TED2007
Jok Church: A circle of caring
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Did you ever have a teacher who cared for you when no one else did? Jok Church tells a short, moving story of the teacher who sheltered him as a young gay teen and helped him grow -- and how, many years later, he and his partner had the privilege of returning the favor.
Jok Church - Cartoonist
Jok Church created the science-education comic strip "You Can with Beakman and Jax" and the zany TV series "Beakman's World." Full bio
Jok Church created the science-education comic strip "You Can with Beakman and Jax" and the zany TV series "Beakman's World." Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
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You know, what I do is write for children,
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and I'm probably America's
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most widely read children's author, in fact.
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And I always tell people
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that I don't want to show up looking like a scientist.
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You can have me as a farmer, or in leathers,
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and no one has ever chose farmer.
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I'm here today to talk to you
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about circles and epiphanies.
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And you know, an epiphany
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is usually something you find that you dropped someplace.
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You've just got to go around the block
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to see it as an epiphany.
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That's a painting of a circle.
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A friend of mine did that -- Richard Bollingbroke.
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It's the kind of complicated circle
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that I'm going to tell you about.
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My circle began back in the '60s
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in high school in Stow, Ohio
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where I was the class queer.
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I was the guy beaten up bloody
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every week in the boys' room,
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until one teacher saved my life.
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She saved my life by letting me go to the bathroom
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in the teachers' lounge.
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She did it in secret.
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She did it for three years.
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And I had to get out of town.
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I had a thumb, I had 85 dollars,
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and I ended up in San Francisco, California --
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met a lover --
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and back in the '80s, found it necessary
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to begin work on AIDS organizations.
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About three or four years ago,
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I got a phone call in the middle of the night
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from that teacher, Mrs. Posten,
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who said, "I need to see you.
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I'm disappointed
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that we never got to know each other as adults.
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Could you please come to Ohio,
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and please bring that man
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that I know you have found by now.
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And I should mention
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that I have pancreatic cancer,
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and I'd like you to please
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be quick about this."
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Well, the next day we were in Cleveland.
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We took a look at her, we laughed, we cried,
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and we knew that she needed to be in a hospice.
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We found her one, we got her there,
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and we took care of her
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and watched over her family,
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because it was necessary.
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It's something we knew how to do.
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And just as the woman who wanted to know me as an adult
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got to know me,
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she turned into a box of ashes
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and was placed in my hands.
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And what had happened
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was the circle had closed,
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it had become a circle --
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and that epiphany I talked about
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presented itself.
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The epiphany is
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that death is a part of life.
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She saved my life;
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I and my partner saved hers.
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And you know, that part of life needs everything
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that the rest of life does.
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It needs truth and beauty,
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and I'm so happy it's been mentioned so much here today.
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It also needs --
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it needs dignity,
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love and pleasure,
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and it's our job to hand those things out.
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Thank you.
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03:23
(Applause)
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jok Church - CartoonistJok Church created the science-education comic strip "You Can with Beakman and Jax" and the zany TV series "Beakman's World."
Why you should listen
In his work, Jok Church loved helping kids learn basic concepts of science and experimentation -- with a healthy dash of fun. He created his comic strip You Can with Beakman & Jax in 1991 for his local newspaper in Marin County, California -- inspired by a stint answering kids' letters for Lucasfilm. The comic strip does not answer readers' questions directly. Rather, it gives directions to do a thing, a procedure, an experiment to learn the answer. It's about learning by doing. Active. Not passive.
Six Beakman & Jax books are best-sellers. Church created the long-running TV series Beakman's World, a hit in English and Spanish, and helped create the Beakman's World on Tour exhibit for science centers and museums. A longtime techie, he also served as the webmaster for artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Church died April 29, 2016, and will be much missed.
Jok Church | Speaker | TED.com