Omega

I had no idea what to expect before attending this class. With a title like “Cultivating Humanity,” I figured it would be more liberal arts nonsense like I have encountered in the Humanities. But title aside, I am grateful for what I was able to discuss and explore about myself and the people around me. The class widened my perspective significantly and made me aware of many issues of which I have long been ignorant.

For most of my life, I have taken my education for granted. Being in my little bubble blinded me to the realities of the educational system. I assumed every kid went to school every day as I did and received a decent education. Even before this class, I had not pondered all the implication of our education system. There were many things I had no clue about.

The biggest shock to me early on in the semester was the state of the education system in America. I knew issues such as segregation existed, but I did not realize how severely it affected the Northern states. Growing up and going to school, segregation was never an issue for me. Although I lived in a neighborhood composed mostly of blacks, the schools were far different. If anything, I wondered where all the black kids were. Outside of my household and community I rarely encountered situations where I was not part of the minority, even here in the South. The racial make-up of the schools I attended was usually about 15-18% minority population, mostly black. Funny enough, the “black schools,” as my people would say, were the ones with 15-20% black population. A school composed of 99% blacks like the ones Jonathan Kozol mentions was unthinkable.

I’m glad I got to attend a more “diverse” set of schools; I do not think attending a school with a bunch of black kids like me would have helped fostered my individual growth and view of the wider world. I got to experience black culture at home outside of school and white culture while at school. I learned the tongues of both groups and was able to adapt my language and mannerisms toward either group to suit the occasion or present company. I took AP courses and was not deprived of any opportunities given to white kids. In fact, I even developed what Beverly Tatum would call an oppositional identity.

When I read about the kids in Kozol’s book being denied these privileges and receiving significantly less funding than their white cohorts, it really opened my eyes. I mean, I knew it existed, but not to the extent talked about in the book. A part that really struck me is when Kozol quotes Professor Gary Orfield: “American public schools are now 12 years into the process of continuous resegregation. The desegregation of black students, which increased continuously from the 1950s the late 1980s, has now receded to levels not seen in three decades.” What? How can we lose progress? So it’s cool and all for black kids to drink from the same water fountains, ride the same buses, work the same jobs as their lighter counterparts, but to attend the same schools in harmony is unthinkable and being worked against? Like Kozol, I do not get it either.

Also concerning education, the idea of a lottery for decent education really shocked me. People spend millions of dollars annually on lotteries in order to win cash prizes, but another more serious lottery I did not know about also takes place: educational lotteries. Lotteries are fine because those interested can participate, contributing to the educational fund, and others can ignore it and save their money. But when the lottery principle is applied to public education, the situation changes. Suddenly parents are not playing the lottery for mere money but for the right to send their children to a school that will adequately prepare them for the future, for a real career, and for the various challenges of life. They gamble to send their children to schools with graduation rates of near 100%. Our students become mere numbers, and I realize I am fortunate I was able to enroll in a good school, an accelerated school even, without much trouble or application.

I see how fortunate the I Have a Dream Kids are too. They get a decent education (I assume), but then they have this great program after school as well. The dreamers get one-on-one tutoring, recreational activities, field trips, rewards, and other fun things I’m sure. There is no lottery and they get a free college education out of it in addition to all this stuff. Why can’t the rest of American be like this? I guess there are not enough people or money to make it happen.

I was again affected by the documentary Waiting For Superman as it examined the failing of America’s system, especially the use of these lotteries. Because of this flawed educational system, many other aspects of our nation fall behind, things like the economy and the environment. I learned The US falls behind many of the world’s first-world countries in math, reading, and graduation rate, but American students are the most confident in their skills. Thanks to the education system, students get pumped with a false sense of accomplishment without actually learning anything.

One of the biggest problems seems to be bad teachers, but because of the nearly impossible-to-revise system of tenure, these horrible educators are allowed to continue their misaligned craft. If a teacher performs acceptably in a public school for two years, they gain tenure, and from then on, firing them becomes next to impossible. Removed a tenured teacher is so difficult in fact, that only 1 in 2500 are ever removed, according to Waiting for Superman. After obtaining tenure, many of these waste-of-time-and-money teachers, knowing their jobs are secure for life, completely turn down the effort and stop effectively teaching, putting students at risk of learning nothing and proceeding to the next grade woefully unprepared. This cycle of pathetic teachers continues until fall so far behind academically, they have little choice but to drop out. Basically, these teachers collect a salary for doing little to nothing while students suffer.

