By air, car, and train, I spent most of the month of August on the road, giving workshops and talks in Oklahoma, Georgia, Texas, Illinois, and Michigan to over 1,000 people, most faculty and academic leaders at 2- and 4-year colleges in very urban and very rural areas. At every school, there were instructors and instructional leaders who wanted to create learning environments in which all students can learn and thrive and they were open to learning and professional growth. Based on various aspects of their identities, their academic backgrounds, their life experiences, their exposure to diverse students (or not), these colleagues had various levels of knowledgeable about the things that rob bandwidth from students so they don’t have access to all their cognitive capacity. The critical thing, though, is that most of the people I met wanted to be engaged in solutions. That’s the start of change.
For most of us, change is hard and enlightenment can be painful. Some of us have to learn how much we don’t know, like a man who, after an exercise about childhood trauma said, “I was clueless.” Especially for highly-educated people, realizing that we’re clueless is jarring, but it’s the necessary beginning for transformational learning and resultant behavior change. Others of us know from experience the trauma that comes with a childhood of poverty, violence, and uncertainty. Some of us have lived with the negative effects of racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, and other “differentisms” that have stolen our bandwidth over a lifetime. And focusing on those areas of pain, especially in a room full of colleagues, can feel awful. Still, I find that most people want to bring their full selves to the task of figuring out how to be better teachers and learners, even when it makes them very vulnerable.
If you pay attention to the news - and who can help it if you work on the internet - it’s easy to think that all news is bad news and that most people are troubled, violent, and greedy. The reality is that for every bad thing reported by the media, there are thousands of everyday kindnesses and bits of generosity that go mostly unnoticed. In my travels, I encountered people who were helpful, caring, gracious, and patient. In Chicago, some men jumped my car for me when my battery was dead. In Georgia, I was accidentally dropped off at the wrong hotel and the clerk found out where I had a reservation and gave me directions to get there. In Texas, my son, daughter-in-law, and baby granddaughter unexpectedly showed up at my workshop and were immediately embraced by my new colleagues there, just as if they were part of their families. When a staff person had car trouble, a provost dropped what he was doing to fetch me at the airport. People on campuses treated me with kindness and respect, even when the semester was about to start amid continued pandemic-affected uncertainty.
What I want to say is this…At a time when I’ve been feeling the least hopeful about the future of our country and the world, my travels in the heart of the US helped restore my faith in humankind. We have so much work to do to help create a world for our children, from infants to college students, in which they can flourish as individuals and as part of a society that still believes that education is a common good. I am so grateful for all educators who work tirelessly everyday to make it happen and for the people in our cities and communities who give us their support.
Best wishes for a growthful and peaceful school year for all of us.