Are you thinking about quitting? Make sure you practice wise seeing, being, and effort before you do. Geeta Anand, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist, Author, & Dean at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, shares her own stories about times when she chose to give up things dear to her, allowing space for new opportunities.
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Are you thinking about quitting? Make sure you practice wise seeing, being, and effort before you do. Geeta Anand, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist, Author, & Dean at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, shares her own stories about times when she chose to give up things dear to her, allowing space for new opportunities.
Episode Mentions & Publications:
Book:
Awards & Honors:
Connect with Geeta:
Get solutions from Schoolutions!
#solutionsfromschoolutions #schoolutionsinspires #schoolutionspodcast
[00:00:00] Olivia: Welcome to Schoolutions, where listening will leave you inspired by solutions to issues you or others you know may be struggling with in the public education system today. I am Olivia Wahl, and I am honored to welcome my guest today, Geeta Anand, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who serves as dean and professor at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
[00:00:27] Olivia: Geeta's stories on corporate corruption won the Wall Street Journal a Pulitzer Prize in 2002, and she was lead reporter in a series on healthcare that was a finalist in 2003. She wrote the nonfiction book The Cure about a dad's fight to save his kids by starting a biotech company to make a medicine for their untreatable illness, which was made into the Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser movie Extraordinary Measures in 2010.
[00:00:54] Olivia: Geeta worked as a journalist for 27 years, most recently as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal in India. I first met Geeta and her beautiful family on a crisp September day in 2003. Her older daughter Tatyana, husband Greg, and younger daughter Aleka crossed the bustling playground of PS116 and stepped into my first-grade line.
[00:01:19] Olivia: I can still remember the matching outfits Tatyana and Aleka wore that day. Tatyana stood pensively, taking everything in, and stuck closely to Greg's side. Aleka, not yet ready for elementary school, was excitedly rocking back and forth, wanting to join the class with her big sister. The summer of 2003, I had moved from San Diego, California to teach in New York City and had a bare-bones classroom, to say the least.
[00:01:46] Olivia: I remember being embarrassed by the shabby red and green rugs I pieced together for a meeting area that were left behind by the previous teacher. A few weeks into the school year, Geeta approached me at the end of back-to-school night and offered to take on the role of class parent and to find a replacement rug.
[00:02:04] Olivia: I held back tears at the offer. Money was tight, and for listeners not in the educational world, the meeting area is a vital space in elementary classrooms, so this was a big deal. I could never have expected the magnificent rug Geeta would acquire and donate to our classroom. The children called it the magic carpet and thought we should take our shoes off before stepping on it because it was so plush and new.
[00:02:32] Olivia: That magic carpet became a fixture for hundreds of children's learning and thousands of rich conversations over the next years. I will never forget my first years teaching in New York City thanks to your family, Geeta. Welcome, welcome, welcome.
[00:02:48] Geeta: Thank you. What a miracle to be here talking to you, Olivia.
[00:02:53] Olivia: It's wonderful to have you. I kick off every interview by asking my guest about an inspiring educator from their life. Will you illuminate one of yours for us?
[00:03:04] Geeta: Yes. I am thinking of Mary Kelly. Who was my history professor when I was in college at Dartmouth College. And she taught American Intellectual History. I ended up doing a thesis with her focusing on feminism and feminist leaders. Angelina Grimke and Harriet Beecher Stowe and others. And Mary Kelly was inspiring. She just was full of energy, had a great way of exciting you about thoughts and ideas, and was so positive. And I love the combination of feminism with positivism.
[00:03:49] Olivia: I agree. It's refreshing.
[00:03:51] Geeta: Yes.
[00:03:51] Geeta: It's wonderful. Geeta, on August 6th, I saw a post that Greg had put on social media and it was sharing your commencement address to the Dartmouth class of 2020 on the green that took place in July of 2022 because of COVID and your message in that commencement address resonated so deeply with me, and I could not stop thinking about your confession and stories around being a quitter.
