Week 3 — Talking Points — Desert Island Thinking #MTBoSBlaugust

When I arrived at Princeton, I had been placed with three other roommates in a Gothic dorm suite. I was proud of the things I had accomplished so far. I'd been tied for valedictorian at a huge and competitive public high school, I'd been a soloist at the All-State choral and orchestral concert, and I'd been president of and/or varsity lettered in all my extracurriculars.

So as I discovered that everybody I met had also been valedictorian, editor of the school newspaper, an All-State varsity athlete or musician, etc., I had quite an adjustment. I had to learn how to stay present with my own inner experience and on what was in front of me directly.

I've been thinking about that experience these past two weeks as I have been watched my incoming 9th graders at Lowell adjust to the shock of discovering what it means to arrive at the next level.

The classes are much, much more demanding than they are used to, even at the strongest middle schools. And in addition, as every visitor can see at the front entrance of our school, there is a board that celebrates accomplishments of many of our Lowell graduates since our founding in 1856. There are three Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, Broadway and Hollywood stars, admirals and generals and and politicians and world leaders. There are sports legends and pop culture icons, civil rights heroes, the founder of The Gap, and friggin' Lemony Snicket, among others.

Every race, ethnic background, and gender seems to be well-represented.

No wonder my poor kids are freaking out.

Now I try to imagine what it must be like to be one of the very few African-American students in our school. Some of them appear to be doing just fine, but I imagine it is a very strange and disorienting experience to find yourself in what must seem like an endless ocean of whiteness.

We are trying to be intentional in how we are supporting these students and transforming our school culture. We are following best practices and reflecting critically on how we are doing and how we can support their experience. I wish that I could magically airlift in a larger number of faculty of color so that they felt more reflected in the adult community they see all around them. But that is not how public education works. And we have no time to indulge in magical thinking.

So this is the point at which I am introducing some Talking Points on what I like to call desert island thinking. It is the best way I have found to help students to cope with their own feelings of imposter syndrome and the need to be their own best supporters as they enter a completely new territory.

I call it desert island thinking because it is what helped me to cope when I felt overwhelmed and alone as a freshman at Princeton. I reminded myself over and over that, if I were stuck on a desert island, I would want to be with other smart and motivated and hopefully good-hearted people because that would give us our best chances to survive and thrive.

In my teaching life, I think of this as Otter Nation. Our motto is, Hold hands and stick together. When sea otters sleep, they hold hands so they don't drift apart from their tribe. The same is true of us math teachers. We hold hands through the #MTBoS and through #educolor , through Twitter and blogs, and through every social media-based method we can find.

We hold our students in our hearts and try to give them every possible support and advantage we can provide.

For me, a part of that involves helping them to become metacognitively aware and and self-reflective about what they are experiencing and how they can cope with it, how they are brave and well-equipped and the advantages of holding hands and sticking together.

Our Latin Club has hoodies with one of my favorite lines from Virgil's Aeneid emblazoned on the back: forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit, which I would loosely translate as, "Perhaps some day we will laugh about this."   This is pretty much where many of my students — and especially my students of color — find themselves at the start of Week 3 too. At this point in Aeneid I, Aeneas and his troops have been driven from their homeland in Troy and find themselves on storm-tossed seas, wondering how they are going to survive.

A growth mindset, and some desert island thinking, along with Talking Points about it, are the best support I can offer them.

On using privilege to combat racism: a love letter to #educolor, from an aspiring ally

It has been inspiring this past week to watch my young fellow Princetonians confront the legacy of institutional racism that is quite literally etched into stone at my well-intentioned, sometimes clueless, but deeply beloved-and-worth-improving Princeton (link).  Cornel West captured my feelings well with his support.  It is possible to love an institution and, because we love it, want it to grow and improve our society and our world.

