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Education

Antisemitism Among the Internationally Minded

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“How much is a taxi to the airport? I have to pay it myself. My school doesn’t give me a per diem.”
“Oh that’s too bad. Why not?”
“It’s a Jewish school so they’re stingy.”
“Hey!”
“Well that’s how they make all their money.”

And then we made eye contact and she looked away.

My only contribution to this conversation was the interjection, “Hey!”. I’m not sure whether it was enough. I’m never sure.

I’ve spent the last three days at an IB professional development workshop for the DP Psychology course that I teach. People came from all over – Singapore, Indonesia, China, Nepal, India, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi were represented among 24 psychology teachers. And that’s just where they teach now; where they’re from is a completely different list.

Context is important here. What I like most about the IB, and what gives me legs to stand on when discussing controversial topics, is its mission:

The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. . . .
These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right. (emphasis added)

To this end, the IB highlights international-mindedness throughout its programs, though the way this actually looks is heavily discussed and debated. The point, however, is that this is who we’re supposed to be as an IB community. We’re supposed to be internationally minded, emphasize intercultural understanding and respect, and accept difference.

I’ve seen antisemitism all over the world and it no longer surprises me. But I was taken aback to see it in a woman about my age, also a traveler, who teaches a psychology course that includes a sociocultural unit. She’s obviously frustrated at having to pay for what was likely a required workshop, so I’m not questioning that. Frustration is why she made the claim – we blame others when things that we don’t like happen to us. My question is why the claim was antisemitic in the first place.

Since she teaches at a Jewish school, she knows more than nothing about Judaism and she knows Jewish people. She likely has Jewish friends, even if they’re friends just at work. This means that I can’t use ignorance as an explanation, which is usually the excuse that I give people. Ignorance is lack of knowledge or lack of information and that’s clearly not the case.

As a teacher of psychology, she is familiar with Henri Tajfel’s work on social identity theory, which, ironically enough, stems from his experiences of persecution during the Holocaust. In short, we compare ourselves to others and categorize ourselves into groups in order to boost our self-esteem. “We” are the in-group and “they” are the out-group. “They” are this and “we” are not. “We” do this and “they” do not. Etc.

Much of our group categorization is unconscious. We are not necessarily aware when this happens because the brain naturally categorizes things in order to simplify and streamline our thinking. As a teacher of psychology, she knows about cognitive biases, which are mental shortcuts that the brain uses to make sense of the world around us. We’d never be able to make any sort of decision if the brain first had to process every possible option.

Stereotypes are also linked to implicit associations, generalizations that the brain makes based on patterns. Again, we don’t realize this is happening. Harvard University’s Implicit Association Test, which I do with my students, can be enlightening. Sometimes these associations, or biases, have little impact on our interactions with others but sometimes they can be quite significant. As I discuss with my students, having implicit biases is normal. Checking yourself when you come to a snap judgement is what it means to be mindful before acting.

To summarize, it is troubling to me that a psychology teacher in a global program with a mission to value international-mindedness, intercultural understanding and respect, and acceptance of difference made an antisemitic comment. I don’t have an explanation for this teacher. She should know and teach everything I’ve just described. And if she hasn’t been doing that, we just spent three days discussing it. She should understand this in her own life and adjust accordingly. And maybe she will.

So why the antisemitic comment? The nagging voice in my head says that some people are just antisemitic. Some people are just racist, biased, discriminatory, prejudicial, xenophobic even when they know better. Sometimes this comes from fear or uncertainty. Sometimes this comes from prior negative experience. (As one of my friends would say, “Sounds like textbook human.”)

Haven’t an explanation doesn’t rectify or excuse the behavior, but perhaps it can suggest ways that allow us to respond constructively. And perhaps, since this woman didn’t check herself but was ultimately checked, this particular comment can be a learning experience.

It is heartening that no one else in the room engaged with her comment at all. The conversation moved on immediately, which is a perfectly appropriate response once someone speaks out and the other backs down. It seems plausible that most people in the room recognized the bias, prejudice, and stereotype behind this comment and knew it to be wrong. In light of that, maybe we’re doing okay at building a better, more peaceful world.

