Mindy’s Monday Motivation – Blog Post #26 – Engage in discussions to expand your viewpoints

This past Sunday, I arranged a short hike and picnic with my neighbor and my friend along with our kids. My friend, Laure, just moved to town and my neighbor has wanted to take her little ones for a hike. We chose Hole in the Rock trail in Papago Park (this is the park around the Phoenix zoo, if you are not aware of the location). It’s a easy 5 minute hike. The kids get to explore the hole. The adults can take pictures and then we hike back down to the picnic benches nearby to eat. While the kids played, the adults gathered to talk. One topic that came up in discussion is the current education situation with COVID.

Almost everyone has an opinion on this. For most of the pandemic, I was under the opinion that the kids would be just fine. They would miss a year of schooling and then they would bounce back. This stemmed from my own experience as I did not receive any formal education until I was twelve years old, when I arrived in the United States. A bit of backstory here for those who don’t know, my parents were Chinese Vietnamese. Before the war in Vietnam, they were prosperous merchants. After the war, the anti-foreigner sentiment was high resulting in our family being rejected and ostracized in Vietnam as we were not pure Vietnamese. Our neighbors would ‘tell’ on us with the army, so we often were targeted for ‘search and seizure’. They searched for anti-communism materials such as books written in foreign languages, jewelry, and money beyond the allowed limit (everyone was supposed to have equal amount, so you couldn’t have more riches than your neighbors). My oldest brother was stabbed in the back at school by another kid who didn’t like his Chinese look. My second brother and I were subjected to rocks being thrown at us because we were Chinese. My parents decided that it was too dangerous then, so we were kept home and received little education. My parents didn’t have much money for tutors, but once in a while, we would get one who came to the house to teach all six kids. Of course, with six kids at different age levels, I wasn’t getting much of an education. I didn’t learn anything during those home classes and really didn’t understand what was going on most of the time.?I didn’t know how to read or write. My mom and sisters usually would take turn to read to me. Fast forward to the time when I was twelve, we came to the US and I started learning things. I was confused most of the time, but I was absorbing. I quickly learned English, got out of English as a Second Language classes and into regular mainstream courses. So, from my perspective, kids would catch up just like I did.

Back to our discussion at the park, one individual was the mom of my neighbor and grandma to the little ones, Coco. Coco is a retired teacher but still stays involved in education by substituting for other teachers as needed. Her opinion was entirely different, and it came from her perspective as an educator. What she saw was a breakdown of our education system and a detriment to the kids who were already behind. For kids who got parents who could devote time to supplement their education during the pandemic and in some instances, like my friend, Laure, who became the teacher as she sat with her 5 year old to help her through her coursework, they fared better and would come out alright in the aftermath of this pandemic (if it should ever end). However, for the kids whose parents worked all day long and could not spare the time, they were suffering. During that period when the kids were learning online, their teachers would be dealing with 24-30 screens of age 5-13 doing many different things and not being able to help the kids stay focus. They started slipping on their foundations. I could totally see this because it was happening with both of my kids. Even my high schooler was affected. They got bored sitting at their desks, so they would start thinking of something else or doing something else. Then, when the quiz or test came, they were not able to answer the questions because they never heard the material to begin with. When they were in school, the teacher would be there to help get them back on course and stayed focus. When the rest of their classmates were paying attention, most of the kids would be hard press not to do the same. (Peer pressure gets a bad rap sometimes, but it can be a good thing, too.) My kids were lucky because they had my husband and I who would keep tap on what they were learning and doing at school and helped them get through the huddles.

As I stood there, listening to Coco talked about her experiences as an educator during the pandemic. I realized how myopic my viewpoint was on the whole matter of education. My one experience marred my vision and I failed to see the bigger picture. I had thought that my experience could be extrapolated to the rest of the world and failed to recognize that we were all different - different in circumstances. I was wrong in my thinking as I didn’t consider all the kids in all different situations.

So, this week, I would like to suggest that we spend a bit of time conversing with others on topics that we might have differently opinions on. You’ll never what you could learn from others if you never took the opportunity to speak with each other about it. And, as you engage in these healthy debates, please keep the words of Joseph Joubert in mind:

The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but process.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Until next week,

Mindy