User:Joyce McKnight

=My Profile=

My name is Joyce McKnight and I have been an adult educator/popular educator/community organizer for about forty years now. My vocational main interest at the moment is participating in the creation of a network of community educators that can accomplish in the twenty-first century what innovators like Myles Horton in the US and Paulo Freire on the worldwide scene were able to accomplish. I am especially interested in Horton's work at a place in the United States called the Highlander Folk School that was instrumental in bringing leaders first from the US Labor Movement and then from the US Civil Rights Movement together to share ideas and to strengthen one another.

I am not sure how to accomplish this dream...but I intuitively feel that it is possible to create a comfortable, safe place on the web where those who want to make a difference in their communities can meet, relax, enjoy each good company,get some good ideas and then return to their daily tasks feeling refreshed and supported. So far it seems to me that WikiEducator has the possibility of being such a community. I am glad to have found you all and am looking forward to this experienced.

I must admit,though, that I may not participate as much as I would like as I feel quite overwhelmed with my own work at the moment. I will share more about that as I edit this page.

Professional Background
Me llamo Joyce McKnight. In addition to being a beginning Spanish student,I am an assistant professor/academic area coordinator at the Center for Distance Learning of Empire State College one of the comprehensive colleges of the State University of New York (SUNY). Empire State College is totally dedicated to adult and non-traditional students and is a leader in self-directed online learning as well as the use of individualized learning contracts and learner designed degree programs.

As an Area Coordinator at the Center for Distance Learning I supervise about ten courses in Community and Human Services, mostly in community education/advocacy,human services management, and social policy. I also teach social policy to a variety of graduate students.

My life work is in community education, teaching community organizing skills to grassroots leaders so that they can go back and create change in their own communities. I have a dream of participating in the creation of "safe" places online where those with passions and interests similar to mine can reflect and learn from one another. I was contemplating creating such a web-site myself, but now wonder if wiki-educator isn't already providing such a service. I am excited about connecting, but a bit apprehensive about learning the details of the wiki process. I am extremely happy to learn that these tutorials will be available after the course is over and that the wikki "cheat sheet" can be downloaded.

I have a terrible tendency to become over-involved in a wide variety of activities so I am not sure how much time and energy I can devote to this, but it seems like a great deal of fun. At my age (60) fun is an important value!

Radical Adult Educator / Aging Hippie / Committed Christian / Wanderer /Wife/ Mother-Grandmother 

I chose these from my many labels because I thought that some folks in our community might resonate with them.

Radical Adult Educator Many of you are also radical adult educators simply because you believe that knowledge should be openly shared. I wanted to reach out to you through this shared value. I am anxious to share time and thought with you because there are relatively few of us in the world.

Aging Hippie I am amused by this label, but it somehow fits. I still believe that together we can build a world of peace, love, and justice although I must admit that it has taken a lot longer than I ever dreamed it would.

Committed Christian I confess that I am almost afraid to make this claim because the title Christian has so often been co-opted to mean closed-minded and cold-hearted. I deeply respect all other faiths, but have found Christian values especially as found in the Sermon on the Mount to be my mainstay in life. I am interested in knowing others who find that your faith (whatever it may be) is a mainstay in your life as well.

Wanderer I added this recently because at 60 I feel less sure of myself and my direction than I have at other times in my life. I feel as if I am wandering, touching and being touched by others, hopefully making a positive difference but really just finding my way.

Wife/Mother/Grandmother I have been married for nearly forty years. We have two children and two grandchildren. I am still learning how to be in relationship with the people I love.

Who Am I?
I think we are all formed by our roots in subtle and not so subtle ways so I find it difficult to separate my professional background from my life story so here goes. I was born and raised in the US Conneautville, one of the smallest and poorest towns in northwestern Pennsylvania although I spent my girlhood summers in Algonquin Park in Ontario,Canada. My father was an early conservationist and spent his life working first as a game protector, then as Fish Warden Supervisor for about a quarter of Pennsylvania, and finally as a real estate specialist for the Pennsylvania Department of Forest and Waters where he purchased land for several state parks. I grew up loving the forests,streams,and lakes of both my homelands.

