Blog Post 4 - "The Passion Project"

"The Passion Project" spoke to me by making me want to sure of my passion. As the opening words of the movie declare, “passion is a desire to do, to accomplish, or to feel without any barriers.” As an eighteen year old, I have fears that I'll wake up ten years from now and hate what I'm doing. Until recently, I had always gotten good grades but had never felt an overwhelming passion for one single subject. For the moment, my plan is to go to law school and work at an organization that prosecutes human traffickers – I think this is my passion. Ultimately, I really identify with the movie’s quotation “the best advice I felt like I could have been given was to know that my mind is undecided.” I want to know “what truly makes me happy”.

Another way the “The Passion Project” made an impact on me was by provoking me to think about how education has become so formulized and why this is detrimental to society. Just as one of the students from the movie remarked, “When people ask me ‘why didn’t you take up singing’ or ‘why didn’t you take up theater arts’, I’m like ‘because you’re not supposed to do that’”. Our world is made up of different colors, different people with different background and aspirations; the fact that we are all different is what keeps society from falling apart. As Ms. Ontiveros remarks, “How gladly we succumb to the hatchet of conformity, splitting passion from heart.” I hope that, one day soon, more people will feel comfortable shrugging off the shackles of conformity and acting on their passions.

Finally, “The Passion Project” moves me to action. It is an interesting idea that students’ academic successes are generally based in passion. Although teachers should bring passion to their areas of expertise, it is also the job of the student to be a willing and eager participant and to try new and difficult things. After all, how should we know what to do with our lives if we haven’t explored all the options? Ultimately, this movie is affective because it speaks students’ languages; it addresses their insecurities over not following their society and/or family’s example and choosing instead to carve out a different path. After watching this movie, I want to find out what excites me so that I can make it a central focus in my education, and in the long run, my future.

Teaches should have a passion for what they teach. Just as one woman in the movie aptly stated, “Do I think a teacher should start going into a classroom with the vocabulary of passion, absolutely yes.” Passionate teachers can definitely be instrumental in students’ successes. When teachers bring excitement and life into their classrooms, this attitude infects the student. This happened to me when I was taking an astronomy class at Chabot. I was never all that interested in science but my teacher, Professor Hildreth, made it quite fascinating. From the very moment I saw him, it was obvious how much he loved his field. In addition to all the actual science, he always made sure to tie his lectures back to astronomy’s relevance in today’s world. This made me want to do well in his class.   

Classes shouldn’t just be about dry, uninteresting facts; they should have relevance and be exciting. This is the role of passion in the classroom. As another interviewee remarked, “I’ve been in many classrooms where the teachers just teach and don’t interact with the students much.” A history class I’ve been taking this semester exemplifies the opposite quality, where the teacher has instead been making his history class come alive. Although history can often be seemingly inconsequential, the reality, as Mr. Stephens explains it, goes far deeper than our perceptions. When I’m in his class, I actually want to know about ancient Greek philosophers and about what factors caused the fall of the Roman Empire.  Unfortunately, classrooms today seem to be more about formula and fact memorization rather than inclusive learning. This is something that must change. 

The central focus of education should be passion. As one interviewee explains, “We have to feel like the teacher really wants to help us.” Taken a step further, the entire atmosphere of “the school experience” should be about passion. Sure, we’ll have to learn about things that might seem tedious – and we might grumble about having to write papers into the early hours of the morning – but we’ll do it if we know why we should do it and/or for what reason it will benefit us. When I come to school, I want to feel excited. I want to walk into my classrooms with clarity of purpose and with an eagerness to tackle difficult projects. When this happens, it is the synthesis of passion and motivation – of being excited about education and being willing to work through various academic hurdles. 

Blog Post 3 - ESL

I think it’s absolutely necessary for community colleges to teach ESL. Not only are immigrants a vital part of American society, the increased opportunities for immigrants have been one of the main ways this country has historically been set apart from others. When the Pilgrims first came to America in 1620, many of them came with the idea that the New World would provide a better future for their children. How is this different from the immigrants of today? If we do away with ESL, we’ll be turning our back on American history.

