I want to talk briefly about compassion. How some people have it when you don’t expect them to, like professors who you expect to be rigid about deadlines smiling and saying that illness is an acceptable excuse for turning in your midterm two days late. Or like people who don’t have it who you expect to, like the people in your small group at church who have no problem saying in front of a room full of “good Christian people” that they have a hard time having compassion for people with AIDS because of the behavior associated with it.
Compassion makes people worth spending time with. It makes institutions worth attending. That professor’s school: I feel secure in my potential here. That church: I haven’t returned since that day. Compassion is like an emotional Morse code that everyone knows. Some people choose not to use it, but when someone is speaking to you in that language of compassion, you know automatically. It’s physical, verbal, and emotional all at once. The body language, the tone, the eyes all tell you “I am going to do everything I can to make you feel safe.” Or not.
Remember that whether you’re a preacher, a teacher, a maid or a senator- everyone you meet can feel your level of compassion. And if you don’t have it you’ll be losing money, votes, fans.. you name it. Whatever you want from people if they read your compassion code and know that you don’t care about helping them, or at least making an effort to understand them- it’s over. You’ve lost them. And it’s harder to regain after you’ve lost it than it would have been if you’d shown them compassion from the start.
If you’re representing a business, a cause, or a political agenda you must communicate at every level to every person that you interact with that you want their experience with you to be positive. How many times have you stopped going to a restaurant because of bad service? How many times have you gotten a gut feeling that a politician is even more slimy than the rest? How many times have you not gone back to a club, a class, or a church because you didn’t feel welcome? Because you didn’t feel like the people cared?
It’s all about compassion. The quality of every relationship small or big you have will rest on compassion- both ways.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Daniel Quinn and The Teaching of History
Last Sunday Joshua took me to a movie and then let me play around in Half Price Books for two hours. I came home with several fabulous finds, including a copy of The Story of B by Daniel Quinn. Quinn has been highly recommended by several people I adore such as Pace Smith and Taylor Muse. So of all my purchases, I decided to start with that. Here are some thoughts on my reading so far:
I’m a little annoyed with the ambiguity of whether you’re supposed to read the sections in the back as you go or all at the end. The Asterisks claim that the lectures “will” be found on page “#” but that does not directly tell you to wait or to read now. I decided at first to wait, because why would it be at the back if you weren’t supposed to read it first. But then the characters in their elenchus (a style of philosophic writing I love by the way) began to discuss things I didn’t understand to I went back and read the stuff at the end of the book.
Story wise I’m on page 91, but teaching wise I’m only a few pages in, the ‘agricultural revolution’ is being torn to little pieces and demonized. I know I am not a history major, nor am I a history minor.. but I am a literature major and so I have some serious thoughts on history and literacy.
Quinn’s characters make the claim that the use of terms like pre-history and agricultural revolution are meant to make non-civilized human seem unimportant. I disagree. I believe that these terms are used and these periods are less examined because there is simply no record of the times- everything we know of them comes from paleontological observation of long buried bones. And I’m pretty sure any forensic investigator will tell you that the longer a body goes unexamined and the more compromised the crime scene, the less evidence can be uncovered.
The fact is, we don’t talk much about pre-history because we don’t know much about it. I had the benefit of teachers that thought this time was important, who did stress the fact that we’re still searching for lost answers- who brought in magazine clips of “new” finds. So the way Quinn talks about the education of history is very offensive to me.
But then I stopped and thought about it.
That’s my experience. I was lucky- when I was young I was recognized as a student of high intelligence and was shoved head first into the advanced classes of nearly everything. This is not the case for everyone.
Recently I spoke with a high school principal about whether I should take a second teaching field in history so that I could teach it and he flat out told me that most history teachers in high school are coaches, they major in history so they can teach at the school but really they’re coaches- so most of the history positions go to people in that situation.
I wanted to shake him.
No wonder you get a shit education in history if you aren’t in AP. No wonder they constantly come up with statistics that say half of Americans can’t find North America on a map of North America.. This is the problem, people. Right there. Open your fucking eyes. Get real teachers in there or you have helped to create the system of shortchanging the students who happen to not fit into your excellence scheme.
As a future educator, I am ashamed. First, why are you letting coaches teach history if they don’t actually give a shit about it. Second, why are you discouraging young people who actually want to instill a real knowledge of history into their students?
I don’t agree with a lot of what Quinn says about history.. but I do agree that a lot of history is mistaught. So I guess that’s a middle ground.
I’m a little annoyed with the ambiguity of whether you’re supposed to read the sections in the back as you go or all at the end. The Asterisks claim that the lectures “will” be found on page “#” but that does not directly tell you to wait or to read now. I decided at first to wait, because why would it be at the back if you weren’t supposed to read it first. But then the characters in their elenchus (a style of philosophic writing I love by the way) began to discuss things I didn’t understand to I went back and read the stuff at the end of the book.
