Broad Brush Strokes

I was surprised to see that I’ve written 29 essays on this blog this year. I thought it would be much smaller because I’ve been so busy writing and rewriting my latest book, Dear Warriors, which will be out later this month. Dear Warriors is a memoir and guided journal for people touched by type 1 diabetes, and I’m nervously excited to see it come to life and fly into the world.

In reviewing my essay topics, I should not have been so doubtful on my word count. Beyond my book, it’s been a busy year, and I covered quite a range of topics. From the power of music like BTS through our need for mental flexibility and on to the definition and importance of today’s feminism, I’ve had many thoughts.

I have another one brewing: there’s an extreme danger when we try to lump and simplify people in terms that separate us.

At face value, my current book may sound like an example of this human tendency to paint each other in broad strokes. It’s for people touched by type 1 diabetes. However, one of my main premises of Dear Warriors is that we are ALL fighters on life’s battlefield and that we ALL need each other. For 160 pages, I look at all the ways we can and should be with each other, whether we have type 1 diabetes or not.

I’m not saying we are or should be, all the same. Instead, we are alike in our human variety and fragility.

I worry when I hear phrases like, “All ____ people…” where the blank is filled with descriptives like white, black, European, Asian, transgender, or heterosexual and the message is an attempt to indicate that all people with the listed characteristic(s) think, believe, or act in the same way.

We’re more complicated than that. Personalities are dictated significantly by our DNA, but our life experiences and personal interests can mold the people we are today as much as our attitudes and genetic makeup.

Throughout our lives, both nature and nurture work in each of us.

I was raised Catholic but have only practiced a sense of universal spirituality for my entire adult life. People are regularly surprised by my interests in Korean pop and hip-hop and that I’m trying to learn the Korean language. I’ve walked away from situations that belittled either myself or others and know that my financial life is worse for it, but I do not regret my decisions. My Goodreads Read List includes everything from Fantasy and European lit to Buddhism and Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law. I’m not a fan of any sport because fandoms were never in my life as a child and today I fear the overall violence, greed, and industrialization of it. If I had to pick, I’d choose soccer because it’s a worldwide sport of everyday people. As a teen and college student, I loved the idea of Star Trek’s Federation and honestly believed it could happen as I watched The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. I love teaching kids cooperative games that bring them together in laughter. I think dance and yoga might be great requirements in the elementary-level gym. My clothing choices are for comfort or value and include lots of second-hand. I don't Pinterest. I’m a quiet person but I’m still in contact with my closest high school friends. Together, we span the world genetically and have been physically far apart since graduation, but I bet we could come together again today with things to share with each other. I’ve studied kung fu under a student of a student of Bruce Lee and broken cement blocks with my bare hands. I have diabetes and if I contract another health problem, I would rather not pursue treatments. I love nigori sake and tequila. Not together, of course.

I say all these things to show that just because I’m a married, white woman with two sons, living in the American Midwest, I’m probably a bit different inside than what I might seem on the outside. Because of my experience, I cannot help but look outward and believe anyone I want to pigeonhole probably isn’t exactly what I assume them to be, either.

We start somewhere. We can move through all kinds of evolutions of self if we are open to change, if we have our basic needs covered, and if we have access to people and ideas that can provide that variety.

So, for this 30th essay of 2018 in VerboStratis, I shall leave it at this thought:

The only broad strokes we should paint are the ones that speak of our universal humanity, our universal imperfection, and our universal need for one another to truly grow.

Cause and Effect of Our Actions

The following was written by Carina Hilbert @CarinaHilbert on Twitter on August 12, 2018. She writes from a classroom perspective. I believe anyone can use the wisdom of her thoughts and I challenge myself and anyone else who reads them, to do so. Swap “students” or “kids” with “people”. Swap “classroom” for “workspace” or “home”.

“I have been seeing a lot of posts in my TL lately saying that negative behavior in the classroom is always a sign of learning struggle or that the student needs more support. While I agree that’s true a lot of the time, it isn’t true all the time.

Some students act out due to boredom. They don’t need more support, and they aren’t struggling: they’re bored. Just ask them, and they’ll tell you. These tend to be active learners, kids with engineer minds, kids who see the big picture quickly. Give them more to do.

Some kids act out because they know they’re safe with us to do so. It’s like how kids are worst at home because they’re safe to act that way and still be loved. That can happen in the classroom, too. It takes solid conversation with that kid to find out why it’s happening.

Some kids act out in class due to power dynamics. They want power, feel like the teacher has all the power, and so they undermine the teacher in order to get the level of power they need to feel safe and comfortable. (Here’s a secret: give them power. It’s okay.)

Some kids act out in class because they are overwhelmed with something going on in their private lives. They’re struggling with a move, with grief, with depression, with anxiety, with a million things, and they need a safe space to process that. Give them that space.