But in light of that, we cannot pretend the work is over.

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. – Amelia Earhart

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An olive tree in Neot Kedumim, Israel – March 2017
On My Mind

On Happiness

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I’m teaching the culture part of a unit on sociocultural psychology. We talk about values and norms and the ways that people in different cultures remember, learn, and express what they know. We talk about learning how to behave in our own cultures and becoming part of new cultures. We talk about expectations. We talk about what it means to be happy.

Most of the time, happiness for me actually means contentment. It means feeling okay with and good about what’s happening immediately around me. Less “Wow, how awesome!” and more “This is really nice.” In the book How Emotions Are Made Lisa Feldman Barrett explains that there’s a difference between North American “happy happy joy joy” and East Asian tranquility and equanimity. We don’t all conceive of happiness in the same way and those differences are very important for the way we view the world. I was in the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown back in high school and the closing number, “Happiness,” got me every time.

Though we sometimes forget it in the age of Instagram, Buzzfeed Top Ten lists, and selfie sticks, happiness is in simplicity.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently. Several times over the last few weeks, a conversation from half a year ago has returned to mind. I was with a friend who I’ve only seen once or twice since, neither of us speaking much that day. We were both concerned with and unsettled by the future. We were uncertain. Jobs, choices, change, moving, moving on. After some moments of silence, my friend asked, “What makes you happy?”

I remember it took me several seconds to respond. I remember the knot in my stomach and how I had to acknowledge it, experience it, and admit to it before I could let it go. I was not feeling happy in that moment and answering the question took time.

“Lots of things,” I replied, intellectually knowing this was the right answer even if I couldn’t quite feel it.

“Like what?”

“Oh, you know, things.” It took a moment, but there’s a lot to be said for state-dependent memory (and learning). Once the ideas came, they came quickly. “The smell of coffee. Sunny mornings with a breeze. Being outside. Books. Writing. Taking pictures. Being with friends and family. Intimate moments. Traveling. Learning new things. Delicious vegetables. Making food for people.”

That conversation has come back to me strangely often in the last few weeks. I’ve been experiencing a sort of mental shift, I think, one that started when I was in Europe at the beginning of April. Over the last month, I’ve grown more accustomed to the calm and quiet that my mind has found. Sometimes I find myself feeling okay in a situation or with thoughts that would have bothered me just weeks ago. This is good.

Maybe this is what it means to grow up. Maybe there’s wisdom in letting go, in observing, and in accepting today without judgment. There certainly seems to be freedom there. The only thing I know for sure is that a better version of myself is one who sees happiness in all the small moments that occur every day, and I’m glad to be there right now.

 

Education, On My Mind

“Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon . .. “

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Devoted Harry Potter fans should recognize this quote. Admittedly, I had to look up the book (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), probably because it’s so long that I only read it 7 or 8 times. To summarize, Hermione is berating Harry and Ron for not understanding the very complicated feelings of Harry’s current girlfriend, Cho, whose former boyfriend was murdered by Voldemort.

It popped into my head while I was running today, and I actually started laughing, which should tell you how freaking slow this run was. Remembering Hermione’s “emotional range of a teaspoon” rant led me down a rabbit hole of emotion-related thoughts, and not only because theories of emotions was last week’s topic in DP Psych. At the recommendation of a high school English teacher who later became a colleague, I was 18 when I took the Myers-Briggs and found it to be both accurate and revealing. I’m considering taking it again because I recently heard an NPR podcast about how personality changes over time. Have a look or listen here.

All week I’ve been thinking about the theories of emotion that we study in class. We focused on two, the two-factor theory and the cognitive appraisal theory. In the past, I’ve also taught opponent-process, James-Lange, and Cannon-Bard. (I’ll leave the Googling to you for the last three.)

