I just finished reading an amazing book. I had picked up Developing the Leader Within You by John Maxwell expecting it to offer up some tips and strategies on how to get people to work with you. The book was that and also completely something else. I would say that more than 80% of the book focused on how you need to first work on yourself as a person, in order to effectively lead others. Makes sense, doesn't it? It just wasn't what I had expected.
Maxwell is incredibly blunt and concrete in his examples, discussions, and points. He makes bullet points on things you need to have, need to consider, need to be. His theory is that first you need to work on yourself as a person to embody all the necessary qualities, and then you can work on your people relationships, and then you can consider introducing changes. In that order.
Some memorable quotes (they tie in nicely as well to education, character ed, and a lot of other things that have been on and off my mind):
"The dictionary defines integrity as 'the state of being complete, unified.' When I have integrity, my words and my deeds match up. I am who I am, no matter where I am or who I am with. [...] Integrity is not what we do so much as who we are. And who we are, in turn, determines what we do. [...] We are all faced with conflicting desires. No one [...] can avoid this battle. Integrity is the factor that determines which one will prevail. We struggle daily with situations that demand decisions between what we want to do and what we ought to do. Integrity establishes the ground rules for resolving those tensions. It determines who we are and how we will respond before the conflict even appears. [...] It is the pivotal point between a happy person and a divided spirit. It frees us to be whole persons no matter what comes our way."
"Note the difference: In the beginning the skills of a leader are essential. No change will ever occur if the psychological needs are unmet. Once change has begun, the skills of a manager are needed to maintain needed change. [...] A change can make sense logically, but still lead to anxiety in the psychological dimension. [...] So before introducing change, we have to consider the psychological dimension."
"Leadership leaks should be planned and positive, preparing the people for the meeting where the change will be formally presented." --> KSI'ers, this totally parallels what Pearl Kane said about talking to all the key people before a meeting to get their support on a new plan. By the time the meeting rolls around, you should have already garnered support from all the key players or "influencers", as Maxwell calls them.
"Notice I did not say our attitudes determine how we feel. There is a great difference between how we feel and how we handle our feelings. Everyone has times when they feel bad. Our attitudes cannot stop our feelings, but they can keep our feelings from stopping us."
"My father [...] is a leader's leader. One of his strengths is his positive attitude. [...] As he opened his briefcase, I noticed a couple of motivational attitude books. I said, 'Dad, you're seventy years old. You've always had a great attitude. Are you still reading that stuff?' He looked me in the eye and said, 'Son, I have to keep working on my thought life. I am responsible to have a great attitude and to maintain it. My attitude does not run on automatic.'"
"[...] When we tell one of our children, 'Change your attitude,' the message is too general and the change we want is unclear. A more effective approach is explaining behaviors that signify bad attitudes. If we help them change their behaviors, the attitude will change on their own. Instead of saying to our kids, 'Get a grateful attitude,' we ask them to give one compliment to every member of the family each day. As this becomes a habit in their lives, the attitude of gratitude follows."
"People don't care how much you see until they see how much you care. I emphasize again: people buy into the leader before they buy into that leader's vision. Cultivate trust. Be transparent and patient. Start where they are by seeing through their eyes. Seek to find their hopes and dreams. [...] Go for the win-win. Remember, when you help people get what they want, they will help you get what you want."
"You don't have to make every decision, but you should always be accessible. If your people are smart, they will keep you informed, and if you're informed, you're a part of the decision. With that in place, it's easy for you to back your people and that eliminates second guessing."
Love Maxwell! I hope you find his words inspiring as I do. If you have time to pick up this book, I highly recommend it. It reads a bit like a sermon, because he uses anecdotes on every page and his background is religious. But, he definitely cuts through all the fluff and offers great and very detailed advice. Great stuff.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Friday, June 8, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
Leadership in the Classroom
I've picked up some books on leadership, because I will need all the people skills I can get in order to motivate my department colleagues to work together, on things they don't necessarily already believe in. You can laugh secretly if you will, but I think leadership can be taught and learned, and I think next year I will appreciate every piece of advice I have gathered on this topic.
