Inspired by Day 2, Posting on Day 3 - Project Citizen...Planting Seeds for Personal Growth

The teachers kicked off yesterday with issues that mattered to the 33 youth enrolled in Project Citizen and the kids dazzled us with the multi-tasking, cross Internet co-writing they did between Zoom chat, Google, and the Internet. Sticking with visual literacy, I went with Shaun's Earth-in-the-Hand metaphor, and instead of being alarmist, went for planting seeds of possibilities ... that is, issues we need to think productively about including realities of the entire globe, immigration and refugee issues, the 21st century theft of youth/children, the need for global citizenry, better historical accuracy, more support for educational initiatives, and the quest for true democracy. I suppose I will go to my grave with optimism that the human species can be better than they are, but that's all we really have. What is life if it isn't to leave the spaces we inhabit better for those still to come?

Then the teachers did a survey and asked, "How often have you written narratives or personal essays in your schooling experience?" and we were dumbfounded by the responses. 33 kids from 3 states and all types of schools began responding in chat. Never, maybe in elementary school, our teachers don't even know who we are, Sometimes- but it's always what the teachers want, not what we want. It was practically unanimous that they weren't expected to write personal opinions or stories at all - sadder, they reported they are rarely encouraged to talk with one another. We challenged them on this, but they insisted.

Um, okay.

The teachers then planted the seed that personal story-telling is an option for writing at Project Citizen. Kim Herzog shared an Amy Tan piece which caused me to start the following on-demand textual doodle in response,

I read American Born Chinese as an adult, while teaching high school and college students, then was thrilled to debut Dragon Hoops on THE WRITE TIME through the National Writing Project. Gene Luen Yang, a graphic novelist and a teacher from California, wins every time. I’m not a superfan, because I don’t need to be. He’s simply amazing. His latest, Superman Smashes the Clan tells an underbelly story of anti-Asian racism in the U.S., an area we often overlook, especially in terms of White supremacy.
            That’s what I started to think about yesterday, as Kim Herzog did an exercise with Amy Tan’s “Fish Cheeks” – a story she published in Seventeen in 1987. I was only a sophomore at the time and it made me think about the Asian-ness of my own upbringing. As stereotypical as it, I don’t think my family started ordering Chinese food until after I entered college, and the only Asian representation I remember from high school was the incredible brilliance of dancer and friend Lan Nguyen, a Vietnamese girl, and the day our entire gym class of 40 kids played badminton against 5 Vietnamese students in an ESL class and lost. 

            Then there was Yoko, the Japanese-American woman married to Harold, an African American ex-military man who lived kitty-corner to our house. Before she passed, I remember her dog Amy, a Dobermann she fed Snickers for snacks, and a collection of dolls she brought from overseas. She was also friend, funny, and eccentric.

            I took an Asian-literature course once (one of my favorites) where I read Amy Tan, Charlie Chan is Dead (a great collection of stories and poems), The Open Boat, and my personal favorite, Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior. I am glad that I had this course, especially when I had the pleasure of teaching Vietnamese youth in Kentucky.

That's as far as I got. If time was friendlier to us, I'd be able to go back to my childhood and learn more from Yoko and the Asian students in my school. I'd like to know more.

And then there was the college essay lab before Project Citizen. I really am a lucky son of a Butch. Such brilliance and excitement with the young people who come to CWP. I am very, very thankful.