Tag: teaching

Learning How to Learn

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My daughter is studying for her SAT—her college admissions test. I never took the SAT because I got a D in algebra, twice. To advance to geometry, I took the same class again, from the same teacher that didn’t explain anything the first time. I didn’t get the concepts behind the equations, or Mr Mulvaney’s assertion that “it’s just the way it is.” Even algebra has a reason for why it works the way it does.

I didn’t take the SAT because I was afraid I’d fail it with no math background. In fact, every time I even thought of math, I felt anxious. I was a failure, stupid that I didn’t get quadratic equations, as most of my classmates seemed to. I couldn’t apply to a California university, or any four year college worth attending without taking the SAT. Instead, I attended Jr College for two years before transferring to UCLA. I studiously avoided math classes, as they were not required for a degree in Design.

Fast forward 5 years, and I wanted to apply to graduate school to study Education. Not only did I have to take the GRE, which had advanced math, but before registering for the test, I had to have teaching experience, in a real classroom, which required I pass the CBEST, which also had algebra and geometry. Panic. How was I supposed to pass any standardized test when I never passed algebra, and never learned the higher levels of math that was sure to be on these tests?

Enter my friend, Bert. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll teach you algebra, and geometry, and any other basic math you need. You’ll pass the tests.”

He had to be kidding. “I failed algebra twice! I’ll never be able to learn all the math I need to pass these tests.”

“Don’t be absurd. You are one of the smartest people I know. Of course you can learn algebra.”

The familiar terror was choking. Did he not hear me? “I FAILED IT TWICE, and never advanced to geometry. I suck at math!”

“Not likely,” he said with confidence. “More likely, you got turned off of it by some careless teacher, and the gates in your brain shut down. All you need to do is get out of your own way. Open your brain back up, so you can learn what you need to know.”

“I’m an artist, a qualitative person, not quantitative. I’m just not into math.” I was trying not to kill his delusion that I was smart.

“But you need to know it to pass these tests to get into a graduate program. So suck it up, let go of your fear, and get it done.” Bert was already in graduate school, studying for his doctorate in Psychology. “You have some worthy goals. Make them happen. I’ll help you.”

I didn’t want his help. I didn’t want to learn math, or, more likely not learn math, prove to him, and myself, how stupid I really was. He was being so kind it was impossible to keep defending myself. But I still did not believe him. “Maybe I’m just not smart enough for advanced math.”

“Hmm,” he said, staring at me intently. “Remember the show Get Smart?”

Ok…“Yeah.”

“Remember the opening? Max enters that hallway with the thick metal doors that slide open one by one as he approaches them. And each slams shut behind him as he walks down the hall?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s what your brain is doing when you think of math. The doors, or gates to learning are shutting down in your head. You are so freaked out because some lazy teacher made you feel stupid, and you bought it, hook, line and sinker. Stop it! You’ll make a great teacher, or professor, or whatever you want to do with education. Learn math, and move forward.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“But it is. You just have to open the gates in your brain that make it possible to learn, well, anything.” He smiled. I did too, couldn’t help it. With his words, he’d just introduced hope.

We were having this dialog at Jerry’s Deli, in L.A. Bert took the pen the waiter left to sign for our bill, and on an unused napkin wrote out a quadratic equation. I frowned, felt anxious. Here we go. Now he’ll see how stupid I really am.

“I can see by your face, you’re already freaking out.” He laughed. I scoffed. “This is good!” He was clearly excited. I felt pissed off, embarrassed. “Let’s explore that feeling. Talk to me about it, what does it feel like?”

“I feel scared, and stupid.”

“That’s your first two gates. Big, thick, metal doors shutting you out of learning. So, let’s start with feeling stupid, because that’s likely why you’re feeling scared, that I’ll see you, or you’ll see yourself, as stupid.”

“OK…”

“Do you think you’re stupid?”

“With math!”

“Our brains don’t work that way. You can’t just be stupid in one area. Either you have a functioning brain, or you don’t. Most of us have functioning brains. Are you telling me you don’t believe you do?”

