BEYOND A WAITRESS

by Shoshana Wineburg

Five months ago, I started working nights at a restaurant. Though the restaurant is cozy and well-attended, I noticed something peculiar: many diners were not communicating with each other. They were distracted by their screens. Disturbed, I wrote an op-ed and published it in The Seattle Times. At the end of the article, I included this short bio:

"Shoshana Wineburg graduated from Stanford University in 2009 with a degree in American Studies. She waits tables in Seattle."

Comments ensued. Most people responded to the article's content; others could care less. They wanted to talk about my degree. One user wrote that my bio was "the saddest part of the article." Someone else said my degree was not "worthwhile," and that waiting tables after graduating from Stanford was "kinda depressing."

I haven't just waited tables after Stanford. I've done other things. But that's beside the point. The point is that the comments represent a value system that measures success by achievement and income, not character. This is a type of success our culture breeds, a type of success that pervades our high schools and college campuses. We strive for status. We are defined by our name-brands. We are measured by our income.

I know this value system because I encountered it at Stanford. I know it intimately because I subscribed to it.

Like many other students, once I got to campus, I started looking forward. I made a post-college five-year plan. I had it all figured out.

Until I didn't.

The problem was that as I equated my self-worth with my achievement, I got sick. It started as stress. Then it mushroomed into crippling anxiety. I spent days with a tightened chest and knotted stomach. The anxiety festered. By winter quarter junior year, I was miserable. I walked around campus with a plastered smile and glassy eyes exhausted from holding back tears. I slid into depression. Negative voices suffocated me. Writing my essays took forever. I imagined getting D's. You're worthless, the voices whispered. You're a fraud.

The following quarter was my quarter abroad. I was supposed to go to France. I convinced myself that the Eifel Tower would solve my problems. Who gets depressed in Paris? How could chocolate croissants not make me happy?

I got worse. I lost my concentration. I couldn't read because I couldn't register the words. I struggled to speak. Sentences came out disjointed, thoughts incoherent. I had sleepless nights and my eyes started twitching. I would walk around with my hand clasped to my chest, because the pain throbbed. Complex thoughts shriveled to simple ones. Could I get through the day? How much more could I tolerate? How much longer could I last?

I never got to enjoy the croissant because food lost its taste. I stopped eating. I stopped talking. I stopped living.

Had I not had a best friend with me, I don't know what would have happened. Her presence was my blessing. It was she who convinced me to go home. She told me that I had been strong, but the real strength would be to admit that I needed help.

So I did the unthinkable for someone who had been hard-wired to succeed. I dropped out of Stanford-in Paris. I failed.

Here's what failure teaches you. Failure teaches you humility. Failure teaches you are more than your shortcomings; your humanity extends beyond the W's on your transcript. Failure teaches you gratitude. It forces you to reexamine what's important and appreciate all you have. Failure is impermanent. You get through it. Along the way, you cultivate perspective. And empathy. And compassion. You learn that despite the fall, you'll be okay.

When I got back to school, I promised myself that I would live with integrity. I dropped the honors and the double major. I spent my senior year taking classes that resonated with me. I took meaningful classes, classes that forced me to think critically, ethically, and philosophically.

Failure gave me the courage to pursue different paths and paradigms of success. After graduating, I spent time at a religious institute in Jerusalem. I worked with an NGO doing community empowerment with Israel's Ethiopian Community. I lived on a mountain in Peru and taught English in the Andes.

Now, I've returned to the US. And, yes, at night, I work in a restaurant. It's good money and it pays my bills. It's not permanent. I don't aspire to serve food my whole life. But for now, it's what I'm doing.

We all want to find stable and satisfying employment. But ultimately who we are—how we think, how we communicate, how we empathize, how we love—is just as much a part of success as achievement. Too often we value the latter at the expense of the former. Too often, that recipe makes us sick.

I won't be made sick. Not again.

Shoshana Wineburg grew up in Seattle, Washington. She graduated from Stanford in 2009 with a degree in American Studies. Following graduation, she lived in Israel and Peru and waited tables in between. She currently works at a restaurant in Seattle.

Source: Challenge Success website

Human Connection in the Classroom

Check out this TED talk by Rita Pierson.

Rita F. Pierson, Ed.D. of Houston, Texas, has been a professional educator since 1972. As an educator, she has served in numerous roles, including elementary regular and special education teacher, junior high school teacher, counselor, assistant principal, director, testing coordinator, and consultant. 

Rita Pierson once heard a colleague say, "They don't pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don’t like.’” A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.

Here are some more quotes from the 7-minute talk:

"No significant learning can occur without a significant relationship."
"Apologize...Tell a kid you are sorry, and they are in shock."
"If you say it long enough, it starts to become a part of you."
"Minus 18 sucks all the life out of you. Plus 2 says I am not all bad."

"Teaching and learning should bring joy."
"Every child deserves a champion."

Check it out! Go here to see the TED video.

Summer Camps

I was recently asked about my thoughts on summer camps.  I wrote a post in 2009 called Summer Camp Learning you can check out here.  It was about why I think regular school should be more like summer camp.  And I still think all the best schools and classrooms I've visited are great because of hands-on learning, student choice and a sense of community - some positives from many summer camps.

But, back to summer camps... Even though I'd love the world to be a place where kids have all kinds of time to explore their passions and do so for free with involved (but not hovering) caregivers, the reality of our world today is that kids' lives are SCHEDULED.  And summer camps are one of those things that parents schedule for their kids.  Many summer camp experiences are amazing for kids, it is true, and I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with summer camps.  But I do want to point out that OVER SCHEDULING activities, especially in the summer, is not a good idea for kids.

Mike Lanza writes a blog called Playborhood and has written several posts on starting a summer camp in your own neighborhood. You can read one here, about a camp he started. And, another here, about a neighborhood summer camp in Palo Alto, CA.  Mike advocates for turning your neighborhood into the same kind of community many of us grew up in - a cell-phone free place where kids ran out the front door, biked around the neighborhood, played with friends who lived close by and didn't come home until dinner.  Ahhhh, the good old days...

If you have the luxury of spending time with your kids this summer, do so.  Ditch the expensive summer camps and instead do healthy, inexpensive activities with your kids or encourage them to play with others in the unstructured, unscheduled hours of the summer days ahead.  Some of my boys' (now ages 17 and 19) favorite summertime activities were riding bikes into town, going to the parks, street roller hockey, playing catch, kicking a soccer ball, going to the pool, building forts out of cushions, drawing, painting, setting up a tent in the back yard, playing legos, watching movies, having sleepovers, cooking, baking, walking the dog, catching crawdads in the local creek, taking the dog to a lake to swim, shooting hoops, building skateboard ramps, etc...

Enjoy thinking about your summer plans and don't stress about it.  Don't feel guilty if your kids aren't enrolled in a bunch of organized summertime camps or activities or if you aren't planning a super-cool family vacation.  You'll have this upcoming summer only once in their lifetimes...enjoy the quiet, unhurried, fun, creative moments you witness or experience with them.