Yesterday was a dear friend's birthday. The celebration, which is always fun, this year involved dinner at a local sushi restaurant and, once we'd all gone to her home, a game of Cards Against Humanity. Photography ensued, of course, and this morning, she posted some of the results on Facebook and tagged people in the photos in which we appeared.
A couple of people I haven't seen in years, one of whom was a fairly good friend in high school (though we've drifted apart in the past dozen years), remarked that in their estimation, I haven't changed a bit since we graduated from high school in 2001. I thought that was a rather odd thing to say; after all, I've been able to see the changes in myself as they've gradually happened. Surely they should be easier to notice for people who haven't seen me face-to-face in several years.
Granted, the people in my family don't tend to age particularly quickly, and even when I was in my mid-twenties, people (usually older than me, but sometimes also people who were about my age) occasionally used to ask me what high school I went to, and they were genuinely stunned when I revealed my actual age—the looks on their faces were usually rather amusing. :) But I really have changed. On a purely aesthetic level, I see the places near my eyes where wrinkles are starting to form. I see the small changes in my figure—I've gained weight and then lost (most of) it again when I consistently resumed the eating and activity patterns that I tend to fall into when I'm not depressed. My hair's a bit redder, and because it has more of a tendency to curl now than it used to, it's still as long as it was twelve years ago, but it doesn't always look like it is. I've been known to wear a bit of lipstick and nail polish on occasion, which I never did in high school, and I had my ears pierced when I was in my second year of university. I'm even a couple of centimetres taller than I was in 2001.
Mentally, the changes are a bit more dramatic. I've developed my mind in ways that I couldn't possibly have anticipated back then. I'm better at analysis. I'm becoming a competent teacher, thanks to my volunteer work. My spiritual life has changed—for the better, I might add. The way that I live it now has allowed me to heal some old wounds, and although I do still find it a bit frustrating at times to be both Pagan and Christian, the resulting mental gymnastics have been worth performing, because they force me to figure out precisely what matters the most. I have fallen in love three times—once with someone who proved not to be worth it, and his effect on my life was devastating, but it also helped me to stop myself making a horrible mistake. I have fallen deeply into depression, and developed a particularly stubborn form of eating-disordered behaviour, and then gradually come out of them, particularly over the course of the past couple of years, though I do still have relapses of both from time to time. My sense of humour has gotten better, my fondness for diverse forms of music has really blossomed, my love of literature has waned and then been rekindled in a big way, and my writing skills have dramatically improved. I've picked up a fondness for The X-Files, The Vicar of Dibley, The Big Bang Theory, and the recently-cancelled Touch. I am every bit as stubborn as I used to be, but I now have the confidence and the intelligence to make better assessments and decisions than I had when I was eighteen.
So, yes, I've definitely changed since high school. And while my acquaintances may have meant for their words to be compliments—after all, it's quite common for people to believe that getting older is something horrible that is to be feared and avoided—I have to admit that my first instinct was not to perceive them as such. Change is good, and just like everyone else, I've been through a lot of changes in the past twelve years. And as painful as some of those changes have been, there is precious little that I would actually do differently, given the chance.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Feel-Good Almost-Wisdom
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine shared the following picture on Facebook.
Not too long ago, I'd have absolutely loved it. I still kind of like it, but I have to admit that my thoughts about it are really rather mixed. On one hand, I do believe that the words that we say, and the things that we think, do affect the way that we live our lives—and by extension, they also have some power to affect the way that people treat us (largely because of the way that our thoughts and words cause us to behave) and the things that happen to us as a result. And I believe that it's not at all a bad idea to encourage ourselves to achieve our goals, or to believe (and reinforce the belief) that we are capable of achieving these goals. As it was put in one of my favourite movies, "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything."
That said, I have a couple of issues with this picture.
First of all, there's the way that intellect is conflated with IQ. They're not the same thing. IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, is simply one's score on any number of tests designed to measure one's intelligence—tests that are often heavily dependent on cultural expectations and that put a disproportionate amount of emphasis on mathematical and spatial abilities. Intelligence is so much more than this. It encompasses many aspects of cognitive ability—not just mathematical or spatial intelligence, but linguistic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and kinesthetic intelligence as well. IQ tests don't typically assess the creativity or problem-solving abilities of the person taking them, and people with learning disabilities (which are not in themselves indications of low intelligence) are frequently at a disadvantage when taking an IQ test. Overall, IQ tests are not a particularly reliable means of determining how intelligent a person is, and to say that IQ and intelligence itself are the same thing seriously undermines the point that the person who put this picture together apparently meant to make.
(Lest you think that my obvious dislike of IQ tests is because of a history of low scores, I should assure you that it isn't; in fact, the lowest I've ever scored is 118, and that was on a particularly bad day. My scores are normally in the 130-140 range, which I understand is not terribly high, but a bit above average nonetheless.)
I also find it rather disturbing that the creator of this picture states that good things inevitably follow these affirmations. This is a feel-good message on the surface, but this kind of thinking tends to place a lot of blame on people for whom things have not satisfactorily worked out. You can think all the good things that you want, and act in as positive a way as it's possible for you to act, and things will still go wrong from time to time. That's life. And blaming people for bad luck, saying that it wouldn't have happened if only they'd thought positively enough, is just not cool. It's not particularly enlightened, either.
As for the way it dismisses the concept of trying—this also isn't a great idea. "I'm trying" isn't inherently a block or a means of holding oneself back. It's not pessimistic or a premature admission of defeat. At its best, "I'm trying" means "I'm doing, and I admit that it's difficult, but I'm doing this anyway because I believe that I can." At its worst, it means "I'm in trouble here, and I could really use some help." Either way, it means that effort is being put towards a goal, and that should never be de-valued the way that it is here. Success is not always a given, and it's not self-defeating to acknowledge that when you're having a particularly difficult time with what you're doing.
