Saving the World

If you want to do social justice/non-profit/Teach for America/NGO/social entrepreneurship/public interest/miscellaneous noble cause kind of work, this should be required reading. It's a blog from an old professor of mine and he gives a great introduction that really just perfectly captures a moment everyone who's worked in these fields inevitably experiences at some point (some more than others):

Because I know lots of students and ex-students, I get reports from the field from non-profit folks. These kids go over their wanting to change the world, and end up just shaking their heads and thinking, "WTF?" This, I thought, was a pretty good one.

And then he continues with a great anecdote from a former student. Depending on which cause you plan to champion, you'll need to do some substitution with words and places, but the overall theme should remain wholly intact.

It's a fun read and I think it's an important one because I mean, if you don't think carefully about these things before doing them, you might just end up in law school.

Churchgoing

After a brief two year hiatus, I am back at church. Upon returning, I have realized that it is largely the same. This is kind of nice. Sex aside, religion is one of the few remaining ways we can get back in touch with something truly ancient and it’s nice to know, you know, that that is there.

Anyway, I’ve noticed that no matter what church I go to, there are many different people, but these two personalities seem to invariably emerge no matter where I go. I am sure you have met them:

The first is pensive. He laughs occasionally and when he is supposed to, but you can tell he just really doesn’t find anything all that funny. He probably leads a Bible study. He prays, worships, edifies, and as a whole, just looks very, very spiritual. Above all, however, he really enjoys quoting Bible verses. Unfortunately, they are rarely relevant to what is being discussed at hand and even if they are, they are only obliquely so and he always has to explain to you how, in fact, an obscure verse from Deuteronomy is actually related to whatever it was that you were saying. He is convinced he is called either to be a pastor or, depending on how popular he is, a missionary.

The second is a little different. He went to a fancy school and is probably a consultant, or, if he has a liberal arts degree, is Teaching for America. He learned a lot in undergrad and is convinced that the only questions worth discussing have no answers. He has recently discovered that the church is the only place in the world where he can be smart and a Christian at the same time, so he will passionately champion pro-choice/gay rights/midgets/etc. despite not really feeling any strong opinions whatsoever. He prides himself on being able to consider multiple sides of an issue, play devil’s advocate, and objectively entertain and consider diametrically opposed arguments, but let’s be honest, he was going to vote for Obama anyway.

Now, suppose God is a real, rational guy who just hates it when he sees his creation fumble with his gift of reason. Given that both these individuals claim his divine guidance, which one is more exasperating to witness go about his daily task of resolutely pounding square pegs through round holes?

Learning to Surf

There are challenges.

For example, when you are catching a wave and you begin to paddle, you have a choice in your positioning with respect to the wave. If you are too far in front, the wave will break before it reaches you, and this is just bad news. The whitewater will make you unbalanced and in all likelihood, you will flip forward on your board and get caught under the wave. You have no control when you are under the wave. For most people, this is unpleasant.

On the other hand, if you are too far behind the wave, the wave simply glides under you. Despondently, you will watch, hapless on your board, as the wave continues, surging and breaking without you with no regard to your furious paddling. This is very sad and moreover, your fruitless paddling will make you look like amateur hour. And when you are starting out like me, you are very self-conscious about looking like amateur hour. It is one of the last things you want to be.

When I first started, I was a disaster. I wiped out, I drank a lot of seawater, and I grew frustrated. What I wanted was someone to correct me, to point out my mistakes so I could fix them. But that is not the way this works. It is an exercise that simply needs to be done again and again and the learning is individual. And after some time, I realized that once I began to get it right, I also began to increasingly perceive the maneuvers I was executing to make it right. I began to become conscious of the elements of what made things right and what made things wrong. Now, it is by no means always pretty, but I am beginning to understand how moving down a wave is supposed to feel and how it is supposed to look.

And through this, I have realized the reason I enjoy this in the first place and that reason is that the whole practice requires you to intuit, then trust, the intentions and movements of a force much greater than yourself—and only when you do this correctly are you able to stand.