I thought about that. Of course I have a functioning brain. I graduated college. I got good grades, even in high school, except for math. “I have an OK brain, I guess.”

He laughed. “So, there goes your first gate. Poof! It’s gone. It was bullshit anyway. Good riddance.”

I smiled, but fear and doubt still lingered.

“Here’s the deal,” he continued. “Every time you think of math, or we work on equations, notice how you feel. Pay attention to how your brain is operating. Examine the messaging it’s feeding you, and the bullshit it’s telling you. Qualitatively break it down to check if it’s right. Every time your brain says, ‘I can’t do this. I’m not smart enough,’ call BULLSHIT. Counter the voices of doubt. YES, I AM SMART ENOUGH! Then go back to the problem and work at figuring it out.” He took a sip of his tea. “Work at it long enough, and hard enough, and you will.”

‘The gates in my brain’… I could literally feel them all of a sudden. Bert was right. Every time I even thought of math the gates in my brain shut. And not only with math. Every single time I found it hard to learn something, anything, I now could see it was me, getting in my own way, allowing my brain to convince me of bullshit. All I had to do was examine my own feelings more carefully, embrace the ones that supported my success, and reject those that didn’t.

I studied algebra and geometry in a three week refresher course offered through the CBEST testing program. I passed the test, and subsequently my GRE, and though I never followed through with my graduate degree in Education, as having kids and writing became my priority, I teach at some of the top universities on the planet.

The best bit, I now know how to prevent the gates in my brain from shutting. As long as I identify my fear, face it, dispel it with reason, I can keep my brain receptive to learning. And with enough hard work, I can learn, well, just about anything.

LOVE Defined

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My sister is dead, I told the bank manager.

She isn’t dead. She lives in Washington with her husband, having recently moved from L.A., where we were both born and raised.

The bank manager expressed his condolences. He accepted the paperwork from our lawyer to remove my sister’s name from our Trust as the potential guardian of our children should my husband and I die before they’re of legal age to care for themselves.

I told him she was dead to delete her from my psyche, distance myself from loving her. Five years ago, she told my husband she didn’t want any contact with him, me, or our kids, her then 7 and 9 yr old niece and nephew, in a response to an email my husband sent her.

Much to my sister’s chagrin, we’ve raised our kids without religion. Cleaning out her Agoura Hills McMansion before moving to her custom built estate in Washington, she sent our kids Hanukkah ‘gifts’ of broken toys that used to belong to her children. She missed acknowledging our daughter’s birthday, again. Three months later, she sent her a present with the one she sent for our son’s birthday, and spelled her name wrong on the card. She’d disappointed our kids time and again, ignoring their birthdays and special events, rarely calling, and talking about her life, not theirs, when she did. Many times after jacking them up that she was coming to visit, on the day she was supposed to arrive, she left it to me to tell our kids she wasn’t coming.

Her sins were many, and mounted with the years without apology. My husband got tired of her hurting our kids, emailed her five sentences politely informing her the correct spelling of our daughter’s name, and requested if she was going to send them birthday cards or gifts to please do so on or around their respective birthdays.

My sister decided he was asking too much and emailed back that “though I am deeply in love with your kids, and it breaks my heart to do so,” she was withdrawing from their lives entirely. She stopped calling every few months. For a couple of years she sent the kids birthday cards when it struck her fancy—weeks late to our daughter, if at all, but managed to get cards to our son within days of his, professing her deep affection and love for him. It took all my will not to shed the cards in a million tiny pieces. Her sentiments to him were totally self-serving, for her ego, her ‘loving’ words meaningless, meant to pump up her self-image alone.

“Love is an ACTION, what we do, not some abstract in our heads,” my husband and I teach our kids. “Don’t profess love in words without taking actions to show it,” we preach. “And don’t accept words of love as truth without seeing the actions that actualize their sentiment.”

Over the years my sister had been so disrespectful to our youngest that our daughter never really formed a bond, but her choice to terminate her relationship with our kids deeply hurt our son. She was important to him because the few extended family members we have left, namely my brother and father, didn’t call or acknowledge our children in any way.

