The coronavirus has wreaked havoc worldwide, from social distancing to overcrowded hospitals, to over 88,000 deaths across the nation. But even in darkness, there is light, and even in the worst tragedies, there is always a bit of hope.
When one of my family members asked me to explain my quarantine experience in one word, I said “grateful.” I chose this word because quarantine has made me aware of how much I had taken for granted, such as a loving school community, relationships with people, physical touch, fresh produce, my family having stable jobs, nature, and oddly enough, toilet paper!
Oak Grove’s high school students are obsessing over homework, class participation, tests, and how these will affect student grades. Even during remote learning, where our circumstances are incredibly different, students’ mindsets have remained the same.
The Journalism class produced an in-depth audio report on China-US trade relations.
Listen here:
The spaciousness to ask both practical and perennial questions is an essential part of the Oak Grove educational program. Through academic inquiry (Socratic, scientific, normative, conceptual, etc.), dialogue, Council, as well as reflective practices, students and teachers explore questions about the world outside and within. The student newspaper, The Oak Grove Times, is a place students may give form to such inquiry — a public forum, the published word. Students choose an area of focus and are supported to develop questions, a clear direction, and to establish a detailed research plan (focus groups, data, etc.). The adults engaged in this process serve as mentors, sounding boards, and advisors. Often the relationship among the subject of an article, the student, and the advisors becomes a transformational opportunity to look at their conditioning, biases, and assumptions.
In the fall of 2017, Sanaya Danhanukar, then a junior at Oak Grove, authored an article titled “Who is God?” In it, she writes:
“What created this galaxy that we exist in? We have all heard about the Big Bang Theory, but what caused the Big Bang? This remains a mystery to us all. What would happen if one fell into a black hole? There are some things that even science cannot give us explanations for, without leaving behind questionable doubt. The argument is that this mystery makes it clear that there is a God who is responsible for the creation of life and our world, as we see it today. In times of difficulty and despair, God has answered prayers. While atheists may argue that there is nothing to prove the existence of God, a counter-argument made by believers is that while there may not be concrete evidence to prove the existence of God, there is also no evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist. These arguments are a valid justification for why these people hold the belief that they do.”
In December of 2018, Cassius Calzini, an Oak Grove student for the past nine years, published a piece about the school’s grounds and questioned the need for recent changes to the campus:
“Meditative walks in the oak grove and playing in the lost meadow are experiences that have enhanced my time at Oak Grove School. Now, being a ninth grader, I am looking at my school, and I’m noticing a change: I am feeling a great pressure from society for schools to prepare their students for the outside world in a way that doesn’t allow individuality and personal growth. At Oak Grove School we focus on the individual, not just academically, but as a whole. In return, people graduate from our school as truly amazing human beings, carrying on the impact of what Oak Grove has taught them throughout their lives. I worry that the pressure to conform to society could cause us to lose the unique opportunities provided by our school that allow children to explore themselves, and the freedom to inquire and ask questions.”
In the most recent edition, May 2019, sophomore Nayeli Tirado questioned our biases around immigration, while senior Lewis Lu shared his own cultural conditioning bias as a Chinese citizen against seeing Tibet as a sovereign nation, and student Earl Marvin explored the depths of ethnocentrism with his poem titled “Fascism.”
To delve deeply into a question can confront our beliefs and leave us feeling unsettled under any circumstance, but to then publish that process requires a significant level of vulnerability. This is the power of the published word.
View all of the archived newspapers here.
Our class of 2019 consists of twelve students. The 11 who applied to four-year colleges and universities have collectively been accepted into 32 schools. This is an average of four acceptances per student and this average is not unusual for Oak Grove seniors. The schools (listed below) include major public universities and colleges, independent and public liberal arts colleges, and specialized art schools. While this is impressive, and we joyfully celebrate this accomplishment with our students, it is also important to know that it is not our objective to have all of our graduates go directly from high school to a four-year college.
Oak Grove High School has a challenging college preparatory scope and sequence curriculum not because we think all students should go directly from high school to a four-year university, but because we want every student to have the choice of going directly to a university if that is what is right for them. More importantly, we want our students to be well educated with a solid and well rounded academic foundation for whatever they choose to do in life.
Class of 2019 College acceptances:
Allegheny, Bard College, Bryn Mawr, Cal Lutheran, Cal Poly SLO, CSUCI, CSU Long Beach, CSU Sacramento, CSU Sonoma, Centre College, Eckerd College, Fordham, George Washington, Goucher, Ohio State, Pace University, Purdue, Quest University, Reed, Southwestern, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Los Angeles, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UIUC, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Willamette University.
Introduction by Jodi Grass, Head of School and Russ Bowen, Director of the Secondary Program
Music performance by the 2019 graduating class
Jodi Grass, Head of School Speech
Bria Schraeder
Yiyang “Lewis” Lu
Eleanor Clift
Ziyi “Valentina” Li
Emma Hughart
Alex Richardson
Catherine Cornwell
Zhiqi “Birkhoff” Cheng
Sarame Sahgal
Haemin Ro
Rio Petersen
Sanaya Dahanukar
Brittany Borowitz, Senior Advisor & Conferment of Diplomas
Watch video of the speech below.
