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Your 1996 Theme Song Is: 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins |
 Shakedown 1979 Cool kids never have the time On a live wire right up off the street You and I should meet |
On a whim this morning, I decided to do this quiz. I got a decent answer: Smashing Pumpkins. I suppose I would have preferred Radiohead, because I <3 Thom York. But alas, what can you do?
The nineties. Wow. That was a long time ago. That was when I may or may not have worn denim overalls. And that is something that my dear readership will never know/see the pictures that I’ve burned.
I remember my first day of school. My mom took me into the classroom and I walked in feeling like everyone had done this already. Like it was only my first day and everyone else had been here a week. I guess that’s how we all feel at some point in our lives; that everyone else has it figured out. Later, with age, you gather a wide array of wisdom and knowledge until you finally come to the conclusion that no one knows that the hell they’re doing. Funny how it works out, isn’t it?
In Pre-Kindergarten (two years before Kindergarten) I was a proud member of a global gang called the “Kissy Girls”. We were a bunch of neo feminists that decided the playground’s class ceiling needed to be broken. We wouldn’t take any more sexual abuse from the males who loved to kiss and run. We would reclaim our SLIDE!
The gang was made up of the toughest, smartest, and prettiest bunch of four year olds that Hawaii has ever seen. Our plan of action was this: run up to boys, kiss them, and run away. Complexity and depth were innate in our philosophies, obviously.
I started off running ground work, but eventually made my way up pretty high on the totem pole. Of course, secrecy was essential, and though I was a leader of the group, I never knew much of the history until much, much later.
It was only a few years ago that I found out Angelina Jolie used to be a fellow Kissy Girl:
‘I was a member of a group called the Kissy Girls…I created a game where I would kiss the boys and give them cooties’
Story of our lives.
[I wrote this article for the newspaper, but it's interesting so I'm reposting it here]
In early April at the Ihilani Resort, the Blue Planet foundation had a 3-day Global Energy Summit, where world leaders, energy experts, environmentalists and artists discussed the environmental problems we’re facing today. They explored the answers to the essential questions of our energy crisis: where do we need to go? How quickly? How should we get there? They plan to make this an annual collection of events that, according to their website, will “celebrate achievements, and inspire people around the globe with the power of human imagination to solve our energy challenge.”
The imminent environmental problems challenge our earth require a unique and unparalleled global response, making it necessary to put aside our partisan biases and come together to address these problems. Blue Planet foundation’s summit is a forum that will aid this need. The hope is that Blue Planet will be able to provide a platform for cooperation across interest groups, industries and national boundaries, and help create a new vision of the way we create and package energy. Their goal is to inspire a “global commitment to change” and the realization that the responsibility for the implementation of change falls equally on all of our shoulders. “Most of all, this will require a new level of communication, understanding, tolerance and trust, and a belief in new possibilities.”
The afternoon after the Blue Planet foundation had their last speaker, Bobby Kennedy Jr was lounging on the deck of a friend’s sail boat, relaxing in the Hawaiian rays and gazing out at the ocean. As one of the speakers himself, and as a man who has a passion for saving the environment, Kennedy had a lot to say on the concept of the summit: that Hawaii has the potential to become a sustainable model. “Hawaii has extraordinary natural resources,” he said. “Solar, wind, tidal, otech, biomass, everything. There’s no reason why they need to ship oil to the islands. Hawaii is the only state that’s still using oil as a major energy source. There are a lot better choices.” He turned his eyes to the horizon, his brows furrowed and eyes passionate.
Kennedy gave the example Iceland as a country that has benefited from almost complete switch to sustainable energy. With an unemployment rate of 1% and an extremely healthy economy, Iceland has gone from being one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the richest. They’ve also switched from being 100% oil dependent to 89% geothermal dependent. Consciously making the choice to be sustainable, Kennedy says that they have demonstrated how switching to environmentally sustainable energy resources has spurred economic growth. Hawaii could follow in their footsteps. He believes that sustainable energy usage gives space for entrepreneurs to make money and provide jobs that benefit the environment, but also benefit the economy.
But isn’t sustainable energy more expensive than oil? “It’s not,” Kennedy insists, shaking his head. “Sustainable energy is actually cheaper.” The difference is made up in subsidies: the seemingly cheap price that we pay for oil is all because of the tax dollars that went to the oil companies through subsidies. So, when the hidden taxes are revealed, oil is more expensive.