My mother's family was from Pocahantus County in rural West Virginia. They moved to Meadville, Pennsylvania in the late 1930's and early 1940's to work in the booming tool and die industry there. During World War II my mother worked as an inspector in the Talon Zipper Factory and enjoyed her participation in the war effort. My parents married in 1943 (rather late in life for the time) and I was born in 1949. After my birth, my mother never worked outside the home, but she served as my father's de facto assistant until his death in 1975.

Both of my parents taught me that the highest calling in life is to show love for God by loving one's neighbors in concrete ways and that everyone is a neighbor. For them, especially my father, the second highest calling in life is to have an inquiring mind, learn something new everyday and to share what you learn with others.

I consider myself a "hillbilly" (I can't quite bring myself to embrace term "redneck"). I often have a hard time believing that I am privileged to know and learn from so many talented people from all over the world. Venues like this one are a far cry from my limited northern Appalachian childhood.

I graduated from Allegheny College in 1971 with a combined bachelor's degree in psychology and sociology. At Allegheny I participated in an experimental program of complete independent study funded by a major foundation. At 18 I was essentially pointed to the college library and told to "Go create your own college education. Here are the minimum guidelines." While the program was a bit like being thrown into a swimming pool and told to swim, it enabled me to become a lifelong learner.

Like many who came of age in the late 1960's, my real education came from participating in the social movements of that time. My friends and I called ourselves "streaks" or "straight-freaks". We were not involved in drugs, but we embraced many hippie values as well as the more radical values of the anti-war and civil rights movements. My passion for social justice was kindled at that time and has never been extinguished.

My husband Hugh and I were married on August 22,1970 and immediately moved to a religious house in a Mexican neighborhood in Chicago where we were staff members of the Ecumenical Institute (now known as the Institute of Cultural Affairs). The Institute immersed us in the theology of Bonhoeffer, the Nieburhs, and Paul Tillich as well as the community organizing techniques staff members were using on Chicago's West Side. The Institute was extremely progressive for its time. Organizing techniques it developed years ago are just now coming into common practice.

In 1974 when our son Nathan was about to be born, we left the Institute to return to my husband's home town, Corry, PA where Hugh began to practice law with his father. Unfortunately, both of our fathers died soon after we returned to Pennsylvania. Hugh and a partner struggled on for 13 more years but he found the law frustrating and demoralizing and so left his practice to enter the United Methodist ministry and attend Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. In the meantime, I did my best to use my community organizing skills to improve the quality of life in Corry while completing my master's degree in counseling at Gannon University and giving birth to our daughter Joanna in 1980. Among other ventures, I helped create a psycho-social rehabilitation center, a group home and counseling center for runaway youth, a high school diploma program, an off campus branch of Mercyhurst College, and the Warren-Forest County Higher Education Council. In Corry I learned that a small group of determined people can accomplish almost anything.

From the time Hugh entered seminary in 1983 until 2003 when we moved to upstate New York, we shared the lives of many wonderful people through ministries in a variety of rural and urban settings throughout Western Pennsylvania. For the most part I enjoyed being a minister's wife although it is very demanding and sometimes heartbreaking. I was able to share life's triumphs and tragedies with many people of all ages and stations in life. I felt especially privileged to work with young people and enjoyed founding Sunday Schools and leading church camps.

Although I sometimes regret my busyness while my children were young, I have never been able to be a fully stay at home mother. Between 1987 when Hugh finished seminary and 2003 when I became a full time faculty member at SUNY/Empire State College, I worked in a several capacities mostly in higher education administration and teaching with some professional counseling, mediation, and community organizing in the mix. Along the way, I completed my Doctorate in Adult Education (as a field of social practice)and a Graduate Certificate in Distance Education from the Pennsylvania State University. 