And I particularly take issue with the idea that "I'm a skeptic" inherently keeps people from learning. Because I am a skeptic. That's how I learn. I am always questioning things—perhaps especially my strongest beliefs and the information that I'm most inclined to think of as the truest truth, regardless of whether it actually is. If I were to abandon my skepticism, it would have to entail an abandonment of independent thought and an acceptance of whatever I'm told. That's not learning, that's gullibility. For me, at least, skepticism is not a complete refusal to believe anything—it means that before I'll believe it, although I may consider accepting an idea, I need to see convincing proof of its validity. The fact that I require proof does not prevent me from learning. And although I'm technically a member of the Millennial generation (albeit one of its older members), and many of us were encouraged to think of ourselves as special little snowflakes who are entirely unique, I hardly think that I'm the only person who learns this way.
As much as the creator of this picture gets wrong, though, I do believe that it's a good idea to watch out for our own negative attitudes and beliefs and consider that we may be tripping ourselves up when we're having a particularly difficult time with a task or a goal. To the best of my knowledge, I've never met anyone who hasn't ever made a mistake. Human beings, it seems, are phenomenally good at undermining ourselves, especially when we believe, deep down, that we don't deserve to have something good. But that doesn't mean that we're the only thing that's holding us back. It certainly doesn't mean that we need to be told that we're not being positive enough. Thinking and saying and doing positive things—that's incredibly helpful. Even more, I think, when people we trust are encouraging us and reinforcing the positivity that we're trying to feel and to project.
But as powerful as this can be, it's only part of the puzzle. I often wish that sometimes more people who are seeking enlightenment, or who are convinced that they have achieved it, would remember this. After all, telling people that the only possible reason why they haven't succeeded is that they're not [INSERT CONDITION HERE] enough is neither positive nor helpful.
Not too long ago, I'd have absolutely loved it. I still kind of like it, but I have to admit that my thoughts about it are really rather mixed. On one hand, I do believe that the words that we say, and the things that we think, do affect the way that we live our lives—and by extension, they also have some power to affect the way that people treat us (largely because of the way that our thoughts and words cause us to behave) and the things that happen to us as a result. And I believe that it's not at all a bad idea to encourage ourselves to achieve our goals, or to believe (and reinforce the belief) that we are capable of achieving these goals. As it was put in one of my favourite movies, "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything."
That said, I have a couple of issues with this picture.
First of all, there's the way that intellect is conflated with IQ. They're not the same thing. IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, is simply one's score on any number of tests designed to measure one's intelligence—tests that are often heavily dependent on cultural expectations and that put a disproportionate amount of emphasis on mathematical and spatial abilities. Intelligence is so much more than this. It encompasses many aspects of cognitive ability—not just mathematical or spatial intelligence, but linguistic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and kinesthetic intelligence as well. IQ tests don't typically assess the creativity or problem-solving abilities of the person taking them, and people with learning disabilities (which are not in themselves indications of low intelligence) are frequently at a disadvantage when taking an IQ test. Overall, IQ tests are not a particularly reliable means of determining how intelligent a person is, and to say that IQ and intelligence itself are the same thing seriously undermines the point that the person who put this picture together apparently meant to make.
(Lest you think that my obvious dislike of IQ tests is because of a history of low scores, I should assure you that it isn't; in fact, the lowest I've ever scored is 118, and that was on a particularly bad day. My scores are normally in the 130-140 range, which I understand is not terribly high, but a bit above average nonetheless.)
I also find it rather disturbing that the creator of this picture states that good things inevitably follow these affirmations. This is a feel-good message on the surface, but this kind of thinking tends to place a lot of blame on people for whom things have not satisfactorily worked out. You can think all the good things that you want, and act in as positive a way as it's possible for you to act, and things will still go wrong from time to time. That's life. And blaming people for bad luck, saying that it wouldn't have happened if only they'd thought positively enough, is just not cool. It's not particularly enlightened, either.
As for the way it dismisses the concept of trying—this also isn't a great idea. "I'm trying" isn't inherently a block or a means of holding oneself back. It's not pessimistic or a premature admission of defeat. At its best, "I'm trying" means "I'm doing, and I admit that it's difficult, but I'm doing this anyway because I believe that I can." At its worst, it means "I'm in trouble here, and I could really use some help." Either way, it means that effort is being put towards a goal, and that should never be de-valued the way that it is here. Success is not always a given, and it's not self-defeating to acknowledge that when you're having a particularly difficult time with what you're doing.
And I particularly take issue with the idea that "I'm a skeptic" inherently keeps people from learning. Because I am a skeptic. That's how I learn. I am always questioning things—perhaps especially my strongest beliefs and the information that I'm most inclined to think of as the truest truth, regardless of whether it actually is. If I were to abandon my skepticism, it would have to entail an abandonment of independent thought and an acceptance of whatever I'm told. That's not learning, that's gullibility. For me, at least, skepticism is not a complete refusal to believe anything—it means that before I'll believe it, although I may consider accepting an idea, I need to see convincing proof of its validity. The fact that I require proof does not prevent me from learning. And although I'm technically a member of the Millennial generation (albeit one of its older members), and many of us were encouraged to think of ourselves as special little snowflakes who are entirely unique, I hardly think that I'm the only person who learns this way.
