Work for Love

So here I am.  Thirty-three days until graduation.  Twenty-three until my last day at my graduate assistantship.  So many things about this scenario scare me.  Will I be able to find a job that I love and not just a job I need to survive? Will I need to apply for unemployment? Will I have to move?  Will I be able to put gas in my car or put food on my table?  And my loans- I don’t even want to think about when I am to begin repaying those.  At one point in our country’s pithy history, a Bachelor’s degree was a luxury.  Now, it is a necessity.  A Master’s degree was a job guaranteed. Now, it is just a piece of fancy paper with gold plated letters that hangs on my wall in a nice wooden frame. By the way, that fancy paper cost me $145.  

My point is, jobs are not guaranteed in our economy today.  People like me, in our mid-20s, are applying for jobs on a daily basis, just hoping to get something so we can pay the bills.  For now at least.  Until we get a better job.  Until we get the job that was worth us going to graduate school for an extra two years and $75,000.  Until we get a job we love to do instead of the job we have to do.  With all the stress and uncertainty that has come out of a time like this, I have found my silver lining.  It is called perseverance. 

I have never been tested in such a way that I must continue on without any real “pay-off.”  But for me, my pay-off is knowing that no matter what, I will never give up.  And just because the job market isn’t so great doesn’t mean that I need to give up what I love and sacrifice things that make me happy.  If there is one thing I have learned in all of this mess, it’s that jobs and money and financial security may come and go.  But the people in your life that you love and the things you love to do will always make you happy.

With that being said, I don’t have to give up my love for writing.  My love for the outdoors.  My love for travelling.  And I definitely don’t have to sacrifice spending time with my family and friends.  Even in a desperate time of need, I can always work for love.

A Journey to Love

Oh my goodness, it has been some time! I have been really busy trying to finish graduate school and have not had as much time to share my writings with you!  But, with my major portfolio turned in, I am just counting down the days until graduation now...just 33 more... :-)

Here is a blog I wrote based on a book I read called The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal. Enjoy!

I find it inspiringly ironic that Jonathan Mooney was able to write an entire book on his experiences living with dyslexia and ADHD, two “disabilities” that normalcy in America normally wouldn’t expect to generate this type of achievement.  In his book, Jon is able to tap into the essence of what it means to be a person on both ends of the disability chain. Several times in his book, he reveals to us that he has indeed been a perpetuator of normalcy, initially questioning the amount of value that people with certain disabilities can have if they cannot achieve success like he did.  On the flip side, he falls victim to the intense and unfair labeling that disabilities breed in our culture.  Although I would never wish for a certain population within the human race to cease to exist, I have thought about what it would be like to have a child with a disability.

Much like Jon’s acquaintance with Candee, who has a daughter Katie with Down syndrome, my thoughts regarding this issue bring out the “dark side of me.”  Perhaps my hesitation, prejudices, and unease about having a child with a disability stems from fear; fear that I will not know how to care for a child with a disability, fear that it will not be easy, or fear that my child will not be able to lead a “normal” life.  And yet, I am confronted with that word again.  Normal.

Every experience we encounter in our lives makes us normal.  The fact that we are capable of experiencing events in our life that evoke emotional responses, both good and bad, make us normal.  In fact, I believe that our experiences with adversity and diversity make us more normal and allow us to become more of who we are.  As Candee discovered in her personal journey, because her very fears were exposed, she realized how much she loved and cared for Katie.  In turn, she learned so much more about herself.

Special education and prescription drugs are two huge multi-million to multi-billion dollar industries.  Our society teaches us to view children in special education as “abnormal” and as incapable of complex brain functioning.  These are the children that are told they will never amount to more than flipping burgers at your local McDonald’s, much like Jonathan Mooney was told his entire life. (Go to http://www.youtube.com/user/JonsShortBus#p/a/u/0/l7z0VHuaoc4 and watch the videos of him speaking on his YouTube page.  He also has a couple short clips on The Short Bus Documentary.)  And while many people with disabilities will only have the opportunity to work at fast food joints, like Katie, this does not make them any less human or any less capable of experiencing the same human emotions as we “normal” people experience.

The problem with our distorted perceptions about people with disabilities is two-fold: First, as a society we are largely uneducated about both the normalcy and diversity that exist within the disability population.  Second, and as a result of the first, we are fearful of what we do not know or understand.  This causes us to make assumptions based upon what other people have told us or what is ingrained in our brains as a culture.  Thus, we are led to believe that people living with disabilities are less than or different from the norm.

In my mind, as educators we are responsible for changing this perception and creating a new culture.  We must create a culture to be proud of, one that accepts and celebrates differences.  We must first be educated ourselves on what it means to have a disability and understand the capacities we have to directly impact the children we work with on a daily basis.  Our visions become their visions; our influences become their influences. 

As we saw numerous times in Mooney’s book, people with disabilities everywhere are defying the odds and shining their lights, their talents, and their gifts on us “normal” people so that we can learn to appreciate that success comes in all shapes and sizes.  Furthermore, we can learn that people “are valuable just because of their presence” (Mooney, Ch. 12). One thing I found incredibly uplifting from this book was when Mooney talked about what he learned from a simple card game with Katie. He said, “What I do know is because of Katie, no one was left out, no one won, no one lost, no one cared, and we were all more ourselves than we were before the game” (Mooney, Ch. 12).

