As I prepare to take another trip to Istanbul, I think it’s a good time to reminisce a little more about my experiences in that part of the world and type out my thoughts for future generations to ponder.

Turkey left an indelible impression on me when it comes to culinary appreciation.

Just last night, my high school friend Aeshna rekindled these memories when she posted a poignant article on her Facebook wall. I’ll draw your attention to the following excerpt, which she said was the most powerful for her among all the entries on the list:

"3. The three or four food items that - beyond just being the overall cuisine that you miss - had come to be your diet staples that you don't really know how to live without anymore."

I too can boil down the list of amazing dishes to three or four that were my staples. Foods that I wish I knew how to make. They are, in no particular order :

1) Ayvalık Tost

2) İskender Kebap

3) Simit

4) Menemen

I lucked out in the beverage department. Anyone who knows me can attest to my continuing love affair with the following two drinks:

1) Turkish tea

2) Uludağ Gazoz – the Turkish answer to Sprite, a battle which the latter has no chance of winning

My pantry and collection of soda cans will convince the rest of you that my passion remains as strong as it ever was when it comes to these.

Turkish Tea

Türk çay, as it is authentically known, is a stellar example of the triumph of simplicity. I wasn’t a tea-drinker before my first trip to Turkey in 2011, but as any tourist there knows, you can’t quite get around the block without spotting someone imbibing this delicious, heart-healthy drink.

There are numerous amazing brands to choose from here in the Occidental world. Here’s a gallery of my favorite Turkish teas. All are loose-leaf and can be found in any major Middle Eastern store or, better yet, Turkish market:

Don’t forget the sugar cubes! And not the hard ones, either (those are for Iranians only)…

Uludağ Gazoz (or just plainly “gazoz”)

Uludağ (pronounced ulu-da, the “ğ” is silent) is a famous mountain in Bursa, the city I came to love three summers ago. The minty drink that carries this mountain’s name happens to be my favorite carbonated beverage. 

When I relocated from Binghamton, NY (my parents’ hometown) to Madison, WI in March 2012 to begin working for Epic Systems, I was worried that my new hometown wouldn’t have any of the familiar trappings I had become used to in Binghamton. For any of you who know where Binghamton is, this might sound moronic, but let me explain. One of the best Turkish restaurants I have ever been to (in fact the place I came to just the day after I got home from Turkey) happens to be located in a city not too far from Binghamton. Appropriately named “The Turkish Restaurant,” this hidden gem is the only establishment of its kind within a good two hour drive.

As fate would have it, the same week I relocated to Madison, a few entrepreneurs had just set up shop 10 minutes from my new apartment. These were Turkish pioneers, recent arrivals from Chicago, with a mission to put Turkish food, Halal meat, and Middle Eastern/Desi groceries in the heart of Wisconsin’s capital.

My prayers had been answered.

My access to refreshing streams of gazoz would go uninterrupted for years to come. Not to mention that store – it’s expanded two-fold. I wish them only the very best.

Sweet Teeth

Pretty much everyone’s heard of Turkish delights, or lokum, as it’s known locally. They come in a wonderful assortment of flavors and colors. On the T1 line in Istanbul near the Grand Bazaar you can find numerous shops that sell some very high-quality product. I’m personally not a huge fan of these treats, but will acknowledge that you’re pretty much obligated to bring back a box for friends and family who couldn’t accompany you on a trip to Turkey.

Besides lokum, here’s a rundown of the other desserts that I consider must-try:

1) Pişmaniye – Turkish cotton candy, but not really

2) Künefe

3) Baklava (no explanation required)

For the Kid(s) [in all of us]:

Turkish chocolate companies rule the markets. Ever heard of Ülker? Everything they wrap and stamp with their seal is delicious. You might not want to have more than one of their signature creations at a time, but these guys can seriously give Willy Wonka a run for his money.

The Green Stuff:

No entry on Turkish food would be complete without mentioning the amazing variety of produce found in Turkish markets, each of which can be found prominently on any Turkish table. Turks pride themselves in preserving the natural tastes of their fruits and vegetables instead of muddling the flavors into curries or stews like those of other traditions (read: Desi).

