Thanks again to our readers for sharing their ideas and experiences -- we heard about ethical conflicts in the workplace, self-doubt when beginning new challenges and a humourous look at Canadian holidays through the eyes of a newcomer. We also took a deeper look at developing moral awarenss through Kohlberg's stages and discussed diversity. Our story, "The Jade Peony" by Wayson Choy, presented many ideas to reflect on, such as inter-generational relationships, age discrimination, the immigrant experience and facing death.
Please remember to bring a new narrative to our next class for peer review. And lastly, please read "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" by Sherman Alexie for next time. Have a great weekend.
20 comments:
Today, I was struck with the fact that the death of a loved one can forever impact and influence the way I thought about daily events. When my Grandpa died April 5, 2007 my life changed forever. This was my first experience with the death of someone very close to me. I grew up with my Grandparents being around all the time. When I was little I would see them at least once a week. They were always there for birthdays, special occasions, graduations, and hard times. I knew they were never more than a phone call away. When Grandpa died I realized how much we depended on him and especially my Grandma who relied on him to drive her places. Grandma and Grandpa were inseparable when Grandma was shopping at the mall Grandpa would take a nap on one of the benches!
It sometimes takes a loss to realize what we have in hindsight. Even though my dad was not in the picture, I had the next best thing. I had many adventures with my Grandpa; fishing trips, learning to ride a two wheeler and then going for rides to the dike, feeding goats, BBQ’s at Spanish Banks, driving to Disneyland and on another occasion Alberta. Or even a surprise visit and a trip to Pizza Hut for dinner. Whenever we needed him Grandpa was there, sometimes grumbling but always there. My kids had a special relationship with my Grandpa whom they called Opa. Always full of energy he took them for walks, flew kites, went swimming with them, and truly enjoyed their company from the time they were very small until he left our world. I think that my kids are lucky to have had such a special relationship with a great grandpa that cared so much for them he would have done anything for them. We miss him a lot obviously but I know that he is in heaven now and we will see him again when it is our time!
We cannot train someone to be somebody that they are not. For example, fashion models are born with physical attributes that are sought after in that industry and not everyone has the necessary qualities such as ideal weight and height for modeling. The same is true for those who enter into the teaching profession. Only so much training can make a good teacher, but you have to begin with inborn qualities that make someone a natural born teacher. Not every person has the necessary qualities to be good teachers and not every teacher possesses the will and determination to impact student lives in a powerful way. However, I do believe that all teachers can improve if they focus on their strongest qualities that will enhance student lives. Some educators misuse their authority I believe that teachers must earn the respect of students before learning will take place. This respect cannot be forced upon them or asked of them – it has to be earned. A good teacher must fully understand their students and their differences and be able to communicate openly with them on an equal level. I have personally learned a lot from my own everyday life experiences. I still remember what my hairdressing instructor told me: “If you want to teach someone you have to go back to that position.” “What did you know back then?” “What was the most frustrating moments of your learning experience?” When teachers actually understand where their students are coming from and what level they are currently at then good two-way communication between students and teacher will take place. I believe that this type of communication in education is the best way to impact positively on a student’s life. It is our responsibility as teachers to connect with students and adapt our teaching methods as we come to understand our students as individuals with different learning styles who may be at different levels.
I read “The Jade Peony” a few days before last class and so far, it has been my favorite story we have read so far. When the author began to illustrate the relationship between the “Grandmama” and the boy, memories of my own past were suddenly brought before my eyes. My grampa passed away about 4 years ago, and I would honestly do anything to have him back in my life. He was an incredible and amazing man. While reading the story and envisioning the little boy walking through the back alleys with his grandma looking for “treasures,” I thought about how when I was younger, my grampa and I would go to glass shops and buy large boxes of assorted stained glass scraps. We would take them home and sort through them looking for possible pieces to a future masterpiece. We would spend hours out in the garage making stained glass pieces that I still have and treasure to this day.