It also doesn’t help that ex-oil company executives have suddenly been reborn as politicians. And when lobbyists are wooing their way around checks and balances, it makes it hard for any honest and good change to happen in environmental policy.
What should we do?
“Take the oil companies by storm! Run for the hills!” he smiles playfully. “No, we need to take our government back.”
For the final project in Ideas in Western Literature, two friends and I assumed strange roles/characters and rode the bus as these characters.
The characters were as follows–
The stuffed animal girl: Emily carried around her stuffed animal on the bus, cuddling it.
The laughing girl: This was mine. I started laughing very loudly and animatedly at Hamlet.
(I’m not laughing in this picture, but I was for most of the time…)
The crack whore girl: Jasmine dressed up as a crack whore (using my pajamas) and stumbled around Chinatown and on the bus.
***
What if you were on the bus, and some weird girl started laughing erratically? What would you do? Would you feel out of your comfort zone or unconsciously deem what she was doing abnormal? This is what we’re testing: comfort zones and the concept of normal behavior, or the code of social norms. We’re observing the reactions of people on The Bus to slightly skewed behavior.
There are several different points of view to look at this cultural assumption from. The most obvious is from the perspective of the observer of the odd behavior. When does the observer consciously detect that something isn’t right? Does the observer ever feel endangered by this erratic behavior? Is it a defense mechanism to feel ultra aware of people behaving out of the ordinary? Then you can look at this idea from the perspective of the person doing the strange behaviors. Do they realize they’re doing the strange behavior? Is it a conscious decision to be different from the normal?
Why does the observer react at all? We’ve narrowed down three main reasons: fear, curiosity, and discomfort. We received reactions to our behavior that fit into all three of these categories. There were the people who chose not to sit next to us because of how we were acting (fear), there were the people who exchanged amused/conspiratorial glances with other passengers and who looked at us with interest (curiosity), and there were people who looked away consciously and tried to neutralize the situation (discomfort).
What we were hoping to explore in our social experiment was normalcy. What is it and how did we disrupt what is generally considered “normal” behavior?
Our dialectic explores this question and others.
L: Hamlet hid behind the mask of his seeming insanity, and in the same way, we hid our own “normal” personalities behind our characters. And, like in Hamlet’s court, the people around us reacted to the craziness immediately. There were no suspended judgments of character, and despite our attractiveness and youth, people reacted negatively towards us. This implies that we are judged by our normalcy. Who we are inside doesn’t matter, neither does what we have all done with our respective lives, what only matters is whether we laugh out loud, etc on the bus or if we sit quietly and be normal. The consequences are obvious: if a person wants to move through live with the most ease, they need to behave “normally”.Out of the ordinary behavior is not rewarded by strangers or society.
J: So, what constitutes normal?
E: I would say that whatever people have seen repeatedly throughout their lives is what they think of as “normal.” An assumption I had going in to this project was that, because you always see crazy/weird/sketchy people on the bus, we would not invoke many reactions – yet we did. So, I think that what was really “abnormal” in people’s views was the fact that we were young, healthy looking girls acting this way. If we had been crusty, middle-aged, homeless looking guys, it would have still been “normal” to everyone to witness “abnormal” behavior from us.
J: I mean, every single person has a freaky or sketchy side to them somehow. They look normal, but inside they might have secrets… problems…fetishes, etc.
L: Maybe we all hide our freaky selves to try and be normal, but in actuality we are all like that.
J: If this is true, then how did society end up formulating the idea of “normal?” How did we all agree on what normal is? Is there something instinctual about it?
E: Well, in different cultures different things are considered normal. I think it develops as a result of survival issues. For instance, it’s not normal to invade other people’s personal space, because that is instinctively viewed as a threat.
J: I think we can see from our experiment that bizarre behaviors trigger a flight or fight reaction in people.
E: Yeah, because the black woman you accidentally kicked wanted to fight you! And when you were a mangy crack addict, people wanted to… flight you.
L: And there was that woman who kept moving away from Emily, and the man who didn’t want to sit next to her… it seems that more people wanted “flight” rather than “fight”!
J: In general, people reacted defensively, whether by wanting to run away or wanting to fight against whatever it was that was upsetting them.
L: But most people just wanted peace. Few people wanted to shake up the atmosphere.
J: I think they didn’t want confrontation, exactly.
E: That kind of brings us to our connection to Sartre and his idea of “hell is other people.” People dealt with uncomfortable (hell-like, one might say) situations because they didn’t want confrontation.