Although most community college’s mission statements don’t explicitly align with a lot of immigrant’s goals, I believe that they apply implicitly. For example, Chabot’s mission statement reads that the college “prepares students to succeed in their education, progress in the workplace, and engage in the civic and cultural life of the global community”. But what does this mean? Once an immigrant learns to speak English, there are so many doors that open up. Although their goal might be to learn English to be able to talk to the child’s school teacher, the ability to communicate clearly will help in making better economic, political, and social choices. Indeed, as the movie states, “you can just say I want to help my first grader read her books, but then you start catching the environment … it really does transfer into something more."

Just as Lyndon B. Johnson once aptly said, “The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources—because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples”. This nation was founded on the idea that it would be a place where immigrants could come to carve out a better life for themselves. These immigrants deserve a fighting chance to learn English, find good jobs, and become productive members of society. ESL helps them get there. Just as the movie mentions, “the American dream is not only to be here living and to be called an American; we’re all humans and we all deserve a chance in life.” Although the economy is still going through an admittedly tough time, we should not cut ESL classes; we should not take away the life-blood of so many people who only want to succeed as American people. As one woman in the movie said, “it’s so hard for me to reach my goal, but that’s not a reason to give up.” 

Blog Post 2 - Family Helps me Succeed Academically

First things first: I believe that success is largely subjective. I believe that it is measured on an individual basis and that it involves doing and being better than you were yesterday. Because this definition is moderately broad, it follows that most preventions of success are directly related to a person’s own motivation and cannot be attributed to some external negative. With this in mind, the driving force behind my academic success is, undoubtedly, my family. I think a lot of people neglect how important it is, having people in your life who encourage you to do hard things and push yourself to the limit. Whenever I’m having a particularly tough time at school, I am always reminded of how lucky I am to have my family – when I’m exhausted at the end of the day, my dad will offer to pick me up so that I don’t have to take the bus home, my mom will often cook me dinner, and my sister will frequently do my chores. They do this so that I have time to fully devote myself to my education; they do this because they want me to succeed. As a matter of fact, when I didn’t do well with a speech at a forensics tournament this past weekend, my mom even offered to sit down and walk through the speech with me. (She’s pretty awesome, my mom ;)). 

Blog Post 1 - This is Success.

Success, nowadays, is an incredibly ambiguous term. Everything from money to education to religion to even fame is being touted as the latest road to success. We are daily inundated with advertisements telling us what we should look like, parents telling us who they think we should grow up to be, and friends telling us what we should do. Our own perceptions of ourselves and our successes are continuously being shaped by family, friends, media outlets, and even perfect strangers. For me, success is being and/or doing better than I was yesterday. It means never remaining static, never growing complacent with ourselves; it implies a constant need for improvement. As Winston Churchill once aptly declared, “Success is not final, failure is not final: it is the courage to continue that counts.” 

Success in a professional life is dependent on a willingness to try new things. It implies an eagerness to confront the unknown and not shy away from the unexpected. When my dad was asked to become the Safety Coordinator at his workplace – in addition to all of his other managerial duties – he did so knowing that, while it was a good opportunity, it also came with a lot of risks and liabilities. This is a quality that most employers – and people in general, by extension – both appreciate and respect. Indeed, the ability to look at a daunting, new project without fear is a quality that most innovators and earth-shakers possess. One doesn’t need to become a doctor, lawyer, or CEO to become successful – they just need to be willing to step outside their comfort zones.

While an eagerness to try new things is crucial trait for success, a willingness to perform menial tasks is an almost equal measure for success. Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither does someone fresh into the job market immediately get to the top. I experienced this last year when I was interning at a law firm in San Francisco. When I first started at the firm, I had high hopes of getting to see what the lawyers did up close. The reality was that I barely got to speak to them and spent a lot of time fetching coffee and cleaning desks. As they began to trust me, however, I was allowed to do more actual case-work. Although I first had to do menial tasks, I was able to work myself up to a better position.

Finally, the most important tenet of success is an unwillingness to give up because of a belief that what you are doing matters.  This is historically why philanthropists, social workers, nurses, and so many other professions have such a high job satisfaction rate; it is because they know they are making a positive change in the world. As Henry Ford, a great American industrialist, once remarked, “But to do more for the world than the world does for you – that is Success.” Success in the work place is not defined by income, status, respectability, or even promotions. Because all of these outward signs of success can be quickly stripped away during a bad economic recession, the only way to become truly successful is by leaving this world better than you found it.