Fiction: The Gateway Drug

SYMPATHY

APATHY

EMPATHY

These are the three emotions that I describe at the start of a literature class, regardless of the story or whether my students speak English as a first or second language.  We explore and define the Greek root PATHOS: an appeal to emotions. Originally this word meant suffering. Today it is a root of many English words that describe our connection or lack of connection to the suffering or other strong emotions of others.



Next we talk about the characters and situations that we identify with and those that we don't care about at all.  We talk about the author's writing style and point of view and how it has affected us--or not. We do assignments and analysis that are based on the text alone, and then we reach beyond to see what lessons, if any, we can apply to our own lives. 

Some students enjoy the process, some students hate it, and many don't see the point beyond getting the AP English credits that will impress a college admissions board. Many, even those who enjoy reading, wonder if there are better ways to spend their time. 

So....why read fiction?

I tailor my answer to the student. For me, reading fiction comes as naturally as breathing or sleeping, so it is really hard to break down the reasons for doing it.  I couldn't live without fiction. But apparently many many people can take it or leave it.

Neil Gaiman, a prolific author best known for his science fiction and fantasy writing (popular with readers of all ages) offers the best overall explanation I have seen so far.  It comes from his anthology called The View From the Cheap Seats. This explanation will resonate with some of my students and will fly over the heads of others. But if you are taking the time to read this blog, I think you will like it. 



Here's Neil: 

Literate people read fiction, and fiction has two uses. Firstly, it's a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if its hard, because someone's in trouble and you have to know how it's all going to end...that is a very real drive. And it forces you to learn new words, to think new thoughts, to keep going. To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. .. The second thing that fiction does is to build empathy. When you watch TV or see a film. you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation markers, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world, and people in it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed...You're also finding out something as you read that will be vitally important for making your way in the world. And it's this: THE WORLD DOESN"T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS. THINGS CAN BE DIFFERENT.

This last sentence has become a mantra here in Silicon Valley where everyone wants to change the world. Small wonder many of our company founders are science fiction fans. But look into the heart of many a lawyer, at least of my generation, and they will tell you that they were inspired by the noble Atticus Finch Esq. in Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird. Stanford physician Abraham Verghese is now a full time author and National Humanities medal winner. He has inspired many with both fictional and nonfiction accounts of the challenges of practicing patient-centered medicine. His first novel about medicine was Cutting For Stone written in 2009.

Steve Jobs read a lot of fiction.  In fact, he told his biographer Walter Isaacson that in the last two years of high school he explored Shakespeare and Plato and Melville. Click here to see some of his reading list.

Throughout his life he read widely on subjects within and beyond the realm of technology. 
But I knew that even before I read the Isaacson book. 

Here's the proof:

The Great American Read--And Me

This spring, the Public Broadcasting System released a list of one hundred great American books, selected from reader polls.

Here is part of the press release announcing the list.

http://www.pbs.org/about/blogs/news/the-great-american-read-reveals-americas-100-favorite-novels/

PBS is hosting a series of tie-in events of book discussions and presentations, including reader perspectives aired on San Francisco's KQED radio station. I was honored to be invited to record a perspective which aired this morning. It is about a life changing book that I didn't think was so great--Ulysses by James Joyce.

Click here for my radio review:

The Great American Read: The Book of Books, will be released next week (available from Amazon). It includes information about the 100 novels, author profiles, rare images of original manuscripts and more, plus a foreword by THE GREAT AMERICAN READ host Meredith Vieira

The top 100 book list is based on a public opinion poll, conducted by YouGov on behalf of PBS for THE GREAT AMERICAN READ, that asked respondents to name their favorite novel. An advisory panel of book industry professionals compiled the results. Each author was represented only once, and series such as the Alex Cross Mysteries were included as one entry.

The chosen books span five centuries, from Don Quixote (1603) to Ghost (2016). Authors from 15 different countries are represented, with genres ranging from beloved children’s classics such as Charlotte’s Web to modern best-sellers such as Twilight.

Note that the novels do not have to be written by American writers (Cervantes and C.S. Lewis are here)--they just have to be novels that Americans love to read.

