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On choosing a career

Posted on by Suki

When I was a child, I was really good at math, but I loved books and writing. I will never forget my disappointment when everyone at my elementary school took an assessment that was supposed to predict good career choices.

The test said I was supposed to be a mathematician. My dad, I knew, thought I should be a scientist like him.

But I loved books, and I wanted to be a writer.

Aptitude vs. Fit

The results of today’s pointless weed-pulling exercise

I was thinking about this today as I filled a wheelbarrow with weeds. I will admit that I love pulling weeds. Yet as I was pulling weeds, I was reflecting on how pointless pulling weeds really is. I never finish. I will never win. Because I refuse to use truly effective remedies like herbicides, I will always have weeds.

Yet, I pull weeds. And I enjoy pulling weeds.

Like writing, pulling weeds is an activity that doesn’t have a set answer or a definitive end. When I was a child, I gravitated toward studies where further study just led you deeper into the questions. I liked to read novels. I loved ancient philosophy.

My perception of math and science focused (childishly, I admit) on their emphasis on facts and finding answers. I didn’t want to find answers. I enjoyed exploring questions.

It’s true that I had the aptitude to be a mathematician or a scientist. And perhaps I would eventually have found unanswerable questions that would have kept me happy. But elementary school math is all about finding the one correct answer. And elementary school science is all about doing experiments the outcome of which is predetermined.

No wonder I was disappointed!

Where we start is not necessarily where we end up

I spent my days working at Xerox creating documents with words and pictures! But it wasn’t a good fit for me in the long run.

Students these days often hear that they don’t have much choice in their career. Kids who are “good at” math and science are sent into STEM. Kids who are not “good at” math and science are told, well, they’d better get into STEM if they want a job.

But plenty of people who love their STEM jobs didn’t start out as mathy kids. And plenty of people like me who had the aptitude early on for STEM fields are miserable in them.

I’m thankful for my first job out of college working for Xerox Artificial Intelligence Systems. I met my husband there! But that was my last job in a STEM field. Since then, I’ve been a teacher, graphic designer, publisher, and writer. I will admit that I don’t make as much money as if I were working at Google.

But would a corporate job be a good fit for me? I don’t think so. As a teacher and writer, I love being able to take a half an hour out of my day to go pull weeds. It may be a thankless job that is never finished, but that’s the sort of job that makes me happy.

“What makes you happy?” is one question that long-ago aptitude test forgot to ask. And I wouldn’t have known how to answer. We need to leave these questions—and all options—open for our kids as we guide them into adult life.

WWDFS: The college scandal hits close to home

Posted on by Suki

My husband and I are both graduates of Stanford University, though the university we went to bears little resemblance to today’s Stanford. I was in one of the last classes admitted under “Dean Fred”—the amazing Fred Hargadon who knew that although test scores are nice, a truly great student body is made up of diverse, passionate people who are….a little bit weird.

Today’s New York Times featured Stanford student Yusi Zhao, whose parents paid $6.5 million to get her into Stanford,.

You know how you read stories and they’re just stories, and then you read a story and something really hits home?

This did it for me:

  • Zhao is in the Stanford class that my son would have been in.
  • My son got higher test scores than she did. (They published hers; his are a state secret!)
  • My son did nothing in high school that was aimed at impressing Stanford. He did cool, amazing things that were an expression of who he is. She engineered her way in with precision.
  • My son did not bribe anyone; my son was not admitted. She paid, and was admitted. Her parents protest that they thought they were donating, but even in that case, WWDFS? (What Would Dean Fred Say?)

Wherefore art thou, Dean Fred?

I realize that there are other reasons that my son isn’t at Stanford. There were legions of kids with great scores who applied and didn’t get in. But it really makes me wonder: Which kid’s place did this young woman take? How many brilliant kids is Stanford rejecting to make room for kids whose parents will build them a new building?

And it makes me wonder even more:

  • If Stanford is full of kids like this, why would anyone want to go there?
  • If Stanford is full of kids like this, why would anyone want to teach there?
  • If Stanford is full of kids like this, why should any decent kid apply?

If it wasn’t glaringly apparent already, it is now: Elite universities are no longer places where intelligent and creative people should want to be, whether as students, parents, or faculty. They are all about making money for themselves.

Certainly, there were dull rich kids at Stanford when I was there. There were kids who were there just to please their pushy parents. There were the kids of celebrities, who may well have paid to get in.

But for the most part, the student population was made of kids who had something just a little bit unusual on top of their test scores. A common conversation that Dean Fred students would have was, “So, why do you think you got in?”

I heard lots of reasons, from “I started a successful company when I was 14” to “I was homeless and a teacher took me in after seeing some drawings I made.”*

These days, it seems, the answer to that question would be obvious:

“Why am I at Stanford? Oh, well, my parents paid to get me in.”

What Would Dean Fred Say?