One thing that has surprised me is how closely aligned the leadership principles are to my vision of an effective teacher in their role as a classroom manager. The first book I finished on the topic, unbeknownst to me at the start of the book, was written by a pastor who worked for years as a religious leader. (His name is John Maxwell.) Here are some examples of things he mentioned that I think apply very well inside a classroom:
"Thomas Aquinas [...] once said that when you want to convert someone to your view, you go over to where he is standing, take him by the hand (mentally speaking), and guide him. You don't stand across the room and shout at him; you don't call him a dummy; you don't order him to come over to where you are. You start where he is, and work from that position. That's the only way to get him to budge."
"Always deal with the problem issues up front. This establishes a base of trust, which is necessary in any relationship. Failure to recognize and handle problems allows them to color the issues and create barriers and negative feelings. [...] Count on having to deal with problems at some point. Better it be at the start."
"The boss drives people; the leader coaches them. The boss depends upon authority; the leader, on good will. The boss says 'I'; the leader, 'We.' The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how. The boss says 'Go!'; the leader, 'Let's go.'"
"In the workforce, successful managers have learned the tremendous value of encouragement. It's the greatest management principle. Why? Because you get the kind of behavior you reward. You don't get what you hope for, ask for, wish for, or beg for. You get what you reward."
And, I can't find one of the quotes that I liked, but something else that touched me toward the end of the book was about how you can make a lasting impact on a person (a sign of successful leadership) by encouraging them that they are capable of doing something, and then helping them to achieve success while under your leadership. This will give them tools and confidence to be successful long after you are gone. This parallels what I have been thinking about the most important gift we can give our students -- the confidence that they can work at something and actually get better at it.
The book had other gems, more specific to leading a group of people at work; I really like how he's a straight-shooter, even though some of his principles are too closely affiliated with running a church for me to immediately see how it applies outside of the religious field. But these quotes above I think are excellent reminders for building relationships with our students, and I am already on my second Maxwell book (and feeling pretty excited about it)!
One thing that has surprised me is how closely aligned the leadership principles are to my vision of an effective teacher in their role as a classroom manager. The first book I finished on the topic, unbeknownst to me at the start of the book, was written by a pastor who worked for years as a religious leader. (His name is John Maxwell.) Here are some examples of things he mentioned that I think apply very well inside a classroom:
"Thomas Aquinas [...] once said that when you want to convert someone to your view, you go over to where he is standing, take him by the hand (mentally speaking), and guide him. You don't stand across the room and shout at him; you don't call him a dummy; you don't order him to come over to where you are. You start where he is, and work from that position. That's the only way to get him to budge."
"Always deal with the problem issues up front. This establishes a base of trust, which is necessary in any relationship. Failure to recognize and handle problems allows them to color the issues and create barriers and negative feelings. [...] Count on having to deal with problems at some point. Better it be at the start."
"The boss drives people; the leader coaches them. The boss depends upon authority; the leader, on good will. The boss says 'I'; the leader, 'We.' The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how. The boss says 'Go!'; the leader, 'Let's go.'"
"In the workforce, successful managers have learned the tremendous value of encouragement. It's the greatest management principle. Why? Because you get the kind of behavior you reward. You don't get what you hope for, ask for, wish for, or beg for. You get what you reward."
And, I can't find one of the quotes that I liked, but something else that touched me toward the end of the book was about how you can make a lasting impact on a person (a sign of successful leadership) by encouraging them that they are capable of doing something, and then helping them to achieve success while under your leadership. This will give them tools and confidence to be successful long after you are gone. This parallels what I have been thinking about the most important gift we can give our students -- the confidence that they can work at something and actually get better at it.
The book had other gems, more specific to leading a group of people at work; I really like how he's a straight-shooter, even though some of his principles are too closely affiliated with running a church for me to immediately see how it applies outside of the religious field. But these quotes above I think are excellent reminders for building relationships with our students, and I am already on my second Maxwell book (and feeling pretty excited about it)!
