Marohang Limbu

Marohang Limbu

Sherry Rankins-Robertson’s, “‘I Need a Wife’: Maintaining Home, Work and Academics During a PhD Program” is an intriguing essay, which reflects pains and pleasures of Ph.D. students. This essay portrays physical, psychological, and emotional struggles of Ph.D. students, and it also brilliantly depicts how Ph.D. students struggle to maintain home, work, and academics during a Ph.D. program. In other words, this essay reveals pains and sufferings of Ph.D. students by demonstrating their economic, family, and psychological issues. Nonetheless, Rankins-Robertson’s essay is geared only toward the experience of the home country (US) graduate students. So, her essay does not necessarily represent the experiences of international graduate students, nor does this essay represent the sentiment of international graduate students who come from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, different geographical locations, and dissimilar academic programs. In this response, I will address some of the issues Rankins-Robertson already pointed out, and I will also uncover how, as an international student, I balanced home, work, and school during my Ph.D. program.

As Judy Bardy states, I wished I also had my wife with me while I was pursuing the Ph.D. program. I wished that I had the same socio-economic status that I had back in my country, Nepal. To make it clearer, I was a part time university lecturer and a full time high school principal, and I had honor, money, a wife, family, and friends around to support me for my further progress and prosperity. But once the country was hit by the civil war, I was forced to move to the US for my and my family’s economic and academic prosperity. As soon as I joined the MA program in Rhetoric and Professional Communication at New Mexico State University (NMSU), I realized that I lost all honor, economic position, and family (parents, siblings, and relatives) that I had. While I was a graduate student (at NMSU and University of Texas at El Paso-as Ph.D. student), the difficulties I encountered were not only in the graduate program, the new culture, and the new academic setting, but were also represented in the cultural and socio-economic conditions.

International graduate students generally suffer a lot due to economic conditions. As a result, they often have a hard time balancing school, work, and home. At US colleges and universities, international graduate students have to take certain credit hours (normally more than 9 credit hours) to maintain their visa status. This means they have to pay a lot of money for tuition. At the same time, many also have to support their family. I have heard that when some folks come to the US for further study, they leave their family behind, and they still need to regularly support their family back in their home countries. At the same time, international students are not permitted to work more than 20 hours on campus, nor are they allowed to work off campus. Because of these limitations, I had hard time to provide for my family and maintain my school performance. For instance, when my family and I moved to the US, my daughter was 12 and my son was 7. They were mixed in with other kids from different cultures and classes, and naturally they became more demanding. I cannot express how I felt when I was not able to fulfill their even meager demands. Moreover, I cannot express my feelings in words how I felt when my kids were not even able to participate in some of the extra-curricular activities at schools despite their interest.

As I already mentioned above, one of the problems that interrupted me from balancing school, work, and home was economics. Because of my economic situation, I was not able to visit my family back in Nepal for seven years. Even when my dad, uncle, aunt, and two cousins passed away, I was not able to visit my family (mom and other relatives) to share family our emotions. The most emotional part for me came when I was not able to see my dad when he was on his deathbed. Because of the psychological anxiety, I got sick for a long time (2005-2007). I was hospitalized twice. When I was on the hospital beds, I was not worried about my health condition, but I was worried about how I would be able to pay tuition fees (to maintain visa status), how I would support my family, how I would get through the program, and how I would pay the medical bills.

When I moved to the US, I met new friends, new students (as a TA), and new professors. For me, this new setting was almost like attempting to conquer the unconquerable Mount Everest, for it did not offer me the opportunity where I could create spaces. For instance, I used to consider myself a fluent English speaker, but when I got here, I had to begin from the bottom due to cultural, linguistic, and academic differences. I was almost unable to connect my prior cultural and academic literacies to this new cultural and academic setting. Linguistic, cultural, and technology literacies became barriers to my survival in the new academic setting. My prior cultural and academic literacies were barely validated. Sometimes, professors who were not well exposed to intercultural and cross-cultural communication, tended to misunderstand me, (i.e., professors even kind of ignored my prior academic and cultural literacies). It was hard for me to balance school and home, not only from an economic and family perspective, but also from a cultural and linguistic perspective.

I truly cannot imagine how I could balance school, work, and home as an economically and culturally challenged international student. Rankins-Robertson mentions that her advisor “worked four or five odd jobs in addition to teaching high school and selling his plasma to get through his graduate program” (4), and if I knew that I would be able to sell my plasma, I would have sold my plasma to keep my kids happy as well as to pay tuition fees and other bills. So, when we compare US graduate students and international graduate students, US graduate students can, at least, work off campus. They can get loans, and they can find ways to pay tuition fees and bills. They do not have to worry about their visa status. They can at least (in one way or the other) support their kids, whereas international students often literally have no legal choices; they often have no alternatives. Moreover, because of the lack of cross-cultural knowledge/research, international students are not treated realistically at US colleges and universities. They are barely offered scholarships or other academic and institutional positions that will support them to get better jobs in the future. International students are given less opportunity compared to US counterparts, but are expected to achieve the same objectives.