J: People are afraid to step out of their comfort zone, even if doing so will ultimately bring them more comfort. We didn’t only see this in other people’s reactions to our experiment, but on our own side as well. When that woman on the country express wanted to scrap with me, I kept pretending I didn’t speak English. It would have been way out of my comfort zone to tell her to leave me alone, or to ask for help.
L: You just ignored it – you hid behind your character, kind of like how people hide behind a fake “normal” exterior.
J: But I avoided confrontation because the situation was dangerous, not to appear more normal than I was.
E: so in your case, it was fear and/or a concern for personal well being that prevented you from trying to do something about it.
J: Yeah. And in that case, her behavior was not “normal” because it was so confrontational.
L: Maybe normal behavior is just neutral behavior, in that case. It isn’t normal to show strong emotions or emotional reactons.
E: And that fits in with our survival instincts idea, because revealing your emotions is kind of a weakness, I suppose…
J: I’ve got another example of how our society’s collective idea of what is “normal” has roots in our survival instincts…. we feel the need to find a mate, therefore we try to make ourselves attractive…preen, if you will. That’s why, when you see a “crusty” or unhygienic person, it isn’t “normal.” We base so much on appearances.
E: I think that makes sense. Even though in today’s modern society we may seem far removed from basic survival stuff like that, everything we have has all grown upwards from those concerns. Anything that’s “weird” to us is upsetting because we fear it will disrupt the natural order of things, like the circle of life, or the chain of being. (Like Scar killing Mufasa, or Claudius killing Old Hamlet, for example!)
J: Take our goth girl experiment idea. Society has this idea that girls are supposed to be soft and delicate. When goth girl dresses tomboyishly or imposingly, she challenges the gender boundaries and thus makes herself seem generally uninviting.
E: And she seems that way because people are alarmed by her upsetting the chain of being or the natural order of the world. Because she doesn’t seem to be fulfulling her… biological function.
***
J: What doesn’t make sense though, is that if everybody has a strange side to them, normalcy really can’t be defined.
L: It’s not about the “strange” sides of people, though. It’s about what they present to everyone else. I think we could agree that we all have aspects of our true personalities that are strange, but the reason they’re still abnormal even if they’re common is because it is not acceptable to display these aspects openly. Kind of like, we have all these latent urges, but we don’t act on them.
E: Yeah, that is the interesting thing… basically, we’ve concluded so far that “abnormal” and “normal” are constructs of society formed from basic survival instincts: avoid anything potentially dangerous so you won’t get killed, appear alluring to others so you can… procreate. But then why have we developed ideas like… having sex in public isn’t normal? Because the constant drive to propegate the species is about as natural/survival instinct as it gets.
J: Well there’s also… culture
L: religion, piousness….
J: That all wraps it up in different packaging.
L: Our instinct may be to have sex, but… we’ve been raised to go with abstinence instead?
E: So it seems that some boundaries of “normalcy” do not stem from biological/survival instincts, but rather from our attempts to rise above those things.
J: Basically, memes!
L: Memes fight against instinct?
J: Not necessarily…memes coat them, I suppose. I don’t know how to describe it.
E: (Now I have this weird image of a meme coated instinct in my mind. It looks like an ice cream bar…)
J: I guess what I’m saying is that survival instinct may be the core of what defines normalcy. But memes have encased it and given it guidelines and rules. I think that, aside from our instincts, each individual is built up of other things that form their unique personalities…whether these are forged through nature or nurture, I do not know. But these variables interact, and this is what creates culture; people agreeing upon ritual and tradition, because we need to interact with one another safely.
E: So… culture / “normalcy” is basically the compromise between… survival instincts and human memes?
J: Yeah. And different cultures find different ways to channel their instincts. For example the Mayas and Aztecs: their idea of protecting their existence had evolved far beyond cavemen using weapons. They moved on to the spiritual realm, and engaged in human sacrifice, because they thought it could protect them from the wrath of the gods. Now we look back on that and think it’s sick, because in our modern society, we’ve evolved and come up with a new vision of how to protect ourselves and how to interact. But that is constantly changing. We can look back at our American history from a few hundred years ago and be disgusted by the fact that we had slavery – that is not “normal” now. And even if we look back a hundred years or so, we’re horrified at segregation and the fact that women couldn’t vote – again, that’s no longer a normal state of affairs. So hopefully, societies of the future will look back on us and be disgusted that gay people couldn’t get married in the same way that we are scandalized that women couldn’t vote until the 20th century.
