A Reason for Everything

You don't always know you wanted something until you get it

I was at dinner with my dear friend Teju last night (we ate at the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House - I will miss that place!). Teju had been part of the small group that Darren and I asked to critique our sample lessons before our big, day-long TFA interview. His feedback was gentle, but insightful and serviceable - with spot-on tips and fair, digestible rationales and personal warmth through it all. He's great at providing feedback (a trait I am seeking to emulate).

Putting Teju's greatness aside (momentarily), I should explain that my sample lesson was about the Grameen Bank - a microlending institute in Bangladesh, started by a man named Muhammad Yunus, to provide tiny loans to poor women. I simplify here, but these loans are intended to provide women with the small seed capital needed to buy a goat or a weaving loom. From that purchase, these women can sustain income-generating projects without the need for continual help or charity. For instance, some women have chosen to purchase cell phones, whose call-time they then "rent out" to their fellow villagers. The point is not to create greedy consumers, but to restore dignity and feelings of self-efficacy to those who have been repeatedly marginalized. The Grameen Bank's success (a 98% repayment rate!) is proof that the poor are "credit-worthy" by virtue of "being alive" (amen!).

My lesson summarized this bank structure, and then focused more intently on the 16 Decisions. These are commitments that every Grameen loan recipient must promise to adhere to in order to qualify for money. I chose to focus on 4 of them (I tried to choose a good sampling of the pragmatic-behavioral commitments and the moral-conduct commitments):

• We shall grow vegetables all the year round. We shall eat plenty of them and sell the surplus.
• We shall plan to keep our families small. We shall minimize our expenditures. We shall look after our health.
• We shall collectively undertake bigger investments for higher incomes.
• We shall always be ready to help each other. If anyone is in difficulty, we shall all help him or her.
  

I wanted my students to understand the causal relationships between these commitments made at the outset of a loan and the resultant benefits as the commitment is sustained (for the woman, her family, and the broader community). It was a cause-effect hypothesizing lesson.

It was also a social studies lesson. I have been assigned to "secondary English." So much for my sample lesson, eh?

But at dinner, Teju and I talked about how much English fits me - much more so than social studies. I got assigned to English for a reason (even perhaps just a computer-generated reason), and I could not be more thrilled. Teaching English really affords me the chance to explore all kinds of ideas and postulates through the mechanisms of writing, oratory, language structure (e.g., vocabulary, syntax), poetry, and literature. There is so much ground I can cover as an English teacher that would be "out-of-bounds" as a social studies teacher. I see social studies as a more fact-based field that requires different methods of examination and instruction - hence resulting in different growth.

The ways I seek to shape student minds and hearts is much more aligned with being at the head of an English classroom. Sometimes, you don't know what it is you really want until you get blessed with it. Thank you, Teju, for reminding me of this.

See the Grameen Bank site.