Some kids act out because they hate the book, the material, the curriculum, the subject. It isn’t that they don’t get it; it’s that they really don’t like it. Listen to them. You might be surprised at the insights they have.

Some students act out because something physical is going on. They have to go to the bathroom every day at that time, but you don’t allow enough bathroom passes. They have chronic pain and the short fuse that comes with it. They’re hungry. Respect those bodily needs.

Some kids act out due to mental health issues that aren’t being treated right. In schools, we get all kids, including sociopathic ones. Work on those relationships, and be ready with many different strategies and backup plans. Work with your admins, too, on safe spaces.

Some kids act out because they pick up on our exhaustion, our racism, our biases, our disrespect. Kids read us every second of every day, and if we, deep down, don’t like a kid, trust me, that kid knows. We have to eliminate those biases as best we can can every day.

In all reality, there are as many reasons kids act out in class as there are kids. Get to know your students, work on those relationships, and also work hard to make sure at least your classroom is safe for all learners. A safe space in the building for cooling down helps, too.

Too many schools don’t have a safe space for kids to cool down, talk through what happened, and rebuild any relationships they damaged with their behavior. We are too quick to punish without understanding. Work within your school to fix this, and you’ll see a huge change.”

Young or old: we’re a complicated product of the days we’ve lived and the realities we’ve faced, coupled with the innate skills and interests we have on the inside. We all need the things Carina describes here to be our best: safety, security, a sense of belonging, mental health, physical health and a belief that life’s challenges can be met and are worth risking ourselves for.

These concepts that Carina has outlined are at the root of my current book-in-progress, Dear Warriors. Dear Warriors is a book to support and inspire those with type 1 diabetes. However, as I wrote it, I saw universal truths that apply to everyone. We’re all Warriors. And what do honorable Warriors do? They help each other out. They give each other space, but never abandon each other. They use their individual talents together to get the job done. That’s what Carina is suggesting, too.

Know each other. Give to the other what you have and they need. Take from the other what they can offer you. Stick together. Work together. That will lead to positive change for everyone.

Strong Enough to Show Weakness

It takes a special strength to show weakness.

It’s a skill I don’t have much of. I often wonder if I’m truly as weak as I think I am, or if I’m just making excuses and hiding. I was reminded of the power of others’ perceptions in battling this fear while watching a TV show recently. Once again, a teacher demonstrates the power in pushing onward. Once again, I see how another’s lifting can give you the strength to both try more and reveal more.

South Koreans are brilliant in the art of television variety shows. Among the current gems is Master in the House. This show offers a look inside South Korean culture with a cast of four talented young men, actor Lee Sang Yoon, 36, comedian Yang Se Hyung, 32, singer/actor/entertainer Lee Seung Gi, 31, and singer/dancer/actor Yook Sungjae, 23, who seek wisdom from an different experienced “elder” every week by following them for two days and one night. Each show has a unique setting and is loaded with goofy stunts and banter between the castmates. Each master brings a completely different style and life message for the men to reflect upon.

In episodes 27 and 28, they meet Seol Min Seok, a 47 year old teacher of Korean history. Seol Min Seok majored in theater and film. For 23 years, he has used that background to teach in ways that take people into important moments of Korean history. He brings the past’s people and moments alive, and in so doing, has developed a huge following within South Korea, including a YouTube channel with over 270,000 subscribers and over 55 million views.

In viewing him on this show and on some YouTube videos from another variety show, I was struck by his blending of old-school and modern teaching techniques. He stands before traditional rows of tables and chairs filled with his students. There’s a whiteboard or chalkboard as his backdrop, which he expertly uses. It’s his animation and style that pull the students in, demanding their active participation. His delivery is magical. This is “lecture” at its finest and most effective.

In Episode 27, Seol Min Seok takes the cast to the border between North and South Korea. He tells them that during the 70 years the countries have existed separately, the people within the countries have begun using their shared language differently. There will be a need, if the two countries hope to come together, to work on understanding one another. 

“If people can’t communicate with each other, we can’t do anything.”

He gives the hosts a pop quiz of examples. It turns out, in the two Koreas, Korean terms for “squid” and “octopus” are reversed today. So when a South Korean says squid, a North Korean pictures an octopus. In South Korea, there are many loanwords from English that have been incorporated into the Korean language, Hangul. For instance, the term 아이스크림 is used today. It’s the phonetic translation of the English words “ice cream”. In North Korea, they apply the same technique, but have picked another word: 에스키모, or eskimo. What some ice cream in North Korea? Ask for an eskimo. All world languages evolve and these were fascinating examples to me.

My absolute favorite part of this time with Seol Min Seok came at the end of Episode 28. He took the hosts to Dankook University with the intention of having them give spontaneous lectures about themselves (My History) to a random gathering of students. Think “busking” but with lecture instead of music. They were to use the lecturing and storytelling techniques he’d taught them to talk about themselves and engage the audience.