Sometimes it helps to make lists of things that you have to do in the coming weeks, so I decided that I’d give that a try and make a tidy to do list.
Books that I have to read and projects that relate to them:
Hamlet- write a thesis paper on Hamlet (the title of my paper: Are those boobs real or fake? Seeming versus being in our modern culture)
Handmaiden’s Tale- write a book report-esque paper exploring any theme I choose.
Unvanquised- just read it
Franny and Zooey- just read it
Great Gatsby- write literature circle papers every week, paying special attention to the different scenes, the characters, and lexicography.
Faulkner’s short story collection, and various books on Faulkner- write a paper and have a presentation ready for the class the week of class.
Projects:
I. French projects-
- Listen to the audio version of Around the World in Eighty Days and record myself reading a chapter of it, paying special attention to pronunciation and inflection.
- Film myself making a French meal, and explain on camera each step (in French)
- Write an in depth paper on a character in Indochine, the classic French film.
- Prepare a response to 10 questions on a previously given list, and be ready to answer any two of these questions (orally), plus a question not on the list
II. American Literature projects-
- Get a 20 minute presentation ready to teach the class about Faulkner.
Tests:
AP U.S. History- A four hour long college board AP test, which includes a multiple choice objective exam, two free response essays, and one document based question.
Math- On Monday, a smaller test ranging 4 chapters, and then the next week, a quarter test.
French- A French quiz on Tuesday.
American Literature- Reading quizzes every week on the Great Gatsby.
And then objective final exams, the week of 27-30th:
Math
French
To combat my stress, I asked my tweeps about what would help. Here are some of the replies:
“Tea.”
“Booze?”
“Kavakava is good for stress, meditation, exercise…many things help stress.”
“Combating Stress: Engaging in Flow, Physical Activity, Proper Diet, Meditation, Medication, various vices I wouldn’t recommend.”
“Exercise, prayer, meditation–all ways to combat stress.”
“I use essential oils. Lavender is infamous for that among other things.”
“Oiling and lotioning, lotioning and oiling… smiling. I can’t take this no more!
-Sandlot (1993)”
“Sleep. Keeping busy. FRIENDS. Dance. Helping others. Cleaning house. Removing the root cause (I’m serious, and it can usually be done, if not easy). Hugs. *offers you a warm and friendly hug*”
“Valerian, skullcap, hops.”
“Aerobic exercise 20-30 mins, 2-4 times per week…it really does help.”
And my own personal antidote: Blast Iron and Wine and then watch this theatrical masterpiece on youtube (fast forward to 3:24 for the best song).
“I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.”
Hint: It’s not transvestites…
The answer: People who entered into it are never the same when they come out.
Rocky Horror Picture Show has been on my mind (and its songs have been stuck in my head) ever since I rewatched it last night after taking some cold medicine and snuggling up to a box of tissues. It’s an interesting experience watching RHPS as you are falling asleep, slightly woozy from the Nyquil. Maybe “interesting” isn’t the best word. Perhaps, “disturbing” would be a better description? (I vaguely recall stumbling into the middle of the living room while my parents were reading, shouting nonsensically about Medusa and a transvestite from transsexual Transylvania.)
Regardless of the fact that I was being serenaded by the classic songs, “Dammit! I love you Janet!” and “Touch-a-touch-a-touch-me…!”, thoughts from the conversation I had earlier in the week came up, particularly about unschooly blogging. I wrote about this in my post Unschooled, and I’m going to touch upon the subject again now.
Blogging in a classroom can be unschool, but, like we talked about in the Teachers Teaching Teachers conversation, it can quickly become Boring (with a capital B, obviously) and constipated. Blogging is a great place to exercise the most important lesson teachers try to teach– thinking, and I get the feeling from teachers that they do want to involve blogging into their curriculum. A blog is a perfect place to express thoughts and ideas, to cultivate a person’s knowledge. I also get the feeling that they’re afraid to involve it for the exact opposite reason of why it could be helpful (the whole Boring with a capital B thing).
As a student blogger, blogging can seem like just another homework assignment, especially if they first found out about it through their teacher. I actually started a blog right before I was assigned to start one, so I had already explored some of the possibilities. I can still remember my first awkward steps as a student blogger, as shown here and here particularly. You may notice the reflections to NPR’s “This I believe” and “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” in the first month, and the SAT practice essay in the second month.
