I am writing this on Thanksgiving morning, as a personal reflection. I am provoked to write this by some positive comments offered to me by others, both on the diary I posted on daily kos and to some of the comments I posted on other diaries. People offered thanks to me, and/or complimented me for being a teacher, or for enlightening them. I was reminded of when I would say I was teacherken at yearlykos and the response I would get, sometimes from people who had never even posted a comment or made a recommend to anything I had written. For better or worse, people pay attention to what I write and say. And because of that I incur responsibility. So I thought I would reflect on the concept of responsibility and what it means to me.
Of course all of us are responsible for our actions and our words. Often we do not realize the impact upon others of what we say or do. I am not a parent, but I can remember the impact of the words and actions of my parents. I once heard my mother tell someone that my sister Judy was the creative one and I was the analytical one. At the time I was about 9 years old. That remark, actually made without ill intent, scarred me for years. I did not believe that I could do anything “creative.” It was not until my mid 20s that I began to realize that my creativity might not fit obvious molds. Oh, and I could write poetry, or music if I set my mind to it and was willing to take the risk of failure and work through the inevitable struggles of the creative process. Similarly, as a small child I was delighted by music. I actually taught myself to read music. I arranged for my own cello lessons at 6 without my mother’s knowledge. By the time I was 11 my parents told me that originally that had planned for me to have a newspaper route to learn responsibility (ah, there’s that word), but that my lessons on piano and cello would instead be my responsibility. At that moment the joy went out of music - it became a task. For years I struggled with my resentment at having it turned into a task and my still unflagging love of music. Words have consequences. Those of us either in position of authority over others are to whom others turn for guidance or insight must recognize that we are affectively always on stage - anything we say or do is noted by others, and may affect them in ways we do not anticipate.
I have since late 1995 been a fulltime school teacher, of secondary students. Many adolescents are in somewhat uncertain states, fragile, unsure of their self-identities, trying to find ways of carving out space for themselves while also wanting some element of security so they can feel safe in taking risks. They may be confused, trying on a different persona or a different set of attitudes. There are myriad possibilities of what is transpiring in the mind and soul of any adolescent. Teachers can crush or inspire. We have authority, we are sometimes even admired. What we say and do has consequences. We therefore have a responsibility to take care in how we act and speak, to be sure. We have an even more important responsibility, which is to listen, to observe, to not assume that we have full knowledge about the young people before us. A clumsy and ill-formed remark may represent an attempt to reach out, to make a human connection, to explore a new idea. At the same time as we must advance through the required material and maintain some semblance of social and academic order in our classrooms and our halls, we also must provide opportunity to explore the odd insight even it does not seem relevant to the topic at hand, because that might be the one moment during which a spark can be ignited in a mind previously unconnected to the topic on the mind of the student,
Many of us want to be recognized for our wisdom and our insight. But these are not absolute, even for those few who are truly wise and insightful, attributes which I would attach to myself only on occasion. For me the beginning of wisdom is the recognition of what I do not know or understand. A teacher who acknowledges either ignorance or error models something very important for students. I would hope adults in other positions of authority would also recognize this. It is somewhat refreshing to hear a politician say that he does not know or that she was wrong before. Unless we are willing to allow that for ourselves publicly and for those in positions of leadership and authority, we will inculcate a mindset that is fearful of mistakes and errors, and thus locked into conventional and previously accepted patterns of thinking even when these may be counterproductive to the needs of the moment. Unless we create freedom to err, and to learn from our mistakes and from our ignorance, we cannot grow, we cannot change. We thus have a responsibility, each of us as individuals, to be willing to admit error and ignorance, and thus empower others to similarly be willing to acknowledge their all too human fallibilities and limitations.
But our responsibilities do not end with this. If we do not know, we often also have a responsibility to attempt to learn, to understand, to be able to do that of which we have no admitted our ignorance. We cannot know all or do all, and we have a responsibility to acknowledge that, although such acknowledgment does not free us from the obligation to attempt things that may seem intimidating, to take the risks inherent in attempting to grow, that we may err, we may yet again be wrong.
