St. Francis, Pentecost, and Assisi 2012: A Christian Vision of Contemplative Action

Cynthia Bourgeault (second from right) is joined by Suzanne Friedericks (far right), Richard Friedericks (second from left), and myself (far left) in front a poster of St. Francis.  Cynthia along with Richard Rohr taught a week-long course in Assisi about the contemporary relevance of St. Francis and Claire to our lives and work. 

Introduction

At the noon break of the first full day session of Cynthia Bourgeault’s teachings, I turned to Richard, one of my traveling companions on this pilgrimage, and asked out of a sense of amazement: “Have you ever heard anything like this before?” Shaking his head, Richard simply responded, “No.”  Throughout our four-day retreat in Assisi, we came to the conclusion that the teaching we were receiving had greater clarity and power than anything we had ever heard.  Like the Gospel claims about Jesus, it was radically new in its insight, and its credibility was embodied in our teachers Cynthia Bourgeault and Richard Rohr.  Yet what we were heard also seemed a fulfillment of words and ideas spoken from long ago, and confirmation of the path that we have followed for some years.  This seemed in the spirit of Jesus who said, “I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it” (Matthew 5:17).

The goal of the Assisi 2012 conference was to consider St. Francis’ received message at the site of the Church of San Damiano, “My church is in ruins; rebuild my church,” and to reflect on its meaning as part of the emerging church movement.  Led by Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, head of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopalian priest and mystic, the 150 people who gathered in Assisi sought to be understand the essential meaning of the Christian message and to bring this word to a world searching for multi-dimensional redemption.  This entry offers a summary, organized into nine sections, of these perspective-enhancing and life-giving teachings.

The Teachings in Assisi

1)   Perennial Philosophy: The foundation of the CAC is that it follows in the tradition of the Perennial philosophy.  The CAC defines this philosophy as

recurring themes in all of the world’s religions and philosophies that continue to say: there is a Divine Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things; there is in the human soul a natural capacity, similarity, and desire for this Divine Reality; the final goal of existence is union with the Divine Reality.

Cynthia furthered our insight into these ideas by explaining that the creative order is an act of self-disclosure by a God who yearns to be discovered, and that human fulfillment is found in pursuing union with God.  Seeking answers to all the big questions of human existence derive from this reciprocal yearning to know and be known.  Thus, the ultimate entity along the matter-spirit continuum of reality is relationship.

2)   The First Axial Age: During what is termed the Axial Age, 800 BC- 200 BC, a spiritual leap occurred in which humans across the globe understood themselves as individuals who could have some type of personal revelation concerning the nature of reality or have a relationship with God.  From Lao-Tse to Buddha to Plato to the Old Testament prophets, mystics perceived that God could be encountered in new and fulfilling ways.  Whether it was to be one with the Tao, realize universal forms, experience enlightenment through non-attachment, or love God by acting for justice for all people, during this period the dominant animating forces of today’s world religions came into existence.

3)   The Present Moment: Richard and Cynthia both believe that today we are on the cusp of a second Axial Age.  This new period has two defining characteristics:

(a)    Global Interconnectedness: In the last several decades global society has come to understand its interconnectedness in tangible ways.  From global warming to the Great Recession to terrorism to epidemics, it can be seen that all human activity is interlinked, and that human civilizations can no longer consider their achievements from a zero-sum perspective.  An emphasis on the catastrophic effects of globalization alone fails to perceive the powerful positive correlates of an interrelated world: a human rights revolution, empowerment of the previously disenfranchised, the decline of violence (as Steven Pinker documents), and the spread of other nourishing ideas and practices throughout the world.

(b)   Growth in Consciousness: For the first time in history, a critical mass of individuals around the globe from every culture and religion are rejecting the old dichotomies of self and other, right and wrong, male and female, us and them, left and right, nationals and foreigners, and replacing these dualistic tendencies with non-dual consciousness.  This new way of thinking is the primary mark of the second Axial Age.  In the past ego-driven desires resulted in winners and losers, and even justice-motivated actions oftentimes created enemies unnecessarily.  Such perspectives need to be transcended in the quest to maintain viability of a global community.

4)   Jesus and the Path of Surrender: Both Richard and Cynthia emphasize that recovery of an authentic Christian path is essential to redeem the earth’s biosphere as well as human communities. However, this requires a re-visioning, first, of the person of Jesus as well as the trajectory of the Christian tradition.  From this new perspective, Jesus’ humanity and divinity combined to create the first individual in the Mediterranean world to understand non-dual consciousness.  In trying to come to terms with his new teachings, he was often asked where he came from, but his answer was not primarily a matter of geography; rather, his authenticity originated from his unparalleled level of consciousness.  Key passages which are explications of his master metaphor, the Kingdom of Heaven, can only be comprehended and implemented from a holistic understanding.  “Love your neighbor as yourself” literally means to love others as extensions of one’s own self.  “Love your enemies and pray for them” or “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” cannot be understood by binary patterns of culturally acceptable thought. In sum, Richard and Cynthia believe that Christianity cannot be properly understood from the perspective of the egoic operation system.  The Christian vision was non-dualistic from its inception.  

(a) Kenotic Path: Richard and Cynthia both agree that the way of Jesus is the path of kenosis, which in its simplest form means to “let go.”  Paul’s great christological hymn instructs, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant  . . . and humbled himself and became obedient to death” (Philippines 2:5-8).  Rather than ascending the traditional path of holiness through conserving purity, Jesus gave himself away through the releasing of costly love. Jesus’ letting go, which still remains striking in Gospel stories, turned the traditional path toward holiness on its head.

The kenotic path can be communicated quite easily, simple enough for a child to comprehend.  Cynthia repeatedly used hand gestures to illustrate: the egoic operating systems grasps and clings, while the non-dual operating system offers open hands. Cynthia advises practitioners to do nothing from a brace position; rather, practice letting go of the ego and receive the gifts that come from aligning oneself with the way of God.

(b) Agape: Cynthia suggests that the ultimate Christian virtue of agape, or unconditional love, is found in this cosmic equation: A = EK.  When Eros (E), human yearnings, is purified with the kenotic path of surrender (K), the result is agape (A). One of Cynthia’s favorite quotes from Gerald May speaks of this purification process:

“As attachment ceases to be your motivation, your actions become reflections of compassion absolute.”

Although agape cannot be precisely defined, but rather needs to be experienced, practitioners should nonetheless rest assured that the path of conscious love is never wasted. 

5)   The Practice of Centering Prayer: Following the kenotic path today means to upgrade the egoic operating system to non-dual consciousness.  The catalyst of this upgrade, or what could be called the “key to the kingdom,” is an ancient form of Christian contemplation called Centering Prayer.  Through the daily practice of consciously letting go of thoughts in the posture of prayer, the mind is brought into the heart, the literal organ of spiritual perception, and practitioners begin in subtle, but significant ways to manifest Kingdom characteristics: greater flexibility, more staying power, and increased sense of impartiality. 

While many find the practice frustrating or even initially confounding, beginners can be encouraged that new neurological research is  demonstrating that a regular practice of Centering Prayer (or other forms of meditation) can re-wire the brain in only 8 weeks time.  Establishing new brain pathways opens up innovative solutions to personal and social issues.  These new connections also increase sensitivity to the continuum of energetic vibrations that exist between the binary and exclusive concepts of pure matter and pure spirit.  In contrast, this more inclusive perception of reality opens new personal, social, and cosmic possibilities.

Cynthia illustrated how this transfer of energy along the matter-spirit continuum can occur.  For example, she explained that visiting a holy place such as Assisi, if used properly, can help retreat participant to receive positive vibrations that emanate from this city of peace, and they then can draw upon these as sources of strength as they return to home.

6)   Experiencing and Growing in the Kenotic Path: Cynthia emphasizes in her teaching that the path of kenosis never becomes a steady state experience.  Rather, the non-dual self is like the crescent moon that illuminates brilliantly in one sliver, but is inextricably joined to the darker, less visible portion, symbolic of our human frailties.  We need to live in the gap between this God-empowered self and our limitations, abandoning the self-judgmental nature of the binary operating system.  Rather than engaging in the classic prescription of spirituality, to always work harder (e.g., self-flagellation), this is a path of grace.  If practiced over time, the self constricted within its “soul cage” will eventually take flight. 