I have this thing that I do where ever I go, and that’s to take a certain place or situation and bring my own ideas and personality to it. I can’t really stop it, it just happens. That’s what started to happen with my blog. I *coughs sheepishly* started to ignore the assigned blog post suggestions and write whatever I felt like writing, in my own way. After a while, blogging became a part of my life. I even wrote a blog post when I first noticed how addicted I was to it.
And I totally realized that hardly no one read it, apart from an alcoholic teacher in Korea whose blog amused me greatly, and a couple of female artists and mothers. It surprised me that they actually cared. I honestly didn’t mind the low readership at all. I just happily wandered around the blogosphere having random conversations with other bloggers, including a couple that became famous (Petite Anglaise anyone??). They probably don’t remember me at all, but they inspired me nonetheless to keep writing. I kept writing, and expressing whatever slightly self centered insanity flowed through my mind and onto my blog, because it’s what made me happy. Aside from a place where I could let out my insane side without fear of being hospitalized (joke), my blog also helped me grow as person, because it became a place where I was totally honest with myself. It gave me a voice that I could express through writing. It’s been one of the best learning experiences of my life.
This is why I want teachers to bring blogs into their classrooms, and tell them what a great experience it could be for their students. So teachers, this is what I want to say to you: don’t waste your time assigning mundane blog posts that students must write. First, give them freedom. Second, tell them about all the possibilities of their blog, so they can easily test out different techniques and subjects. This is important, because even if you do give them freedom, they might not know what to do with said freedom.
I said it during the Teachers Teaching Teachers conversation (thanks for having the courage to call YouthTwitter schooly, Soojin!), and I’m going to be a human shaped parrot and say it again: If you allow students to have a blog, let them be their selves on it, because it’s hard to find yourself underneath the pile of mandatory homework assignments that usually require a student not to be themselves.
If I could go back to a year and a half ago when I first started my blog and have someone tell me all that I could do with it (flickr photos, posting multimedia projects, twitter networking, basically all of the things outside of just assigned blog post reflections), I would have been able to skip a very long process of figuring everything out. I wish someone could have shown me outstanding examples of other blogs in a variety of genres (art blogs, graphic novel blogs, technology blogs, sustainability blogs, news blogs, student blogs, short fiction blogs, photography blogs, the list goes on). I wouldn’t have had to go through all the trouble of finding them myself. It was a great experience, all of that self directed learning, but it honestly could have been done a lot faster and easier if I had someone to guide me.
Teachers are in the perfect position to gently guide their students to the greatness and uniqueness that they already have, but they might not be able to see themselves. Blogging is a great medium for that, if it’s done right.
To go back to my Rocky Horror Picture Show connection, students who go through their careers as students always come out different at the end. Blogging (although a semi-recent development) has played a pretty big role in my own career as a student. Once you enter the transvestite from Transsexual Transalvania’s castle (in this analogy, blogging), nothing will ever be the same.
Wow, that was dramatic.
Thanks to the Teachers Teaching Teachers thing, I got to meet some new student bloggers: Hannah, Tyrone, and Ben.
This is a link to a podcast I did with Clay Burell and others. We talked about education, sustainability, and Web 2.0. It was fun! And I’m a bit of a geek!
In the book Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, two men wait for a man named Godot. Godot, however, never appears. The two men waiting for Godot are named Vladimir and Estragon, but they call themselves “Didi” and “Gogo”. They’re very close friends, maybe even brothers. While they wait at a indiscernible and ordinary hillside, two other characters are introduced in the story. Their names are Pozzo and Lucky. Pozzo is a fairly well off type of man, and Lucky is his human slave who is treated like an animal. In the first scene, Pozzo is able to see, and Lucky is able to think and dance. In the second scene, though, Pozzo is blind, and Lucky is dumb. A couple of times Didi and Gogo flirt with the idea of separating or killing themselves or leaving, but they never do. The play is filled with repetitions, both of actions and of words. Nothing really happens; that is to say that there is no typical plot arch. They wait for Godot, but Godot never arrives. Characters come and go, and there are fights and friendly conversations had, but in the end, it all comes down to the absence of and the waiting for Godot.
This play was interesting because of the conversation and the depth of the characters, and because of the general expectation that something will happen, but of course nothing ever does. There are so many underlying concepts in this book, especially in the reality that Valdimir and Estragon create for themselves. Some of the themes that I saw in this book were time, friendship, religion, life and death, and obedience.
