On My Mind

Why I Prioritize Travel

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I’m a traveler. I always have been. My family moved to the US from Montreal when I was very young and spent nearly every Friday afternoon heading north and Sunday afternoon heading south. In the summers, we’d pile into the car and spend a day and a half driving down to South Carolina for a week on the beach. We’d listen to Garrison Keillor’s News from Lake Wobegon when it got dark, or my dad would invent stories about the origins of words. To this day, references to Tomato Butt, Raw Chester, and Chalk Al Ate make me smile when nothing else does.

My parents took us to Europe for the first time when I was 14 and the rest, as they say, is history. I was absolutely hooked. In a plethora of ways, my parents taught us to love adventure, experiences, new people, new foods, beautiful places, mass transit in languages we didn’t understand, grocery stores and local markets selling wares we didn’t recognize.

Wanderlust and I are very good friends. These days, my airplane-approved cosmetics case is always packed and my luggage tags still show my address from three addresses ago. I usually have at least one upcoming trip flagged in my email inbox and I’m always looking out for the next one. I have additional visa pages in my passport and a tattoo I got overseas on my ankle.

Traveling is a huge part of who I am and what I love to do, which is probably very clear from this blog. I wanted to take some time to explain why travel is a priority for me. So here we go!

Learning About the World
First and foremost, I see travel as accelerated learning. I love learning and make an effort to learn something new every day. When I travel, I’m constantly seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting something new. Being outside my comfort zone leads me to ask questions in order to understand everything around me. That’s not going to happen if I’m drinking the same cup of coffee in the same café with the same people!

In order to make sense of what I’m experiencing and to begin answering the questions that come up when confronted with a new environment, I find myself acutely aware of my surroundings because I am assessing my place in the world. I wonder why places are the way they are, why people do what they do, ways my expectations are accurate or inaccurate, and what similarities/differences are apparent in culture and behavior. All of this wondering leads to and from observation, and the observation helps me understand how I fit in a global landscape. Essentially, my travel experiences are opportunities to understand more about people, systems, and patterns.

Travel has also allowed me to see the world develop, which has broadened my worldview. I have a much deeper understanding of the traditions and customs common to different regions, as well as ways that religion and politics do or do not have an impact on different societies. Travel has made my world a lot larger (there’s a lot to learn out there) but also a lot smaller. People are people, no matter where you are.

Learning About Myself
If you clicked on the link above, you’ll see that I included “seek out and do things that scare me” on a list of rules to live by that I posted a few weeks ago. If you didn’t click, now’s a good opportunity. I’ll wait.

Travel allows me to take a temporary, non-threatening step out of my comfort zone. Sure, I’ve felt unsafe while traveling. But I also regularly feel unsafe in America First. The point is that there’s no risk to trying anything new when there’s no commitment. By its very nature, traveling is non-committal. If something doesn’t work, that’s okay – it’s temporary. Traveling allows me to practice doing new things when the stakes are low, which makes me more likely to take the leap when it actually matters.

For me, the occasionally uncomfortable experiences that I can laugh about now are about clarifying personal values. When confronted with situations that differ from the norm, my internal moral compass is quick to pass judgement, both positively and negatively. Recognizing these reactions and checking myself to determine their origins and biases has led me to reconsider what matters to me and, more importantly, why.

Likewise, anything that is a break from daily life allows me to approach experiences with a clear head. Without distractions or any real obligations, I am better able to be fully present in the moment. I can take in what is around me without feeling like I’m compromising something else that needs my attention. In a different environment I find that I am better able to reflect on experiences without pull from routine tasks or obligations, which acts as a complete mental reset. A forced step back from the everyday, a complete break with the norm, is thoroughly rejuvenating.

Time is Finite
People like to remind me that the world isn’t going anywhere and that I don’t have to do everything right away. The world may not be disappearing (though that’s not far from happening), but it is undoubtedly rapidly changing in a myriad ways. Coral reefs are dying. Low-lying cities are sinking. National parks are in need of funding. And developing countries are developing!