Here are my top five Turkish fruits:

1) Apricots

2) Erik Meyve – not sure what these guys are called in English (maybe “green plum”), but absolutely delish

3) Apples

4) Figs

5) Tomatoes – yeah, they’re fruits

This here is a beautiful, delicious salad prepared by my mother-away-from-home, Mrs. Fariba, during our last luncheon in Istanbul this past summer:

When it comes to fruit juices, you must try the sour cherry (vişne) and peach (şeftali) varieties. They’re ubiquitous in the summer months. Might I suggest the Dimes brand?

What Others Have to Say:

I follow Olga Irez’s “Delicious Istanbul” blog pretty regularly.  She’s got an amazing eye for great food and provides excellent commentary on current happenings in the Turkish culinary space.

Just about every day there seems to be another debate clogging the air waves, with pundits and self-claimed experts critiquing, condoning, or commending various policy decisions, politicians, or policies. I don’t consider myself enough in-the-know to contribute my own two cents to most of these topics, but I can say I know a little something about one in particular: high school education.

In fact, I think every person who has graduated from a high school in this country should take note of the current controversy sweeping states across political, socioeconomic, and geographic lines. What in the world is going on?

The Common Core

One of President Obama’s biggest second-term initiatives is to reform American secondary education to put students in the best position for post-secondary success. In other words, he wants to institute a set of nationwide standards that ensure that regardless of where you live in this country, your school will offer the same kinds of classes and give you the same types of opportunities as students who live several time zones away.   All of this has been encapsulated in what is now known as the Common Core.

What’s All the Fuss About?

People don’t like being told what to do. That’s a no-brainer. A lot of people are upset that the Common Core Standards are actually dividing the union instead of bringing us together.

After all, who’s to say someone attending a well-off public high school in New England (ehem, me seven years ago) offering AP Calculus to juniors is better poised to succeed post-graduation compared to a student residing in a South Chicago neighborhood whose high school can’t teach beyond Algebra 2?

Yeah, that technically is a run-on sentence (I think). Good thing the Common Core counts English/Language Arts as one of its two flagship focus areas (the other being Math).

Anyway, to cut to the chase, the Common Core sums up its mission as follows: clear goals, confident, well-prepared students.

Regardless of which side of the tug-of-war you’re rooting for, everyone agrees that we’re putting students first. We can attempt to use algorithms to project the future success rate and job market competitiveness of today’s students all we want, but if fundamental pieces of the puzzle are missing, we’re just setting them up for failure.

Spiral of Knowledge:

My own philosophy on learning can be best presented in the form of a math equation (don’t worry, these are words, not variables, with some pre-algebraic principles sprinkled in):

Good teaching + good tools = Good learning

Good (teaching + tools) = (Good) learning

teaching + tools = learning

Here’s the hard part: Are we really doing a good enough job to attract the best and brightest minds to teach today’s youth? When it comes to tools, are we focusing on just those that are available in classrooms or are we taking communities as a whole into consideration?

Take a look at this diagram, known as Nonaka’s spiral of knowledge:

Delivering knowledge is much more complicated than presenting information and expecting students to acquire it passively. Teachers are tasked with the challenge of creating a bridge linking the explicit (easy to transmit, written/verbal, share-able) and tacit (innate, difficult to share) dimensions of knowledge. Experts continue to debate pros and cons of this knowledge dichotomy, but what I take away from the discussion is the fact that learning is multidimensional.

I’ve seen it as a teacher – the students who excel in their studies are the ones who take the information that is given to them and internalize it. The best students are the ones who not only internalize the information but apply it towards finding meaningful solutions.

It’s important to train teachers to understand different learning styles so they can accommodate a diverse student body. It also wouldn’t hurt to recruit those who have a natural talent in this skillset and encourage them to pursue teaching as a career.