Below is the full list of America’s 100 favorite novels, in alphabetical order by title:

1984	Hatchet
A Confederacy of Dunces	Heart of Darkness
A Game of Thrones	The Help
A Prayer for Owen Meany	The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
A Separate Peace	The Hunger Games
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn	The Hunt for Red October
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer	The Intuitionist
The Alchemist	Invisible Man
Alex Cross Mysteries**	Jane Eyre
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland	The Joy Luck Club
Americanah	Jurassic Park
And Then There Were None	Left Behind
Anne of Green Gables	The Little Prince
Another Country	Little Women
Atlas Shrugged	Lonesome Dove
Beloved	Looking for Alaska
Bless Me, Ultima	The Lord of the Rings**
The Book Thief	The Lovely Bones
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao	The Martian
The Call of the Wild	Memoirs of a Geisha
Catch-22	Mind Invaders
The Catcher in the Rye	Moby Dick
Charlotte’s Web	The Notebook
The Chronicles of Narnia**	One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Clan of the Cave Bear	Outlander
The Coldest Winter Ever	The Outsiders
The Color Purple	The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Count of Monte Cristo	The Pilgrim’s Progress
Crime and Punishment	The Pillars of the Earth
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	Pride and Prejudice
The Da Vinci Code	Ready Player One
Don Quixote	Rebecca
Doña Barbara	The Shack
Dune	Siddhartha
Fifty Shades of Grey	The Sirens of Titan
Flowers in the Attic	The Stand
Foundation	The Sun Also Rises
Frankenstein	Swan Song
Ghost	Tales of the City
Gilead	Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Giver	Things Fall Apart
The Godfather	This Present Darkness
Gone Girl	To Kill a Mockingbird
Gone with the Wind	Twilight
The Grapes of Wrath	War and Peace
Great Expectations	Watchers
The Great Gatsby	The Wheel of Time**
Gulliver’s Travels	Where the Red Fern Grows
The Handmaid’s Tale	White Teeth
Harry Potter**	Wuthering Heights

Lǎoshī Lauren Sings "Hey Jude"

Imagine that you are a Chinese teenager hearing the Beatles for the very first time.

Would you start to twist and shout?

Would you learn some of their mellower tunes like Norwegian Wood, Michelle or Golden Slumbers and use them to lull your younger siblings to sleep?

Would you think: Where have these guys been all of my life?

Or would quickly dismiss them and turn your attention to a homegrown Chinese hip hop group like Dragon Tongue Squad?

 

Either way, the Beatles have arrived in China for the first time ever--and "the youngsters" are listening.

"It is hard to define how many fans the Beatles have in China, and it is even harder to pick one favorite song from their massive output, " China Daily announced earlier this year in response to the announcement that Xiami, China's digital music platform, was releasing 28 Beatle studio recording albums in digital, CD and vinyl versions. The release comes 55 years after the Beatles first records, as Beatles music and the Beatles themselves were banned from China during the Cultural Revolution.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201803/27/WS5ab9e483a3105cdcf65149b4.html

Xiami's bold licensing decision follows a 2016 deal in which Hey Jude became the first ever Beatle's song to be licensed for use in China.

Back then, Billboard Magazine reported:

Hey Jude appears in Yesterday Once More, a coming-of-age film from noted Chinese director Yao Tingting. The nearly four-minute segment, which features the two Chinese leads singing the 1968 classic in English, commanded a six-figure sum, believed to be one of the highest fees ever paid for usage in China.

Billboard continues:

"The studio, Beijing Enlight Media, is one of the largest media groups in China, and the director is of ­significance.... (and) with the film aimed at a younger demographic with its story of high school friends grappling with the complexities of first loves, it can help introduce The Beatles' music to a new audience. "

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7356938/beatles-song-licensed-china-hey-jude


Why am I suddenly interested in Beatles tunes in China? And why am I sharing the news with you?

The answer begins at Apple computer headquarters at One Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California.

On Tuesday I arrived there on a tour bus with 21 college students from Shanghai, China and their two teachers.

All were fluent in English and they had requested an English speaking tour guide. That would be me.

The bus driver dropped us off and promptly left to circle or find parking elsewhere. But after a few minutes we realized that the bus had left us at the wrong place. We were instead supposed to be at the Apple Park Visitors Center at 10600 N. Tantau Avenue on the other side of De Anza Blvd, about a mile away.

We texted the driver who by then was parked on the other side of town, and he told us it would take about twenty minutes for him to return in pre-Fourth of July traffic.

So there I was stranded with a tour group, waiting in the heat for a driver. I was all out of interesting facts about Apple and Steve Jobs, having delivered them on the bus ride over. I must admit, I really enjoyed having a tiny mike in my hand and saying things like, "on your left you will note......"

But back to One Infinite Loop--a hell of a place to be stranded. The irony of the name was not lost on me--and since their English was good, the Shanghai students got the irony, too--especially after I pointed it out to them and said, "this is an example of irony." 

And then I plotted my next move.....

"Okay everyone," I announced. "While we are waiting for the bus, let's all sing!"

The students all looked at me like I was crazy--which I was.

