Wisdom that Knows No Borders

I noticed recently I seem to be making lots of statements along the lines of, “My father once said to me…” or “My mother’s advice was always…” Basically, my parents are really smart, and I find myself passing their wisdom all the time. Although neither has ever been to Africa, let alone Mozambique, their insight knows no borders and is just as applicable here as it was in the US.

When I was in college and started studying math, I remember having long conversations with my father (at the time a second-grade teacher) about when and how things start to go wrong for kids who grow up to feel like they “just can’t do math.” I had started tutoring and ended up with a lot of students who were studying to pass the basic math requirement test. They would come in, months away from graduating, most very intelligent and confident when it came to English or History or Anthropology or whatever they were studying, but one look at one math problem and they would freeze up, staring helplessly at their tutor, hoping she held some magic key that would unlock the secret of finding the lowest common denominator, would make this hopelessly opaque concept suddenly clear. 

Of course, this isn’t how math works. Despite a pretty common idea that some people are “math people” and some people just aren’t, learning math is a process like any other subject: you have to learn the basic vocabulary, the basic rules, and then get comfortable with manipulating statements within this framework. Only in math, the statements are equations instead of sentences. My father is a “language person” more than a “math person,” but he always put an equal effort into teaching his kids the fundamentals of both areas. 

I remember coming to the conclusion after a few months of tutoring that fractions are where things first go wrong. The college-aged, fear-wracked students that I was encountering almost always froze up on fractions, something that they learned (or didn’t) during the time folks like my dad were in charge of their education. When I proposed this to my dad, it led to a fascinating conversation about the fear that some of his colleagues had of fractions and how this could be transmitted to their students. Beyond that, we started talking about what schools would do to address these problems, which in his experience often included training on the latest, greatest, best method for teaching math. They would bring in an expert who had developed a method, much better than previous methods, with plenty of studies showing this through improved test scores, etc. But of course, when it was implemented by other teachers, the results were never equivalent to those achieved by the one who had developed it and in a few years it was replaced by the newest-latest-greatest.

My father’s wise take on this was that the problem didn’t usually lie in any kind of fraud by the author of the new system, it probably had resulted in a huge improvement in the students learning directly from the person who had developed it. The problem was usually a lack of alignment between this process presented as a panacea that would make anyone a significantly better math teacher, and the specific skills of the teacher implementing it. Every teacher has strengths and weaknesses and making them use a system that does not play to their strengths will rarely lead to success.

This is something that has stayed with me through the adventure of becoming a teacher here in Mozambique. We went through ten weeks of training when we arrived that included numerous presentations by trainers, current volunteers and fellow trainees. There was a lot of discussion of the best ways to handle different subjects and different situations: the need to be a disciplinarian or the students won’t respect you; ways to structure lessons; ways to mark homework or they won’t do any of it. This definitely planted seeds that can spring up as self-doubt after a bad day. But I always come back to those conversations with my dad: every teacher has their strengths and I will have the best outcome if I emphasize those instead of trying to be someone I am not. I always try to be honest with myself about what I do well and what I don’t.

For example: I am NOT a disciplinarian. If I tried to be, the students would be able to see right through it and it would only harm my credibility. Sometimes I wish I could march into the classroom and make everyone snap to attention, but this just isn’t my style. Now, since I generally maintain a relaxed environment in the classroom, when I do snap at someone, it works. My strengths are more along the lines of keeping people engaged through participation and keeping them on my side with self-deprecating jokes about my Portuguese. All of my students have been extremely supportive and helpful with language throughout the semester and I think that mainly comes from the fact that I have the self-confidence to be honest about my abilities and my, um, disabilities. When I realized the wealth of experience my evening students were bringing to my Management class, it was a little intimidating. But I overcame this by focusing on my strength in facilitating conversations over my weakness stemming from my lack of experience in the Mozambican context. I frequently let the students become the teachers, sharing their relevant experience with the rest of the class. They ended up learning the concepts better than my day students (as measured by test scores) and I probably learned as much as they did over the course of the semester. 

And it all comes back to my wise father’s observation: when teachers are able to play to their strengths instead of being forced into using a method that isn’t natural for them, they will be better at their jobs. The same habits that make a teacher happier and more confident are the ones that make them more effective, so when I am true to myself, I am more likely to succeed.

My parents’ wisdom extends beyond the classroom, as well. My mother, more than anyone else I have ever met, can read people. Within moments of meeting someone, she has picked up on subtle nuances of their presentation and manner of interacting with people that give her more insight than most people can glean in years of contact with that person. Unfortunately, this is a skill that can’t be passed on in the form of advice. She once, however, gave me some advice about how to read interactions with people that I have found to be useful in every stage of my life. I don’t remember the context, but I can imagine it was a time that someone had said something that upset me, but I didn’t know why. She advised that, often times, the words a person uses are less important than how they make you feel. [Edit: While I originally attributed this advice to my dad, I believe it actually came from my mother. They are both so wise, sometime it is difficult to remember the origin of each individual counsel!]

This came up recently in a conversation with a PCV friend who was having problems with her school director. She and her roommate were the first volunteers to work at the school and the relationship got off to a rocky start. The director lived next to them and was a heavy drinker who would get overly friendly when coming home from the bar. He would call repeatedly and then start knocking on their windows well after they had gone to sleep. One night he started shining a light into her bedroom as she was sleeping. They had seen female students visiting him at his house and, in a country where trading grades for money or sex is not uncommon, it seemed clear that this guy was not above taking advantage of his position.

My friend had pushed back against his behavior and had eventually resorted to speaking with our Peace Corps program director, who spoke with the school director. This only worsened things between my friend and her director. He started making new rules weekly, mainly to limit when she was allowed to leave her site. The town is very small and isolated, requiring hours of travel to get to the nearest larger town or to another site to see a Peace Corps friend and now the director was making rules preventing her from taking the time she needed to resupply or just take a break from life at site. But these limits only had the effect of making her want to leave more. As we were sitting at my table, drinking tea and discussing this increasingly antagonistic situation, my mom’s advice came back to me. Even though she didn’t want to leave her site every weekend, the fact that she couldn’t was making her crazy. Why were his rules having this effect on her? It seemed to be that the conflict wasn’t really over her ability to travel, but over his need to show her that he was in control. She wanted to go visit her friend? Too bad. He was in charge and she had to stay. Accustomed to using his position to start sexual relationships, when she had said very clearly “No,” he found another way to show her he was boss: restricting her mobility in and out of site. In America or Mozambique, looking beyond someone’s words and scrutinizing their effect on you can provide insight into the dynamics behind the interaction. 

I could fill a book with the good advice my parents have given me and may come back to it in another post, but for now, in this time between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, I will simply say “Thank you!” My parents have given me so many tools to find my way through complex situations at home and abroad, in my personal life and professional life. I am truly a lucky girl.