As much as the creator of this picture gets wrong, though, I do believe that it's a good idea to watch out for our own negative attitudes and beliefs and consider that we may be tripping ourselves up when we're having a particularly difficult time with a task or a goal. To the best of my knowledge, I've never met anyone who hasn't ever made a mistake. Human beings, it seems, are phenomenally good at undermining ourselves, especially when we believe, deep down, that we don't deserve to have something good. But that doesn't mean that we're the only thing that's holding us back. It certainly doesn't mean that we need to be told that we're not being positive enough. Thinking and saying and doing positive things—that's incredibly helpful. Even more, I think, when people we trust are encouraging us and reinforcing the positivity that we're trying to feel and to project.
But as powerful as this can be, it's only part of the puzzle. I often wish that sometimes more people who are seeking enlightenment, or who are convinced that they have achieved it, would remember this. After all, telling people that the only possible reason why they haven't succeeded is that they're not [INSERT CONDITION HERE] enough is neither positive nor helpful.
Monday, April 8, 2013
You Can't Steal A Person!
A few days ago, I watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World with a close friend. He'd seen it before, and he knew that it was on my list of movies that I wanted to see but hadn't got around to seeing yet. Because he knows my sense of humour very well (not least because his own sense of humour is every bit as warped as mine), he thought that the movie would probably amuse me. He was right. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would happily see it again someday.
But there was something that really, really bugged me about it. Knives Chau, who is Scott's girlfriend at the beginning of the movie, at one point physically attacks Ramona, Scott's new love interest (admittedly, with whom he cheated on Knives before he broke up with her), and shouts that Ramona "stole him with [her] advanced American slut technology!"
There is just so much wrong with that statement.
Perhaps Knives can be forgiven for that particular outburst, and for accusing Ramona of stealing Scott again a few minutes later; she's seventeen years old, after all, and I don't know about you, but when I was seventeen years old, my level of emotional maturity wasn't, er, quite what it is now. And there's quite a powerful stereotype out there which paints boys and men as all but helpless in the face of exceptional feminine beauty. It's the same mentality that accuses victims of rape of secretly wanting it or asking for it because they were drunk/scantily dressed/walking alone/previously sexually active. According to this pattern of thought, guys are helpless in the face of their own desires, and those desires can be easily swayed by unscrupulous females who use their bodies to get their attention. I'm not sure that I ever really believed the whole story, but, though the fact embarrasses me now, I must admit that in my teens I did at one time believe that it was possible for some exceptionally pretty girls to "steal" other girls' boyfriends.
But you know what? As I indignantly remarked (to my friend's slight amusement) at this point, "You can't steal a person!" And you can't. You really can't. They make the decision themselves. Hormones may deliver a good part of the inspiration for that decision, but the fact remains that they decide that they will cheat on, or even abandon, the partner they already have for somebody else. And they make the decision quite willingly. There's no theft involved.
To say that one person "steals" another implies that the person whose partner they "stole" actually owned their partner at some point. But we don't own other people. When we do, that's called slavery. And I don't think I have to tell you what an evil thing that is.
I'm just glad that in the same scene, Scott rebuts that accusation with the simple fact that he cheated on her with Ramona, who had no idea that Scott wasn't single when they first met. But the idea of one person stealing another person's partner is so absolutely ridiculous that it's past time for us to abandon it.
But there was something that really, really bugged me about it. Knives Chau, who is Scott's girlfriend at the beginning of the movie, at one point physically attacks Ramona, Scott's new love interest (admittedly, with whom he cheated on Knives before he broke up with her), and shouts that Ramona "stole him with [her] advanced American slut technology!"
There is just so much wrong with that statement.
Perhaps Knives can be forgiven for that particular outburst, and for accusing Ramona of stealing Scott again a few minutes later; she's seventeen years old, after all, and I don't know about you, but when I was seventeen years old, my level of emotional maturity wasn't, er, quite what it is now. And there's quite a powerful stereotype out there which paints boys and men as all but helpless in the face of exceptional feminine beauty. It's the same mentality that accuses victims of rape of secretly wanting it or asking for it because they were drunk/scantily dressed/walking alone/previously sexually active. According to this pattern of thought, guys are helpless in the face of their own desires, and those desires can be easily swayed by unscrupulous females who use their bodies to get their attention. I'm not sure that I ever really believed the whole story, but, though the fact embarrasses me now, I must admit that in my teens I did at one time believe that it was possible for some exceptionally pretty girls to "steal" other girls' boyfriends.
But you know what? As I indignantly remarked (to my friend's slight amusement) at this point, "You can't steal a person!" And you can't. You really can't. They make the decision themselves. Hormones may deliver a good part of the inspiration for that decision, but the fact remains that they decide that they will cheat on, or even abandon, the partner they already have for somebody else. And they make the decision quite willingly. There's no theft involved.
To say that one person "steals" another implies that the person whose partner they "stole" actually owned their partner at some point. But we don't own other people. When we do, that's called slavery. And I don't think I have to tell you what an evil thing that is.
I'm just glad that in the same scene, Scott rebuts that accusation with the simple fact that he cheated on her with Ramona, who had no idea that Scott wasn't single when they first met. But the idea of one person stealing another person's partner is so absolutely ridiculous that it's past time for us to abandon it.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Three Lists Of Three Things For Ostara
(I'm aware that Ostara was actually yesterday, but the last week has been kind of awful and I ran out of the necessary time and energy to write. Nonetheless, here are some of the things that I was thankful for, looking forward to, and intending to work on yesterday.)
