My reason to come to Collectivo in Wauwatosa today was not to eat an Avocado BLT, pore over the MKE Film Festival schedule (circling all of the movies that I want to--scratch that--MUST see) and write my blog. But alas, here I am. To my three readers out there, I appreciate your weekly dedication to my brain download. E-fives all around! whap whap whap. (PS, hi mom!)
I'm reading
....still reading The Survival of the Nicest , Stefan Klein. Teaching doesn't leave a ton of free time to devote brain power to free reading. Especially when the reading involves drawn-out hypotheticals attempting to make game-theory more digestible. For my squirrel brain, it doesn't. I need someone to hold my hand and walk me through that chapter. However, I did take some big learnings away from the surrounding chapters.
#1 "When the gentle of the earth begin to predominate, the unscrupulous see their chance." (pg. 30) This is obvious. If everyone on earth was 100% trusting of their neighbor, and only one person was a con artist, the con artist would rule the world. It makes us forever be on guard, forever be slightly skeptical of everyone we meet.
#2 What is trust? "They give someone else something and hope that he will later reciprocate. But they can neither force the other to return the favor nor punish him if he doesn't. Trusting means exposing yourself to risk." (pg 39) The more and more I try to reflect and see if I'm modeling trust for my students in my classroom, I also try to consciously give examples when students are breaking my trust and giving me reasons to be more skeptical of them in the future. It does put me at risk as a teacher, but what do they say in gambling? You have to bet big to win big? I'm hoping to win big with my students this year.
#3 Colin M. Turnbull learned a lot about trust through the Ik tribe in Western Uganda.
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| Colin Turnbull |
In Survival of the Nicest, Stefan Klein boils down Turnbull's research into a few pages. And I will further boil it down so it fits nicely in my blog :)
Turnbull lived among and observed the Ik tribe, and found that stemming from the instance of famine, the Ik people were showing behaviors that was uncharacteristic of them in the past. Things like dishonesty bred (in the form of one hunter killing prey privately, and gorging on the meat just for himself), and mistrust (as women were doing the same, only with berries, the men began to distrust their women). Read more about this fascinating anthropologist here.
This makes me think of all of these situations we were taught to consider in the school of education that at the time we perhaps considered somewhat, but now consider every day in our real teaching positions. Maybe some students aren't experiencing famine, but a lack of....attention? at home. Duh. We've heard this all before. It becomes more and more obvious though how all kids need attention just as much as they need food. For all behaviors, there's a lack of something. The angry student? Deprived of love or trust. The disrespectful student? Perhaps this student is so disrespected him or herself on a daily basis, s/he has thoroughly given up on showing respect towards others. These are just ideas, and most of them are perhaps obvious to the common teacher or caretaker, but thinking about it for the millionth time, something new has stuck with me.
Do you know the feeling in the air, the taste almost, just before a summer thunderstorm? An energy is buzzing, slightly tangible, and you just know a large crack is coming that will split the sky and spill buckets of water, slashing left and right in the imminent gusts of wind? That's where my head is at right now, except instead of a beautiful and refreshing thunderstorm, my head is threatening to produce a severe migraine, and I'm holding on to the last moments of calm before the storm, in order to end this blog post gracefully. So, I leave you here my three e-friends. Here's to another beautiful week of inspiring students and learning, always learning.
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