fake sun and artificial community

Wednesday morning the sun raced ahead of my alarm clock, beat down my curtain of darkness, and shook me awake. Instead of responding grumpily (do you have any idea what time it is?), I leapt out of bed. Well, ok. I have a bum knee, so really I hobbled out of bed. With a burst of energy, I quickly dressed for the day, left the apartment an hour earlier than usual, and tackled some business. This is typical summer for me: boundless energy, bright spirits, big plans.

I blame the sun.

Nothing compares

with solar energy. We have tried, for thousands of years, to reproduce the positive effects of sunlight on the human body and psyche. Artificial light dates back almost as far as the human race, and as technology advances so does our efforts at reproducing sunlight. We have electric lights that contain every wavelength as sunlight, lights so intense they are blinding, lights that bake our skin just like the sun. We’ve isolated and replicated vitamin D, one of the vitamins that our bodies produce when exposed to sunlight.

And yet, and yet. None of it can replace good old natural sunlight. Fakies may keep us limping along, but we have yet to create light that can energize and sustain us as well as the sun can. After tens of thousands of years of human evolution, we can’t replicate something as simple as this. (Maybe not so simple- is it a particle, or is it a wave? Yes!)

What is truly remarkable about humans is that, even though we can’t even reproduce the first day of creation, we go on to try to reproduce even more complex phenomena. We discover, though, that just like sunlight, our desperate efforts fall miserably short. Such as…

Desire. I can’t create for my students the desire to learn. I can help them direct it, focus it, channel it. I can even help them amplify it. But it can not be created, though believe me I have tried. It must already exist on its own somewhere within their hearts.

Community. What great irony there is in the idea of creating community. We build towns, erect housing additions, establish organizations, even birth families. But the truest, deepest communities are organic and natural. Artificial community, like artificial sunlight, lacks something essential.

It may contain all the necessary wavelengths and all the identifiable ingredients. It may work in a pinch to see a person through the winter. But at the end of the day, it is fake.

Why do we continue pouring resources into replication?

From the desk in my classroom I can look through glass doors to the outside. Out there is all this beautiful sunshine, but we have built opaque walls around ourselves to shut it out, and then installed artificial lights. Why so counterproductive?

It’s about control. The sunlight comes and goes at its leisure. It is not scheduled, is not reliable. And so, though it offers great joy and happiness, we opt for something thousands of times less effective and less true so that we can gain control over it.

You can not schedule and regulate real community. It has a mind all its own, and may grow, shrink, love, and play at its own leisure. And so we shy away from it, abandon it, even despise it, in favor of a knock-off of our own creation that will follow our bidding.

My students read Plato’s allegory of the cave yesterday and they agreed. No matter what others may say, the fire and its shadows in the cave just can’t compete with the warmth and brightness of the sun.

Poison Ivy vs. Tulips

I’ve been contemplating poison ivy recently (don’t ask). Actually, a friend and I were discussing the plant and its unique qualities. Our conversation ended with the inevitable questions, “Does poison ivy serve any real purpose? Does it bring any goodness to the world?”

Sure, it produces oxygen and feeds herbivores, but many other, kinder plants do that, too. Really, poison ivy, what’s the point? Is a plant that causes so much suffering really necessary?

I know many plants have developed poisonous fruit, leaves, and roots as a defense mechanism, but here’s the thing about poison ivy. It’s only poisonous to humans! Yeah, that’s right. All other creatures can munch it, frolic in it, build nests in and with it, with no ill effects. Why on earth would a plant develop such a specialized defense against just one species?

Michael Pollan suggests the intellectual exercise of viewing the world, includin

g humans, through the perspective of plants and animals. So, from the poison ivy’s perspective, what possible advantage could it achieve through a defense against humans?

The answer is clear. Humans have caused more damage to life on Earth more than any other single species. If a plant were to defend itself, this would be the animal against which to do so, and this strategy has worked remarkably well for PI. The mantra, “leaves of three, let it be,” has saved millions of PI plants from the destructive forces of hikers, gardeners, and explorers, so that the plant thrives across all of the many climates and temperature zones of North America and beyond. PI has free range over any habitat it desires without asking permission or begging for support. No wildlife preserves or protected areas necessary for this rebel, no sir. It grows wherever it damn well pleases.

Then there’s tulips. Ah, tulips. Who doesn’t love these beautiful flowers? Although they do have a natural habitat, and there is such a thing as wild tulips, the lovely flowers which we all know and love are asexual, requiring careful cultivation and long-range planning. Tulips spring up in flower beds around the world only because humans work hard to make it so.

You have to admire the tulips’ strategy, too. Taking a radically different course of action than PI, it has made itself so beautiful, so desirable to the dominant species that we go to great lengths to ensure its survival and proliferation. Very, very clever.

Which plant has chosen the better path? A disadvantage accompanies every advantage. Poison ivy, though seemingly unconquerable, plays a dangerous game antagonizing the most powerful, or at least the most destructive, species on earth. Humans have driven plenty of other species to the brink of extinction, even species with whom they had no quarrel. It’s a bold move, PI, but watch your step.