Three things to be thankful for:
1. After a week of treatment for a blocked urethra, it looks like the younger of my cats is going to be OK.
2. I have good friends and a (mostly) loving family.
3. I have music to keep me sane—or at least to keep the worst of my depression at bay.
Three things to look forward to:
1. Thunderstorms.
2. Being able to walk barefoot in my backyard again.
3. My community choir's spring concert.
Three things to work on:
1. Help to promote the cause of mental health and access to mental health care and treatment in my community.
2. Finish some of my works in progress—especially an original story that I abandoned for a few years without ever really losing interest in it and a long crossover piece of fan fiction that I've been working on, in one form or another, since 2008.
3. Research and writing on subjects that interest me. I probably won't ever get the chance to further my post-secondary education, but that doesn't mean that I have to stop learning.
Three things to be thankful for:
1. After a week of treatment for a blocked urethra, it looks like the younger of my cats is going to be OK.
2. I have good friends and a (mostly) loving family.
3. I have music to keep me sane—or at least to keep the worst of my depression at bay.
Three things to look forward to:
1. Thunderstorms.
2. Being able to walk barefoot in my backyard again.
3. My community choir's spring concert.
Three things to work on:
1. Help to promote the cause of mental health and access to mental health care and treatment in my community.
2. Finish some of my works in progress—especially an original story that I abandoned for a few years without ever really losing interest in it and a long crossover piece of fan fiction that I've been working on, in one form or another, since 2008.
3. Research and writing on subjects that interest me. I probably won't ever get the chance to further my post-secondary education, but that doesn't mean that I have to stop learning.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
And Now I *Am* OK
I was almost right about one thing in the previous post: I find my mental state when I last wrote here to be rather worrying, though not actually "terrifying" as I thought I would.
I find it worrying because I'm still capable of falling that far, that fast. Admittedly, I was unusually tired at the time; until yesterday, for the last several months, there had not been a single day in which I have not had to get up, get going, and keep going because so many things needed my attention. I was having trouble sleeping. (I don't think that it's entirely coincidental that, after having given myself permission to rest from about Friday afternoon until Saturday afternoon, then running a few errands that weren't all that horrible, and then having dinner and watching most of "The Fellowship of the Ring" with a close friend in the evening, I finally feel at peace and even somewhat refreshed.) And the argument that I had on the day when I last wrote here was with someone I love; I always end up feeling the most hurt when I feel as if someone I love unconditionally only loves me conditionally, which strikes me as not being "love" as much as it is "fertile grounds for rejection," and that's precisely how I felt when we argued.
Come to think of it, that sounds an awful lot like one of the major reasons why I've never had a girlfriend or boyfriend.
And yet, I am not actually terrified by the way that I was feeling the last time I posted anything here. No matter how bad I get, I doubt that I'll ever seriously harm myself. The temptation to hit myself may exist, but I'm capable of fighting it. And I don't ever get suicidal anymore, regardless of how overwhelmed I sometimes am by negative feelings. Even when I did feel suicidal, which last happened a couple of years ago, I was never actively so; I never made plans, never acted on the feelings, only ever had a feeling of "I should remove myself from the human race because I am a hopeless, useless, superfluous drain on resources with nothing to offer the world, so I hope something happens that will erase my existence from this planet because I don't deserve to be here." That feeling hasn't come along in years now, and for that, I am thankful. I also believe that if it ever does come back, I will know how to fight it.
The thing is, my life has significantly changed since the last time the suicidal feelings happened; among other things, I now have a small and trustworthy circle of close friends. (My social life wasn't precisely nonexistent before 2011, but I mostly just had acquaintances and somewhat distant friends, and didn't feel inclined to bother the one really close friend I had at the time because she was working as a teacher in Korea and I felt that she had more important things to deal with than my petty insecurities and worries. And yes, I now realize that was silly.) And though I don't tell my friends everything, I trust them to be as supportive of me as I have tried to be supportive of them. Thus far, my trust and my love (and yes, I love these people) have not been proven to be misplaced. I believe they will not be.
So. I'm fine, for the time being, at least. And I'm looking forward to singing at church this morning and then taking a long walk somewhere this afternoon, because the sun is shining, the snow looks absolutely glorious, and on days like this, I am not just grateful to be alive—I absolutely love it.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I'm Not OK
Right now, I'm in a state of mind that I know will terrify me later, when I've managed to re-establish some of my mental equilibrium. I won't say what's put me in this state, though I will say that an argument was involved, and that I believe that I am 100% at fault.
I feel useless, lonely, alone, hopeless, and totally worthless. I feel like I want my body to be in as much pain as my mind is at present; right now, it's taking a considerable amount of willpower to stop myself from inflicting pain with the nearest wire coat hanger or heavy book. (And I have both of these things in abundance.) I feel like if I disappeared, nobody would ever miss me; I feel like nobody would even notice for at least a couple of weeks. The scary thing is that this is what I'm feeling even after I've actually calmed down a little.
Living with depression, especially depression that's gone untreated as long as mine has, is a pain in the ass, to say the least. I know that treatment options exist; I also know that even here, in Canada, I cannot afford to seek them out, and even if I could, I wouldn't be getting treatment any time soon; in my city, we have within the past year had to withstand a reduction in mental health services, so there's quite a waiting list for help, and in any case, even the least expensive counsellor available here charges $150 per hour of counselling. That's way out of the range of what I could ever possibly afford. So, frankly, it's easier for me to stay home, save the money, and do the best I can with music, reading, writing, my volunteer work, occasional socialization (I have several particularly close friends, most of whom I don't see nearly often enough, and one with whom I typically spend several hours at the end of each week), and meditation. Usually this helps. In spite of incidents like this, I'm getting better. I haven't actually felt suicidal in about two years, though there have been times when I've felt a little more able to understand the urge than usual. (That's scary enough for me, believe me.) But I am still prone to fits of moodiness, and there still are times, like this afternoon, when something in me breaks and I find myself rapidly spiralling back down into that state of mind that I once knew so well: that mix of feelings of worthlessness, self-hatred, irritability, lethargy, and hopelessness that are the earmarks of my particular kind of depression.