Cynthia emphasized that this is not a path to be embarked upon only by those considered “spiritually mature.” When I asked her about my desire for a ten-year plan towards growth in this inner tradition, Cynthia had only two recommendations for me: learn more about brain research, and deepen my spiritual practice. Remaining constant in entering the “cave of the heart” will reconnects myself to God’s power.  This allows the practitioner to hear the still, small voice of God.  As the psalmist writes, “Be still and know that I am God” (46:10).  Beyond these basics, she advises people to simply trust that teachers and teachings will come their way.

Finally, this path can be embarked upon in relationship with others or with the cosmos directly.  Intimacy, which is more important to most of us than finding ultimate truth, is something paradoxically developed within oneself; it is not dependent upon whether a person has found a “soulmate” or not.  For some such as Francis and Clare, a soulful relationship may quicken the kenotic path.  For others without such confidants, their spiritual energy should seek other trajectories, for which there is no lack.  Regardless, the place to develop and deepen intimacy is going within through Centering Prayer.

7)   Impacting the World: One myth about Christian contemplatives is that they have escaped the world and care little about its destiny.  However, as Cynthia explained, devotees such as Thomas Merton often come to be purified of this binary response to the world’s ills and in time come to experience an intensified concern for society. The church and the world is in dire need of mystics and contemplatives who become prophets and visionaries.

In her talk on becoming a prophetic voice, Cynthia quoted Yeats’ “The Second Coming:” 

The best lack all conviction
and the worst are filled with passionate intensity.
As Richard explained, conservatives may be the “party of no” and are willing to fight, while liberals assert moral superiority as they take flight from conflict. Those conservatives and liberals using the egoic operating system are held by the dualities of the past. This includes church structures, which may explain why the church discourages the prophetic vocation, despite its prominent place second only to apostles  in Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts (Ephesians 4:11).   By contrast, what is needed is what Cynthia called “ordination from experience:” lay leadership that uses non-dualistic consciousness to effect change. This third way of reconciliation doesn’t simply make a Hegelian compromise, but actually births something new to solve problems systemically.

8)   Ecological Crisis: One of primary ways to impact global society is for spiritual practitioners to advocate on behalf of the planet.  This message was especially well-received by retreat participants, for being in a place of stunning beauty during an Umbrian spring imprinted all with joy.  We marveled at the ever-present bird-song, the waving fields of grain, the azure sky, the pure air and water, and the pink Assisi stone.  This captivation set into relief what we know of the planet’s environmental condition. The occasion of this retreat was “Pentecost,” the festival in the church year that celebrates the outpouring of God’s Spirit which birthed the church following Jesus’ ascension. During our final Pentecost worship service, Cynthia read the Romans 8 passage which explains how all creation groans awaiting redemption.  St. Francis’ love for animals, his relationship with “brother sun” and “sister moon,” and his forsaking of human garments, his father’s profession, to nakedly join mother earth, all speak to his vision of care for and connectedness with the cosmos. In the Basilica of St. Francis, a dove, symbolic of the Holy Spirit, flies downward towards the earth rather than upward to the sky.  In this time of ecological crisis, Cynthia called upon the church to consider a Pentecost of the earth, urging those gathered Christians to seek the planet’s ecological redemption.

9)   Eternity: In this re-interpretation of the Christian story, eternity comes to be redefined not as a place one only goes to after death, but a place one also wakes up to in this life.  This vision enables a person to implement God’s Kingdom on earth.

Eternity begins in the present, and extends beyond physical death into another form.  Those who have lost spouses or other soulmates may experience that a change in form has not diminished spiritual intimacy.  Sometimes the one remaining comes to be the embodied spirit of the one who has passed on.  The two simply experience different, but still connected, forms of spiritual energy.

Implications for Social Conscience Education

In light of our Assisi retreat, I would like to pull back to the theme of this blog, and offer a few concluding comments about implications for the field of social conscience education. As defined in earlier entries, social conscience education is a consideration of one’s role and responsibility in society in the context of a emotionally-engaged understanding of the world.  This week’s pilgrimage to Assisi offers a potential refinement of that definition, for Centering Prayer along with other spiritual practices within the Perennial Tradition suggest that there is something more essential and influential than informed awareness, stirred emotions, or compassionate action.  From this new perspective, teachers and students need to get to the root of the problem: egoic attachment.  Teachers should consider providing a contemplative practice in social conscience classes to challenge the binary thoughts and feelings and find a deeper and truer place of equanimity from which to do service.  While reflection is undoubtedly a facilitator of spiritual growth and occurs in most service-related classes, only a spiritual practice gets at the source of our personal and global issues.

Thus, this Assisi retreat has caused me to ponder whether recognition of a deeper and more powerful presence can be developed to enhance social conscience education. It can be suggested that the heart of good teaching is a synthesis of curricula created by non-dual consciousness with teacher embodiment of course goals.  Both curricular planning and personal growth would appear to be strengthened by spiritual practices.  Thus, the teacher of social conscience cannot afford not to practice Centering Prayer/some form of meditation.  Just as a river cannot rise above its source, so too does a teacher’s spiritual level, which affects curricular planning and lesson implementation, determines the degree to which students can grow.  It is hoped that the reader can agree that the teaching unveiled in Assisi was truly revelatory, and may offer greater possibilities for deepening the good work of social conscience education.

Additional information of interest:

• Pilgrimage to Assisi: Course description with pictures of a one-week visit to Assisi from Wisdom University
• Francis of Assisi: A Revolutionary Life by Adrian House
• Reluctant Saint: The Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Donald Spoto

The picture above is the nave of the Church of San Stefano.  St. Francis preached here, and this church has not been substantively altered since that time.  Today it remains a place for prayer and reflection.

Service-Learning and Spiritual Practice: Complementary Pedagogies for the Privileged

Over Easter a number of us from HKIS went to rural China to make a short video about our girls scholarship program.  Every time I spend time with these girls, the word “virtue” comes to mind.  Their innocence and sincerity is palpable.  This raises the delicate question whether poorer students are actually morally superior to privileged students?  Since that trip, I have come across research that provides a response to this question.

Introduction

In Humanities I in Action we are now studying globalization, including issues related to income disparity and social inequality.  Last week I came across a fascinating study and decided to poll my students about the question before revealing the findings.   Adapting the title of this Robert Schiffman article, I asked my students: “Who is more likely to lie, cheat, or steal – a rich person or a poor person?”  We discussed their various viewpoints, and then I called for  a vote.  Three of my 18 students raised their hands to vote for a rich person, while none said a poor person.  The vast majority opted for the third choice – that no such generalizations could be made.  At this point, I introduced research recently completed by Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner at the University of California – Berkeley.

Moral Behavior of the Rich and Poor

In a series of naturalistic and lab experiments, Piff and Keltner found that:

• Wealthier participants were more likely than poorer participants to lie about their scores in a game involving rolling dice in order to gain a $50 reward.
• Wealthier people were more likely to lie to gain advantage and to agree that unethical behavior is necessary at work than poorer people.
• Higher class individuals needed priming to show compassion to strangers, while lower class participants showed an overall higher level of care and were more consistent in their response.
• Drivers of more expensive cars paid less heed to pedestrians crossing the street than drivers of less expensive cars, and were more likely to cut-off other drivers.
• Wealthier participants were likely to consider greed as morally acceptable than poorer participants.
• As social status increases among participants, generosity declines.

To excerpt a few statements from the Schiffman article mentioned above:

“It’s not that the rich are innately bad,” Piff said, ”but as you rise in the ranks — whether as a person or a nonhuman primate — you become more self-focused.”

And also isolated, cut off from others and from the standards of the community at large, the study concluded. Unlike the poor, who have to rely on their network of friends, family and neighbors to help them get through tough economic times, wealth buys one a certain independence from others. The rich don’t have to make the same compromises and accommodations as the rest of us do. They are accustomed to getting their own way. They are also used to getting away with things. Witness the bafflement, then outrage on Wall Street when it was suggested that the big wheels there who had acted fraudulently should be held criminally accountable for their misdeeds.

Living in a bubble of extreme wealth also fosters what has been called “the compassion deficit.” As one gets richer, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify with those in need. Romney’s statement that he was not worried about the poor, because they are protected by the safety net is a case in point. As the income gap widens, many are losing their ability even to imagine what life might be like on the other side of the divide.”

