There is a huge difference between smiling by simply raising the edges to your mouth, and getting your whole face, or even your whole body involved.
When your expression is positively contagious everyone wins.
The next time you smile, remember to smile with your eyes.
It was the summer of 2006 and I was spending five weeks in Eugene, Oregon, completing my Master’s degree. I was there with a cohort of teachers from Coquitlam, BC, Canada, and we had many classes together. A colleague Christine and I had every class together, including a Statistics class we had where there was also a larger cohort of new Oregon teachers who were much younger than us.
These early to mid-20 year olds were in a program where students did a masters right after their teaching practicum. I think at the time the US ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy demanded teachers have so much additional education within the first few years of teaching, beyond their teaching degree, that moving to your masters level before starting teaching made more sense than starting teaching then adding credentials while you taught.
It was the last week of school, in this Stats class, that I learned a valuable lesson about my privilege. The class was being taught by the Teaching Assistant, who we knew because she was also our program faculty advisor. The lesson centered around research done in a school. The data was tracked by race among other variables. I don’t remember why, almost 14 years later, but the data was interesting and the fact that race mattered was relevant to the lesson.
After the lesson one of us, Christine or I, had a question and since we were living one floor apart in the same complex and walked to and from class together, we waited together to speak to the Teaching Assistant. In front of us, a younger, female, (*I assume) Chinese-descent American student was talking to the Teaching Assistant. This student was saying that she thought it was not appropriate to bring up race in the example given in class. I don’t remember if Christine or I interjected first, but we joined the conversation. We didn’t see things the same way as this student. We couldn’t figure out what we were missing? After that conversation was over we finished up with the Teaching Assistant and headed for the door. Before leaving the class, the Chinese American student came up to us and said, “You silenced my voice.”
We asked for clarification, and she explained that she had an issue around race that she was trying to address with the teaching assistant and we interjected and silenced her. We dismissed her concerns and she felt hurt that we had done this to her.
We apologized.
We insisted it wasn’t intentional. She told us this wasn’t about our intentions, it was about how we made her feel. She had a concern, and we dismissed it, we silenced her.
We apologized again.
The walk home was solemn. Christine and I felt awful. We both shed more than one tear. We tried to rationalize our participation in the conversation, but no matter the reason, we could only see that we caused hurt. Our words had power, and that power usurped the power from someone who felt less privileged than us. Our reasons didn’t matter. We were two older, white people who were dismissing the ideas of a younger minority.
I will preface this rationale with an important clarification: This is not a justification of any kind, it is in fact evidence of my blindness to my own privilege.
My family: My wife describes me as ‘a Chinese Jew from Barbados’. My grandmother on my dad’s side is full Chinese. I have many cousins and second cousins who are full, half, and quarter Chinese. Those that are mixed have mostly white, but also black, and East Indian parents.
When I described the minority student who we silenced, I described her as “(*I assume) Chinese-descent American student“. It’s an assumption because I didn’t ask. What informed my guess was that she didn’t look like another kind of Asian, she looked like family. She had the look of one of my mixed cousins who are mostly Chinese. She wasn’t ‘other’, she was ‘like me and my family’.
That said, I don’t look a lot like that part of the family. Despite my 1/2 Chinese father and my predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish roots, I have a look that Italians mistake for Greek, and Greeks mistake for Italian. I am neither. I’m used to not fitting into any box. In fact, whenever I have to fill out a survey that asked my race, I never check ‘white’. I always choose ‘Other’.
So when I saw this student, I saw family, someone like me. She didn’t see a likeness. She didn’t even see an ‘other’. She saw a white guy… An older white guy and an older white woman, both taking away her minority voice, on the topic of race in a classroom.
My context: I was in a school of higher learning. I was in the last week of a 2-year program where I was invited on a regular basis to challenge the thinking of others. I was comfortable in this role with the Teaching Assistant, (our program advisor), and with Christine. With Christine the metaphorical gloves were always off. We fully engaged in challenging each other’s ideas.
Many a day leading up to that last week Christine and I, both educational nerds, would continue our classroom conversations all the way home. Often, we would arrive at the complex, where we would head our separate ways, but we would remain there for 10, 15, even 30 minutes continuing the conversation.
We saw discourse and disagreement as learning opportunities. We were comfortable with this. We were comfortable doing this with our advisor. But this other student was not part of our community where this was the norm. Besides that, the topic had a very specific charge for her, and we were totally ignorant to it. We were also blind and ignorant to the very different charge that our discourse had.
