The Blog of Richard Andrew Clark: An Existing Person

I initially gave up a wonderful career doing precisely what I loved to join Peace Corps several years ago, partly out of a desire to serve and equally out of a desire to atone for my identity. Whether I like it or not, I’m a United States citizen, and by extension that carries a certain degree of baggage. I’m not personally responsible for the US’s history of slavery, programs like MKUltra, or its tendency to force capitalist values on other countries, but I can appreciate that, by virtue of my existence, I am required to do what I can to demonstrate that the US is more than the sum of its failures and vices. If for no other reason than it allows me to sleep at night, I want to serve society so that whatever section of the world I have influence in is brighter, with those I impact leaving with an increased sense of agency.

By extension, that meant that after I completed my Peace Corps and Peace Corps Response service, I joined the Pohnpei Department of Education as a regular, local employee, which was about one year ago. The pay is peanuts and I won’t pretend that my retirement plan doesn’t amount to putting a bullet through my skull when I’m old and frail, but I knew that going in and the latter has been my plan since I was a teenager, assuming I am not able to effect the necessary changes for my birth-society to value its own people. My title is Education Adviser, but in practice it means I do a little bit of everything with the broader goal of making everything awesome for people who presently have few options. In my free time, I continue to work for Upward Bound, because teaching itself remains immeasurably rewarding, and kids are terrific.

There is a tremendous amount of satisfaction from serving in this capacity, and I’m sure that many former Peace Corps folks who have stayed in a host country have felt similar to how I feel: I’m able to effect immeasurably more systemic change by being a local than by being an outsider.

Let’s talk about these changes by discussing the FSM accreditation process, standardized testing in the FSM, the FSM teacher evaluation process, and how to increase transparency and accountability in developing nations. We’ll front-load it with the recognition that I am biased towards outside agencies, from Asia Development Bank to PREL to IOM, and external governments, including the United States, China, Japan, and Australia. These are some of the major powers in the FSM’s context, and I am of the opinion that they serve their own interests before they serve the interests of Micronesians. These interests can and frequently do converge, but we’ll agree from the offset that I believe they must be forced to act in the FSM’s interest and will choose otherwise if it’s convenient to them. To whatever degree that’s verifiably accurate or debatable won’t be discussed, because I don’t care to do so. We’ll also make it clear from the get-go that while I respect the FSM’s right to sovereignty that I believe that the National Government, perhaps by virtue of its existence, is more concerned with its own financial integrity than the quality of life within its states, and that while it has a number of public servants who wish to make meaningful systemic change that they necessarily don’t place any particular state as being more valuable than any other. I am familiar with the other FSM states, having traveled to them all multiple times, but primarily care about Pohnpei State, to include its main island and outer island atolls. These are not the sort of opinions one is allowed to have while serving the United States Government, but I serve Pohnpei State, and this is my blog.

FSM Accreditation

The FSM Accreditation Process is a well-meaning but flawed adventure that puts the great majority of its implementation to individual FSM states. Mandated from JEMCO and the 1999 Pohnpei State Education Act, our adopted process is a watered down version of AdvancED.

The standards are solid but documentation-heavy, with a school able to reach the maximum level even if its student performance is somewhat lacking. A full report can be found in the preceding post, as well as the DOE’s facebook page and soon its upcoming website at pohnpei.doe.fm (made by, in fairness to National Government, the National DOE).

There are two distinct documents the National DOE and by extension JEMCO requires for this process to be seen as transparent and accountable:

• Two separate classroom observations
• One “whole school” report card, with numerical scores ranging from 1-4 across 24 criteria, the above-mentioned observations counting as two additional criteria.

This presents a number of problems, to include:

1. State DOEs find it difficult to justify their scores
2. National DOE, JEMCO, concerned parents, and my entirely hypothetical blog readers finding documentation to justify their scores

Accreditation scores are tied to JEMCO obligating funding in the Compact of Free Association for schools. Our Pohnpei State DOE’s budget is 99% tied to the Compact. It’s in our best financial interest to lie and pretend everything is great. It’s in our students’ interests to embrace the process fully and attempt to do it justice.

Let’s say you’re Yap Catholic High School. You have the highest numerical score in every criteria. You are a level four school, with level four scores in every criteria. I’m not familiar enough with Yap Catholic High School or Yap State Department of Education to tell you how I feel about that, but suppose you want to know what justifies those scores? The only documentation I have access to, as a concerned citizen, is the one-page report card.

Pohnpei State decided to do things differently, the fear being that we might temporarily jeopardize funding but the hope being that we’ll be able to produce meaningful systemic changes that mean people like my wife can learn how to read. Jacqueleen, for context, can read at perhaps a fourth grade reading level. She is a high school graduate. Most of her family are farmers and fishermen. They’re amazing people who have incredibly limited opportunities, and when you ask five-year old Aisha what she wants to be when she grows up, and she tells you she wants to be a doctor, you really want to be sure she has a society that will help her make it happen.

So, let’s say you’re Pohnpei Island Central School, our largest high school. You–as a concerned citizen potentially, but let’s say you’re a teacher at the school–have received:

1. A written report with a paragraph or more of justifications for every criteria
2. State DOE mandated on-site hours from 8am-5pm at each school site for one complete day
3. State DOE mandated staff numbers (NDOE calls for two), with staff dedicated to classroom observations, photographs, principal interviewing, etc.
4. Photographs that support the written justifications (often times photographs of documents)
5. A classroom checklist for each classroom in the school, verified by multiple PDOE staff members
6. A Principal Interview based on the Level Four rubrics in each criteria
7. Multiple classroom observations
8. The one-page school report card

Anyone with a cursory interest in schools would see that our adopted interpretation of the process is full of glaring weaknesses (e.g. one full school day of visitation time is not enough to make a meaningful determination), but the result is that, despite the weaknesses in our process, we’re attempting to be transparent by providing far more than we’re required to, and being accountable by literally giving the process itself to our schools.