[00:04:18] Olivia: It made me think about what's happening and teaching these days and education, and we are losing many amazing educators because they're fed up with what's going on in the world and the constrictions that are being put upon them and how many are not feeling safe these days. I want to quote from Greg's proud words from his post.
[00:04:42] Olivia: She told stories of when life's challenges forced her to give up things very dear so that she could embrace higher callings. She extolled the practice of self-care so that she could also have the awareness to know the right time to close one chapter so that the next could be written. I wanted you to be a guest today for many reasons.
[00:05:05] Olivia: Primarily, I want listeners to hear you speak to knowing when to quit through wise seeing, being, and effort. That was incredibly powerful to learn and hear from you, and I'd love for you to share. For our listeners, what does wise being wise seeing and wise effort mean?
[00:05:25] Geeta: So, I was talking about the importance of awareness as you journey through life and being aware enough of the present moment, you know, borrowing from Buddhist tradition and Buddhist thinking on this. So, you're not so caught up in worrying about the future or ruminating on the past or stuck in a thought loop. So that you can actually see what's happening in front of you. And I call that wise seeing. And I often urge my students at the journalism school, but also myself to do the things in your life that get you to a place of wise being so you can have wise seeing.
[00:06:14] Geeta: And so, you, you can't just say, oh, I want to be aware it takes, for most of us, unless you've reached enlightenment, like the Buddha or, you know, or whatever, some Jesus Christ like person, but for most of us, it takes a lot of wise effort to get to that place. So, I urge my students and myself and, you know my kids and everyone around me to think about what it takes them to be in a place of wise being.
[00:06:43] Geeta: Like what is it for you? For some people it's a walk in the woods, for some people it's meditating, for some people it's swimming, for some people it's therapy. Like for some of us, we have to do all of these things and it takes every ounce of energy to engage in wise effort.
[00:06:58] Olivia: Yes.
[00:06:58] Geeta: But it's trying to see beyond your trauma and your triggers to be present and see what's happening right now in the clearest possible way.
[00:07:09] Olivia: Beautiful. And so, I'd love for listeners to hear some times from your life that you shared during your address of when you chose to quit that seemed almost illogical to those around you at the time, but doors that that opened up for you.
[00:07:26] Geeta: I focused on three moments where I quit, which seemed, as you were saying, illogical to people around me. So, one was when I was 16 years old and I had spent many years training and swimming, hours and hours and hours of training and spent a whole year in a government training camp in North India and finally become national champion and record holder in my two events, which were 100- and 200-meters breaststroke.
[00:07:53] Geeta: And then I decided to quit swimming. And the reason I decided to quit was that I could see so I think I was in a place of wise seeing then I could see that there were other things I wanted to do more. Like I didn't feel like my gifts in life were really athleticism or, you know, or swimming. I loved writing. I had a vivid imagination and I wanted to have an impact on the world of policy and politics.
[00:08:22] Geeta: And I saw that I could not do that if I spent so many hours swimming. And I also saw that winning wasn't everything. Like it just really wasn't worth it. If you didn't enjoy the journey, if you didn't enjoy what you were doing. So, I had thought because I was good at it, I thought if I did it and won, that would be the be-all and end-all, and that would be the greatest thing ever.
[00:08:45] Olivia: Yes.
[00:08:45] Geeta: And I got an early lesson in it is never enough if you don't enjoy what you're doing.
[00:08:52] Olivia: So true.
[00:08:54] Geeta: And so that was the first example of quitting. And I, so I quit and went on to apply to college in the US and came to Dartmouth College, where I began the next chapter of my life.
[00:09:04] Olivia: For parents as listeners, it's a struggle to know when your child is pushing back as well and saying, you know, this class is too hard.
