The Power of a Story

Today, my daughter turns five.

In her Montessori classroom, there are no cupcakes, no balloons, no party favors.  Instead, they will tell the story of her life.

The Earth goes around the sun, tra-la-la ...
The Earth goes around the sun, tra-la-la ...

Her classmates will gather in a circle around a candle "which represents the sun," and she will walk in a circle around it, holding a globe, once for each year of her life, while her classmates sing.

Around and around and around and around ...
The Earth goes around the sun, tra-la-la ...

After each turn around the sun, one of us will show the class a photo of her at that age, and remember something about her: how she took such good care of her first doll, how she loved her first tutu and was dancing from ealy on, how much fun she had playing with hula hoops at her first friend party, how she discovered her love of reading.  The story will begin with her birth, and continue until she reaches her current year.

A long time ago, Mommy and Daddy were very happy together (or: because they had [sibling]) ...

But they knew that someone very special was missing from their lives ...
(child says: "me!")

I love this ceremony, because it honors the power of our stories, the importance of giving children narrative roots that empower them to find their place in the world, to determine their futures. Even her classmates who were adopted as older children (there are some in my daughter's school) tell their stories, with as much information as they have.

The Earth goes around the sun, tra-la-la ...

It requires children to listen to one another, to learn about one another, to appreciate each other as unique individuals. It helps them to see people as people: multidimensional, growth-minded, incomplete.

Around and around and around and around ...

I wish that we were all so fortunate, that we took time to tell each other our life stories once each year, to look both backward and forward, to know each other in more than just three dimensions.  Perhaps it just takes too long now to circle the sun.  Or perhaps we are too afraid of the power we might discover in the retelling?

People, on MLK Day

I used to believe I was colorblind.  What that meant, to me, was that I thought I could judge people, in the words of Dr. King, not on the basis of the "color of their skin but on the content of their character[s]."  And maybe I was (though I know better now, I have my own biases that I work to overcome); but maybe--more likely--I was just blind, not so much to injustice (easy to point fingers), but to my own role in perpetuating it by imagining that standards created by a dominant group could be race-neutral.

Now, I think we need to see the difference that we have been taught to (or become accustomed to) un-see, to acknowledge the difference that difference has made, and decide to throw away the glasses that cloud our vision, whitewashing everything.  We need to question what we think we know, about the world and about ourselves.  My eloquent friend Noah (who can riff in words as well as he can in music) wrote something along these lines last year, when he challenged us to be more self-reflective, to ask ourselves, every day, in the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, "are you sure?"

A few years ago, my son was gifted a hand-me-down book entitled, simply, People.  It's a beautifully written and illustrated book, originally published in the 1980s (in many ways a product of its time) that describes the astonishing diversity of humanity on all four continents, and touches on issues like poverty and racism and body image (even body modification) in a way that isn't moralizing, but that opens the door for questions and conversation.  Who are human beings? What are they like? Where do they live, how do they communicate, what games do they play? How are people different, and how are they the same? What can we learn from each other? Why should we respect -- and celebrate -- difference?

And while there are sections of the book that feel like a dated "salad"-style multicultural curriculum, or some pages that replicate cultural stereotypes, there are others that talk about the ways in which we create artificial power structures that don't, in the end, protect us from all experiencing the same fate: death.

My daughter chose this book as her bedtime story last night, and as I read, admiring the artwork and the book's matter-of-factness, I found myself wondering how her reading of People might be different with her own children.  Whether she would look at the pages about diversity of employment and think about the white man in the grocery store, complaining that black people get and keep jobs just because they're black (with whom she'd gently disagreed, pointing out the roots of urban poverty in slavery and industrialization, asking him why he thinks people in power shouldn't do something about the mistakes that we've made as a nation). Whether she would look at the pages about poverty and remind herself that all of the people in the poorly maintained apartment complexes at the other end of town are nonwhite.  Whether she would read the pages about diversity of religion and think about a world that turns away migrant women and children from war-torn countries.

Or whether she would be reading that book to a child in a country that continues to ask itself "are you sure?" ... that faces its unsavory past, has been brave enough to tell more complicated stories, recognized institutional biases, overcome fears of each other, and found a way to move forward, to promote peace and justice.

On (Not) Knowing, and Kale Sweet Potato Soup

I don't like not knowing the answers.

I'm sure it comes with the territory of a relatively easy school career, of becoming accustomed to praise for getting it right.  Not knowing feels like dangerous ground.  In a strange way, it's probably one of the motivations that drove me back to graduate school, not once, but twice: this insatiable need to know, and to be right.