My mom died when our daughter was just 2, and our son only 4 yrs old, so she never really got to know our kids. She did love them though. Deeply. Profoundly. And they got that. How did they know?

  • She came to visit often.
  • She called them on the phone every couple of days.
  • She mailed them presents on time, and called to sing Happy Birthday on their special days.
  • She spelled their names right.
  • She stayed abreast of their lives through me, my husband, and through the kids, consistently showed interest in their interests and feelings, and shared her world with them.

My mother often extolled how much she loved our kids, to me, to them, to anyone who’d listen, but she also showed it, so my children knew it was real.

The day my dad called to tell me of my mom’s cancer diagnosis, after I hung up the phone I said to my husband, “Well, that’s the end of my family.” She was the conduit that kept us together, in contact, a feature in each other’s lives. She fervently believed people come and go, but family is forever, the folks with which your love and loyalty should reside. Within a year of my mother’s passing, my sister and father checked out of my life, and the lives of our kids, too busy with their own to bother with me or mine.

My father, like my sister, practices love in the abstract. He never talks to his grandkids, never calls [even me], never asks to talk to them when I call him, and rarely even asks about them. He doesn’t acknowledge their birthdays anymore. I got tired of reminding him with multiple calls and emails weekly the month before their special days, then daily reminders the week before. The rare occasions I call my dad, he always professes how much he loves my kids, how important they are to him, though he does nothing to actually show them this. He never did, I just didn’t notice, as my mother’s effusive love overshadowed his self-love. When I mention his grandkids, he reminds me to tell them that grandpa loves them, and misses them. But I don’t. I tell them, “Popi says hi.” I don’t want our children to ever get the impression it’s acceptable to say you love someone when you take virtually no action to show it.

Her body ravaged by cancer and near death, my mother insisted my father take her to Toys R Us. She bought each of our kids their next birthday gift, and made him swear to mail them on time. She was hoping to establish a tradition (an action) for my father to adopt for his grandchildren after she was gone. He delivered her dying gifts to our kids two years later, on his way to visit my sister in Washington.

In a thousand lifetimes I cannot repay my mom for her precious gift of LOVE I now model to our children. But I cannot buy into her belief [and society’s rhetoric] that family and love are synonymous anymore.

LOVE, like potential, is meaningless unless put into ACTION.

Jobless America

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Took a family vacation to Yellowstone last summer. After a day of exploring the spectacular park, we ate dinner at Canyon Village, a sprawling commercial development in the mist of the natural wonders. The kids wanted some souvenirs so we stopped in the gift shop before eating. The clerk at check-out was a kid, no more than 20, as was most of the customer service staff in the park. His name tag said Mal-Chin, and under his name was his country of origin: Korea.

Seated inside the restaurant we were served water by Jianyu, his country of origin: China.

We were served rolls by Mi-Cha, Korea again.

Earlier in the day, when visiting the geyser, Old Faithful, we stopped in the mini-mart at Yellowstone Lodge. The check-out guy was Yeo, China again. At breakfast, at the restaurant in the lodge, our waitress was Fedheeta, country of origin: India.

Our waitress at dinner was Kathy, her country of origin: USA. She was probably 1 of 10 Americans out of the 50 or more employees of the park I saw that day.

Yellowstone is the United State’s first national park. Over 2 million acres of pristine, protected wilderness resides in a massive cauldron of a dormant super-volcano in the states of Montana and Idaho, with the majority of the park in Wyoming. The USA preserved this land for families and fans of natural beauty to come explore, discover and study natures wonders for present and future generations. Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars goes to maintaining Yellowstone National Park annually.

So why are most of their service staff from everywhere but the USA? I asked our waitress, Kathy, at dinner in Canyon Village. Why are our kids not landing these jobs, which provide a great opportunity to acquire sales and communications skills, add to college applications…etc?

The American kids get fired here constantly, Kathy told my family after taking our order. They party a lot, get drunk, don’t show up for work, and are rude to the customers. They write the orders wrong, or charge people the wrong amount because they can’t do simple math quickly. The management can’t keep them for more than a few weeks into the summer because they’re mostly irresponsible and lazy.