Maybe “favorite” isn’t the right word to describe this story. I don’t know how to explain it, but this one really hit home for me. I was 16 years old before I had to cope with losing someone I loved. My grampa was more than simply a grandparent. He was my best friend and my role model…and since my parents separated when I was 3, he also filled in for the father role too. Never having lost anyone in my life before, his going to heaven was really hard for me. The one thing that has helped me through the years was that he was indeed going to a better place. It’s reassuring to know that he is always looking down and taking care of me, and that I will get to see him again one day.
Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children. ~Alex Haley
I am very close to my grandmother. She’s moved away recently and I don’t see her nearly enough, but I was lucky to have lived with her for a couple of years and although she’s forty years older than me, I always felt like she was hipper and “younger” than my parents. Grandma had six kids and the oldest, my mother, and the two youngest, my aunt and my uncle, are 15 and18 years younger, respectively. My Uncle is only two and half years older than me so with two kids just a few years older than her first grandchild, no wonder she was so in touch with us. My grandma’s house was huge. It was always filled with our friends. Before I lived there, just about every one of my aunt and uncles friends had lived there and filled the house with vitality and a youthful trouble making that my grandma probably wouldn’t have been exposed to if she had only had her first four kids. She’s now raising my four year old cousin at 76 and has so much energy still. If only we can hold our youth as long as she has.
Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time with this idea that our grandparents are seen to be antiquated. I think it sad that our culture has devalued what was once and still is a wealth of valuable knowledge and an important link to our past. Our generation has no memory of wars or depressions or how hard “survival” can really be. How will we ever avoid repeating history if we remove ourselves from the memory of it? Is not the best way to connect with past events to have some personal connection to it? I find for myself I’m much more in tune with something if I have a personal stake in it. And our grandparents, their experiences and the information they pass on to us is that personal stake. To know what they put up so our lives could be better. When we know where we came from, hopefully this makes it easier to know where we’re going. I really hope that when I get old, my son’s kids don’t put me aside because I am “old”. I hope that we can share experiences like the Grandmother and grandson in the Jade Peony because I’d much rather have that relationship than one of disdain, as between the Grandmother and the older children in the story.
Having self doubt when you start new challenges is the motivation behind getting up and doing great things. This may sound like an odd combination, but in my personal experience self doubt is key for reflection, as we make decisions we are weary of we then reflect and learn from those experiences. In the narrative we heard last week, she came to SFU very weary from Langara College, but being aware of her self doubt, she pushed herself to greater lengths than she though possible and now she is excelling at something she loves.
If she was never aware of her self doubt, and felt complete confidence in walking into her new environment then she may have been setting herself up for failure, thinking that her new school would be just like her old one. But she realized that this would be a different experience, she thought of the things she had accomplished in the past, and she turned her self doubt into the motivation needed to get through the first hard weeks in a new environment.
I too know the feeling of coming from a little college to a university, and I was anything but confident going into it, but aware of my self doubt, the strength I have had in past challenging situations, I persevered to continue on a path I wanted for myself against all odds. Thanks to self doubt and reflection, I have the motivation to continue.
As much of a part of life that death is, death is easily the most avoided conversation in life. It is a mutual thing, those who have lost someone likely don’t want to talk about it as they are trying to get past it, and those who have heard about it don’t really want to bring it up as it might spark an emotional response from the individual that they might not feel comfortable in.
My own view on death is if your friends and/or relatives die of old age it shouldn’t take too long to accept it. Of course you will keep fond memories of the individual, but you realize that they had a long and wonderful life and that is really the best anyone can do. The deaths that are extremely difficult to accept and get past are the unexpected ones. I have lost a few friends and family members that died before twenty and even thinking about them right now upsets me. I am still not completely past a few of the tragedies and I don’t think I ever will be.
There is really no way to get better at dealing with death only learning to better accept it. It happens so rarely and hits so hard, that it is impossible to get used to. Fortunately there is always support from friends and family in helping cope with the emotions and feelings associated with death.
Reading “The Jade Peony” really reinforced for me the importance of connecting and learning traditions from your grandparents. My family on my mom’s side is from Naples, Italy and only immigrated to Canada maybe forty years ago. Growing up with them, I got to experience some really cool aspects of Italian culture that I would not have otherwise experienced if I had not kept myself open to trying things that some might have found “weird” or “different”.