Isn’t that what all humans search for their entire lives? We all just want to be ourselves, to be loved, and to feel like we belong to someone or something.  People with disabilities are no different than us.  In the case of people with disabilities, yes it is true that some might not be able to read or write.  But in a sense, where some lack in traditional academic basics, they triumph in understanding the very meaning and foundation of a human existence.  It is possible that people with disabilities can teach us more about how to love and how to become more of who we are if we just change our perspective and do not let fear guide our cognitions.  In closing to achieve my point, I will leave you with one final thought from Jeff in Chapter 15.  He says, “The computers extend my thinking.  People extend my loving.”

Mooney, J. (2007). The short bus: a journey beyond normal. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

White Privilege

I wrote this as a reaction to a book called White Like Me by Tim Wise for a class, but it was such an eye-opening book and I'm so passionate about it that I thought I would share.

I have to admit, as a white person, the concept of white privilege never really resonated with me.  And to be honest, at times it even rubbed me the wrong way.  I grew up believing that hard work was the key to success.  My parents raised me to always be very accepting and open to people from other races, backgrounds, and cultures.  Naturally, I thought that no matter what your background was, you had the opportunity to succeed.  After all, this is America, right?

Throughout my entire two-year experience in the graduate program, I still had a hard time understanding white privilege, even though I have been trained in multicultural awareness and sensitivity.  There were times where in my head I found myself comparing racism to me being made fun of in my life for having extremely fair, ivory-like skin.  I could not separate the two.  I so often made the argument that Tim Wise refers to in White Like Me many times: The white people today were never slave owners.  We didn’t do this.  Now, before you go judging my former naïve and narrow frame of mind that supposes white privilege does not exist, take a moment to continue reading.  What I learned from Tim Wise follows.

Wise makes the case that “It doesn’t matter that today’s whites weren’t around ‘back then.’  It doesn’t matter that today’s whites never owned slaves, never killed any Indians, and never stole land from Mexico.  We are here now, and so are the black and brown descendants of those persons of color whose ability to accumulate assets, professional credentials, education and homes was restricted for so long.” (Wise, 2008).  In a YouTube video, he compares this to running a race with a four-lap head start.  He says we “have closed the gap some, but not all” as those who started the race behind have now gained a few laps on their fellow competitors.  They still haven’t caught up entirely. 

The reason why it doesn’t matter that today’s whites weren’t the whites from back then and that today’s people of color weren’t alive when slavery and segregation were legal is based on inheritance.  “We pay off government debts, even though much of the spending that created them happened so long ago.” (Wise, 2008).  It is inherent that we will always be inheritors of the past.  Obama inherited the problems that Bush created.  Bush inherited the problems that Clinton created.  All leaders inherit the work of their predecessors.  For those of us who aren’t presidents, we’ve got what our ancestors left us.  When family members die, we inherit their assets, both good and bad.  Surely we don’t want to inherit the debt that our families have left for us.  “But we never had a problem accepting inheritances that we never worked for,” inheritances that would ultimately benefit us (Wise, 2008).  Call me crazy, but the concept of inheritance is directly in contradiction of the American Dream, or the American Myth, that hard work will equal success.  There simply is more to it than that.

Like it or not, we have inherited a history rich with prejudice, discrimination, and racism.  But, we have also inherited a nation rich with innovation. “We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook” (Obama, State of the Union, 2011).

          We are too worried with the idea that we are being threatened by others that look differently than us. Instead, we should be collaborating with others and seeking to be anti-racists.  Feeling threatened often causes us to work as an individual.  Collaborating enables us to feed off each other’s ideas, sparking more imagination and innovation.  It allows us to work as a team, to play to our strengths while relinquishing our weaknesses to others who consider those weaknesses to be their strengths.  Together, we are a much larger force to be reckoned with, no matter what race we are.

            What does this have to do with white privilege?  Everything.  You see, by allowing ourselves to be racist, whether overt or not, we are limiting our successes and perpetuating the American Dream as the myth that it is.  As a white person, failing to realize that white privilege does indeed exist, I am no better than my slave-owning ancestors were a couple hundred years ago.  I am still denying people of color the “assets, professional credentials, education and homes” that they have been denied for so long.  I am holding the dreams that people of color have as slaves.  And yes, they too, have dreams that they would like to come true, restriction free.

            There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  As Wise points out, there are things that we can do.  Speak up.  Confront racism.  The most powerful thing we can do is to “engage, not enrage” (Wise, 2008).  Challenge our friends, family, acquaintances, peers, and colleagues when they make a racist comment or joke.  Challenge yourself, your beliefs, your values, as I did.  It is always harder to do the right thing when you have to do it alone, but the benefits of doing the right thing will always outweigh the costs.  Oh and by the way, doing the right thing has a tendency to be contagious.

References

Obama, B. State of the Union Address, 2011.