Her words literally hurt me, because I knew they were the truth.

Kathy went on to describe the programs that land the out-of-country kids the jobs at our national parks. They pay thousands just to get here, she said, which is generally less than the salary for six days of work a week, including the food and lodging during their contract with the park. They clearly want to be here very badly, usually to acquire work skills and develop their English fluency, and they do an excellent job. It’s easy to see why management prefers them.

Heavy sigh.

World News Tonight on ABC used to have a segment they called Made in America. It was a joke, an embarrassment to any sensible, educated, aware adult who knows that China produces over 1/3 of all global manufacturing, with Mexico and Korea close behind them. The World News segment was touchy-feely, saccharin and all smiles with David Muir interviewing American manufactures of unique hats and scarves, or a cupcake maker gone viral, and then touted these businesses as being the cornerstones of our future success. This segment is no longer produced.

Hats and cupcakes won’t cure our supply-chain issues. The USA is not, and will never reclaim its manufacturing base when we charge in excess of ten times as much to do the work other nations are willing to do, and do well, for so much less.

The internet has united our world, as it gives most everyone the opportunity to see how others live. It’s easy to find the American lifestyle attractive. Our families generally have warm houses with running water, electricity for light, computers, entertainment systems, cars in almost every garage, freedom from religious and/or political persecution (sort of). Most countries still aspire to be US, to model our independence and luxuries.

Watch World News Tonight’s entire broadcast, and David Muir will tell you all about rising inflation, families charging groceries and gas just to get to work and feed their families, maxing out their credit limits. He’ll tell you about our personal debt crisis, where the average American has over $15,000 in credit card debt, and he’ll introduce you to one of the many families bankrupted from a medical catastrophe not cover by their insurance or Medicare.

This decline in the American lifestyle will continue for most U.S. citizens, and eventually even the 1% wealthy will be effected, guaranteed, if we stay the course we are on.

Like it or not, we are a global world now. Today’s manufacturing, trade and technology bind us, and gives us the opportunity to thrive as a people, a planet; or we can destroy everything we have here, through our laziness and greed.

Our K-12 public education system is failing our kids, regardless that we keep pumping more and more tax dollars into education. U.S. now ranks 36th out of the 79 countries and regions in math, behind China, South Korea, even Canada. It is no wonder U.S. kids aren’t hired for even the simplest retail positions at our national parks. Our kids are unprepared to compete globally. And according to our server, Kathy, at Yellowstone, who went to a private school back home in New York, the American employees clearly demonstrated their lack of education in their reading, writing, and math skills, in addition to their poor interpersonal skills with customers.

Cutting school hours of instruction with “teacher furlough days,” short days, and extending ‘teacher work days’ has not, does not, and will not produce a nation of creators. It takes education, practice, and focused persistence to produce anything of value. For the U.S. to achieve the potential our parent’s achieved—have jobs, and retain the lifestyle to which most of the middle-class has become accustomed, we’re going to have to limit our play/relax time, and work a hell of a lot harder.

Partying, with attitude, instead of doing their work, like the stream of U.S. kids fired from Yellowstone; playing Halo, or killing endless hours on TikTok or SnapChat, or binge watching Netflix instead of studying math and science won’t help our kids compete in the job market locally or globally. H1B visas requested by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other tech companies reached a whopping 308,613 H-1B registrations for 2022, a 12.5% rise over 2021.

Greed, laziness, the-world-owes-me work ethic so many Americans possess won’t win us jobs, or help us keep them here in the States. We must teach our kids that PRACTICE is the only way to get good at anything. This means investing the time and energy into academics instead of iPhones, social media and video games, which means parents need to pay more attention and invoke more discipline. It means educators need to step up to the plate and give more homework, harder tests, teach longer hours for the same money because giving more money to education shows little improvement in student performance.

We are a nation of [mostly] Christian believers, but if Jesus really saves, he’d better start saving our kids, because it sure as hell isn’t our education system, and clearly most parents aren’t doing any better. Raising a generation of spoiled, unmotivated, under-educated Americans can not, does not, and WILL NOT compete in our global economy.