I will reiterate: My rationalization above is not a justification of any kind, it is in fact evidence of my blindness to my own privilege. I lacked awareness of my privilege. I could not see it. But my lack of awareness does not negate my privilege.
It does not matter that I did not see her as a minority. It matters that she was one in her eyes.
It does not matter that I thought I was joining a learning conversation. It matters that by joining the conversation, I took away her ability to address a concern with her teacher.
It does not matter that it was not our intention to silence her. It matters that our interruption led to us diminishing her voice.
I am glad that she spoke up. I’m sorry because an apology didn’t feel like enough. I’m also sorry because I have to wonder, when have I done something similar and the person felt they couldn’t speak up?
I know how hard it is, I’ve heard slurs that impact my heritage, and I’ve had to choose when to and when not to say something. But even there I speak from a place of privilege. Those slurs were not directed at me, a person who looks like an ‘other’ to the slur. I don’t live in a sphere where I have to think about my race, and how others will perceive me on a regular basis.
Even in my years that I lived in Barbados and later in China, where I was an obvious minority, I was still in a privileged minority. I didn’t always feel that way, but my experiences that were positive far exceeded the negative. That is not the case for everyone.
If I’m in a conversation where someone will feel silenced, it likely will be me being the imposer, rather than the silenced. Even now, in my current job, I’m further put into that imposing position as a principal talking to students.
When I made the mistake of silencing this student’s voice I was blind to my privilege and did not see my error. I apologized. I cried. I learned a valuable lesson. I am more aware now of how my privilege can be unintentionally imposed on others.
This experience made me more aware of race and its impact on minorities. I’m bothered that while my heritage is mixed I don’t need to identify with any race, and other people need to; that my privilege gives me a pass that others don’t get.
But that pass does not excuse me from anything. In fact it makes me more responsible to recognize my privilege and to be aware that it can affect others. Being more aware and responsible doesn’t fix everything. I will still have blind spots. If we could see into our own blind spots, they wouldn’t actually be blind.
I will make mistakes. Some of those mistakes will be shared with me and I need to be accountable for how my words and deeds affect others. When the effect is negative, rationalizations are not what is needed, apologies and reparations are.
To ignore my privilege is to be doubly privileged. This is hurtful and arrogant.
If I am blind to my own privilege, it should not be because I have shut my eyes. It should only be because I was not aware… and when I am made aware, I need to be responsive and hold myself accountable. This can’t happen unless I recognize my own privilege.
Last night I (re)read, “(Digital) Identity in a World that No Longer Forgets”, by Alec Couros and Katia Hildebrandt. I say ‘(re)read’ because I thought I was reading this article, written in October 2015, for the first time… but when I looked at it again today, I saw the first comment on the article was by me. The internet might not forget, but I do!
In the article, this sentence really struck me:
“In a world where forgetting is no longer possible, we might instead work towards greater empathy and forgiveness.”
We need to recognize that people are allowed to make mistakes. Take the time to read the article by Alec and Katia. These things matter when measuring the severity of someone’s digitally inappropriate contribution: Context and intended audience, intent, history, authorship, and empathy (and forgiveness).
If we treat every transgression on the internet with the same level of disgust and anger, then comparatively we are reducing the level of anger and upset over truly appalling and disturbing comments and behaviours. Furthermore, we are creating an unforgiving and un-empathetic society, that does not allow us to apologize and/or learn from our mistakes.
I’ve written about this in my post ‘Resilience #OneWord2020‘, and I’ll end with a quote from that post:
In Online Spaces:
People will make mistakes online. They will say things that are unintentionallyhurtful, or blindly offensive. This is different than someone being intentionally biased and rude. If the slander is intentional, it should be reported. If it is unintentional, even to the point of ignorance, we need to be more resilient about what our responses are. When every transgression is treated with an attack, the most severe/bigoted/rude/biased transgressions are not given the heightened alarm that they deserve. With lesser errors and mistakes, we need to let people have a venue to recognize their errors and invite conversation rather than damnation.
Growing up, I heard the playground retort to taunts, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never harm me.” We are past the era of letting nasty people say whatever nasty things they want, and just turning the other cheek to pretend we are not hurt. This is a good thing. We want to live in a world where that behaviour is not acceptable. But it does not serve us well to treat the attacker like they can not repent or be sorry.
I saw this ‘motivational quote’ on Twitter this morning,
STRIVE
for what you
BELIEVE IN
and you will
GET THERE
in no time
What a dumb load of crap! There are many things to strive for that, no matter how hard you strive, will take a long time to get to. Striving doesn’t make the target magically get closer. Striving needs to happen on those days when the target seems farther away, when things aren’t going in your favour, and when others believe you can’t do it. Believing you’ll get there ‘in no time’ is discouraging when things are going slowly despite your efforts.