Further, by writing the justifications report in the same manner as the required Self Study document, it allows the State DOE to make it easier to assist faculties and their PTAs in creating School Improvement Plans et al.

The positive effect is a sense of teachers and communities feeling empowered and knowing that their scores are based on a standardized process with data supporting them.

The negative effect is that some of our schools may have funding de-obligated next fiscal year, and that may be because we didn’t lie to anyone. I tell myself we’re doing the right thing, but the schools that may be effected are remote outer islands that have linguistic and ethnic minorities. We won’t close any schools, but I am literally going to a hearing tomorrow to see how we can secure local funding in the event JEMCO doesn’t allocate any.

FSM Standardized Testing

A cut-score is a needlessly academic term for a passing/failing percentage, i.e. if a cut-score is 60% of questions correct, then 60% or higher is passing, and lower is failing.

Standardized tests in the US-affiliated Pacific have not historically had cut-scores, and while the data we have received on benchmarks is useful, there are two separate but equally impactful dual realities this creates:

1. External assistance will interpret that we have a cut-score anyway, and base financial and programmatic decisions on this information. Examples include OIA Budget Justification Reports for the Compact, WorldTeach project plans, my very own Peace Corps group’s justification for existence (raising these scores), WHO reports on the FSM child, and more.
2. The lack of data disseminated to the public juxtaposed to its opaque reporting routines means that your 8th grade child doesn’t know how she did on her test, her teacher doesn’t know how her class did, and the school itself can’t interpret the information.

This required us to create a cut-score, request the raw data, and manually create reports that inform schools of how their individual students did, and how individual classrooms did.

While we have reported information to schools rather completely in the past two academic years, and have built local capacity in creating reports that make the information digestible to teachers, students, and parents, the results are saddening no matter how we interpret them. The average Pohnpeian 10th grader at a public school will, on a multiple choice test of 40 reading comprehension questions, answer 21/40 correctly. The average Pohnpeian 10th grader at a public school will, on a multiple choice test of 72 math questions, answer 36/72 correctly. Looking a bit deeper, our students have little trouble with basic arithmetic or understanding the main idea of a passage, but struggle with more complex math and various literary forms (e.g. interpreting metaphors).

I’m familiar with the tests themselves and, while the questions aren’t awful, there are some systemic grammatical and spelling errors that, as forgivable as they are being that the FSM is a developing nation with English as its adopted language of government and business, but with over a dozen of native vernaculars that are the languages used in practice, surely contribute to our poor scores.

FSM Teacher Evaluation

I’m not familiar with an FSM-adopted teacher evaluation tool, but teacher evaluations are a good idea. Teachers themselves want to know what success looks like, to have that success measurable, and to receive feedback on their work. Principals want to make informed managerial decisions. Departments want to make informed decisions. Yes, JEMCO wants us to have these by August of 2017, but it’s for our own benefit, and we want to implement this anyway.

Pohnpei State DOE has, across its 34 public schools, used so far no less than 19 separate observation forms (half of which are Peace Corps creations.) They were all made to replace the IOTA tool, which while non-ideal at least was standardized and used system-wide. We have a new tool but will implement it next school year, or at least our summer plans would suggest as such.

That said, for evaluating teachers, we developed a tool based on FSM Accreditation. We began implementing last week and will complete it this week, with a complete analysis later this month. Teachers are evaluated based on four separate components, including lesson planning, their classroom environment, instructional activities and success, and professionalism. While the number four was somewhat arbitrary, we had a number of goals for this process:

1. Make it easy to understand. Keep the language simple.
2. Make it measurable. The difference between Exemplary, Proficient, Developing, and Unacceptable in each scored component should be immediately distinct based on documentation, and possible to be determined by a layman.
3. Make it helpful. The goal is to serve students, and we accomplish that through this activity by showing teachers where they are successful and where they need help, and in the latter providing professional development as necessary.

Anecdotally, we’re so far seeing significant issues with lesson plan development and teacher attendance. I hypothesize that men are more tardy than women. We’ll know more in a few weeks.

To paraphrase the principal of Palikir School, who has been teaching for 44 years, this is the first time teachers have been evaluated on our island. Ever. That is at once saddening and immensely amazing. This is progress. The amount of empowerment our principals have voiced could reduce a man to tears. The process goes like this:

1. The principal and a PDOE staff member review a teacher’s documentation, to include their lesson plans, formal and informal observations, homework, classwork, quizzes/tests, projects, attendance records, professional development, and student grades.
2. The principal makes the determination, with the PDOE staff member contributing to conversation to ensure that each score can be justified based on both the accompanying documentation as well as the principal’s professional knowledge of the staff member.
3. Within a week, the principal meets with the teacher, and if the teacher agrees, signs their name; the record is official. If the teacher disagrees, they have the means to submit–in writing–why they disagree, and provide documentation saying otherwise. If the principal is convinced, the PDOE staff member comes back, and they review with the teacher. If the principal is not convinced, the teacher signs off on the original result.

I’m sure we’ll uncover a number of problems with our process, and find ways to improve, but at the moment it’s nice to see our principals feel empowered, and to have a means of measuring teacher performance. It’s literally never been done before here, so it also satisfies my insatiable lust for doing good things.