My experiences as a social entrepreneurworking mostly with small organizations in Corry and elsewhere led me to become fascinated with the ways ordinary people join together to make extraordinary differences in their lives and the lives of others. This fascination, in turn, led to my doctoral thesis Toward a grounded,substantive theory of the control of learning in altruistic grassroots initiatives and my lifework in writing,teaching and organizing.

Most recently I have completed a textbook Community Organizing: Theory and Practice that has been on a long journey toward publication for several years now. I want this work to be in the hands of those who can make the best use of it, but I am not sure whether to continue on the traditional route toward publication or share it with the world through OER. Only time will tell.

At sixty I am learning that I don't have the energy I had at twenty, nor do I seem to know as much as I did then, but the years have been good. I am still happily married to the same man, have two wonderful grown children and their significant others, and two super grandchildren. I am able to touch the lives of thousands of people through my students' contributions to their communities and through the internet can meet many more through efforts like this one. It is a truly remarkable time to be alive.

Education
I completed my undergraduate education at Allegheny College a small liberal arts college in Meadville Pennsylvania through an "experimental" program of complete independent study. I tell my colleagues and students that it is up to you to determine whether the experiment succeeded or failed. I majored in sociology and psychology with a strong minor in religion. These, in addition, to biology and environmental issues have continued to be my foundational interests to this day.

After completing Allegheny, I spend three years as a staff member of the Ecumenical Institute:Chicagowhich is now the Institute of Cultural Affairs. I consider my years with the Institute to be the foundation of my understanding of community organizing.

In the mid-1970's as a young wife and mother, I completed my Masters of Education in Counseling at Gannon University in Erie, PA in a program that was very similar to the master of science in community counseling they now offer. My master's thesis examined the counseling needs of adult basic education students although at the time I also worked directly in the human services field in psycho-social rehabilitation and youth services.

In the mid-1980's I decided to return to graduate school in the field of adult and distance education at the Pennsylvania State University. I spent nearly ten years completing my doctorate as I raised my children and worked full time mostly in higher education administration and college teaching. Michael Moore was my adviser at Penn State. My dissertation topic was Toward a grounded,substantive theory of the control of learning in altruistic grassroots initiatives in which I studied 69 instances of locally initiated efforts and built a grounded framework for understanding different kinds of altruistic grassroots initiatives. This framework with some modifications based on more recent research is the foundation of my work today.

Although I have no formal "post doctoral" education, I have to credit my two stints at SUNY/Empire State College as among the most fruitful learning experiences of my life. Empire State has enabled me to pursue my interests in adult learning and community organizing and learn a great deal about teaching and learning.

Now WikiEducator and its global community of committed educators promises to be another source of learning as I continue my journey of self-directed and connected learning.

My Interests
My interests change from day to day, but mostly revolve around family, teaching/learning, writing, community organizing and enjoying the natural world. The Natural World I enjoy spending time with Hugh my husband of nearly forty years as we explore the wonders of the southern Adirondacksoften walking with our dog Harli (short for Harlequin because she has a dark and light face and personality of the clown) at midnight or after. In the summer we love swimming in nearby Lake Luzerne and in spring and fall we kayak on the many nearby lakes and rivers including the upper Hudson. We live in a "camp home" with stone fireplace that reflects our childhood fantasies of always being "at the cottage"

Teaching Children One "hobby" is teaching children and youth especially in church settings. I am currently a Sunday School teacher at a combined Presbyterian/ Community Church in Schenectady,NY which includes children of diverse cultural backgrounds.

Writing I love writing non-fiction especially when I have the time to really concentrate rather than working in small time segments. I am in the process of polishing a textbook Community Organizing Theory and Practice, write most of the lectures for my online courses, and am looking forward to collaboratively working on various wikieducator projects.

