I’m on a mailing list with my university’s education department. One of the emails I received this morning was written by a person who had the following as their signature:
We could learn a lot from crayons.
Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull.
Some have weird names, and all are different colors,
but they all have to live in the same box.
My signatures that I rotate, on the other hand, are not as warm and fluffy:
Once you understand something about the history of a people, their heroes, their hardships and their sacrifices, it’s easier to struggle with them, to support their struggle. For a lot of people in this country, people who live in other places have no faces. And this is the way the u.s. government wants it to be. They figure that as long as the people have no faces and the country has no form, Amerikans will not protest when they send in the marines to wipe them out.
-Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography
and
Today I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.” I think that’s right, but it’s also only part of the story. I think that the judicial system is also what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. And the police. And what we are taught in school keeps the poor from murdering the rich. The stories we are taught at home from infancy are what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. The belief that it is acceptable to be rich is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. The desire to be like them keeps the poor from murdering the rich. None of this, of course, keeps the rich from murdering the poor.
- Derrick Jensen, The Culture of Make Believe
and
The most important piece of technology in any classroom is the second hand of the clock. The purpose is to teach millions of students the identical prayer: Please God, make it move faster.
- Derrick Jensen, Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution
Celebrating diversity in our classrooms is a great ideal, but what about the reality of student’s lives and the world(s) in which they exist? Can they see themselves reflected in the first quote? What, if any, empowerment do they glean from it?
I believe the folks we would address makes the difference. I will not be looking to teach in middle-to-upper-middle class districts and I fear messages of “can’t we all get along?” won’t be swallowed so easily. Conflict (be it race, class, or otherwise) is a constant for most students in so-called disadvantaged districts and we ought to give attention to this.
I am very much looking forward to my summer education courses.