TO REDESIGN OUR SCHOOLS, POST-PANDEMIC, WE NEED TO REMOVE SOME SACRED
COWS
Watch this video. What do you see?
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Literally, of course, it’s a sacred cow. And what strikes me is
how everyone around it unconsciously adjusts what they do, to the
point that the cow has become all but invisible to the chaos of a morning
commute.
We have sacred cows here, too — but whereas in Nepal they literally
block traffic, in America they block our ability to think in new
ways. And I can think of no aspect of our shared public life with
more sacred cows than America’s schools:
HOW THE ARTS (& #ARTSEDUCATION) CAN SAVE THE WORLD
In Australia, the country of his birth, Thanh Bui learned early on that kids who looked like him faced two possible paths.
On one, traversed by the only other Asian student in his school, the cold sting of isolation and ridicule awaited. On the other, however, came the assimilatory embrace of knowing you were “one of the lads.”
For Bui, youthful, outgoing, and kinetic, it was an easy choice — one that would take him to heights his immigrant parents could never have imagined: first, playground popularity and acceptance, and then, eventually, global celebrity and superstardom.
The only requirement was that he suppress his Vietnamese identity.
It would take decades before Bui understood the true cost of his unconscious choice.
And it’s why he’ll spend the next decade planting seeds that he hopes can one day frame new paths, and new choices, for a new generation of Vietnamese children.
Recently, amid the symphony of barking dogs and the aromatic smell of diesel fuel, Bui sat on a fishing boat atop the muddy waters of the Mekong River, contemplating how his family’s journey had begun in this exact spot, a lifetime ago.
This was where his parents, along with eighty-five tightly-packed strangers, had summoned the courage to leave the country of their birth in search of a better life.
“They were the age then, 28, that I was when I first came back,” Bui said. “They had no education, no money, and nothing but the clothes on their backs. That’s why I wanted to come back here. I wanted to know exactly the place they had left.
“When you know where you’re from,” he said slowly, “there’s this sense of humanity that sweeps through you. I don’t think you’re ever O.K. until you know exactly where you’re from — and I’ve been on that journey my whole life.”