One of my favourite memories of growing up was helping my Nono (that’s my grandpa) make wine in his garage. Right off the bat, I’m guessing the majority of people reading this already think that it’s a little weird that at age 6, I was helping my Nono make wine, however, it’s one of my fondest memories growing up. My Nono had this humungous barrel in the corner of his garage that he would fill to the top with his home grown grapes. Since my brother and I were so small (and energetic), he would get us to climb into the barrel and stomp the grapes until they were all mush; just like he did back in Italy. I remember loving to do this so much that one time, when I walked in on my Nono stomping the grapes by himself, I was so disappointed! I find the time stomping grapes together special for two reasons; one because it’s a fond memory of something that I did especially with my Nono, and secondly because it was a way for him share a piece of our heritage with my brother and myself. If I had refused to stomp the grapes for my Nono because I was afraid that my friends would think that it was weird or not appropriate to do in Canada, I would have missed out on some very special stories that my Nono told my brother and I about the old country while we stomped the grapes. It was a time for my Nono to share his experiences and impart some cultural wisdom onto us. Through this experience, I not only learned the importance of valuing our elders, but appreciating their history.
After reading the story, “The Jade Peony,” it much reminded me of my grandfather. Even though we don’t have similar hobbies, we would talk on the phone at least once a week just to chat; we would talk about anything. Sometimes, the chat can lead to anything from jokes, daily life events to past events that my grandfather had experienced. Every time my grandfather shares his stories with me, he sometimes becomes so into what he was talking about as if it was happening again. From the story, the atmosphere that the author created felt so graceful and euphoric. The relationship that the grandmother had with the protagonist was something special and nothing can ever be replaced by it. Because the characters in the story shared similar relationships with my grandfather, and me I felt more of a connection in this story compared to the other stories I’ve read.
I agree with what others have said about the view on death. My grandfather and aunt had passed away last summer. When I was informed of the news, it was a reality check for me; realizing that people I know had past away and I won’t be able to see them or interact with them anymore. Even though it wasn’t the first time that someone I’ve known had passed away, but it was the first time when I’ve come to the stage in life where I have learned more about life compared to when I was still young. Everyone will face death in their life time; just the matter of when it will happen. The best way to deal with this situation is to accept it and think that they are off to a better place. Remember the good times and memorable moments that both of you have been through together. Death is just one of the steps everyone have to take in life as it goes on.
Reading "The Jade Peony" really reminded me of my grandma. Since I was born, my grandma and I had something in common, our birthdays. Although she lived in Macau, she was always the one who encouraged me to excel in school. As a kid, I loved to talk to my grandma and tell her how I was doing and how well I was doing in school. She never saw any of my accomplishments in person, but we would always send her pictures and she would congratulate me and say she was proud of me. Unfortunately, I have to admit, that as I got older and became a teenager, at times I did feel like the teenage siblings in "the jade peony". Talking to her on the phone felt almost like a chore and I wanted to get it over quickly so that I could hop back on MSN and talk to my friends and now that I look back at it, it's one of the things I regret the most. I could talk to my friends everyday at school but talking to my grandmother was rare due to her old age, and also the 16 hour time difference.
On the night of June 4, 2006, my high school graduation day, my grandmother passed away. It was that night that I realized how much she meant to me because one of the first people I wanted to tell that I graduated was my grandmother. I regretted taking her for granted and now that she's gone, I wasn't able to say goodbye to her or just tell her how much I loved her and how much she meant to me.
Like Amanda said, I guess it takes a loss to realize what was really important to you. Although I've lost both my grandparents from my dad's side, I no longer take what I have with my grandparents on my mom's side for granted and I cherish them and tell them how much they mean to me whenever I can.
When we were talking about death in class I thought about my grandfather. He passed away from cancer a few years ago. I hadn't seen him for a long time after I moved to Canada and couldn't make it in time to see him for the last time. A few days before his passing away we were on the phone and he was telling me to study hard. It came so sudden, and it was quite surreal. Now all I have are the memories of me growing up with him.
