Category: Uncategorized

A discussion worth remembering, from yesterday.

Academics is changing. It is more and more about doers who want to connect the world of theory with the world of real world experimentation and hands-in-the-mud implementation. It’s about being critical and radical, but being able to communicate and persuade others. It’s about being idealistic and stubborn, but being able to live with the frustrations and fight until the end. It’s about not losing the bigger goal to prestigious ivory towers. Not letting egos stand in the way of serving the world with our knowledge.

In the end, taking the most unusual path means I’ll have less competition (and less opportunities). And it’ll feel right. And good. And interesting.

I’ve always been a bit wary about pursuing a PhD. I know I love the academic side. I know I love the debate and discussions and theories. I know I miss it. However, for reasons that alone seem silly, but together, daunting, I’ve always thought I would be more suited to a professional masters program. I don’t want to be pigeon-holed (yet). I don’t want to spend my life dealing only with theories. I don’t want to spend four years of my life writing a thick document that doesn’t interest anybody but me.

My friend and my boss really inspire me. There is a different way. Academics is changing. Maybe I would consider gambling 4 years of my life.

My generation – especially youth who are for whatever reason attracted to the activist lifestyle; especially those coming from a North American perspective – are often taught that we have the potential to change the world. To make an impact. To save the earth and humanity from an apocalypse. Throughout my high school and university years, I was also fed a steady diet of such propaganda. (I’m using propaganda here without a negative connotation.) I don’t disagree, nor do I regret believing such words. In fact, I still do. I often think that I was actually born an idealist and an optimist; the propaganda simply confirmed my beliefs and helped me find compatriots.

While I wouldn’t say that I’ve become more cynical over the years (I wish I never do, at least not too much), I’ve certainly become more realistic. The fundamental systems of the world were built up over centuries, if not millenniums. They were built up to adhere to the most stable power structure, which isn’t always the most equitable. They were built by countless deliberate actors and by countless unintended consequences. Where is the evidence that we can dismantle such deep-rooted systems within a decade? Or, if more recent social media hype is to be believed (*cough* KONY2012 *cough*), with the click of a mouse?

I was having a good, long, interesting chat (my favourite kind) with a friend recently. We touched on the topic of people who declare they want to save the world. I would never shy away from saying that my ultimate goal is to help save the world. I would also probably always want to be friends with people who say so. At the same time, however, I do believe that, statistically speaking, I never will. At least not alone. At least not in the way that is so popular with Hollywood movies or best-selling books. And I’m content with that. Content in being one of the clogs that refused to help the conventional world function. Content in working my hardest for little direct result. Content in being the utmost prepared for the day where I could be in a position of power to affect change, yet might never get there. Life is afterall a chance, but a chance which you must be ready to grab. Maybe this is one occasion where I’m thankful for my natural irrational ability to be hypocritical and contradictory.

Recently, for work I’m summarizing and synthesizing many scholarly articles on what factors actually improve educational outcomes, mostly targeted at the context of developing countries. Firstly it’s amazing to be paid to read quality articles and books (on my reading list is also Poor Economics – a book I’ve been trying to settle down and read for so long!) on topics in development I’m very interested in. Second, there are just a few lessons that really strike me reading these articles:

1. Past efforts in development in education have mostly targeted indicators as proxies to real learning. What I mean is that we’ve looked at class sizes, at number of text books, at teacher attendance, at school meals, and hundreds of other factors rather than the actual learning outcome of the students being able to read basic texts and calculate simple math. We’ve focused on the indicators, the most famous example is probably the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), where increasing the number of schools and enrollment is paramount. While these factors are important, their successes pales when we find out, for example, that 80% of grade 3 children do not have grade 2 literacy or numeracy (and this is quite an average percentage – surprisingly and sadly). Now we are realizing that these proxy indicators actually do not tell us much except numbers to be checked on a checklist. It’s important to note that it is not that these inputs or changes aren’t important, but that they may not necessarily lead to the outcomes we were hoping for – i.e. more children learning.
2. From the above, we need to set our goals correct. Numerous people have said this again and again, but we need to actually focus on our ultimate goals rather than our proxy indicators. The first example that comes to mind is what do we actually want out of life? Is happiness, and dependent on which kind of happiness, an indicator or is it a goal?
3. Development may be failing. Aid may not work. But we cannot discount all the lessons we have learnt over the past few decades on what does work. Like in education, we have tried, with best intents, and can only continue to try with our best intents. In whichever field, private or public or non-governmental, we always learn by trial and error. We often forget that the current complex globalized world we are forging together is a completely new one, with no historical lessons learnt. Universal human rights are also a relatively very new concept. We have actually progressed a lot in the last few hundreds of years. While we can have the best experts (and I use that word to mean not just academically trained scholars), we are still going to have to continually fix our models to better fit such a complex world.
4. In general I have a feeling that while many of the criticisms of development/aid is sound, and welcomed, the proposed alternative solution of private entrepreneurship in solving the worlds problem is at best naïve and at worst destructive. If private enterprise really could provide all of humanity with an acceptable standard of living, education, and work, then it would have “naturally” occurred over the centuries of ancient civilization. We are often too harsh on development/aid because the failure of private enterprises are not publicized, whereas aid’s failures are headline news. Also, current private enterprises often focus on very specific, narrow goals with the financial bottomline at the forefront. The problems that private enterprises target are usually the ones that are the easiest to solve, and therefore most profitable. The bigger, more complex, and more vaguely defined (development as freedom, anybody?) problems are often left to the public/NGO sector. If you have to compare “failure” rates, then it’s almost expected that the public/NGO sector would “fail” more.
5. There needs to be a much larger bridge between academic research and theories and development work. Translating theories and lessons learnt into implementable, tangible solutions to real world problems is paramount. Ivory towers are only useful in providing a protective environment for ruminating “radical” new ideas and paradigms. They are useless when you actually want to see those theories for a better (more equitable, more sustainable, more ‘harmonious’) world function in the current real world. While I completely understand the self-protective tendencies to stay in an encouraging, comfortable environment to shield attacks about our progressive theories, it greatly frustrates me also. How are we ever going to actually improve the world? How are we actually going to help provide a better life for all? If we cannot be vulnerable and be willing to stand in the fighting arena without being bullet proof we are only ever going to huddle, defeated in a dark corner in our ivory towers.

Anyways, brain still jumbling from all this recent reading. Now that I’ve written down part of the jumble, I’ll go back to jumbling it some more.

Interesting post over at Blattman (by the way, I can’t believe Freakonomics attacked Blattman with such viciousness; have a bit of class, will ya?). Emphasis are mine.

My favorite discovery of past weeks are Yale’s open courses, for video or podcast.

Right now I’m about a third of my way through Steven Smith’s Introduction to political philosophy and Ian Shapiro’s Moral Foundations of Politics. Highly, highly recommended.

…hard to understand what the political theorists were writing about. What use was revisiting 2000-year-old tomes?…They tackle the first and most fundamental questions in politics: What makes a state legitimate? What makes a good life? What is a responsible citizen to do? What are our obligations towards others?

Every course of new book on development, whether it seeks “why people are poor” or “why nations fail”, and every public policy or Millennium Development Goal–all of these implicitly have an answer to these deeper questions. The answer, though, is almost never explicit, even sometimes to the authors themselves.

I’m reminded of one of my favorite Keynes quotes: “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

Interesting to read this right after I made a post about being more of an implementer than a theorists. I completely agree with Blattman, of course. Theory has always been, and always will be, important. We organize our world, of what is possible or not, desirable or not, according to paradigms. We can only understand and deconstruct paradigms through theories. We can only try to step away and look at our current path from a more objective view through theories. Hence, we can only change society through good action stemming from good theoretical background.