Increasing Transparency and Accountability

If I were to define transparent as “can be seen”, and accountability as “ownership for one’s actions,” I would argue that Pohnpei State Government and its Department of Education has historically had problems with both. I would further argue that the following organizations and governments have transparency and accountability issues when it comes to providing assistance to Pohnpei in the realm of education:

1. Asian Development Bank (they get contracts, and probably write reports, but what it means on the ground level are untold numbers of pilot programs that don’t go anywhere)
2. Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (they get contracts, and probably write reports, but what it means on the ground level are untold numbers of programs that either don’t go anywhere or don’t measurably benefit the department, e.g. a database that hasn’t had accurate data, ever, for its decades of implementation)
3. Peace Corps (2 year volunteers are posted at schools and given incredible freedom which often results in slacking off, response volunteers at best started projects that were abandoned and at worst became more political than their mission statement calls for, more than half would leave early, and the result on the ground means they’re unreliable, though usually well-meaning)
4. WorldTeach (1 year volunteers were posted at schools, hypothetically so locals could get 3rd year certificates and BAs, but in practice replaced locals; great volunteers and a great organization, but they know that’s not what they want to do)
5. International Organization for Migration (they hypothetically wrote emergency evacuation procedures for our schools, but like the above organizations didn’t have enough follow-through to provide it to remote communities or to ensure that the procedures were implemented)
6. Joint Economic Management Committee (JEMCO–they hypothetically make financial decisions to better our children’s lives, but they’re a committee and the Americans among them are Americans, not Micronesians, and necessarily value US interest above FSM interest)

There’s a thematic issue here, and it’s that the Pohnpei Department of Education has to want change, and has to want to lead its change, instead of having change brought upon it. These external organizations could be a boon to Pohnpei, but at their best have been a distraction and at their worst have denied schools funding by eating what limited amounts we have. (Peace Corps Response, for example, was allocated $84,000 of an annual $300,000 for School Improvement, so their reports about classrooms needing maintenance were paid for in part by denying those classrooms maintenance in the first place.)

So, how do we make the Pohnpei Department of Education transparent and accountable to its own citizens, and turn external organizations into genuine allies instead of either highly paid consultants or well-meaning volunteers that mill about for awhile and then disappear?

What we’ve done is created internal committees that include Board of Education members, principals, teachers, stakeholders e.g. President of College of Micronesia, Upward Bound, Gear-Up, etc. and from there created a new mission statement and a new vision statement. From there, we blast those platitudes everywhere. They’re on our walls; they get cited in our reports; they get repeated at PTA meetings. The public becomes aware of what we want to do, and then they start calling us more.

When they start calling us more, we start responding more. Why don’t you write a newsletter, asks a parent? Good idea. We have a newsletter now, it’s coming out every month and it details what we’re doing, whose doing it, and why. Why don’t you investigate X example of child abuse at Y school, asks a student? Good idea. We’ll record all of your statements in writing, present them to your elected representative, and hold meetings with the allegedly involved students, staff, parents, and senator, to reach an agreement.

It’s worth noting that we’ve been blessed to have a new Director, who demands that our department change. Where our internal leadership has struggled before, has arguably not existed in a coherent form before, we now have a leader who wants everyone to believe in our mission. At the risk of being full of myself, my service makes it more likely he’ll want to stay until we’ve not only turned our ship around but rebuilt the ship itself, as I’m in the enviable position of being able to help our staff in engaging in all of these things.

Because that’s the other key right there. Yes, I am effecting change, and in part it’s from spearheading it, but mostly it’s from encouraging and teaching others. The newsletter? Sure, I started it, but I don’t write it anymore. Our Public Information Officer wants to do it, so we taught him how to design articles, and he’s writing it. Forgive that it’s a template in MS Publisher; it’s the first time we’ve ever tried to tell the public what we’re doing. Our accreditation implementation? Sure, I designed it, but my coworkers have taken ownership of it, and are improving it beyond what I’d dream of. January 2017 was the first time our annual Education Day celebration included parents and students attending, not to mention awards for students based on academic performance and attendance. We’re doing the right thing, and it’s hard, and it’s scary, and it’s probably not how experts want us to do it, but it’s actually happening.

I was asked to conduct a survey of every high school student in the state. I designed a survey, and implemented an analysis. Meanwhile, I’ve been training our testing coordinator–who already knows how to create test reports on his own now–to conduct these kinds of analyses on his own. So, while yes it’s terrifying that 25% of all Pohnpeian high school students perceive that their teacher is absent once per week, external organizations and external nationalities don’t have to do that kind of analysis for the Pohnpei DOE anymore. They can do it themselves, and they want to do it themselves, and they are doing it themselves.

What it Means

I’m hoping I don’t eat my own words, but I’m willing to bet some of the healthiest and most productive years of my life that by 2020 Pohnpei State Department of Education is going to be seen by Guam, Palau, or Hawaii not as the butt of jokes but as an entity to emulate.

Before we get started with some updates, the following is what I wrote for the Peace Corps newsletter, on how my life has changed in the islands.

Although I would maintain that I was never precisely equivalent to Jabba the Hutt, those who know me best have described me, depending on the individual, as being either “debonair” or “waifish, like a Dickensian orphan.” I’ve been about 185 pounds since December of 2013, but if you saw me in June of 2013 you’d certainly notice that I was 250 or larger, almost exclusively the result of my lifestyle in America. That lifestyle meant that my day-to-day work was in front of a computer (as technology companies often ensure you do), and my way of relaxing typically involved voluminous quantities of pad thai, burritos, and writing inane, rambling and pretentious eloquent discussions on Sartre, socialism, and Star Wars. By contrast, in Micronesia I am prone to writing laborious, asinine, and fatuous accurate and entertaining dissertations on both democracy in action and democracy inaction, juxtaposed with drinking large quantities of sakau. Somehow I also met my sweetheart, whom I refer to as “ahi mohngiong suke,” but that often confuses people as often as it makes them laugh.

I would certainly argue that I am the same person after living in Micronesia for several years as I was beforehand, but then I am also stubborn and prone to oratory confrontation. Actually, that last part isn’t even a little bit true, and it’s certainly less so after being here, where respect is something people live and demonstrate to one another with every action and breath. What is true is that I’ve grown to have enormous and profound appreciation for the culture, and if I were to be prone to oratory confrontation it would be to try to demonstrate to Americans how much better our society would be if we emulated Micronesians.

Let’s talk about family. If I have cousins or extended family I couldn’t tell you who they are. They’ve had no importance or effect in my life whatsoever. And while the good news of not having any meaningful familial connections outside of one’s parents and single sibling, folks who raised me to make my own choices, is that one can make decisions to leave their wonderful career to join the Peace Corps and there’ll be startlingly little resistance. So that’s the good news about not having any family. The bad news is that it’s also kind of depressing when you figure out what you’re missing out on.