I began with a rousing chorus of John Denver's Country Roads,  which has been a karaoke favorite in China ever since John Denver performed it for then Chinese Vice Premier Dengxiao Ping at the White House in 1979.  Denver later performed it live in China in a multi-city1992 tour. (You can watch Chinese middle school students learning to sing  Country Roads here.)

Whether it was because they did not want to insult their crazy American host, or because they knew the words, or because, hey why not ....my Chinese tour group joined in.

Then the kids pointed out one tall, very charismatic guy in the group, and identified him as a great singer--but, of course, on cue, he became modest and did not want to sing.  

So I told him that I took requests. 

What did he want ME to sing?  

In a heartbeat he answered:

Hotel California.

This is a popular song in China, because someone (not sure who) included it in a popular beginning guitar study book--and it is one of the tunes that  students learn to play when they want to play American rock. The student and I ended up singing it together. He had a great American accent when singing--and he did the Eagles proud. I on the other hand......

Then the kid, launched into Hey Jude, all on his own. "I love the Beatles!" he said. 

Everyone joined in on the chorus--which just for the record, is supposed to be repeated sixteen times. Clearly there are a lot of young Beatles fans in Shanghai. And come to think of it, if you didn't know it was the chorus to a Beatle's song, and you happened to be walking along One Infinite Loop on Tuesday and heard a group of Chinese kids singing Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah--you might, you just might just think that they were singing in Mandarin. The four modulated cadences used in Mandarin intonation are all there--as are the familiar Chinese sounds of nah in the first and second pitches, along with familiar Mandarin sounds like Chu/Zhou.

Still, the students had a way to go to appearing on American Idol. That's because  they were singing the chorus really slowly, in a dirge-like fashion --the way you might sing it in church choir or at the opera. I was singing it three times as fast, clapping my hands and hopping around as best as a sixty year old woman with a shopping bag full of  tech company tschotkes can hop--trying my best with ridiculous background harmony going "JUDE JUDE JUDE-JU-JU-JU"

Some might have thought that I was trying to sing I Am the Walrus.

Mercifully, either out of their great reservoirs of politeness or in response to my lack of talent tempered only by enthusiasm, the students picked up the pace.
We were clapping, singing and dancing over at One Infinite Loop and our lead singer turned to me and joyfully exclaimed in perfect unaccented English, "We are really rocking!"

And that's when the bus showed up again.

We saw the Apple Park Visitor's Center, where I refueled with the best $4.00 nitro cold brew espresso drink that I have ever had, and then went on to the Computer History Museum and the Google campus(photo upper left). Hopefully the students will return to China with images of tech campuses dancing in their heads. 

As for me, I headed back to Google (the search engine) to learn how and why the Beatles have invaded China--and soon will invade my ESL classroom. 

This Fall, if you hear a lot of Nah Nah Nah Nahs emanating from my classroom across the quad from Menlo College's Florence Moore Hall (a.k.a. FloMo--which also sounds Mandarin) --stop by and witness Lǎoshī Lauren in yet another teachable moment.

(Click here for a  solemn choral version done by students in China)

My Year of Biblical Hebrew

This Saturday I celebrated my Bat Mitzvah at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, California. A Bat Mitzvah is a ceremony in which a woman enters into Jewish adulthood by reading to the congregation from one of the five books of the Old Testament (Torah) and leading the congregation in prayer. 

Usually this happens at the age of 13. I started a bit later, at the age of sixty. When I was actually thirteen, Bat Mitzvahs were less popular for girls and I did not have one.  Nor was I interested in having one. 

However,  after spending two years as Library Director at a Catholic Seminary, St Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, California, working while going through breast cancer treatment, I became first familiar with and then immersed in liturgical years in which certain prayers were read at certain times. The prayers changed with the seasons--just as I was changing, both physically and mentally. I came to cherish and be comforted and inspired by Morning Mass,  and when I left St Patrick's in 2013, to begin teaching English as a second language, I decided to learn more about my own heritage and Jewish prayer. 

Last October, when Congregation Beth Am offered an adult Bat Mitzvah class taught by Rabbi Sarah Weissman and Cantor Jamie  Shpall,  I enrolled with three other women and two men. I met weekly for Biblical Hebrew classes and every two weeks for religious instruction.

Here is an article about the class:

https://www.betham.org/worship-community/event/member-spotlight-meet-years-adult-bnei-mitzvah-class


Here is a photo of the class at the celebration:




And here I am in my prayer shawl--the tallit or tallis, depending on whether it is being pronounced the Hebrew (Sephardic) way or the Eastern European (Ashkenazi) way.