The disturbing conclusion for those of us who teach elite students is that they seem more likely to engage in unethical behavior.  These findings underscore the importance  of being even more intentional in bringing a moral dimension to bear upon curricula in wealthy schools.

Defining the Problem at HKIS

This research resonated with the interviews I did with HKIS students in which I asked them what hinders students from having a social conscience. The most common response was that they lived in a bubble of affluence and competition that disconnects them from the lives of others, especially those who suffer. As I wrote in my dissertation:

“Students spoke frequently about what prevented them from becoming socially conscious individuals, often referring to a sense of disconnectedness that they felt. This sense originated from a number of sources. For many students, the academically challenging nature of HKIS and its emphasis on achievement and success cut them off from being cognizant or concerned about social realities. This competitive environment, some Chinese students explained, can be attributed in part to the examination-driven atmosphere of local Hong Kong schools. Other students cast the blame further afield, attributing the competitiveness to the larger materialistic, profit-driven milieu that they are immersed in as part of the upper echelon of Hong Kong society. Some students spoke of the location of HKIS in an affluent, suburban area on Hong Kong island as a contributing factor. Positioning themselves in a larger frame of reference, other students pointed to the socio-economic disparity between the wealth of Hong Kong that they had become accustomed to, in contrast to its poorer Asian neighbors and to poor people in Hong Kong; both groups being outside their normal world. For the more philosophically-minded, this disconnectedness was a local manifestation of a modern existential phenomenon which 21st century students have no choice but to face. Students were in broad agreement that disconnectedness is a fundamental issue faced by students at HKIS.”

Students at HKIS have clearly identified the problem of disconnectedness that seems implicit in attending a privileged school.  It also seems likely that Piff and Keltner’s research is broadly applicable to students at HKIS. What can we as educators do?

Proposing Solutions

I have come to believe that there are two broad solutions to this problem of self-focus common among privileged students:

1) Social Conscience Education:

As I have written extensively in this blog, the most effective way of breaking through student self-centeredness is exposing them to the sufferings of others.  This best occurs in classes that include in-class study with out-of-class experience. In other words, some form of service-learning causes brings our students into contact with those who have much less than they do and suffer as a result.  Discomfort is common among our students, as their assumptions about the world are challenged.  Mezirow’s first four steps in his ten-step transformative learning theory appear frequently in service-learning classes:

1. Students experience a disorienting dilemma
2. These experiences cause them to experience a range of emotions (e.g., guilt, shame, compassion, helplessness, hopelessness, despair, etc.)
3.  Critical thinking about such experiences cause them to question many life assumptions.
4. These experiences are shared with others (e.g., fellow classmates, parents, friends, siblings)

Pedagogy for privileged students seems to require exposure to the suffering of others, both in the form of study and personal experience.  Schools that teach wealthy students should become experts in not only creating situations that cause disorientation, but more importantly, in leading students to successfully re-integrate these experiences into their daily life experience.

2) Spiritual Practice

The second area of pedagogical interest is spiritual practice. While I have toyed with this approach for many years, this is a less deeply explored area than service-learning and requires greater sensitivity.   I continue to experiment with spiritual practice and ritual in various forms. This school year students in my classes have (or will have by year’s end):

• Held a funeral for Simon, a character in the book Lord of the Flies.
• Used a Balinese monkey chant as a model for students to create a buzzing bee ritual (girls) and a swarming fly ritual (guys) to explore the concept of entrainment.
• Used Joseph Campbell’s “Heroic Journey” model to share their personal journeys with service this year.
• Used Wilber’s AQAL model to chart a personal ideal, value, or belief from their innermost self to the broader world.
• Experimented with student choice of their own personal spiritual practice.
• Walked a labyrinth under the guidance of a trained teacher.
• Ate silently at a Buddhist temple as a nun explained how to eat mindfully.
• Used Centering Prayer and other methods of meditation.

Borrowing a metaphor from Cynthia Bourgeault’s book on Centering Prayer, the goal of such practices is to help students to dive beneath the superficial surface of competitive and materialistic school life, and explore their own depths. My experience is that students are generally open to such spiritual explorations in my classes.  As long as the approach involves more than one tradition and forces no one to participate who is uncomfortable, students are open and some even intrigued by the prospect of coming to greater self-knowledge as well as gaining insight into the ‘invisible world’.

Summary

In light of Piff and Kelter’s research, it appears that students from wealthy backgrounds need to be challenged to go beyond their ego boundaries.  A pedagogy for the privileged serves  both the well-being of students as well as the common good of society.  While the research that I have done at HKIS and more broadly by others has established the efficacy of the service-learning approach, the use of spiritual practices, as noted in Cultivating the Spirit, is relatively unexplored. My strong hunch is that the most potent and healing form of education will integrate these two poles together into a coherent whole.

In the introduction to Cynthia’s book, Centering Prayer pioneer Thomas Keating writes about the importance of this particular practice for the larger cause of justice:

Centering Prayer is aimed at healing the violence in ourselves and purifying the unconscious of its hidden and flawed motivation that reduces and can even cancel out the effectiveness of the external works of mercy, justice, and peace (p. viii).

Service-learning and spiritual practices such as Centering Prayer need to be presented to students as necessary yin-yang complements of an undivided life. I hope that in the future the definition of social conscience education will expand to include spiritual practices as a natural and accepted partner in the quest to break the self-absorption that appears to be inherent among achievement-oriented affluent students.

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Articles Related to this research:

1. Greed Prevents Good (NY Times)

2.  Wealthy, Motivated by Greed, are More Likely to Cheat, Study Finds (LA Times)

3. Study: Wealthy More Likely to Behave Unethically (Slate)

4. Self-Interest Spurs Society’s ‘Elite’ to Lie, Cheat on Tasks, Study Finds (Bloomberg) (This article contains one critique of the methods used in the study.)

5. Are Rich People More Unethical? (CNN)

6. Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Ethical Behavior Piff’s research was recently published in the March 13, 2012 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Girl Effect at Fragrant Hill High School (香山中學)

Over the Easter holiday, a small group from HKIS journeyed to Deqing town, an 8-hour drive from Hong Kong, to make a short film to support a girls scholarship fund run by the Concordia Welfare and Education Foundation.  This film will be shown at “Solstice,” the April 28th fashion show, the proceeds of which will go to support girls like Chan Man Jan above. The cost of sponsoring one girl’s tuition for a year of high school is 2800 HK ($360 US).  The show’s organizers hope to raise enough money to allow more than 20 girls to receive a full three-year high school education.

Nicola Ho, HKIS sophomore, Dolphin Liu, CWEF’s Guangdong manager, and my parents Allan and Sandy Schmidt, joined Josh and myself on a 3-day adventure to interview scholarship recipients.

“If you want to change the world, invest in an adolescent girl.”

                                                  – From Girls Grow: A Vital Force in Rural Economics, p. xiv.

Our Canadian videographer, Josh, looked into the camera and quietly nodded.  Elaine, dressed in her sporty green and white school uniform, directed her gaze into the lens and began in English, “Do you eat rice?  Do you know where your rice comes from?”  Then gesturing behind her with an extended right arm, she continued, “This is my family’s rice field.”

Elaine is a year two student at Fragrant Mountain High School (香山中學), the most prestigious school in the Deqing area.  Every holiday Elaine makes the two-hour journey home to visit her father and her three younger siblings. We first interviewed her father, a well-built man with only the first hints of graying hair, and learned that he has unsteady work in the village and does not earn a regular income.  Knowing the traditional Chinese preference for boys, we asked how he felt about his eldest daughter receiving an education.  He gave his full support, remarking, “she can get a doctorate if she wants.”  He concluded, “The scholarship program helps us greatly.”

Then we interviewed Elaine.  Standing on a foot path leading to the rice fields, Elaine explained that her happiest memories growing up in this remote village involved sitting around the dinner table eating and sharing the day’s events with her family.  Although we knew her story, we also needed to ask her to share painful memories. Somberly she recalled how just last school year she struggled to maintain her high marks in the high school pressure-cooker when her mother became sick.  Later in the year her mother succumbed to cancer, multiplying the family’s financial burden.

Elaine has always received high grades and currently is a top English student at her school.  She hopes to someday become a translator or an English teacher.  But without CWEF’s help, Elaine and others like her could be forced to make the difficult decision to give up on their dreams and take a job in a city – selling shoes, giving foot massages, or delivering pizza – to help the family make ends meet.