Take the other day, for instance. My honey bunny, Jacqueleen, has a humongous family. It’s either several dozen or several hundred million people, I can’t be sure. So we’re sitting around at Christmas in her nahs, and does it matter that there’s no meaningful possessions or that the materialistic culture ubiquitous in the West, where people are consumers and what matters most isn’t the prosperity of the common citizen but the accumulation of things on a personal level and capital on a systemic level, is entirely absent? Nah, bro. Micronesians have the right idea: what matters most in life is time spent employed in the presence of people who love you and accept you. Things only matter if they improve the well-being of our lives—when they don’t, they’re a burden.

Let’s talk about acceptance. Do you—I am assuming you’re American—know what it’s like to just be accepted and embraced, to be loved, without having to try? It’s pretty much our societal goal, right? And in our attempts to foment a tribe, we’re just as likely to create an alien “other.” “The history of all hitherto existing human society is the history of class struggles” said Marx, who clearly never visited Micronesia, where people will love you just because you exist, and will take you in as family, and show you respect because that’s their way of life. Americans are fond to take up arms, metaphorically and all too often literally, to create artificial and arbitrary lines between people, to make an Us vs Them, but that entire mentality doesn’t exist here. I’m certainly more relaxed because of it, but also a bit befuddled: why can’t everyone be this awesome?
Of course, we can all be that awesome. But what it’ll take is recognizing the dividing line between doing what makes us feel good and what is actually good, in the sense that what we do benefits people and not systems, benefits society and not merely ourselves.

Let’s talk about development. Micronesians are desperate for assistance but equally desperate for autonomy and sovereignty over their own lives and islands, and some foreigners and NGOs can be quick to denounce Micronesians as being docile and inactive, taking up the mantle of action themselves at the expense of local relationships. Those relationships take time—but they are the bedrock for sustainable growth. Micronesia can only grow on its own terms, as America can only grow on its own terms, and thus outsiders should only provide the kind of assistance Micronesians desire (regardless of how we might do things differently).

I don’t intend for this to be Platitudes 101—well, maybe I do—but I guess what I’m trying to say here is I’m angry. I’m way chilled out because of sakau, but I grew up in New York, I listen to Henry Rollins, and I’ve witnessed my own nation become increasingly divisive and fragmented. My generation is the most heavily educated in history, and the first to be poorer; half the wild-life on the planet is gone in a generation; bigotry and misogyny marry themselves with ignorance and fear, become impregnated on bile and invective, and birth violence and alienation. Guys, it doesn’t have to be this way. As Micronesians have taught me, it all starts with respect, loving thy neighbor and treating them like family, inviting each other in and accepting one another. Any other way is anathema to progress.

Life is the Prisoner’s Dilemma on a grand, never-ending scale. Micronesians, when given the choice between ally and betray, always select ally. The greater good isn’t some communist death-specter trying to take away our freedom: it’s a way of life founded on ceaseless respect, limitless love, and endless empathy for other human beings.

How have I stayed the same? I remain a currently existing human being. How have I become different? I’ve become a caricature—but at least I’m thinner now, although my adipose tissue has evidently been replaced with concerning amounts of head lice.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s review some of the current victories and gossip.

Victories:

• The Pohnpei Public Library has a playground, courtesy of a grant from the Australian Embassy which I wrote with my counterpart Lester, the head librarian. Pohnpei Public Library is one of the finest public institutions on the island, and even if it doesn’t have the resources that the Christchurch or Champaign-Urbana libraries have, it tries so hard. 
• Pohnpei State Department of Education has accepted the Health Curriculum my counterparts and I have worked on; it’s been completed and submitted
• Pohnpei State Department of Education has accepted the Physical Education Curriculum my counterparts and I have worked on; it’s been completed and submitted
• The NMCT Template is nearly finished, and with that even if PREL or NDOE fail to do as they’ve promised, or otherwise muck reporting up, Pohnpei State will be able to make understandable, usable, and meaningful test reporting
  • Following this note, without exception every principal, and nearly every teacher (I can think of only one who was contrary) have remarked at the opaqueness in previous reporting. By contrast, there is universal love and acclaim for the new reporting I’ve done with my local counterparts here. (In fairness to PREL, the new reporting makes use of their tools, which while never good were also never un-salvageable–it merely explains the opaque graphs and supplies a narrative, along with examples of how questions are tested and activities for teachers to try and resources for them to acquire).
  • It was initially my desire to have this system for the entire US-affiliated Pacific fixed, however I am but only one man and I do not control any purse-strings. That said, at least Pohnpei is better, and as this is the island I serve, that’s what matters most
    • Tied into this, standardized testing is a plague; I remain confounded that so many folks in various governments and NGOs simultaneously treat them as gospel. Similarly, while I maintain that everything we do in education should be for the students, I’ve received significant amounts of criticism for this view. Not from teachers, principals, students, or parents, but from people who benefit from the systems in place.
    • Also on the subject, can you believe that the people of the FSM were told that they were not ESL students? It’s patently absurd. Micronesians are the epitome of ESL students. The average Pohnpeian doesn’t know enough English to converse in the language, never mind write in it or read it. The distinction between an elite member of society (i.e. someone who knows English and thus likely works in the government in some capacity) and the average citizen (subsistence farmer/fisherman who also likely makes sakau) would make anyone blush.
      • Jacqueleen’s entire family doesn’t know English, their nahs has two lights (but no switch, therefore they use a wooden stick to screw in bulbs every night), and their big trophy at the moment is a freezer I bought them for Christmas
      • By contrast, the neighbor down the street is a senator, and he and his family have a house you could forgive for thinking belonged in Hawaii or somewhere else, as it has multiple stories, air-conditioning, a fence, etc.