Tulips, on the other hand, have relinquished much of their freedom in befriending the human race. Their domesticated varieties, now in greater abundance than their wild ancestors, grow only where humans desire, and their habitat is much more limited than PI’s. That’s the trouble with powerful friends; you easily become totally dependent on them.

So if you were a plant, which would you rather be? The rebel with great freedom but great risk, or the beauty living in security but almost total dependence on another?

Thank you nurse

This week is national nurses’ week, an opportunity for all of us to honor and thank those women and men who have dedicated their lives, or a portion of it, to caring and serving in a capacity that requires great strength, compassion, intelligence, patience, and fortitude.

Nurses have played pivotal roles in my own life. One of my favorite aunts is nurse extraordinaire. I call upon her for her expertise on a regular basis. The night I gave birth to Aliyah two nurses were my closest friends for a few hours. Because of their steadfastness I was able to endure the worst of labor while maintaining my sense of humor.

But what I will never, ever forget is the day a nurse saved my life. It was The Worst Day of My Life. I awoke early. No, I hadn’t slept the night before, but it was early in the morning when the dangerous thoughts first crept through my mind, “I want to stop the pain. I would do anything to make this pain go away.” I had just enough sanity left to recognize my danger, to know I needed to call someone immediately, but at first I couldn’t think of whom. Who would listen to my shame, embarrassment, fear, and pain without judgment? Who would know just how to stop me from following through with my dangerous thoughts?

The answer was suddenly clear. There was only one person to call, and this person was a nurse. I called her before the sun had even risen, and when she heard my voice on the phone she asked for no explanation, but came to my house immediately. She was not my best friend, not a family member, but she embodied all of the qualities of the greatest nurse. She had, and still has, a passion to bring health and healing to the human body and soul, and she did so that day by sharing from the very depths of her own soul. She stayed by my side and nursed me back to a place of safety.

This amazing woman isn’t a nurse because it was a lucrative career choice. Instead, her profession springs from a heart, mind, and soul of gold.

To help celebrate this week, do you have a story of a nurse who has touched your life?

To care or not to care, that is the question

Believe it or not, not every day in the classroom is a bastion of inspiration and exhilaration for a teacher. It’s true. There are those days where the students and the teacher look at one another, and the same thought is running through all their heads, “I can think of at least 100 other places I’d rather be.”

The difference between teacher and students is that the teacher still has to fake it. I have to smile and reach into the depths of my being is search of reserves of energy to pour into today’s lesson. The students, on the other hand, can sit there, stare back at me with empty eyes, and ask inane questions like, “Why do we have to read Shakespeare?”

Although this charade can drain my soul of its very last drop of verve, it can also trick my mind into believing the lie. The irony is that if I can trick my mind into believing that today’s classroom experience carries excitement and pith, it is no longer a lie. Yep. I have that much control. It doesn’t matter whether my students ever buy into it. It becomes the truth, and they can choose to benefit from it or not.

I did see a couple of students paying attention and nodding today. Either they were believing it, or they too were faking it. Days like today, I’ll take either. If they pretend long enough that they enjoy Shakespeare, they may actually talk themselves into it.

Don't tell me you don't have an opinion

We examined editorial cartoons in class today. Most of my students had never spent any time with them, so we covered some of the necessary basics to understanding their message. I fielded some interesting questions:

Q: Why do they always draw Obama with such big ears?

A: Have you ever taken a good look at those things? They're ginormous!

Q: Why does the donkey always represent the Democrats and the elephant the Republicans? Do they represent attributes of the party?

A: Most likely, yes.

Q: This cartoon could offend some people.

A: Yes, most do.

I assigned each group one cartoon, and they were to write down:

1. The issue addressed in the cartoon.

2. What each character represented.

3. The artist's opinion on the issue.

4. Their opinion on the issue.

About halfway through class, while they were working diligently, I received the most disturbing question I've ever heard in the classroom:

"What if we don't have an opinion?"

Now, this is a state of mind with which I simply can not relate. I was raised in a family where an opinion on anything and everything was an absolute imperative, a matter of survival. Those without an opinion were mocked and shunned. By the age of 3 I had learned that if I didn't have an opinion, I had better quickly come up with one. By age 4 I had learned to defend that opinion with diligence and fervor. Of course, one was always allowed to change opinions, and in fact we often did, but only if the new opinion was held with even more passion than the original.

What if we don't have an opinion? I answered the only way I knew how.

"You have 10 minutes to come up with one."

Now, I'm not promoting arbitrary opinions. I want them to research an issue, consider both sides, weigh the facts, project the consequences. They do need to increase their critical thinking skills (who of us doesn't), but what they need even more is a cure to their apathy.

They are not apathetic by nature. They impress me everyday with their deeply held concern for their friends and family. The reason they are in school now is to improve life not only for themselves but also for those they love.

All they need is for someone to help them see the connection between politics and local, national, and world events, and their own inner circles. How does America's response to the energy crisis affect their children? How does the government's involvement in corporate spending affect their own wages? Who can help them draw these lines?

That is my job. I'm not just and English teacher, I'm a line drawer.