That being said, I’m still more of an implementer, I think. Or rather, I’d like to be an implementer who provides feedback to theorists. Only together can we actually make a change.

“If we’re not progressive, who will be?” — Friend

“It is not my responsibility to compromise. That is the politicians’ jobs.” — Raj Patel

Although it’s been a few years since I heard these two quotes, they have always stayed with me. I completely agree with the sentiments –  society has and always will need people who are progressive. By definition, societal progress cannot happen if we’re always conservative*. History has shown us that humans are not willing to remain the same as they were 200, 1000, 10,000 years ago.

At the same time, society needs a variety of different actors. There are those who are radical, who push the envelope until most in society cannot understand why they would go to such extremes. There are those who are trying to preserve heritage and values that are essential for us to function with history in perspective. There are those who fit somewhere in between, making the compromises, bridge those who seek to change and those who seek to preserve. There are different actors on every tiny segment of this spectrum, and no peaceful change to societal structures can ever happen without everyone fully participating.

As for myself, I haven’t fully figured out my place in the spectrum and where I can have the most impact yet. I feel I’m somewhat of a bridge: progressive in thought, but extremely realistic in implementation/advocacy. While I thrive during intellectual debates, I ultimately am interested in theories because I want a more equal, just, sustainable, and (insert all the good development terms) society. There’s no use for theories if they cannot be implemented.

As my dad, who understands me more than I do sometimes, said to me recently (paraphrased), “You’re extremely idealistic, yet realistic. You’ve learnt to use logic to convince, yet still kept alive that empathy (感性).”

I like my place so far. I think it fits my personality quite well.

—

* I’m not using progressive/conservative as labels in the Western politics sense.

Nitatoka Hong Kong katika baada ya siku mbili. Ninasikitika kwa sababu nitaacha nyuma familia yangu. Lakini mimi siwezi kusubiri mpaka nitafika Dar. Nimefurahi sana ninaweza kuishi mjini huu tena. Ninapenda sana. Na ninafikiri kazi yangu ni kusisimua sana!

I’m sure I just made a ton of mistakes in that paragraph (the way I used kusisimua is wrong, I’m sure). But I’m learning! It’s also exciting to be picking up Kiswahili again. I love learning new languages. Especially one as useful as Kiswahili.

With my departure date coming close, my excitement level for my new job and new life is rising exponentially. Before I get too excited, I should write down some goals for the next year or two to keep myself focused. It’s also an interesting way to keep track of how I’ve changed when I look back in the future. I’ll start with the big goals and move down to the more specific ones. I’ll keep it simple so I wouldn’t overload myself.

Overall goals in life: to help change the structures that (re)produce inequality. To serve those who are relatively powerless in the current socio-political-economic system. To continue to learn from unexpected, non-traditional teachers; to immerse in different world views.

Goals for the next two years: learn, work hard, gain connections, be inspired, get scholarships to go back to a good school for an interesting degree that furthers my professional and personal goals.

Specific concrete actions (subject to change when better ideas come up):

1. Learn Kiswahili well: only way to actually immerse myself in different aspects and perspectives of Tanzanian culture. Seems like it would also be helpful in getting funding for studies.

2. Volunteer: find a good place to volunteer at the most grassroots level with lots of opportunities for conversation. Helps me 1) understand those who we are trying to engage in our work and 2) see a different side of Dar. I’m thinking of the after school homework place for children a friend and I randomly bumped into in the nearby unplanned settlement. I keep thinking back that I should have taken up their offer to just come and play with the children in English. My intuition so far has yet to fail me.

3. Be outgoing: make friends, network, and find opportunities. Self-explanatory. Ultimately, I really want to find a good supervisor for grad school work. And connections for future work, of course. I know this is 可遇不可求 (how am I supposed to translate this? – you can only hope to meet, but can’t plan for?), but I can try my best, no?