When another scholarship recipient whose English name is Sally was asked about her future dreams, she responded, “My Mom has worked so hard to help me get an education.  I want to get a good job, so I can give my Mom a good life.”  With her high marks and clear English, we feel confident that our support for Sally now will enable her to keep her promise to her mother in the future.  (To learn more about her family, see an earlier blog entry from summer, 2011 here.)

During the trip, we also visited with a young woman named Ocean, one of the five Fragrant Hill graduates that CWEF now supports in a newly formed university program.  Ocean has recently completed her studies from Zhaoqing University (肇慶學院) with a degree in primary school education, and a concentration in Chinese language.  Ocean, whose mother has struggled with health issues throughout the five years we’ve known her, has already started work as a teacher at the best primary school in the city of Zhaoqing.  Her “transformation,” as Dolphin Liu describes her growth, from a high school student to a professional teacher has been profound.  In our interview with Ocean, she spoke about bringing active participation and even service-learning – themes emphasized in CWEF’s once-a-month leadership academy held at Xiang Shan high school – to her classroom.

As the group prepared to leave Deqing, we stopped by a shop advertising the calligraphy skills of an older grey-haired Chinese gentleman.  We asked him to write a traditional four-character expression befitting our charity fashion show.  After some discussion, he took out his thick brush and black ink and wrote on two large red sheets, “Those who give away roses are left with fragrant hands.”  The symbolism was hard to miss: the sweet spirits of “Fragrant Mountain” high school students like Elaine, Sally, and Ocean are an abundant by-product of their desire to give to their families and to Chinese society.

If you would like to donate to CWEF’s girls scholarship fund, please contact Marty Schmidt (mschmidt@hkis.edu.hk) or Zella Talbot (ztalbot@hkis.edu.hk). Your donation will enable more talented, but underprivileged girls to gain an education. 

Note: I borrowed the term the girl effect from the popular video clip by this name.  The website on the girl effect has many resources for research about this topic. For example, the site contains a report entitled, “Girls Grow: A Vital Force in Rural Economics,” which records as their first recommendation: “Expand opportunities for rural adolescent girls to attend secondary school” (p. 45).

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The three girls coming for the fashion show are Sally and Elaine, mentioned above, as well as Jenny, a university student at Zhaoqing University.  Jenny is pictured below:

Teaching about the “Stop Kony” Campaign: A Teachable Social Media Moment

Introduction

At the beginning of the Humanities I in Action course, we teach a unit about the importance of understanding the concept of worldview.  We stress that it is critical to consider one’s beliefs and values, in light of an historical and contemporary understanding of issues, before deciding on taking action.  This is an important caution, for the students that I teach sincerely want to ‘make a difference’.

The global video phenomenon “Stop Kony,” produced by the advocacy group Invisible Children, has inadvertently raised this controversial question of taking well-informed action in a compelling manner. Respected commentators are lining up on both sides of the issue, making this a genuinely debatable topic.  Watching the film in class, many of my students liked its American style, a similar cultural approach that we use in Humanities I in Action: inspire students to take action through the use of emotive video clips and give them an opportunity to ‘make the world a better place’ through service-learning.

In the midst of the furor, this blog entry shares the lesson plans that I composed as part of a mini-unit on “Kony 2012.”  I hope that more educators will use this teachable moment to help students think about what constitutes proper use of social media.  In addition, this issue raise significant geopolitical concerns, such as the role of the American military, the “War on Terror” in Central Africa, the global search for oil, and the potential overtones of neocolonialism.  “Kony 2012″ has much for students and teachers to consider.

Teaching about the “Stop Kony” Campaign

I decided on Tuesday to interrupt my curriculum to take a detour into this issue that students seemed highly interested in.  We began our mini-unit the next day.

[Since I wrote this blog, the Outreach Council of the African Studies Council has produced an excellent teacher's guide, "The Phenomenon of Kony 2012," for use of this issue in classrooms.]

Wednesday (Day 1):

• I started the class asking my students who had heard about this issue while they and the teachers were away on their mostly out-of-Hong Kong trips the previous week.  Most of the students had heard about this issue through Facebook.
• 5 of the 18 students had watched the half-hour video. I asked these students to go to an empty classroom and search online for pros and cons about the issue to share with us.  Then I showed the video to the class.
• Initial student feedback was nearly all positive about the video.  They liked the style, the compelling personal narrative, and the cause.  They were ready to get involved.
• Then the five students in the other room came in and shared a number of positive and negative responses, including an 8-minute defense of the Invisible Children’s budgets.
• I asked students to write a blog comment for the following day. Before responding, I asked them to read an article by Professor Adam Branch, “Dangerous Ignorance: The Hysteria of Kony 2012” and to watch a video clip by Rosebell Kagumire, a Ugandan blogger, about her reaction.  Both views challenged the initial student reaction.

This is the assignment I gave to Tuesday’s for Wednesday night:

“Stop Kony” Video Response

We started the year talking about Neville who really believed he was doing a good thing by taking the native Aborigines from their families.  We learned that good intentions aren’t enough.  The “Stop Kony” video makes us think, too, about what it is means to do the right thing, regardless of one’s good intentions.

• Write a @15 line response tomorrow on our blog.  Read the following article by Adam Branch and watch the following video clip by Rosebell Kagumire.  Then answer this question:

Do you support the spread of the “Stop Kony” video and the movement it hopes to initiate? 

Follow these guidelines to get full credit.

• Your first sentence should state your answer to the question.  (If you would like to create your own thesis that is somewhere between support or reject, you can certainly do that.)
• Your entire piece should only include ideas and elements that relate to your thesis.
• If you support “Stop Kony,” then you need to show that you have read ideas from Adam and/or Bell, and rejected them.
• If up do not support “Stop Kony,” then you should use ideas from Adam and/or Bell to support your thesis

Here are two student comments:

From Tiana, whose reading moved her away from strong support of the cause:

“Before watching the video, I had heard so many positive things about it I was sure I was going to support this campaign, but instead I stand somewhere in between supporting and rejecting it. Like Rose Bell said, I wasn’t sure what the video’s aim was the first few minutes in, since everything seemed so nice and peachy: for example, the birth of Jason Russell (the film maker)’s son, Gavin, and him growing up over the span of about 5 years. But finally, the film started talking about Joseph Kony, the number 1 wanted man in the ICC, otherwise known as the “bad” guy.

Invisible Children candy-coated the video: Kony was bad, and they were good. This causes me to agree with Rose Bell: everything isn’t as simple as the video projected. Adam Branch pointed out a few arguments that I concur with. To start off with, there’s the war that Kony started with the Ugandan Army that Invisible Children neglected to show which played a big part in the beginning of Kony’s criminal record. Another argument being that the US government was just using Invisible Children to send more military aids into Africa. Invisible Children may have been fooled to think that they sent the advisors to Uganda to “help” find Kony, but as many pointed out, Kony’s not in Uganda anymore, and he hasn’t been for the past few years. So, will the advisors really be of much help?

Yes, catching Kony will change history, but how will it affect the Ugandan’s lives? Won’t they just keep on living like they have the past few years since he left Uganda? That was another point Branch made, as the Ugandans are now facing problems that don’t exactly relate to Kony: land being taken away by foreign investors, land speculators who collaborate with the Ugandan government and military, and the nodding disease, which thousands of children have to rely on relief aid.

The video was made with good intentions towards the capturing of Joseph Kony, and I do support that. But the video not only alluded that the Africans (Ugandans) were incapable of fighting their own problems which Rose Bell felt, it also showed that Kony was their biggest problem when it’s not anymore in 2012. People try to become heroes by helping out, but that’s the problem. They don’t really know what’s going on, they’ve watched the video and now they think they know everything about the struggles Ugandans have been through. And due to our incredibly intelligent planning, Kony has ran and hidden away.”