The irony? Just before the argument began, the one that set off my current mental state, I was doing some research about depression so that I could write about it for another blog, one that I've set up and am maintaining for a cause that is very dear to my heart.
Mission accomplished, I think. If nothing else, in my current mood, I certainly have my inspiration.
I feel useless, lonely, alone, hopeless, and totally worthless. I feel like I want my body to be in as much pain as my mind is at present; right now, it's taking a considerable amount of willpower to stop myself from inflicting pain with the nearest wire coat hanger or heavy book. (And I have both of these things in abundance.) I feel like if I disappeared, nobody would ever miss me; I feel like nobody would even notice for at least a couple of weeks. The scary thing is that this is what I'm feeling even after I've actually calmed down a little.
Living with depression, especially depression that's gone untreated as long as mine has, is a pain in the ass, to say the least. I know that treatment options exist; I also know that even here, in Canada, I cannot afford to seek them out, and even if I could, I wouldn't be getting treatment any time soon; in my city, we have within the past year had to withstand a reduction in mental health services, so there's quite a waiting list for help, and in any case, even the least expensive counsellor available here charges $150 per hour of counselling. That's way out of the range of what I could ever possibly afford. So, frankly, it's easier for me to stay home, save the money, and do the best I can with music, reading, writing, my volunteer work, occasional socialization (I have several particularly close friends, most of whom I don't see nearly often enough, and one with whom I typically spend several hours at the end of each week), and meditation. Usually this helps. In spite of incidents like this, I'm getting better. I haven't actually felt suicidal in about two years, though there have been times when I've felt a little more able to understand the urge than usual. (That's scary enough for me, believe me.) But I am still prone to fits of moodiness, and there still are times, like this afternoon, when something in me breaks and I find myself rapidly spiralling back down into that state of mind that I once knew so well: that mix of feelings of worthlessness, self-hatred, irritability, lethargy, and hopelessness that are the earmarks of my particular kind of depression.
The irony? Just before the argument began, the one that set off my current mental state, I was doing some research about depression so that I could write about it for another blog, one that I've set up and am maintaining for a cause that is very dear to my heart.
Mission accomplished, I think. If nothing else, in my current mood, I certainly have my inspiration.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
"Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."
I've run into this terrible saying so many times in the past few days that I just have to say something about it.
First of all, it's a lie. I'm not saying that there are no incompetent teachers, of course. That would also be a lie. But I am saying that we do not have so many incompetent people in our profession that it justifies saying that we are all incompetent. When I walk into a room full of teachers, which happens more often than you might think (my life is kind of weird that way), I always see within a few minutes that I am walking into a room full of caring, professional, and exceptionally intelligent people who are always looking for better ways to teach the students in their classrooms. Some are better at it than others, of course, but there's a baseline standard to which we are all held, and it is a strict one. We are constantly evaluated for our effectiveness, and if we fall short of the standard, there are consequences.
Teaching is not the easy job that so many non-teachers assume that it is. When school is in session, we spend more hours in a day with our students than many of their parents are able to unless it's a weekend or a holiday. Thus we are not only expected to teach our students; we are also expected to raise them. We take our work home with us; lessons don't plan themselves, and the work that we collect from our students does not mark itself. We take courses to learn new things about teaching and learning so as to be better and more interesting teachers for our students. We deal with irate parents who don't like it when their perfect little angel is disciplined for beating up a classmate or who are upset because their child failed an assignment. We are often the first to notice when a student has a mental health issue or a learning disability, and when the problem is found and understood, we spend extra time on our lesson plans to make sure that we put the necessary modifications and accommodations into place so that these students (and frequently, there is more than one student in a classroom who needs such modifications and accommodations) have as fair a chance at success as their peers. To be a teacher is to be a diplomat, a temporary substitute parent, a record-keeper, an actor, a researcher, and a perpetual student all at once. It is a challenging profession, and one that is as important as any other.
And yet the general public is consistently encouraged to think poorly of us, to blame us for everything that goes wrong, and to de-value what we do. "They're just lazy," they're told. "Look at all the vacation time they get. Look at how well they get paid. If they want any respect, they should get a real job. Teaching is so easy, anyone can do it. They don't need sick leave. They don't need a better salary, not even the newer ones who are just starting out. They don't need preparation and planning time. And if they complain, don't listen. They're just whining because they don't understand the real world. They need to shut up and do their easy jobs. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." It's a lie, and, as lies go, it's a particularly dangerous one.
Put simply, those who can, do. Those who can, and who are dedicated to making sure that others can as well, teach. Those who can't are not teachers.
And people who sling this thoroughly false and terrible statement, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" at teachers are acting maliciously and are often wilfully ignorant.
First of all, it's a lie. I'm not saying that there are no incompetent teachers, of course. That would also be a lie. But I am saying that we do not have so many incompetent people in our profession that it justifies saying that we are all incompetent. When I walk into a room full of teachers, which happens more often than you might think (my life is kind of weird that way), I always see within a few minutes that I am walking into a room full of caring, professional, and exceptionally intelligent people who are always looking for better ways to teach the students in their classrooms. Some are better at it than others, of course, but there's a baseline standard to which we are all held, and it is a strict one. We are constantly evaluated for our effectiveness, and if we fall short of the standard, there are consequences.