The two-factor theory states that there is a stimulus (thing that happens), which leads to some kind of physiological arousal (e.g. heart beating faster, palms sweating), which leads to a cognitive labeling of the situation (e.g. “This is amazing and making me happy!”), and concludes with the experience of emotion (e.g. joy). The following is a really useful image:

schachter-singer_two_factor_theory-142f804932851b974aa
Source: http://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/859/flashcards/4458859/png/schachter-singer_two_factor_theory-142F804932851B974AA.png

On the other hand, the cognitive appraisal theory suggests that we experience emotions as a result two types of appraisal, primary and secondary. As you are experiencing an event, you make a judgement about it. Then there is physiological arousal and you experience the emotion, simultaneously. Primary appraisal refers to the significance of the situation, which will impact an individual’s response, and secondary appraisal refers to how an individual feels he or she can cope with consequences, again impacting response.

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Hint: ANS = autonomic nervous system. Source: https://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/43/flashcards/428043/png/picture_16.png

While all people experience emotions differently, there are common threads to emotions that people identify as either positive or negative. To introduce this topic in class, I had my students choose a particular emotion, either negative or positive, and describe what the brain and body are doing as they experience this emotion. For example, negative emotions (e.g. stress, fear, anger) elicited responses like: sweaty palms, red face, jittery, jumpy, full of energy, argumentative, yelling, dizzy. My students described positive emotions emotions as being: giggly, affectionate, hugging, childlike, optimistic, free, eager, open. Some overlap, we also some common threads in our groups of examples.

On a personal level, I believe that I feel emotions a lot more intensely than most people. My English teacher identified this after my reaction to a reading of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” in class and subsequently suggested the Myers-Briggs. My mum tells stories of my temper tantrums as a kid, some of which I remember. She talks about dragging me up the stairs while I screamed and cried about really nothing, throwing me in the bath to calm me down. I bit a lot of pillows, but my parents only taught me that after noticing bruises on my arms. But I have also woken myself from dreams due to literally laughing out loud. I have done cartwheels down schools hallways (both as a student and as a teacher). I feel the need to hug everyone around me and restrain myself only because that’s not socially acceptable. The first time I was in a serious relationship my heart beat faster than normal for days, I lost my appetite, I couldn’t sit still, I couldn’t sleep. Someone once called the range of emotions I feel simultaneously “exhausting.” It can be.

A lot of people feel really intense emotions, and maybe the above is more normal than I think it is. Regardless, I almost always act on my emotions, positive or negative, and that’s been a problem.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to act and react more quietly, at least to the eyes and ears of others. I keep myself almost constantly busy when I’m upset to avoid ruminating because I know how riled up I will be if I let myself do that. A small change, for example, was journaling only once I’d calmed down rather than while I was upset. That can take hours. Sometimes it takes days. By the same token, emotions that are already strong like excitement and passion leave me full of jittery energy for days at a time. These days are usually very productive, despite loss of sleep that comes from said nervous energy, because if I’m moving I can stop thinking.

I have found myself muting my emotions when interacting with others. I’m probably feeling a lot more than I admit I’m feeling, whether those emotions are positive or negative. Maybe this comes from social cues about how much people are supposed to feel at once. Maybe those social cues are inaccurate and, like much of what we do, simply a social norm. And maybe others do sense that I’m not disclosing everything I could be. A friend and colleague in Malaysia describes me as guarded and he was right. Additionally, I wonder if my feelings last for longer than those of other people do. I have also found, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post (What?! Two posts in two days?!) that holding in all of those emotions has been a problem. And I do feel better when I let them out. This, I know, is normal.

What I don’t know is which theory of emotion sounds the most plausible to me. My students struggled with this, too. All are supported with empirical evidence, and therefore disputed based on other empirical evidence. Under some circumstances, I expect I act first and think later (e.g. the time the transmission blew on our boat full of passengers and we were floating in the middle of a river and needed someone on the only dock in that entire section of the river to help us with a line – definitely acted first and panicked later) Under others, however, I react based on how I think I’m feeling (e.g. being chased by lots of dogs while running in Malaysia – terror like I’ve never felt and then running faster than I’ve ever run).

If I’m totally off the mark on this, please let me know! Few feelings? Many feelings? No feelings? Feelings with no names? Comments always welcome.