Something else

I read the first five pages of Savage Inequalities and then stopped in the middle of a sentence and started writing furiously. Sharp imagery and good writing do that to me. At first I was going to e-mail it to Dr. M- maybe I still will- (is it okay to post his name on the blog?), but then I changed the last sentence, and posted it here, where everyone will see it because, umm, that's better. Forgive the drama/style/etc. It's rough. It was a spew of thoughts but I'd rather risk exposing some maybe improper thoughts than keep everything I ever write in a file on my computer to grow mold.

An issue that we don’t seem ever to address is “Why segregation”? Why, if it is (biologically) just a skin color, is there so much separation, even and especially self-segregation? Why do black students sit with black students, whites with whites (though this issue has been written about). Identity? Belonging? Insecurity? Why are people not simply unique things that connect to each other in different ways for different reasons? What are we afraid of?
For one, it’s not just a color, it’s a culture- but its exclusivity is blind and limiting. Also, it likely has to do with being who are, accepting who are, and looking into someone else. Exemplified by the way we wear the same clothes over and over, or buy the same style, or travel the same roads, our instinct is to stay comfortable. True desegregation is a truly personal, emotional issue, and a truly personal social issue. We’ve been looking at the big picture. We need to look at how people relate to each other- and it’s not just a race issue. Just as in the classroom we need to look at each student, segregation is not an issue that can be solved in the courthouse or the legislature- no more than teaching each student can be thoroughly achieved by state government alone. It is a problem that must be solved in our hearts and minds.
That further raises the question- can we force people to integrate? Can one person force another to look outside of their comfortable existence? Similarly, can a person or group force another to take the necessary actions to come out of poverty (-if in fact such steps exist for a particular situation)? The matter seems to be not so much one of harsh persuasion, but of encouragement and vision. Perhaps it is even an issue of love. It is difficult to encourage a large group of people, or even a small group that is safe and secure with their perspective-even if that perspective does not lend itself to the highest possible quality of life-to look at their situation and their options in a different way. One person, however, can sometimes help another to see something they did not see before the interaction. In this sense, perhaps integration- and the potential joys that might be reaped from unexplored relationships as well as from escape from poverty- is a matter of inspiration. These are by no means easy matters. Inspiration can be such an unsteady, elusive thing, especially in tight situations.
People do, of course, change and leave poverty and segregated lifestyles, but they also leave their geographic roots, abandoning the Delta- or elsewhere- for a place that offers more encouragement for inspired thought.
Everybody starts off with something- some perspective, some limitations- and the point is to see more, learn more, grow up and out. It is, of course, more difficult to open up if you start from a very closed-in place-just like it is more difficult to learn if you have not learned, at a young age, how to learn (thanks, Dr. Dobson). It is difficult to see something that you are not accustomed to seeing. How, then, do we create an inspiring environment and encourage exploration of wider vision? (Or perhaps I am the one blinded?)
And who is we? Can it be done by one person? Logically it must be achieved by every willing person. So several items are missing- a who, and a what. The answer could be a million things, a million projects and problems. What is a single one of those? Let’s start with one. There is a lot to work with. We have, in MTC, a medium-sized group of inspired, dedicated people. Now what can we do? Teach- sure. It’s not enough. Maybe some of us are great teachers. Maybe some of us are barely struggling by. Either way, you can’t cure a famine by providing nourishment, though it helps. Teacher corps provides a continuous string of new teachers- that’s even better. What next? What else? We are educated, intelligent, and capable. It feels like we’re throwing carefully crafted paper airplanes at a brick wall. There’s got to be something else.

Incredible news! I got an overhead projector. Two, actually, which means that one of my fellow MTC teachers will get one of them, since none of us had one until now. There were two in my room that didn't work, and when trying to fix it myself with the help of Buffy, filing the paper work at the beginning of the year, talking to the principal, and talking to the maintenance people didn't work, I'd sort of given up hope. Though we had thought about buying one, they are quite expensive to spend your own money on, and Buffy and I had already combined our EEF money to order dissection materials for our lab, which can also be quite expensive. This morning, however, when administration finally gave us surplus/ broken stuff removal forms, I figured I'd give it one more shot and mention it to the head maintenance man, Mr. W. He directed me to the librarian, who for some reason has reign over the kingdom of overhead projector parts. Encouraged since this was the farthest I'd ever gotten, I brought all three sizes of bulb directly back to Mr. W, who directed me to bring them back to my room for his later, but same-day, use. When he did not arrive by the end of the day, I dropped him another friendly reminder at the end of the school day- when I'd asked earlier, he said it was okay to remind him if he happened to forget. I stayed after school until 4:3o with my creative expression group. When I began to kick them out (I don't like to, but I've got to do it some time) and they started leaving around 4:35, Mr. W. showed up. We began taking stuff apart and putting different parts in, trying this and that, until we finally realized the machines work only when the top is closed (seems obvious, but it almost made the difference between having two and having none). I cannot believe, myself, how excited I was at this development. I immediatley searched through my cabinet where I had remembered placing some transparencies, and started tearing into them until I had a nice little collection to use for tommorrow's lesson. There are tons of the things. Colorful, detailed, accurate, clear, labeled diagrams that it would take me hours to produce on my own. Chemistry concepts, biology concepts, difficult concepts broken down on a picture that I can show the whole class at once- and add my own notes to. Awesome. Anatomy pictures, charts, graphs, phase change diagrams. Also, I can write my notes out ahead of time so that I save all that class time writing on the board, erasing, risking not staring directly at my class the entire time, etc. And now two of us can have them, and I'm sure we'll manage to share. Yes, I'm a bit ashamed that I didn't figure out a way to get one before now, but hey, better late than never. It's a small victory.