So why did I lose pace? I did go to protests, I did create
voice but I did so off of the computer. Just because a tree falls in a forest
and no one hears it, it indeed has fallen. Just because a voice is not always
on a Blog, a Tweet, a FaceBook share, or merely just not on a computer, does
this now mean that the individual no longer exists?
Off the grid, but how does this translate to the modern
era? I have been teaching. Maybe, if I
am a sure believer, I have been teaching as bell hooks, teaching to
transgress. The Adjunct teaching life
certainly has its negative side that one can write about for hours upon hours: from
the lack of pay to the migrant status, to the lack of benefits. Of course, but
as an Adjunct, I see multiple angles. Still hoping that it is not too late to teach empathy and truth.
I teach classes at four different institutions. I teach at
two-community colleges in New Jersey; One being mostly low-income students from
diverse backgrounds, immigrants, children of immigrants, and other minorities.
The other has mostly middle-class students, with just as much diversity, but a
learning style much less motivated, because life was a bit more affluent. I see
students who know nothing about America’s history and I try my best to inform
them. I teach in Paterson, where life is not easy for the majority of citizens
as students to balance school, work, and social exploitation.
My third school is at a privileged four year institution,
and it seems often enough classes that appear segregated at times. The
diversity is less extreme, but it does exist, just minute. Sometimes this
location is the hardest to reflect on America’s inequality challenges. I, myself,
can recall even when I was in undergrad at a liberal arts school, just how naïve
I was to political troubles of my time, which seem minuscule compared to the
challenges America has faced in the last fourteen years. However, I find the best learning advice is for one to go outside one's realm and see the country and to see the world; one will only breakdown naivety by conversing with people of very different walks of life. I did that twelve years ago, when I joined the Peace Corps and was brought to a country I had never heard of prior, and it changed my life. I think of a recent clip I viewed in class by the comedian Maz Jobrani, about how Americans can connect with Iranians as well as other Muslims, just by having the will to meet, discuss our similarities, and even laugh.
My fourth school is in the heart of Brooklyn. City students
who see how life moves so fast as the urban lot pushes everyone to levels of
social distances. New York can make people easily ignore everyone, just so that
the individual can thrive. Yet my students are eager to discuss the Political. Yes, students are eager to learn and ready to get
involved in the system. Can I help my students in all my locations see the
system for what it is? Or can I just reach a small few? Time will tell.
So just incase you don’t see me, though I may be off of the
Blog grid, I am still contemplating a way to resist the Consuming Beast of the
21st Century’s Sinking teeth.
