The Danger of a Single Story

In one of our faculty orientation meetings this week, we watched the beginning of a TEDTalk that I just finished watching, called The Danger of a Single Story.

http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

Nothing I could say to summarize Adichie's talk could come close to the charm and power with which she presented it, but the basic idea is that we have to guard against forming opinions and understandings based on a "single story". She talks about her roommate in college who could not fathom her experience as a basically middle class Nigerian, because her roommate had only a single story about Africa - one of extreme poverty and disease. She confessed to times when she herself was embarrassed by her own ability to believe a single story. Her words are definitely powerful.

As a teacher, I always need to be on guard for the single story. Students get reputations, and too often teachers walk into the classroom on the first day of school already having formed opinions about a number of kids in the class, based on the single story they have heard from a colleague. With our international student body, it is also very easy to make assumptions in a similar way. I teach advanced math classes. When I see a Korean student on my class list, I am often too quick to assume that this will be a driven kid for whom grades matter more than anything else. I have taught enough Korean students over the years to know that they are just as much individuals as all students are.

Adichie makes another point that really struck me while listening to the talk. When trying to understand somebody's story, we must start from the beginning. She gives multiple examples of how changing the starting point can change an entire story, such as starting with Native Americans firing arrows at settlers rather than starting with Europeans invading land that native tribes had inhabited for years. The same is true of our students. Especially in a boarding school where kids come from all over and we know very little of their pasts, teachers have a tendency to start our stories of students with the first day of school. It is impossible to truly understand what motivates that student without learning the 15 years of stories that came before. Obviously it is impossible to learn all of that about all of the students I work with, but it is critical that SOMEBODY does learn all of that about each student. Every student must feel that connection and must feel valued as a complete individual.

Adichie's talk made me think about the many advantages of boarding school and why I love this overwhelming life. When I taught day school, students WERE single stories for me. I saw them only in the classroom and as academic beings. I definitely tried to connect with them and see more than that single story, but when it came down to my official interaction with them, it was limited. In the boarding school environment, it is almost impossible to see a student as a single story. I teach them in the classroom, coach them on the soccer field, work with them on dorm, run into them while they're hanging out with their boyfriend or girlfriend on the weekend. I see them interact with my family and with the families of their classmates. I see how they choose to decorate their rooms and what music they listen to. I see them laugh, fight, celebrate, cry, and sometimes even mourn. Teenagers are the most complex of all of us, because they have SO many stories intersecting in their lives and they are trying so hard to figure out which ones to adopt as their own and how to begin writing novel stories of their own. As adults, we've usually settled into a few comfortable stories which give us rich and rewarding lives, but teenagers are still trying things out. No job could be more challenging or exciting than trying to help them do just that. As boarding school teachers, we are certainly teaching our academic subjects and trying to create new mathematicians, or scientists, or linguists, but most importantly, we are helping these amazing young people understand the stories that have brought them to this point, and helping them to become the authors of their own lives. I can't wait to get started again on Tuesday!

Teenagers Rock!

Just spent the evening watching Soul Surfer with my family. For those who don't remember, this is the true story of a 13-year-old girl who has her left arm bitten off by a shark while surfing in Hawaii. She goes on with her life and becomes a world-class competitive surfer again after the accident. I think watching this movie was far more difficult for me than for a lot of people, because I was sitting next to my own 13-year-old daughter while watching the movie, and it is impossible not to put her in Bethany Hamilton's place mentally while watching the movie.

The amazing thing about this story is the strength shown by Bethany (and her entire family). Of course she struggles, and I am sure that she struggled more in real life with the unfairness of her situation than in the movie, but she also kept finding the strength to go on with a positive outlook. I would be willing to bet that a lot of people who don't have teenage children, or don't have the privilege of working with teenagers as closely as I do, watch this movie and find the whole thing sickeningly Pollyanna and unrealistic, but it's just not. One of the reasons this movie was so hard to watch is that, when I picture my daughter in that situation, I see her doing exactly what Bethany does in the movie. She would accept her situation and make the best of it. She would probably enjoy the embarrassment of all the people who are not sure how to handle her more than Bethany did, but Layne get's that evil streak from me, so I understand. :) In fact, MOST of the teenagers I work with would be able to find the positive side and come out of this tragedy with their spirits intact. I'm not sure I could say the same about the adults I know, and I am confident that I could not say it about myself. Teenagers are in a constant state of flux - everything about them changes every day. They are so resilient and ready for the changes in a way that we adults are not. Why is this?

