“My discourse is a discourse of tolerance. It’s a discourse that, because it is tolerant, defends unity in diversity. This means that it is no longer possible for us to be separated…just because it is in the interests of imperialism that we should be separated. We must overcome the power of the ruling classes who also don’t want to see us united, so that they can exploit us more effectively. We must go beyond differences in order to gain, create, and invent a unity that is necessary and indispensable. I would suggest to you that unity in diversity is something that is invented politically. It doesn’t exist as a spontaneous phenomenon. It exists only as a created phenomenon; it is invented and therefore a political act, an act of political decision, in which its leaders must turn it into a pedagogical object, by which I mean they should debate what unity in diversity means with groups representing the people whenever possible.” – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Commitment, p. 80
The seventeenth day of October signifies two important steps for me at this moment in my life. First, it is the two month anniversary of my wedding day – a step into adulthood that requires of a person a commitment and promise that transcends even the vaguest notion of self and/or ego. Secondly, it marks the year since I began my job as a real (real in this sense meaning PAID) teacher after about three years of tutoring, studying, and practicing beforehand. Since I started to teach in an official capacity, I’ve felt myself growing and responding with and in tandem with the world and people in a way that I would not have thought possible before I became a teacher. Not only have I had the opportunity to be surrounded by master educators and people dedicated to a craft, in a nation that does not have enough respect for it, but I have found myself encountering events and students that have fundamentally changed both my professional and spiritual vision.
The Illness
However, my first year of teaching has come at a time of disheveled public discourse and political ignominy. The election of a proto-fascist anti-intellectual that preyed off of the ignorance and ill-informed fears of people of various classes who are not easily swayed by the messages of Christian humility they so often affirm that they believe in has left us at a crossroads. The United States of America is, for not the first time, reaping the karma of its very grave sins and stupidity. While the majority of the electorate did not actually vote for Trump, it is telling that said majority is not actually a majority in any real way that corresponds to the objective definition.
Most of us stayed home.
We sat on our couches. We were shocked. We could not believe it.
We let it happen.
So what do you do to make sure it does not happen again?
The Diagnosis
A year into teaching and more than a year out of graduate school, I am more than ever aware of teaching as a science, one of precision and growth. While every teacher knows that a student is more than their standardized test scores and grade percentages, you need to know where students are in terms of their progress and growth. Insofar as students embody unawakened intellectual potential, they are also in a vulnerable place in the process of becoming who they are – exposed nerves within a system that is meant to educate them and raise them up, not ensconce them within a repetitive cycle of behavior. This is less the fault of their individual communities and an endemic aspect of post-industrial, commercial society. Our political process is the prime example of the post-modern melancholic feeling of helplessness that we have become accustomed to expect from our culture. As Paul Goodman recognized in his 1960 book Growing Up Absurd:
“These groups of ‘[disaffected youth] are not small, and they will grow larger. Certainly they are suffering. Demonstrably they are not getting enough out of our wealth and civilization. They are failing to assimilate much of the culture. As was predictable, most of the authorities and all of the public spokesmen explain it by saying there has been a failure of socialization. They say that the background conditions have interrupted socialization and must be improved. And, not enough effort has been made to guarantee belonging, there must be better bait or punishment. But perhaps there has not been a failure to communicate. Perhaps the social message has been communicated clearly to the [youth and it is] unacceptable.”
If this is true and for almost sixty years we have only judged our students by what they can do for society in order to “guarantee belonging,” then we have failed. This definition of personhood is less defined by sheer humanity and more by capitalistic measure. That we are only ever as good as the money we make and the work that we do. A message such as this is nihilistic – a denial of personhood. If I am not contributing or putting in my fair share, then clearly I am not working hard enough and am lazy. My panic attack is my own fault – why can’t I just get it together? If I committed a crime, then clearly I am the one that has done a disservice to society and not the other way around.
If this is what our young people think of themselves, then indeed Paul Goodman was right – American society has not failed to communicate it’s message.
The Cure
However, there is a different message. One that is a radical affirmation of personhood and being, of meaning that is inherent because it is meaningful to be alive and be me instead of what I contribute. As a teacher, I am here to help you find this meaning because I (and you, and you there, and you here) knows what it is like to feel directionless and lost. That you need to find your purpose, because believe it or not, you do have a purpose, and once you find it, then you will be more than what you contribute to the world and more than what you spend on the next stupid iPhone that is only moderately better than the previous one you had. If I am able to make you open your ears and eyes and turn pages and read articles, then you may realize there is a whole world out there for you to explore, and that once you have the knowledge you need to earn that diploma, then you can go out and be your own master no matter where you travel or decide to plant roots.
In times like these of disaffection and seeming defeat, those who are involved in education realize that it is not simply a science of precision and growth – education is about embodying a certain art of transformation. We teach subject matter and facts not to simply fill a quota, but to radically change ideas and attitudes people hold about themselves and the world. Change itself is slow and methodical, a process and not an event. The discussions we hold with students and the papers we assign them to write may not have the intended effect today or tomorrow, but the possibility always exists when the seed is planted. And that is what the type of change educators intend to bring about, that of possibility. The possibility to make the world a better place, to be a more involved member of a community, to share some kindness or idea that can spread like wildfire to inspire people.
We must realize that it is not our students who will fail us, but it is the attitude and disposition our society has left them with that has engendered failure. This is the great shame we collectively bear as a nation. We care more about what our students and potential generations embody in terms of their marketability and “brand power” (a phrase I will 110% punch someone in the face for if they ever use it in a conversation with me). In this way, the sheer act and practice of learning is a bulwark against the oppressive quality of our current societal discourse and the need to make our students feel they are only ever valuable in terms of what they are able to put in to society and then give back to it within the realm of their buying power.
The color of our skins does not matter – there is literally no biological basis for race. The places and experiences we grow up and have there may make us who we are and create a wall between us and the world if we let it, but in the end, we must recognize that we are all human, and as humans, we all share the quality of suffering. Look past the biases and trauma while recognizing it is important for educators to do because it not only affirms the individuality of our students, but also the truths they embody. For we all embody truth, a “divine spark” of some sort. We will have to do our best to create the appropriate conditions for students to realize this within themselves by being compassionate while also having high standards. To be stern while also kind. The job of being a teacher means helping students find a certain balance within themselves, a gift they may not have realized they had there all along. The only way this can be done is through change. Change will be slow, and it will not always seem victorious. But change for the better, that transformation of a student into an adult and hopefully a fully realized person will create one more vehicle for love and compassion in the world that was not there before.
That may be hard to see as a possibility right at this very moment, when events seem so dark and depressing. When you fight tooth and nail every day to get students to pick their heads up and give a shit in your class. You have to have hope though.
Teaching is the art of hope.
“I am not hopeful on a whim, but rather out of conditioning dictated by my human nature. It is not possible to live fully as a human being without hope. Hold on to hope.” – Paulo Freire
Zen Millennial 