One scene that stands out in my mind is during the first scene, when Vladimir and Estragon think about killing themselves using the tree’s bough. Estragon wants Vladimir to hang himself first because Vladimir is heavier. If the bough doesn’t break when he tries to hang himself, then it certainly won’t break if Estragon tries to hang himself. This is such an interesting idea. They couldn’t stand it if one of them died while the other lived, so they have to think up a way to ensure they both died. But they decide to not do anything, “it’s safer” (21). This reminded me of a quote in my planner. “The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all—doing nothing” (Benjamin Franklin). If I were to answer my essential question, “Do I need to have a specific goal in my life in order to achieve something?” from the point of view of Gogo and Didi, I would guess that they would say yes, but then live no.
Gogo and Didi have their own reality. They also have their own controller, much like Lucky does. Lucky obeys Pozzo, even though Lucky could escape at any time. Gogo and Didi obey Godot’s orders to wait for him, even though they could leave at any time. They are not ruled by their own minds, but by Godot; not even Godot, the possibility of Godot. Their decisions are made by the variable of Godot coming.
I see Godot as that thing that needs to happen in order for Gogo and Didi to get on with their lives. They think (paraphrasing), “Once Godot comes, we can go exploring to the Pyrenees.” Godot will never come, though, and they order themselves to stay and wait for him, never really living their own lives. This phrase comes to mind, “I’ll just sort things out, then I’ll devote myself to my dream”; always complaining that the conditions aren’t quite right.
In my own life, there are many variables like Godot. The first one that pops into mind is college. We’re asked, as students, to make sure our grades, SAT scores, and extra curriculars are up to impeccable standards of the colleges we want to go apply to. We’re asked to make sure x, y, and z are perfect and then we can get on with our real life dreams. Being in high school can easily be like waiting for Godot, because we are all waiting for that time when we can finally be happy and follow our passions instead of worrying about how we’ll look on paper. We wait until Godot comes in the form of a large white envelope with a college letterhead on it.
The sad thing is that it’s not the answer to all of our dangling expectations. If we go through high school racking up perfect scores, make it into our dream college, and finally attend it, we are still waiting. Neither the college acceptance letters nor the high school diplomas are our tickets to living our life.
What if Gogo and Didi blew off Godot? What if Lucky broke free? What would they have left? Is it inevitable that they always wait for Godot? Always obey Pozzo? Is Beckett implying that waiting for something is life itself and that it’s inescapable? I want to say that it’s not. I want to say that we all have a choice. But do we? Is our only choice to make waiting our thing, like Sisyphus made the rock his thing in the Camus interpretation?
Going back to that Benjamin Franklin quote, “The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all—doing nothing,” I feel like he’s right, and whatever Beckett meant in his text (“I cannot explain my plays. Each must find out for himself what is meant,” says Beckett), I say we have a choice. After reading waiting for Godot I felt helpless, like I really was waiting for something that would never come, just like the characters in the play. I feel the only question I can ask myself now is, “am I awake?”
Today after school, I had a conference with Mr. Watson about my Senior Independent Project next year. He’s going to be my advisor for the project and help me formulate my plan of action. We thought the little chat would go on for about ten minutes, but the conversation was flowing and the interesting ideas were spilling out so easily that we ended up talking for almost two hours.
The conclusions that we came to are interesting to me, not so much because they propose a solution of any kind, but because they pose essential questions that I need as a basis for my project, as well as for education at large.
What types of roles are the teachers expected to play in a classroom? What roles should they play to maximize learning and inspiration? Should teachers formulate a syllabus and push that syllabus on the students regardless of whether it fits their learning style? What is balance? Is it ironic that the people we connect with about education and learn from online have no direct relation to the traditional school? Should they? How can we communicate better the idea of technology in learning to teachers who are clueless about it? What kind of connections are students asked to make in class? How can we make it easier for students to a) find out what they love to do and b) actually get to do it in class? … etc.
The conversation brought up some other topics, including the styles of teaching that are used now, and the styles of teaching that we think work best in classrooms. One idea that has been a close personal love of mine is I love is meta cognition. I was introduced to meta-ing my own thinking this year in Ideas in Western Literature, and the addiction to the critical thinking wheel and meta cognition soon being out of control (just kidding. Sort of).
In case you’re not familiar with meta-cognition (and I feel sad for you if you’re not, for it has been a solace of warmth for me in the most cold, constipated hours), it’s basically looking back on your own work, and critically thinking about your conclusions. In other words, it’s developing self-consciousness about your thinking and reasoning, testing it, and constantly probing it for assumptions and implications. Meta cognition is being aware of the way you think. And the critical thinking wheel aka Good Ol’ Critty, is this:
Clarity: How can I elaborate? How can I illustrate what I mean? What examples can I give?
