Changing of a Single Step

I’ve never been much of one for charitable organizations. I guess it’s my cold pragmatism coming out – I just don’t see how much good my donation of ten dollars or even a few hours of my time can really do to help starving children in Africa or saving the whales. When you look at the costs of transport, the inevitable funding of non-charitable resources like advertising and such, it just doesn’t seem like it’s really in the true heart of how the efforts should and ought to be put forth if one is concerned about a particular problem in the world at large. That and I just find charitable movements to be more often fads than true fanaticism. People tend to join organizations because a friend founded it or a roommate goes to fundraisers. They seem to tend to gloss over the details and ignore the reality. Besides, at the end of the day, it looks good on one’s resume.

This summer my younger brothers – from their own money – financed a trip across country to Washington, D.C., to speak about the organization they had been working with for quite some time: Invisible Children (Invisible Children - Invisible Children). I’d seen the movie in college, and it did move me – not enough to actively join, but enough to realize that it was a severe problem. When they told me about the trip, however, I was quite skeptical.

Invisible Children works primarily in Uganda, where revolution and war has torn the country apart. Children as young as four or five are being kidnapped and forced to kill in active combat. My brothers were intending to speak to families, churches, community organizations, and finally the United States Congress with the intention of bringing the movement to light and potentially gaining support.

Now, let me clarify that I was, and am, in full support of the movement. I was not, however, entirely convinced that they could present the “best foot” for the organization during their trip. It’s not that I don’t love my siblings; it’s simply that…well, not many would hire them as their spokespersons. Zach is far from the most eloquent of fellows; it took a concussion and the resulting delirium for him to finally admit to his childhood sweetheart that he “might possibly enjoy her company”. Matt got bit rather hard by the college hippy bug – he’s quite steadfast in his belief that there’s a three day minimum wear on any article of clothing before it could possibly be considered dirty, and shaving is very much optional.

I simply wasn’t certain that it was the best use of their time or money, and was very dubious as to the potential results. In my experience, most Americans tend to suffer heartily from the “Not in My Backyard” syndrome, meaning that if it does not directly involve them and if they cannot directly see it, they do not care. They might sigh at the television and say, “Oh, that’s very sad,” but then they will quickly turn back to their dinner and forget all about it. A pair of college-aged kids talking about children in a country that the majority of people probably can’t even find on a map just didn’t seem very practical to me. I honestly thought that it’d be a waste of their time; they couldn’t change anything. They said no, I’d see - they could change everything.

Though it takes my swallowing every ounce of my pride as the older sibling to say this, I must admit – my brothers were right and I was very, very wrong. When they came back and showed me the videos of their travels, spoke of their encounters, and recounted their stories, I realized that I had forgotten something very important – the definition of change. It’s not a matter of numbers. It’s not a matter of strength. It’s a matter of difference. It doesn’t have to be around you; it can be in you.

Change begins with the individual – with you, in your self, in your heart. Once that is changed, it will radiate outward naturally as a ripple effect. It might not instantaneously solve world hunger or grant universal peace, but it will be change. It will be improvement. It will be better. It will be good.

Someone once asked me if I had always wanted to become a teacher. I laughed and said no, which was mostly true. I can still remember the moment when I realized that I had to teach, that it was my calling, my vocation, my duty. It’s as vivid to me as this very moment and my very surroundings. I can remember every detail with startling precision.

The one movement that I did find myself passionate about in college didn’t have any organized fundraisers or a fancy name or any of that. It was a simple outreach program ran by my college twice a year. They would shuttle children, ranging from grade one to grade twelve, from inner city Los Angeles to the campus and take them on tours for the day, doing exhibition lessons with professors, running experiments, exploring the library, and such. On Halloween, they would transform the cafeteria into a carnival of sorts with booths for games and demonstrations and play stations and bring in kids to get candy at the various stops.

I volunteered to help the chemistry club that Halloween set up a booth to make colored silly putty. It wasn’t much, but kids generally liked the demonstration – they could get their hands dirty and take a gooey mess home in a plastic bag to scare their mother. We were supposed to talk about how it demonstrated chemical reactions – how the Elmer’s glue was made of long chains of atoms called “polymers” that, when mixed with Borax, would stick atoms in between the chains and lock them together, so the liquid glue would transform to the solid putty. Very few of the kids wanted to listen, though; they were more interested in making the putty, grabbing the candy, and moving on.

After about an hour, I realized just how sad the whole thing seemed to be – some of the kids looked like they hadn’t ever been to a carnival before and didn’t know how the idea of “prizes” worked for the games. Others looked like they hadn’t seen candy in a very long time and grabbed it as if it was water in a desert. Some just were too cool for the entire thing and wandered around bullying the smaller ones. Throughout the whole event, no one really seemed to care about the “polymers” and the reaction, or really much of anything beyond how much and how quickly they could grab the candy. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but I guess I expected something more.

It was toward the end of the night when a group of five boys came up to my table – some of the “too cool for this” group that had been wandering around the middle of the booths. They did their usual, “Let’s get this over with” routine as they made their putty and grabbed their candy, making wisecracks and sarcastic remarks the entire time. They didn’t care about a word I said, really, and just grabbed what they wanted off the table to just get through.

There was one boy, though, that looked at me – not in the impatient, hurried way of his friends but really looked at me as if he was interested in what I said. He listened when I talked about the change taking place between the glue and the borax. He nodded when I mentioned the locking of the chains, making the glue turn into putty. And he seemed genuinely fascinated when I said I studied chemistry at the school. He was about to ask me a question when the boy next to him butted in, told him to stop wasting their time and don’t be a nerd, and then pulled him away.

The boy didn’t look back; he moved to the center of the room with his group of friends and started railing on just how boring the entire carnival was and how he couldn’t wait to go home. But he was holding the bag of silly putty he made, and I can only hope he took it home.

That night, I went home and cried because I had just witnessed the saddest thing in the world to me. A child’s natural curiosity was being put down as “nerdy” and “loser-ish” and, by weight of social convention, he wasn’t allowed to explore his questions and his wonderment and couldn’t be amazed by the answers he found. It wasn’t just a matter of dreams being shattered; it was much simpler than that. It was a life being told to not dare, not question, not wonder. It was a soul being told that he’d never be good enough to belong at a college like this reading books like that studying subjects like this. It was someone’s very destiny being broken in front of my eyes because someone else told him to stop hoping, for it would never come to pass.

In that moment, I knew that I could, that I had to, change everything. Not just for that boy, but for anyone and everyone I could – I had to inspire and support the dreams in others. I couldn’t bear to watch curiosity be sacrificed on the altar of conformity again. I couldn’t handle witnessing what, to me, is the cruelest form of oppression – the destruction of opportunity, for all and for everyone.

I’m a firm believer that any and all has a right to education, no matter social, economical, racial, religious, or any other background. A child naturally wants to learn more about his world; he pokes and prods and questions and investigates from the very earliest stages of life. He asks why. He asks how. And he’s not satisfied with no. That, to me, is the spirit of humanity – the ability to question and search beyond our present circumstances and reach for something more, something greater, something beyond. To take away the opportunity for any soul to do just that is to destroy one’s very humanity, to tell them they are not good enough for it and don’t deserve it. And that, to me, is the greatest sin – and the one that I know I can, and must, change.

I don’t know where that boy is right now, but I wish I could tell him he changed my life. And I wish I could assure him that I’m trying to change his, too. Maybe one day he’ll know.