Black and White

"I am losing precious days.  I am degenerating into a machine for making money.  I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men.  I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news."  John Muir

I drew a picture of autumn in my Human Behavior class, just like I used to do back when I was in undergrad: make paint drawings on my computer.  Only this time, I also talk in class and contribute, because I actually have thoughts to share and questions to ask.  My professor was talking about race and explaining the process of children coming to an understanding of it, but she spoke like an outsider, as if she was raceless rather than white.  My class has zero diversity, in terms of color: we are all white.  But why didn't the conversation open up to what that means to people?  Did you always know you were white?  I didn't really even know why race was even an issue until I was older.  I had grown up in such a homogenous community, I didn't even really understand why prejudice existed.  People were people.  Isn't this why Stuff White People Like was developed?  Because some white people think they have no culture?  Then I go on that site and every new thing he adds, I think, "I love that!".

I used to think, when I was little, that if people would just stop referring to each other in terms of color, all those issues would go away!  What was wrong with people?!  And why were there two political parties?  Wasn't there just one correct answer to every problem?  Shouldn't these people be finding that answer?  Why would you support the wrong answer?

I also thought that the world had actually existed in black and white at one time, from watching black and white movies.  I remember staring out the window at all the grass and trees, asking my mom, "So when was color invented?".  I also thought God wrote the Bible and dropped it down from the sky and that the rest of the world lived in chains because my teachers kept telling me to be thankful for the freedom that I had.  I pictured everyone else in the world living in black and white still, in prison, and starving.  And I also thought I was a pretty smart kid.

I'm glad I don't think those things anymore, but the learning never stops.  One of the most frustrating things, in my social work classes, is to hear classmates ask questions such as, "Why is immigration so hard?  I mean, my grandparents came over here and worked."  There is just so much I want to respond to that I have to focus on containing myself and remember that we are not on the same page.... maybe even not in the same book.  I will limit myself to one reasonable comment given without an inkle of outrage... hopefully.

But am I learning nothing in this trivial world of men?  Sometimes, I do want to flee to the mountains and get away from having to converse with those whose ideas don't expand my mind in ways I'd like.  But there is always something to learn, even if it's how to hold my tongue and refrain from exploding over the myriad of challenges faced by all kinds of immigrants and how.....

I will finish my drawing of the woods.

The Cost of a Book

Some photos from La Vida last Fall.

After reviewing some of the syllabus, my professor walked towards the cardboard boxes in the center of the room.  They were taped up with addresses and stamps, wrapped with white plastic tape all around them.  He asked if anyone had a knife.  Surrounded by outdoor education students, it was surely inevitable.

"If I cut myself, I suspect we have some people with the medical qualifications to help me." he said, as he began to use someone's pocketknife.

"You're going to give us the books?" asked a student.
"I'm not going to give them to you, you're going to take them." said the professor.

Upon breaking the seals, he returned to his seat.  "The retail value of these is $40."  he said, pausing, as he often does between sentences.  He sits with his arms calmly placed on each chair rest of the chairs next to him, in this circle we're all apart of.  His burnt orange t-shirt has a logo on the back for a mountain club and he's wearing Chacos around his feet.  Without any pretenses or judgments, he speaks intentionally.  Every word seems to be weighted with value and engages each person.  "But the Publisher sells them to me for $20."

"I know that a lot of people have invested in me."  He goes on to tell the story of why he ended up in this field.  We begin to see that 37 years of research and experience have gone into this book.

The room is quiet as we contemplate the boxes of books.  "Now, if you take a book, you get to choose the remuneration."  He then gets out of his chair and walks towards the books.  "You could do this."  He picks one up and walks back to his desk.  "You could pick up a book and sit down."  Then, he returns to the books and hesitates before asking, "Or - does anyone have, a lot of money on them?"  To this, everyone smiles, perhaps thinking it's an ironic question for a group of college students, but a girl happens to have a $50 bill on her.  "Now see, she could take that, get a book, and put the money in, and return to her seat."  His voice doesn't let on that there is a right answer, as most facilitator voices often sound like.

By the end of class, everyone has a book.  Some just took one, another put in a note and a $20 bill, another explained he would give according to the value he thought it should have (after reading it), and I?  Well, he already gave me a copy last year when I sat in on his class.  I told him this, to which he asked, "Why do you think I gave you one?"  "Because I think you believe in it and you want to share your knowledge.  But I was thinking I'd pay you back."

He allowed us to make our own meaning, which people do all the time in the realms of this field.  People quickly create metaphors for their own life and choose the value of their experience.  An element on the ropes course or challenge in nature (such as hiking up a steep mountain) turn into analogies for how they deal with struggle, how they perceive a problem, or how they communicate effectively with the people around them.  Yesterday, my group drew analogies from the Spider's Web to learning a difficult (German) piece of music (they were a choral group).  Here, our professor allowed us to put our own monetary value on something, or not - and here I am building a metaphor from that situation to my experience within experiential education.  The challenge is to bring the learning from those novel experiences to how we handle our daily routines and how we integrate them with our "normal" selves.

Welcome to Adventure Therapy.  Let the games begin.