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The Mystery of Inequity
I have had the good fortune to connect with and mentor a few students from Nigeria, and one from Ghana, through the magic modern invention known as Facebook. These students have been participating, answering questions and seeking clarifications in the free video resources I have been posting on my social media outlets, wishing to improve their skills.
One of my mentees from Nigeria hopes to one day become a doctor. I learned today that his mother is affected by hepatitis B, which is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa. There are 20 million people living with hepatitis B, C, or both in Nigeria, and more than 80% of the people who have the disease do not even know their status.
The Teaching Standard of Excellence
Yes, the standardized test tutoring and college admissions field is rather an unregulated field. But it gets worse than that. Many tutors are able to attract clients due to an Ivy League college degree, but whether they can keep them is another matter. Exam-day performance and ultimate college/graduate school admission results are the aftermath of a wide variety of factors, and cannot be predicted ahead of time, but no matter the exact conditions governing the situation, there is always space for an appeal to professional integrity.
Just because you have an Ivy League degree and maybe received a perfect (or close to perfect) score on the standardized tests themselves does not mean that you are a good teacher.
Ready, Set, Iterate
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it…” And those who do, repeat something else: they iterate.
Maybe it’s an entrepreneurship class buzzword, but I’m applying it as a life philosophy. Before understanding it as a requirement for developing product-market fit, I have always been an iterator.
The first draft of anything is always quite a catastrophe. But if we do it again and again, we automatically become better. The brain does so naturally. In my tutoring programs, I provide the context that allows students’ brains to do what it does on its own. I’m the iterator that keeps them in the test prep mindset.
The Adjacent Possible
One concept that really stood out to me in one of my business school classes today is the idea of the “adjacent possible.” Although the professor did not go into that idea in too much detail, he drew upon a metaphor that served to ingrain the idea in my mind.
A child who is seeing the night sky for the first time is asked, “what do you see?” Instead of “lights,” what he is really answering is his form of the idea of the “adjacent possible.”
Overcoming Adversity
Life is full of ups and downs. In hindsight, some of the worst experiences we have lived through seem quite minor in retrospect. Why is this the case?
Partly due to the idea that past events have the fortunate perspective of being only a portion of a greater whole. Despite all the vicissitudes, the “bad” is never a constant. We just don’t know when the “turning point” will be, or what its particular nature. In times of adversity, it is more important ever to remain faithful in the understanding that a solution might be just around the corner.
Happiness & Drugs
Human beings are a species that has survived to this age due to certain of our behaviors being “rewarded” while others “reprimanded.” Many things we do on a day-to-day basis give us “pleasure” so that our brains are wired to repeat these actions over and over again. Eating, sleeping, and bathing are basic behaviors that promote our overall health and wellness. But what about social behaviors?
As always, technological progress has occurred without much awareness or heed to the “human” consequences. Those are things we will have to learn to adapt to or make laws for as we learn from our mistakes. As media and, increasingly, AI have replaced social interactions and trust-building between individuals, that “pleasure” we receive from social interaction is even minimized.
The Opportunity of Hindsight
Hindsight is 20/20, right?
Business leaders are often lauded for their “vision” or complain when they lack it, because the future seems unclear due to factors outside their control. But everyone agrees on one thing, that past events make a lot more sense when you can connect the dots from the perspective of reflection.
Each moment is in the process of becoming, but when events are cemented in the black-and-white reel of times past, you can make some conclusions. And there’s another saying for that: “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Whether you accredit it to Churchill, Santayana, or Burke, the wisdom is the same. Why not benefit from that clarity of vision when it manifests?
The Myth of the “Elite”
There is no such thing as “elitism.” No matter how much anyone tries to convince me of that fact, it is simply not true. In God’s eyes, we are all equal as his children.
Dreaming up a concept of an “elite” class that you did not have the good fortune to be a part of is an excuse for becoming less than you otherwise could have been. In other words, it’s an excuse to not do anything to change your present social position.
The Tutor-Pupil Contract
The way education is currently implemented in the United States did not emerge until the 19th century. Prior to that, and throughout ancient history, children of families who could afford it sought the services of “tutors,” who were responsible for their children’s formal education. Some famous examples include, Aristotle, who tutored Alexander the Great in 343 BC when Alexander was 13 years old, and Descartes, who tutored Queen Christina of Sweden in 1649 when she was 19.
The Circumlocutory Circuitous Route
After having been a teacher for the past decade, I have probably heard every color and shape of excuse… welcome to the circumlocutory circuitous route to completing homework! The funny thing is the joke is always on the student. There is no cheating hard work.
For appearances, economic interest, reputation, job security, or what have you, teachers have chosen not to “out” their students every time they hear an “excuse-deemed-excuse,” shall we say, but, we always feel guilty doing it. Because, well, most of us love our students.
The Joy of Learning
What makes learning so pleasurable?
Sometimes I get a jolt of self-recognition when someone pokes fun at the number of degrees I’m pursuing or, more politely, characterizes me as a “lifelong learner” that I realize I might be hooked onto something—learning.
But what is it, exactly, and why does it make us feel so good?
My Harvard Mom
I was born in a one-room apartment with no flushing toilet. It was one of those holes in the ground, in case you’ve ever visited Communist China in the 90s. But the walls were filled with books. My mother cut out little paper cards to teach me Chinese characters since I was two months old so I could be reading books by the time I was two. That was my “Harvard mom.”
Why I Teach
I remember hearing an old saying back in grade school, “Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach gym.” I remember thinking it actually had a point.
Of course, years later, having been a tutor for the past ten years of my life, I have a few bones to pick. It seems that this society values “doers” much more than “teachers.” It also seems to believe that “gym” or “physical fitness” can’t really be taught.
The Idea of an Education
I always knew I had something to offer my students. What I didn’t always know was what.
What goes without saying is that there are several things going desperately wrong with the way we are educating our children in this country. With the rampant growth of technological information and data processing, what are we losing?