At the risk of sounding morbid, I do plan my travel experiences with a mind to what I know I can do now, and might not be able to do later. Right now, I am relatively young, single, employed, and physically fit. It’s important to me to make the most of that. Museums will always be accessible; hiking in rainforests might not be.

There Are No Rules
When I talk about moving overseas, which I hope to do again, someone usually asks, “But aren’t you afraid you’ll never meet someone? Get married? Have kids?”. Of course, but that’s not any more or less likely if I go somewhere else than if I stay where I am. I don’t need to follow a prescribed path of school, job, marriage, house, baby. If I can’t live the life I’m living, what’s the point of living at all?

Ultimately, I prioritize travel because there’s no reason not to. I have a career that allows me to travel and to work around the world. I don’t know if that will always be the case. So I prioritize travel because I can. And I love doing it. If I didn’t, I’d prioritize something else!

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Bon Voyage!
Travel can be really simple, like going to a town or city you’ve never visited before, or very complicated involving visas, passports, multiple destinations, and multiple modes of transportation. Travel is just exploring somewhere new.

So go. Go somewhere new, even just for the day. You’ll be glad you did.

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign. – Robert Louis Stevenson

Education

A Call to Action

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This has been quite the week. I’ve listened to, read, watched, and followed as much of the news as I can possibly stomach and talked about it to anyone who will listen, which is the vast majority of my liberal bubble. The voices outside my bubble, however, are getting louder. I’m glad every day that I live here in New York City where our local government promises to maintain the systems currently in place to keep this city safe, welcoming, healthy, and sustainable. And then I immediately begin to wonder about those who feel the way I do but are not supported the way I am. My heart goes out to all of you. We are here for you.

The negativity and discomfort in the air is noticeable even in my middle school classroom, which is the impetus for this post. An experience I had with my sixth graders this week has me thinking about the world my students are growing up in, how different I wish it was, and how we need to reform education if we ever want to make our world better for everyone.

In My Classroom
We’re in the midst of a unit on Ancient Greece in sixth grade social studies and we spent a couple days discussing art and architecture and what it tells us about Greek values. The Met has a wonderful Greek wing in its permanent collection and we went there on a field trip earlier this week.

Prior to the trip, I went over rules and behavior expectations with my students and the following conversation took place nearly verbatim in all three of my sixth grade classes:

Me: Boys, you need to wear kippot to The Met just like you do at school.
Boys: WHAT?
Me: This is a school trip so we behave and dress like we do in school.
Boys: But people hate Jews! What if we’re shot? What if people follow us? What if we feel unsafe? What if there’s a bomb?
Me: You will be fine. People wear kippot in public every day and they’re fine.
Boys: But what if we’re not?
Me: Myself, the other chaperones, and the museum guards will take care of you. That’s our job.

I had this conversation three times. This week. In the suburbs of New York City. In 2017.

On the Streets
Obviously, my students are scared. Though we didn’t discuss it in class, I wonder about the instances of antisemitism that they’ve encountered in their lives. I wish I could tell them that such experiences are uncommon, but they’re not. I wish I could tell them that things will get better, but I’m beginning to question that, too. New York City is the most Jewish city in the country and the US has the second-highest population of Jews in the world. (Israel is first, though by under a million people.) That my students, growing up in and outside of this most Jewish city, are concerned about antisemitism is heartbreaking.

Again, I am left wondering about the many people who don’t live in our bubble here. I grew up in a town that was not very Jewish next to a town that was very Jewish, so I got used to explaining myself and what Judaism meant but it wasn’t a foreign concept to anyone I encountered. (Until college, but that’s a different story.) And yet, the synagogue I grew up in was vandalized more than once in my memory.

I can’t blame my students for being afraid, not when I’ve seen more antisemitic graffiti here in New York than anywhere I’ve been, particularly since Trump’s election.

Racism, antisemitism, and hate for Muslims, immigrants, the LGBT community, and women have all come out in the open since the day in November when everything changed. We all heard Trump’s discriminatory rhetoric during the campaign. None of this virulence is a surprise.