Despite my whole family experiencing numerous problems, of course I know I am in the US studying because my family constantly supported me while I was in need. For instance, my kids and my wife gave up their demands. Though my kids were demanding in the beginning, they acted as if they were adults later. My wife, who took care of everything at home, had to leave us (my kids and me) to support us financially. Then, I had an even more traumatic time trying to balance home, kids, job, and school. Rankins-Robertson mentions “my family and I have paid a heavy price for this Ph D degree” (7). Similarly, my family and I also paid a heavy price for this Ph.D. degree. The pains and pleasures I encountered during the Ph.D. programs are the precious tokens I never forget in my life. A divided family, a broken heart, and a graduate program almost never go together, but my family and I cemented them together. My family and I sacrificed a lot to earn this Ph.D. degree.

I am now in a better position because of my colleagues and professors’ support. The author states, “[My committee chair] has been a cheerleader from my research ideas. He is always waiting (and asking) for my work; I have feedback from him immediately, often in less than 48-hours. I know that his involvement … has helped me find the momentum to push forward in my program” (6). I know our advisors and professors are like the pillars who always support us despite their busy schedules. However, despite our advisor’s (and professor’s) preparedness to help us, I would like to share my experience that we (students) are turtles, and the work (course work and dissertation) is our shell, and we must carry our own shell wherever we go. We must carry it whatever we do. It is important to remember that though it is painful to get through the program, we must carry our shell to succeed academically.

(Chapter Response from "Balancing a Family/Job/Graduate Career." We Wish We’d Known: Negotiating Graduate School. Southlake, Texas: Fountainhead Press, 2012.)

Marohang Limbu

Choutari is a great platform with many outstanding essays in “Nelta Chautari,” but one piece by my friends Prem Phyak and Shyam Sharma, “Teachers’ narrative: Building theory from the bottom up” particularly draws my attention. Prem and Shyam envision the need of scholarship, research, and pedagogy to construct knowledge at the local level. They also observe the “need to start developing new approaches, theories, and methods based on local social-cultural contexts and dynamics” so that “practical challenges of the classroom can be better tackled … theoretically, methodologically, and pragmatically.” In this essay, I am discussing pedagogical theories and practices of teaching English in the glocal (global + local) context in the age of digitally globalized world. My discussion focuses on mapping new “bottom up” pedagogy, significance of “bottom up” pedagogy, and future perspective of “bottom up” and cloud computing pedagogy.

I, Phyak and Sharma, believe in the philosophical theory and pedagogical practices of “… Building theory from the bottom up,” for I suppose that teaching is to map/remap new knowledge, to disseminate, and cultivate it. Teaching is a powerful force that can construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct realities, and the results we achieve depend upon how we apply theories into classroom practices. Hence, in my “bottom up” pedagogy, I, as an educator, create strategic pedagogical inquiry questions, such as how my teaching/research matters to a student’s individual, academic, and professional life; how I can effectively connect pedagogical theories into classroom practices; why and how I should embrace globalization and new social media technologies (Web 2.0 tools) in my day-to-day pedagogical practices; how I can create “safer spaces” (non-threatening environment) for diverse student populations so that students can bring their cultural narratives and prior academic literacies; and how my pedagogical practices prepare cross-culturally and digitally potential human power for the 21st century digitally globalized world.

As a 21st century educator, I foresee an urgent need of pedagogical practice that Prem and Shyam indicate that we need to develop, as well as new teaching approaches, theories, and methods based on “local and social contexts.” But what does it mean in the context of digitally globalized world? And what prevents us to translate it into classroom practices? And how are we creating our “local” linguistic values and cultural identities in the context of the 21st century global/world Englishes? In our “bottom up” pedagogical approach, rather than mimicking so called the Standard English, our teaching approaches should seek ways of creating spaces of non-native English speaking students inside and outside the classrooms. Our pedagogical strategies should help, not hinder, students create their cultural and linguistic identities from the local perspective and connect them to the global level. We, as non-western educators, should also advocate for the inclusion of multicultural materials, students’ prior academic literacies, cultural narratives, and web 2.0 tools in our curricula, syllabi, and in our pedagogical practices. Our “bottom up” pedagogy should engage students in dialogical environment in both virtual and physical spaces in order to make them critical and analytical thinkers and communicators.

