Life As Paradox

            Yesterday we had our concluding seminar for the Environment and Natural Resource Use unit.  As with all other Seminar 10s, this one urged the students to think about how they could affect change in the world.  This particular one was focused on how students could utilize their talents and interests to think of a project they could create to help resolve some issue facing the world.  They were encouraged to think systematically about the issue, recognizing the interconnectedness between issues in order to create a project that could maximize their and its potential: instead of just a school to foster literacy for example, it could be a school where literacy comes hand in hand with environmental awareness.  Only eleven of our seventeen total students showed up, as has more or less been the trend in the past weeks.  Although I wish that all students would be interested in this work, I’m not disappointed that they’re not coming; the ones that do show up seem to want to be there.  However, there is still an underlying tone of complaint and frustration regarding ‘having’ to come to seminar, or ‘having’ seminar period, among those that do show up.

Midway through the seminar, we put the students into groups and had them think about the project they might want to create.  It took them about five minutes to gather up in their groups outside, as if they were anchored to their seats, and someone had to drag them to work.  Once outside, a complaint was voiced: “How am I supposed to come up with a solution to these problems in ten minutes?”  Do your best, we responded.  Use your time productively.  Over the course of the next thirty minutes, I heard a lot of laughing, and a fair amount of conversation of things unrelated to the topic.  Upon our return to the classroom, when asked to share, three students spoke up.  When ideas were presented, there was laughter and lightness when addressing issues of poverty, underserved urban youth, and women’s empowerment. 

            By that point, the feeling had already begun to arise in me: what a drag it was for them to be in this foreign country and study these issues; what a miserable life.  The lightness with which the themes were spoken about tipped me over the edge.  I battled inside myself for the next ten minutes while listening to the students speak.  Do I share my feeling?  I knew that if I shared my feeling, it would elicit a negative response from the students.  They would feel attacked, and as they’ve shown throughout the rest of the year, they would deflect the criticism back to the giver.  Instead of using the comment as an opportunity for self-reflection and growth, they would close up and push back.  I would become the enemy once again.  How many days would the mean looks, ignoring, and audible-yet-under-the-breath negative remarks last this time?

            This is one internal struggle that I’ve faced this year as a teacher:  the risk of becoming the bad guy at the cost of encouraging or modeling positive internal growth.  With this particular group of students, I have had to face this struggle time and time again this year.  It’s been a hard lesson: being a teacher doesn’t always mean being friends with your students.  It’s even more difficult given that these students are my community; I have to travel around with them for seven and half months.  Given that, it’s nice to have friends from the student body.  It’s a lot harder when people are angry with you…

The second struggle I had during those ten minutes of presentation had to do with what I’m learning about being a good teacher: balancing paradox.  Part of our liberating pedagogy is about meeting the students where they are.  This means that if they’re not ready to be somewhere, mentally or emotionally, one can’t force them there.  Parker Palmer, in his book The Courage to Teach, speaks of paradox in pedagogical design.  He suggests that in the ideal classroom, the space should be “bounded and open”, and “hospitable and charged”.  How could I express my feelings to the students about the disrespect shown to all those people whom these issues affect while not making them close up?  How could I talk to the students about how privileged we are to travel the world, studying these issues from a safe enough distance where we can make light of these situations, while at the same time honoring that they’re just not there yet, not ready to take these issues seriously?

Paulo Freire and Ira Shor suggest in their book A Pedagogy for Liberation:

“The liberating educator can never manipulate the students and cannot leave the students alone, either.  The opposite of manipulation is not laissez-faire, not denying the teacher’s directive responsibility for education.  The liberating teacher does not manipulate and does not wash his or hands of the students. He or she assumes a directive role necessary for educating.” (516)

Balancing my mental/emotional health with the desire to lead the students.  Balancing the paradox of teaching: pushing students to grow while meeting them where they are.

In the end, I had to listen to my inner voice.  The feeling was strong enough in me to have some physical effect: I felt myself shaking, adrenaline beginning to pump inside me as if readying myself for battle.

The outcome was as predicted, but I didn’t stick around long enough to hear the backlash against me.

Palmer writes:

“Good education may leave students deeply dissatisfied, at least for a while.  I do not mean the dissatisfaction that comes from teachers who are inaudible, incoherent, or incompetent.  But students who have been well served by good teachers may walk away angry – angry that their prejudices have been challenged and their sense of self shaken.  That sort of dissatisfaction may be a sign that real education has happened.” (94)

In these times, the times I’m afraid to go back out and interact with the group, I have to trust the words of Palmer.  I have to trust that I’m providing good education, regardless of the consequences.  I need the support of others to help me overcome my self-doubt, the doubt that is at once critical to my growth and also debilitating to my confidence: another paradox in which I live, and must learn to balance. 

In our program leader training last August, we had the rest of the leaders and staff fill in the blank to the following statement during one practice seminar:  To be human is _________.   One of my fellow leaders responded with “to live in paradox”.  Never have I felt more in agreement.