Education

Educating

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I tend to refer to myself as an educator rather than a teacher. Although I implicitly know the difference, a few conversations last week prompted me to articulate an explanation for the distinction.

Defining

According to Merriam-Webster, to teach means “any manner of imparting information or skill so that others may learn”. It has an Old English root meaning to show or instruct. By this definition, sometimes I teach. Sometimes I explicitly show my students how to do something. Sometimes I also instruct them in what to do when completing a task, which is also known simply as giving instructions.

But more often, I aim to educate. To educate, according to Merriam-Webster, “implies development of the mind” to which Google clarifies, “intellectual, moral, and social instruction”. The etymology of this word comes from the Latin word educere, to lead forth. From here I conclude that educating means raising good people who can live and be well.

People-building Revisited

I’ve written before about what I think of as people-building. In that post, I focused on the importance of asking young people who they want to be. I wrote about asking students why they have certain goals and I argued that understanding why can lead us to who – the type of person who does those things.

These are important conversations that educators need to have with their students.

In wanting my students to grow into good people, I try to take the time to talk with them about who they are and who they want to be. It’s a joy to ask students about their dreams and aspirations not only in terms of next year or the following year but in terms of ten years down the road (thank you to the friend who suggested this guiding question). I end up learning a lot more about them than I could have otherwise and acknowledging students as people who matter is important.

But there’s a lot of resistance. With the very real pressure of coursework and exams it can be really difficult to talk with my colleagues about the big picture. There’s a lot of resistance to taking time away from learning, as people claim, but there are clear points at which meaningful learning actually happens. What do you remember from high school? I want to ask my colleagues who roll their eyes. What did you learn in your classes?

I learned some content but I also learned how to live. And I remember the teachers who helped me grow as a person.

In high school, I learned that Doc Lo Re loved chemistry because it helped her understand the world. I learned that Miss Rabinowitz read voraciously because she found words beautiful. I learned that Mr. Khort was tough when he knew you could rise to the challenge and that Mr. Menchel kept his promise to be there in a crisis.

I remember who they taught me to be.

It is from my teachers that I learned to seek understanding of the world and my place in it. I learned to ask questions; I learned to look for and find beauty everywhere; I learned a way to hold those I love in palms of my hands; I learned the importance of actions.

I learned from the teachers who saw me as a person and wanted me to live well.

Educating

If educere means leading and educate means developing aspects of the mind, we need to spend more time thinking about what we want our students to walk away understanding. Not knowing but understanding. If a student never sets foot in a humanities (or science or literature or math) class again, what do we want them to understand about the world around them?

And then, equally importantly, how are we going to lead them there?

These are questions that teachers (note the word choice, please) don’t ask. Teachers talk a lot about what they want students to know by the end of a lesson, unit, or project, but rarely about what they want students to understand about the world they live in. Teachers rarely talk about the world at all.

If we want to educate, to lead our students forward, we need to be much more deliberate in our intentions. We need to ask why certain things matter to them and we need to ask who they want to be today, tomorrow, and ten years from now. We need to know what they love and why they’re doing what they’re doing. We need to know what matters to them.

Developing the mind is a lifelong process and it happens with or without thoughtful consideration.

So let’s be purposeful. We are, after all, raising young people. And we need to lead them with care so that they grow as good people who can live and be well, and who help make the world a better, more peaceful place.

On My Mind

Learning to Cry

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It’s usually when I’m listening to loud music that it finds me.

Usually when I’m sitting alone in the dark.

When I’m watching a candle burn.

It’s usually when I close my eyes and reach down into the place I pretend doesn’t exist.

Usually when I find dark reds, blues, blacks.

When I feel colors swirling.

And then I have two choices.

Choice 1: Fly. Fly out of there. Back up and into the light. Find a smile. There are flowers somewhere.

Choice 2: Fall. Fall and go wherever the fall brings. Tumble. Let the heart beat faster. Let the breathing end in a gasp.

I’m learning to cry again. It’s been a long time coming.

Growing up, I used to cry a lot. I cried when I was happy or sad or angry, always when I was angry. And because I was crying, and also because I used to laugh out of sheer emotion before I cried, I always ended up feeling embarrassed or silly. Another reason to cry.

I used to cry whenever I saw someone else crying. It didn’t matter if I knew them or not. It didn’t matter if I was watching a film or living a real life. If someone else cried, so would I.

I’m not sure when that changed. Maybe it changed when I cried every single day for a month after moving to Malaysia. Maybe I ran out of tears after that. Maybe it changed when I moved to Singapore and didn’t want to give anyone back home an excuse to say, “See? You’re unhappy. You made a terrible mistake.” I wasn’t unhappy and I hadn’t made a mistake.

Maybe I stopped crying after a lonely transition to New York City that wasn’t supposed to be that way. I started that era crying a lot and then somewhere in there, I stopped.

I remember when, as I cried yet again over the phone, the recipient of my call hung up and sent me a message saying, “I just can’t talk to you anymore.”

I never, not once, cried in front of the therapist who I paid to hear me talk and let me cry. It’s not that I didn’t want to, but that I’d run out of tears.

Or that the tears had been run out of me.

A friend told me later, “You were a lot to handle back then.”

