“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”

I have been thinking about this post for a while.  It seems incredibly disingenuous to live the life I live and have the beliefs I have and to not write anything about what has happened in America over the last few months.  Although I haven’t talked about it a lot, the events in Ferguson and New York have broken my heart and caused me question many things.

As a teacher, I have very few rules or very little rigidity in my classroom.  I usually teach content that is timely, so I don’t teach the same thing year to year because I first want to understand what interests my students.  Before I decided to become a teacher, I was  working for a major corporation and I  thought I could handle teaching.  Content-wise I was correct.  I love my content.  However, the biggest learning obstacle for me was that I was teaching people so vastly different than myself- in so many ways.  I thought it was no big deal.  Just teach them the stuff, and everything would be okay.  I could be friendly and kind and everything else would work it out.  I was wrong.  

If anyone asked how I want to be remembered as a teacher, my biggest wish would be that if they remember me at all, they remember me as authentic or real.  I also believe in the deepest recesses of my teacher heart that I should not ever influence my students with my my political or social beliefs.  As an English teacher, and one who tends to find much value in connecting content with relevant social issues, this is a constant struggle.  However, my biggest goal is to give students a space where their voice is valued.  In order for that to be safe, I cannot let them feel like I have an answer I am looking for.  All this is to say that writing about these divisive, confusing, upsetting issues is testing the rule that I should not ever influence my student’s deeply held beliefs and thoughts, as I am aware that I have several students who claim to read my blog.  But, I also know that if I believe in each person having a voice, and each voice being valuable, that on an issue that has honestly kept me up at night, I need to comment.  Because one of the things that my life has taught me is that I value diversity, and that before I was a teacher I didn't really know what that meant, and I do now and I need to speak.

What has kept me up at night, other than the events themselves, is the fact that I can’t find a source where voices feel valued that are oppositional.  I see protests happening, and I see people ridiculing each other, but I don’t see anyone listening.  I can’t seem to figure out who is leading and who is listening.  Where are the people who say they feel differently, but are willing to hear the other side?  Instead, whenever a point is brought up by someone that is oppositional to one’s own, work is done-not to understand or empathize-but to belittle and discredit.  We have come to believe for some reason that the goals of diversity is to have a bunch of different people surrounding us, but that is wrong.  

The goal of diversity, the beauty of diversity, is to be made stronger by valuing voices that are not like our own.  I never really understood this until I was getting my English undergrad.  One of my favorite teachers was Dr. Collins.  She was one of the strongest, smartest people I had ever met.  I took every single class she taught.  I took a class on lynching and rape in the African-American community.  I took a class on Passing from the 18th century- present day, I took African-American literature.  I learned that there was so much I did not know, so much I never even considered because I had been believing I was “diverse” and I believed this because I was listening to people whose opinions were exactly like mine.  Thank you so much Dr. Collins for pushing me and questioning me--you truly changed my life.  

So now, as a teacher, I hope to do the same.  I try to provide students with access to a multitude of points of view, and I try to teach them to listen and to argue and to defend.  I try to teach them the difference between conceding and compromise and how both can have dignity.  The tragedy of Ferguson and New York is that no one is listening.  That people who protest get mocked and people who riot get held up as the example of what “those” people will do.  Please! You try begging to be heard for years and years and then watch as what you knew would happen, but secretly thought wouldn't happen-because this is America, and you are an American, happens. And then, watch as a few people riot and your legitimate concerns get brushed aside as the media chooses to focus on the rioters instead of the issues-I guess because tear-gas and car alarms and broken glass get ratings?!?

I value diversity because diversity has made me a better person-kinder, wiser, and more humble. I see students interacting with each other from all different backgrounds and points of view.  I watch them struggle at first to say anything, and then I watch them struggle to keep from mocking or screaming at each other, and then I watch them learn, for themselves, the value of someone who thinks differently, looks differently, or speaks differently.  I am praying every day that instead of trying so hard to get everyone to think like they do can find some way to learn how to value voices that are discordant with their own.  When we don’t value the fact that people can be good, genuine people who look differently that we do, or believe differently than we do, then we begin to fear--and in fear we justify violence and hatred.  

I am terrified to post this because I know there are people who do not see this issue as I do, and I fear them being angry with me or writing me off, maybe even hating me.  Instead, I hope that if you feel differently, we can talk, that I could listen to what you have to say, without trying to change your mind, that I could seek to understand where you are coming from.  I hope this week you will seek to read something or talk to someone that you normally would not.  That you will take the time to find value in opposition so that instead of being afraid of being wrong or different, you can revel in the uniqueness of America.