Choosing to participate

Yesterday, I accompanied my son's ninth grade class into the city on a field trip. It was a fascinating day with activities spanning the gambit from watching the dissection of a real cow's eye to viewing magical swans gliding upon the pond in front of the San Francisco Palace of Arts to a woman with an amazing voice, unabashedly and unapolegetically singing a Pucini aria, in the middle of a crowded city train.

Our first stop was the Exploritorium where the kids were allowed to wander freely, interacting with the exhibits and learning about the physical world and the five human senses. I was particularly keen on the exhibit that dealt with vision and perception. I photographed a sign in the exhibit that I was impressed by. It read, and I quote: "We don't see things as they are; we see things as WE are." After participating in a number of of the visual activities and experiments it made me realize how subjective seeing really is. Each of us receives the same light stimulation, but we each interpret it differently based on our own unique perceptions, and by the way our individual bodies function. We live in the same physical world, but the visual world we experience is as varied as there are people in the world. Interesting to think about and wonder how anyone agrees on anything, based how subjective and personal our take on the real world can be.

After the Exploritorium we boarded two, count them two, city buses to return to the civic center and the San Francisco Public library, where we viewed an exhibition called "Choosing to Participate. The exhibit focused on the concept of actively participating, in order to make a difference in your community and how little acts can have a big impact.

One aspect of the exhibit focused on the Crisis of the Little Rock in '57, another on the religious persecution in Billings, Montana in '93. I was personally impressed to hear a tape recording of the well, articulated thoughts of Elizabeth Ekhart, one of the Little Rock Nine who was one of the first students to integrate into an all white highschool. Not being aware that the other eight students were to approach the school in a unified group that morning, she was alone and by herself. That morning, her concerns were those of a typical teenager; what she would wear on her first day of school. The black and white checked dress she had made for the occasion was immaculatey pressed and displayed for us to see. She had no idea of what awaited for her as she approached the school that day; the anger the resentment and the alienation. She desired only to have better options by attending the white school in Little Rock and I can only imagine how devasting it must have been for a teenager to be confronted with so much anger and hatred on her first day of school all on her own. I marvel at her perseverance and fortitude to meet the challenge with courage. But, instead of retreating and giving up, by participating she made a difference, as did the citizens of Billings when the entire community, regardless of religion, chose to place menorahs in their windows to send a message that violence would not be tolerated in their town.

So, in my own small way, I chose to participate in my son's community for a day. I was impressed with his friends and the way he handled himself as we made our way in and around San Francisco. I was happy for the opportunity to socialize and make some new friends amongst the other parents. It also felt good to get away from my desk and computer and view the sights and sounds of San Francisco up close and personal. So, my take aways from yesterdays field trip... there are things you can change and things you can't... the act of seeing is subjective and in-exact, there is nothing you can do about it, but, the act of participating makes a tangible difference and there is something you can do about that.


San Francisco Palace of Arts, I might as well be in Rome!




Swans on the Lake


Swans on the street


My son stunned by an exhibit of mutant flies


San Francisco Public Library