Gossip:

• Tony is dead. I walked by his house a few times, didn’t see him, noticed the place was boarded up, but assumed he was off the island. Tony is the dad of Jane-Ann, the sweet young student who offed herself after being impregnated by him (her dad) so many times, and whose mom was cut up into “sashimi”.

The thing is, Tony was a veteran of the US military. 1/100 Americans join the armed services in some form or another, but 5/100 Micronesians do as well. There is an upcoming documentary about it called Island Soldier, made by a former Peace Corps Volunteer. I’m really looking forward to it.

I wonder if that movie will focus on the mental health of US military veterans who return to their home islands. I’m no psychologist, although my dad was, but I imagine that Micronesians are just as susceptible to PTSD and all those other things veterans suffer. But where Pohnpei and the rest of the islands differ from the USA or, say, NZ, is that mental health facilities are entirely absent. Even the idea of mental health is a confusing and largely taboo subject.

I mean, this is the same island where, when I told my friends that I loved my honey bunny, without any sort of innuendo or gesturing, I was told that “That’s private and against our culture.” Nearly everything is private, whether because if I tell you everything it’s equivalent to destroying my soul to because it’s simply taboo to express emotions unless it’s a designated outlet (e.g. funerals and weeping, New Year celebrations which are several days of banging oil drums and screaming in a primal way, screaming sans language). I remain positive that part of the reason Jane-Ann killed herself was because there was literally no person or institution to go to, and that’s true for any number of people who’ve offed themselves during my time here.

So back to Tony. He was in the US military for some years, and while that doesn’t give him a free pass for torturing and destroying his own family, I suspect that his experiences in the military conjoined with his alcohol abuse certainly played a role in it.

The word on the street is that he went to the US Embassy during Veterans Day, which is actually quite the event if you’re able to go (I’ve only been to the Embassy once, but they make it a point to ensure their events have cheeseburgers and hotdogs, because those foods represent America I guess). Anyway, some dude beat him silly, bruises and black eyes and bleeding, and then afterwards, probably due to shame, he hung himself. He was found days later, far after he was too far rotten. Like his other family, no traditional funeral was held.

I’m not allowed to talk about this on the island at all. No one really is. But god damn, I mean, what does one even do? Y’know, way back when I wrote a pamphlet on suicide, and sent it to Public Health, but I’ve heard astonishingly little in regards to it. I know Father Hezel and some Jesuits are working on a research paper on the topic, but I imagine it’ll amount to “lots of suicide, we should have more mental health here than none at all!”

When Micronesian family units work, they work astonishingly well. The amount of loyalty and love that is demonstrated (if only discussed in private) is huge, and people support each other terrifically well. You’re not going to worry about being homeless, being hungry, or being alone.

But what if you’re lonely? What if you have feelings and you want to express them? Micronesians are notorious for embracing stoicism so hard that the British and Japanese both seem like positively open closets.

Simply put, while Americans would do well to emulate many aspects of Micronesian society, similarly Micronesians would benefit if they had a source to share their feelings with. But who would that even be? Everyone is related to or knows one another. Nepotism is the rule in all things, and that is not going to change. People remember, and people gossip, and what you do and where you are is public knowledge.

I mean, I’ll have people ask me a week after I bought a cup of instant coffee from one of the takeout stalls in Kolonia why I was there, how good it was, and what was I doing that day. People will ask me this on the road, or at a sakau market, or at a funeral. I don’t even remember what I do everyday, but all of my actions are scrutinized by the community. Everyone knows that I’m a recluse after sakau, and that I’ll end up in my apartment working on something. Everyone knows that Jacqueleen and I are together, or if not me specifically, that she’s with an American, and that I’m with a Pohnpeian from Nett.

Most of the time, I really like that sense of community. It’s nice to have endless streams of people know who you are, your routines, say hello, and be appreciative of your service. PF Kluge once wrote that “the islands rarely say thank you”, but I suspect he wasn’t listening hard enough. The islands say thank you all the time; they also ask you about your life and know everything you’re doing.

That’s easy for me, because I don’t have any shame about who I am or what I’ve done. Plus, I’m not from here; even though some people refer to me as ohlenpohnpei (man of Pohnpei), I’m treated as an outsider in most functions. This is done respectfully, but it’s nonetheless true. I don’t have any familial connections to Pohnpei, and I don’t have a history here outside of what I’ve done–and while Pohnpeians have never asked me about my life before here and will never have the interest to do so, I’ve lived it, and so the burdens so many locals carry simply don’t apply to me. I’m not held to the same standard as a true Pohnpeian, nor expected to adhere to or understand all of the norms, and even if I were I don’t value all of them so they don’t mean anything to me. (Pohnpei is superbly stratified but I’m an egalitarian at heart; I rebel against the system by using the respect language with both high titled people and children, and when I’m called out on it I say that I’m trying to show respect and please forgive me).

I can’t imagine what it must be like, to have your entire society–literally your entire cultural-linguistic group of folks–force upon you a hierarchical structure that you must abide by so rigidly. Any outlet or escape means going to a different culture. It’s clearly an emotional burden, which is partly why sakau is such a major part of life. It equalizes the playing field, and it sure does chill you out and make you relaxed. I’m reduced to pure bliss every time I get drunk off it, and if it was my only outlet I’m sure I’d use it as heavily as so many locals do. Every time you get drunk is seen as a victory. Certainly every time I have a rough day, and I drink sakau, I go to sleep being happy and glad to be here. It’s a really potent drug.

How would we even bring mental health to this region? Sohte men kang sarohdi–I don’t want to eat shame/be embarrassed. I can’t just tell you what I think or I feel, and my education system doesn’t endorse critical thinking, or even necessarily understand what it is. It’s not my place, as a child, to question my parents, my society, my elders, or my culture; furthermore, it’s their place to define who I am, and my title or lack-thereof will inform a population how to view me.

