh, I might like to respond to that."  But I really didn't know enough about it.  I just didn't feel like I'd been there enough to make an intelligent response.  (Betty)

I really dreaded reading everything.  I guess the main thing was, I did not mind it at first. But when it got to be 102 entries and I had only read 60 of them.  I found that painstakingly hard. (Emma)

Grading

        The common technique to get students to respond is to require it for a grade.  At first, students are not required to post.  It gives them an opportunity to try the WCC environment and learn the skills necessary for being part of the conversations.  Once the students experiment with the WCC conference spaces, the faculty want the students to interact within the environment.  Cindy’s husband wrote a program that tracked how often the students posted to the WCC.  At one of the class meetings, she showed the students the results.  The exercise was designed by the faculty to encourage those who had not posted to contribute to the discussion.  One student in particular became very upset.

We sat in class one day and [Cindy] puts an overhead on the screen and shows how many times we've been on it [WCC].  She said [her husband] figured out a program that will tell how many times every person's been on and she had us ranked from zero to how many times we were on.  Right away I freaked out.  It was like, "Wait a minute, you're showing everybody that I've only been on twice!" That doesn't mean just because I haven't posted doesn't mean I haven't been on.  I got really upset.  (Sally)

I don't know if it [WCC] was the idea that it was not spontaneous, that it was required.  You had this expectation to do it and get out of the way.  To me, I don't think a lot of people really “owned it.”  (Anne)

That's the way conferencing was I think for me.  It was thrown at us.  We had to do it.  We didn't have much of a choice.  I did that as little as possible, but I did it. It was a grade. (Emma)

You were responding [in WCC] to somebody's [message] and somebody else might respond too, so you have three people there.  Then all of a sudden somebody else realizes that it's getting close to the deadline and they 've got to post so they do something totally irrelevant. (Sally)

I think people just posted to post and by the end a majority of the people didn't even participate.  When it wasn't part of a grade, it never really was, but then when it started losing its appeal.  Maybe it got better, I don't know I dropped out.  I was almost 100% never around.  (Sally)

I mean, there were many times when in plenary there were remarks that, “Well, a lot of people still are not conferencing.” Or, “A lot of people still have not been on e-mail.” How did you know that?  Technology was one of our grades.  Isn't that our prerogative to fail that course if we don't get on there? I know a female who did not get a lap top through IET because she had one of her own, but never hooked up to any conferencing or anything.  In technology she got an A.  (Emma)

Connection

        Connect comes from the “Latin connectere, to bind together” (Webster’s, 1979, p. 386).  I am bound to the Other in a conversation through our interaction.  It is as if we are dancing and the choreography of our movements bind us together.   It is not just a physical dimension, but it is the melding together of two to make one.  I find it interesting to watch two people who do not know one another and its their first dance. Unless they are both dancers, there is a struggle--a give and a take--to find a rhythm that “binds” them together.  In a conversation, the binding occurs as each person in the conversation seeks to understand one another.

Reaching an understanding in conversation presupposes that both partners are ready for it and are trying to recognize the full value or what is alien and opposed to them.  If this happens mutually, and each of the partners, while simultaneously holding on to his own arguments, weighs the counter-arguments, it is finally possible to achieve--in an imperceptible but not arbitrary reciprocal translation of the other’s position (we call this an exchange of views)--a common diction and a common dictum.  (Gadamer, 1994/1960, p. 387)

I enjoy it [participating in the WCC].  I would do it daily.  I would get on that it and do my thing.  I couldn't wait to see what was there.  It was just exciting--like getting a letter.  It was neat.  But if you don't do that every day, it can be a lot of work.  It's really something that you really have to keep up with daily. You can't not do it for like a week.  (James)

With a lot of them [messages], I would print them out and read them.  It was just reading another article somebody had given me. (Sally)

Once I'd been around enough people to start connecting names, it was nice to say, "Oh look, she said something!"  Yeah.  (Helen)

When I would read a message I would think about the person that I had seen in class that went with the message.  I think it helped us to get to know each other.  (Betty)

Knowing the person also helps you connect immediately because you can hear how they talk, their patterns and cliches.  (Martha)

        Perhaps the strongest connections were made within groups bonded by similar interest.  All of the students are bound to the same profession of teaching.  They are committed to making their teaching better and helping other teachers from their experiences.