Furthermore, we advocate for the development of “new approaches, theories, and methods based on local social-cultural contexts and dynamics” (Phyak and Sharma). We may be claiming/reclaiming our local linguistic identities and agencies. We may be creating our identity as global citizens, but what kind of impact our pedagogy has at the local and global level. More importantly, we are living in the digitized global village where our knowledge is constantly shifting; that means disciplinary discourse is also shifting, such as analog literacy is shifting to digital literacy, paper to screen literacy, industrial economy to information economy, local culture to global culture, and national perspective to global perspective. So, as pedagogues of the 21st century global village how our pedagogical approaches address the disciplinary/knowledge shifts when we meet with our students in the classrooms (without modern technologies).

Now is the time, not only do we have to create pedagogical environments that offer students their voices and identities, but we also have to create cross-cultural communication/intercultural communication settings where students learn to contest, question, and negotiate their spaces. As I understand, the notion of “bottom up” pedagogy tends to advocate for “local social-cultural contexts and dynamics” (Phyak and Sharma). That means it also tends to validate students’ (especially non-western and language minority) voices, but we should critically contemplate how we are conforming their voices and identities; how we are supporting world/global Englishes from our local pedagogical practices; and we also should critically evaluate how our students’ voices will be recognized in other discourse communities from the 21st century globalized context.

Furthermore, when our pedagogical strategies come into discussion, we invariably claim that our teaching approaches are “student-centered” ones, but what does “student-centered pedagogy” mean to our day-to-day teaching practices and how we practice it? In terms of my pedagogical practice/s, I teach at Michigan State University, East Lansing where I am, more often than not, likely to meet with students from almost all around the world. In my writing classes, I use Web 2.0 tools (Facebook, blogs, websites, YouTube, videoblogs, and podcasting, etc.); these cloud-computing pedagogical tools tend to be more democratic, inclusive, and representational. I, via these cloud-computing tools, encourage my students to bring their cultural narratives and individual voices. I allow my students to bring/present their cultural literacies and prior experiences in the classroom discussions and in their writing assignments. I highly encourage students to share, collaborate, communicate, create, and publish both in digital (and physical) spaces so that students can share their ideas in a single click. Additionally, my pedagogical practice also does not tend to linguistically and culturally favor one group of students over the others. As a result, students seem to question, contest, and create their spaces in the center. In this pedagogical setting, not only students learn to collaborate, communicate, and create together, but they also learn to validate other students’ cultural narratives and prior academic experiences.

Although I claim that my pedagogy is “student-centered,” I still may be ignoring a significant number of students in my writing classes because I still handle the classes based on my interest, department’s interest, and university’s interest. Despite my democratic cloud computing pedagogy, I still feel that I fail to observe how my students are constrained by my teaching approaches and pedagogical practices within that small discourse community due to their age, interest, class, gender, sexual orientation, and prior experience. So, as educators, how are you practicing your “student-centered” pedagogy? How are you creating your students’ glocal identities and connecting their local literacies to the global level? How are you validating their voices? And how are you preparing your students for this digitally globalized world? Overall, are we just preaching or are really practicing our “student-centered” pedagogies?

What is the significance of “bottom up” pedagogical theory? What constitutes “bottom up” pedagogy? I know every teaching is different teaching; every pedagogical practice is a different practice. However, we tend to practice more or less similar type of “bottom up” pedagogical approaches, but how we literally practice it when we teach English in Nepalese rural and urban contexts. How do we practice this theory when we teach diverse multilingual, multicultural, multi-ethnic students (in different geopolitical situations)? Additionally, why do we create our syllabi before we actually meet our actual student populations? Why do we create curricula, syllabi, and so on that do not address the diverse student populations and their interests? If we do not have power to change the curricula and syllabi, how we, including our students, are resisting the conservative ideology and hegemony. Prem and Shyam implicitly observe some “practical challenges” and they believe that those challenges “can be better tackled if we try to theoretically, methodologically, and pragmatically address those issues.” As I mentioned earlier how we are translating these theories into practices; how we are resisting the traditional ideology and hegemony in order to address the interests of multicultural and multilingual students in the context of the 21st century globalized world.

