Author: Sanjeev Sridharan

By Sanjeev Sridharan

In early March 2023 I was invited to be a guest in the Social Studies classes of Aiea High School (grades 11 and 12) for a “Social Commentary Slam.” The assignment for the students was to speak briefly on a social issue that concerned them. The students had to speak to a problem (and implicitly create a space for solutions) and not just about their problem. They had a choice of doing it individually or as part of a team. There were constraints on the form of the slam: it had to be poem, rap, or ‘hybrid’ — it had to be short (between 1 to 3 minutes).

The accidental guest and the power of the arts

I do not have any strong credentials to comment on such an event, even though I work in the field of evaluations of social and health interventions. I was intrigued by this invitation because I’m interested in the role of storytelling as part of social science/evaluation. I was invited by Dr. Desiree Cremer. I had been on her dissertation committee as part of her Doctorate of Education (EdD) degree at the University of Hawaii. The EdD is fundamentally about developing and nurturing leaders who are committed to social justice. Desiree has had a passion for arts and dance to foster social change. Coming from South Africa, she has many rich stories of how dance has been transformative, both in shaping individual lives and communities; she has a deep belief that dance/arts are critical to creating a society committed to social justice. She runs a fabulous podcast called “What Stirs” and a website called the Cooking Choreographer in which her passions for dance and cooking intersect and a number of issues relating to social justice have surfaced.

Creating spaces for personal storytelling: Social science as stories

The idea of a space in which brief personal storytelling as part of social commentary was encouraged as part of a social science class intrigued me. Considering that youth are sometimes characterized as disinterested and apathetic, the idea of creating a space for engaging these young students and capturing their realities as part of a social commentary was novel for me.

The poet Maya Angelou writes, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” The French filmmaker Godard writes, “Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.” I was keen to learn more about the ability of the “social commentary slam” to surface stories, especially of the ‘untold’ kind –and raise important contemporary social issues. The slam also provided an exploration of the poetic medium to give form to complex social realities that the young experience. The topics that were covered were varied: they ranged from bullying to the oppressive powers of expectations to drugs in society.  

Some lessons learned

I normally don’t write blogs of visits or events, but this experience left me amazed. I write this to highlight a view of social science/evaluations that celebrates voice, creates spaces for individuals to speak their truth as part of social commentary, provides a space to understand the landscape of critical social issues as defined by the student themselves, and also a space of dialogue without judgement. Students spoke their truths, and there was a sense of community as the variety of topics were covered.

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There are three lessons I wish to share.

1. It was a lesson in humility about how little we know about the lived experiences of the young. As a parent myself I’m afraid I had not created such spaces for dialogue and interaction. It is hard to create such spaces where individuals (young or otherwise) can speak their truths.
2. It was a lesson in the power of language. A focus on rap, poetry and slam created energy in which the form itself enabled a space for insights and personal truths to emerge.
3. For me it was also a lesson on how a “social science” needs to seek to create spaces for individual voices. As we try to create a world that is more inclusive and tries to understand different points of view, more of such spaces are needed.

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The philosopher Hannah Arendt writes, “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.” I felt Desiree was successful in creating a space in which her students could share insights on social issues through personal stories without being forced into sterile boxes. I left the class with a sense that there are lessons here for how we approach research and evaluations in understanding how people see the world. A space for exchanging experiences, providing a community of support, the energy of poetic forms, and the constraint of keeping insights brief, all can contribute towards a more meaningful ‘social science.’ 

Charles Mingus said,

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.”

Charles Mingus

The brief commentary slam provided a form and space for complicated truths to be expressed simply, awesomely simply.

A dialogue whose time has come

Originally posted in November 2020

Hunter and I have been in a dialogue for the past 12 years on how best to build a graduate program focused on practice. This dialogue, which was rare and episodic for more than 11 years, has become very focused in the past three months. The timing of this specific dialogue — in the middle of the pandemic with calls for systemic reform in multiple sectors of society including academia – is not accidental.  At a time in which the world is asking questions around systemic racism, it is important to reflect deeply around how a doctoral program can add value in re-shaping and reforming issues of structural inequities in the educational system. There is a sense that the time is now that academia holds itself to account in challenging itself to enhance its focus on more meaningful social change. My sense is that an assumption that all academic activity is socially meaningful or adds value to society is a stale idea whose time has passed.  