Below is the talk that I gave at the Bat Mitzvah, before reading a passage in Hebrew from the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament. The talk clocks in at 3 minutes and 45 seconds--about 45 seconds longer than the time limit recommended by master homilist Rev. Gladstone Stevens S.S., who taught me everything I know about delivering homilies.  When one Beth Am rabbi complimented me on  "the perfect arc of my talk" and its sound structure, I proudly told her that a priest taught me everything I know! 

There is a two and a half  hour video of the Bat Mitzvah ceremony and at some point I will learn to splice my speech section and share it here. But for now, with profound thanks to ALL of my religious and family mentors, here's the text.

Bat Mitzvah Talk

Lauren John

May 9, 2018    (Three minutes forty five seconds.)

בֹקֶר טוֹב

Boker Tov.
Good morning

I’ve been studying biblical Hebrew since October in preparation for this day. I had no background at all—other than being able to recognize the letters on a dreidel. I did not know the Alef Bet song, and did not go to Jewish summer camp. So I really had to learn to read Hebrew or at least recognize the letters in order to truly live my Torah portion today.

The realization that I was going to have to learn biblical Hebrew—new words in a completely new alphabet-- almost kept me from this day. My two good friends on the bimah today, Judy and Tina, already know Hebrew and I was afraid of looking foolish in front of them—and in front of you.  But here’s the thing—I teach English as a second language at Menlo College. And most of my students are Chinese.  They also have to learn new words in a new alphabet. So I knew that if I took this on—and struggled to learn something new—I would be at least a better teacher if not a better Jew.

We have a great teacher in artist and calligrapher Lisa Rauchwerger—she is patient, kind, loves the Hebrew language and brings homemade cookies. It took hours of repetition in Room Gimmel here at Beth Am and at home to learn the basics—and I’m still learning. And I think I am a more patient teacher today—I have almost completely stopped thinking: how many more times do I have to go over this ?  We learned this yesterday.  We learned this five minutes ago.

So I signed up for biblical Hebrew. The confusion began immediately. For one thing,  the Ashkenazi  neighbors I grew up with in Queens, New York ended words with an S—Good Shabbos—the holiday of Shavuous--men wore a tallis, while in synagogue  here we ended words with a T—Shabbat, Tallit.  Was this one of those crazy California things?  No—it’s the Hebrew spoken in Israel—Sephardic Hebrew.

But in the midst of the confusion, there was one clarifying moment-- one connection that took place in a very moving way for me.

We learned in class one winter night  that when the letters NUN and VAV—“N” “U” are added to the end of a word, it means “we” “us” or “our”

Avinu Malkeynu—Our father, our king

Asher kidushanu—who has sanctified us.

Early the next morning, I called my mother in New York—sixty year old me, talking to 91 year old Mom and she answered the phone, as she always does, with: How are you Laurenu.

Hold on. She called me Lauren-u.

My mother and father have always called me Laurenu. My grandmother, Ruchel, and my grandfather, Wulf, called me Laurenu.   Aunts Yetta and Goldie called me Laurenu. My cousin Judy, who is here with us today, calls me Laurenu.

It is a childhood name, a nickname, and I never knew why and I never questioned it.

I was named Lauren, after the actress Lauren Bacall,  and that was an unusual name enough in a family that favored biblical and eastern European names. But add the u—LaurenU--and I joined the ancestors.

Here I am, 59 years before my Bat Mitzvah,  in my first year of being Laurenu

I











In any event, that morning after Hebrew School, on the phone with my mother in New York, I said, “Ma…did you know that LaurenU  means  “our Lauren”

And my mother said, “Of course, you’re OUR Lauren. 

You should be somebody else’s?”

The study of Hebrew has also taught me the power and meaning of many other names.

Jacob struggled with an angel and his name became Israel—which means--he struggles with God.

Hashem—a name for God, --simply means “the name”—and it is said in awe.

How many times had I heard the phrase “Baruch Hashem” –Bless the Name --and not really known what it means.

I will leave it to friends and family to decide if learning biblical Hebrew has made me a better Jew. It has made me a wiser Jew—continuing to make connections between words, meaning and theology. I hope to continue to do that—Baruch Hashem.

Thanks for sharing this moment with me. Gut Shabbos and Shabbat Shalom.

Guernica--What's Up With That?

This week I helped a college student from Mongolia to write, what in simpler times would have been called a book report. Now or "nowadays" as she would say, the assignment is termed a critical essay.

To her credit, the student did not ask me to suggest an opening sentence, thesis, or conclusion that she could paraphrase.  Instead, she asked me to read her paper about a science fiction book and offer an opinion about the quality of the writing.