[00:09:13] Olivia: I'm living it right now. Benjamin is taking an AP class. And the workload is tremendous. And I don't know if it's too much. I don't know when to say: You know what, it's okay. drop the class. Or when to push. I think it's a really fine line as parents, it's the struggle. And I know you have two daughters that have graduated college and how do you apply this notion to work with them as children?
[00:09:41] Geeta: I think sometimes I have engaged in wise seeing and sometimes I have not.
[00:9:46] Olivia: Me as well.
[00:09:47] Geeta: So, if I was to do it over, I think I would have recognized earlier that Tatyana's real gifts and you'll remember these because you gave her this prize. Tatyana loves to draw, you know, even in first grade.
[00:10:03] Olivia: So creative. Yeah.
[00:10:05] Geeta: And I think I would have given her more space for that because I think that in pushing her to succeed academically or try her best or putting her in environments where there was a lot of pressure, that just required so much of her focus and attention that she had to give up on those creative things.
[00:10:26] Geeta: And she's a great musician and artist. If I was engaging in more in wise seeing and had drawn from my own swimming experience more, I would have thought. I saw then that if I spent so many hours swimming, I could not focus on writing and other things. In the same way, by putting Tatyana in high achieving schools, and she has ADHD, so it required so much of her effort to focus on reading mass volumes of stuff.
[00:10:54] Olivia: Yeah.
[00:10:54] Geeta: She then just could not do the other stuff. And I think the artistic things bring her more joy.
[00:11:01] Olivia: Both boys play instruments. Ben has played guitar for years, since he was in second grade. He plays the background music for the podcast intro and outro, but he got to a point last year of where he said: I can't continue with the lessons. It's too much right now. And I'm not loving guitar.
[00:11:19] Olivia: And as heartbroken as I was, I finally thought, you know what, why, why are we pushing him to do this? And I crossed my fingers and toes that as that guitar sat in a stand next to his bed, he'll eventually pick it back up because he's incredible. And just recently he's been strumming away.
[00:11:38] Olivia: It's an impossible struggle as a parent to set aside our hopes at times, our aspirations for our children. It's really difficult to practice wise seeing, being, and effort. What does it mean when you say to truly see ourselves and seek our quest for truth as caregivers, educators, and partners? What does that mean to you?
[00:12:02] Geeta: Again, it's a journey, so I don't think we're ever quite there except for, you know, a few enlightened beings in the universe or in our scriptures if they really existed. But so, I think it's being able to see beyond your own story and experiences and traumas and triggers to see the facts as much as possible or the truth of what's happening and the same for your kids and the people around you.
[00:12:32] Geeta: So, if you're still stuck in, you know, your own personal drama or life story, then that's influencing you too much. As you look at your child, you don't see what their true gifts are or what truly is the source of their joy. And you're too much caught in sort of the expectations of society or what you think they need to do to succeed or like what you didn't do as a kid or what you wish your parents had done for you instead of really seeing their needs.
[00:13:07] Olivia: Something that I know you've been tirelessly working on, and I saw news coverage September 7th of this year that was phenomenal. The headline for the story: State funds, Berkeley journalism, 25 million to strengthen California's local news coverage. You always have a big-picture outlook on making sure everyone has access to representing different stories and perspectives.
[00:13:36] Olivia: What was that like to receive that money to strengthen the local news coverage?
[00:13:44] Geeta: So, the whole experience of getting that money to strengthen local news coverage and to support our students, like truly just made me believe once more in miracles, like literally Olivia, almost anything is possible.
[00:14:00] Olivia: I agree.
[00:14:03] Geeta: So, I mean, there's some things you put your nose to the grindstone and work for year after year after year. And I value hard work and I worked really, really hard as a swimmer and got to wherever I needed to win. I could very well have not won, right? Many, many people work very, very hard and don't win. But in this case with the money, the 25 million, I've been working really hard on a strategic plan for our school and, you know, fundraising and the ideas for fundraising.