Accuracy: How can I check on that? How could I find out if that is true? How could I verify or test that?
Precision: Can I be more specific? Can I give more details?
Depth: What factors make this a difficult problem? What are some of the complexities of this problem?
Relevance: How does that relate to the problem? How does that bear on the question?
Logicalness: Does all of this make sense together? Does this first paragraph fit in with the last? Does what I’m saying follow evidence?
Significance: Is this the most important problem or the most central idea to consider?
Breadth: Do I need to look at this from another perspective? Do I need to consider another point of view? Do I need to look at this in other ways?
Fairness: Is my thinking justifiable in context? Are my assumptions supported by evidence? Is my purpose fair given the situation? Am I not distorting concepts to get what I want?
The critical thinking wheel is literally one of the best tools I’ve ever been given as a writer, and as a thinker. The same goes for meta cognition. Finally! Something that just tells me in plain language what critical thinking is, and how I can do it. No more mysticism around the oh-so-exclusive critical thinking club. It’s easy, once it’s spelled out for you and it’s practiced. These are the basic building blocks that students absolutely need, but often times lack, in the advancement into more engaged learning.
In my ideal world of critical thinking, meta cognition, and connections, school for me would be like this:
All of the department heads for my classes would talk together, and come up with some sort of general outline of subject matter that they all want to cover (for example, a timeline of history that they would all follow, so we learn about the time periods together in English and Social Studies). My classes wouldn’t be the same, of course, but the connections between them would be more obvious. The connections are important, because life isn’t usually separated into English, Social Studies, Math, Science, and Foreign Language.
There wouldn’t be separate homework for each subject, but instead the first collective assignment would be to make connections between all of my subjects, and then write about it (perhaps on a blog). After writing about the different connections for a while, this is when the meta cognition assignment would come in. I would be required to meta cognate the connections I made in the first assignment, and connect it to more things, like my own life or some bigger issue that is important to me.
Once I’ve written about this (again, on the blog), I would begin the super fun part. The culmination of all of this thinking would end in a project where I took the ideas from the previous two assignments, and then PRESENT THEM IN ANY MEDIUM I WANT. For me, this would mean making some sort of art. I could make video, a painting, a collage, etc etc etc. The point is that I would be using the knowledge gained from all of my classes, apply critical thinking to make connections, meta cognate those connections and connect them even more, and then DO WHAT I LOVE TO EXPRESS IT! My dream come true.
A blog would be a great way to express these ideas and the mental voyage, because it would be so individual and different for each person. I agree with all those teachers that say schooly blogs suck. I don’t think these blogs would suck, though. These blogs would be interesting because everyone’s connections and final project would be their own creation—just an expression of unique ideas in a form that they are passionate about. It would become a place for students to grow as critical thinkers as well as just plain writers. They could make it their own homebase where they would throw out crazy ideas, and then meta cognate them. Feedback in the form of comments would be great help them on their thinking-journey. Posting their final project would be really cool too.
I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do with these ideas yet, but I definitely want to explore and ask questions in this direction. I also want to discuss meta cognation and applied critical thinking in the context of a sustainable education. Just the idea of total sustainability, on all levels, is fascinating, especially when we ask what that means in the classroom, and in life. What needs to be changed in schools to make them truly sustainable? On what levels?
Anyways, I must close this up before it gets too late. I have a big French test in a couple of days, and I need to study my subjunctif tense some more. I’m really exited, though. I’m excited and happy.
But I’m not. I’m here. Typing away. Being crazy. Talking to myself. Thinking thinking and thinking.
Function went above my very low expectations, and I was pleased. 
We caught the school bus together from school, and we drove to the Ihilani, the famed hotel from Blue Crush. I sat next to Emily, which was fun because of our insanity. Emily was a good date. We coined some new phrases: D=Drama.
“Don’t start D with me!”
(Some D being brought)
And also many laughs were had over this phrase: “A rogue booty slap every once in a while isn’t a bad thing.”
Andrew (Sam’s date/my cousin/friend), Emily, and I danced the whole night. We got our freak on, you could say. We brought style to a dance floor that was in sore need of it. Surrounded by grinding couples/threesomes, we went crazy and got down and clean. It was intense.
(We were tired after dancing all night.)