"It's good," I said cautiously. "BUT  I don't understand the metaphor....."
I don't want to go into the whole literary issue here.  It's enough that you know that there was an issue with the metaphor because I began the second sentence with a BUT.

"I've showed this paper to three different Writing Center tutors," the young woman said. "And each or them told me something different. And I'm not sure that they're right. I'm thinking about handing in the paper just the way I wrote it. But will the  professor hate it? Maybe my style is wrong for her.  Now I'm really confused about what to do, and I HATE being confused."

"This is college. You are supposed to be confused." I say. "Think about what the three tutors told you, see if you agree with any of it, and then follow the suggestions--or don't."
"College students are less confused in Mongolia," she answered.

If you tutor or coach or are a parent helping students with challenging  (or maybe not so challenging) assignments, you are going to hear the request "just tell me the right answer so that I can get this thing done and get a good grade."
In fact, you may pay thousands to an afterschool center or private tutor and ask them to tell your kids the right answers or strategies so that they can "get this thing done" and go to Stanford.

GUERNICA--WTF?

Complicating matters is the newer "common core" approach to learning,  in which students are encouraged to make connections between, say, a work of art like Picasso's Guernica and the time period it was created in. Or they may have to read the Gettysburg Address and compare the writing style to that of the ancient Greeks.


Making connections takes time and attention and, well, critical thinking.
Making thoughtful connections also means that we may feel uncomfortable with our confusion for a while as we sort it all out.
Confusion? Sorting things out?  Is there really time for that now?  My kid has a piano lesson at four and swimming at 5:30 . Many parents, students, and, yes, some teachers, are turning their attention to how to "game" the critical thinking system. Did a student use enough big words in their college application essay?  Can they fake deep thinking and insight.
"My teacher hates men," one high school student told me as he prepared to write an essay about the relationships between the Gods and mortals in Homer's Odyssey. "I need to use the term toxic masculinity at least three times."

Interestingly, it may be our sports coaches who may be doing best at teaching young people how to think critically. There's an actual game to be won, and gaming the system is, well, critical.
Why did we win? Why did we lose? Who are our strongest players and where should we position them? Who do we know will show up for practice and who are the slackers?

I don't have a lot of opportunities to talk with the coaches on the Menlo College campus or at the local high schools, but I have a sense that it takes a village to educate a scholar/athlete.

My own goal is to encourage critical thinking in each and every student that I work with.
Hopefully, the grades will follow--although not always.

"What do you think will happen next," I ask in an attempt to encourage critical thinking a fifth grade boy half way through the novel Island of the Blue Dolphins?"
"Who cares!!?"
"What do you think will happen next,?" I ask another fifth grade boy about the same novel.
"A meteor crashes into the island and they all die."

I do much better with a discussions of superpowers like invisibility or time travel.
Ask a kid which superpower they would like to have, and you might get them to write an essay about it.  Or at least draw a picture. Many of my middle school student's essays have begun as works of visual art.

Right now I'm winding up a series of weekly tutoring sessions with a high school freshman who will be taking the Advanced Placement(AP) World History exam in a few weeks. He is a very bright, articulate, athletic young man at a local prep school and until recently I couldn't figure out why he wanted tutoring. Each week we  review a chapter of the textbook, A History of Western Society (Bedford/St Martins) using the Chapter Review Guide: Identify Key Terms, Review the Main Ideas, and Make Connections.
And mostly, I listen. The kid knows his stuff and articulating it helps because the AP Exam has an extensive essay section. Coherent speaking is often a prelude to coherent writing.
I can help with the making connections. Almost every historical period has featured nationalism--and we are certainly living in a period of nationalism today. We talk about leadership and economic movements. I even had lunch with the Menlo College professor who is the expert on Marx and Engels and he handed me a tattered copy of The Communist Manifesto. I read it and  even in 2018, took it covertly out of my tote bag at a Sunday tutoring session and my student and I discussed it. I even discussed the reasons for the hesitant "reveal".

My high school student's  grades this semester have averaged out to a B+.  I asked him if he was concerned that with all our tutoring, he wasn't getting As.
No, he insisted.  "I just feel calmer about the whole thing."
His Mom sent me a note thanking me and telling me when the last tutoring session will be for the semester. She did not mention grades, but mentioned an increase in her son's confidence.

Confidence is good. Calmness is good. And I hope that translates into passing the AP  World History exam.
But more importantly, I hope it leads to a thoughtful answer and approach to one of the most important Chapter 27 (Dictatorships and the Second World War ) textbook questions:

Why would ordinary people support dictatorships that trampled on familiar political freedoms and civil rights?

He could start with: They weren't doing enough critical thinking.