They [conference messages] got to be that way [conversational tone] after a while because we would kind of bounce ideas off of each other.  That was the nice thing about it.  I think it was just very supportive.  Even though you might not always agree with everything, you still felt like there was a support group there who would understand some of the things that we went through as teachers.  (Betty)

I remember one team who was always on there--always, always, always.  (Helen)

My team my team was good.  I mean, I connected with them. (Anne)

Narrative

In your story
             about yourself
I hear you
          spoken in the words…
          you come to life
          whole.
I can reach out
         and touch you.
In your story…
             I discover myself.

         Narrative is from the “Latin root narrativus, suitable for relation, from narrare, to relate, to make known” (Webster’s, 1979, p. 1194).  Relate is from the “Latin relatum, re, back, ferre, latum, to bring to bear. [To relate] is to tell the story of, to narrate the particulars of; to ally by connection or kindred; to connect or associate, as in thought or meaning” (Webster’s, 1979, p. 1525).  The narrative reflects or looks back upon experiences and brings them outside the self.  The narrative builds bridges to the present  and the Other. It is not a mere re-counting of the past, it connects my experiences to the experiences of Others.

        Our stories form our sense of community.  We gather stories and weave them together into an expression of who “we” are.  Narrative serves the community.  It builds the connections or bridges to common experiences.  In the act of you telling your story, I reply internally to the story with my own story—the feelings and the connections.   I, then, echo my story as your story has reminded me of a similar theme.  I re-create your story as part of my own, and then we reflect together, stand back and make meaning.  It is the shared story that starts in one place, moves to an expanded series of one-places, is reformed into a shared place and infused with value and meaning as our place.  The story shifts.  It forms a joint meaning.  The story has become like the navigator’s map of a hermeneutic bridge from space to place.  Can this hermeneutic bridge of narrative be used to form a place in a WCC?

        The narrative bonds the teachers together to affirm and support one another.  If I tell you about my experiences I am brought closer to you even though in a WCC we are separated by geographical space.  Another teacher will understand.  They will see when I have succeeded and made a real contribution.  They will know my struggles.  They will empathize with the battering of words and voices that pound away at the spirit.  Somehow sharing takes the overwhelming feeling of loneliness from the problems.  The narrative empowers teachers to care.

When you can relate to the same sort of problems or the same sort of successes that other teachers have had, it gives you a feeling of affirmation.  Because teaching is a very critical profession, I think you very rarely hear from anybody, "hey, this is a good job you're doing today ..."  But you hear all the bad things or all the things that somebody thinks you've done that you haven't done.  It gives it a closeness I think--a bond between teachers even though it might be across space. (Betty)

There were people who were sharing stories, their stories, but it was all within the context.  It was usually within the context of teaching or one of the subjects that we were discussing like pop culture or technology. (James)

People put forth more personal things, I think, the first year than the second year when you were required to post five times.  Hugh said, "don't just tell me a story.”  And it wasn't that he was saying, "Don't tell stories."  It was, "Don't just tell me a story.  You need to connect it."  There was a kid in my class and he threw gum and I thought that if there's a telling example of this and it's worked through and chewed on by the person who's writing it, that'll stick out to me. (Helen)

Someone was telling a story about a child in their classroom, or it was a discussion they were having in their classroom.  I can't recall exactly what it was.  But for some apparent reason, I related to them easier.  I guess because this child dealt with the younger children rather than knowing where this person was coming from.  (Emma)

Because some of their experiences were very similar to mine and  I could hear and see their struggle with trying to solve some of their problems that their children had in the classroom.  I also saw the determination to help everybody in that classroom.  If there was ever an answer that they could find that would help, an answer to the people with problems that they could find that would help that child, they never gave up no matter how many times they got shot down by parents or administrators or when they didn't have equipment or whatever.  They still persisted to try to help every single one of those kids in their class. (Betty)

        Erikson (1993/1950), in his developmental schema linking individual development with the ability to integrate the individual into the structure of social institutions, suggests trust/mistrust is the first stage.