Um… Go to Cal?

What are your kids watching?

Posted on by Suki

Do you know?

Do you know what your kids are reading?

Do you know who they are chatting with?

Do you know what the kids they are chatting with are watching and reading?

I’m not asking these questions because I think you’re a bad parent.

I’m not asking these questions because I think any parent can stay on top of everything their child does.

I’m asking these questions because I’m a teacher. Not only that but I’m a teacher of creative writing.

Lately, I’ve become a little concerned about your kids.

In one teaching year, I’ve had more conferences with students, notes to students’ parents, times when I’ve had to stop class and speak sternly…

Not more than other years. I’ve had more than I’ve ever had. Cumulative. My whole life.

This one school year, I have had more students referencing violent memes, more students taking part in destructive and deceptive communities, more students writing about violent fantasies.

It’s not just good, clean fun.

One student wrote a piece in which a murderer was interviewed by police while tied up, listening to other people in the police station being tortured.

Multiple students are ardent followers of quasi-religious online groups that take part in something akin to mass hysteria.

A student wrote a story based on a popular Internet meme about a child murderer and a sexual offender.

A group of students invented a world in which everyone had evil “dark sides,” and then their “dark sides” started attending classes with them, typing nasty things into the chat window.

Today, a few days after a mass murderer referenced a popular Internet meme while murdering people in a house of worship, one of my students referenced that meme in class.

It’s not just my online students.

I’ve asked around. Kids are coming to schools with all sorts of inappropriate materials. Kids are aware of things that you and I didn’t even know existed when we were that age.

It’s not ‘just stories’.

The stories we tell with our children important. Stories shape their worldview. Violence in children’s stories is not new. But despair and hopelessness in media for children is new. It’s harming our kids. It’s harming their psyches.

Have you checked out the most recent teen suicide statistics?

Have you considered what your child might be accessing that could lead them to despair?

I know this is harsh, but I’m worried about your kids. Humans have faced war, famine, volcanoes, mass migration, and drought. But I think the Internet is, perhaps, a bigger long term challenge to the health of the human race.

Your kids are great. Please take care of them. Please sit down and express interest in what they are doing online. Ask them what interests them. Be there for them to express their fears to.

And make sure they know that there is hope.

Young writers’ reading list

Posted on by Suki

The most important thing that young writers can do to develop their skills is write, write, and write some more.

In conjunction with writing, young writers should read great writing: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, jokes, text messages…. The form doesn’t actually matter. The more great writing they read, the more the rhythm of language will take root in their heads.

But finally, young writers can be really inspired by books about writing and reading. Below are a few of my favorites for young writers of a variety of ages.

Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook

The two adult writers of this book address kid writers as equals: fellow writers struggling to find out what they want to say and to say it well. My students love the advice in this book and they love the “I Dare You” prompts sprinkled throughout.


Rip the Page!

This is a book full of fun, inspiring prompts. My students love it. But I do ask them not to actually rip the pages…

Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity
Ray Bradbury was probably the single most inspiring writer to me as a young writer. I didn’t discover this book until I was looking for a good book on writing for my more advanced writing students. This is not for novice writers or readers, and at times Bradbury can be a bit bawdy. (One of the pieces is entitled “Drunk, and in charge of a bicycle”!) But my advanced students love it as much as I do. It would be a great one to read along with reading the books that Bradbury references in his essays.


Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

It often takes a whole semester before students realize what all these stories have in common: they are all about books and reading in one way or another. There aren’t many contemporary short story collections for kids that don’t focus on “classic” stories. Although I love the great writers of the past (see Little Worlds below), some kids just aren’t ready to read past the antiquated language and into a world that doesn’t connect well with theirs. The situations and characters in Shelf Life are accessible and inspiring.

Little Worlds: A Collection of Short Stories for the Middle School

There aren’t a lot of great collections of classic stories for kids. I have to say, most of these stories require a high school reading level. I would also venture to say that most middle schoolers wouldn’t have the depth of understanding needed to really “get” these stories. For that reason, I always have to apologize about the book’s title to my teen readers, who may think that it’s a book for “little kids.” But of course, few of the stories in this collection were actually written for kids. They include many of the greatest short stories that have inspired writers for generations.

My “Teaching Writing” series:

“I Am Jazz” Community Reading

Posted on by Suki

This month Santa Cruz families will come together to read a book at the library. Yes, this happens all the time, but not with this book and this message.

“I am Jazz” was published in 2014, co-written by 14-year-old Jazz Jennings, a transgender activist whose life had been profiled in a television documentary. Although the book deals with Jazz’s life and challenges in a child-appropriate manner, it attracted the attention of anti-LGBTQ groups. After a group succeeded in forcing a Wisconsin school to cancel a reading, the community came together, packing 600 people into the public library for a reading.

