Be the Change.

First Name:

Patrick

Last Name:

Ip

Hometown:

Modesto, CA

School/Organization Name:

University of Chicago/ReThinkLearningNow

Job Title:

National College Director

City:

Chicago

State:

Illinois

My Story:

I cannot tell you a story of how I saved children from a burning building, or how I found a cure to a disease. But, I can tell you this. I can tell you the story of my life, and how despite hardships of living under a world branded by sterotypes, I managed to create a new definition away from my culture. I was an Asian Born Chinese. In Hong Kong, we are labled as “A.B.C’s” or American Born Chinese. But despite this label, the Asian community shares one thing. A war of education. The first few images that pops into my head is where you have the steroptypical asian mother yelling at their son or daughter for not getting all straight A+’s. But luckily for me, I was the introverted obedient child of a family’s that was extremely competitive. You could come to a dinner among family, and the parents would be bickering about how each child was better than the other. We were used as bargaining chips. And because of this massive pressure, I attended Kumon at an early age, studied all the time, and knew nothing more than to study and stay home. Going out with friends was a rarity for me, thus fully outliving my “ABC” sterotype. I was not born gifted, did not have supernatural talents in any subject. But, I worked hard. I learned early on, to be good was to work hard. That was my definition of success. However, if you ask anyone today that knows me even a little bit. And they would know that my definition of success has changed. That is because I’ve broken away from a culture that told me that success was being safe by going into careers such as being a doctor or a lawyer. I’ve broken away from a culture that measured success with the money in your wallet, but instead created a culture that defined success as being able to do something. Something’s a broad word, but in today’s ever growing population and economy, doing something is a lot better than doing nothing. Because I now have the power to make a difference in this world. In today’s broken society filled with a decreasing middle class, a richer high class, and a inefficient government to make things better. I want to let people know that there can be a better tomorrow, but it has to start today. Because no matter where we’ve come from, or what’ve we did. We all share one thing in common, human life. We should all be celebrating humanity, rather than bickering over our differences. Culture should not be a word that we associate with differences, but instead culture should be seen as a way to unite as all together. We can all laugh, love, and cry. This world is not divided by countries, borderlines, or a difference in ideals. Because we are all live in one world, with one dream.

My Ideal School is a Place Where:

Educators needs to look beyond standardized testing and ask themselves; "How are you, the educator, where you are today?" Odds are the answer will not be that they were inspired by a textbook, but by a pier, teacher, or administrator. School's are not about test, school's are about relationships. Because it is those relationships that make us strong.

My Religious Views:

Catholic

My Political Views:

Liberal

My Personal Heroes:

Barack Obama, Hugo Ramos

Recommended Reading:

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
How Starbucks Saved My Life by Michael Gates Gill

Recommended Web sites:

www.rethinklearningnow.com
www.projectyeswecan.com

Quotable:

"Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful."
-John Wooden

"I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington...I'm asking you to believe in yours."
-Barack Obama

"There's no such thing as failure. You either win, or you quit."
-Anonymous

"I've learned to never underestimate the power of a little self-confidence. Even if it's fake, acting like you know what you're doing is usually better than surrendering to inability. If you can sound like you know what you're talking about, you're money, baby."
-- Ryan Hunter Dickerson

"There is nothing naive about your impulse to change the world." - Barack Obama

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." - Thomas Paine

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." - Thomas Jefferson

"A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" - Bobby Kennedy

"Whether you think you can,
or you think you can't,
you're right." - Henry Ford

"do
one
thing
every
day
that
scares
you."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

"It is only by working with an energy which is almost superhuman and which looks to uninterested spectators like insanity that we can accomplish anything worth the achievement."
- Woodrow Wilson

"It is time to ask the American people to be patriotic about something other than war."
- John R. Edwards

"The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us"
-Theodore Roosevelt

"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy."
— Theodore Roosevelt

"There is a fundamental problem when you put people who don't believe government can ever do anything right in charge of government... they never do anything right!" - Barak Wouk, on conservative ideology.

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Ralph Waldo Emerson