Teaching is not the easy job that so many non-teachers assume that it is. When school is in session, we spend more hours in a day with our students than many of their parents are able to unless it's a weekend or a holiday. Thus we are not only expected to teach our students; we are also expected to raise them. We take our work home with us; lessons don't plan themselves, and the work that we collect from our students does not mark itself. We take courses to learn new things about teaching and learning so as to be better and more interesting teachers for our students. We deal with irate parents who don't like it when their perfect little angel is disciplined for beating up a classmate or who are upset because their child failed an assignment. We are often the first to notice when a student has a mental health issue or a learning disability, and when the problem is found and understood, we spend extra time on our lesson plans to make sure that we put the necessary modifications and accommodations into place so that these students (and frequently, there is more than one student in a classroom who needs such modifications and accommodations) have as fair a chance at success as their peers. To be a teacher is to be a diplomat, a temporary substitute parent, a record-keeper, an actor, a researcher, and a perpetual student all at once. It is a challenging profession, and one that is as important as any other.
And yet the general public is consistently encouraged to think poorly of us, to blame us for everything that goes wrong, and to de-value what we do. "They're just lazy," they're told. "Look at all the vacation time they get. Look at how well they get paid. If they want any respect, they should get a real job. Teaching is so easy, anyone can do it. They don't need sick leave. They don't need a better salary, not even the newer ones who are just starting out. They don't need preparation and planning time. And if they complain, don't listen. They're just whining because they don't understand the real world. They need to shut up and do their easy jobs. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." It's a lie, and, as lies go, it's a particularly dangerous one.
Put simply, those who can, do. Those who can, and who are dedicated to making sure that others can as well, teach. Those who can't are not teachers.
And people who sling this thoroughly false and terrible statement, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" at teachers are acting maliciously and are often wilfully ignorant.
Friday, January 11, 2013
On Liking Christ But Not Christians
There's a quote that I've seen several times recently, some with slightly different wording, that's frequently attributed to a certain Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who is of course better known as Mahatma Gandhi. A little bit of research has informed me that there's not a lot of evidence that he actually did say it, but nonetheless, Gandhi the historical figure and Gandhi the archetype do seem to be a bit different at times. In any case, the quote in question is "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians; your Christians are so unlike your Christ." And frequently, I've been encountering it in contexts that make me feel extremely uncomfortable and even a little bit insulted.
I know. I'm a Christo-Pagan; to a good many people whose Paganism is, as some would say, more "pure" (ugh) than mine is, I'm effectively a member of the enemy camp. They would say that I've sided with the oppressors, the megalomaniacs, the ones who want to Do All The Bad Things to women, children, LGBTQI (etc.) people, poor people, people in overpopulated areas or areas in which diseases, especially sexually-transmitted diseases, are still a huge health threat, and the rest. They would say that I am a tool of the patriarchy, a tool of the Christian supremacists, a tool of anybody who hopes to make Christian theocracies out of countries in which people are currently free to choose what they will and will not believe, and all that. In short, they'd say that because of the Christian aspects of my personal spiritual practices, I am not to be trusted and my opinion doesn't matter. And I would even hesitate to express this sentiment to close friends of mine who happen to be Pagans of various stripes because I do have a certain amount of Christian privilege, and I do my best to keep from hurting anyone with it, and I would especially hate for it to hurt those who number among my nearest and dearest. So there are things that I keep quiet about, no matter how much they hurt me, because my hurt is, in the end, the hurt of someone who has a form of privilege that they don't, and using that privilege to silence them is bad form at best. But damn it, this is my space, and so I feel free to say this here: I used to like this quote, regardless of who and what its actual source may be. (I've also seen at least one version of it attributed to the Dalai Lama.) I don't anymore.
The thing is, I know a lot of Christians who are kind, compassionate, and generous people. They aren't perfect. They've all done things that they regret, they all have their dark sides, and they all have their own issues, but that's because they're people, not because they're Christians. And I've been part of a number of initiatives at my church that were aimed directly at helping people who are less fortunate than ourselves, including putting on a play that raised money for Child's Play and making warm winter clothing for children who live on a remote reserve in the far north. One of my close friends is an Agnostic who was raised in two Protestant denominations, at least one of which is Evangelical in a thoroughly Charismatic way; I am also fond of his still-Evangelical parents, who have always treated me with great kindness. With a few individual exceptions, most of the members of my family are Christians of one denomination or another (most frequently Anglicans or Catholics, though a few other denominations make their appearance here and there), and as much as some of them drive me nuts sometimes, they are good people and I love them.
To place all of these people in the same category as those Christians who harm others and use their religion as an excuse to do so, those Christians who oppress others because they are something of which those Christians don't approve, those Christians who kick people when they're down, and those Christians who, through self-righteousness because they believe that they are "Saved," look down on others who are less fortunate than they are or who are different from them in some way...on a bone-deep level, that strikes me as being wrong. And I know that this whole post probably reads as a slightly more long-winded example of something from Derailing For Dummies, but nonetheless, to make such a blanket statement as "I do not like your Christians; your Christians are so unlike your Christ" does imply that the speaker believes that all of them are hateful, all of them are hypocrites, and not a single one of them is a decent human being. I take exception to this. It is a direct insult to me, as someone who sees Jesus as a face of the Divine, and even more so to all the genuinely good people I know who happen to be members of one Christian denomination or another and who walk considerably more traditional avenues of belief than I do.