[00:14:34] Geeta: And then though, with this funding, I got a call from a state senator two months ago saying we have 25 million dollars for local journalism and we're trying to figure out which school could best utilize this money. And would you like to be considered as a recipient?
[00:14:54] Olivia: Why, yes.
[00:14:54] Geeta: And they talked to other schools across California too, other journalism schools. But again, yes, we had a great idea for how we could spend it, which they eventually loved. But truly in my mind, it's a miracle. Like it's just completely astonishing and thrilling and unbelievable.
[00:15:16] Olivia: Well, to have you as the Dean of Berkeley Journalism, I think that listeners need to understand what you had quit in order to land where you are at this moment, because it's again an incredible choice that you made that ended up benefiting now 25 million dollars’ worth of strengthening of the actual department and the local news coverage.
[00:15:43] Olivia: So, could you speak to that?
[00:15:44] Geeta: Sure. The last jobs I had in journalism were as a foreign correspondent covering South Asia for the Wall Street Journal for seven years, and then the New York Times for the last couple of years. My family and I had gone back to Mumbai, where I'm from. And I was working as a foreign correspondent for some of the best international publications out of there.
[00:16:08] Geeta: My daughters were in high school, and I had my parents living with me because they really needed my help. And a big reason why I had moved to India was to support them. But my dad got so sick that I couldn't really support him working as a foreign correspondent traveling around South Asia. He was just too ill to actually manage without me.
[00:16:31] Geeta: So, I decided to quit the New York Times and, you know, I thought about it very carefully, but I decided to quit that job.
[00:16:40] Olivia: Yes.
[00:16:40] Geeta: So, I could take care of my dad. And I had this idea in my mind that I would teach and write books, but I had no teaching job, and I had no book contract. But I just left journalism where I had worked nonstop for 27 years.
[00:16:55] Geeta: And a couple months after quitting, I heard about a class at the Journalism School at Berkeley that someone invited me to send in an application to teach, and it was an India reporting class. And one thing led to another, and I came to Berkeley, uh, four years ago to teach this one class and two years later, I was Dean of the school.
[00:17:20] Olivia: It just speaks so much to how incredible you are and you're inspirational for many, many reasons. And as Dean, you speak to the notion of talking to all sides, yet you don't have to believe and represent all sides of a story. I continue to think about the way students are being taught to create opinion-based or argumentative, persuasive writing.
[00:17:48] Olivia: Even in kindergarten, children sharing how they feel and what they think about the world. And I'm really disenfranchised often with the formulas and RACES or a hamburger model where students feel compelled to fit to this structure that actually often paralyzes their writing. Katherine Bomer wrote a book, The Journey Is Everything.
[00:18:11] Olivia: It's one of my favorite books about teaching essayistic writing. It's spectacular. And the back is steeped with beautiful essays, authentic, gorgeous essays that I often use with children to say, this is what an essay is. But I'm fascinated to hear your perspective with your vast background on reporting and teaching. What can we do in nurturing our youth to share their voices in a way that will get their message across and not worry about structure so much?
[00:18:46] Geeta: I guess just on the question of truth and how to report a story and, and the obsessive focus with opinion writing, which is just so popular now, people want to read opinions, especially with social media and Twitter, very focused on just amplifying the voices of others who share their opinions rather than approaching something with curiosity. So, I think curiosity is the key.
[00:19:12] Olivia: Something you said during your address at UC Berkeley has stuck with me ever since, and I've actually quoted you working with several different groups of educators since seeing the video of the address. I quote: We all see the world through the prism of our own experiences.
[00:19:33] Olivia: Truer words could not be spoken. It's critical that we think of this when we're working with our students, with our adults, and even with our own families. Think how vital it is for our children with a variety of experiences, of stories that can open their world up for them. And so, when light shines through, their prisms are a rainbow of color instead of a single beam of light.
[00:20:03] Geeta: Help young people identify their own biases and their own stories and how they come into a situation from a particular point of view and a particular point of privilege or lack of privilege and then encourage them to approach it with curiosity and an open mind, like, you can't really know what happened.
