I know I’ve alluded to it before, feeling like a misfit just about everywhere I go – but I may have found the place that feels most like home – and that would be Brisbane, Australia. Those who know me and have read me, have heard me talk about South Africa ad nauseum – but since my visit to Australia – I’ve realized that I’m better off in Australia – because the Aussie Dollar gets you much further than the South African Rand. Of course I’ve gone on record saying that if Giti and I were not a couple – that I could happily spend the rest of my days in South Africa…but Giti showed me Australia and Griffith University said they wanted me to teach there…so with the sting of my Pierce Community College rejection – I am attempting my first electronic Curriculum Vitae/Resume (helped by daughter-in-law, Tanya) to send off to Griffith University. So the following two weeks of The Doc’s Inn will comprise the script to my narrative – which I botched horribly when I attempted to work from the-top-of-my-head…
Lifelong Learning
My Dear Friend wore a T-shirt to dinner the other night that said: Education can never be erased. I truly believe this statement: Since I’ve never met a person who couldn’t teach me something. And I have spent my last 33 years in education – while collecting 3 Masters Degrees and two Ph.D.s (one known as a ‘terminal’ Ph.D.)…so I feel comfortable calling myself a lifelong learner. This power point slide show of my educational experiences as student and teacher will feature select pieces of my music oeuvre which began in 1972 and is still ongoing. I hope to demonstrate a teaching vitality that will be relevant for a few generations of Australian university students.
Kalamazoo College
It was at Kalamazoo College that I initially realized that I would not settle for staid approaches to gleaning knowledge. I constantly challenged long-accepted analytical methods in my two majors: English and Psychology. Little did I know that I was an early (if not the first) de-constructionist at Kalamazoo College: looking at the “whole” person (author or theorist) – rather than viewing their writings and/or theories as discreet and separate from the person. I fought long and hard to maintain my analytical perspective, perhaps bolstered by the words of the famous resident poet, Conrad Hiberry, who suggested that I’d make an excellent teacher, AND, the work of B.F. Skinner — who habituated the university right next door to Kalamazoo College: Western Michigan University. We eschewed Skinner’s behaviorism in favor of humanism – but Skinner has proven more practical in the long run.
The University of Southern California
I can’t fit all-of-the-big-names that I met while at the University of Southern California in this presentation: My mentor, Dr. Carlfred Broderick – an internationally renowned family therapist; Dr. Ed Ransford – whose research on the Los Angeles riots spearheaded integration in Los Angeles Schools; Dr. Ed Ransford – the chair of special education at USC: Ed once mused that my dissertation committee was putting me through an old-fashioned 1950s dissertation defense (which was meant to suggest that I endured the ‘real deal’). And now I have to mention just a few more: Salvador Minuchin, Carl Whittaker, Paul Watzlawick, Joseph Wolpe, Virginia Satir, Murray Bowen, Jay Haley and Rick Auersdale.
In addition to “teaching” my way through my graduate studies at USC, I worked in the campus Writing Center, edited the dissertations of foreign students; and, graduated from the USC Writing Project – which I hope-to-Hell means that I can write a bit…