Each year since that event, communities have hosted readings to foster awareness and acceptance of transgender children. Awareness of transgender people has increased since then—Jennings is now a popular YouTube personality—but the challenges of being transgender, and parenting a transgender child, have not gone away.

 

A more accepting world

“What I get from the book is how happy Jazz is to be affirmed,” says Michelle Brandt, one of the organizers of the event and the mother of a transgender man who came out at 15. “I see that comfort and joy about being yourself, and not having to hide, to be affirmed and seen.”

Psychologists confirm that affirmation of a child’s gender is the top thing that adults can do to alleviate the common problems exhibited by transgender children, including self-harm and suicidal ideation. Children whose families and communities use their gender of identification and a gender-appropriate name show fewer signs of psychological distress and have overall happier childhood experiences.

Introducing this book to the broader community, organizers say, is a way to create a more accepting world for their children.

“The book is a big deal to our family,” explains a mom of a young trans child. “I read it two years ago when my child was questioning her gender. It was like her coming-out book. It wasn’t until I read the book to her that she said, ‘That’s me, I’m a girl.’ It put language in a kid-friendly way to her lived experience and allowed her to feel comfortable claiming that she was transgender.”

 

A G-rated kids’ book

Brandt is the director of the TransFamily Support Group of Santa Cruz, one of the groups sponsoring the reading. She points out that kids already know their gender—families don’t have to fear taking their kids to this G-rated event about inclusion and acceptance.

“I’d like parents to leave with a broader understanding of gender as a spectrum and more comfort with having gender discussions with their kids,” Brandt explains.

Jamie Joy, Youth Program Coordinator at the Diversity Center of Santa Cruz, another sponsor of the event, also hopes that the event will draw parents from the broader community who don’t necessarily have transgender children.

“Talking about gender with young kids is so important because they are already receiving messages that reinforce harmful stereotypes,” Joy explains. “Books like “I am Jazz” are a great way to connect with kids and help them understand the beauty of diversity. The more we teach our youth about celebrating difference, the less violence and bullying there will be in our community.”

The emphasis at the reading will be on community and fun.

“We’ll talk about gender stereotypes, read family-friendly kids’ books, and do an interactive activity around gender,” Joy explains. “I want the parents to walk away knowing their kids can be who they want to be, or give them a little more freedom to not perpetuate the whole girls-have-to-wear-pink and boys-don’t-cry thing.”

 

Transition in place

The organizers point out that community support is the point of this gathering, and they are grateful for our public library’s willingness to host the event. Community support is of vital importance to trans children. Because of the typical arc of children’s understanding of their gender and parents’ comfort with transitions, most children don’t transition until after they’ve been in school. Without support from the adults around them, the result is often that children’s education gets disrupted.

“It’s more comfortable for kids to transition in place,” Brandt explains. “You’re the same person, and the only reason you’d have to leave your school is if you’re not being affirmed in your gender when you transition.”

Santa Cruz’s self-identity is of a liberal, accepting place, but even here it is common for trans kids to leave their current school environment when they transition due to lack of support by the adults and students around them.

 

Understanding is key

Although it can be uncomfortable for families with transgender or questioning kids to put themselves in the public eye, the event organizers believe that it’s necessary that at least some families ‘come out of the closet.’ The more our community understands the needs of transgender people, the more information and resources will be available.

Michelle Brandt points out that with more information, she would have known that she had a transgender boy when he was four, rather than the ‘tomboy’ she thought she was raising.

“I would have liked to have more information about the gender spectrum,” Brandt says. “I would have liked to have more information about what the options were for transition. You’re not on a path that is so predetermined as you think it is. With enough information, I could have had a conversation with him as a boy instead of ‘Isn’t that sweet, my gender nonconforming girl?’”

Above all, a public reading of “I Am Jazz” should help parents understand that supporting their children is not forcing change. Gender differences are a natural part of the spectrum of humanity, and affirming children’s gender identity will only make our society a safer, healthier place for everyone.

“The Diversity Center hopes to educate and support people of all ages and identities in understanding gender as a spectrum rather than a binary,” Jamie Joy explains. “We do this through community events as well as trainings and presentations. Please reach out to us if you want to learn more!”

 

Details:

National “I Am Jazz” Community Reading

Friday, December 7, 3:30-4:30 pm

Santa Cruz Public Libraries Downtown Branch

Second Floor Meeting Room

 

Resources:

  • Interested in more details about the scientific understanding of gender? Check out our companion article, “Gender is Not a Binary.”
  • The Transfamily Support Group of Santa Cruz has monthly meetings and a website of resources to support the families of transgender youth and adults. Find more information at http://www.transfamiliesca.org/
  • The Diversity Center of Santa Cruz County offers support and information for those on the gender spectrum and their families. Find more information at http://www.diversitycenter.org/
  • The Santa Cruz Public Libraries host a wide variety of community events. Find more information at https://www.santacruzpl.org/

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