From the 起点传媒Standing Committee on Global Citizenship聽
This post was written by 起点传媒member Michael Seward, a member of the 起点传媒Standing Committee on Global Citizenship.聽
鈥淚t takes strength to be gentle and kind.鈥�
鈥擬orrissey (the Smiths 鈥�,鈥� from)
As a committee member, a queer man, a longtime English teacher, and a white resident of north Minneapolis, I am wondering about strength. How will I find the strength to again enter the classroom to teach composition?
After more than thirty years of teaching, after over a year of a global pandemic with its attendant isolation and emergency online teaching and deeply inequitable devastation, after the horror of George Floyd鈥檚 murder, after the violence and rage that erupted across my city, after the vicious insurrection in the capitol, after the lengthy trial of Derek Chauvin with its excruciating videos and testimony, after the senseless shooting of Daunte Wright only miles from my home鈥攁fter all of this, I fear I might not have the strength to stand again in front of the students of Minneapolis College and act as if I have anything to teach them.
When I was growing up in rural Wisconsin in the 1980s, I was the only person I knew to be queer. And in that isolated state, I looked to Morrissey鈥檚 witty, vulnerable lyrics to understand not only that I was not alone, but that I might find ways to thrive . . . and to be strong. And the strength that Morrissey challenged me to embody was a particularly queer strength:聽a strength that was 鈥済entle and kind.鈥�
I have been trying to live up to that challenge for most of my teaching career.
But I have come to have profound doubts about the act of teaching English. Is it possible to teach English with kindness and gentleness?聽Whose English am I teaching? Whose standards am I enforcing?聽Who is the beneficiary of my teaching academic composition?聽What is the impact on my students鈥攎ost of whom come from marginalized groups鈥攐f my perpetuating on them (and in their minds) the language and structures of the system that might have already traumatized them? How can I promote system change, when the purpose of my teaching is to inculcate students into the system that has been judging, harming and marginalizing them all along?
The position statement of the CCCC, 鈥�,鈥� captures in stark and clear language the harmful nature of the ways that English has historically been taught.
I teach English in an institution that is designed around structures not intended to promote learning but rather its own perpetuation:聽the 16-week semester, the three-credit class, the letter grade鈥攚hat does any of this have to do with learning?
More importantly, how does trying to force a student鈥檚 learning experience into these structures risk damaging the student?聽The assigning of grades, in particular鈥攖he fitting of students into a preordained hierarchy鈥攕eems a sexist, racist, and classist act, an act of violation.
The community college owes its existence, in part, to the desire to open up academia鈥攖o provide access to the supposed benefits of higher learning to members of those groups who had historically been excluded from it. But did the creation of the many community colleges across the country do anything to alter the nature of the institution that was supposedly being opened?
My charge, as an English instructor at a community college, is to provide students from marginalized groups the opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of the standards that academia requires. Yet those very standards are intended as the mechanism that will be used to make determinations around who is included and who is excluded. So . . . my job is to include those the system intends to exclude?
After thirty years of teaching, I have come to wonder if my real job hasn鈥檛 been, all along, simply to provide an excuse to the oligarchy of the hyper-wealthy and to perpetuate the cruelty of blaming poverty on the poor:聽 The existence of the community college allows the system to claim that it has provided the poor and the marginalized the opportunity to succeed, so that when they 鈥渇ail鈥� (as many often do), their failure can be blamed on them:聽 鈥淲e gave you the chance; you 蹿补颈濒别诲!鈥�
I have become acutely aware of the demands of my students鈥� lives:聽 their children; their multiple jobs; their precarious housing situations; their mental health challenges (often related to the traumas of poverty, racism, sexism, violence, transphobia, mass incarceration, sexual assault, etc.); their transportation challenges; their health concerns . . . The list of the obstacles and barriers to their learning is long.
When these demands prevent, for some students, the demonstration of the mastery of learning outcomes, my job is to grade them accordingly:聽We wouldn鈥檛 want an unprepared student moving to the next level, would we?聽I have come to wonder how those of my students who face multiple challenges might fare in academia if they had access to the conditions of those for whom academia was designed:聽comfortable housing, adequate nutrition, access to child care and health care, effective transportation, time to think and focus solely on academic work, social support, and so on.
Over my thirty years of teaching, I have come to understand that I have been the one in need of an education. I needed to be educated on how education has been used鈥攇lobally鈥攁s a means not of growth and improvement but as a tool for exclusion and oppression. My students, often, have been those who have had to educate me鈥攁nd for their trouble, they got a grade; I got a paycheck.
I want to find the strength to face these students again. But I can no longer look to Morrissey. Like so many of the things I used to believe in, Morrissey, too, has let me down. (Here鈥檚 an.)
So I have looked elsewhere to learn ways of finding the strength I need to be gentle and kind. Bren茅 Brown鈥檚 has been beneficial. And I have found inspiration from another queer voice:聽Tennessee Williams. During the course of the pandemic and the unrest, I have returned again and again to his poem, 鈥�,鈥� for it captures both the pain and the strength of the past year. I have come to understand that mine is indeed a 鈥渂linded hand,鈥� and that 鈥渋n a city of fire when the earth is afire,鈥� the greatest source of strength might be my finding and grasping another 鈥渂linded hand鈥� . . . perhaps that of a student.
For over 30 years Michael Seward has been teaching a variety of subjects at various levels, from eighth grade to post-graduate. He has been involved in global education in a number of capacities (including two Fulbright teaching exchanges) and countries (including England, Germany, Slovakia, Costa Rica and Poland). Currently he teaches English and serves as an assessment coordinator at Minneapolis College.
The Standing Committee on Global Citizenship works to identify and address issues of broad concern to 起点传媒members interested in promoting global citizenship and connections across global contexts within the Council and within members鈥� teaching contexts.
It is the policy of 起点传媒in all publications, including the Literacy & 起点传媒blog, to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, the staff, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.