The hosts were terrified. Reading a script is one thing. Talking about oneself is something completely different. Seol Min Seok let them feel their nervousness, but he never abandoned them to it. He orchestrated their anxiety by suggestions that emphasized their strengths both individually and as a group. True expert educator mode.

I won’t give all the details of what happened. It’s really worth a watch to see people who make a living being in front of cameras dealing with genuine feelings of embarrassment and fright. Yang Se Hyung, the comedian, is especially sweet as he talks to himself, saying, “Time passes. This will pass.”. Why is he so concerned? In an academic setting where only the smartest of the smart are granted entrance, he scored extremely low on the test needed to attend such a school. He felt like he shouldn’t be there.

Showing weakness is painful. And yet, no one is perfect. How do we keep moving forward? How do we resist hiding in fear?

These are vital questions to consider and answer in the time we have. As I was reminded in Master in the House, it takes not only what we have inside, but who we have outside, supporting our efforts and views.

Thoughts on Thriving and Suffering Behind Walls

In my book, Dear Teachers, I wrote the following essay focusing on the walls students construct. I felt the need to look at it again today in regards to the everyday living of all people. You, me...everyone.
 

"April- Week 34- The Heart Within

“No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”
- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Faces are walls. Barricades. Facades.

We all build them from time to time and to varying degrees. It feels safer to hide.

Some of the students we meet have epic skills in this, honed by years of experience. It is perhaps the teacher’s most challenging task to massage these walls and tease out the mortar and stones that have been used from abject need. We all want to survive; for many, a constructed face is an effective, if crude, way to do that. We do it as field triage in moments of hardship and necessity. Unfortunately, it’s a pattern of behavior that can be carried into and throughout adulthood, affecting all facets of our lives along the way.

If we hide long enough, the act becomes the actor’s reality. The effective cocoon clasped so tightly around the genuine heart may eventually suffocate the very thing we sought to protect in the first place. We are then left a weakened shell, like an oak whose heartwood has been consumed.

That authentic heart is the unique and golden center of Self. It deserves the freedom to feel the sun’s full warmth."

After the essay, I ask the reader to consider what is at their heart and what sorts of walls have they put up. As part of my book follow-up that I did over the course of last school year, I wrote this essay in reflection, entitled The Heart Within:

"I just finished writing a big essay on my main blog, called Spring and the Death of Denial. It was in response to a fantastic conversation on a philosophical radio program called On Being. Now, I’m hopping back into Dear Teachers, and am struck by how this week’s essay, the last of the April focus on what’s really there, connects to that.

When we don’t want people to see who and what we really are, we throw up defenses. When we don’t trust the people that surround us, we again build barriers. Within those walls, we are one thing. Outside of those walls, we are something else.

To grow, we first have to admit the walls exist within all of us. They come from our families and traditions. From our own pasts. From our own needs. From our own fears.

In this week’s essay, the image from Marlene that I chose was a close-up of a lily in full bloom. The center of that flower is bright yellow, while the outer edges are a deep red, trimmed in that same golden hue. We don’t get to see the full complexity of that bloom until it really opens up. How can we get ourselves blooming like that? How can we get each one of our students to bloom like that?

The walls that separate us from both our true selves and from each other have to come down.

I wrote, “If we hide long enough, the act becomes the actor’s reality.”. By that I meant that every single one of us is affected by all these walls we build. If I don’t reach out beyond the walls I was born into or have built myself, I miss out on understanding the real beauty of both myself and others. Others miss out on my gifts. We both are lessened. We’re like the bud in the background of Marlene’s shot: there, but not yet gorgeously exposed.

As Rev. williams pointed out in her talk, this work is hard. Sitting with who and what we really are is tough. But, in my mind, it’s critical to getting our world’s garden to really bloom."

The Nathaniel Hawthorne quote claims that no one can truly lie to themselves to the very end. From our perspective, some people appear to never sway from their own sense of reality, safely encapsulated within their constructed fortresses. I find solace in Rev. angel Williams kyoto’s thoughts that even the “winners” in unfair situations are suffering from the very systems they’ve benefited from and cultivated. Those behind castle walls are not truly free. I can see such truth, if begrudgingly, in that.

My thoughts and writing here came from a hopeful opinion that we all start from a child-like, wonder-filled place. It’s what we face from madly ego-driven minds that damages and alienates us. If society is set up to support the child-like spirit, the need for walls will get less and less. If we set things up to allow all hearts to bloom, we will all benefit.

To reach a place where the child-like can thrive will require extremely hard work. Some have begun, and the tools are out there for all to pick up.

6 Choices to Improve our Speech Game

As I’m always going on about how we need each other, and how I insist that we’re stronger together, I thought it was time that I examine 6 specific choices we can make that will allow this to happen. I’m interested in physical and mental health care, education and k-pop. I believe this actions can help in all these arenas- and beyond.