Story wise I’m on page 91, but teaching wise I’m only a few pages in, the ‘agricultural revolution’ is being torn to little pieces and demonized. I know I am not a history major, nor am I a history minor.. but I am a literature major and so I have some serious thoughts on history and literacy.
Quinn’s characters make the claim that the use of terms like pre-history and agricultural revolution are meant to make non-civilized human seem unimportant. I disagree. I believe that these terms are used and these periods are less examined because there is simply no record of the times- everything we know of them comes from paleontological observation of long buried bones. And I’m pretty sure any forensic investigator will tell you that the longer a body goes unexamined and the more compromised the crime scene, the less evidence can be uncovered.
The fact is, we don’t talk much about pre-history because we don’t know much about it. I had the benefit of teachers that thought this time was important, who did stress the fact that we’re still searching for lost answers- who brought in magazine clips of “new” finds. So the way Quinn talks about the education of history is very offensive to me.
But then I stopped and thought about it.
That’s my experience. I was lucky- when I was young I was recognized as a student of high intelligence and was shoved head first into the advanced classes of nearly everything. This is not the case for everyone.
Recently I spoke with a high school principal about whether I should take a second teaching field in history so that I could teach it and he flat out told me that most history teachers in high school are coaches, they major in history so they can teach at the school but really they’re coaches- so most of the history positions go to people in that situation.
I wanted to shake him.
No wonder you get a shit education in history if you aren’t in AP. No wonder they constantly come up with statistics that say half of Americans can’t find North America on a map of North America.. This is the problem, people. Right there. Open your fucking eyes. Get real teachers in there or you have helped to create the system of shortchanging the students who happen to not fit into your excellence scheme.
As a future educator, I am ashamed. First, why are you letting coaches teach history if they don’t actually give a shit about it. Second, why are you discouraging young people who actually want to instill a real knowledge of history into their students?
I don’t agree with a lot of what Quinn says about history.. but I do agree that a lot of history is mistaught. So I guess that’s a middle ground.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Unchange the World
I didn’t enter the Change the World in One Minute Contest that Kyeli and Pace ran on their website, FreakRevolution.com. There were two major reasons. In Pace’s post this morning asking why very few people entered, I gave her my two reasons:
a) School started and I’m super flaky to anything that isn’t school.
b) I didn’t think you’d like what I had to say.
I don’t think reason a needs much explanation. I am taking 18 hours at St. Edwards university this semester and my brain, while extra wrinkly as a result, is currently also the consistency of cottage cheese with special swiss-like pockets. You get the picture.
The second reason, however, I know Pace is going to call me out on, so I suppose I’ll get to explaining myself right away. If I had entered the contest- which I didn’t- this is probably what I would have said.
I don’t think you’ll like what I have to say. This contest is about what I’m doing to change the world. You won’t like what I’m going to say because what I am doing to change the world is nothing. I am doing nothing to change the world.
It’s not because I’m lazy. It’s not because I think the world is perfect. It’s because I think that over the course of human history very few people have changed the world and done a very good job of it. Plus, I’m not that ambitious. I’m not an atom bomb and I’d like to keep it that way. I’m more like that butterfly flapping its wings and starting a hurricane only I know better.
If anything, I want to unchange the world. I don’t imagine a world where people suddenly stop trying to conquer their enemies, or where religious diversity incites disaster instead of harmony. I don’t know how those problems can be fixed because the underlying problem is people want it that way. People want control. People want violence. I don’t understand it. I don’t want it. But no matter how good a salesman you are, you could not sell me a pickle and mustard sandwich. I would never buy it. And there are people out there- violent people who want to be tyrants. They dream of it. How do you sell them connection and harmony when all they want is blood and whores?
You can’t. Well, maybe you can. I can’t. I’m not made for that kind of struggle. I’m made to make little changes in the lives of people who deserve a better reality. I can’t change international war, but I can give a hug to a classmate having a bad day. I can send letters to friends letting them know that I miss them and hope that it brightens their day. I can learn about literature and history and art and I can teach those things to people- I can help children grow through experiencing books.
The world’s been changed enough and I know enough about science to know that if we stopped cutting the earth down it would grow right over our concrete and reclaim itself. I’m not going to convince greedy men to stop cutting down trees to make subdivisions but what I can do- what I am doing- is looking at the small picture. Not even my country, but my community. Because the world doesn’t need to be changed- we do.
I don’t always agree with my friends on their tactics, so I stay pretty quiet. The truth is that I believe in public school- I think it’s important as hell. I’m not very religious myself but I recognize that some people- lots of people- truly need their religion to get through the day, to have faith that their life isn’t meaningless. And I enjoy television, movies, theatre. I enjoy storytelling no matter where it is. I’m not an entrepreneur- and I have no desire to be.
