The Learning Teacher

This blog has served multiple purposes it seems. At times I have themes, like India or quotes. At times it serves to just be an avenue where I can write out recent realizations that happened to occur when I'm actually willing to write and not be lazy. And since the beginning, the title of this blog has transformed to fit all these multiple purposes. I'm glad I chose such a vague title as, "eyes to see." :P

Today, I'd like to introduce a new theme that will carry throughout the summer. This blog will document my time teaching at a school in San Francisco for the next two months. My belief in education as a tool to bring change in social justice issues is strong, and this summer I want take a dip into what it actually takes!

Logistically, I will be teaching science to 5th graders with a team of other college students from around the U.S. The program I'm working with specifically targets high-achieving, low-income students. It focuses on this particular group because most often than not, students who are academically capable face specific challenges because of their socio-economic background that must be recognized. Without intentional support in the current U.S. educational system, many of these students fall out of paths toward college compared with students coming from higher-income homes.

I received an email recently of the orientation week schedule, and took a deep breath. :] The hours are long, but I have a pretty certain feeling all this will be worth it. I'm hoping to blog at least 1-2 times a week until the end of this program. In the end, I also hope explore the intersections between God, education, and my passions as a teacher.

I will come in as a teacher, but oh my, there is so much to learn :] Excited.

means and ends

means and ends. i often get them switched up. often times, switching them up is a costly thing. then why do i especially like to make means into ends if i already know that this would be costly? why do ends always hide themselves so subtly, that people spend their whole lives just achieving means?

all right, enough with the vagueness. it's always hard to read blog posts when generalizations are used. so i will talk specifics. today is january 16th, a little late for new years resolutions, but nonetheless, the weight of making goals, bucket lists, and expectations for the new year has finally hit. the year is 2011, a year of tumultuous changes, decisions, and the ongoing list of "last semester, last classes, last retreats, last january 16th i'll ever have at berkeley, last ___..." yes, you get the picture.

everything in me wants this last semester here at berkeley to be the epitome of my experience as an undergrad, to make the most of every moment with people special to me, to practice disciplines like praying consistently, to explore every best rated on yelp for berkeley restaurants/activities, to overcome fears i've had throughout college, to have the next year set in stone so that my parents will know that i'm capable with living on my own. in other words, to be a perfect superwoman sarahlee by may 2011.

haha.

where has all this goal-making got me to? it has got me into the mentality that "perfect superwoman sarahlee" is the end-all of all my desires. "but that's completely unrealistic, and so selfish!" i had thought. this realization got me all cynical about goal-making for a little while. why make goals when i don't even know what's best for me? why make goals when half the time i utterly fail them, forget about them, grow apathetic about them? i'll just stop making goals and live without expectation so i'll never get disappointed.

sigh, just kidding.

the reason for this post is an interesting one as i discover more how easily it is to switch my means into ends. more specifically, making the achievement of my goals the end instead of making goals the means of reaching an end that i'm not so aware of. what is that true end then? i hope i'm making sense.

anyway, here is a thought to consider. what if, the true end of goal-making is actually the process of achieving those goals? in attempting to reach goals, i've seen what takes priority in my life, i see how many obstacles i'm willing to encounter to reach certain goals, i see how limited i am in my discipline and strength to become someone i want to be, i encounter how deeply rooted some of my fears are, i realize that sometimes i have to take my eraser and change my goals as i discover that some goals are actually fruitless and self-seeking, i find that smaller steps might be needed. most importantly for me, i become more keenly aware of weak i am, how tainted my judgment can be, and yet at the same time be in the position to say, "God, your way is better." Suddenly, goal-making and achieving are a means to discovering all the above.

Goal-making is a risk, because there is every reason for those goals not to be fulfilled. But without movement, i'd just stay stagnant my whole life, living the way of prevention, living cautiously as to seem perfect, and completely miss out on what God has to share with me. But with risk, i step into the realm of something beyond what i think i can do, i step into making mistakes, i step into dependence on God's constant presence and rely on Him to teach me what the true end might be.

In conclusion, today I decided that finishing my bucket list for the last semester at berkeley is well worth it :]

salvageable?

my first language was cantonese. when i watch home videos of myself, i hardly recognize my own voice when i was younger. the fluency i had back then is ridiculous(ly good) to what i sound like today.

this break has been unique in that my grandma has been here with my family in san diego. i have never spent the holidays (consciously at least, i have when i was much younger) with my grandma. this holiday is extra special because for the first time i've baked with my grandma, handed her a present for christmas, listened to her story, and lived life with her.

she is an amazing individual...living in vietnam during the war, receiving minimal education though she desired much more, being treated as something "lower than" because she was the girl in the family, feeling restricted the majority of her life because of her controlling guardian, learning to live in the different cultures of venezuela and canada...the list can go on.

i stand amazed and yet saddened because only now, after so much life has already passed have my grandma and i gotten to really know each other. and what has kept that distance though my family visits her almost every year now is language. the weight of that sadness came especially today when we were having breakfast downstairs in the kitchen. for some reason my cantonese was extra choppy and i could not communicate myself fully to her. my problem is that i understand practically everything spoken but draw a blank when it comes to speaking myself. after mumbling something half understandable she told me a few things that i don't know how to take in yet.

"your family should have never spoken english between each other, that way you would have remembered," "your brother speaks better than you do," "this is how i feel like when i have a meal with your family, and i just sit there because i cannot speak english like you all do, neither do i understand everything your family is saying."

i didn't know how to respond (of course even if i did, it'd probably be miscommunicated anyway). i nodded and smiled instead showing her i understood and agreed to what she said.

guilt. shame. regret. all these can't be avoided in life. i feel that at least the initial impact of these things are far too natural to be avoided. but is guilt the end of the road? far from it! that is why i titled this post as it is. is my cantonese salvageable? yes. but now i have a choice, to wallow in my guilt, or do something about it. now more than before do i really desire not only to have my cantonese back, but also to know my history. to love my history, because though it still might be foreign to me, it is every part in shaping the environment and place i am today. and for my grandma, that we'd have a time one day when we'd joke, and chat, and to be more fully able to love each other through the words we say.