I think it is all about control - or at least perceived control. Teenagers are at a point in their lives where they want to take control of themselves, but really they have very little of it. They are still accustomed to not being in control and can weather the storms when everything seems to be chaos. When they come out of that chaos with a positive attitude, as Bethany does in the movie, that is their way of taking control. They can't control the circumstances, so they control the only thing they can - their attitude. (That same sentence applies to the many times that teenagers have a horrid attitude!) As adults, we have gotten used to having control over the circumstances of our lives more. Because of that, we are not as able to handle the unexpected chaos the way teenagers can. We have established our comfort zones and erected walls around them so high that, when we are tossed out of those comfort zones, we can't even see them anymore and land in the panic zone rather than the challenge zone. Teenagers have not had the luxury of building those comfort zones yet, or at least they haven't been able to fortify them as well, so when they get tossed out of them, they have a huge challenge zone to land in rather than falling into the panic zone. As a teacher, it is my job to push teenagers into that challenge zone, and I push harder and harder every year. For the first time this year I pushed a few into the true panic zone, and I will have to learn to tread that boundary carefully, but the closer I can get without crossing over, the better teacher I will be. Nothing is more exciting than watching teenagers overcome challenges, and I sometimes find it hard to believe that anybody is willing to do any job other than teaching. Teenagers rock, and I am lucky to live a life where I get to see them do that on a daily basis!

Motivational Quotes

Today I got a package in the mail - my RoadID that I ordered last week. For those who don't know, this is a bracelet to wear while running or biking that has information that might be important to medical personnel if something unthinkable happens to me. (If it's not unthinkable to you, then stop reading this and go away!) The toughest part of ordering the RoadID was figuring out what to put on the last two lines - generally used for something motivational. Thinking about what I need to tell myself more often than anything else, I went with, "Yesterday, you said tomorrow!"

That got me thinking and wondering - what would you put there? If you had only two short lines to write the one thing that will motivate you most, what would it be?

Why race?

Tomorrow I am going to spend half the day standing in line a packet pickup and then attending a newcomers' orientation and bike inspection as I prepare for my first Duathlon on Sunday. This brings to mind the simple question - why race?

I wish I could say that it is because I have a chance to win, but that will never be the case. The most common answer for racers like me probably involves a discussion of competing against oneself to try and always improve upon the last race. Unfortunately I don't really care much about that either. So why do I race? For me the answer is simple and obvious - racing is FUN and MOTIVATING! Those of us at the back of the pack have so much more fun than the ones with a chance of winning an award. We chat and bond and have fun. A few years ago, I ran most of a race with a man in a tux and a woman in a bridal gown. They stopped around mile 5 of the 10K and got married. That was awesome! This past July, I ran behind the entire cast of the Wizard of Oz for a little while. They were passing out cards urging kids to stay in school. What a great experience! This spring I ran my first marathon. While I am ridiculously proud of having accomplished that, the bonding and chatting with other runners really is the reason why I did it (and will do it again).

So on Sunday I am doing my first Duathlon. A 2-mile run, then a 26-mile bike ride, and finishing with a 4-mile run. I am confident that I will have no trouble finishing. I am also confident that I will have no shot of winning any kind of award. Why am I doing it? Because it is going to be loads of fun, and I hope to meet some awesome people along the way! Then those bonds will pump me up to start preparing for my next challenge - my first Century ride in September! FUN and MOTIVATION - that's why I run, and come to think of it, that's why I teach as well!

Mirrors

My latest Facebook status is a quote from Seth Godin's blog. (You should check it out - he's got some very thought-provoking things to say:  http://sethgodin.typepad.com) It goes something like this:

"There are more mirrors available than ever. Sometimes, though, what's missing is the willingness to take a look."

Here's my take on it. We live in a world with potentially endless instant feedback. It's up to us to decide to make that a good thing. This is definitely an area with which I struggle. I've spent too much of my life happy with "good enough", and although I recognize that I need to work on that, it still is very hard for me to seek, or even just accept, honest constructive criticism. As a teacher, I have the luxury that a lot of my feedback comes from teenagers, so it is easy to discount the parts I don't like. I can always say that they don't understand, or that they are just angry that I'm going the "tough love" route.

When I was a Department Chair (a position I stepped down from this year, which resulted in my best teaching year in a decade!) I worked with several teachers who approached the mirrors their students held up to them from the opposite direction. 70 students would have very positive things to say in their teacher evaluations and 5 would be extremely negative (commonly called the "class assassins"). Those teachers would completely discount the 70 and focus only on the 5. Obviously that is not a healthy approach either.

Watching my wife's career as a research scientist, it is easy for me to realize that I would never survive in that profession. Without brutally honest critique and questioning, science cannot progress reliably. When a scientist presents her research at an academic conference, she has to be prepared for a relentless attack. If I were in that position, I would shrivel under the pressure. A successful scientist has to realize that the only goal that matters is uncovering scientific truth, and that without that kind of questioning, we will never find that truth. When my wife writes a paper to submit for publication, she seeks out the most brutal reviewers she can find to help her edit her work before submission. Because of that, she has a very high acceptance rate at some of the most respected journals in her field. Criticism just makes her work better, so she seeks it out, where I tend to shy away from it.