From Nick, who defended Invisible Children:

“After watching the Kony 2012 video, it inspired me, and I support spreading the “Stop Kony 2012” video and the movement they are trying to initiate. I believe the video was made with good intentions to bring Joseph Kony to justice and reduce LRA’s movement. Even though the video may be slightly over simplified, its points are still valid and stopping Kony will have mach more pros then con. Even though many people would argue Kony is currently not very active, what’s stopping this murderer, abductor, and killer from committing more crimes? Adam Branch said “ the US government has gladly adopted in order to help justify the expansion of their military presence in central Africa.” Yes this could be true, however even though the United States government could go into central Africa using “Kony 2012” as an excuse and take their resources, their main cause could be for the sake of taking Kony down. This could be a genius cover-up, however either way would result in Kony being taken stopped and would result in lives saved and justice served. Do we really want to sit around and do nothing like in pervious situations or do we want to take action and help them out? As citizens of the international community, we must take action as soon as possible. The world is quite new to putting major leaders on trial and Kony is a place to start. Even though it may not significantly reduce the amount of crimes committed in central Africa it still will slightly help the situation they are currently in, and is a place to something great. Kony 2012 will also help the world see what the international community is capable of achieving.

The video could do a better job explaining the complex situation, and even though it only scratches the surface of the situation in Uganda and its neighboring countries, there is only a certain amount of information you can fit in a thirty-minute video. It amuses me how 78 million people has seen this movie just in one week. The film also shows what the global community can do. Just through the Internet, an extremely large movement was born, causing the US government to initiate some action.”

Thursday (Day 2):

The student comments were generally of quite high quality, and the majority of the students found that Branch’s and Kagumire’s arguments had affected their original reaction to the video.  I felt that the most important next step was to have students try to understand the Ugandan and Central African situation better to determine if these two opinions appear credible.  I asked students in groups to research a related topic of two or three to choose and to present what they had found for Friday.  Here are the project choices I gave them:

1)   Is the US in the process of militarizing Central Africa, including South Sudan?  What do you think was Obama’s motive in putting 100 advisors in Uganda?  Can the Ugandan military be trusted to enter into foreign countries’ territories to find Kony?  The film alleges that there are reasons to believe Obama is wavering in his support for the placement of US military personnel, citing this as one of the reasons for the April 20th demonstration.

2)   What is the oil situation in Uganda?  When did Uganda start producing oil?  What oil companies are involved?  Is there any connection between oil and US interest in sending in military advisors?

3)   What is the land grab issue in Uganda that Adam Branch refers to in his op-ed?  Respond to his question: “How are we, as consumers, contributing to land grabbing and to the wars ravaging this region?”

4)   What is “Nodding Disease” and how does its importance compare to catching Joseph Kony?  Who are the Acholi people and what is relevant about their situation to the disease and to this situation?

5)   Do you agree with Rosebell Kagumire’s charge that Invisible Children has misrepresented Ugandans as helpless, and America as “sole saviors” in this situation?  (You may want to use excerpts from “White Man’s Burden” and “White Man, Where are your Sacred Places?” from our first unit.)  Does the film undermine Africans’ sense of self-efficacy about their  ability to solve problems?  See her blog.

Also see this blog response, “African Critics of Kony Campaign Hear Echoes of the White Man’s Burden.”  (You may also Adam Branch’s comment at the bottom of this blog entry in response to this question.)

6)   Why does Ocampo of the ICC support this campaign?  Is he a trustworthy source?  Read Adam Branch’s article in “Dissent” magazine on the ICC: “International Justice, Local Injustice.” Who is Adam Branch? Take a look at his website for his course. Do you see him as a reliable and credible source?

7)   What contextual factors allowed Joseph Kony to come to power?  Bring the story up-to-date.  Where is Joseph Kony now and what impact is he still having?

8)   Summary presentation: What key facts should be presented in the video in order to have a better understanding of challenges facing modern-day Uganda and ways to help?

9)   Summary presentation: Despite these criticisms, defend Invisible Children’s attempt to solve a major global justice issue through their advocacy campaign.

Useful Articles for your Research

Overview and Background

1. “‘Stop Kony’ Campaign Ignites Firestorm,” Hanford Sentinel, Brandon Santiago, March 12
2. “Kong 2012 Video Draws Criticism in Uganda,” Huffington Post, Rodney Muhumuza, March 10
3. “A Video Campaign and the Power of Simplicity,” NY Times, Noah Cohen, March 11
4. “The Lord’s Resistance Army,” Richard Downie, Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 18, 2011.
5. “African Viewpoint: All Hype, No Justice?” BBC, Farai Sevenzo, March 21
6. “Making Sense of Kony” website by professors and researchers to provide more background about this situation.

Pro-Kony Campaign articles/responses

1. “Viral Video, Vicious Warloard.” NY Times, Nicholas Kristof, March 14
2. “#StopKONY Now!!!” NY Times, Roger Cohen, March 12
3. Invisible Children CEO Defends Use of Finances video
4. Invisible Children Addresses Critiques from Invisible Children website
5. “How Obama Should Stop Kony,” CNN, John C. Bradshaw and Ashley Benner, March 12
6. “Invisible Children’s Kony Campaign gets Support of ICC Prosecutor,” BBC, Anna Holligan, March 8
7. Ugandan War Journalist Frank Nyakairu defends “Kony 2012″

 Critiques of the Kony Campaign

1. “Dangerous Ignorance: The Hysteria of Kony 2012,” Aljazeera, Adam Branch, researcher in Uganda (response to first Invisible Children video on Kony 2012)
2. “Kony Part II: Accountability, not Awareness,” Aljazeera, Adam Branch (response to second Invisible Children video on Kony 2012)
3. “Kony 2012″ Video Screening Met with Anger in Northern Uganda,” Guardian, Rosebell Kagumire and David Smith
4. “Joseph Kony is not in Uganda (and Other Complicated Things),” Foreign Policy blog by Michael Wilkerson (friend of Rose Bell Kagumire)
5. “Stop Kony 2012 – Ugandan Viewpoint,” March 8, analysis of Rosebell Kagumire’s video clip with comments by Michael Wilkerson.  Kagumire is an Internet Freedom Fellow.
6. “‘Stop Kony’ Campaign Approach Will Cause More Harm than Good,” Oklahoma Daily, March 14.
7. “International Justice, Local Injustice” on Northern Uganda and the International Criminal Court, “Dissent” Magazine,  Adam Branch, Summer, 2004
8. Kony 2012 Campaign Will Scare Away Investors video clip
9. “Solving War Crimes with Wristbands: The Arrogance of ‘Kony 2012‘”, The Atlantic, March 8
10. “The Problem with Invisible Children’s ‘Kony 2012‘, by Michael Deibert, Huffington Post, March 7 (useful historical background makes up most of the piece)
11. “Kony 2012 Sequel Video – Does it Answer the Questions,” The Guardian news blog – see Craig Valters critique
12. “Don’t Elevate Kony,” by Alex DeWaal, March 10, 2012.
13. “To Help Africa, First Understand It,” International Herald Tribune, Mort Rosenblum, May 21, 2012

Current Issues in Uganda:

1.  “In Scramble for Africa, Oxfam Says, Company Pushed Ugandans Out,” by Josh Kron, New York Times, September 21, 2012
2.  “UPDF in Kony Hunt Accused of Rape, Looting,” The Observer, March 2, 2012
3.  ”Obama Takes on the LRA: Why Washington Sent Troops to Central Africa” by Mareike Schomerus, Tim Allen, and Koen Vlassenroot, Foreign Affairs, November 15, 2011

Friday (Day 3):

Since student comments had shifted so dramatically from the previous day, I decided to read to them Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed of support for the “Stop Kony” cause.  Kristof’s writings appear occasionally in our Humanities I in Action course, especially when we studied the Darfur genocide. He is a trusted voice in our classroom.

Then students prepped and presented their projects.

Monday (Day 4):

On Monday we finished the remaining projects, and then students wrote an in-class essay about their learning from this mini-unit.  I decided to make the essay quite open-ended, and gave them a choice of one of these two questions:

1) What is the biggest lesson you have drawn from studying the ‘Kony 2012′ issue?
2) Do you support or oppose the ‘Kony 2012′ campaign?

Present your thesis in your first paragraph, and then build your paragraphs around this thesis.  Time: 40 minutes.

Before students began writing their essays, I also shared with them my correspondence over the weekend with Adam Branch.  You may see my questions and his responses below:

1. The “Stop Kony” campaign seems to take sole credit for Obama’s decision to send in military advisors.  How can one sort out what is the result of advocacy work and what is realpolitik in Washington?