Instead of so viciously attacking the education system itself, why has there been little effort made in reforming teacher licensure programs? Many tenured teachers appear to just give up teaching upon obtaining tenure, but what about those that simply do not know how to teach? The difficulties of a teaching career are not apparent to most educators when they first start, so I feel college education programs should be strengthened. If future teachers left their college programs better equipped and prepared to do real teaching work, the problems of tenure would lessen, and we would be one step closer to fixing what is wrong with the educational system in America.

In my teachers, I see another situation where I have been privileged. I remember having great teachers throughout every grade of school, teachers that have encouraged me and helped me achieve my fullest potential. The idea of a bad teacher even seemed foreign to me. The notion of the “lemon dance” mentioned in the documentary seemed absurd. How different would my life be if I never encountered teachers who challenged me or cared about what they do? My life would be significantly different right now and I would not be prepared to be here at this university. I find it discomforting that tens of thousands of students never aspire to their fullest because of awful teachers.

I’m glad the Dreamers have the opportunity to be pushed to their fullest as well. Not only do they get help with academic stuff, but they learn other useful things such as being respectful and disciplined. Disobedience is met with consequences, and the dreamers learn to behave themselves in a manner that will benefit them later in life. If they were to suffer from poor teachers, they would still have their personal tutoring and other enriching activities provided by the I Have a Dream Foundation. Again, I wonder why concerned Americans do not fund these types of programs more often for inner city youths. Organizations like IHAD benefit all involved from the donators to the tutors to the children.

The documentary paints the picture of a Superman flying in and taking charge. But I think we need more than that. It will take a large community of concerned individuals to truly help shape the educational system into something worthwhile. I have been fortunate in my educational endeavors, and after seeing how bad the system is for most students, I feel I want to do something to help rectify the situation. Tutoring the IHAD students has felt rewarding. I feel as if I have been helping fill in the gaps in their education from a lack of individual attention or whatever. I see my time with the kids having a direct impact on their intellectual development which has been reassuring to me of my own potential. At the beginning of the semester, I worried about how I would perform as a tutor since I feel middle school was so long ago. Although, I have felt clueless on some of the math I’ve helped with and encountered a few challenges along the way, I was reassured in my own abilities to sufficiently be a role model for the kids. I could feel they respected me and actually did look up to me, even when the right answers eluded me. I realized tutoring in this type of situation is about so much more than providing all the solutions to homework. Being an effective tutor involves mirroring proper discipline and attitude and well. Smiling and being friendly and respectful to the kids has proved far more significant than knowing how to calculate the volume of a cone. It hasn’t been about what I know but what I show.

All this has important implications on my faith in well. For a long time, to me the Christian faith was a set of doctrines and rules to follow. I perceived it as very legalistic and with severe eternal consequences for straying even momentarily. I hated it and tried to better myself by reading the Bible more and attending church more frequently, but I feel I never really had the capacity to keep it up or truly achieve the perfection demanded of me. I approached the I Have a Dream experience in a similar way. I wanted excellence in my tutoring practices and to have all the answers and felt ashamed when I did not how to do something.

Being involved with the Christian ministry Cru on campus has helped me see Christianity as less a religion and more a personal relationship with God. The implications of this have been huge for me. I have learned to simply have faith in God and love others without worrying about performance and outward actions like memorizing scripture or saying holy things all the time. As a result, I have naturally grown to be more gracious and loving as a result of becoming more intimate with God. The I Have a Dream experience has been a good reminder of this. Again, I stopped trying to have all the answers and just be honest with the kids, focusing more on developing a natural relationship with them.

While I’ve been grateful to have an excellent education, I do realize how much it resembles the banking method upon which Paulo Freire expounds. He speaks of us students as empty knowledgeless vessels waiting to be filled by our all-knowing professors. I suppose a large part of my education has been this way, but at the same time, I have experienced a lot of the flipside during my time at UNC Asheville. In this class especially, I feel the formula has been altered. We all have had the chance to present to the class, giving us the opportunity to take on the role of professor and share what we have learned. I love the discussions that have followed as well because they put us on equal ground, no one truly more knowledgeable or “filled” than another. Our class has upset Frieire’s notion in an appropriate way.