The general state of trust implies not only that one has learned to rely on the sameness and continuity of the other providers, but also that one may trust oneself and the capacity of one’s own organs to cope with urges; and that one is able to consider oneself as trustworthy….  Mothers create a sense of trust in their children by that kind of administration which in its quality combines sensitive care of the baby’s individual needs and a firm sense of identity which will later combine a sense of being “all right,” of being oneself, and of becoming what other people trust one will become.  (Erikson, 1993/1950, pp. 248-49)

Trust, it might be said, is a device for stabilizing interaction.  To be able to trust another person is to be able to rely upon that person to produce a range of anticipated responses.  Goffman shows that there is a significant sense in which we tend to trust strangers or chance acquaintances in the settings of modern social life.  Of course we also characteristically in a deeper fashion trust certain individuals with whom we are particularly close.  Trust in such instances influences and orders what we do in co-present interaction with those individuals, but equally importantly by the very same it orders our relations with them across a diversity of contexts.  (Giddens, 1987, p. 136)

        Trust within educational interactions is essential because of the nurturing and caring environments students need to grow and learn.   Trust is rooted in the soci-cultural context or patterns of expected interactions.  It deepens as I get to know the person.

Trust is essential to the educational process “for there is a lasting significance of the atmosphere of security and cheerfulness” (p. 16).  In a pedagogic relationship of trust Bollnow (1989b) tells us, there is the sense of “morningness” (p. 22).  (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubaum, 1995, p. 433)

If we were talking about problems that we were sharing and there was a space set up for us to share the problems we were experiencing in our classrooms, then we could trust one another.  There wasn't the competition because we weren't teaching within the same school for the most part.  (Helen)

And I think it [telling stories] also builds trust between people.  People are very hesitant to say things if they feel like they're going to be attacked for how they feel.  (Betty)

I found myself to be very alone on writing my autobiography.  It was weird because my teammate we had to exchange papers and proofread each other’s papers.  As she was giving me hers, she said, "You know what, there's gonna be some things in here that you don't know about me and I hope you don't think any differently about me."   And I looked at her and I went, "You must be kidding.  Just wait until you read mine."  We sat at the table and read them and both of us were in tears by the time we were finished.  She was like, "Oh, my gosh, I didn't know this about you!" And I'm like, "I didn't know that about you either." (Emma)

In personal anecdotes, you give the audience some "landmarks" to remember you by.  (Helen)

        In education, we have created a place where the faculty are often seen as Other.  Their presence is not close.  They are far from students as persons.  They are only connected to students through the curriculum of the course.  They become objectified in their distance as evaluators.  Few students see the faculty as person--whole, with both strengths and weaknesses. Why do we want faculty to be isolated within the curriculum?  What is gained by the faculty remaining Other?  When the faculty told stories about themselves it made them more real, more personable to the students.

Sometimes with Cindy (faculty) we would talk about children and Cindy loved it-- that's when she was going to have her baby.  We all gave Cindy advise of what to do with the baby.  And, she really seemed to enjoy that.   Cindy, to me, seemed easier to talk to than the other faculty. (Betty)

George (one of the faculty) had said that for the longest time his father had thought the sinking of Lusitania was the most horrid thing that could have happened.  At first he was never going to join the war and would not have fought it.  But then the Lusitania was lost and all those people died.  It was just an awful thing.  He immediately went and signed up.  George didn't have the heart to show him later on that the Lusitania was carrying troops and weapons and that it was an armored ship.  Somehow there was a book that came out later on that brought that out and he didn't show it to his father.  It just would have blown away his passion.   It gave me more of a sense of who George was.  It kind of connected because my uncle was in the war.  My parents lived through it.  My mother worked in an ammunitions factory, so on and so forth.  So it's kind of my personal history.  It helped me connect to him.  He could have told me, literally, in conversation that story and he would have done the same thing. (Martha)