The purpose of English language teaching is not only to make students able to use basic English for basic communication, but it is also to empower them with their voices. Teaching for me is also to support students to globalize their local narratives to the global level. I remember my school level English courses where we were forced to memorize lessons and answers. We also learned grammar, speech, intonation, and some facts and figures. Similarly, when I went to college/university, I learned Western English literature, which literally had nothing to do with my Limbu culture, Limbu literature, and Limbu identity. When I became a teacher/lecturer, I practiced the same teaching approach. In this type of pedagogy, students will not be able to connect local narratives and academic literacies to the global level because cross-cultural communication is ignored; the concept of audience is also too narrow, limited, and localized. The conservative and traditional teacher centered pedagogy implicitly colonizes students. Based on this discussion, my query is how we are applying Prem and Shyam’s “social-cultural … dynamics” and how you are challenging/resisting the conservative, hegemonic, and ideological practices.

My theoretical and philosophical thoughts on “bottom up” pedagogy are we should address glocal (local + global) issues. We have to globalize our local narratives to global level and our new pedagogy should lie in the fast changing global village saturated by cloud computing technology because glocally/cross-culturally and digitally literate students can create their identities better; they can produce more effective, accurate, and high quality texts; they can effectively communicate with students/people from different cultures. Moreover, if we apply “bottom up” pedagogy from the 21st century context, it not only seems to illuminate the geopolitical blindspots, but also reduces cultural and linguistic gaps, which are better pedagogical elements of the 21st century digital global village. We have to create new “bottom up” pedagogy saturated by technology to engage students in different digital, multimodal, and cross-cultural writing projects that will provide them valuable future career preparation. Many of the traditional pedagogies we still practice do not necessarily address needs and expectations of the 21st century digitally globalized world and audience; there is a need of retheorizing and remapping our pedagogical theories and practices. Therefore, “bottom up” pedagogy is a pursuit of pedagogical transformation in the context of the 21st century global village.

Finally, in terms of theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic issues and future directions, teachers (as activists of the global society) should map/remap pedagogy from glocal perspective. This pedagogy will introduce horizontal spaces, languages, subjectivities, speeches, and writings, and these situations lead the “bottom up” concept of free playing field from the “local social-cultural contexts.” In this process, we, along with our “now students” and our “future colleagues,” will continue to enact an epistemology of representation that will guide present pedagogical practice and will shape future pedagogical approaches. In this journey, we do not perpetuate the traditional hegemonic and ideological pedagogy as they have always been practiced, but we will map/remap democratic pedagogical theories and approaches as they will have been practiced in the future.

From Nelta Choutari: Nepalese ELT Practioners Meet the World

Marohang Limbu

My philosophy of teaching is to create, to disseminate, and to maintain knowledge, power, and discourse. Teaching shapes individual beings, communities, nations,and the world. Through teaching, I aim to cultivate students’critical thinking because critical thinking is the heart of the humanunderstanding, and critical thinking is also a powerful weapon to construct their agencies and identities. My philosophy of teaching is not only to make students independent, but also to identify who they are, what their identities are, and what spaces they have in their communities or in this globalizedworld. I believe that we, through teaching, can create a sense of belief that we live in a tiny digitized village, and we are fellow global citizens, and that we should act locally and think globally. Moreover, my teachingphilosophy accentuates to prepare the next generation educators and leaders for academia as well as for communities.

Teaching is both to unite people for global peace, progress, and prosperity and to prepare them for global competition because due to media, science, and commerce, the world has become a tiny global village. Basiing on this theory , we should create curricula and syllabi in such as a way that connect local cultural conditions and cultural literacies to the global level and vice-versa. I also believe that we have to create cross-class, cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural, and cross-institutional courses through which we can diminish the traditional monocultural, monolingual, and ethnocentric ideologies and can unite people regardless oftheir individual faiths, cultures, and geographic locations. My teachingphilosophy is also to merge both Western and Eastern rhetorical theories, cultural literacies, and narratives in the context of the twenty-first century globalized world. In so doing, we will be able to minimize the cultural,religious, and political misunderstandings and will be able to enhance academic, political, cultural, and diplomatic relations.

I highly believe in the practice of student-centered,collaborative, critical, and technology-centered pedagogy. So, in my classes, I strongly encourage students to use Web 2.0 tools, new media technologies, and multimodal tools, for they tend to create more democratic, inclusive, and representational contact zones. I also apply various teaching techniques, methods, and multimodal technologies to develop students’ writing and other communication skills. As a part of student-centered pedagogy, I get students to collectively collaborate, cooperate, and communicate in both virtual and realspaces; then, I get them to individually create and present so that they learn to compare, contrast, and incorporate their peers’ rhetorical strategies with theirs. In collaborative works, I aim to engage students in dialogical environment so that they learn to question, contest, and challenge traditional ideologies and finally, they learn to negotiate their spaces. In so doing, students not only learn to re/map multiple cultural, linguistic, and geographical rhetorics, but also understand how knowledge, discourse, and writing are culturally and individually situated and discursive.