There are, however, aspects of my college career that I realize have highly resembling the “banking method.” The most disgusting and obvious example at UNC Asheville is the Humanities lecture. Hundreds of us students pile into an auditorium and attempt to pay attention for an hour while we are lectured to. The lecture material covers everything we read and discuss in class and seems entirely superfluous and redundant. Some of the lectures have been somewhat useful and entertaining, but I realize now how much they reinforce the banking method and fail to stimulate us as a normal classroom setting would.

Honors classes in general have been great in resisting the banking method. The small class sizes have a played a big part in this. In my honors humanities classes, I have felt my opinions really mattered since the professor has done more than lecture the entire class period. Instead of being empty vessels, we are ever growing in our knowledge and experience and are able to share our contents so that we benefit from each other rather than one professor. I learn significantly more in these types of discussion settings.

I feel like the typical library also fails to distill the notion of the banking method. Libraries have always seemed like dreary and dull places to me. They often encourage working in isolation with the inclusion of so many “quiet areas” and claustrophobic study spaces. I feel this reinforces the notion of the banking method in that, since we are all empty vessels, we are unable to learn from each other and are reduced to studying alone in silence. I know people collaborate all the time, and there are areas in place designed for such collaboration, but this seems an afterthought and not the primary means of study. I feel a more productive library would emphasize group study above all and provide tools and resources to help students effectively work together.

I like that the I Have a Dream Foundation does not reinforce the banking method either. When I tutor the kids one-on-one, although I am the authority figure in charge of helping them complete their homework, I do not dish out all the answers without giving the students a chance to provide input. I am not an omniscient being instilling knowledge upon an empty vessel; instead we collaborate to find the answers. The students have a voice, and I think that is key to resisting the banking method.

Going back beyond the education stuff, I think about the documentary we watched on the first day of class as I consider what my horizons are. For a while I’ve floundered around trying to pinpoint some specific career or educational path, but I realized my intentions are much simpler than that. I merely wish to engage in some avenue of life or area of work where I can build relationships with people and simply show them love. And truthfully, I can do that anywhere. No, I can’t end segregation in schools. I can’t ensure the rights of my fellow black people are protected every day. But if I can somehow somewhere alleviate the suffering caused by such things and make an impact in someone’s life through a ministry of love, that is where I want to be. Working with the IHAD kids seems like a great start, and I truly I hope I can make a positive impact in their lives. I prize above everything else in my life my relationship with God, and through this relationship alone do I have the capacity and the heart to spend my life showing love to others. I have learned to view my life from the perspective of the question, “If I am what is wrong with the world, how I can fix it?” So I start with myself, because if my intentions, heart, and motivations are not properly calibrated, that is, if they are steeped in hatred, vengeance, and prejudice, I will do no good. Therefore, I cultivate my heart for love and prepare to show the world the love I have experienced through a relationship with an omnipotent and infinitely loving God.

In reflecting on the issues we have covered this semester, I can’t help but see the inherent brokenness in the human race. We are too self-serving, too self-fulfilling to eliminate these racial and educational disparities for good. We are products of The Fall. Yet I blame no one for the failings of the world, because I do not believe that I am any better, that all my actions are truly for the benefit of the my fellow earthlings, and I will not act as if my life is devoted to ridding the world of pressing issues of social justice.

The class has made me more confident and sure in my post-college job decision. I am giving up a year of my life to devote myself to a greater cause, a cause I am more convinced in anything. I believe we all share a similar fate, an idea that manifested in this class as “cosmopolitanism,” the idea that we all fall under a single morality. Every time I see a human being going the same strugglers and the pain as me, I am reminded of my belief that beyond cosmopolitanism, we all fall under the share morality system of a loving and just omnipotent God. This semester, loving God for me has manifested as showing love to the students of the I Have A Dream Foundation. The whole experience has been great preparation for what I’ll be doing during my internship, loving people and telling them about God. We have talked so much human dignity throughout the duration of the course and I think there is no better way to respect someone’s dignity than by loving them regardless of how they treat you and what society thinks they deserve.