Greetings!

Hello. I am pleased to accept the invitation to participate.

My name is Kathryn McCormick Benson. I am a graduate of Louisiana State University, 1994, Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction. I began teaching at the age of 20 in Jefferson Parish at L.W. Higgins, an all-girls public school on the West Bank. I have taught secondary English and Spanish, off and on, for the past 30 years of so, most of those years in north Louisiana. I began graduate studies at Louisiana State University in Shreveport in 1986, studying with Joe Green and Joe Kincheloe. Thus began my study of the philosophy and history of education. Between completing the Ph D and accepting a position at SAU, I taught English, and sometimes Spanish, in the local high school where I had done the research for my dissertation. I began teaching in the graduate programs at Southern Arkansas University in 2001.

I am quite new to blogging but have enjoyed following the discussions posted so far. I hope that I will have something to contribute; at the least, I will take advantage of the postings and comments. I hope that this experience will not become similar to an early morning van ride to an airport following a curriculum conference in which my co-presenter and I sat silent in the back seat while the two scholars in front of us conducted a quite interesting academic discussion. Upon arriving at the airport, the two exited the van shutting the door behind them. We sat still, silent. What does it mean to be a southern woman in higher education? This is a question which a co-worker at another university and I are contemplating as we think of and research the subtleties and complexities of women, place, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, race, and other aspects of our lives that form our consciousness and worlds.

I look forward to participating in the conversations and learning from the back-and-forth comments following the postings – better than footnotes!

Regards,
Kathryn