For awhile I was titled Luenmwar, left-over title. It certainly translates into something that feels like a pejorative. These days my title is Lepenmadau en Education, the Great Thinker in Education, which is kind of a gigantic honor.

How does one reach a middle-ground? Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, with fairness and equal access to opportunity. That said, respect is also something that should be earned, and equal access to opportunity does not necessarily create a level of fairness in how it gets paid for. Every human being deserves everything The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights suggested so long ago, but how do we accomplish that, especially when that declaration clearly doesn’t benefit the interests of those who seek to be above others? I can’t imagine there are very many political or economic elites who would want to dis-empower themselves in order to empower others.

That said, where does power even come from? Foucault suggested it comes from everything, but Foucault was also tiresome for me to get through.

How does one create a utopia where people support one another when plenty of people are in it for themselves or those closest to them? And it’s not like it’s inherently wrong, or even a little bit wrong, to only care most about what matters to you. Besides, who gets to determine which values are the “correct” ones? I may be devastated at the lack of Pohnpeian self-expression, but I’ve had a few of my close friends inform me that they like not having to think too hard for themselves. Who am I to change anything, or want to change anything? I may be equally devastated that America doesn’t have universal health care or universal education, but there are plenty of folks who benefit from it being the way it is now.

While I’m rambling, it’s puzzling to me how so many Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump supporters don’t see that, in one very important sense, they have the same philosophy. A fiery disenfranchisement with the establishment, juxtaposed to apathy as a result of burnout, is something both candidates feed on.

I contemplated writing my large essay in Crimes Against Humanity, the current module for my MA in Transnational Organized Crime, on surveillance but ended up opting to talk about genocide instead. Surveillance was too depressing.

In my research, I’ve read every issue of Dabiq, the ISIS magazine, and I can tell you one thing that I suspect anyone reading this blog (nobody) will agree to: ISIS is whack, yo. But it’s interesting how transparent they are in their beliefs. It’s “inevitable” that American boots will get on the ground so we can have the apocalypse and such. All westerners are “crusaders”, etc etc. Seems to me that the most efficient method of combating ISIS would be to simultaneously not play by their rules while also embracing non-radicals. Don’t give their rhetoric any meat, and actively combat against that rhetoric through an extensive information and integration campaign.

For example, we have Black History Month, which in my experience was effective at ensuring I was aware of certain key figures who are both American and also black, such as Mae Jemison, doctor and astronaut (and once in the Peace Corps). Why not Muslims of America day or week or month? We could have educational plugs on PBS or NPR about the various Americans of the Muslim faith who’ve been instrumental in our nation’s government, history, and economy. American soldiers who fought bravely, American businessmen who’ve built industry and jobs, teachers who taught inspiring things, writers who wrote engaging fiction and moving nonfiction, interviews with everyday citizenry and their lives. Y’know, to simultaneously demonstrate that Americans of all kinds are American, that we’re all in it together, that our nation is comprised of unique stories and people but everyone’s unique background nonetheless contributes to who we are as a people.

If nothing else, I suspect it’d be more effective than anything Trump is saying.

Edit: I ended up sending an email to the Sanders and Clinton campaigns, two professors from Stanford and Harvard, This American Life, PBS, and The Atlantic about a possible Muslims of America day or week or month. No idea if anyone will care, but it’d be really awesome if it gained traction and became a thing. Everyone knows that love and hate are the same emotion, and since hate isn’t working out so well maybe America could try love instead?

Kids love the Phaethon lepturus, “sihk” in Pohnpeian and its related languages of Ngatikese, Mwoakillese, and Pingelapese. The goal is to tie them with a string so you can throw them; they’ll try to fly away but fail to do so, like a living kite.

You love sunsets

Oh yeah you do.

I suspect you are also a fan of trees.

Let’s not forget the beach and hermit crabs.

I’m not a particularly decent photographer, and I suspect I look fatter in these images than I would like to be. However, I am presently 190 pounds, which is more than a few months ago (a low of 180) but much healthier than other times. On the plus side, Jacqueleen is arguably the single most attractive lady that ever did walk this Earth.

Anyway, so: Accreditation.

We recently spent a week and a half here:

The FSM Accreditation process is based on AdvancED, which is the US accreditation system for the bulk of the south (as opposed to WASC which, I understand, is for the west/north).

The idea is that there are two phases of the accreditation process.

Phase One is a report card, like this one:

I don’t really care for this report card on the premise that it doesn’t identify the standards or their related criteria. In addition, all of the documentary evidence for the scores every school in the FSM received are pictures books. There isn’t actually a written narrative of any kind to defend the scores, which for the purpose of working on the accreditation process is, in a word, frustrating.

Phase Two is the School Self Study. It’s where school staffs, their PTAs, and some upper-grade students identify why they got the scores they got, and what they will do to improve.

I was very impressed with Sapwuahfik School in this regard. Other schools have often fought, for months, either against their scores or against the idea of working collectively. However, in this case the staff and PTA are working together–they even worked on holidays this past week.

That said, of the last Monday through Friday, Monday was a holiday, Tuesday was an election day, Wednesday was a holiday, Thursday was a half day at school, and Friday was a day off because the ship came. Even so, it was very nice that the school and PTA worked during their time off. I have every reason to believe they will complete their School Self Study by the due date of April 15th.

One of the most interesting aspects of the accreditation process is the SEG budget. FSM schools currently have two primary sources of income, ESG and SEG. ESG = Education Sector Grant, from the US-FSM Compact, and it pays for salaries as well as some resources etc. This money comes from above, and an individual school site cannot meaningfully touch it.

The SEG budget, by contrast, is money allocated for each individual school site. The idea is that individual teachers and staff will care more about their work, their school, and their community if they have an active voice in what they receive.

At this moment in time, however, outside of the five schools I worked on accreditation with last year (four of whom, with Donna, used the SEG correctly, and one, my primary site, decided that the teachers didn’t need to be a part of it…), schools have been unaware of this money. The principal of Sapwuahfik suggested that he was told that the SEG money could not be accessed this year, ostensibly to pay for the new school buses on Pohnpei. Whether this is true or not is to be determined. I’m looking forward to sharing this information with NDOE and PDOE and finding out how Sapwuahfik can access its money.