That’s tough, it’s something that political scientists spend their careers arguing over. I guess I would look at it this way: Invisible Children would have never gotten where they have if it weren’t for the significant support they’ve gotten from all quarters in Washington. There may be some congresspeople who jumped on board because they, like many young people around the world, were convinced by the movie, but the kind of support they have gotten cannot be explained by way of the idea that IC’s message is just so much stronger than the message by anyone else out there. Therefore, like I said in the piece, although the Kony 2012 campaign might have made it easier, those troops would have been sent without the campaign…and will be withdrawn or redeployed or beefed-up according to the exigencies of the defense department, not according to the number of Facebook “likes” IC gets (or whatever happens on facebook!).

2. You didn’t comment on the “White Man’s Burden” aspect of the approach, and I’m wondering if you have an opinion.  While the video is very American-centric and does seem to support the neo-colonist narrative arc (as Rosebell Kagumire said in her video), as an educator I’m trying to get privileged students excited and empowered about issues that are outside of their place or origin/residence.  Are Kagumire’s comments representative of what other Ugandans feel?

I didn’t comment on the White Man’s Burden aspect mostly because others had used that comparison, and I thought it was too obvious for me to have to use as well. So I agree with her entirely. As to what other Ugandans feel…there is a significant diversity of opinion, as you might imagine. But the violent reaction against the film in Lira a few days ago, and the fact that they can’t even show the film here because people are getting so angry about it, is testament to just how offensive it is to many people in Uganda. When the “victims” throw rocks at their “saviors”, you know something is deeply wrong.

Essay Results

I was quite pleased with the essays.  On the whole, students were able to explain how their initial enthusiasm for the video was tempered by additional research into the complexity of introducing US military personnel into the Central African region.  Many students were also concerned that catching Kony actually does nothing to deal with, and could possibly even make worse, the larger issues facing Uganda: government corruption, post-conflict victim rehabilitation,  the Acholi internment camps, and Nodding Disease.

An introduction and conclusion to this essay by one of my students, Ivy, represents the growth many students experienced through this mini-unit:

At first glance, all advocacy campaigns work towards a noble cause. But after probing into the issues involved, its hard to say whether the campaigns are good-intentioned, credible, and effective. US NGO Invisible Children’s recent campaign is no exception. Arresting Joseph Kony appears to be a noble cause, but many suspect ulterior motives and/or claim that the proposed tactics are ineffectual, or even counterproductive. Thus, learning about Kony 2012 taught me to view seemingly innocent charity action plans with a critical eye, instead of blindly undertaking their strategy. 

Although my personal standing on the Kony issue has yet to be established, I’m working towards absorbing the arguments of both supporters and critics as well as forming my own evaluation of Invisible Children’s viral video. The point remains I can only truly grasp the complexities involved through this kind of critical thinking.

As a class, I was pleased that students were able to engage in a complex topic with a sophisticated and even-handed approach to taking right action.

Conclusion

I hope that the “Kony 2012″ issue will help students think more critically about actions taken in the world as well as their own projects that all of them are involved in during the second semester of our course.  However, I need to carefully monitor their responses; the last thing I would want to do is to turn 15-year olds, who are looking for idealism and inspiration, into die-hard skeptics.  Hopefully, through research and dialogue we can find a constructive balance between ignorance and cynicism.

Finally, this mini-unit has been successful in helping students consider the larger set of beliefs and understandings that need to accompany action.  Because of its relevance to student interest, I will consider using this as a case study when I again take up our worldview unit at the beginning of next year’s course.

“Beyond Our Dreams”: A Week at Yaowawit School

The authors, Heesun Sonia Min, 18, from South Korea, and Margaret Cutlip, 17, from the United States, are high school students at Hong Kong International School.

For the second year in row, a student group from HKIS spent a week in March at Yaowawit School, which lies 90 minutes outside of Phuket in the rainforest in Phang Nga Province. The authors of this piece, Maggie (second from the left) and Sonia (third from the left), are pictured here standing in the walkway of the beautiful Yaowawit school campus.

Little Miw’s grin stretches across her face as she grabs my hand and chirps, “Wait, wait!” Suddenly, tiny fingers tackle me from behind and my face is smothered with neon green paint. The children shriek with laughter as I turn and chase them, grabbing blue paint and preparing for a counter-attack. This was a typical morning at the Yaowawit School in Kapong: a place that truly upholds Thailand’s reputation as the land of smiles.

As senior students from Hong Kong International School, we’ve had the chance to volunteer around the globe, teaching English in Cambodia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, India, and Rwanda. Like many of the other children we have worked with, the Yaowawit students come from challenging circumstances. However, what is most striking about the Yaowawit students can be summarized in one word: resilience. As Fiona Parsons, a volunteer who lives in the area, says, “Kids at Yaowawit are much more confident and happy than kids at other local schools. They have much brighter futures.”

Originally built in 2005 to educate orphans who had lost their parents to the devastating 2004 tsunami, Yaowawit now boasts nine classrooms, a set of dorm rooms, a swimming pool, guesthouses, a temple, a theater, and two spacious patio dining rooms. The school educates 108 students between the ages of four and eighteen in the standard Thai curriculum in order to prepare them for national exams. However, Yaowawit’s unique educational environment stems from its focus on valuable life skills such as learning English, sustainable agriculture, and hospitality services.

Swimming lessons at the pool for the younger Yaowawit students. 

As one of the school’s main initiatives, students are currently developing ten agricultural learning stations. Last Sunday we were privileged to be a part of the grand opening of this program, which involves using recycled materials, such as tires and toilets, to grow herbs and crops as a source of food and income. The students also learn how to work in the hospitality industry, serving meals to our twenty HKIS volunteers with the utmost enthusiasm.

Despite disadvantaged backgrounds, Yaowawit students demonstrate an eagerness to learn. As regular visitors to the school, Gary Soden and Amanda De Norminbille, from the United States, came to talk to us about how Yaowawit has progressed over the years. They commented on the curiosity of the students by saying, “Yaowawit raises the standards for all other schools in the region.” June, who is graduating this year at the age of eighteen, speaks flawless English after years of dedication to her studies. She is now seeking an international scholarship to further her education. The teachers currently at Yaowawit hope that students like June will return one day to help other children succeed as well.

Before school every morning, the students gather in the theater for meditation. 

Despite the strong reputation the school has garnered, they refuse to rest on their laurels. The funding the school receives from donations, the government, and hotel guests only covers about 80% of the costs from month to month. While their farm produces rice, herbs, fruits, and vegetables, they have not yet reached their ultimate goal of self-sustainability.

When we arrived at Yaowawit last week, we couldn’t imagine how much we would come to care for the children in this school. Not only do we admire its progressive principles of sustainability, education, and hospitality, but we also treasure the inspirational dedication and positive attitudes shown daily by the students, teachers, and staff. To sustain such a home for children with outstanding potential is of highest priority, and so we turn to you.

Whether you visit as a tourist and stay as a hotel guest, work as a volunteer, or just donate resources, supporting Yaowawit is investing in a positive future for Thailand.

Lars Henriksen, one of our guest speakers and an “uncle” to the kids, shared first-hand experiences of the tsunami relief effort. When asked about his thoughts on Yaowawit, he had only one comment: “After the tsunami hit, people asked what my best hope for the region was. Yaowawit School is beyond my dreams.”

(N0te: this article was published by the Thai English-language paper, The Nation, on March 13, 2012:

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/life/Where-hope-teaches-lessons-30177778.html)

A nutritious and delicious lunch is served daily for all students, with some portion of the food coming from the school’s own farm.

Boom Boom, a special friend of former HKIS teacher Amy Vlastelica, sends a “hello” to her. 

Maggie and Sonia pose for a picture after an art session-cum-color free-for-all with the students.

 

Alumna Jena Wong Comments on Long-Term Impact of Social Conscience Education

Mercedes Chien (left) and Jena Wong (right) holding children at the Foshan orphanage in November, 2003 as part of our World Cultures class trip.  Nearly a decade later Jena comments on the importance of this trip and her other service experiences in her future life direction.  

Introduction

In my dissertation research I was able to establish that many students at HKIS experience a transformative experience through their social conscience courses.  The interviews demonstrated that many students experienced a deep shift in perspectives and values in their time at HKIS.  However, no research has been done on the long-term impact of these experiences in high school upon students.  With this goal in mind, I have been asking alumni to respond to this question:

How have the courses you took and/or experiences you had at HKIS related to social awareness and service impacted you since leaving high school?