It has also been quite moving to watch my Princeton classmate, University President Chris Eisgruber, as he wrestles with these issues in the public eye, working through layer upon layer of unconscious white privilege and commitment to anti-racist education. It has been impressive to see him come through it with open-mindedness, wholeheartedness, and a willingness to listen deeply, responding with integrity, and widening our commitment to inclusiveness at an institution that has not always supported inclusion. This is what I consider to be "Princeton in the Nation's Service."

So it was utterly disheartening to wake up this morning to a hate-filled screed on our Princeton Class of 1983 Facebook page from a different classmate of ours — a white woman who is a hedge fund manager on Wall Street. She was a leader at one of the hedge funds that nearly destroyed our country's economy. She and those she worked with have never been called to account for their crimes.

But first, a warning. Please note in advance that I strongly condemn this kind of hate speech. But I believe that hate speech needs to be called out because I believe it has no place in the power structure, much less in civil discourse. I also believe hate speech deserves no shielding or privacy. I wanted to capture these publicly-expressed pieces of hate speech before she could think better of it and delete them.

She wrote, "Churchill: 'You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.'"

The she linked to the following truly reprehensible article (WARNING: this article contains contemptuous and morally disgusting attitudes that are blind to their own privilege. You may be as sickened as I was when you read it. I strongly condemn this hate speech): hate speech article link

Another classmate pushed back against this right away, writing,

as Eisgruber said “we should be aiming for a campus in which all students feel equally welcomed.” Commentary like the above and related blog posts are unwelcoming and also inaccurate (for instance saying all the students protesting at PU were black). There are many students, and people, of diverse colors and backgrounds, who support taking a hard look at campus life and assumptions. At PU there is a high value for tradition and a high value for making changes that make the educational experience the best that it can be.

But this woman kept on going with her racist rants. She lashed back.

I am quite prepared to believe that the BLM hysterics come in all colors. Their insistence on Maoist reeducation of their peers is a uniform pink.

And further:

Nothing says "welcome" like a mandatory Maoist reeducation program. Unless it's a building that you cannot access due to the color of your skin. Not to mention the black students who may not want to self-segregate -- if there is a component of pure evil to this profoundly racist and anti-educational movement, it is the pressure it will put on sane black kids to conform to the madness of the Maoists.

I could not believe my eyes, except that I spent four years with this woman and her entitled, privileged bullshit, so this was not the first of her objectionable ravings that I have been subjected to. Still, we are supposed to be older and wise. But apparently not everybody is actually committed to growing up.

The classmate who pushed back against her ravings wrote back:

That's your view and I am unlikely to influence it. However, I am quite prepared to think that the outcome will be orange and black, and not pink. And that there are apparently "hysterics" in various quarters. Just sayin.

This racist with a Princeton education could not stop herself, so she went on:

Except that if you're orange you can't get into the new "cultural" Affinity building.

And on:

Maybe Princeton should be renamed "Wilson University" to honor the new segregationism.

I couldn't take it any more, so I posted a reply objecting to her hate speech. But predictably, she screeched right back at me:

I hope that nobody would be surprised to find me pro-First Amendment and anti-Maoist. But you are welcome to a participation trophy anyway.

This is the voice of someone who benefited from a world-class education, as well as from our open, inclusive, and welcoming immigration policy. It causes me a deep and lasting sadness that these are the values she took away from these uniquely American opportunities and institutions I hold so dear. 

When people reveal their true values in public, it is important to document and witness their doing so. It is also important not to let this kind of evil go unanswered. The witnessing function is one of the most important roles of an ally. So I am doing my best to do so here, however imperfectly and stupidly I may be doing it. I continue to grow and learn from my #educolor colleagues on Twitter and on blogs. And I am training my students for their roles as the leaders of the rebel forces.

As the Buddha said, "Hatred never ceases through hatred but by love alone is healed. This is an ancient and eternal law."

And as Michelangelo wrote on a scrap of paper left behind in his studio in the wobbly handwriting of his old age, "Ancora imparo" — "I am still learning."