 PLEASE NOTE: If you want to just skip the reading, scroll down to the awesome video from Teaching Tolerance on Countering Online Hate Speech.

1. Believe everyone deserves space to speak.

Whatever your size, shape, skin tone, sex, sexual orientation or preferences, religion, political opinions, ethnicity- you name it: you deserve a space to speak. We may not agree with each other, but we both deserve the opportunity to state our cases. If we follow the other ideas I list below, we should be able to coexist. We may get along life BFFs. We may choose to disagree and have little to do with each other. Or, we may choose to see where we can work together despite our differences. Whatever the case, neither of us should try to silence the other.

2. Acknowledge everyone deserves space to be.

Ever want to just run away from it all and hide? Believe that you deserve the space you’re in. Breathe in that fact and exhale the fear and/or anger talking. Ever feel like that other person should just go and die? Believe that they deserve the space they’re in just as much. Breathe in that truth and exhale the fear and/or anger talking. You and that “other” person are both human beings. As bystanders, if we see someone trying to silence another, we should calmly and directly say, “I think __ has the right to their opinion and I think what you’re saying is hurtful/sexist/etc.”. If we see someone run in fear, we should calmly and directly say, “I think you have the right to your opinion. I told them I think what they said was hurtful/racist/etc.”.

3. Think and speak with “we” in mind.

No one likes to be looked down upon. We should talk in ways that keep us looking at each other eye-to-eye. You may not believe it, but the way we say things affects how others take in what we say. Choices like “You people need to…” and “You women should just…” kill respect, light fuses and try to place the speaker as someone high up in a fortress, looking down on those they are addressing. Switching it around to “I think we could…” or “I disagree with that opinion…” will still get our point across. I used both “you” and “I/we” in this paragraph. Which sentences made you feel more more relaxed or more defensive?

4. Choose to meet face-to-face.

 I’m really tired of the phrase “keyboard warrior”. As I’m exploring in my book for those with type 1 diabetes, the term “warrior” does not need to mean a vicious, cut-throat and cloaked vigilant. It’s true that we can do/say things behind the anonymity of a screen that we might not do in public. That’s why meeting with and talking with people directly is vital to our humanity. The students behind the March for Our Lives are doing this over the summer, with their cross-country bus tour Road to Change. Coffee shops, concerts, conventions- even video conferencing like VLive or on our phones- anywhere were we see and hear each other in real-time can build our connections with others, helping us see the other points I’ve outlined so far. The keyboard time can be turned toward building those relationships, too, so we become warriors standing in solidarity against hardships and things, not each other.

5. Understand that opinions are biases, not facts.

I’ve emphasized “opinion” here, because what we think and feel cause most of our wild behaviors. What about facts? Facts can be used as weapons to stoke opinions. I’m reminded of the amazing reply that Adam Savage gave to the question, “What’s your biggest science no-no?”. His reply: “Bias.”. Facts shouldn’t be affected our attitudes; at their root, they simply are what they are. It’s vital to look at facts calmly and ask ourselves what is the exact truth involved, and what is what we feel or wish. I can say, “---- are kings!” and cite data to support. The data are facts proving some relative influence in the world, but my original statement is purely biased opinion. I can say, “Politicians are killing people with T1D” and cite data on insulin prices. The prices are facts but my original statement is simply my opinion to get my point across that we as a country need to look at health care. We should clearly label each other’s and our own biased opinions.

6. Instead of seeking a victory, practice forgiving. Or at least, forgetting.

When we feel attacked, our instinct can be to retaliate or run. When we read something that ticks us off, our knee jerk reaction might be to “put that person in their place”. Even when we reach out to defend someone in need, we need to remember these other points I’ve outlined and not seek another’s annihilation. Hurting others keeps that destructive cycle going and should not be an used- even if we feel justified and tempted to use it in the defense of someone else.

Forgiveness. If we can’t manage that, let’s choose forgetting and calmly walking away. Those options remind us that we all make mistakes and there’s hope for eventual change. They remind that we all have baggage. That none of us is superior to another. That no one is a lost cause and we can all someday, somewhere, help someone out and do something good.

We’re never going to eliminate all the negatives in humanity. But we can reduce their influence by the choices we make every day. As in parenting, kickback from those soaked in these destructive behaviors will occur when we begin. However, if we persist, support and work together, we can make positive changes.

Helpful links from Teaching Tolerance:

Teaching Tolerance Countering Online Hate Speech This is a great video with specific examples and sample responses to use when we encounter hate speech online.

How Does "Fake" News Become News? This is a light-hearted but informational video detailing how confirmation bias and filter bubbles affect what information we tend to believe and spread. If your social media are negative, you have built it that way. With help from this video, you can change it, too!