When my parents came to North America they left me at first with my grandparents. We didn't really get along since they were strict and I was quite a rebellious child. We always had arguements and sometimes they get heated. I remember once I was very angry and I wrote bad things on my bedroom wall. Of course I feel bad remenicing but there is nothing I can do now. Sometimes it's hard to live with family members. On one hand you love and respect them and you don't want to hurt them, on the other hand sometimes arguments get out of control and you do childish things when you're angry. I think because of our differences disagreement is unavoidable. But in the end, we are family and I know that he loves me very much. I will focus on the good memories of him and always have a place for him in my heart.
After having read the story “The Jade Peony”, I remembered all of the memories my grandpa and I shared. I remembered him picking us up from school when we were young, teaching us how to ride our bikes and passing on the many stories our homeland: Punjab. Last year was rather a very tough year after he started having very violent caesuras and started losing his memory. This for me was one of the most difficult times of my life and it is still very difficult to talk about it. At one point he could not even remember who I was and got very restless where he would not sleep at nights. It was almost like looking in the eyes of a stranger. After restless nights for my whole family, he began to get better and very slowly started regaining his memory. At the age of ninety-four he is now very healthy and doing very well. Of course we are very happy but at the same time, this experience has definitely made me realize how close death can get.
Death is one of those things in life that no one really talks about since it has such a dark reflection and tone to it. I feel that the only way to move on is to accept one’s death. But to get to that point where you have accepted this is the most difficult part. For me the closest I have come to a near-death experience is with my grandpa who thankfully is doing very well today. Going back to that time in my life really was an experience that is very difficult to write in words. I mean there are so many defend emotions that were going on in my head at that point. Thinking about how you’re never going to see this person again and not be able to hear their voice is almost unbearable. Through this experience, I have learned how death is in a sense is just a part of life and that tomorrow is not promised. As cheesy as it sounds, I feel that we must not waste time and not plan things too far into the future rather we should plan today or the very near future and most importantly we should not take the people that enter our lives for granted.
After reading the story, “The Jade Peony", I could not really relate to it as I did not get to meet all my grandparents. In fact I only got to meet my mom's mom in India like 4 years ago. It was interesting because I had no clue what she looks like and I thought she would have no clue what I looked like. But when I entered the room, she was able to recognize me as if shes seen me many times. Talking to her was very difficult as she was not able to talk much, but just the fact of being able to see her was enough for me and it meant a lot to my mom. I never did meet any of my other grandparent because they lived in India and died when I was very young. I wish I had the chance to at least see them but this is life and we cannot choice these things.
During our mini group discussions, we talked about dealing with death and one of our members told us how he has not experienced death to anyone close to him. I told him how lucky he was as i have dealt with it a few times now. Then he started to say he felt left out, and I told him he was crazy and should be happy. I wish I didn't have to deal with it as many times as I've had to. The most recent one that I had to deal with was in the summer and it happened to one of our family friends son, who was like a cousin to me. He also graduated with me and we were very close. Death is a topic I do not like to talk about, and like most people try to avoid it at any cost!
I really enjoyed the narratives this week. I think everyone can relate to Celina’s narrative because everyone has felt that way sometime during their lifetime. I remember my first day at SFU. I got lost trying to get up to the mountain from Richmond and I couldn’t find my way around campus. When I got home that night, I decided that I was going to quit school so I would never have to go back to SFU. It seemed like the worst day of my life.
To me, SFU meant the beginning of me being a teacher and the beginning of my life. When I first started taking education courses, I really freaked out. All I could think about was the fact that I wanted to be a teacher and if I failed these education courses then I would fail my life. I got so overwhelmed because I couldn’t stop putting pressure on myself to not only succeed but to get A++++’s. I didn’t believe in myself. There were so many things going through my head and they were all negative. I always had this feeling of failure with everything I did, and it still happens at the beginning of every semester and before every exam.
Its great to hear that I’m not the only one who feels like this. Its definitely reassuring to know that other people also go through this. I think that putting people in the “professional groups” is great because you get to meet people who are on the same path as you, feeling the same things that you are. Its also great because you have a chance to make friends with people you might be in PDP with or perhaps even work with in the future.