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Fostering Creativity
I have just finished reading a book called Imagine: How Creativity Works (Amazon link), and it was very inspiring! The book's big message is that creativity is not a natural trait nor a momentary spark but something that we can cultivate and sustain -- in ourselves individually, in our organizations collectively, and in our communities if we make the right kinds of investment.
The book traces the success of some continuously innovative companies such as 3M and Pixar, to introduce what systems they have put in place in order to foster continuous innovation. At 3M -- the company that invented Post-Its and masking tape, among other things -- their big thing is to encourage employees to spend 15% of time per week tinkering with new ideas, as long as they report back their findings. They also encourage flexible schedule and let their employees take random walks or breaks from solving a problem, since they believe that exposure to new situations helps you draw connections to existing problems you're working on. At Pixar, physical proximity is key. They put all the people in the same building and all the bathrooms in the same area, so that you're constantly running into people you know and having random conversations. The best solutions, they say, come from these random collisions. Pixar also values group critiquing sessions followed by productive suggestions -- they call this plussing -- because Pixar believes that this surfaces issues that everyone can think about, learn from, and try to solve long after the meeting is over. A great quote from this part of the book to illustrate Pixar's emphasis on relationships is this: "A mediocre team will screw up a good idea. But if you give a mediocre idea to a great team and let them work together, they'll find a way to succeed."
If you are leading a group of people, the best type of combination is to have some people who already are well-connected to each other, as well as a healthy influx of new people with new ideas. When they studied Broadway musicals, this mix of old and new relationships among the creators of a musical had a high correlation to the commercial success of the musical. Certainly, this makes me think about my department and how we can best utilize the combination of teachers we have...
The book also touched upon the issue of fostering creativity in education. My biggest takeaway in reading this section is that when they interviewed people in charge of an elaborate art program where students learn to create things through hands-on apprenticeship/extended projects, the director said that even though they realize that most of their students will not become artists in those fields, what they leave with is a recognition that creativity takes hard work. "Because they spend five hours every day working on their own creations, they learn what it takes to get good at something, to struggle and fail and try again. They figure out how to dissect difficult problems and cope with criticism." As an educator, it makes me wonder what types of long-term challenges we are offering our students, in order to foster these qualities.
In terms of what you can do individually to improve your own (sustained) creativity, the book highlights the importance of continuously thinking "like an outsider." It points to the benefits of being immersed in a foreign culture, because that type of experience increases your ability to observe ambiguities and to see the possibility of interpreting the same thing in multiple ways. Based on the cited research, people who have lived abroad in a different culture tend to be better at solving certain types of lateral-thinking puzzles. But, even if you only tell people that a certain puzzle comes from a different, exotic place (like India), automatically their ability to think outside the box increases and they can solve the puzzles with more ease by thinking of less obvious interpretations and alternatives. What this means is that we have control over our ability to think outside of the box in a non-linear fashion. We need to always imagine ourselves as a brand new person who has never had any proper training, in order to allow for greater possibilities in approaching a problem. For me, this affirms my experience that whenever I move from place to place, the new challenges that come from teaching a new population and working with new colleagues and new constraints push me to re-examine everything that I do and to try new approaches. Next year, I look forward to the possibility of taking on an intern teacher, because they will come with fresh eyes, and I hope they could show me new ways of questioning what I do.
One last thing that the book continuously emphasizes is that frustration always precedes innovation. If you find yourself stuck in a challenging situation, try to see it as an opportunity for trying something new. I really liked this quote: "FAIL BIG!" It parallels my belief that a good project should run until its wheels are falling off.
So, I said that I feel inspired by this book. These are my personal takeaways:
I hope that as a teacher I will always be curious and to look to grow.
I hope that I can be continuously creative, through the network of people I have, my own interests outside of class, and through taking on new challenges.
I hope that I will have the opportunity to foster a team whose teamwork can lead to innovation.