As for tools, this goes beyond the material possessions that a particular student has access to. Instead, it’s about fostering a collective appreciation for learning and empowering students to incorporate learning into their daily lives. There is tremendous potential for technology to be able to achieve this as today’s students are more tech-savvy than any generation that preceded them. I think the following passage from a 1998 publication sums it up best:

…the more rich and tacit knowledge is, the more technology should be used to enable people to share that knowledge directly. (Davenport & Prusak, 1998: 96)

But, let’s not get carried away. Even though technology is a (very powerful) tool to facilitate learning, it cannot take the place of actual human interaction. From another 1998 publication:

Although IT is a wonderful facilitator of data and information transmission and distribution, it can never substitute for the rich interactivity, communication and learning that is inherent in dialogue. (Fahey & Prusak, 1998: 273)

It seems as if these researchers were peering into a crystal ball and predicting the future two decades ahead of their time. Did they know 2014 would be a world full of smart-phone carrying masses shunning face-to-face interaction?

Skills Acquisition:

Here’s the fun part. Why were we taught what we were taught in high school?

If you ask me and countless other students going through the current job market rat-race, most of the crap we learned back then have absolutely nothing to do with what we’re currently doing to earn our bread and butter. Sure, they could have gotten us a few accolades and rounds of applause, but did they provide us any long-term value? The answer, at least for me, is a resounding no.

It’s incredible how few “real-world” skills our current educational system arms us with. Here’s a brief rundown of some classes I would have loved to have exposure to at least once before entering the real-world:

• Introduction to Feeding Yourself
• Maintaining Four-Wheeled Vehicles
• How to Present Yourself Professionally
• Phone Etiquette 101
• Conflict Resolution for the Faint at Heart
• Building, Sustaining, and Growing a Network
• Making the Most of Your Time Off
• Money Management for Those Without Any

I’m not going to try to sugar coat it, folks – the real world is all about having transferable, marketable skills. If you leave college without any, good luck finding a job in today’s economy. There are many communities across the country that are doing away with courses that have been curricula mainstays for decades and replacing them with subjects that offer much more value to students. I applaud these pioneers.

And in case you’re wondering, some of this is actually corroborated by some of the world’s leading companies. Click here to read an analysis by a Google exec.

The Tables Have Turned

I am surprised that the Common Core standards don’t include, as far as I can tell, guidelines for expanding computer literacy. There could be funding concerns at play here, but I honestly think that teaching students how to take better advantage of the internet is a very powerful way to build an appreciation for knowledge and get them to actively participate in the learning process. One way that I have seen this play out in the case of language learning in particular is that students can often learn from each other if they are given access to a framework (read: environment) in which this form of collaboration is encouraged.

I also think school districts should dedicate more dollars to funding programs that encourage students to learn how to code and fast-track those that already show talent in this regard. Just as it’s part of our mission to recognize individuals who have an innate talent for teaching, it is equally important to identify and strengthen the skills that students already have a natural inclination for, especially in the tech space. Some schools have already jumped the gun.

Big Fish in a Gigantic Pond

The internationalization of education is something we’re up against, more so with technology leveling the playing field between what’s available in the United States versus what’s available overseas. The sad reality, however, is that when we compare apples to apples, American students just aren’t making the cut.

Here’s a screenshot from the Common Core video that draws an ideal illustration of what we’re trying to achieve in the global arena:

I’ve already rambled a bit on the  U.S. vs. China/India debate in a previous post about STEM, but when it comes to the Common Core, I don’t think we’re doing ourselves a favor by including the ‘Murica first mantra in our platform.

It’s a lot more important to me  that we bridge the harrowing gaps in educational attainability in this country first. I would much rather see a higher percentage of Americans graduating high school by 2030 than see the U.S. top the list of some international ranking of smartest high school students.

After all, isn’t that what the Common Core wants: clear goals, confident, well-prepared students?

I want students to use as many of their 12 years of schooling to develop an interest in a field (or fields) they truly admire and see themselves working long-term in. I want to make sure their mentors (teachers, coaches, administrators) have the tools and support to provide them exposure to the many real-world skills they need to have in their arsenal to secure a job in today’s cutthroat market. And I want society to instill an appreciation for lifelong learning and advancement in all students, regardless of where they study or what career they choose to pursue.

It’s a tall order, but I think if we realign our priorities to focus on what’s important, it’s something that we can look forward to achieving as a nation.