For me, The Jade Peony reminds me a lot of the relationship that my youngest brother had with my Grandpa. He worked as a mechanic for the majority of his life and my brother loves tools and working with his hands, so naturally they got along great. Just like the boy and his Grandma in the story, the two of them would spend time scavenging for parts in every broken down car they could find. They would take the most random things and somehow find a way to put it to use on the farm. When my Grandpa passed away this past December, I think my brother was the one who felt it the most of anyone from our family. Being too young to remember any of my other grandparents and luckily never having anything tragic happen to his friends, I think this was the first time that he ever had to encounter a loved one dying. Although we were all extremely shook up over the way cancer took Grandpa from us, I think that he took it the hardest. I’m not sure if death becomes easier to cope with the more times that you deal with it, but I do know that the less you have to suffer through the loss of loved ones the better life will be.
[I apologize for the late entry; I haven't had Internet access for several days.]
A lot of people have written reflections on death, and their own experiences of having loved ones die. In my own life, death has sometimes struck close. All of my grandparents are still with us, however, so I've never had to deal with a personal tragedy in that sense. Sometimes I think about what life would be like without them, how the intergenerational relationships in my family would change, and what I would miss if I lost a grandparent. In one of my History classes several years ago, the professor assigned an oral history project. Each student had to find an elderly person in the community and tape-record an interview with them, focusing on that person's life-history. I chose to interview my grandfather, despite the fact that he doesn't speak English very well, and I subsequently had to translate the entire interview for the benefit of my professor.
We had an extremely enlightening conversation. Actually, using the term "conversation" is a little misleading; my grandfather did most of the talking, and I just listened. He told me about his experiences as a war-child sent to Sweden to escape the dangers of wartime in Finland. He lived with a strange family who kindly took him in and introduced him to the Swedish way of life. During that period, he was separated from his family for a long time, and eventually learned to speak Swedish more proficiently than his mother tongue. When he went on to reveal other aspects of his life that I could never even have guessed at before, I realized what a valuable project we had been given. I don't think I would ever have learned so much in so little time, about my grandfather and about what life was really like, for the average person long ago.
Death is something that takes away the opportunity to learn from another person's life. My grandmother recently finished writing her memoirs, and it has proved to be a fascinating read. I know I will always be grateful to have been able to know more about these people who are so close to me, people who have gone through so much, but rarely talk about it. These are things that perhaps I can one day pass on to my children, as well.
I found today’s class interesting. Found that ideas around death are always difficult to talk about and realized that being a teacher there are going to be students suffering with this. There will be students that will not understand it and may start having problems expressing themselves again. It’s important that as a teacher to be that we are aware of these issues.
In my group we brought up the discussion of the steps to grieving. And how we could not remember the steps, I found a good site that does a good recap of the steps. http://www.comfortdying.com/the_stages_of_grief_61867.htm . Hope this helps my group members and class mates. These steps are good to follow to understand the process and to understand what someone is going though and to explain their behaviours.
Discussion in class on “The Heifer” in class did answer some of the questions I had.
There has been a lot of talk this week of Grandparents and the dramatic effects they’ve had on people’s lies. I can’t relate in a direct way, really, as most of my Grandparents passed when I was ten and I don’t have a great recollection of my experiences with them, just little bits here and there. With my remaining Grandparent, my Dad’s Mom, again my relationship is good but not the sort of parent-child relationship that many people have been talking about.
That said, I certainly agree that the older generations view on, and experience in, the world are extremely valuable. While I didn’t know him well on a personal level, in a way I came to know my Mom’s Dad after his death through a journal he had kept during his experience in World War II as a surgeon. A profoundly illegal thing to do for soldiers oversees, lest the journal be captured I guess, he nevertheless detailed many of his experiences as they happened. Reading the journal, one can imagine him attempting to cope with what was going on via the sorts of narrations we’ve been doing in class. One particular story of a soldier he was counseling. The man had just lost his best friend the day before, and was telling the story to my Granddad when a bomb or artillery shell landed right outside the door of the building they were in. When my Granddad came to, he saw that the mourning soldier had saved his life by virtue of the fact that he had been standing in the doorway, between Granddad and ground zero. He reflected briefly on the transitory nature of life before moving on.