And of course, I hope that at some point, our schools can all institute creative projects that teach kids the value of innovating through hard work!
The book traces the success of some continuously innovative companies such as 3M and Pixar, to introduce what systems they have put in place in order to foster continuous innovation. At 3M -- the company that invented Post-Its and masking tape, among other things -- their big thing is to encourage employees to spend 15% of time per week tinkering with new ideas, as long as they report back their findings. They also encourage flexible schedule and let their employees take random walks or breaks from solving a problem, since they believe that exposure to new situations helps you draw connections to existing problems you're working on. At Pixar, physical proximity is key. They put all the people in the same building and all the bathrooms in the same area, so that you're constantly running into people you know and having random conversations. The best solutions, they say, come from these random collisions. Pixar also values group critiquing sessions followed by productive suggestions -- they call this plussing -- because Pixar believes that this surfaces issues that everyone can think about, learn from, and try to solve long after the meeting is over. A great quote from this part of the book to illustrate Pixar's emphasis on relationships is this: "A mediocre team will screw up a good idea. But if you give a mediocre idea to a great team and let them work together, they'll find a way to succeed."
If you are leading a group of people, the best type of combination is to have some people who already are well-connected to each other, as well as a healthy influx of new people with new ideas. When they studied Broadway musicals, this mix of old and new relationships among the creators of a musical had a high correlation to the commercial success of the musical. Certainly, this makes me think about my department and how we can best utilize the combination of teachers we have...
The book also touched upon the issue of fostering creativity in education. My biggest takeaway in reading this section is that when they interviewed people in charge of an elaborate art program where students learn to create things through hands-on apprenticeship/extended projects, the director said that even though they realize that most of their students will not become artists in those fields, what they leave with is a recognition that creativity takes hard work. "Because they spend five hours every day working on their own creations, they learn what it takes to get good at something, to struggle and fail and try again. They figure out how to dissect difficult problems and cope with criticism." As an educator, it makes me wonder what types of long-term challenges we are offering our students, in order to foster these qualities.
In terms of what you can do individually to improve your own (sustained) creativity, the book highlights the importance of continuously thinking "like an outsider." It points to the benefits of being immersed in a foreign culture, because that type of experience increases your ability to observe ambiguities and to see the possibility of interpreting the same thing in multiple ways. Based on the cited research, people who have lived abroad in a different culture tend to be better at solving certain types of lateral-thinking puzzles. But, even if you only tell people that a certain puzzle comes from a different, exotic place (like India), automatically their ability to think outside the box increases and they can solve the puzzles with more ease by thinking of less obvious interpretations and alternatives. What this means is that we have control over our ability to think outside of the box in a non-linear fashion. We need to always imagine ourselves as a brand new person who has never had any proper training, in order to allow for greater possibilities in approaching a problem. For me, this affirms my experience that whenever I move from place to place, the new challenges that come from teaching a new population and working with new colleagues and new constraints push me to re-examine everything that I do and to try new approaches. Next year, I look forward to the possibility of taking on an intern teacher, because they will come with fresh eyes, and I hope they could show me new ways of questioning what I do.
One last thing that the book continuously emphasizes is that frustration always precedes innovation. If you find yourself stuck in a challenging situation, try to see it as an opportunity for trying something new. I really liked this quote: "FAIL BIG!" It parallels my belief that a good project should run until its wheels are falling off.
So, I said that I feel inspired by this book. These are my personal takeaways:
I hope that as a teacher I will always be curious and to look to grow.
I hope that I can be continuously creative, through the network of people I have, my own interests outside of class, and through taking on new challenges.
I hope that I will have the opportunity to foster a team whose teamwork can lead to innovation.
And of course, I hope that at some point, our schools can all institute creative projects that teach kids the value of innovating through hard work!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
My Lovely Challenge
I am undertaking an awesome personal endeavor: reading my first Spanish novel! :) I am about 10 chapters (~60 pages) in, and the story is great! I had bought the book at a mall about a year ago, thinking that I would learn Spanish by looking up every word I didn't know (which was pretty much how I had learned English as a kid). But, very soon I realized that, as an adult, I am now much busier and have much less patience for looking up every single word in the dictionary. So, I struggled through about one chapter and gave up promptly. The book had since sat on my shelf, collecting dust.