I have received quality responses from eleven students thus far, which you can read here, but I hope to get more alumni perspectives before seeking to draw conclusions about the long-term impact of our service programs upon students.

Jena’s Perspective

However, I would like to post a comment I received today from Jena Wong, who was in my 2003-2004 World Cultures in Action class.  She also went on my Kolkata, India interim trip in 2006, and took my “Service, Society, and the Sacred” class during her senior year.  From the very start, Jena was a sensitive and mature young woman.  Her numerous service trips built upon her own strong foundation of personal values.  I was very pleased, although not particularly surprised, that Jena continues to work towards developing the skills to serve others in the future. Here is her response to the question I posed to alumni above:

My first memorable experiences with service came from taking a course called World Cultures in grade 9 with Mr. Schmidt and his wife Ms. Talbot. A question that was directly and indirectly addressed throughout the year that helped give me a frame of mind for engaging in service-type activities was “How does giving my time to touch and impact other lives help develop and shape who I am?” At the end of the course, we were each required to write a paper, “Who am I?”. I was only able to answer this question because of the service experiences that World Cultures had provided me throughout the year.

In November that year, our class had the opportunity to spend a weekend in Foshan, China at an orphanage. We were told that these children were deprived of attention and something as simple as holding them to let them know that someone cared for them was enough to make a measurable impact. I had never been to an orphanage prior to that trip, so I was excited and nervous not knowing what to anticipate. During that weekend, I held onto the children as much as I could before we had to leave. I had made several strong connections with the children, so it was difficult for me to leave on the last day.

After much reflection on my high school experiences with service, I realized how blessed I was to have such raw experiences of selflessness, compassion and empathy in a unique environment. I recently graduated from UBC and in my four years of post secondary, I have had generic volunteer positions involving hospital work or working with elementary school children. These experiences were nothing comparable to those I had during high school. I feel a longing or urge to get involved with the community the way I did in HKIS. I also had the privilege of participating in the interim “Children of Kolkata”. I had the opportunity to spend time at a street children shelter, Future Hope, as well as an orphanage founded by Mother Teresa. Returning to Kolkata has been on my mind ever since.

Spending time in orphanages and shelters has given me much exposure to the realities of human poverty and disability of which I was unaware living in a fast-paced, wealthy city. During these volunteer experiences, I learnt the importance of being selfless. I realized that fear is a selfish emotion because the emotion stems from being afraid of what happens to the self. I found the courage to devote my entire self to the children at the orphanages and shelters. This meant not being afraid of changing diapers, bathing the disabled, losing a little sleep, approaching someone or catching a cold. Finding the courage to embrace uncomfortable situations was the best thing I ever did and has helped me realize and confirm my dream of helping people for the rest of my life. My high school service experiences were definitely the driving forces pushing me to realize that dream.

Conclusion

Reading Jena’s comments, I can see the importance of putting students into situations in which they experience needs far greater than their own, such as in Foshan or Kolkata.  Such outings ask a great deal of students personally – raw experiences of selflessness, compassion and empathy.  For Jena and other students these moments leave a lasting impression that they have so much to give to a world in need.

Jena speaks of learning about courage.  During her senior year, she spent her Interim week in March at an orphanage in Pattaya, Thailand.  I remember that she wrote in a reflection following the trip of a frightening experience she had with a blind boy from the orphanage that took her much farther out into the ocean than she felt comfortable with.  The boy’s love of living in the moment made a deep impression upon her, one that even now she indirectly alludes to in her reference to courage.

Jena’s comments make the claim that her high school service experiences were a catalyst for deep change.  She realized that she had a calling to give her life for others, and she continues to live this out in her studies.  Jena, we wish you all the best in your “dream of helping people for the rest of your life!”

Finally, I’d like to encourage alumni to contribute their stories of the long-term impact (or lack of impact) that social awareness courses and service experiences at HKIS have had upon them.  Please contribute at the bottom of this blog entry.

Jena is in the back standing next to Ms. Talbot.  Our class is sitting on a yin-yang symbol at the center of this Wong Tai Sin temple outside of Foshan. 

Upgrade Your Egoic Operating System: A Conversation with Cynthia Bourgeault

Well-known priest and author Cynthia Bourgeault visited our 9th grade Humanities I in Action in late November, a week after we had returned from our trip to the Foshan orphanage in China.  Students found her message of upgrading one’s operating system to be valuable in the context of this service-learning course. 

My students and I had returned recently from a powerful 4-day trip to an orphanage in Foshan, China.  Every year this trip awakens students to the world outside, as they say, their “bubble” of security, progress, and affluence.  Many students struggle to resume their energetic pursuit of academic achievement in light of their new awareness of the reality faced by children in a Chinese orphanage.  The disjuncture between their reality and being at the orphanage is what theoretician Jack Mezirow calls a “disorienting dilemma.”  Last year after the trip, I asked my students to give a one-word description of their feelings at that moment.  When it came to DJ, he said, “Pointless.”  Studying seemed pointless, given his new awareness of suffering of children only four hours away from our campus.  How do we deal with students who see something greater in their service trips than they experience in their daily school routine?

Following the trip this year we were fortunate to have Cynthia Bourgeault, an Episcopalian priest and leader of the Centering Prayer movement, come and speak to our students about the Foshan trip. Her solution for disorientation: upgrade your egoic operating system!

The following is a hypothetical conversation between myself and Cynthia, based on her class presentation, student responses before and after her visit, my conversations with her, and her writings.  The night before her visit, students read an excerpt from her Wisdom Jesus book in a chapter entitled, “The Kingdom of God is Within You,” pages 30-37.  They wrote blog responses both before and after her visit.

Marty: Cynthia, we couldn’t have picked a better time for you to visit.  Thanks for coming in.  I apologize for sending you the student responses so late last night. 

Cynthia: Not a problem – I was able to open them up this morning.  You know, I don’t often speak to student groups, but I was very impressed with what they had to say.  Here, let’s take one of the examples, from Arnesh. I assume he’s of Indian descent?

M: That’s right.  He grew up mostly in the US and moved to Hong Kong last year.

C: This is what Arnesh had to say:

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Having grown up in a Western environment, I have repeatedly heard this quote. I heard it many times, but I never really understood it. I thought this quote said that we should love our close family and friends, and our neighbors. I never really thought any deeper than that. After reading the excerpt from Cynthia Bourgeault, I realized something else. This quote isn’t saying that we should only love the ones close to us, but we should love everybody, regardless of whether we know them or not. This especially relates to my experience in the Foshan orphanage. I only met these orphans for three days, and yet, I feel a connection to them. Love (and compassion) is necessary to make a difference in these orphanages. I now recognize that the quote is saying we should love everybody, no matter what.

M: Arnesh is a good example of what a lot of other kids said last night – the Foshan experience extended their sense of care to people they didn’t know previously.

C: What an experience for a 14-year old to have!

But I think this seems to get at the heart of this “disorienting dilemma” that you’re talking about.  In other words, how do these privileged students reconcile a vision of a life of compassion that they experienced at the orphanage with the competitive, self-focused nature of their school lives? They went to the orphanage and saw, experienced first-hand that the world is indeed in need of compassion.  But then they come back to HKIS, which – no critique of the school here – but you come to school and you are inside a system in which you must achieve, excel, compete.  How do we reconcile these two?  This is the question for this generation of privileged students.  This is the question they will need to live, and their answer could change the world.

M: You’ve also named the struggle of teaching at HKIS, too!  What can we do? 

C: Well, first, don’t be too hard on yourselves.  What a first-class education allows you to do is to get the “big picture.”  I know you have taught students about Spiral Dynamics – they knew the color levels today in class – and HKIS helps them see that’s it’s one world they are living in.

M: I do think that’s true, certainly for some students.  In the research I did, students’ self-diagnosis was that they lived in a “bubble” and that our classes burst that bubble and helped to connect them to something larger. It may sound odd, but sometimes students come back and say, “After going to Foshan, now I understand Darfur.”  Suffering exists everywhere, so an experience in a Chinese orphanage can connect them to suffering halfway around the globe.