The night was beautiful, and there were stars. On the ride home, the wind blew through the windows, and I looked out over the passing cities. The highway was empty. Sam sat next to me this time, while Andrew and Emily sat together. We talked some, and we didn’t talk some. My classmates chattered around us as my dance-sweat cooled on my bare skin.
It made me think that I would remember this night.
Andrew and Emily slept over at my house. We stayed up till 3:00 am, mostly watching movies and talking. I made them watch A Clockwork Orange, and Andrew was fascinated by the cutting of clothes off of women. It was a bad example. We coined this phrase for the occasion: “Rape was imminent.” (But not really, of course. We joke.) 
In the morning we ate pancakes smeared in chocolate and strawberry guts. At noon we went to the beach. In the afternoon we reclined on the beach talking. In the evening I did my homework.
The End.
For a while now, I’ve been afraid of what I was going to be when I grew up. Questions like, “what’s your major?” rose my hackles defensively. Why am I required to think about my future in those terms?
I am a multimedia person; dancing around from passion to passion on a rotating basis, or sometimes gathering them all together simultaneously, I vigorously love what I do (whatever it may be). Writing, environmental science, art, blogging, music, reading, nature, and many other deviations are are all things that I love thinking about, and doing. Where did I fit in the world?
I was thinking about this today gearing up to start laying out the new issue of the school newspaper. I was thinking about how aimlessly I was wandering off the proverbial path (and the ruts) of life. I was thinking about integrity–what it means to hold on to a vague, foggy sort of dream, and not let go of it. Was it foolish of me? Would I eventually lose my grip and fall into oblivion, or worse, bland normality?
I’ve gone through periods where I’ve been afraid of the path I was going down, and its unclear conclusions. I’ve felt doubt before; I’ve been depressed. I’ve been shy, overly outgoing, confused, hopeful, understanding, sad…and I expect that I’ll be all of these things again. In the past week, though, I have felt as though I’ve taken a step forward, using all of these strong emotions that I’ve been feeling about my future, both good and bad. It hasn’t been directly linked to the events that have been going on, but more of a constant absorption of information from my entire life that finally just made sense in the most right way possible. Stuff that I felt was important at the time, but maybe didn’t fully comprehend, finally fit together in perfect jigsaw formation.
And yes, part of this aha! moment did happen in the shower, washing my hair. That part was the illumination of a new possible passion–education. It had never registered before as something that I’d like to pursue. Even as a writer for Students 2.0, I felt that teaching wasn’t me; that it wouldn’t make me happy. I think I was wrong. I think I didn’t know what being a teacher meant, and now I do, if only a little bit more.
I’m not sure exactly what I’ve realized. But I have found out what I know. I was wandering off the beaten path , doing whatever moved me, when I found people with energy and intelligence who wanted to collaborate with me to make something great. It happened, and it’s happening. I loved what I was/am doing. Suddenly, late one night, I got pulled off of my joyful way to have a little skype chat with people across the world about something I’m passionate about. For the first time, I realized that I was teaching (while simultaneously learning), and it felt good. Actually, it felt better than good. That set off a chain reaction, and more teaching opportunities came up–more sharing of passion and ideas and energy. I knew that it felt right.
There are certain things in my life, I’m realizing, that come to me naturally. These things I love. The ambiguity clearing is a step forward; the things that I’ve been holding onto so tightly are slowly taking shape.
The important idea that I’ve come to understand these past few days is that the goal is not the dream. The concept of a palpable goal is something that has been pounded into the heads of impressionable teenagers that go on to grow up pounding the idea into more teenagers’ heads. The goal is inescapable failure. Only in self trust and self belief, when the dream we cling to becomes clearer, that is truly success.
We can look at this in relation to education. A goal is presented that guarantees approval and success when it’s reached by students. Let’s call this idea Grades and Syllabi. Or, it can be called old school learning. There is a clear definition between right and wrong, teacher and student, success and failure. This is the kind of teaching that turned me off of pursuing education as a passion, and it is very limiting as a student. Having an unique idea and being given the freedom to cling to that idea and let it materialize in our hands is what interests me as a student.
When the classroom becomes less of an inhibitor–less of a goal mongering black and white environment–that is when more students will be able to free their minds, and let the idea of following a passion stop having such negative connotations. Breaking down walls between classrooms, students, teachers, countries, races, sexes…and anything else really does bring about positive change first in our own lives, and then in the world.
All of this has helped me take a new step in my life. The change has occurred, and I feel excited to start seeing things through a new perspective.