What is the difference between those of us who can look ourselves straight in the eye in all the various mirrors available to us and those of us who look the other way as we sneak past? How do you find the courage to really stop and take an honest look? I hope that, as long as I'm asking that question, there's still hope for me!

The Beauty of the Peloton

I love team sports. While an individual performance can be very impressive (think, Michael Phelps in the Olympics), it can never compare in my mind to a world-class team performance. Watching all the parts come together with everybody doing his or her job well to achieve a common goal is always more exciting, and more difficult, than one person having a great day. I would much rather watch Megan Rapinoe launch a 40 meter pass to Abby Wambach's perfectly timed header to tie up the game against Brazil than see Cristiano Ronaldo dribble through three players to take an individual shot. Unbeknownst to most Americans, the most interesting, strategic team sport out there is cycling.

I think most Americans understand that cyclists compete on a team, even though the race itself is really an individual race. But the teams themselves are fascinating. A pro cycling team will generally have a sprinter, a climber, a general classification contender, and a number of "domestiques" who are pretty good at everything and basically there to serve the specialists any way they can. The team director has to decide, based on the athletes available, what is the goal of the team and build the team accordingly. The BMC team in the Tour de France was clearly built around shepherding Cadel Evans to the Tour win. They seldom did the work at the front of the peloton, participated in few breakouts, and just carved a clear path for their main guy so that he could keep up on the portions of the race that are not his forte and then dominate in the final time trial. Leopard Trek took the second and third spots on the podium. They had a similar race, focusing completely on getting the Schleck brothers onto the podium at the end of the race. Unfortunately for them, they were not able to put enough distance between the Schlecks and Evans on the big climbs to overcome the advantage Evans would have on the time trial. I have to wonder what would have happened if they'd only had one GC contender and could focus on positioning him perfectly. Garmin Cervelo was all about the team. They won the team championship, but never really contended for the individual awards much. HTC Highroad was built around winning Cavendish the green jersey, and, although Garmin won the team championship, HTC probably did the best job of accomplishing their goals. They worked harder than any other team, and Cavendish graciously gave his teammates the credit they truly deserved.

What fascinates me most about watching cycling, though, is the organism known as the Peloton. The majority of the riders are part of this group, which is truly a living macro-organism. Watching the Peloton move together, constantly changing shape around physical obstacles, is absolutely beautiful. If you watch carefully, you can see teams riding together within the Peloton, protecting their GC contenders, dropping back to get water for the group, pushing the pace or blocking in order to achieve their team goals. I love to watch the temporary informal alliances among the different teams during the race as well. No other sport has so many teams trying to achieve the same goal at the same time. When a few riders break out in front of the group, the teams still in the Peloton work together to gradually pull them back in, sharing the workload up front. At the same time, the riders in the breakout group will work together as their own ad hoc team, taking terms pulling on the front and drafting off the other riders. No other sport has such a clear metaphor for life. We are constantly changing alliances, and often have to work together with "the enemy" to achieve our goals. Nobody can win a race like the Tour with a tremendous individual effort. As the day's finish line approaches, the group breaks back down into teams, and eventually the teams break down into their individual protected riders of the day sprinting for the finish. 

I have no doubt that the Tour de France is the most beautiful event in all of sports, and I can't wait for the Vuelta in August!

Politics Disgruntles Me

Most people who know me would say that I come down on the liberal side of most issues. I tend to read, watch, and listen to left-leaning media outlets. Anything I write needs to be read with that in mind. With that said, I can move on to the main point - what has gotten me disgruntled? Obviously the debt ceiling and the general economic approach of our federal government is a huge issue right now, but almost nobody seems interested in solving the problem. The Republicans in the House know that nothing can happen unless it goes through them, so they have a tremendous amount of power here. They also know that the American public will automatically blame any failure on the sitting President, so by blocking any progress and refusing to compromise, they can build public resentment against President Obama as the election year approaches. From my reading of the news, it definitely appears that the Republicans in the House are far more interested in making sure that the US fails so that voters will lean to the right in the next election than they are in actually solving this crisis. At the same time, President Obama knows that he is up against this brick wall and is trying his best to compromise and find some middle ground. What does he get for that? No return compromise from the other side, and his own party angry with him for compromising. As a pretty far left liberal, I would love for the President to be the guy I elected and work to accomplish the things he truly believes in, but I can respect his willingness to try and compromise. Something is better than nothing, as disappointing as it is.

The far right loves to talk about what the venerable Founding Fathers wanted, as if they were somehow able to anticipate every possible situation that might occur in the future. What would the Founding Fathers think of this desire by the controlling party in the House to make sure that the nation fails? Our system of checks and balances was designed with the faith that almost all elected officials would have the good of the country as their number one immediate goal. Now that gaining and maintaining power has become the main goal of a very large number of our elected officials, the system is breaking down. In the next few elections, can we PLEASE elect people who will work for the good of the country and the good of their constituents first? There are plenty of good people in all political parties who will make that their goal. Let's find them and put them in charge!