[00:20:21] Geeta: You weren't there. So, who all are you going to talk to to find out what the story is? And then once you understand, I've talked to all the people on all different sides of an issue or who were there or, you know, authority figures and others, then trying to figure out what do I believe and what is the framing of the story?
[00:20:41] Geeta: What is it really about? And in journalism, at least, of course, approaching it with an open mind and reporting deeply is important. But then the, the sort of hardest thing for reporters and writers and what separates the good reporters from great writers is the framing of it, placing whatever information you've gotten in a larger context, like what is the story really about?
[00:21:06] Geeta: What is it that makes it interesting and what is it telling us about life and the experience of living?
[00:21:13] Olivia: I feel like often in education from kinder through 12th grade, it focuses so much on structure and the overall drafting, and then the message for listeners or readers gets kind of slapped on at the end.
[00:21:29] Olivia: I'm wondering if we could start with the idea that we're trying to convey and then choose the conduit of structure or the genre accordingly. We're at a precipice right now where things are being shut down and information's being withheld. It's nothing new, but it's in education specifically, it's quite terrifying.
[00:21:52] Geeta: Yeah, it is terrifying in education. I think we are in treacherous times just across the world. There's a rise in authoritarianism even in this country. And then we have so many more media channels available and just avenues for getting information. So, we feel like we're accessing all kinds of information and yet, you know, social media algorithms are so polarizing, and we have such filters on the information we receive and that is really scary.
[00:22:25] Geeta: So, I think from an education point of view. We just want to make sure our children understand that and understand that the information they're getting may not be all the information or the most important information or the key information on that topic and that they need to be information seekers and information evaluators.
[00:22:47] Olivia: You spoke to your students around why assessing situations from all sides is critical, but why is that important right now, especially in this day and age for our children to be good humans?
[00:23:00] Geeta: I think that that's just fundamental, right? I mean, they have to care about being good human beings to even begin to be good consumers of information and to have the motivation to try and seek out accurate information on something.
[00:23:15] Geeta: I mean, they have to care about justice and equality and truth and kindness for authoritarianism or democracy or any of these things to matter.
[00:23:26] Olivia: Yeah. My most recent work in schools is actually often with high school students. And it's been a fascinating journey to work in school districts where there's not a diverse population and trying to open the world through literature to convey perspectives through characters and books and stories.
[00:23:47] Olivia: I also have such hope with folks like you that continue to take risks and practice wise seeing, wise being, wise effort. And I think it's so important for listeners, especially educators, that are feeling at their wit's end and are feeling like there's no amount of inspiration that can keep them in the field right now.
[00:24:09] Olivia: That notion of wise being, seeing, and effort I think could help them make a choice to know which chapter to close and open. So, Geeta, it's an honor to see you, to have you as a guest. Thank you so much for taking the time.
[00:24:25] Geeta: Thank you for inviting me, Olivia, and your amazing teaching and classroom and heart just are an inspiration to my family and my kids still remember you and follow you on social media. There's people who just have huge influences on the lives of others and you are one of those people who really influenced and inspired my kids and my whole family. So, thank you.
[00:24:51] Olivia: Thank you. I feel the same way. And make sure to give the girls my love. Greg as well. And it's lovely to catch up. So, thank you so much, Geeta. Take care.
[00:25:02] Olivia: Schoolutions is a podcast created, produced, and edited by me, Olivia Wahl. Special thanks to my guest, Geeta Anand. Thanks to my older son Benjamin, who created the music that's playing in the background. If you like Schoolutions, please share, rate, review, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @schoolutionspodcast. If you want to reach out, leave me a SpeakPipe voice memo at my website: www.oliviawahl.com/podcast or via email @schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com. Don't forget to talk about us nicely on social media, and please keep listening. Let's continue finding inspiration together.