Randomly, last weekend, on my way out to catch a flight to Austin for my friends' wedding, I grabbed the book since I didn't have any other handy reading material for the plane. I didn't bring a dictionary (it seemed like a hassle), so I tried to read the story using only context clues. Amazingly, it's now entirely do-able for me! Of course, there are still words I don't know, and still some verb tenses that I'm not familiar with, but as a whole, the novel is very enjoyable in all of its banter and irony even though I'm just reading it straight up without a dictionary. --HOW EXCITING!! (A year ago, I had started to write down the list of words I didn't know, that I was encountering in the first chapter of the book. Now looking back at that same list, those words seem really easy, so my Spanish has made a lot of progress! yay.)
Anyway, the book is really good so far; it's a translated American novel called La Loteria, and it's about a man who's mentally handicapped, who lived with his grandma until she passed away. After she passed away, the rest of the family swooped down to divy up her few worldly possessions, but didn't want to take care of him... until he wins the lottery. The really charming part about the book is that he would always state something as it appears, and then state it again in his own blunt understanding of the situation (without all the smoke and mirrors), which is extra cool for me as a language learner, because I get to see the same situation described with and without ill-intentioned euphemisms.
Yesterday, at school, we had a "Drop everything and read!" half-period to celebrate National Reading Day. I told some of my kids that I was slowly reading a Spanish book, and I think they were genuinely impressed! I too often forget that we're supposed to model for our kids that we, too, spend time learning things that are not easy for us. What is it that you do to model that mentality for your kids?
Randomly, last weekend, on my way out to catch a flight to Austin for my friends' wedding, I grabbed the book since I didn't have any other handy reading material for the plane. I didn't bring a dictionary (it seemed like a hassle), so I tried to read the story using only context clues. Amazingly, it's now entirely do-able for me! Of course, there are still words I don't know, and still some verb tenses that I'm not familiar with, but as a whole, the novel is very enjoyable in all of its banter and irony even though I'm just reading it straight up without a dictionary. --HOW EXCITING!! (A year ago, I had started to write down the list of words I didn't know, that I was encountering in the first chapter of the book. Now looking back at that same list, those words seem really easy, so my Spanish has made a lot of progress! yay.)
Anyway, the book is really good so far; it's a translated American novel called La Loteria, and it's about a man who's mentally handicapped, who lived with his grandma until she passed away. After she passed away, the rest of the family swooped down to divy up her few worldly possessions, but didn't want to take care of him... until he wins the lottery. The really charming part about the book is that he would always state something as it appears, and then state it again in his own blunt understanding of the situation (without all the smoke and mirrors), which is extra cool for me as a language learner, because I get to see the same situation described with and without ill-intentioned euphemisms.
Yesterday, at school, we had a "Drop everything and read!" half-period to celebrate National Reading Day. I told some of my kids that I was slowly reading a Spanish book, and I think they were genuinely impressed! I too often forget that we're supposed to model for our kids that we, too, spend time learning things that are not easy for us. What is it that you do to model that mentality for your kids?
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Workaholic Anonymous
Happy Cinco de Mayo! (Did you know that yesterday was May the Fourth Be With You Day? Love it.)
I was really happy today, because it was the last day of our 3-d projects, and the kids were completely absorbed in the spatial visualization puzzles (this time without the aid of computers)! For stretches of a few minutes at a time, my classroom was silent with the sound of careful thought. Afterwards, I asked a handful of the kids whether they had liked the project, and they replied unanimously that it was great!