Do This At Least Once Before The Summer Ends

Trust me on this one.

Go to the farmer's market or grocery store and buy a plum. If you have money, go ahead and buy one of the nice organic ones. If you don't, don't worry. The farmer at the farmer's market who wears a floppy hat and overalls and whose name is Bob has plenty of other people willing to pay $2.59 a pound for plums that were grown locally, sustainably, with a smile, and given a tantalizing name like "Brandy Satsuma." If you are not one of those people, go ahead and take your hard earned money to the grocery store and buy one for 99 cents a pound that is on a yellow tag special. Foodies who have spent a lot of money to refine their palates beyond what is necessary will tell you otherwise, but this will be just as good. Don't listen to them. They are Negative Nancy-s.

When picking your plum, it can be red or black, it doesn't really matter. Make sure it has a touch of blush. If it's a red plum, this will appear as a streak of yellow, maybe outlined by a little orange before fading into the darker red of the fruit. If it's a black plum, it will be a burst of violet, with maybe a splash of gold. This is purely aesthetic, but frankly, sometimes, that is important.

Make sure the plum gives a little bit when you press on it with your thumb. Not too much because then it could be mushy, which would be unpleasant. Just enough that you have confidence that your thumb alone, with enough motivation, could win the fight. Find one that is, among its peers, one of the heavier ones.

Bring the plum home. If you weren't able to find one just ripe enough and it is still a little firm, that is okay. Let it hang out with a banana for a day or two until it is ready. When it is ready--and only when it is ready--go ahead and put it in the refrigerator.

After a day has passed, wait until it is the late in the afternoon, almost before dusk. The sun should be low in the sky, the temperature should be warm, possibly just bordering on hot.

Take the plum out of the refrigerator and give it a good rinse under the tap.

Now this is the most important part. Find a stoop and sit on it. If you do not know what a stoop is, you will need to ask someone. If you do not have a stoop, you will need to use someone else's. If none of these options are available to you, you will have to settle for using the curb, which is not nearly as optimal, so really, you should just find a stoop somewhere because you and your plum will be so much happier that way.

You're almost done. Ideally, from your stoop, you will be able to enjoy watching the sun begin to set. Or, if the sun is behind you, you will be able to feel its strength slowly ebbing against your back. Either way, you are a winner. Hold the plum in your hand and make sure you are appreciating how cold it feels in the warmth of the day. Take a moment, however long is necessary. This, of course, will vary from person to person.

When you are ready, eat it.

Everyone has a different method for the last step and as with most learned things, you do get better with practice and you will eventually interpret the technique that is just right for you, but what should always be felt from the first time and understood in increasing magnitude from each time then on is the awareness that life is very, very good.

Moving In

Last night I was driving down the 10 around 1 in the morning towards home. I am new to this city and I was going about 65 miles an hour and this excited me tremendously because evidently, I had found one of the few times in the day where driving uninterrupted at this speed was possible.

Anyway, the highway was fairly empty and all of a sudden, I hit one of those points where the freeway curves under a tangle of loops and ramps overhead. Usually, in the daytime, these are packed with motionless vehicles and therefore make good places to quietly mourn the tragedy of urban planning that is Los Angeles. However, it was night, so the whole knot of empty asphalt simply looked like a criss cross of shadows, where the silhouettes of the roads carved imperfect shapes out of the night sky.

As I was passing under the network of off-ramps and connecting veins of highway, something came into view. Two ribbons of highway above me forked and continued until they met a ramp going elsewhere, that was surely beneath, but because it was dark, seemed to connect perpendicular to the fork, which outlined a rough triangle of the night. Framed within, strikingly, was half of the moon, deep and yellow and flecked with orange.

It was a moment where something crude and rough and created by men for utility with no pretense of aesthetics met something natural and familiar and not created by man. And the image that arose from the union was very beautiful, in the most unintended and unassuming of forms.

It wasn't much and it was only for a second, but I do know that it'd be nice to have more encounters like this.