Except that sometimes, not-knowing is actually useful.

A few weeks ago, I heard an interview on NPR with Leah Hager Cohen, whose recently-published book I Don't Know: In Praise of Admitting Ignorance (Except When You Shouldn't) is not just an encouragement to confess ignorance, but to embrace uncertainty and honor doubt as a way to increase the possibilities for true communication.  In other words, not-knowing helps us to know in a more authentic way.

I was a little blown away.

I shouldn't have been, of course; I devoted seven years of my career before my current job to creating collaborative research placements for undergraduates, because I was so convinced of the value of not-knowing.  It wasn't just that I wanted to show them that knowledge comes from somewhere, and to show them that the process of arriving at knowledge was just as--if not more than--the knowledge itself, but to help them realize that there were instances in which even the people whom they most feared and respected, their professors, didn't know, either; it's a concept that dates back in writing at least to Socrates.  I wanted to destabilize the traditional balance of power in the classroom, in the typical Freirean way making authentic learning possible by helping students to feel like co-creators.  I used to talk with groups of academically at-risk students about imagining faculty members as learners, too, and feeling comfortable approaching them as fellow learners, as people who regularly screwed up, made mistakes, and were just plain clueless.  That usually elicited guffaws from the audience, but I know for a fact that it made a difference, because many of them started going to office hours. 

Cohen pointed out that this year's graduating high school class has, essentially, grown up under the No Child Left Behind Act; we are looking at an entire generation of students for whom there is a very real premium on knowing the right answer.  Not knowing has always had real consequences, not just for them, but for teachers, for school budgets, and therefore, for all of their peers.  The stakes around knowing are pretty high, and not knowing is ... well ... practically a crime.

I think about this where I work, which is a place full of students who have known things all of their lives.  They are excellent at knowing.  One of my responsibilities involves helping students to figure out if they need a tutor, and then finding one.  I haven't had a tutor myself, but I do know how hard it is to come from a place of power, in which you know everything, and suddenly, the street signs are written in Thai.  (True story, by the way.  One of the most humbling learning experiences I've ever had was in Thailand, where I realized what it must be like to be illiterate, and have to rely on people around you--many of whom you were told were  untrustworthy at best--to help you do the most basic things.)

Of course, the attitude is pervasive far beyond school.  People reassure us that there's no such thing as a stupid question, but I bet you've asked one yourself, haven't you?  You know what this is like: the sinking feeling that everyone knows the answer but you, and when you finally do muster up the courage to ask, you can see the muffled snickers and wide eyes that reveal the way people really feel about your question.  They will talk about you when you leave the room.  This "missed" communication happens even in polite conversation, when people talk about other people we really ought to know, or make cultural references that fly right over our heads.  We know how immersion--being placed into an environment where it's nearly impossible to ask ALL of the questions you might need answered--is a powerful learning tool.  So when is it appropriate to confess to ignorance?

I started a new job for the second time in two months, and while I feel confident that I have transferable skills, there's a lot I'm learning all over again.  I am doggedly self-sufficient, but the learning curve is steep, and institutional knowledge runs deep.  I want to look smart.  Don't we all?  But I will make mistakes (in fact, I already did make a mistake), when I think I know something, and it turns out I don't know after all.  I will have to ask questions.  If I'm lucky, some of the questions will surprise everyone, and will shake their assumptions, or identify gaps in knowledge.   Maybe they won't know, either.  And in the end, maybe we can try to re-value inquiry, not just as a theoretical academic value (because YES of COURSE we value inquiry!) but as a way of being in the world.

Sweet Potato Soup with Kale and Freekeh
Adapted from here.

If we never confessed to not-knowing, we'd also probably be a lot less likely to try new things.  Like freekeh, for example.  Which goes surprisingly well with red curry.  (Sing along with me: "super freak, super freak, it's super freekeh ...")

2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 t. minced garlic
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
3 T. red Thai curry paste
3/4 c. uncooked freekeh
7 1/2 c. vegetable broth
1 15 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 c. kale, finely chopped
fresh ground pepper

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onions and potato, and saute, stirring occasionally until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and saute another minute or two until that starts to soften, too.

Add the curry paste and mix to coat, stirring continuously until the curry is fragrant, about 2 minutes.

Stir in the freekeh and broth, and bring the soup to a boil.  Cover, reduce heat, and cook 20 minutes.

Add the chickpeas and kale; cover again and cook until the kale is just wilted, between 5-10 minutes, depending on how small you've made chopped the kale.

Serve in a beautiful bowl, knowing that everyone at your table will devour it.