One who engages in public argumentation, as is true of many of us who post on public fora such as dailykos, will be strongly tempted to rely on rhetorical devices to make our points. It will be tempting to demean the arguments of others. And insofar as those arguments are specious or venal or self-serving, there may be some justification for responding in a demeaning fashion. I would argue that it is far to easy to justify such actions, and that we tend to do so far more often than is warranted. And in the process our rhetoric exceeds appropriate bounds when we demean not only the argument but also the arguer. I do not believe that we convince people by demeaning them or seeking to destroy them. If anything, we create more resentment, a greater determination to find any way to resist our arguments, to undercut us as persons for what we have done to them. As a teacher I know that I may by the powers I have over the adolescents in my care be able to compel them to certain behaviors, but if that is all I ever do - seek to compel - I will get surface acquiescence, breed resentment, and motivate those adolescents to seek out ways to undercut me, to prove me a hypocrite, to resist. This is a human reaction. Perhaps if you doubt what I am saying, think about how much of the antagonism and violence directed towards Americans in Iraq can be attributed to how we have demeaned and belittled a proud people by how we have treated them.
Dailykos has become an important site for many people, for many reasons. We are honored by the political leaders, current and aspiring, who choose to come here to interact with us. If we wish our voices to matter to them, do we not have a responsibility to start with open minds, be willing to listen, to dialog, and not to immediately disparage and attack? Here I am reminded of many incidents, two fairly recent. Much of the beginning when Sen. and Mrs. Edwards came to post here was consumed by comments that I found far from productive. I am not attempting to censor - I have no authority to do so. It is not my site, I am not and probably never will be a Front Pager with that kind of authority. But I am a highly visible member of this community and i was embarrassed by what I saw. Similarly,in the diary I posted to inform the community about Tom Vilsack there were a few (not as many as on the Edwards thread) comments that I found unwilling to listen, ready to totally dismiss and bash merely because either he was head of DLC or he took a trip to Israel funded by AIPAC. That seems to me at least somewhat irresponsible.
Here I accept responsibility of my own. I acknowledge that I have at times been prone to similar behavior. Originally I was unwilling to support or vote for John Kerry after he had obtained the nomination. I found the tactics on his behalf in Iowa was despicable, and on the issue that has been so important to me, education, the positions he had espoused were to my mind unacceptable. I did note that if Kerry needed my vote to win Virginia to get elected president he was going to continue to sit in the Senate. In that sense my pique was a free shot. But it also was probably not responsible - people for better or worse listen to what I have to say, and my words might be used by others whose votes or actions could make a difference to sit out the election.
These choices are not always easy. I have acknowledged that I have made mistakes in what I write, in what I say. I have never had a class of students which has not heard me apologize multiple times - for errors of fact, of interpretation, for how I have acted towards them. We will make mistakes. We have a responsibility to acknowledge them, to make amends where possible. Also, above I advocate an environment of taking risks, of exploring possibilities. One cannot do so without making errors, so we must be open to that possibility, on our part and on the part of others. Thus it may be appropriate to challenge the words or actions of others because we believe them to be factually wrong, errors of interpretation, or inappropriate in their attitude towards others. We may have a responsibility to raise such challenges. We have an equal responsibility to acknowledge that it may be our perception, our challenge which is in fact in error. And even should our perception and challenge be entirely appropriate and warranted, we have a responsibility to allow the person we challenge a graceful way of acknowledging their mistake. If we do not provide that, then we are effectively denying the space necessary for experimentation, for risk taking, for growth.
I apologize in advance to anyone who may feel I am directing this at them specifically. I am not. I begin by applying all I have written to the words and actions of teacherken, aka Kenneth Bernstein. Whether in what I post here, or in what I communicate in other ways, in how I act, I far too often speak and act in ways that upon proper reflection I wish I had not. I also sometimes attempt to speak or write with a confidence in my own understanding and knowledge that is not warranted. I am insecure, and shy, and sometimes overcompensate by speaking and writing in a forceful fashion.
I am also very passionate, and deeply caring, and these lead me to speak and write with passion, which is good, but not a universal justification for the wrongs I may commit while so speaking or acting. Be passionate, be committed, be willing to take risks, but my suggestion, at least to myself and perhaps to anyone who may care, is to accept both our own humanity and that of others - a humanity which consists in the freedom to make errors, and the possibility of a generosity of soul that can also forgive - ourselves as well as others.
I have written this before Noon on Thanksgiving Day. Because I have already posted a diary today, and because the topic for most diaries on this day are connected with the Holiday, you will not be reading it until Black Friday, as it is known in the retail sector of the economy. I don’t know if what I have written is of value to anyone. It was important, even if self-indulgent, for me to write it. I know that as a teacher I must model for my students that to which I challenge them to aspire. It seems to me that because I am somewhat visible in this community I have a similar responsibility here. Hence this diary.
Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend.