Chang-rae Lee visits!

Noted novelist Chang-rae Lee, author of Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and Aloft, visited two of my English I classes a few weeks ago. Students had read his essay "Coming Home Again" and we thought it'd be nice to get some authorial perspective on said work. Lee talked a little about the essay but branched into a conversation about writing,as my students were
writing autobiographical short stories based on a memorable moment from their lives.

Some of Lee's sage advice, taken from my penciled notes--I've tried to
capture the words as he said them, but much may be paraphrased. While the ideas expressed below are certainly not new--at least to teachers of writing--they nevertheless gold:

1. When you write, don't think about the themes, but the little things.
Think small and miniature. Start with something seemingly
insignificant, and use details to add weight. Describe someone in
little scenes, imagining someone else in your place.

2. Try writing about a situation that's more complicated at second
glance, rather than a perfectly happy moment. Look for something
troubling. In life, we're looking for happiness and harmony, but
rarely find it. That's the place of art and literature.

3. You don't have to pretend you're a writer. Draw a picture with
words: show me what to see.

4. If you forget the details of your story, put yourself back in that
time. Short of that, make it up, as long as the details feel true.

5. Write about what you care about.

6. Beginning writers write ideas, but don't create pictures. Read over
your work, sentence by sentence, and think: "Am I telling the reader
how to think or feel? If the answer's yes, something's wrong."

On a totally separate note, I'm currently reading Aloft: the blog review's forthcoming!

Enrique's Journey: A Millenial Odyssey

The non-fiction book, Enrique's Journey, by Pulitzer Prize winner, Sonia Nazario, tells the riveting and often harrowing story of Enrique, a Honduran teenager, who risks his life in order to reunite with his mother, Lourdes, in the United States. This true story mirrors the experience of many illegal migrants, drawn to the United States by the prospect of the American Dream as well as the desire to reclaim the love of lost, idealized parents. Their odysseys north are marked by peril: rapists, the betrayals of "coyotes" and smugglers, drug trafficking, violent crime, bodily mutilation, and even death.

This story made me reflect on the heart-wrenching sacrifices and trade-offs that parents make in the name of the greater good, and the way that their economic choices--ensuring a higher standard of living for their children and relatives--also disintegrate family stability and further unravel the societal fabric of their home country. There's horrible irony in the fact that undocumented migrants, particularly women, represent a high percentage of American domestic help, serving as nannies to strangers' children, yet have abandoned their own sons and daughters. While Enrique's quest is successful, the ending's more bittersweet than fairy-tale. One senses that the long separation between mother and son has permanently fractured their relationship--perhaps irreparably so. In addition, although Enrique berates Lourdes for leaving him at such a young age, like his mother, he too leaves his young toddler to the foster care of relatives in Honduras, continuing the cycle of abandonment and orphaned children.

To find out more about the book, visit http://www.enriquesjourney.com/.

Barack Obama, _The Audacity of Hope_

In his second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Illinois senator and Constitutional law scholar Barack Obama shares his thoughts on values, the American Constitution, politics, opportunity, faith, race, the world beyond our borders, and family. With passion, clarity, and reason, he exhorts Americans to reject the bitter partisan politics that have fractured our nation and build a country that truly prizes and protects diversity of thought. Obama states,

"I think we make a mistake in assuming that democratic deliberation requires abandonment of our highest ideals, or of a commitment to the common good. After all, the Constitution ensures our free speech, not just so we can shout at one another as loud as we please, deaf to what others might have to say (although we have that right). It also offers us the possibility of a genuine marketplace of ideas, one in which "the jarring of parties" works on behalf of "deliberation and circumspection"; a marketplace in which, through debate and competition, we can expand our perspective, change our minds, and eventually arrive not merely at agreements but at sound and fair agreements." (94)

I appreciated Obama's refreshing idealism and recommend this book for all Americans interested in cultivating a politics of unity, where shared interests transcend what divides us.

Jacques Steinberg's _The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College_

My friend, Dennis, a Wesleyan graduate, recommended this non-fiction book, published in 2002, to me. Steinberg, an education writer for The New York Times, tracks Ralph Figueroa, a Wesleyan University admissions officer, as he recruits college hopefuls. As a teacher who pens several college recommendations a year, many of which are addressed to the prestigious liberal-arts college under scrutiny in this book, I found this an absorbing and interesting read. While Steinberg doesn't offer any earth-shaking, surprising insights--suspect that college preparatory teachers are all too aware of the vagaries and quirky variables inherent in college admissions--I enjoyed the compelling case-study profiles of the applicants, representing diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnicities and think the book might provide instructive perspective for students and their parents as they go through the admissions process. Steinberg also does an excellent job in documenting the mullings and occasionally agonizing decisions made by Wesleyan's selection committee as they weigh the relative merits of test scores, recommendations, GPAs, and
co-curricular/extracurricular activities and construct the incoming freshman class of 2004. The bottom line? Admissions, though we'd desire to view it as logical and just, is a very human process.

Pachebel Rant

My cousin Ada sent me this silly music clip, knowing my long-term distaste for Pachebel's Canon in D--a classical music piece that really ought to have a 100-year moratorium placed on it, given its repetitive, saccharine ubiquity in weddings, supermarket Muzak, and cell phone ring tones. But even if you dearly love the piece, this video's worth a listen.



Rob Paravonian, "Pachebel Rant"

Come Back to Afghanistan

Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story, by Said Hyder Akbar and Susan Burton, is my recommended read for this month. Akbar, currently a senior at Yale and the child of Afghan immigrants, writes a thoughtful, compelling, humorous memoir of his time spent in post-Taliban Afghanistan. He has a particularly interesting vantage point, as his father was advisor to Afghan president, Harmid Karzai, and later became governor of Kunar, a volatile province. The political and the personal beautifully weave together in this riveting, highly readable tale of chaos and change.

For more on Said Hyder Akbar, please listen to the programs he recorded for National Public Radio's "This American Life". Links to both shows are listed to the right.

Dinner at the New Gene Cafe

Just recently finished Dinner at the New Gene Cafe, an interesting non-fiction book about genetically-engineered crops, by Bill Lambrecht, a reporter for the St. Louis Dispatch. When I took horticulture in college, I remember how biotechnology was greeted with such reverence--how "golden rice", engineered to have more nutrients than standard white rice, could save the Third-World starving, how Bt-resistant crops could reduce pesticide use... And now, it's 2007, and even the The Honolulu Advertiser, which perpetually "breaks" stories years after they were hot-ticket news, just a few days ago featured two biotechnology stories that illustrate the schism that's arisen over biotechnology and genetic engineering. One story extolled the virtues of Bt-cotton and how it'd increased crop yields, due to the virtual elimination of the pink bollworm, a major pest. The other story reported Meadow Gold Dairy's announcement that it will not use products from cloned cows, even though the FDA has ruled that there seems to be no difference in the milk from cloned, versus regular bovines.

The pluses to biotechnology, as I see it--though they are fewer in number than the negatives, they are indeed major advantages.

1. Control over technology will allow humans to systematically and more quickly select the qualities we desire in our crops, e.g. lower fat, higher nutritive content, more attractive appearance, as opposed to use of conventional cross-breeding.
2. By engineering plants for resistance against pests, we create more favorable environmental conditions through reduction in pesticide use.
3. Greater production yield, which in the case of food crops, may translate into feeding more hungry people.

The negatives to biotechnology:
1. Internationally, the spectre of global takeover of local industries and businesses.
2. Loss of cultural practices and ways of life, e.g. the saving of seeds, vs. having to plant crops from seed every year, due to so-called "Terminator" functions encoded in the plants that render the seeds from these crops infertile, in order to preserve company profits and patents. Also, opponents to GMOs argue that greater acceptance of engineered-crops will eventually lead to agricultural monoculture practices: that is, over-reliance on a single crop, rather than diverse plantings.
3. Loss of control over the integrity of one's crops, and consequently, the loss of control over the quality and integrity of the food we consume: who's to say what happens, for example, if genetically-modified crops accidentally pollinate the organic, non-GMO crops down the road, or contaminate the soil for future plantings.
4. The loss of genetic diversity.
5. The unknown: Because biotechnology is relatively new, we do not know its long-term effects: if/how bioengineered organisms will affect the soil, our environment, or our health. European countries argue for protection clauses, arguing that governments ought to be able to exercise controls against possible, but as of yet, undiscovered, negative effects--though detractors might argue that such arguments, because they're not based on hard-core evidence, simply mask protectionist tendencies. Also, it's possible that if we rely too much on genetic engineering for pest-control, we'll end up creating a greater problem, by creating resistant "super-pests".

The topic's an intriguing one, deserving further investigation. As consumers, we ought to know the sources of our food--companies need to be responsible for clear labeling of products containing GMO-derived products, so the public can make educated choices. It also disturbs me that the biotech companies have shown historical resistance to disclose information about their products to the public--until this becomes common practice, buying local and organic products might prove a wise option.

Curriculum Day, 2/20/2007

Marco Torres, an Apple Distinguished Educator, served as our school's Curriculum Day Keynote Speaker on 2/20/07. As a former public school teacher with ESL training, I could relate to the challenges Torres faces teaching a heterogenous, often transient student population for whom English is not the first language. I also appreciated his simple 3-point checklist for an effective curriculum: that it be relevant, meaningful, and applicable. Technology enables teachers to meet all three criteria, as it provides a conduit for students to communicate with an audience beyond the classroom and gives "wings" to their learning.

Thought Torres made an astute observation regarding the differences between adult and student relationships to technology--that adults view it as a productivity tool, whereas students view it as a vehicle to produce, share, and disseminate information.

I also appreciated the student success stories shared by Torres--the producers of "Power of One", a PSA on the power of voting, who now have jobs working for MTV's Rock the Vote, and his anecdote about David Pena, who arranged the "Star Wars" score mariachi-style and consequently received accolades (and funding, woo hoo!) from composer John Williams. Had these students not received opportunities to showcase and validate their strengths, arguably, they might've joined the thousands of disenfranchised, alienated students who don't see the long-term rewards of school. Teachers in both the public and private sectors have an obligation to help students discover significance in education; a personal, intrinsic stake in learning provides a metaphoric compass, giving direction and inspiring perseverance. By providing students with opportunities to demonstrate their learning in creative and diverse ways which showcase their strengths and talents, teachers make curriculum meaningful.

That being said, as noted educator Rafe Esquith states, "There are no shortcuts" to a strong educational foundation. Many of us in the break-out session following Torres' presentation voiced concerns about the need to balance style and substance when it comes to integrating technology and learning. In his speech, Torres intimated that the PSA provided a more valid assessment of student learning than a traditional 15 page research paper on the power of individual votes in the political process. To me, however, the measures aren't equivalent--in fact, they have completely different goals. The "Power of One" PSA was an effective, slick, propaganda piece, where students selected and deliberately constructed information in order to persuade. A research paper, in contrast, would present nuanced, sophisticated, scholarly analysis and contextualized, balanced examination of a topic. In a college-preparatory context like Punahou, while the PSA is an authentic and valid learning product, we'd require additional measures to fully assess the substance and depth of student learning.

Technology provides wonderful, unparalled outlets for expression. But as we at Punahou "lean forward", as Torres would say, more than ever, we must ensure that students possess the strong foundation that creates polished work worth sharing. I savor that constant cycle of innovation creating and recreating myself as a teacher--a phoenix, born again and again, arising from the ashes of carbonized educational theories past. Still, these three things abide the crucible of fire: being a wise and omnivorous reader, an incisive, expressive writer, and an eloquent speaker. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.

O, for a muse of fire!

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!

--Shakespeare, Henry V.I.i.1-2

This blog is a experimental zone--a place for me to voice my musings on literature, politics, the environment, teaching, and much more--and to test out blogging's possibilities for teaching. There's something presumptuous--and scary--in releasing my thoughts to the Internet universe--"public, like a frog", as Emily Dickinson'd say. Hopefully, more substance will appear on this page, as I grow more comfortable with the medium. So, into the breach, dear friends!