4. Stay healthy: somehow incorporate a daily run/swim into my routine.

5. Read, reflect, and write: I need a more systematic way of keeping track of books and articles I read and what I learn from them. Blogging is always an option, but somehow it’s not working very well. I need something that combines blogging, fb, tumblr, scoop it etc that works for me. I really need to do this better.

6. Putonghua/Mandarin: somehow I’m going to have to keep my Chinese levels up. I’m thinking a weekly short self-assigned essay. Just that thought makes me scared a little. Maybe reading a short piece of news/op-ed and writing a 400 word reflection? Just like in high school. I could always switch it up with a Japanese essay once in a while (also makes me scared).

7. Burn out and learn how to recover, quickly. Because I will burn out. A lot.

I’m returning to Tanzania!

To work with a really innovative (mm, even that over-used term doesn’t encompass the feeling. Cool, is probably the word) organization. Really lucky. Even though the position isn’t glamourous, with lots of backstage, nitty-gritty work, I can learn so much.

Currently I’m reading everything I can get my hands on about the projects I’ll be involved with. Getting more and excited.

More once I arrive and actually start work.

A thought-provoking article:

What if I told you that the way to change the world was not to be bold, resolute, brilliant, or even compassionate? What if I told you that the way to change the world was to be sad?

It sounds so improbable. When we think of those who have taught us the most about meaningful change, we think of people who are very, very brave, say, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama. Unwavering. Deep. Devoted to others and willing to die for what they believe, quite literally.

How do you get to be such a person?

Well, I have no idea, but I would put money on the idea that the ground, path, and fruition of their lives is sadness.

When you look out at this world, what you see will make you very, very sad. This is good. You are seeing clearly. Genuine sadness gives rise, spontaneously, naturally, completely, to the wish—no, the longing—to be of benefit to others. When your wish to help is rooted in love (i.e. sadness), it is effective. There is no question.

But because it is so uncomfortable, we immediately want to turn sadness into what we imagine will hurt less: anger, hopelessness, helplessness. When the wish to help is rooted in anger, it will only create more confusion. And of course, when we feel hopeless or helpless, we take refuge in non-action, which also creates confusion.

Meditation teaches you to relax with the discomfort of sadness and stay with it, not turn it into something else. At this point, you can lay claim to your brand of helpful activity (whether it takes the form of activism, leadership, charitable work, making art, prayer, and/or simple, basic kindness to all).

Despair is what happens when you fight sadness. Compassion is what happens when you don’t. It will not feel “good,” it will feel alive and this aliveness is the path to bliss.* So the key, and this is a big one, is to learn to stabilize your heart in the open state. The practice of meditation is this stabilization. It is so much more than a self-improvement technique, as I’ve said 100 zillion times. It is a path to peace. It is a path to love, not the sappy-silly kind, but the real deal.

You have a soft spot. Contrary to popular belief, it is not where you are weak, it is the gateway to indestructible power…

Please read the rest at: http://www.mindful.org/in-love-and-relationships/working-with-emotions/the-importance-of-sadness

I’ve written before how shocked I was the first time I arrived in a, for the lack of a better word, developing country. A career crisis. Or maybe even a life-goal crisis, if you would allow me to exaggerate a bit. Shock. Then came the sadness. Then guilt. And helplessness.

Just like the article said.

Now I know that I cannot try to change that sadness, for it is truly what I feel. Perhaps should feel.

“Despair is what happens when you fight sadness. Compassion is what happens when you don’t.”

There is no need for prolonged despair, for it never changes anything. But there is a need for compassion, and if you ask me, anger. Not the kind of anger that lashes out, but the kind of anger where you embrace it and control it so it burns brightly, just enough, to fuel you, to fuel your work.

There is destructive and non-useful anger. Then there is useful anger. Where you’re driven but see clearly. Where you don’t need to rationalize intuition but speak convincingly.

I don’t look forward to the day when I become numb, and ‘realistic.’ Thankfully, there are plenty of those who were born before me (先生 – literally: born before (me), common usage: teacher; in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), who never lost that fire.