Travelling has always been something that I really enjoy. Exploring different places, seeing different people, experiencing different cultures. You can really see how colorful this world is and how amazing our globe is. I have long yearned to visit India. In fact, the Senior India trip was one of the many factors that led me to choose to attend Oak Grove over other schools. So finally here I am, after almost four years at Oak Grove, reflecting on my India trip experience.
So, the India trip was indeed quite different from any other trip I have been on. Instead of simply touring around and visiting attractions, this trip was a very immersive experience. It shows India in a different perspective from regular tourism, a perspective that is based on human connection, the essence of being a person.
I had a great time talking to students at the three schools that we visited and enjoyed making new friends in a completely different and alien territory. However, the hospitality I experienced and witnessed triggered me to think, to reflect on myself, my country, and my own culture.
Despite my personal interest in India, as a student coming from China, India has a different, or I would say a distorted image pre-installed in my brain, and in most other Chinese’s brains as well. The way the Chinese perceive India is full of prejudices and biases. When I told my friends in China about my plan to go to India, they frequently questioned my decision. They think of India as an inferior country, a place they would never want to visit. And this impression has greatly influenced people’s view of Indian people as a whole. But I don’t believe in accepting what others think. This added my desire to go to India. I wanted to see India with my own eyes, to prove that they were wrong. Like Krishnamurti said, we must look most intimately and discover for ourselves; then it is our own, not somebody else’s, not something that we have been told.
A history teacher at Pathshala reminded me of the very origin of this problem with my culture. There was one day at lunch when he joined my table and started a conversation. As our conversation progressed, he brought up a fact that I have almost forgotten. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the Chinese people stopped calling everyone else “barbarians.” That is less than 200 years ago. And I hate to admit (but sadly it is true) that even now, many people in China still see themselves as superior to other ethnicities. And they have many different and negative biases and prejudices towards different racial groups.
I couldn’t stop thinking and imagining how Indian students would be treated if they had a chance to visit a school in China for a week. Because as I said, I am well aware of how prejudiced Chinese people are. This little mind test always turns out with unfavorable results. And I cringe when I compare it to my experience at the schools.
So, on one bus ride out to Bangalore city, I had a chance to talk to Elsie, a faculty member at The Valley School. I asked her, “How do people in India view Chinese people? What kind of attitude do Indians have towards China?” Her answer was not surprising, but did make me feel bad. She said that Indian people have no hostility against the Chinese people. Though there is political conflict, it has no relevance to what the people think.
She was right. China and India have been neighbors forever. The two civilizations have coexisted for thousands of years. But neighbors don’t like each other all the time. Territorial conflicts have been a huge obstacle that has kept China and India from being better friends. Diplomatic relationships involving Pakistan and the US have simply added more flames to the already fiery relation.
But the two countries, India and China, took very different approaches on this matter. In China, isolationism never disappeared. In addition, the modern day Chinese government has put strict controls on the media, both social and journalistic. A highly censored social media and government-controlled news industry have led to a biased public opinion on many things. Chinese media purposely patronizes India and portrays India as an inferior country. India, on the contrary, according to Elsie, has a much more open media. Though there are conflicts on the government level, there is no propaganda against China, nor is the social media patronizing to China as an inferior power. People can really see a different reality through an open media.
This difference made me realize how important an uncensored media source is. A highly controlled and censored media would only cause misapprehension and manipulate people’s minds. With a worldwide trend of isolationists rising to power again, we must be aware of the possibility of the world moving towards closed and censored media. Even in America, there is a trend towards that. Net neutrality is a perfect indication of possible media censoring. And we need to be aware of it, to stand up to it, and to fight against it.
By the end of the trip, I came to the conclusion that things need to change back home in China. I realized that my perspective of my own country has changed, being outside of it. There are too many misconceptions in China. Krishnamurti once said that we are very defensive, and therefore we are aggressive, when we hold on to a particular belief, dogma, or when we worship our particular nationality. We need to be more receptive towards other cultures.
When we were at Pathshala, we had a few discussion sessions with the local students. In one part, they specifically addressed a few questions to me, about agriculture and rice production in China. In our conversation, I brought up the idea of a joint research force on rice production between China and India. Because, imagine the two countries with the world’s largest populations, making up one third of the world population, both having rice as their main dietary consumption, working together to increase the quality and quantity of rice production. It would be a blessing to our world. So when I brought up this Idea, I saw accord and eagerness in their eyes. That’s when I realized, it’s we Chinese that need to make a change, to open up our minds and to be more receptive to new possibilities.
I feel more than ever that it’s our responsibility, it’s our generation’s responsibility, to bring unity to the world, to become global citizens no matter how messed up our world is today. Sometimes it’s inevitable that we have a few setbacks along the way towards world integration. But it doesn’t matter, because the future is in our hands, and I have confidence that together, we can make the world a better place.
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