This is particularly relevant because, for example, the school doesn’t have any ink or paper, and we didn’t bring any on the ship. (I was unaware of their needs, as my duties were determined to be exclusively on test reporting and accreditation assistance). So, when I observed one classroom, the teaching consisted exclusively of this:

1. Students copying notes from the board
2. Students working silently

After an hour of sitting in this environment with no interaction between the teacher and the students, I was asked by a student how to pronounce and define the word “species.” I accidentally then took the remaining 30 minutes of class time teaching this student, and then the entire class, that concept. The teacher later on shared with me her lesson plan, and how it included some handouts she made, but she was unable to make copies of, and so in her frustration she resorted to doing very little. In her defense, teaching without resources is very difficult.

By contrast, the principal, in the pictures above, used some of the online resources I’ve prepared specifically for outer island municipalities, which certainly engaged the students, so that was nice.

The official FSM accreditation manual has two versions, one from 2010 and one from 2011. The 2011 version isn’t online for reasons that elude me. Universally Pohnpeians have found it, at best, overwhelming to use. My friend Donna and I ended up writing a supplemental (not parallel) document, and I was very pleased that the NDOE folks ended up endorsing its use. Both documents working together was what we did with Sapwuahfik, and they really benefited from it. I’m looking forward to more work on accreditation in Pohnpei State, including the outer islands.

Now let’s briefly talk about the NMCT!

I’ve been considered a kind of enemy from various staff at the FSM National Department of Education, and possibly some staff at PREL, for my discussions on this topic in country. Supposedly this week is when we’ll finally have our national conference on the tests; if things go well, then hooray–but if I fail in my monomaniacal quest to fix this thing, then I’ll write more eloquently on here about it.

The gist of it all is that the guy who developed the system that the following countries use for their testing admitted that it was all wrong:

• Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
• American Samoa
• Republic of Palau
• Republic of the Marshall Islands
• Federated States of Micronesia

Well, he admitted to me a year ago that he knew the system was wrong, but his boss didn’t agree with him–so now the guy who made the ‘software’ (it’s an MS Excel script) is a freelance consultant. See, we record everything as a percent of benchmarks instead of a percent of students, and it’s a massive problem. It’s a problem, for one, because we don’t actually record the actual percentage of benchmarks correctly. It’s also a problem because every other agency looks at this information as a percent of students. It affects UNICEF, JEMCO, JICA, Peace Corps, World Teach, National DOE, each of the State DOEs, the Strategic Development Plan for the country and each state, and just…so much more. It affects budgets, data-based decisions of all kinds, and literally none of it is usable in its current form. It keeps me up at night.

In short, here are my concerns, which I’ve sent to NDOE and PREL (sans the 3,500 words and images to justify the arguments, which I’ll include in my blog as a separate post only if I am not successful in getting this problem fixed):

The above concerns omit much of the other problems. Again, should I be unsuccessful in my efforts to fix this problem on a national level, I’ll blog all about it. After all, if I can’t fix this nationally, all I can do is fix the Pohnpei State testing and reporting, which is good, but not nearly as nice as fixing a national problem–never mind the reporting for all these other countries and territories. (I’ve had some positive discussions with folks in the CNMI and American Samoa, who report that their major takeaway was to not listen to outsiders’ advice because it harms them).

Speaking of testing, the UN-related test, the PILNA, was recently handed out in the FSM. The Marshall Islands and Palau bothered to get student report cards, but I was informed during the meeting that the FSM will not get student report cards due to financial concerns. I am bothered by this on many levels. I would like to see the test and its reports in greater detail. For one, the PILNA is based on Vanuatu’s curriculum rather than the FSM’s; for two, the PILNA provides a potentially superior alternative to our own NMCT testing, and denying our students and faculties the ability to make their own educated opinions hurts their ability to make data-based decisions. As it stands, we lost a day of instruction to proctor this test, and I worry that the results will never trickle down or affect the schools themselves.

Regardless, I look forward to the PILNA reports.

The amount of genuine, systemic harm that occurs because of the fundamentally standardized testing system in the FSM hurts my heart on a daily, even hourly, basis. It’s all I think about. I want this to get fixed so badly. We’ve managed to do good on the Pohnpei State reporting procedures, with universal applause. Our next project is to look at the Pohnpei State SBA data from the last five years, and make the reporting there useful. After all, as a PCRV, I am officially working for Pohnpei State–not the FSM–so I may as well put my energies into, if nothing else, making sure that this islands’ work is effective.

As a brief addendum, I have enormous respect for Pohnpei DOE staff. The Curriculum Specialists, Curriculum Chief, Elementary Chief, my buddy Benjie in testing–they all work so hard, and try so hard, to make things better for their island. It’s really an honor to work with them.

Now let’s move on to suicide.

I started a Masters program with Staffordshire University on Transnational Organised Crime, in part because of my fascination with human trafficking in Micronesia, and in part because I’m convinced–but willing to be persuaded otherwise–that the most systemic harm is caused by individuals who receive little or no justice for their actions (e.g. Wall Street circa 2008). ISIS and terrorism is another interesting thing to study, in part because as much as I don’t want to be a bigot, it increasingly feels difficult to like Islam. I have two Muslim friends, at one point three; two of them are Turkish, and good dudes. One of them was an American woman, but after she tried to kill herself and I intervened, our friendship ended. As far as I know, though, she is alive.

Suicide is not a part of transnational organised crime, but its related to human trafficking in this region. Several of my former students, or people I knew in my village, have moved to Saipan, which may as well be where the Yakuza and Triads play golf and have sex with people who thought they were going to be working as a bartender or as a hostess. The ones who don’t leave end up at Kintaro Club on Pohnpei, or as an “uht” (banana) on the causeway.