This combined with stories from my Mom of how he became a pediatritian after the war (he’d seen enough adult carnage), and how he never had his war buddies over when the kids were home, starts to paint a vivid picture of a man I wish I’d known better, but who I doubt would have been willing. At any rate, he had an effect on my life regardless, being a major contributing factor in my fascination with world history.
The stories in here have totally confirmed for me that I’ll one day raise my kids to have a close relationship with their Grandparents.
In our last class we discussed the unfortunate topic of death, and it was also a theme that was present in our story, "The Jade Peony" by Wayson Choy. After taking a closer look and deeper thoughts after the class discussion I realized how moved I was when my grandfather who I called pop passed away. I was just a young boy at the time but wasn’t to young to understand what had happened, it was just different to know that you would never seen someone who was such a big part of your life again. He had a great influence on me and everyone around him because people looked up to him so much; he was seen as a hero throughout his community and respected by so many people. For me it was a stage of my life where I grew up a lot, I had to take this death of a loved one and find a way of cooperating with it just like the grandson did in the story. He took a physical object to symbolize the relationship with his grandmother; likewise I had to find something to symbolize my grandfather and help me.
To this day when I am with my family especially over holidays I often ask about my pop and just enjoy hearing the great stories my parents have about him. It always makes me feel great to know that he was such an influential man to the people around him, just listening to the way the people around me lets me know that his existence can still be felt. It may seem strange but I sometimes just wonder what he would think if he were here today, what would he say to me? How would he encourage me to do things? And simply would be taller then me?
This week’s story of the “Jade Peony” brought up some memories about the experience of dealing with death and grandparents. I thought the story was a beautiful and moving piece of writing. The thoughts that came to me linked to this story are not so much on how we learn to deal with death but the ‘footprints that we leave behind. I am thankful that I had a unique and close relationship with my grandparents. Each of them left behind a particular impression or ‘footprint’ on my soul and has become a part of who I am. I had one grandparent that died when I was young, He was not particularly close with me, and even so he left an impression just the same. This amplifies for me that we leave ‘footprints’ on people throughout our life, whether we mean to are not. It would be wise to acknowledge and be aware that we can have that kind of an impact on not just family, our children or those very close to us, we can have an impact on nearly everyone that comes into contact with us. This means that as a teacher, I can have a great impact on my students. What are the teachers that I remember and what ‘footprint’ did they leave? Some ‘footprints’ are good and some are bad. I want my students to be inspired and empowered and hopefully some will think of me as a good memory and impression in their lives. I think that the grandmother in the story understood the ‘footprints’ that were left on her and what she was passing on to her grandson. What kind of ‘footprints’ are you leaving behind?
This weeks story, "The Jade Peony" was a difficult story for me. I have not experienced much death in my life: I have both sets of grandparents still going strong and even two great-grandma's. I have a very close, intricate family even though they live all across the country. I found this story difficult to connect with becuase of this. I can only imagine the pain of losing someone in your family that is close to you. In 2004, my best friend lost her mom to breast cancer and that has been the closest I have been to feeling the lose of someone that close. I still don't like talking about it because it effected me so deeply.
I feel though, that death is something that is so deeply avoided in society that not a lot of people know how to deal with someone who is grieving. When my best friend's mom past away, I had no idea how to talk to her about it, ask her about it or even try to make her feel better so for a while we even avoided talking about it. Now, its a little better, but I still cringe having to bring something up infront of her that involved her mom. It broke my heart not being able to talk to her about it, but now its better because we've found a way to talk and discuss it.
I do beleive that remembering good times with that special person is a very healthy and important part to losing someone becuase that way you are not forgetting them or setting aside the fact that they are no longer with us, but instead keeping them in your heart to continue their legacy.
I do wish that death could be more openly discussed because I fear that when my great-grandma's or grandparents do go, I would like to know that I will have a support group that will be able to get me through it. On the other hand, everyone deals with death differently so that could be why death is not as openly discussed because not everyone is comfortable portraying their emotions. This is a diffuclt subject and I don't know the answer to fxing it.
Post a Comment