My last post was received as a bit abstract (due to the fact it was intentionally abstract.) The nature of my writing comes from a tradition of allowing the reader to be co-creators of the content being read. That is to say, the abstractions require the reader to commit to meaning making- thus making their experience "tailor-made" to their needs; to where they are on the path of life. That being said...here is my less abstract coda to the last post.
I educate because I am answering a call to be of use.
For whom? - I educate so that those who have been lead to believe they are voiceless and powerless against the material, psychic, and spiritual conditions they find themselves in begin to realize they can become more fully human by collectively asserting their agency in our world. In other words, I work for the power of people trumping the power of profit. (I am also for the 1988 World Series Champion Dodgers and Single payer healthcare.)
Against whom? - (other than the producers of The Suite Life of Zach and Cody) Well, the list is long and sometimes includes myself, but ultimately, I am against those who support White, Dominionist, homophobic, patriarchy and neoclassical economic theory. Nor am I fond of the makers of my 1998 Cavalier at the moment (damn alternator).
For what? - For people to realize the secret to life is made up of three directives. 1. Love 2. Be loved (realize you are worth loving) and 3. Each and every moment of your life, seek to become something more than you were before.
Against what?- (other than ANYONE rhyming the word "Umbrella" in a song) My enemies include ignorance, injustice, and those (at times, including myself) who objectify their fellow beings; those who would thoughtlessly and irreverently turn the miracle of life on earth into an object to be used like a simple tool.
These little bits, of course, to not fully express my answers to these questions. But the ways I answer them says something about my values and the way I perceive reality. They are not who I am, but they are symbols of how I feel at the moment I type them into my computer. My writing is only one of many ways people can gain insight into who I am. Perhaps people see reflections of themselves, or their evil twin. Maybe they see a Dali painting. Maybe they see dogs playing poker. Again, their interpretation of my symbolic sharing of symbols says something about them (it symbolically says something!)
I believe we can, more-or-less "map" our reality and where we fit within it. Now, I do not believe any of us can see exactly where we are clearly, nor can we accurately map any others. But we CAN approximate these things. Can we, beyond a shadow of a doubt, objectively map our position? No, that would be impossible. Can we subjectively do this, according to the time, place, and mental state we find ourselves in at any given moment? More-or-less...yes. But can we contemplate this map, getting lost along the way, but becoming something more in the process of this intense level of reflection? Of course. This, to me, is the essence of what all spiritual traditions ask us to do...to reflect on who we are, the nature of the universe, and our place within it.
In the classroom, this means that I am open with my learners about who I am and what I think. I admit when I mess up, and I let them know my agenda- to remove the unearned privileges I earned via the cosmic crap shoot of my birth and the unearned disprivileges bestowed to the majority of my learners via the cosmic placement of their births. It means looking deeply and taking seriously the perceptions of our reality they bring with them into the classroom. It is so easy to dismiss a young learner (adolescent) when they come in, crying that their boy/girl friend dumped them. I know they'll recover, but it's the first time they experienced what they perceive as love. That act can easily become an object of curiosity for the class AND THEN transformed into talking about the content I was planning to teach anyway. (It was a unit on economic globalism. I compared the young learner's perception of what felt like love into the perception of caring given to impoverished countries when given "loans" from the IMF and World Bank.)
In short, if we are honest about who we are as teachers, and are creative enough, we can turn our children's lives into a lens through which they can better see the world. After all, you cannot transform a bad situation until you wipe the tears and gunk from your eyes. As my grandfather told me when I fell out of a tree, "Mijo, when something bad happens, you have 2 choices. You can laugh and learn...OR you can cry. And when you choose to have tears in your eyes, you go through life blind to the task that's in front of you. Then you have something to cry about."