I don’t pretend to be the most politically aware person in the world. Nor do I pretend that most of the time I’m not caught up in my own busy life. I know there is no way to be aware of everything that happens in the world, but if this morning has done anything, it has made me more aware of my own ignorance and hypocrisy.
As a pre-service teacher, soon to become certified, I have often talked to students about being critical and being aware of the world they live in beyond the walls of their homes and their schools. And yet, have I done this myself? No. I have been ignorant to many things that have been unchallenged for years. This hypocrisy is inexcusable.
The U.S. is often criticized for being self-centered and greedy. Perhaps that is how we have managed to maintain our “superpower” status. I’ve been out of the loop so long, I’m sure I have nowhere near the amount of information necessary to make that accusation. However, I have noticed the way in which many people in my own life (myself included), forget to be human.
I’m not one for making pledges and promises when I may not be able to keep them. However, my eyes are a little more open than they were yesterday.
Here is something I know for sure:
At their core, human beings are emotional, but in recent generations the expression of raw emotion has been frowned upon and deemed “uncivilized.” Due to this, people have forgotten the power and beauty in emotion. We have forgotten our consciences and our instincts.
However, we have not completely forgotten these emotions. No, we have only suppressed them or internalized them so that we are not embarrassed by them. Lately, I’ve come to believe a little embarrassment is good for the soul. I found this out yesterday in a rather surreal moment of my own life.
Let me explain.
I am currently a Graduate student, working toward a M. Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction to gain certification in Secondary English. I am in my final semester, during which I have to complete an Inquiry Research Project. Yesterday, I had the class that pairs with this project that is supposed to teach us how to research, collect data, and analyze that data. For the past three classes (which are each 2.5 hours long), our professor has spent (wasted, rather) our time by going so in depth into the concept of focus groups (introduction, mock focus group, and analysis of focus group data), which less than 10% of the class is using.
Note: PREVIOUS to these classes, the class banded together and formulated a list of our most pertinent needs and concerns regarding this class and wrote her a collective email expressing them. She never addressed our concerns. She merely shrugged them off by saying, “You have to trust me.”
Anyways, back to the point. This fateful day, I am sitting in class, on facebook because the first 40 minutes have all been explicit instruction on how to edit a table in Microsoft Word, which felt intellectually insulting as someone who has been using this program since Middle School. My colleagues in class were discussing on our class group the audacity of this woman to spend 40 minutes going over something that we could have taught ourselves in 5. I posted saying, “I feel like I should say something.” It only took two responses of “DO IT” for me to raise my hand, interrupt, and proceed to ask the professor if there was a simpler, more succinct way of going over this, because many of us were already familiar with the concept. I suggested that maybe it would be more prudent to hand out an example of what the correct formatting is and then differentiating by taking those who needed additional help aside in a small group and assisting them in the more elaborate instruction she had been giving.
Her response: I will be done in 5 or 10 more minutes.
The result: The director of our program, whom we had left out of the conversation out of respect for his position and the belief that she would work with us if we presented our concerns, was notified of the gravity of the situation by phone calls, email, and the like, from several people. Before the end of yesterday, appropriate action had been taken to ensure that our concerns were met and taken into account.
This is a prime example of change only being possible if one person starts to make it happen. Was it embarrassing for me to have to call out the teacher in the middle of her class on her poor teaching methods? IMMENSELY. Did it need to be done? ABSOLUTELY.
Any of my close friends will be the first to tell you that I avoid conflict at all costs. However, I pay a lot of money in tuition for this program and a waste of my time is a waste of not only my money, but my intellect and efforts as well. It was the final straw and I now feel better about what has happened as a result. It is fortuitous, I believe, that my group was scheduled with her as our teacher, because we are just outspoken and revolutionary enough to do something about it.
If nothing else, take from this that you need to stick up for yourself, even in the face of embarrassment. Your life will be much more worthwhile if you do. A note of caution though: make sure it is worth standing up for, and if it is at all possible, avoid burning bridges. You never know when that bridge might be useful in the future.
-M
No comments:
Post a Comment