Teach-ins
A colleague wondered on Facebook (yes I'm still using that platform),** where are all the teach-ins?
When I think about the real problems we have, which include not inhabiting the same realities, and I think about what professors can do, aside from donating and calling and posting, then it seems that teach-ins could be timely.
Educators should truly educate.
We could do one simple topic at a time. Our students, young, busy, focused on school and friends and fun and getting jobs, generally have no idea about much of how the world works.
One student I know asked me on Friday if it’s true that the clowns [my word, not theirs] are trying to shut down the Department of Education, and if so, what does that mean?
I showed them articles about the plan, and predictions. Needless to say, they were very concerned about what it would mean for them.
Last year I taught a class I called Food, Culture, Ethics, Planet. Among other things, we did a unit about labor. We learned about the majority of our farmworkers being migrants, about half undocumented, and working in brutal, often illegal, conditions, but afraid to report them, or unaware of their rights. My students are largely the beneficiaries of such labor but had never wondered where their food came from, only if it was healthy for them. (They're big on protein and generally anti-carb.)
They got it. They understood that we need farmworkers, and that we should treat them decently. And that the path to citizenship was narrow.
I like to think this understanding will linger.
As educators, we should never shame our students for not knowing everything already. And I'd bet for many of them, much that is in the news, to which they pay distracted attention, uses concepts and terms they understand only vaguely.
I spoke today with a group of students. One admitted that they’d never realized that FDR was in a wheelchair. One said they’d never understood the difference between AM and FM radio. There are a lot of super-basic things that nobody has ever introduced, and some are relevant to the current crisis.
We could do teach-ins about some of these topics :
What are tariffs?
What is NATO?
What minerals are needed for the X-guy’s enterprises?
How do vaccines work?
What is Social Security, actually?
What was the Holocaust?
How do Executive Orders work?
Why can’t people who have lived in the US for decades, contributing to but not eligible to receive Social Security and other benefits, become citizens?
There are a lot of technical, factual matters that our colleagues know everything about.
We could partner with Student Government or some other organizations, and see what the students are too embarrassed to ask about, and then TEACH!
Our cool faculty could teach, bite-size lessons. With snacks.
Or they could record TikToks, and our communications teams could amplify them.
This is an investment in our fellow citizens and members of our global community.
Teachers should teach. It’s what we do best. Not all teaching should be in the classroom.
I’m not offering to do all this organizing, but I’m happy to brainstorm!
Any takers?
** Facebook is still a globally relevant platform. For now I have not abandoned the platforms even owned by people I deplore, because the platforms have broad reach and I want to talk to people in lots of ways. They each have different kinds of engagement. I just don’t buy things I see advertised on them.