Wise, T. White Like Me. Berkeley: Soft Skull Press, 2008.

Wise, T. “Vote NO on MCRI- Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.” YouTube, 2007.  Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4ZdR1alqmM.

Race to the Top

“Poor school conditions and student struggles will never truly be changed if funding is rendered a contest in which the many, many schools suffering under such deplorable conditions are competing against one another for limited resources that can not cover all the need" (Gleason, 2011). 

I can see why Race to the Top is a popular educational movement seeking to replace No Child Left Behind.  After all, the premise behind Race to the Top is largely capitalistic, much like the government we live in.  It is based upon competition between schools: whoever can adopt national education standards and tests and do it best, will be eligible to “win” grant money from the federal government (Sheffield, 2010). 

The standards in Race to the Top were developed not by Washington, but by Republican and Democratic governors across the country (Obama, State of the Union 2011).  But why are we not asking our teachers? Why are we not asking our administrators? Why are we not asking our students?  Governors are not at the forefront of educational reform-schools are.  How can a school with limited resources even begin to compete?  On the flip side, why should an exceptional school be forced to conform to a set of national standards that may be lower than that own school’s expectations?  Because all schools want money.  Because all schools need money.  Having to compete for it on an unequal playing field tells our students that their education is only important if they can win it.

America was founded on an idea: The idea that each of us has the power to create our own destiny (Obama, State of the Union 2011).  But students aren’t even finishing high school.  Equality of education (i.e.-national standards) is not the same as equity in education (i.e.-equipping students what they need to be successful). Equity is unique to each school and each student.  Without addressing concerns equitably, the achievement gap will continue to widen.

It's Time to Take a Risk, Sweetheart

My whole life I have played the safe game.  I did well in school because it was what I was told to do.  I played sports because that’s what you did after school.  I went to college because nobody ever told me I had other options.  And I graduated-as if I even had a choice. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I love, love, love the education I have been blessed to receive and I wouldn’t have changed that for the world.  And yes, I wanted to do well in school, and go to college, and graduate, and get a Master’s degree, and yadda, yadda, yadda…so on and so forth.  But never in my life have I ever felt like I took a risk on anything.  Everything has always worked out and doors have always opened for me at just the right moment.  It’s almost as if I wasn’t in control of my own fate- which now that I think about it, seems ironic to consider that you could ever even control fate in the first place.  And now, at 24, I feel like the life that I was supposed to be living has turned into a life of mediocrity. 

Mediocrity?  That is not what I envisioned for my life at all.

The whole idea of taking a risk scares the shit out of me.  It’s that fear of failure that I dread.  Or maybe it's the fear of the unknown.  But, the more I ponder my life, I see it taking one of two directions.  Either, I play the safe game and go through life out of harm’s way, never really knowing what I could achieve, or, I take a risk.  A huge risk.  And achieve things I never in my life imagined possible.

Now, take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk (thanks, Dalai Lama).  Did Bill Gates know what he was doing when he dropped out of college?  Yeah, I know what you are thinking.  He’s pretty much a genius but while he was at Harvard, he had no definite study plans.  (By the way, Bill Gates and I have the same birthday. And Julia Roberts, too.  Coincidence? You decide.)  You see, the problem with playing it safe is that certain things aren’t allowed to be explored.  Human potential is limited.  And creativity is snubbed.

So, here I am.  Twenty-four years old.  Intelligent.  Capable.  Desperate for a challenge.  I think it’s time to take a risk, sweetheart.

The Imperfectionists

The Imperfectionists 

by Tom Rachman

A Review

One of the best books I have ever read.  I literally got to the end and the first thing I thought was, “I need to read that again.”

The book takes place in Rome and is centered on the lives of an English language newspaper’s staffers and the foibles that characterize each of them.  Every chapter, or headline, as it is laid out, tells the story of one employee or reader of the paper.  As to be expected, the people are all linked to each other throughout the book, and you will find yourself understanding a character more and more as you read into each of their separate but interlaced lives.

Journalism, a career perceived to be so glamorous, is exposed for the grime and dirt that is accompanied with it.  More importantly, the journalists and readers in this novel are seen for what they are, humans- with fault.  Each facing his or her own "imperfections," they go through life facing what they must and making the best of what they have.  Interestingly, their jobs and their lives are at the mercy of the- stay with me here- newspaper’s founder’s grandson, who could not care in the least about the fate of the empire his grandfather built and believed in.

What makes this book unique and particularly enjoyable is its ability to capture the essence of human flaw and emotion.  It digs deep into the souls and pulls out insights of the psyche- a profound understanding of human nature that sometimes we cannot even grasp in our own thoughts and of our own minds. But, Rachman never makes his characters more than what they are- ordinary people.

At times, I found my heart wrenched in the despair and loneliness of a particular character.  Other times, I was laughing at the ridiculous and haughty nature of another.  The characters became important to me because they were real.  Relatable.  I saw bits of myself in each of them.

The Imperfectionists, filled with humor and sentiment, is a true gem, a must read.  A novel so good that when you get to the end you will think, "I need to read that again."