What if…

The first 15 minutes in my six grade homeroom class is scheduled for silence. It is not always observed, and seldom does everyone observe it at the same time, but it is nevertheless on the weekly time design. Children are admonished to put their hallway conversations on hold, get to their seats/tables, locate their text books, notebooks, materials and supplies (e.g., three sharpened pencils at any given time) that they need for the day, and prepare to listen to the teacher’s instructions on the orders of the day. Sometimes, we listen to the news on the radio, or I lead a reflective conversation so that they can listen to each other.

The day usually gets launched with a symbolic activity like the singing of the anthems, rehearsing the school mission and philosophy, or singing a class song.

The first half-hour of the day is character education time. In my class, students are asked to either contain their hallway excitement or despair, anxieties or enthusiasm, until we get a clear and common picture of the homeroom day. I ask my students to check the state of their mental attitude. “You brush your teeth every morning to be hygienic and to feel clean,” I say, “and you comb your hair to look nice. Now, it is time to check on the health of our minds.”

Observing silence as a pedagogical tool is not often employed in public schools, though many CEOs will attest to the power of a 15-minute meditative moment at the start of their day. Given that our students consistently fail the listening section of standard assessment tests, the frequency of intentional pauses, scheduling of structured reflective times, merit serious consideration of every one in the teaching profession. The widespread incidence of verbal diarrhea is evident when one walks into any of our public school classrooms. It is even common in public meetings to have someone yak away, evidently oblivious of the discordance s/he is making, while a helpless meeting facilitator focuses a group’s attention.

But more than the moment of silence to encourage reflective time is the inventory of one’s perspective. An old mentor used to bellow at us at the university dormitory to inventory our mental luggage before we stepped out of the dorm. It makes a lot of difference how we view our situation at any given time. Using the metaphor of the half-empty, half-full bottle, he reminded us that the choice of perspective is always available to each of us.

In the aftermath of Katrina, when 20,000 people were moved from the Sugardome in New Orleans to the Houston Astrodome, Dr. Stuart C. Udofsky, chairman of psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, is leading about 30 psychiatrists from around Houston in assisting with the mental-health needs of the refugees. The challenge is formidable. Udofsky said: “The Astrodome was designed to have maybe 20,000 people for six hours at the most for something upon which they are all focused. To be there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for an indeterminate period of time, that experiment has never been —and we are trying to do that right now.”

As any disaster preparedness practitioner will attest, once the basic physical needs are met, the need for significant engagement becomes primary. A change of mindset among service providers is required—from seeing the refugees as helpless clients (victims) to seeing them as resources. This is hard for the “lady bountiful” charity attitude of Uncle Sam and his varied relations. Public officers and offices are designed to extend succor of the kind that will bring them recognition and annual budgetary increases. “Ask not what your country can do for you …” furled a solitary voice two scores past but we did not heed the voice. We stilled it to oblivion, metaphorically and otherwise.

The cry of despondency heard even from the resource-rich garment industry when certain WTO provisions kicked in, testify to the mindset that looks at the bottle half-empty rather than being half-full. A local community development methodology practiced by planners at the Northwestern University north of Chicago is called Asset-based planning.

It begins with the inventory of what a community has, rather than what it does not have. Earlier, the Institute of Cultural Affairs, in its global network of human development projects in every time zone around the world, employed an Indicative Battle Planning methodology that focused on what the community sees as presently prevailing, rather than what should or ought to be in place. This avoids the nostalgia for an imagined previous golden age, or ignoring current contradictions by yearning for utopian dreams.

What have we got? In the same fashion as medical doctors ask their clients: “OK, what have we got here?” what if every approach to extending public assistance, or offering public services begin with the same query, “what have we got here?”

Imagine the folks from New Orleans being led by facilitating psychiatrists and public service providers who see that meeting immediate physical needs goes hand in hand with enabling the same people to participate in helping help themselves. Some folks can help distribute food, water, and keep their surroundings clean.

Representatives from geographical sectors in the Dome can report problems and needs as they arise, assist a la neighborhood watch, with security. Who would organize childcare and children’s education? (As Don Farrell noted in a Letter to the Editor, there might be school teachers among the refugees who might just be receptive to be recruited to the CNMI PSS!) Who would volunteer to lead athletic events? Who could gather memories—oral histories of the deluge? These are New Orleans’ folks. They would have singers, musicians, storytellers, dramatists, etc. eager to put the Katrina experience into tale, music and song. Ah, the riches that could result if we could trust what folks have to give, treating them as resources and assets rather than as victims and liabilities!

What if our Chinese garment factory workers who wish to remain on island are inventoried for other skills that might be useful in the visitors’ industry? And allow them to transfer to other job categories? What if our other contract workers are encouraged to continue doing wonders with our landscape and our gardens, making them productive for agricultural products that are locally consumed? This requires a certain kind of perspective which treats what one has as resource and asset.

Checking one’s mental health at the door, on the way out of our homes and on the way in to our offices, would be a helpful indicative exercise. Take the Legislature for example. What happens if, at the door, everyone checks in their aggression, contentiousness, hostilities, combativeness, and don in the mantle of commonsense, cooperation, clarity of thought, accuracy in speech and language, etc.? What if we work with what we’ve got rather than whine at how lousy the current situation is, and how bleak the prospects of our future hold?

What if everyone took 15 minutes of silence head start each morning and then asks, “What have I got?” Then work with it? Have a great day!

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Vergara is a Social Studies 6th grade teacher at San Vicente Elementary School