In yoga teacher training, we talk about dharma, as in “What
is your dharma?” Dharma, loosely
translated, means one’s path, or true nature.
One of the questions on the final exam asks, “Is your dharma clear to
you?” For me, the answer to this
question is no. My dharma is maddeningly
opaque. But I recently encountered two
people whose dharma is beautifully transparent.
Bill Ayers is a teacher and writer who has been a social
justice advocate since the 1960’s when he first started teaching
kindergarten. His activism has brought
him trouble at different times, most recently in 2008 when conservatives
excoriated President Obama’s relationship with him (they were both active in
Chicago politics). Fox News discovered
he was the keynote speaker for last weekend’s Association of Teacher Educators
conference in Atlanta, and there was a brief sizzle about how teacher educators
were inviting a known terrorist to speak.
Luckily, the ATE leadership did not bow to this pressure. Seeing Bill Ayers speak, in person, was a
profound and moving experience.
He talked about seeing
the unseen people of the world, because “every human being is of incalculable value.” He spoke about the differences between
teaching the arts of liberty—initiative, courage, imagination, listening,
speaking--versus obedience and conformity.
He was earnest and honest about the intellectual and ethical challenges
of teaching, and said that it was up to us to change the dialogue that has
blamed teachers for the problems of student learning borne out of poverty,
inequity, and racism.
He also said, “Privilege blinds us and anesthetizes us” and
insisted that whatever rich kids get in school, all kids should get. Smaller class sizes, libraries, field trips,
discovery learning. He clearly understood
the pressures teachers experience in the face of scripted curricula and few
resources. Ayers said that his son, a
high school teacher, told him that he was 70% an agent of the state and 30% a
free agent. Ayers urged us to find the nooks and crannies in order to do what
is right for our students within that 30%.
These messages about making the invisible visible and the
blindness that comes with privilege reminded me of the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers by
reporter Katherine Boo. She spent over
three years collecting and documenting the experiences of residents of
Annawadi, a slum adjacent to the Mumbai, India airport. In a matter-of-fact, nonjudgmental tone, she
describes the harshness, the corruption, and the stench through the eyes of
several different residents. Abdul is a
garbage sorter who collects recyclables from his fellow residents who scavenge
trash from outside the airport. Asha is
a wife and mother who uses the corrupt system to gain power and money for her
family’s well-being. Fatima is a woman
born with one leg who changes their world forever when she sets herself on fire
in protest and rage against the unfairness she experiences. Boo humanizes these
individuals by providing their perspectives on survival in a place that only
wants to get rid of them in order to attract Westerners and others with
money.
Bill Ayers and Katherine Boo are not afraid to look at the
results of dehumanizing poverty and inequity.
They do not let us turn our heads from the individual and collective anguish
inflicted on the voiceless—poor students of color and slumdwellers. They also don’t victimize them by claiming
what Shoshana Felman calls “passive empathy,” which further oppresses the
unseen by removing their power. Instead,
Ayers and Boo view the strengths and choices of their subjects with respect for
the individual and the context. One
Annawadi resident says, “Rich people fight about stupid things. Why shouldn’t poor people do the same?”
I am no Bill Ayers or Katherine Boo. Neither, probably, are you. However, we can still bear witness to the social,
economic, cultural, racial, and sexual inequities of the world, and vow to see
the unseen, not with pity or contempt, but with the knowledge that “every human
being is of incalculable value.” Ayers
ended his talk with a quote from the Mary Oliver poem, “Instructions for Living
a Life:”
Pay Attention.
Be Astonished.
Do Something.
Sure, that’s a bit opaque for one’s dharma, but I’ll take
it.
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