The End

These two years have been formative. I've done some thinking and I've come to the conclusion that there is no other word that captures the tenuous yet precise equivocation between the boundaries of verve and heartbreak regarding the future of children and the adults who participate in this ceremony.

It is completed. And despite what most can only infer about experience, I resolutely believe, beholding the balance, we have been uplifted.

Jesus

We are currently in a drama unit where we are acting out a play called "The Diary of Anne Frank." As most of you who have attended middle school know, Anne Frank was a Jewish girl living during the Holocaust who penned a diary that has since been published widely.

Today, we were acting out a scene where the Frank family is celebrating Hanukkah as best they can despite being cooped up in hiding. One of my students who blames most of his behavior issues on ADD--let's call him Peanut--was in the class during this time. Turns out, Hanukkah sparks all kinds of learning.

"Alright kids, so who knows what Hanukkah is?"

Peanut: "I think it's a holiday."

"Good! Do you know who celebrates Hanukkah?"

"I think, I think, yeah I know, the Chinese, it's the Chinese who celebrate Hanukkah!"

"Well, okay, maybe some do. But most of the people who celebrate Hanukkah are--"

At this point, I have this other student who pretty much yells out whatever happens to be in his mind at any given moment. And he does this loudly. Let's call him Kenny.

Kenny: "Blacks!"

Peanut: "No you're stupid. Blacks celebrate Kwanzaa."

"Don't call him stupid. So okay, actually, the people who celebrate Hanukkah are Jewish. Do we remember who's Jewish in this play?"

Peanut: "Now I know I'm in the special class. Mr. Chen, do you know how I know? He's in my class, and he's retarded, so I'm retarded too."

"No, no, you're both not retarded. Don't use that word. It's not acceptable. Now, can we please remember who in this play is Jewish?"

Peanut: "Anne Frank!"

Kenny: "Hanukkah!"

Me: "Okay, yes. The Franks are Jewish. Hanukkah is the holiday, not the people, okay Kenny? Very good. Now what are they doing right now?"

Peanut: "I think they're praying."

"Excellent, that's exactly what they're doing."

And this is where things got confusing. Peanut, as always, started it.

Peanut: "Are they praying to Jesus?"

"Well, not really. You see, Jews--"

"Mr. Chen, was Jesus black?"

"Well, not really. I wouldn't call him black. Jesus was Jewish. He was from--"

"How do you tell if someone's Jewish?"

"Well, you see, it's sometimes hard to tell. Though there are--"

"Oh, but I heard Jesus was dark-skinned. Jesus was dark-skinned, right?"

"I guess so. Probably. It's hard to know--"

And then, before I could explain, I was interrupted again with another question which, I suppose, if you think about it, is kind of related:

Peanut: "Jesus had dreads, didn't he?"

"I'm not positive, but probably not." Sadly, this was the best I could come up with.

Oddly enough, that was Peanut's last question. I would like to take that as a sign that my answers were so complete that there was no more learning left to be done, but that, as always, would be awfully presumptive.

Dogs On The Hill

In DC, we have this place called Eastern Market, which is kind of a farmer's market/flea market hybrid. Yuppies love it. On a sunny weekend, this is a popular spot for young people who live on Capitol Hill--let's call them Hillers--to come out and walk their dogs. And if I've learned anything from two years in DC, it's that there are few things a Hiller likes to do more than talk about the breed of their dog. This is not to say, of course, that they don't discuss other things--gluten free bread, eating sustainably/locally/responsibly/etc., and $200 ties are all riveting and worthy conversation starters. But when it comes down to it, there's nothing that quite gets a Hiller's blood flowing than talking shop about dog breeds.

Before we continue, it's important to note that Hillers treat their dogs better than most developing countries treat their humans. Most dogs on the Hill answer to names straight out of the genteel south like "Dylan," "Madison," and "Carlton." So when you think about it, it makes sense that Hillers like talking about breeds so much. A name like Dylan just begs for at least some exploratory discussion about labradoodle-schnauzer bloodlines.

