Skipping along the glitches
I went wandering by the teacher’s webpages at Miami Valley School, my Upper School alma mater. Specifically, I took a quick look at Mr. Suiter’s page, Mr. Czarnota’s page, Brian Lakatos’s page (I know no Mr, but come on the kid is only like four years older than me!), and Kretz’s page (make sure to check out the halloween pictures).
But, it was Mr. Squiers’s page that struck me the most. Of course, there is that usual attraction of Squires being a rebel, in this case by hosting his webpage over at mac.com versus being like everyone else and hosting it on the MVS Teacher’s webserver. But, I was really struck by a statement on his homepage: someone asked why he was a teacher, and he said that “I teach because of a deep-seated, heartfelt, driving concern for the quality of individual lives.” I’m still a bit awestruck by that statement, even after mulling over it for a day or so. I’ve known Squires; I know that isn’t mission-speak bullshit.
I was reading my grades and written evaluations from my teachers at MVS. I was frustrated by seeing the theme of someone who for the most part had checked out of school.
I know I probably got a quarter of what I should’ve gotten out of MVS.
Those of you who have had the pleasure and honor of having had a class with Mr. Squires, please find the nearest chalkboard/whiteboard/Buddha Board and draw a triangle on it with one point facing up, circle that point, and draw several lines pointing at this circle, lecture for five minutes or so on self-actualizing. (Come on, you’ve sat through enough of Squires’s lectures you know you can do it, but for those of you a little rusty, take a quick refresher course.)
Now, are you there yet? Are you near that?
Yes?
Are you bullshitting yourself?
Fifteen minutes ago I would have said I’m reaching through and around self-actualization.. Perhaps I am there, but there are still things to improve upon. Anyway once you say you’re there it isn’t as if magically you get to stay there and coast along, you have to work at staying there.
At the risk of sounding utterly cliché, I’ve been doing my best to live continual improvement. Let me illustrate this by example:
I’ve reasonably quickly picked up many of the Seattlite habits to lowering my environmental footprint.
- I’m using public transportation, walking, and biking to get as many places as possible. It’s not uncommon for me to go a week or more without starting my car.
- I live in an apartment and I’ve got a compost bin going. My waste stream is separated into glass recyclables, other recyclables, compostables, and garbage. Every waste collection basket in the apartment has specific items it can accept. This leads to some strange things, such as not being able to throw away garbage without leaving my bedroom, and ripping the used tea bags apart so it can be put into the three different waste streams that it fits into.
- I’ve been moving toward non-caustic biodegradable cleaners. This includes not using flea pesticides for my cats, which necessitates the dangerous work of giving felines a bath.
- I barely ever go shopping without taking my canvas shopping bags. No plastic bags here.
So spots that I have already identified where I can improve:
- My car still gets used here and there, and well its emissions system is slightly unhappy. (e.g. It needs fixed, I’m a bit broke, and a bit lazy about getting it fixed.)
- I have a nagging feeling that I’m still putting too much waste into the garbage. I don’t want to put everything into recycling and contaiminate that material stream.. (I just realized I don’t know why what goes into the recycling stream is supposed to go there, compared to other similar items that go into the garbage; I have a poor understanding of the decision matrix behind the separation of recycling from garbage.)
- I’ve got favorite cleaning materials and personal hygiene items that aren’t biodegradable or natural. Its going to take some work to find acceptable replacements for them.
- I’m still shopping and consuming. Plus, I know I’m not always making the purchase with the least packaging. I also haven’t really started putting a huge effort into buying locally.
After I address the areas for improvement of the second list, I will reevaluate and repopulate the second list.
Wash rinse repeat, ad naseum.
Continual improvement goes for everything in my life. I’m still working on managing my procrastination, depression, motivation levels and time-management skills. I would cite these four things as being driving factors behind that teenager “who for the most part had checked out of school.”
I also trace my lack of engagement to being in the closet.
Squires had this lecture he would deliver every so often, it would take different exact forms, but generally it was in the form of, “How does your _______ affect the self-actualization of ___________?” For example “How does your racism affect the self-actualization of African Americans?”
Or the uncomfortable edition for me: “How does your homophobia affect the self-actualization of a gay man?”
So one day, I decided try to answer him.
I remember asking him “What do you want to know?” It was one of those gutsy throw down all the cards, plus the ones I just borrowed from the other table moves. Ultimately, he gracefully shut down the conversation with as much class as one could expect. It isn’t every day a student comes out in the middle of class, so I’m sure it caught him off guard. He tracked me down afterwards and apologized for shutting the conversation down, but he wasn’t sure either of us was prepared to go there.
I wonder how this lesson was absorbed by my classmates. It wasn’t something that we talked about in any depth, for the most part they just acknowledged that I had come out.
I’ve been belaboring this entry a little bit more than the usual entry so I have come across a whole collection of thoughts that dovetail in here, but a quote by a Colorado State Legislator really resonated:
Discrimination is a practice that has gone on in this country too long. It is the birth defect of this country. And I think it’s time we deal with that. -Colorado Senate President Peter Groff (“Lawmaker uses short people to question gay-bias bill” in the Denver Post)
While I guess Groff was specifically referring to his fellow Coloradan legislators, but the wider implication is for all Americans.
One of the first plays I ran into at college was Spinning Into Butter and the strangest lesson I learned from it is its better to be a racist bastard and be public about it, than to be a racist bastard who is in the closet to everyone, including yourself.
In the climax of the play Sarah Daniels, a cacausian dean of the college who is working through the aftermath of a series of hate crimes against an African American freshman, explodes “… Just use what you know. Public transportation? Scary! Toni Morrison? I hate her! So what if she won the Nobel Prize? So did Pearl S. Buck! La la la. [Beat] Satisfied?” This where Sarah gets really honest with herself and everyone else and acknowled
ges her racist feelings and thoughts. It’s a turning point where she can start to make progress on her own racism.
Its odd, but one of the people I am thankful for is Fred Phelps. He’s upfront about his bigotries. He brings them to the forefront and allows us to examine them. Sure, it would be best if everyone really examined their bigotries and worked on them, but if you can criticize Phelps’s actions then reconcile your own beliefs and actions with your criticism of Phelps’s actions you’ve made similar progress.
So I’ve been struggling with my own question which would fit right into a Squires lecture: How do my actions affect the self-actualization of the homeless and the poor?
Honestly, I’m not sure I have a framework of knowledge in which to answer this question. So, let me make this personal:
There is a young man I know from church, he is in his early 20s. He’s a self admitted stoner. He was living in an apartment with something like nine other guys and got evicted. I know he was homeless, and I think he still is.
I’ve done practically nothing to help him out. I’m not sure what, if anything the church has done to help.
I feel like I did back in Chicago, but more consistently and intensely.
I play the same argument out that Sarah plays out in Spinning into Butter, “He’s a stoner, he was more focused on drugs than taking care of himself, etc, etc.” But people fuck up. I fuck up. Mistakes must be forgiven, less the world becomes a place of perpetual grudges that is impossible to navigate.
So yeah, I have no clue how do actions or lack thereof affect the self-actualization of the homeless and the poor, and it isn’t an abstract concept.
I don’t know where to go from here, but I’ve got work to do on a birth defect of my country.