Our trip to UCSD was tiring, but it was also inspiring. To put it simply, there were different parts of me having different reactions. My left brain, metaphorically speaking because we learned in biology that the right and left brain characteristics are subjective, was nervous. It told me when I walked through the lab with all sorts of mice brains being examined for radioactive kisspeptin, when I sat down to study in Geisel library and saw the length of surrounding college students’ material compared to mine, and when I interrogated the HTHCV alumni about the shift from high school to college, that I was not ready. However, my right brain was exhilarated! So many flyers were being pushed into my face, I immediately saw organizations that I wanted to join, and as I looked around, I realized that the work that people were doing, no matter how stressful it may have looked to me, was work that they had signed up for voluntarily. Even though Dr. Kauffman’s microscopes were showing me neurotransmitters that have little to do with the things I hope to study in college, looking through the lense at those little glowing dots was looking at the stars. I could imagine to have been looking at any of the millions of constellations that could be my life in a little over a year. I am both nervous and exhilarated. College is going to be a change. My entire life will have new responsibilities, but also new freedoms. I push myself now to practice taking care of myself as much as I can, but in the back of my mind I feel a sense of calm and assurance that everything will be okay. I know I can keep myself as motivated as the people I witnessed on campus, I trust myself.
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I was doing research for my socratic seminar. I knew what I wanted to write about. The question was, “Is having empathy at odds with American Values?” so of course, I said yes. In my mind, America = Capitalism = sociopathy and oppression. I was looking for ted talks, studies, articles, or anything that could help me to get proof of the reality I knew so well. I found a scientist names Paul K. Piff who does a lot of research on the association between empathy and privilege. Throughout his career as a sociologist at University of California Irvine, he has found that, “as a person’s levels of wealth increase, their feelings of compassion and empathy go down, and their feelings of entitlement, of deservingness, and their ideology of self-interest increases.” So as a person climbs up in capitalism, they become less and less able to care about the needs of others. This also works in the reverse way. Capitalism can actually reward and work better for people who experience sociopathy. The whole system is based on self interest. It encourages independence and self reliance, one of the exact ideas that Piff found as a major quality that allow a person to forget about the needs of the greater community. He said, “Wealth and abundance give us a sense of freedom and independence from others. The less we have to rely on others, the less we may care about their feelings. This leads us towards being more self-focused.” This process of researching and reflecting were very helpful to me because it allowed me to gather more evidence on a subject I feel a large emotional connection to. However, something I could have done better was to look at resources that did not come from a perspective I was necessarily looking for so that I could broaden my perspective on the complexity of the issue.
We watched a ted talk that connected the concepts of neuroplasticity and growth mindset. In my head, I had made connections between the two from the start, but the data on the subject was very interesting. The ted talk focused on using the word “yet” in classrooms. So instead of students failing, teachers would just say that they haven’t mastered a subject yet. This connects to neuroplasticity because instead of people giving up because they failed, they are rewarded for effort, strategy, and progress, all things that help to increase myelination of neural connections. By encouraging practice, teachers push the brain to perform the functions that actually promote learning.
This reminded me a lot of math class. In the HTHCV math program, they have always said, “Failure is just a first attempt in learning.” In freshman year, they actually eliminated grades because they believed that they were counterproductive. For students who are naturally, “intelligent”, and get straight As, they aren’t pushed to challenge themselves because they are already getting good grades. For students who struggle more with content, they aren’t pushed to get any better because they are discouraged by the Cs, Ds, or Fs on their report cards. I really liked the thinking behind this. Even though grades were eventually brought back they have always kept up the positive reinforcement and made sure that we focus on improving ourselves. This is why math is one of my favorite classes, because even when the content gets difficult, I know I will always have the support to build on those neural connections in my brain. Our class always finishes our “Meditation Monday” by reading a section of the book, “The Four Agreements”. We meditate to clear out all of our mind gunk and then read to fill the newly open spaces with ways to improve our lives. This week’s section just happened to be about how we often take things personally and/or victimize ourselves, a habit I had actually told my teachers in my POL that I wanted to change. The moral of the chapter was: Stop. This, funnily enough, actually “made me” feel offended. It felt like the author was attacking me and saying that I was the one doing everything wrong. I knew that his words had truth to them, but the whole thing felt impossible. I got to thinking about the concept and realized that one of the things that frustrated me the most was that I didn’t know why I was so sensitive in the first place.
As I went through our next activity, an article called, “The Pains and Pleasures of Social Life”, I found the answer I was looking for. Our brains actually interpret social pain the same way that they interpret physical pain. This developed because we need the help of others in order to maintain our basic means of survival, so our brain tries to keep us together. It gives us little reminders and hints to try and understand one another to make sure we keep our society from falling apart. It was important for me to figure this out because now that I am aware of the sense behind my sensitivity, I don’t have to blame myself for it. This was probably one of the things that made it so hard to give up. I now understand that I am not the victim, the things that people say and do have nothing to do with me, and neither does the high importance that my growing mind seems to put on it. So I can feel social pain, understand that it, and let it go. Next week, I hope to explore these concepts deeper so that I can begin to take on the task of being impeccable with these words and taking action. |
What is this?Hi everyone! This is my junior year blog. Here you will find weekly reflections up until the completion of my junior internship. I hope you enjoy this inside look on my learning! Archives
June 2018
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