I don’t remember if I’ve written on here about suicide before, but it’s an issue close to my heart. I’m still a little upset that Public Health never said anything about the anti-suicide pamphlet I made in English and Pohnpeian, but my friend Toney recently sent it to a friend of his working with Father Hezel on suicide, so maybe she’ll get use out of it.

Lots of suicides out here. 16 year old in first grade? I get it, I’d kill myself too. Tired of your father constantly impregnating you? I get that, too. Still don’t forgive a former student of mine for killing a boy from Sokehs in the water near my old home in Paliais, but everyone ended up calling that a suicide, too. But Jane-Ann: man, y’know, I just wish I could turn back time. Her dad cut her mom into “sashimi”, my friend Arsenio said, and later on he kept impregnating her. I used to see her sweeping every day. She was such a nice lady, with so much potential. I still see her dad all the time. We’re always nice to each other. I chat with him. How could I not? I see him every other day.

I think my biggest issue with suicide in Micronesia is that, not only does it happen all the time, but that it’s so taboo. The symptoms that cause suicide are never addressed, and cannot be, often due to cultural reasons that, at my best, I disagree with, and my worst, I need to be alone lest I damage my reputation with the islanders I legitimately love so much.

The thing is that feelings can’t be shared pretty much ever. I do my best to fight this. I always tell people how I feel, for example, and I freely compliment people on their work and what they do. But it frustrates me when I see the seeds and can’t stop them.

Jacqueeleen has a cousin; he’s 12 years old, and in 4th grade, skipping 3rd grade. That’s important, in part, because he’s still older than his fellow students, and also because 4th grade is when English is used as the language of instruction, of which he has no ability whatsoever. He drinks sakau, alcohol, chews betel nut, smokes cigarettes, and I can spot him when he gets his boners from looking at ladies–even his relatives, even Jacqueleen herself.

He’s not a bad kid, but he epitomizes what’s so wrong with so much of our systems here. Despite living near Public Health, he apparently never got any of its messages on a good diet, or avoiding drugs. His family doesn’t ask him about his feelings, about his day, about school or about his homework, but they feel free to indulge his habits. There’s something…awful? Scary? Wounding? Horrifying? about the eyes of a 12 year old, who sees you sip from the sakau cup, because he can’t wait for his turn, and he hates you because you’re foreign, and you know things, and you’re with his family, but he can’t speak with you, but there you are, his competition for the vices. I’m only there in the first place because I want to show the family my respect–if it were up to me, I’d drink all my sakau in a market, where only adults are allowed, and the whole process is democratic, and conversations can occur.

I’m afraid he’ll be like O’Neal, or Francis, or the other boys I’ve known here.

I’ve eaten dog, and it’s delicious, but I do it to show respect; I don’t seek it out–and I still treat every dog I see here with respect. I’ve been here for several years now, and I’m still not used to seeing people kick them like they’re nothing. The thing is, adults just yell “shy!”–it’s the kids, this kid, they’re the ones who kick them and hurt them.

One boy I knew, never taught him but I knew him, he dropped out–as 15% of students in my municipality do before reaching 8th grade, better than many places I’d guess–and so he worked the land for my family. Lots of alcohol, lots of women, lots of babies coming from babies. One day he stole one of my dogs and ate her, and I forgave it because by now that’s happened to about a dozen of my dogs. I guess it’s good they always have puppies. Anyway, this boy was upset when the woman he was cheating on also cheated on him, so he hung himself. Suicide being what it is, a proper tiahk-en-mehla didn’t occur, and the whole notion that the boy ever existed was dropped. Can’t mention his name, can’t talk about him in any way at all. Like he never existed. I’d write his name if I remembered what it was.

For someone like Jane-Ann, by contrast, who was a young woman with promise, it makes me even more upset. How does her relative, Nicole, a former student of mine now at a private high school–a future senator if she keeps it up, very bright young girl–deal with that? She can’t talk about her. Her uncle did this to her. But she has to be quiet about it forever. I can’t talk to her about it; I can’t help her, not directly.

I wish that, as a society, we could do something to address this problem, but I can’t do it alone even if I wanted to. I’m still waiting for Public Health to print my next children’s book, which they haven’t because…? I guess walking to the printer is hard work, especially when it’s literally hundreds of meters away.

Micronesia is a fascinating country with a fascinating culture and terrifically warm people. Yet, its problems are enormous, and combating the problems is difficult.

One of the reasons I remain resolved to help is because, for one, Pohnpei State makes it clear to me how much they appreciate my work. For two, I see the damage caused by those who either do a poor job, or leave. The principals of Kolonia, Ohmine, and Nett were very upset when a man 20,000 days my elder left them for spurious reasons. They feel abandoned, and justifiably so; now, his work has become mine, on top of everything else I do.

My next novel, which I’ve completed and hope to have published relatively soon, mostly discusses dinosaurs and science, with brief smatterings of the FSM thrown in. One of my Wolfram friends, John, remarked upon reading the first draft (and thank you so much for your words, sir–also a shout-out to my buddies Kevin and Jason for their commentary some months ago), that I seemed to demonstrate an admiration for folks with technical backgrounds and a hatred for individuals with non-technical backgrounds.

While I would like to believe I am an open-minded individual, I suspect that he’s right, not only with my fiction but with my everyday reality. Of the dozens of PhDs I knew at Wolfram, I respected them all; they’re smart, they work hard, and they do amazing things. Here, I’ve encountered, on a personal level, the work of about another dozen PhDs and two dozen with Masters, and with few exceptions (Dr. Hunt is an exception, for example), I’ve discovered that I indeed hold very little respect for them. They hurt people, and I don’t respect people who either benefit monetarily from the suffering of others or, just as bad, fail to provide the service they’ve promised.

There are probably a number of typographical errors in this word salad, but I’ve no desire at present to correct them. I can, however, promise you that I look forward to finding out if I can fix this national testing problem, and if not, how I can address the Pohnpei State testing system.