Equally important is a need to move beyond an elitism that a practice-based program is somehow intellectually inferior to a more traditionally based PhD and traditional notions of scholarship. I believe that thinking comprehensively from an evaluative lens will demonstrate humility of learning that is much needed at a time in which there are larger questions being asked widely about the value added of academia.

The context of this invitation

The University of Hawaii’s EdD program provides a good setting to raise such important questions. The EdD program attempts to shape “educational leaders who work collaboratively, apply research and theory, reflect critically and ethically, and utilize broad, interdisciplinary perspectives to recognize, create, advocate, implement, evaluate, and enhance spaces of social justice across Hawaiʻi and beyond.”   Three cohorts of students have now competed the EdD journey. The first two cohorts have had a chance to put the scholarship that they learned during the EdD program into practice. Our interest in inviting you to this dialogue is to learn from your experiences as practitioner-scholars.

What I hope to learn from you

In the past couple of years, I have moved from academia to a funding organization working in India. One of my interests as a funder is to explore how best can universities train practitioners to solve real problems like maternal mortalities, malnutrition, and lack of widespread immunization. I believe that your reflections as part of this forum will have consequences that go beyond the EdD or even Education. There is a need to rethink how academia can better train scholar-practitioners. I strongly believe that your reflections will help my work in India working primarily in public health and health systems.

The EdD as an Experiment

It is important to view the UH EdD itself as an experiment. It is an experiment that was informed by a few key philosophical tenets but also deeply shaped by the political realities of academia. Some of the initial conversations with Hunter focused on how best evaluations could help in assessing the success of this experiment.  Thinking evaluatively needed to serve a developmental function. It is important to think dynamically about the success criteria of such an experiment. This dialogue hopes to raise questions around such success criteria while incorporating and recognizing that success of such an experiment should incorporate very heterogeneous views of what constitutes success. Further, the key stakeholders’ own definitions of what constitutes success might change over time. An important aspect of such an experiment is to obtain feedback from its primary stakeholders about how their own perceptions of success have changed over time.

Heterogeneous landscapes of change

Change is rarely linear or straightforward. There is a need to pay attention to the heterogeneous landscapes in which systems and organizations are located. Change rarely happens as a result of a single action. Actions are embedded in heterogeneous landscapes with multiple intersecting contexts.

This raises a deep question: How do we teach the importance of context? In education research, it has surprised me that in a discussion of ‘what works,’ there is often limited discussions of contexts. This forum provides an opportunity to dialogue (and learn from students’ experiences) on the relevance of contexts, including historical contexts. The simple fact that this discussion was taking place in a place such as Hawai’i with such rich indigenous history makes the discussions around historical context even more relevant. Such a focus on local contexts with understanding of deep roots in history is needed for the emergence of decolonized solutions. 

Some questions for you

In order to shape your reflections, I have a few questions that will help move some of the areas that I’m still quite uncertain about towards greater clarity. Please feel free to reflect on any or all of these questions, or other questions that you feel are more relevant to better develop the scholar-practitioner.

1. The Value-added of the program: Has it helped you better understand educational systems? Has it helped you understand bottlenecks that need to be addressed to solve local problems? Has it improved your leadership skills, and your ability to get things done?
2. Feedback on improvement: In what ways could the training have been more relevant to address your local problems? Were there classes that could have been taught that were not? Were certain processes needed to help promote practitioner-based scholarship? Were those practices missing? Could more have been done to promote a collaborative ethos?
3. Post-EdD Supports: In your judgment, has the relationship with the program continued post-graduation? Could you count on the department to provide supports? As you work on local practice and problems after the degree, do you have ideas on how such post-EdD supports can be strengthened for new cohorts?
4. Fungibility of learnings: Finally, what are lessons that are relevant from your experiences with this program that might be relevant for a practitioner program focused on public health?

I strongly believe that thinking evaluatively will throw light on how best can academic programs be structured to balance rigor with utility; balance reflection with pragmatic action. My view is that there is a desperate need to move beyond stale discussions of what constitutes rigorous knowledge that often are self-serving and favorable towards more traditional views of academia. We need a view of rigor that is respectful of the challenges of practice. I believe strongly that your reflections will help develop deeper understanding of a revised theory of change for academic programs focused on practice, understanding of capacities needed to sustain a thriving EdD program, and perhaps most importantly, shed light on the values that matter for promoting practice-based scholarship.  In my judgement, the practitioner-scholars from the University of Hawaii EdD program are well positioned to provide such feedback.