Here is another one:
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
Wow, I had no idea it was that simple! 🤣
This on actually sends the wrong message about success:
There are two rules for success…
1. Never reveal everything you know
The most successful people I know have been overly generous in their sharing.
This is just a little rant about some of the not-so-motivational quotes that seem to circulate on social media, disguising themselves as useful content. Posterized words on images meant to inspire, but not on target, littering my social media timelines. I’m just surprised how many I’ve been seeing lately.
I’ve been listening to Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve for about a month now, every time I do my chin-ups.
Sometimes I get a song in my head and I just want to hear it again and again when I’m doing a specific task. When I do plank workouts, it’s Eminem’s Lose Yourself. And when I write, it’s a lyric-less song called ‘Nerve Centre’ on the Calm meditation app. I’m listening to this now, too late on Thursday night, because I can’t sleep.
Tomorrow is bitter sweet. For the past 2 years I’ve been principal of 3 completely different schools: An online school, a small innovative, uniquely structured, but ‘regular’ school, and an alternate school. These schools have nothing much in common except for being in the same building… and having me as Principal. After tomorrow, I’m no longer in charge of the alternate school.
I’ve been needing a change. The role has been exhausting and 2 years in it hasn’t gotten easier. It has been too much, and I always feel I’m letting at least one school down. So, although I’ll be adding some additional responsibilities, I know after 2 years, I will have more balance. But more importantly, I know I can do more for my schools and feel good about that.
So why is this bitter sweet? Where is the bitter part? I’m leaving a school with students I’ve connected with; I’m leaving a school I wish I did more for. I feel guilt that I feel relieved.
But I felt ready to quit a year ago. I was at my ropes end (figuratively only). What kept me going was my early morning fitness and meditation routine, my audio book consumption, and my healthy time restricted eating routine. Last summer, I added this daily blog. With these routines I created something outside of my work schedule that encouraged self-care. They gave me sustenance when my work scheduled didn’t.
It seems counterintuitive, that adding a bunch of extra routines helped me manage my busy schedule better, but they have strengthened my skills as an educator and a leader. I’m fitter and have more energy. I’m listening to non-fiction books that I constantly connect to my job. I reflect on my learning and life lessons here on my blog. And, I’m sure my daily meditation is helping too, although I still can’t calm my monkey brain down and concentrate on my breathing for longer than a minute, even after trying daily for over a year.
I look forward to dedicating more time to my 2 schools after tomorrow. I know this is a good thing… But Friday… Friday is going to be bitter sweet.
Have you ever seen a water balloon being popped in slow motion? The ballon is punctured and shrinks to its pre-blown up size leaving, for a brief moment, the water in the shape of the balloon.
After the balloon is gone, surface tension holds the shape, keeping the memory of the ballon even if for the briefest moment, only visible in slow motion.
How many places in our life do we let surface tension linger?
A frustrating tone is shared, and instead of a calm response, surface tension lingers and frustration is returned.
Concern. Anger. Greed. Envy. Distraught. These are all things that can hold surface tension. They can keep their shape even when there is nothing left to hold them in place.
It’s easy to see on the outside, when others are holding on to it. It’s hard to see on the inside, when the tension is on our surface.
We can try to keep the tension or we can help it dissipate. A pause and a deep breath can help. But trying to fix things doesn’t always help. You can’t stretch a popped balloon back around the water ballon. You can help to catch the falling water.
Our reactions can keep surface tension, or they can let that tension go.
Monday was Martin Luther King Day in the US. I took the time on Sunday to reread his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail“, and a specific paragraph keeps coming to mind,
“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.“
The last two sentences chill me,
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.“
I think about how few extremists there are in the world, despite how much media coverage they get. Beyond the news, most people are not exposed to extremists. We are all exposed to moderates. So, in the day to day living of most people, hate is not something we see, however shallow understanding is.
In many places there is tolerance masquerading as acceptance. This to me is what slows down progress. It’s not the wing-nuts on the extremes spewing dogmatism… Although their stance plays a role in allowing others to justify their tolerance as acceptance, since that tolerance can be justified as moderate. But it’s the complacent, shallow, (lukewarm) moderates that hinder genuine acceptance… because this population is huge. This population is blind or ignorant to their own prejudice; this population performs daily interactions that infringe on the true acceptance of ‘others’, without knowing it.