...It's super cool when things work out the way you envision. I really love teaching so much. :)
The weekend ahead, however, promises to bring a lot of work. (Bleh.) On top of the massive amounts of end-of-the-year grading and the usual weekly planning, I'll also have to pull together at least preliminary study guides for the final. (I am feeling parental pressure to get those posted very soon, so that kids can start studying early to make sure they pass the class.) I think parents conveniently forget that during these last weeks of instruction, as their kids check out and begin looking forward to the final, we are still grading and planning as normal. We don't get a break to pull together those study guides, especially not when kids are anxious to see the latest updates of their Q4 grades!!
Good thing Geoff has essentially guaranteed me that he wishes to do 16 hours of work this weekend ("8 hours on Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday"). We'll be workaholic buddies.
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Incidentally, I finally finished reading a beautiful book yesterday. I had checked it out from the library 3 weeks ago, but school had kept me extremely busy, so it was put on the backburner. But, towards the end of the book, I was so anxious to find out what would happen to all the characters, that I was stealing reading time during all hours of the day! It is called Fall On Your Knees, written by Ann-Marie MacDonald, and is the most heart-rending book about the most extraordinary family. I highly recommend it!
I picked up another book, but I'm feeling pretty silly about it all. I have been pretty good about reading a book every 2 to 3 weeks since Christmas, but it seems pretty unrealistic that -- with everything going on -- I am going to have time to read between now and finals week.
----------------
Anyway, to give you a perspective of how fast the centrifuge is going, there are only 4 weeks of school left -- INCLUDING FINALS!! If that's not crazy, I don't know what is.
I was really happy today, because it was the last day of our 3-d projects, and the kids were completely absorbed in the spatial visualization puzzles (this time without the aid of computers)! For stretches of a few minutes at a time, my classroom was silent with the sound of careful thought. Afterwards, I asked a handful of the kids whether they had liked the project, and they replied unanimously that it was great!
...It's super cool when things work out the way you envision. I really love teaching so much. :)
The weekend ahead, however, promises to bring a lot of work. (Bleh.) On top of the massive amounts of end-of-the-year grading and the usual weekly planning, I'll also have to pull together at least preliminary study guides for the final. (I am feeling parental pressure to get those posted very soon, so that kids can start studying early to make sure they pass the class.) I think parents conveniently forget that during these last weeks of instruction, as their kids check out and begin looking forward to the final, we are still grading and planning as normal. We don't get a break to pull together those study guides, especially not when kids are anxious to see the latest updates of their Q4 grades!!
Good thing Geoff has essentially guaranteed me that he wishes to do 16 hours of work this weekend ("8 hours on Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday"). We'll be workaholic buddies.
----------------
Incidentally, I finally finished reading a beautiful book yesterday. I had checked it out from the library 3 weeks ago, but school had kept me extremely busy, so it was put on the backburner. But, towards the end of the book, I was so anxious to find out what would happen to all the characters, that I was stealing reading time during all hours of the day! It is called Fall On Your Knees, written by Ann-Marie MacDonald, and is the most heart-rending book about the most extraordinary family. I highly recommend it!
I picked up another book, but I'm feeling pretty silly about it all. I have been pretty good about reading a book every 2 to 3 weeks since Christmas, but it seems pretty unrealistic that -- with everything going on -- I am going to have time to read between now and finals week.
----------------
Anyway, to give you a perspective of how fast the centrifuge is going, there are only 4 weeks of school left -- INCLUDING FINALS!! If that's not crazy, I don't know what is.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Rejuvenating Weeks
The last two weeks have been pretty amazing. For one, work has been extremely productive. The Measurement Unit I had envisioned for Geometry has been in full swing, and the kids' progress in understanding length, volume, and (2-D and 3-D) conversions is staggering and extremely rewarding. Not to mention it has been a lot of fun to give the 9th-graders a chance to work on all kinds of hands-on math problems! :)
The other beautiful thing about the last two weeks is that I have started going to a yoga class, held in a very intimate setting -- the home of our great yoga instructor! I had never had much of a motivation to do yoga back in the States (it seemed too much like a fad to me), but now with swing dancing being out of the picture for so long, I find that I really need something else to keep me active and energized. Salsa is totally fun, but I don't always work up a sweat, for some reason. My friend Colleen had told me about this yoga class she had started going to regularly, taught by a teacher I had taken a one-off yoga class from once. Last week, I tagged along with her finally, and it felt so amazing physically that I've decided to make a regular effort to attend the class.