C: It was interesting that in the excerpt you gave them for today that many students, like Arnesh, quoted Jesus’ words, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  That is, love that child at the Foshan orphanage as a continuation of your own being.  There aren’t two individuals, a privileged student on a school trip and an unfortunate child in an orphanage that for some reason lost in the lottery of life.  Your students experienced what the verse says – loving others as yourself.

M: Yes, the 9th graders seem to get this – that service from a “superior” to an “inferior” is somehow not really service.

C: I think this experience also challenges our definition of “love,” which lies at the heart of Jesus’ message, to love God and love your neighbor.  The love of Jesus is self-emptying, and the nature of such love is to flow.  To flow out.  And when loves flows out, what flows in?  I think your students would say that a child flowed in.  And when we say a child flowed in, we don’t primarily mean the child’s touch or intellect or emotions, although we talk about those things as tangible aspects of the experience, but it’s something about a child’s “being.”

M: This brings to mind the passage from the Gospel of John where Jesus the night before he died prayed for his disciples: “I pray that they may all be one, Father.  May they be in us, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they be one” (17:21).  Unity, interconnectedness, a flowing of one into another, as you say.

C: I think this is precisely what John had in mind: no separation between God and the whole human family.  We are talking about a complete, mutual indwelling: I am in God, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other.  John says, “I am the vine; you are the branches.  Abide in me as I in you.”  A few verses later Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.  Abide in my love.”

M: Sounds like the mystery of the trinity.  Pretty profound stuff.

C: (smiles) The trinity – yes, we’ll have to pick that one up in a future conversation!

M: Next trip to Hong Kong, we’ll talk Trinity.

But transitioning from the Trinity, from the sublime . . . back to the classroom.  As a teacher, Monday is approaching, and what do I do next!

C: Yes, the orphanage experience and “mutual indwelling of love” – quite an opening act!  What comes next?

M: Well, I’m not sure.  It is kind of jarring to go back to school, ask them to write an essay about their experience, and say, “Well, thanks for pouring your heart out on Foshan narrative piece and I’m sure it has changed your life, but it didn’t have a consistent narrative arc, so I’ll give you a B-!”

C: There’s the clash of systems.  But they need these skills for later, right?

M: That’s what we keep saying, and I think it’s true, but . . . well, you see the struggle. 

But as a teacher I really resonated today with your message of “upgrading the egoic operating system.”  I keep trying to move the curriculum towards this goal . . . and still balance all the skills we need to give them. 

C: Can’t help you on the skills part, but let’s talk about helping them change their way of thinking.

M: Before you get to that, Cynthia, if I can explain why this resonates for me.  For some time now I’ve felt that some of our kids are really “spiritually gifted.” Not that lots of them are always in formal religious organizations, although some are, but if I look at the kids in my classes with their ability to empathize, their passion for service projects, their apprehension of things of depth.  Drawing on Spiral Dynamics, they have the potential to go way up the spiral.  The challenge for me as a teacher is to figure out how to serve the deep needs of my students.  So, when you talk about this kind of “upgrade,” it fits what I sense, but how do we do it!?  That’s the question.

C: I think your orphanage visit was extraordinary in that they stepped into the shoes of an underprivileged child in a Chinese institution.  Rather than just seeing life from one perspective – inside the bubble, as you say – students have connected their “small life” with the big world out there.  Yet, somehow this apparent disorientation was perceived by most as enlivening and deeply rewarding, despite the complex emotions that accompanied the experience.  They see that it’s possible to see the world from a more complete, more satisfying viewpoint.

M: You’re right that kids always want to go back – a good number of students do see the trip as a personal turning point of their high school career. 

C: So, the question is: how can we make a more satisfying, but temporary way of seeing the world into a more permanent state of mind?

M: Yes, that’s the big question.

C: The Foshan trip touches their emotions, while school mostly focuses on the mind.  But in a biblical sense, the heart is that spiritual organ that links mind and the emotions.  What that means in practice is for students to develop a “heart,” they need to re-wire the brain to integrate their thoughts and feelings into one.

M: Right, that’s the bigger question inside the big question.  How do we re-wire our brains?

C: I had three suggestions for your students today.  First, students can do meditation.  We have developed ‘four brains,’ as it were, throughout human history, and when we develop a state of relaxed alertness, we include all four brains in our thinking.  But when we are stressed, when it’s fight or flight, we hunker down into our reptilian brain, cutting off other ways of knowing.  That old brain isn’t very creative.  Through meditation the brain can be trained to have access to all four brains, even under stress.  What you want to do is change the default setting of the brain – literally change the neural pathways – so that the brain and the heart are in sync all the time.

M: When we’ve experimented with meditation, students are very interested, although it seems that this kind of discipline only works over time.

C: Meditation, or what I teach about Centering Prayer – these do seem to be the “royal road” to grow the heart, but it’s hard to develop that habit for a lot of kids at this age.

M: Not just for kids!

C: Right, all of us.  So, that’s why I tried to give the students some other suggestions.  So, my 2nd suggestion was simply developing the practice of looking at similarities rather than differences.  I know you’ve studied about the Rwandan genocide.  Hutus and Tutsis had so many similarities: language, culture, and religion.  But their leaders trained them to see differences rather than similarities.  The simple practice of looking for similarities rather than the default setting of focusing on differences can helps kids develop a more “undifferentiated” outlook.

M: This fairly simple suggestion was picked up by a number of kids in their blog entries about your talk.  Here’s a comment from Nick [in the middle below]:

Something that I would hold onto after hearing Mrs. Bourgeault speak is that we should look at the similarities instead of the differences in humans. When we look at differences, it would bring up disagreements in what we believe and think. Normally, we always look at how we are different from others and rarely the similarities because of the way society is built. If people just though about the similarities instead of differences, it would drastically cut down on conflicts. Connections between people or groups would be much stronger as well.

A number of students commented on this idea of re-training the brain to look for what brings us together rather than what separates us. 

And your third point today about respect – I thought that was also quite powerful.

C: The only way people who we are trying to serve will grow is if we respect them.  And developing genuine respect is an internal process.  I think it’s helpful to break down the word “respect” into two parts.  What you get is “re-spect”, to “spect again” – or, we would say to “see again.”  That happened in the orphanage.  Once your students got to know the children and grew attached to them, they began to see not simply a stereotype of “orphans” or “special needs children,” but in time came to see their individual personalities, their desire to learn, their longing to connect, and even the orphans’ care for each other. And that respect from within is then projected from students’ eyes back to the children.  We all have this power within our eyes to help other people grow. When you look out of your eyes with a heart of compassion and respect, that energy, say in the case of the orphans, draws out love from within the children for themselves.

M: An intriguing idea.  If the eyes are the window of the soul, then directing a gaze that has cultivated compassion towards another could be a powerful form of service.  I’ll have to think about that some more.

 I’d like to close our conversation with a quote from one of the kids in the class, Teresa [in the middle below].  This is what she had to say about your talk and the excerpt from the Wisdom Jesus:

“Cynthia mentioned that at a very young age we’ve been trained to differentiate, using our ‘Egoic Operating System.’ It’s not that I’m a bad person just because I saw the differences between others and me, it’s because we’ve been trained to do so.  ‘A system based in duality can’t possibly perceive oneness; it can’t create anything beyond itself—only more duality and more trouble. So the drama goes on and on’ (p. 34). I finally understood that the reason why I—and many people—have prejudice, it’s because I’ve been noticing the differences between me and other people and not the similarities. After Cynthia’s talk I felt like I was being released from the thought that I was a bad person. Not only did I stop thinking that I was a bad person, I began to ask how I can stop looking at the world through lens of the egoic operating system. ‘Unlike the egoic operating system, the heart does not perceive through differentiation’ (p. 36). The key to stop having prejudice is to look at the world through the lens of the non-dual system. Once I begin to see everyone as “one” then I won’t focus on our differences, hence there will be no prejudice.”

This is what I mean about spiritually-gifted students.  Teresa is 14!  How can we teach kids more about non-duality?  There are kids out there ready to grow!

C: That’s why I enjoyed meeting them today. Great kids, perceptive kids.

M: Cynthia, we appreciate your great work of helping all of us better see with the eyes of compassion. In fact, I think the number one response in the blogs was not what you said, but about you – your energy, your humor, your mentioning of Kermit the frog, kids could sense you really cared to get your important message across. Blessings on your future ministry, and I hope you can visit again with our students.

C: I’d love to come back.

M: Thanks again, Cynthia.