Social Work Academy
There are those who have disparaged Social Work as…well, not the most rigorous of social sciences. And they make some halfway valid points (if you’re coming from a very particular paradigm, that is) that I have tended to dismiss outright until…yesterday. Yesterday I saw the first glimmer of truth in that sentiment, and it was slightly unsettling.
Although I am taking 15 hours of credit this semester, 2 of those hours are spent in my field seminar every Tuesday. Field seminar is essentially a support group for graduate students in my program who are juggling classes on top of three days at an internship. It’s also a place where the university can keep an eye out for any bullshit going on in our internships…like, if someone fresh out of undergrad comes into field seminar one day and says, “My supervisor told me I’m too pretty to be a social worker…should he have said that?” then the proper measures can be taken. (Actually, I have heard that this did happen, and when the comely young coed informed her university liaison about it, he chuckled and said, “Oh, I know Larry. He didn’t mean anything by it.”)
I have found that all of the cool people I met last semester have scattered into different classes, leaving me behind in seminar with several of the people in the school who most profoundly annoy me. Although I am on a yearlong quest to stop being such a cynical bitch all the time, I find it difficult. I secretly enjoy being a cynical bitch. Therefore, I spend most of the three hours of seminar glowering at the floor and occasionally saying something I know will scare the blonde next to me. I know, I’m terribly immature.
Yesterday, our seminar instructor Olive concluded our three hours of catatonia by asking us to take out a sheet of paper and draw a flower. Pay attention, because here’s the part where you blindly follow her instructions…and then think, “Wait a minute, aren’t I in graduate school?” We were then instructed to write on each of the flower’s petals qualities and attributes about ourselves, then draw a bunch of weeds surrounding the flower and write alongside those the current barriers or stressors we were facing. Finally, underneath the weeds we drew the flower’s roots which symbolized our support system, and were asked to write on each root what we were doing, who we had in our lives, etc., to help us work through our struggles.
Although I found the assignment not a little patronizing, I decided to jump in headfirst. After all, I do like Olive. She grew up in Taiwan and speaks about seventeen languages. She also drinks her coffee black and tarry, which earns anyone instant bitchin’ points in my book. So, to humor her, I drew the damn flower and wrote in my attributes, my stressors, and my goddamn roots.
However, Olive threw a curve at us. Being a social worker in social work school who has a social work job, I should have seen it coming: we were being asked to share what we had written, what kind of flower we had chosen to represent ourselves, what color it was and why we had chosen it. But I did not want to share what I had written in a room full of haughty bitches who do nothing but squeal about their engagement rings and gripe about the university as being too “theory-heavy” and only want to go into social work so they can help cute young kids until they get married and squirt out cute kids of their own, at which point they’ll abandon social justice altogether and move into a McMansion. So, when it came to my turn, I smiled at Olive and said in the most polite tone I can muster:
“I appreciate you all sharing your flowers with me, but I am going to take a pass. I’m sorry, but I have trust issues, and I wrote some personal things down, and I just don’t feel I have a high enough level of trust in this group yet to talk about my flower. Thanks for bearing with me.”
Everyone stared at me like I had three heads, except for this very lovely middle-aged woman sitting across from me, who just smiled and said, “I hope you will show me how to create a trusting space for you during this semester.” And that was that.
After leaving class, I realized that no one in our seminar trusts each other (and I don’t blame them–we’ve only been meeting for two weeks at this point); there is actually a surprisingly low level of peer-to-peer trust and support in the School of Social Work. Someone is always getting accused of being a racist or a homophobe or a W.A.S.P. (which is hilarious, because practically everyone in this town is an upper-class W.A.S.P.), and for those people who have not fully formed their opinions yet or are scared shitless they’ll offend someone or don’t really know the definition of transgender, it can be daunting to actually speak up about your point of view. So when Olive gave her instructions and everyone started opening up about all this personal stuff they’d written on their flower, I smelled bullshit. I don’t think anyone was actually being authentic; I don’t believe there were any real, human, laid-bare self-disclosures about stressors and supports.
So why the stink-eye, ladies (and one man)? I admitted I couldn’t trust you; at least I had the guts to be honest and follow the assignment and do some self-reflecting. I’ve formed a bit of a hypothesis about the phenomenon of women in their 20s generally being skeptical and distrustful–if not outright hostile–towards each other which I am probably too eager for opportunities to validate, so I will save that for another post. However, I am anxious for your thoughts or comments, if any.
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February 14th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Being a “cynical bitch” is what I love and appreciate most about you! Please, for my entertainment, keep it up!