So, between yoga, salsa lessons, and Spanish classes, life has been busy outside of school the last two weeks, and beautifully so. :) I'm also slowly reading my way through a pretty good book, The Geographer's Library. (Ever since I've come back from Christmas vacation, I'm finding time to do recreational reading again. Any suggestions? It can't really be current best-sellers, since I check them out from the school's library, which is delayed in its ordering of the best and the latest.)
Anyway, the next big thing: BELIZE!!!
The other beautiful thing about the last two weeks is that I have started going to a yoga class, held in a very intimate setting -- the home of our great yoga instructor! I had never had much of a motivation to do yoga back in the States (it seemed too much like a fad to me), but now with swing dancing being out of the picture for so long, I find that I really need something else to keep me active and energized. Salsa is totally fun, but I don't always work up a sweat, for some reason. My friend Colleen had told me about this yoga class she had started going to regularly, taught by a teacher I had taken a one-off yoga class from once. Last week, I tagged along with her finally, and it felt so amazing physically that I've decided to make a regular effort to attend the class.
So, between yoga, salsa lessons, and Spanish classes, life has been busy outside of school the last two weeks, and beautifully so. :) I'm also slowly reading my way through a pretty good book, The Geographer's Library. (Ever since I've come back from Christmas vacation, I'm finding time to do recreational reading again. Any suggestions? It can't really be current best-sellers, since I check them out from the school's library, which is delayed in its ordering of the best and the latest.)
Anyway, the next big thing: BELIZE!!!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The Price of "Bling"
On July 15, the day that Geoff and I arrived in El Salvador, an anti-mining environmental activist was found murdered at the bottom of a well in San Isidro, El Salvador. He had been missing for nearly a month, and his body showed visible signs of torture. Since then, 4 reporters who have been covering the news of his disappearance and death have received death threats themselves, and another priest who is also aligned with the left-wing activists has nearly also been kidnapped and killed, escaping his armed aggressors ever-narrowly only by jumping into a ravine.
Concerned about the issues surrounding the obviously heated environmental activism, I looked up some relevant information about mining in El Salvador. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that El Salvador is a rich source for natural elements such as gold and silver, seeing that 90% of the country originated from volcanic activities. Mining companies based in U.S. and Canada are eager to come in and reap the benefits of the abundant resources this country has to offer. The local proponents of the mining law point to the jobs it would create and the income that the local government would receive as a percentage of the proceeds, but the environmental and social activists point to the amount of acidic toxins -- specifically, of mercury, cyanide, arsenic, zinc and aluminium -- that would be released into the water. Leaching, the process of extracting gold and silver from the rocks, requires an enormous amount of water and exposes chemicals to open air, allowing them to evaporate and to be absorbed into the surroundings. Mercury evaporates readily at 26 degrees Celsius, and then redistributes in the form of rainfall. The mixing of the chemicals with water also would exacerbate the existing water shortage. Already, 1.5 million Salvadoreans (out of a total population estimated to be somewhere between 6 to 7 million) do not have access to drinking water. The "acidic drainage", as it is called, is going to make things worse. Already, there have been hillsides and wells that have dried up in San Isidro as a result of "an error" committed by one of the mining company's employees. Instead of receiving water deliveries in exchange for keeping quiet, the residents of San Isidro have opted to speak up against further mining activities by these foreign companies -- hence, the recent wave of environmental activism.
In any case, the laws right now are in limbo. The mining companies are hoping for the drafted mining law to be passed, so that the suspended mining activities may resume. I don't think you need me to say where I stand on the issue.
...What an absolute outrage!