I tried, I really tried, to be sensitive to others’ feelings and needs. I understood that I needed to be around people but that I couldn’t be around people. I couldn’t be what people needed me to be and I didn’t want to disappoint them again.

I sat in crowded cafés and bars instead. Books were quiet company. I watched. I eavesdropped. But mostly I drank my beverage and concentrated on the page in front of me.

Learning to laugh again took time but it wasn’t hard. Laughing feels good.

Learning to feel okay again meant treating myself with the compassion that I extend towards others. While harder, that felt good, too.

Learning to cry, well. Well.

I’ve been surprised, actually. It feels better than I thought. It’s a relief in many ways. And I don’t mean the tears on an airplane that I’m very familiar with. I mean the tears that come screaming from somewhere deep inside.

And the heart beats and the breath comes in a gasp. The body shakes. Hands reach out.

Please hold me.

Please hold me.

Perhaps I’ll go as far as saying that crying feels good. Or at the very least, it feels like something. It’s not the tears themselves but the release and relief that come with allowing them. I’ve put down something heavy that I didn’t realize I was holding.

There’s life to feel, life and connection and love. There’s care. I have bathed in it and come out clean and new.

There are oceans where this came from.

Travel Guide

Travel Guide: Tokyo

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People love Tokyo. Rave about it. Spend days there and then return for another visit.

I have to admit, I don’t quite get it. I liked being in Tokyo because it’s just sort of cool to be in a city of 9.2 million people with the greater population totaling around 13 million. Unlike many other major cities, Tokyo is clean and it functions and people are so polite and helpful. It also, oddly, doesn’t feel crowded at all, perhaps because it sprawls. As a friend pointed out when I shared my lack of enthusiasm of Tokyo, the city is fascinating because there’s no other place like it.

Tokyo was the last stop on my Japan trip with my parents when they came to visit Singapore. We were based in Kyoto and Hiroshima before spending the last two days of our trip in Tokyo. We took the shinkansen (bullet train) from Hiroshima and passed the enormous Mt. Fuji on the way. I was too enthralled with staring out the window to take out my camera; it rose up out of nowhere and then the landscape flattened out again. I’m using to seeing mountain ranges, not singular mountains. Really quite cool.

Once we arrived at Tokyo station, we had to navigate the metro to the hotel. I don’t know whether it’s better to say that I went the wrong way or that I lost Mum and Dad, but everyone arrived in the end. Tokyo’s metro is confusing because it’s comprised of multiple train systems that seem to overlap but tourist passes only work on some of them. Multiple train lines are located in the same stations so you really do need to know where you’re going and how to get there. If you’re not looking at the correct map, it’s really easy to get on the wrong train going in the correct direction. If this happens, your ticket won’t scan on the way out and you have to pay the ticket agent in cash. Not a big deal but best to avoid since you’ve paid for a pass anyway.

After reuniting, our first stop was the Meiji Shrine in Yoyogi Park. I was definitely more interested in the walk through the trees than the shrine itself. It was nice to see grass and feel wide open space after a long train ride and an abrupt reintroduction to urban life.

From there we made our way to Harajuku to walk down Takeshita Street where there’s something for everyone as long as you’re open to it.

Takeshita Street felt like a place of relatively few rules or boundaries where kids could act like adults and adults could remember being kids. It was a fantastic place to look around and laugh at the juxtaposition of Tokyo business suits and teenagers wearing the height of Japanese fashion trends.

After some browsing in shops along the way, our last stop for the evening was Shibuya Crossing. Like everyone else, we crossed the street and then looked out the windows of the train station across the road.

In contrast to the lights and glamor of Shinjuku where we were staying we spent much of the next day in Asakusa, a neighborhood typical of traditional Tokyo.

We enjoyed looking at all the little shops and stalls but were not fond of the crowds leading to the temple. Senso-ji is a popular tourist attraction and was extremely busy on this Saturday morning. I was more than happy looking at the intricacies of the gates and leaving the temple itself to devotees.

The weather in Tokyo was the best we’d had so we took the opportunity to walk across the river on our way to the Tokyo Skytree. Much like travelling around Europe, it wasn’t hard to find. We headed for the tallest building and followed the signs as we got closer.

There are two options if you’re interested in the observation deck of the Skytree, which is the world’s tallest tower. You can take the lift up 350 meters and stop there or go all the way up to 450 meters. There’s a third option that is an open air guided tour complete with hard hats, but Mum vetoed that. The view from 450 meters was astounding enough.

It’s dizzying being up there, too! It’s really, really high!

We wandered around some more for the rest of the afternoon and then found Popeye, the bar that sells the greatest variety of beer in Tokyo and also brews its own. Their happy hour deal included a free appetiser with every beer ordered. Dinner, anyone?

To close the day, we looked down on Tokyo at night. The observatory at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building is free, open late, and 200 meters up. Pretty cool view from up there, too.

And then it was back to vibrant, bright Shinjuku for bed. I’d wanted to visit that neighborhood since I read my first Haruki Murakami novel and there we were. I don’t know if I’ll make much of an effort to come back to Tokyo, but I’d love to visit Japan again. There’s so much more see and experience. But then, that’s true of every place. Mum and Dad, thanks for joining me on this adventure! I’m already looking forward to the next one.

On loving, learning, and living