So the question becomes, “Now what?”.

Of course, there’s no right answer. The only wrong answer is inaction. In the words of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel:

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

I can’t tell you what to do. I can only hope that if you’re angry or afraid or hurt or concerned, you choose to do something about it. We have clearly sat back for too long without making our voices heard and we can’t afford to do that again.

What To Do Now
There is literally no time to waste. This isn’t going away and it isn’t getting better. And it won’t, unless we decide to act.

While my friend and I drove to work on Friday, we made phone calls to a list of senators to ask that they not confirm Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education. We left messages where we could but unsurprisingly, most of the mailboxes were full. The media have done an excellent job explaining why her appointment will be damaging to our schools. Here’s Trevor Noah’s take because if you’ve read this far, you could probably use a laugh.

If you’re in need of a starting point, Forbes, The Advocate, and Slate all provide viable suggestions for involvement. To summarize:

  • Donate to a variety of organizations that have pledged to support anyone in need of help in any number of ways
  • Attend marches and protests
  • Make phone calls to elected official
  • Volunteer for good causes that are short staffed
  • Run for local political office
  • Get involved with communities that need support
  • Change your consumption habits
  • Pay for good journalism

Doing anything is better than doing nothing.

Back in the Classroom
On a fundamental level, I think many problems in today’s society come back to education. We are living in a world that is incredibly diverse in every way, but those in power in America right now have decided that the world no longer matters. Trump’s “America First” means that we are discounting the vast majority of the world. America cannot survive alone. No country can. No country should.

I believe that we need to teach these lessons to our students so that they develop a nuanced understanding of how the world works, global interdependence, and the necessity of working together to advance overall well-being. Putting some people before all others will ultimately harm even more.

Over time, we have developed school systems that allow for little room to have these conversations and engage with the reality of a modern world. Schools insist on desks, bubble sheets, and testing when the rest of the world operates in clouds, inventions, and innovation. The vast majority of schools do not match the real world and do not prepare students for it. It is no wonder there is so much hatred, bigotry, and discrimination against so many different types of people; we don’t have the time and space, or even sometimes permission, in school to learn about what actually matters.

That’s one of the many reasons I am unequivocally opposed to Betsy DeVos as the new Secretary of Education. She has no sense of how the world works and therefore how to build an education system that prepares students to succeed in a future that we can hardly imagine today.

Our students need to be confronted with people who are different from them, ideas that are on opposite ends of the spectrum, crises around the globe today, and projects that aim to solve current world problems. Students today need space to develop their talents, direct their energies, and explore their questions. We need to think very seriously about what we want from our schools and we need to commit to building those schools.

In order to do that, we have to act. Now.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -Aristotle

On My Mind

An Act of Vulnerability

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Recently I made a list of rules to live by, which included “seeking out and doing things that scare me”. This post is in the spirit of doing something that scares me.

I used to love performing. I was in musicals and plays all through school and sang in my high school’s select choir. I sang in the car, in the shower, walking down the street, and in school hallways. I never took voice lessons and sang simply because I enjoyed it.

I stopped formal singing when I was in college, choosing instead to join a dance group. I’d always been a better dancer than singer and enjoyed practicing and perfecting choreography much more than I had ever cared about improving my vocal range or remaining precisely on key. Rusty, out of practice, and self-conscious I restricted my singing to parties (it’s easy to hide in a crowd) and driving alone in the car (even with the windows rolled down, who can hear you?).

The last time I sang in public to anyone who was purposely listening was a year ago when I spent a week in Cambodia with the grade 10 students at my school. Doing something you’re not confident about in front of other people is scary. My students had been stepping out of their comfort zones all week and I decided it was time I did the same. It was during that week that my group of advisees, themselves keen and talented singers and musicians, decided to make singing a regular part of our advisory class time, which we worked hard to continue for the rest of the year.

Thinking about my students and committing to my personal code, I took a deep breath and sang again. This time I sang for you, an audience of people I don’t know, whose faces I will likely never see.

Here’s to you.

On loving, learning, and living