In the past two weeks I’ve stumbled across two incredible examples of something I haven’t myself before been able to put into words: good teaching is that which moves the students to accept responsibility for their learning and assures them of their ability to bear it.
Last week I taught a class for a friend who was ill and the reading for the day was Aung San Suu Kyi’s “Freedom from Fear.” Kyi is a pro-democracy activist in Burma, where she advocates nonviolent resistance and lives it by remaining under house arrest rather than flee to another country where she might be free. Although I hate summarizing texts, I will do my best to convey some of the main threads of her argument, which begins, “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” Throughout the essay Kyi speaks to the Western readers who may too easily dismiss the situation in Burma as “the Burmese problem”; Kyi reminds them that the problem the Burmese people face is a human problem that may show up in many countries, and at many times. She also speaks to the current Burmese government, identifying their power as that which is motivated by fear and nothing else–certainly nothing that could justify their actions. But most of all she speaks to the Burmese people, arguing that their oppression comes from mean causes (humans’ problems with fear), and that they themselves can overcome the problem by addressing the fear in their own lives. She offers them not pity but empowerment: by disciplining their own actions so that they can overcome their own fear, they will have won the larger fight and will be in a better position to win the current one in Burma.
Although I know little about the situation in Burma and Kyi’s role in it, I can certainly respect her argument. By reframing the problem as one of fear she unites all three readers and reminds them of their common humanity: Westerners, junta, and Burmese subjects. But in doing so she also reminds them of their common responsibilities, responsibilities that have little to do with their current position in the world. One has a responsibility to gain control over one’s fears, to build up a discipline in life that enables one to act in accordance with one’s principles, whether one has political power or no. I was moved by her ability to chastise the weakest of her readership even as she offers them good news: they, too, have something to bring to the table, to work to uphold even in those difficult times. And that something will allow them to claim a dignity that they might have forgotten was theirs.
The second teaching example of the week I found in Mark 4, Jesus’ parable of the sower. In the parable Jesus describes a sower who sows his seed on the path, on rocky terrain, on weedy soil, and on good soil. Only the last, as we might expect, yields a harvest. As a kid, I was really bothered by this parable: if God wants us to hear him, why would he make any of us like the weedy soil or the thin soil? What is “wrong” with us that we would be anything but good soil to begin with? But as I’m reading it today, I see that the quality of the soil is not something one cannot help, but rather the state of mind that one brings to the situation when one encounter his gifts. This passage is both comforting and chastising: God will sow and sow everywhere, so be assured of his luxury in this regard, but know that it is your responsibility and your role to work on the way in which you receive those gifts. The reassurance of his unceasing effort is paired with the bit that puts the onus on us. I like that, I really do. There is a great onrush of dignity and worth that comes with the knowledge that one is thought capable, in some sense, of improving one’s receptivity. We’re not just stuck the way we are.
As I think about these two teachers, I am also recalling that my own students react this way. I want to be a tough teacher, at least in some respects, because I know that the best teachers I’ve seen are those who both give much and expect much. Now, at least, I understand why that is the case. People need the conferral of responsibility just as much as they need the encouragement their teachers can provide.
Erin
Alan Schmierer