I am every bit as insulted by that statement as I would be by anyone who disparages Paganism or insults any of my Pagan friends. And I cannot simply understand that we are not among the people who are being pointed out as hypocrites by the originator of this quote; because of its wording, the phrasing that does not include anything like "with a few exceptions, your Christians are so unlike your Christ," it's hard to interpret this as anything but a harsh criticism of everyone who has claimed some variety of Christianity as part of their identity, particularly because the quote is frequently attributed to men who are widely acknowledged to be, or to have been, particularly wise and enlightened, and who are known to never have been Christians.
I understand Christian privilege and I certainly understand anger at Christianity. In many ways, I still feel this anger myself. But I am angry with the Christians who use their religion as an excuse to do harm, the Christians who use their power to cover up terrible things, and the Christians who try to impose their beliefs (regardless of whether it's through political influence or unwanted proselytizing) on other people. Believe it or not, it is possible to make distinctions between these Christians and the ones who do not use their faith as a weapon of Mass (ha!) douchebaggery.
I know. I'm a Christo-Pagan; to a good many people whose Paganism is, as some would say, more "pure" (ugh) than mine is, I'm effectively a member of the enemy camp. They would say that I've sided with the oppressors, the megalomaniacs, the ones who want to Do All The Bad Things to women, children, LGBTQI (etc.) people, poor people, people in overpopulated areas or areas in which diseases, especially sexually-transmitted diseases, are still a huge health threat, and the rest. They would say that I am a tool of the patriarchy, a tool of the Christian supremacists, a tool of anybody who hopes to make Christian theocracies out of countries in which people are currently free to choose what they will and will not believe, and all that. In short, they'd say that because of the Christian aspects of my personal spiritual practices, I am not to be trusted and my opinion doesn't matter. And I would even hesitate to express this sentiment to close friends of mine who happen to be Pagans of various stripes because I do have a certain amount of Christian privilege, and I do my best to keep from hurting anyone with it, and I would especially hate for it to hurt those who number among my nearest and dearest. So there are things that I keep quiet about, no matter how much they hurt me, because my hurt is, in the end, the hurt of someone who has a form of privilege that they don't, and using that privilege to silence them is bad form at best. But damn it, this is my space, and so I feel free to say this here: I used to like this quote, regardless of who and what its actual source may be. (I've also seen at least one version of it attributed to the Dalai Lama.) I don't anymore.
The thing is, I know a lot of Christians who are kind, compassionate, and generous people. They aren't perfect. They've all done things that they regret, they all have their dark sides, and they all have their own issues, but that's because they're people, not because they're Christians. And I've been part of a number of initiatives at my church that were aimed directly at helping people who are less fortunate than ourselves, including putting on a play that raised money for Child's Play and making warm winter clothing for children who live on a remote reserve in the far north. One of my close friends is an Agnostic who was raised in two Protestant denominations, at least one of which is Evangelical in a thoroughly Charismatic way; I am also fond of his still-Evangelical parents, who have always treated me with great kindness. With a few individual exceptions, most of the members of my family are Christians of one denomination or another (most frequently Anglicans or Catholics, though a few other denominations make their appearance here and there), and as much as some of them drive me nuts sometimes, they are good people and I love them.
To place all of these people in the same category as those Christians who harm others and use their religion as an excuse to do so, those Christians who oppress others because they are something of which those Christians don't approve, those Christians who kick people when they're down, and those Christians who, through self-righteousness because they believe that they are "Saved," look down on others who are less fortunate than they are or who are different from them in some way...on a bone-deep level, that strikes me as being wrong. And I know that this whole post probably reads as a slightly more long-winded example of something from Derailing For Dummies, but nonetheless, to make such a blanket statement as "I do not like your Christians; your Christians are so unlike your Christ" does imply that the speaker believes that all of them are hateful, all of them are hypocrites, and not a single one of them is a decent human being. I take exception to this. It is a direct insult to me, as someone who sees Jesus as a face of the Divine, and even more so to all the genuinely good people I know who happen to be members of one Christian denomination or another and who walk considerably more traditional avenues of belief than I do.
I am every bit as insulted by that statement as I would be by anyone who disparages Paganism or insults any of my Pagan friends. And I cannot simply understand that we are not among the people who are being pointed out as hypocrites by the originator of this quote; because of its wording, the phrasing that does not include anything like "with a few exceptions, your Christians are so unlike your Christ," it's hard to interpret this as anything but a harsh criticism of everyone who has claimed some variety of Christianity as part of their identity, particularly because the quote is frequently attributed to men who are widely acknowledged to be, or to have been, particularly wise and enlightened, and who are known to never have been Christians.
I understand Christian privilege and I certainly understand anger at Christianity. In many ways, I still feel this anger myself. But I am angry with the Christians who use their religion as an excuse to do harm, the Christians who use their power to cover up terrible things, and the Christians who try to impose their beliefs (regardless of whether it's through political influence or unwanted proselytizing) on other people. Believe it or not, it is possible to make distinctions between these Christians and the ones who do not use their faith as a weapon of Mass (ha!) douchebaggery.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Some belated reflections on the tragedy in Newtown
This may or may not make me a terrible person, but it actually took a few days for the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT to sink in. Nonetheless, seven women and twenty children died two weeks ago today. By rights, they should still be alive.
I didn't hear about it on the day when it happened; after a fairly busy morning, I spent the bulk of the afternoon and evening with a close friend that day, and since checking the news isn't generally one of our priorities when we spend time together, I didn't hear about it until at all until the day after. And then it seemed that it was almost all I heard about; as I understand it, more detailed stories were then beginning to emerge, both true and untrue, about the shooter, about his actions, and about the women (none of the people he killed were men) and children whose lives he so cruelly took. And in all honesty, it didn't really sink in until a few days later, when the principal at the school where I'm doing my volunteer work handed me a bulletin that was put together by the school board about dealing with questions that the students may ask about dealing with this tragedy, as well as our own reactions to the news.