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I finished reading One L, a personal account of one guy's experience as a first-year law student at Harvard Law School. The author describes the fearful manipulation that the professors used to run their first-year classes, and the resulting degradation in decency he observed in his peers and in himself as the academic year progressed. Even though he attended HLS back in the 70s and his account is clearly outdated, the story was still pretty interesting for me to read. It made me think about what my friend Ron once said about being a witness to injustice: "Either together we stand [against what we perceive of as injustice], or individually we will fall. Today it could be them, but tomorrow it might be you... or me." I think that concept applies broadly to a lot of things, and it is an idea that I keep coming back to. Why is it that we should stand up for someone whom we think is treated unfairly? What is the broader implication of justice, for us individually and, then, collectively?
Anyway, I picked up a Spanish novel yesterday from the bookstore. --Ambitious, I know! I figured that I would try to build my vocabulary the best way I know how -- by tediously working my way through a book I'd like to read. That's how I learned English, anyway, so doing this again actually feels familiar and warm, a bit like coming home again after many years. It's going slowly, obviously; took me about 30 minutes to cover 3 pages, because the structure of written Spanish is more difficult than spoken Spanish, and words often mean different things once you string them together into a phrase. But, I love the feeling of piecing together meaning, one word at a time. I'm excited. :)
Concerned about the issues surrounding the obviously heated environmental activism, I looked up some relevant information about mining in El Salvador. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that El Salvador is a rich source for natural elements such as gold and silver, seeing that 90% of the country originated from volcanic activities. Mining companies based in U.S. and Canada are eager to come in and reap the benefits of the abundant resources this country has to offer. The local proponents of the mining law point to the jobs it would create and the income that the local government would receive as a percentage of the proceeds, but the environmental and social activists point to the amount of acidic toxins -- specifically, of mercury, cyanide, arsenic, zinc and aluminium -- that would be released into the water. Leaching, the process of extracting gold and silver from the rocks, requires an enormous amount of water and exposes chemicals to open air, allowing them to evaporate and to be absorbed into the surroundings. Mercury evaporates readily at 26 degrees Celsius, and then redistributes in the form of rainfall. The mixing of the chemicals with water also would exacerbate the existing water shortage. Already, 1.5 million Salvadoreans (out of a total population estimated to be somewhere between 6 to 7 million) do not have access to drinking water. The "acidic drainage", as it is called, is going to make things worse. Already, there have been hillsides and wells that have dried up in San Isidro as a result of "an error" committed by one of the mining company's employees. Instead of receiving water deliveries in exchange for keeping quiet, the residents of San Isidro have opted to speak up against further mining activities by these foreign companies -- hence, the recent wave of environmental activism.
In any case, the laws right now are in limbo. The mining companies are hoping for the drafted mining law to be passed, so that the suspended mining activities may resume. I don't think you need me to say where I stand on the issue.
...What an absolute outrage!
---------------------------------
I finished reading One L, a personal account of one guy's experience as a first-year law student at Harvard Law School. The author describes the fearful manipulation that the professors used to run their first-year classes, and the resulting degradation in decency he observed in his peers and in himself as the academic year progressed. Even though he attended HLS back in the 70s and his account is clearly outdated, the story was still pretty interesting for me to read. It made me think about what my friend Ron once said about being a witness to injustice: "Either together we stand [against what we perceive of as injustice], or individually we will fall. Today it could be them, but tomorrow it might be you... or me." I think that concept applies broadly to a lot of things, and it is an idea that I keep coming back to. Why is it that we should stand up for someone whom we think is treated unfairly? What is the broader implication of justice, for us individually and, then, collectively?
Anyway, I picked up a Spanish novel yesterday from the bookstore. --Ambitious, I know! I figured that I would try to build my vocabulary the best way I know how -- by tediously working my way through a book I'd like to read. That's how I learned English, anyway, so doing this again actually feels familiar and warm, a bit like coming home again after many years. It's going slowly, obviously; took me about 30 minutes to cover 3 pages, because the structure of written Spanish is more difficult than spoken Spanish, and words often mean different things once you string them together into a phrase. But, I love the feeling of piecing together meaning, one word at a time. I'm excited. :)
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