on education(al paradoxes)

education is the only medium through which I can connect with this country. It is also the medium through which I can, in some ways, fight this country. That's a big topic. And in that paradox is a sense of impotence, a sense of humility, a recognition of how tiny what I do is, and how it is so little in the face of something so unwieldy. I teach in an independent school, for one thing. Instead of teaching kids to value themselves elsewhere, I try to teach kids who have the privilege of never devaluing themselves some compassion so they can be global citizens instead of selfishly powerful. I think there is a healthy way of being selfish, the generous selfishness with the ultimate goal of altruism, or doing something for community, for social equity and justice. There is also the "it all ends with my own happiness" school of selfishness. Sometimes I wonder if I delude myself into thinking I am generous in my choices. Some days I wonder if in leaving home and family behind I actually took the easy way out. There are days I can't tell what I am doing here when it is clear to me that I will never fully belong here.

There are days I wished I stayed in a neighborhood like Holyoke, Massachusetts to work with the inner city youth. There are days I wished I stayed in a neighborhood like East Palo Alto to work with kids who live in trailers and stay at school until they get kicked out because they know they'll get into trouble if they go home. And then there are days I know so many doors would close in my face because of the public school bureaucracy when I tried to teach kids to like themselves, to respect themselves, when I showed them I like and respect myself (the teacher I worked with in East Palo Alto got fired for doing exactly that). I want to reach all these barrios and ghettos and reservations and the self-confined wealthy neighborhoods at once. I want us all to ask for more than mere survival.

A bright student of mine pointed out in our dicussion of Alexie's stories last term that survival is the bare minimum, not the ultimate goal. I don't think she was being naive or disrespectful; I think she genuinely acknowledged the success in surviving. Her caution was against being satisfied with survival alone, against not demanding what is right for everyone to demand.

I talked with Sherman Alexie once. I told him my students wanted to know where the hope was amidst the portrayal of the hardships of reservation life, which confirmed a lot of stereotypes and made them uneasy. I told him I had my own answer, and I wanted to hear his. He said they are not mere stereotypes; they are the realities. He said the hope is in his writing these stories. "That's what I thought," I told him. So once again I go back to the hope being in the creative process. And once again I go back to the mural - I saw the hope in the hands of the man, and I have to believe in that hope. If I don't believe that the artist's perception of hope and the artist's expression of that hope through art are credible, what would remain? What would be the goal of my educating people?