You know, I was sixteen years old when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris went on their killing spree at Columbine High School in Colorado. I still remember the shock that I felt, still remember the backlash against people who dressed predominantly in black, or who happened to wear long black coats. (And this was in a school whose official "colours" were black and grey; we wore uniforms in the school's colours, for goodness' sake, and a good many of the more comfortable shirts happened to be black!) I remember the rumours that went around, both about the Columbine tragedy and possible copycats at our own school. Most of all, though, I remember being completely unable to understand just why anyone would do anything that horrible, why they would take lives that weren't theirs to take.
It may be a mark of the cynicism that I developed for a few years, but although I'd never do such a thing myself (I'm fundamentally a non-violent person), I think I understand a bit better. There is such a glorification of guns and violence in Western culture; it's not as prevalent in Canada as it is elsewhere, but it exists nonetheless. To have a gun is to have a kind of power that it seems many people find to be intoxicating. Shoot someone, and you can utterly change their life, or even end it entirely. This doesn't excuse the crime. It doesn't even really explain it. But it certainly makes it easier for tragedies like the shootings at Columbine and Sandy Hook to happen in the first place. Until this stops, until people stop celebrating guns and violence as a mark of power and masculinity, these things will keep happening. And despite anything that the NRA might say about the matter, arming teachers is not the solution. If anything, it would only open the door to further violence.
Because I'm a teacher myself, and because I'm currently working with children who are very close to the age of the kids who were killed in Newtown two weeks ago, I can't avoid the fact that this tragedy hits very close to home. Shootings like this are rare. They happen even less frequently in Canada than they do in the USA. (That said, we passed the 23rd anniversary of the massacre at the École Polytechnique de Montréal at the beginning of this month, and there were a number of bomb scares at schools in my city in 1995, though no explosives were ever actually found.) But we have procedures to be followed in the event that something like this does happen, and I work with at least two students who are, even at their young age, enthusiastic about first-person-shooter video games. One of these students has anger management issues, though he's getting better at handling them, and because he is at present a fundamentally good person, I do not ever want to hear that he has turned out like Klebold, Harris, Marc Lepine, or Adam Lanza.
It's sobering to think that, as rare as these things are, they could conceivably happen to me, or to any of my friends or acquaintances who are teachers. It's heartbreaking to know that they still happen at all.
I didn't hear about it on the day when it happened; after a fairly busy morning, I spent the bulk of the afternoon and evening with a close friend that day, and since checking the news isn't generally one of our priorities when we spend time together, I didn't hear about it until at all until the day after. And then it seemed that it was almost all I heard about; as I understand it, more detailed stories were then beginning to emerge, both true and untrue, about the shooter, about his actions, and about the women (none of the people he killed were men) and children whose lives he so cruelly took. And in all honesty, it didn't really sink in until a few days later, when the principal at the school where I'm doing my volunteer work handed me a bulletin that was put together by the school board about dealing with questions that the students may ask about dealing with this tragedy, as well as our own reactions to the news.
You know, I was sixteen years old when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris went on their killing spree at Columbine High School in Colorado. I still remember the shock that I felt, still remember the backlash against people who dressed predominantly in black, or who happened to wear long black coats. (And this was in a school whose official "colours" were black and grey; we wore uniforms in the school's colours, for goodness' sake, and a good many of the more comfortable shirts happened to be black!) I remember the rumours that went around, both about the Columbine tragedy and possible copycats at our own school. Most of all, though, I remember being completely unable to understand just why anyone would do anything that horrible, why they would take lives that weren't theirs to take.
It may be a mark of the cynicism that I developed for a few years, but although I'd never do such a thing myself (I'm fundamentally a non-violent person), I think I understand a bit better. There is such a glorification of guns and violence in Western culture; it's not as prevalent in Canada as it is elsewhere, but it exists nonetheless. To have a gun is to have a kind of power that it seems many people find to be intoxicating. Shoot someone, and you can utterly change their life, or even end it entirely. This doesn't excuse the crime. It doesn't even really explain it. But it certainly makes it easier for tragedies like the shootings at Columbine and Sandy Hook to happen in the first place. Until this stops, until people stop celebrating guns and violence as a mark of power and masculinity, these things will keep happening. And despite anything that the NRA might say about the matter, arming teachers is not the solution. If anything, it would only open the door to further violence.
Because I'm a teacher myself, and because I'm currently working with children who are very close to the age of the kids who were killed in Newtown two weeks ago, I can't avoid the fact that this tragedy hits very close to home. Shootings like this are rare. They happen even less frequently in Canada than they do in the USA. (That said, we passed the 23rd anniversary of the massacre at the École Polytechnique de Montréal at the beginning of this month, and there were a number of bomb scares at schools in my city in 1995, though no explosives were ever actually found.) But we have procedures to be followed in the event that something like this does happen, and I work with at least two students who are, even at their young age, enthusiastic about first-person-shooter video games. One of these students has anger management issues, though he's getting better at handling them, and because he is at present a fundamentally good person, I do not ever want to hear that he has turned out like Klebold, Harris, Marc Lepine, or Adam Lanza.
It's sobering to think that, as rare as these things are, they could conceivably happen to me, or to any of my friends or acquaintances who are teachers. It's heartbreaking to know that they still happen at all.
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