I’m also not that revolutionary. It’s not because I don’t think you should be. Not at all. The world needs revolutionaries. The world needs people to keep it in check- to make sure we realize when humanity is going in the kind of direction that points towards the atom bomb, the electric chair, or McCarthyism. But the world also needs people who spend their lives living in the world- who are quiet and introspective. My kind of change has nothing to do with government, with money, or with taking things away from people- even bad things from bad people. I’m no enforcer.
I once wrote: We must be certain that our voices sing the praise of the better world, and our fingers point the way, and not the blame. That’s how I live my life, or at least how I try to. I am not going to change the world. I’m going to change me. I’m going to become a good example for my daughter- for my students. Maybe I’m not perfect, but I think at least I can be that. Not to change the world, but to live in it.
Maybe some time I'll expand on what I mean by Unchanging the world. It's a deeper concept than I wrote here, and I probably left it a little unclear. This is just the beginning. I don't want to argue- this is not meant to argue against anyone else's world view- it is merely a defense of my decision to live a quiet life. I do wish to improve myself- and I have been doing a lot of quiet self work these days. But the truth is that while my view of teaching is that it is an avenue to encourage future revolutionaries to think critically and develop moral reasoning, I know that I am not fit for the battlefeild.
a) School started and I’m super flaky to anything that isn’t school.
b) I didn’t think you’d like what I had to say.
I don’t think reason a needs much explanation. I am taking 18 hours at St. Edwards university this semester and my brain, while extra wrinkly as a result, is currently also the consistency of cottage cheese with special swiss-like pockets. You get the picture.
The second reason, however, I know Pace is going to call me out on, so I suppose I’ll get to explaining myself right away. If I had entered the contest- which I didn’t- this is probably what I would have said.
~~~
I don’t think you’ll like what I have to say. This contest is about what I’m doing to change the world. You won’t like what I’m going to say because what I am doing to change the world is nothing. I am doing nothing to change the world.
It’s not because I’m lazy. It’s not because I think the world is perfect. It’s because I think that over the course of human history very few people have changed the world and done a very good job of it. Plus, I’m not that ambitious. I’m not an atom bomb and I’d like to keep it that way. I’m more like that butterfly flapping its wings and starting a hurricane only I know better.
If anything, I want to unchange the world. I don’t imagine a world where people suddenly stop trying to conquer their enemies, or where religious diversity incites disaster instead of harmony. I don’t know how those problems can be fixed because the underlying problem is people want it that way. People want control. People want violence. I don’t understand it. I don’t want it. But no matter how good a salesman you are, you could not sell me a pickle and mustard sandwich. I would never buy it. And there are people out there- violent people who want to be tyrants. They dream of it. How do you sell them connection and harmony when all they want is blood and whores?
You can’t. Well, maybe you can. I can’t. I’m not made for that kind of struggle. I’m made to make little changes in the lives of people who deserve a better reality. I can’t change international war, but I can give a hug to a classmate having a bad day. I can send letters to friends letting them know that I miss them and hope that it brightens their day. I can learn about literature and history and art and I can teach those things to people- I can help children grow through experiencing books.
The world’s been changed enough and I know enough about science to know that if we stopped cutting the earth down it would grow right over our concrete and reclaim itself. I’m not going to convince greedy men to stop cutting down trees to make subdivisions but what I can do- what I am doing- is looking at the small picture. Not even my country, but my community. Because the world doesn’t need to be changed- we do.
I don’t always agree with my friends on their tactics, so I stay pretty quiet. The truth is that I believe in public school- I think it’s important as hell. I’m not very religious myself but I recognize that some people- lots of people- truly need their religion to get through the day, to have faith that their life isn’t meaningless. And I enjoy television, movies, theatre. I enjoy storytelling no matter where it is. I’m not an entrepreneur- and I have no desire to be.
I’m also not that revolutionary. It’s not because I don’t think you should be. Not at all. The world needs revolutionaries. The world needs people to keep it in check- to make sure we realize when humanity is going in the kind of direction that points towards the atom bomb, the electric chair, or McCarthyism. But the world also needs people who spend their lives living in the world- who are quiet and introspective. My kind of change has nothing to do with government, with money, or with taking things away from people- even bad things from bad people. I’m no enforcer.
I once wrote: We must be certain that our voices sing the praise of the better world, and our fingers point the way, and not the blame. That’s how I live my life, or at least how I try to. I am not going to change the world. I’m going to change me. I’m going to become a good example for my daughter- for my students. Maybe I’m not perfect, but I think at least I can be that. Not to change the world, but to live in it.
~~~
Maybe some time I'll expand on what I mean by Unchanging the world. It's a deeper concept than I wrote here, and I probably left it a little unclear. This is just the beginning. I don't want to argue- this is not meant to argue against anyone else's world view- it is merely a defense of my decision to live a quiet life. I do wish to improve myself- and I have been doing a lot of quiet self work these days. But the truth is that while my view of teaching is that it is an avenue to encourage future revolutionaries to think critically and develop moral reasoning, I know that I am not fit for the battlefeild.
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