So even though I don't have a dog, I think all this exposure has unconsciously influenced me a bit. I'm in Taiwan now visiting some relatives and after dinner, my uncle brought up the fact that they recently started raising a dog. As my uncle packed up the leftovers, the conversation went like this:

"Well, I better save these for the dog."
"You guys have a dog now?"
"Yes, we just got one a few months ago."

Having had these conversations with Hillers before, I recognized that this was the point in the discourse where I was supposed to inquire about the breed. It was only appropriate, I assumed, for the conversation to flow this way. So I asked:

"Oh yeah? What kind?"
"A black one."

I'm usually not one to make arbitrary comparisons between particular elements of two cultures, but I think this way is better.

White Chicks

I have a student, let's call him Daquan.

Daquan comes into class every day loudly singing whatever song happens to be in his head at the moment. This can range from the merely annoying ("How low can you go, how low can you go, how low can you go") to the fairly inappropriate ("Girl you gone think, girl you gone think, Imma make you think, Imma make you think, make you think I reinvented sex").

Today, Daquan walks in bopping his head and belting out, "Making my way downtown, walking fast, faces pass, and I'm homebound." I stop for a second, realize I recognize the song, and then realize that it's Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles." I find this funny.

I force a straight face and ask, "Daquan, where did you learn that song?"

Still humming, he replies, "I heard it in a movie."

"Which movie?"

"White Chicks."

Of course.

"The black guy's always the first to die in movies!"

I believe that most of my students, at some level, know that that there is something a little peculiar about the fact that in a classroom where all 26 students are black, the teacher at the front (me) is not. However, because they are still in 8th grade, they do not dwell too long on such matters. They also probably wouldn’t use the word “peculiar” to describe the situation, but I believe that that is more or less the sentiment.

So yesterday, when one of my students made the astute observation that “the black guy’s always the first to die in movies,” I found it a wonderful opportunity to talk about the complicated matter of race. We discussed great questions like “What movies are you referring to?” and “Why do you think that is the trend?” and of course, “How does this fact represent, skew, or perpetuate our racial perspectives of each other?”

They all got a kick out of the last one.

The great thing, however, about the comment, was that it arose during a lesson on Chinese New Year. I’ve realized most of my students aren’t going to interact with many Chinese people outside their neighborhood carryout and I’ve taken it upon myself to be a representative of sorts for all things Chinese. I got all kinds of great questions like, “Do you guys really eat a lot of rice?” and “Why is everything made in China?” and “Mr. Chen, what are the macroeconomic ramifications of China’s current practice of purchasing significant amounts of American debt?”

So as you can see, a lot of learning happened. And it was rewarding in a way to know that now my students very much understand three things: that 1.) yes, we do eat a whole lot of rice, 2.) that things are made in China often because it is cheaper to manufacture there and finally, above all, in an odd but profound sort of way, the most significant lesson of all was the one with the widest arc in introducing realities of how we are invariably perceived as humans relative to the hue of our skin: so you can bet I made sure to teach them that at the end of the day, 3.) at least they get to be in movies.

A Transcript from Class

Today, I had a class that was having a lot of trouble settling down. Lots of talking, laughing, inattentiveness, etc. When I finally got them calmed down, I was giving them the standard teacher lecture on paying attention, how paying attention can improve their grades, help them learn, and so on and so forth.

I was explaining the direct relationship between doing one's work and improving one's grade when one of my students interrupted me. For simplicity's sake, we'll call him Peanut. The other kids call him that all the time and in fact, I remember I once asked him why he was called Peanut and he responded, "because my head looks like a peanut."

This is, word for word, what he said:

Peanut: "Mr. Chen, it's not my fault, I have ADHD. You should be talking to the other kids, they don't have any excuse."

Yikes.

More Questions I Get In Class

Student: "Mr. Chen, how old do you need to be to put on a restraining order?"

Syntax aside, I still did not know the answer to this one.