Prejudice sits within all of us. We discern differences with different weights, but we can not pretend we don’t see differences. We can decide what value we put on those differences. We can not pretend the differences don’t exist, or that we don’t see them.
“Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.“
I wrote and believe that we should be ‘tool agnostic‘ in schools,
“We should ensure every student has a good tool available to them, and we should ensure we use these tools when it benefits to have the whole class on the same tool. However we should also give students choice when we can, and be tool agnostic… as long as the tool they use does not hinder their ability to accomplish the tasks they want or need to do.”
I still believe this, but I’m noticing that the suite of tools we are providing are locking kids in to a degree. If I am in a Microsoft district and I’m going to collaborate on a presentation, I’m going to find it easier to use PowerPoint since everyone already has collaboration accounts. Likewise with Google and their slide presentation tool.
A Microsoft using teacher doesn’t have to leave OneNote to mark and give feedback to a PowerPoint, but does need to for Google slides. A Google school might also be a Chromebook school, reducing choice of tools even further.
It’s one thing to say we are tool agnostic, and yet another to realize we are pushing students into using common tools for ease of use for both students and teachers.
I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, it provides equity with ever improving tools, but I am recognizing that we are moving students away from being tool agnostic and it’s something to think about.
Imagine you are walking with your kid in a foreign country. You’ve just flown in and arrived downtown by public transportation, suitcases in tow, and you are a 5 block walk away from your hotel. Your kid steps of a curb incorrectly, you hear a pop, and a scream, and there is your kid, buckled just off the edge of the curb, ankle in hand, crying. Any movement of the ankle results in a scream of agony.
You move off the road and a few people have gathered to help. They tell you there is a hospital just 3 blocks away, and point in the opposite direction of the hotel. You realize that you need to carry your kid and there is no way you can also carry all of your suitcases.
You look up at one of the strangers around you and say, “Can you please do me a favour? Here is my business card, can you please take my bags to our hotel and ask them to store them until we get there?” The person agrees. They head to the hotel, suitcases in tow, you head the other way to the hospital holding your kid.
What are the chances that your bags will be at the hotel when you return from the hospital?
– – –
I was listening to The Tim Ferriss Podcast with his guest, magician Penn Jillette, and Penn had some interesting insights into the kindness of strangers.
He said he doesn’t believe in evil, and that if you look at the vast majority of people in the world they are good and kind.
If someone seeks you out to ‘help you’, their motives might need more scrutiny… but if you get to randomly choose someone, anyone, to help you, then the odds are unbelievably high that this stranger will be good.
—
Going back to the scenario:
What are the chances that your bags will be at the hotel when you return from the hospital?
I’d guess pretty close to a hundred percent, what about you?
What does your answer tell you about the kind of world you believe we live in? What experiences have you had to prove or disprove the belief in an inherent kindness of strangers?
I’ve been writing my daily posts for over 6 months now and some of them come off as if I’m writing some sort of advice column… like yesterday’s post on Undermining Self-Sabotage.
I say things like,
It’s the small thing that you can do today that move you to a bigger goal. Small, repeatable things that become habits. These small things undermine self-sabotage. When you surround yourself with small positive, incremental changes, your trajectory changes, and the people around you notice.
But despite addressing the writing to you, admittedly, I’m talking to myself. The book I shared in yesterday’s post, Atomic Habits by James Clear, was very influential to me. I read it at a time when I was making some really positive changes in some areas of my life, but not in others. I still have more work to do.
If I come off as preachy, or like I’m sharing some sagely advice, please know that I’m doing it from a position where I’m trying to take my own advice too. Atomic Habits is one of many great books I listened to last year. If I don’t actively reflect and write about what I’m learning, I won’t really have learned anything. And if I change the pronouns in the quote above to I/me/myself then to me my writing sounds self-centered, and even pretentious.
By the very nature of writing a public journal, I find myself talking to you, the reader, and you get to share my journey. So, when I give it, please feel free to take my advice, or to take my advice with a grain of salt. In reality, I’m talking to myself, and sharing it in the open. Free advice from me, to me, and as it turns out, for you too… if you find it useful.
– – –
Oh, and by the way, if you think some of the things I say are full of crap, please let me know! It’s bound to happen. When I’m trying to pump out a different idea every day, at some point(s) I’ll be deluding myself in some way, but I’m probably too close to the idea to see the error in my thinking. That’s when I would most appreciate a comment or a question to help me learn and grow.
I’ll leave you with one last quote from James Clear,
“I didn’t start out as a writer. I became one through my habits“
Thank you for joining me in the practice of this daily habit.
