I wonder if the idea of tightening our focus (alluded to yesterday) is enough to create this coming Saturday's presentation to advisers.
The naïve idealist in us all may not want to embrace this restricted strategy. After all, we are not islands and the world in an incredibly complex place. Unintended consequences besiege us no matter what choices are made and constant tinkering is needed to make progress, no matter how sound the original plan.
Just as I feel powerless to do much of anything in the larger world, high school students must feel just as powerless, and likely more so. I grind my teeth, for instance, when Colorado's own governor resists mandating masks or vaccines, despite his support for both and despite the clear benefits for public health. But he's up for reelection this fall, and many voters hate the very concept of mandates or being forced to do much of anything. And there are real questions about just how much benefit any particular action will produce.
But focusing on a much smaller community can help us, and our students, explore and report on actors and actions that more directly affect us. In keeping with several of my earlier posts on writing, "when you want to tell the story of war, tell the story of one solider."
I rarely quote Joseph Stalin, but here goes: "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic." We might consider it the ultimate cynical strategy for a leader or government to adopt. But we can reimagine the quote as something like, "a single death can provide a compelling, insightful story, but a million deaths obscure the individual human stories."
It's one thing to read some article in the local paper about teachers under stress and how many are seriously considering finding a new career. It's another thing entirely to get to know ONE teacher who is dealing with overwhelming stresses and who is agonizing over leaving the career they love (but can't live with).
It's one thing to see a TV report on thousands of students being damaged psychologically by the pandemic. It's another thing to get to know one such student and how she deals with the stresses, or does not deal with them.
I like this train of thought for the presentation because it connects directly with what we know about good writing and about the potential of writing to effect change. Over and over, I find myself typing the same advice to college writers: "Tighten your focus and dig deeper. You can't solve the world's problems in one 800-word essay."
I saw a headline today that said that the Omicron variant is cresting in its damage, but that up to 300,000 more Americans might die by March, if trends continue. I'm sad to say that the statistic was so large and so beyond my ability to personalize that I didn't even pause (until now) to give it much thought. What happens to our sense of empathy when we begin imagining the exact time when the country will pass 1 million deaths from the virus? What happens when total deaths becomes a sort of box score?
Teachers are bombarded by the bad news (and, remember, most news IS bad news) just as much as their students and the rest of the community. But the news is much less bad when teachers consider individuals and how even fleeting interactions can help that one troubled sophomore.
I dimly recall thinking that entering teaching was my way to "change the world." I had this overly idealistic picture in my head of Sidney Poitier in "To Sir With Love," or of Bing Crosby in "The Bells of St. Mary's" or (later) "Dead Poets Society" and "Dangerous Minds."
I wouldn't be surprised if many of those who will be joining me on Saturday had remnants of similar hopes, and confronting the reality that change and improvement happens slowly and separately might be the source of much of their frustrations and angst.
Tomorrow I hope to dig in a bit to some of those mass media films and look at what strategies and tactics the idealized teachers in those movies used to inspire.
A hint: they were not based on lecture halls nor on TV speeches.
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