Knitting I relax by knitting. I especially like to create "prayer afghans" that remind those I know who may be in need of a special hug of my ongoing love. Knitting these projects is my way of relaxing and meditating and staying in emotional touch with those I care about.

For the most part, I try to integrate my life and work by "putting my life where my mouth is".

Professional
I enjoy teaching and learning and consider it a privilege. I have especially enjoyed the last seven years as an Academic Area Coordinator at SUNY/Empire State College's Center for Distance Learning (CDL) where I have participated in the design and oversight of about twenty courses in human services and public administration. I enjoy the creativity of course design, but love interacting with my undergraduate and graduate students and mentoring those I advise. I am especially proud of the many projects they have implemented in city neighborhoods and rural areas all over the world.

I love experimenting with new technologies and uses for the internet, but in spite of seven years as a course developer and instructor, I still feel a bit anxious about learning new things...but for me that very trepidation is part of the fun.

Personal
Hugh and I have two grown children, Nathan and Joanna. Nathan and significant other Heather have two children, Dylan (age 5) and Riley Shea (age 1). They live in Bangor ME a bit too far for grandma's comfort, but thanks to the web-cam we visit almost weekly. :-) Joanna and husband Jim live near us in the village of Lake Luzerne in a newly purchased home not far from the river. Both of our children have followed in their parents' footsteps in service to others. Nathan is completing a Masters of Social Work at the University of Maine while Joanna is completing her bachelor's degree in family services through Empire State College/Center for Distance Learning.

My Projects
One of my favorite projects is something I call "virtual real communities" in which I link my online undergraduate students to projects in one of two real communities: the towns of Hadley/Lake Luzerne/Day/Stony Creek (note when I visited this website harmful activity was reported) where I live and three inner city neighborhoods in Schenectady, New Yorkan old industrial city once the home of General Electric which has now largely abandoned it. I actively participate in the life of both communities, enjoy participating in a variety of activities, and enjoy sharing the experience with my students online via Elluminate, a teleconferencing system.

My Sandbox
/My sandbox/

Feedback & Notes from my WikiNeighbours
Congratulations, Dr. Joyce. I visited your page and found that you have done amazing work. The energy that you seem to have and the commendable work that you have done in the Community is worth emulating and is inspiring. Best Regards, --Kalpana Gupte 14:10, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Dr Joyce and congrats on winning the UPE Award April 2011.--Agnes 13:51, 2 April 2011 (UTC)




 * Hello Joyce, I have made a few changes to the page (included your bibliography and moved your "Why OER to the top, it was great). We can continue discussion on the page itself - go to the page, then at the top there is a discussion tab - you can reply to previous discussions or add new threads yourself.  Regarding your friends participation - the more the merrier - it lighten's the load.  Looking forward to collaborating with you. --Sandy Causer (aka Wakalena) 22:46, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Hello Joyce, great start! Please let me know if I can be of any help to you. --Gladys Gahona 03:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Mafalda.jpg|25px]] Hello Joyce, I'm Alejandra Guajardo from Peru, I'm your WikiNeighbour!! I see you've already started to work in your user page. Congratulations! I hope you continue adding content and maybe some pictures. I also tend to involve myself in many activities... but there are a lot of interesting things out there and just one life to see all :) If you need help with your user's page or have questions please just let me know here or through my user page. Best wishes --Alejacha 02:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Hola Alejacha. I am having fun playing with this and hope to include pictures etc. but it will probably evolve over several weeks as I have a lot of work backed up in my "day" (and often day and night) job as a professor of community and human services. This past week I was particularly busy developing an online course in Human Services and Social Policy that will teach our human services students how to use participatory research (popular education) to organize political action efforts. I wrote many of the readings myself which took a good deal of thought. I love having the opportunity to share my core ideas, but it does take time and energy from things I would rather be doing like this course, learning Spanish, and planting my flower garden. Thanks for your supportive comments. Joyce