No Matter, There

Nothing really steams me up like someone coming to the door and asking if my husband is home rather than telling me his business (the guy who seals our driveway), or someone asking when my husband would have time to talk to them about my complaint (school personnel in response to my request to talk to my daughter’s home ec. teacher). It’s easy to take for granted some privileges, and not notice that other people don’t enjoy them.

Privilege is like that–it’s easy to assume everyone else gets the same courteous treatment from the bankers/employers/schoolteachers in their lives that we get, until someone helps us to see the different treatment that still does happen to others whose group identity is different.

I began to understand how easy it is to overlook my own privileges when, in 9th grade, I interviewed a local community leader for a report on civil unrest and learned that there were no pharmacies in his end of town, because bankers weren’t willing to back a business in that neighborhood. That community leader helped me look at something I’d taken for granted (people willing to invest in my community) from the point of view of those less privileged.

Looking at my own situation from someone else’s point of view, and looking at someone else’s situation from their point of view, are not easy things to do–without help. I believe it is a very necessary thing, however, if we are to have social justice in this world. It helps me to be a better communicator to know my audience. It helps me be more effective as an educator. It helps me to know where I need to become an activist, a cheerleader, a philanthropist, a supplicant.

So, I would like to thank those people who have shared their point of view with me lately:

The concerned educators and other professionals forming learning communities (a la social networks at ning.com) around stopping cyberbullying and around developing our teaching skills and tools for the web 2.0 world.

The teachers and administrators at the non-profit where I teach. The Board members and Quakers who share their principles for peace, education, and seeing “that of God” in everyone–especially each and every child.

My husband and children who understand that teaching well means working many hours outside of the school day.

Conversations have been about access and the digital divide, filtering (I am grateful that I CAN TURN OFF THE WEB FILTER — Many of my colleagues can’t), school policies, physical location. We’ve been talking about brain format. We’ve been talking about the freedom to teach, and to choose our own assessments to help us, in a private school setting.

My husband designed this bumper sticker slogan. I’d like us all to be able to declare it:

It really is quite a privilege.

Filed under: NCLB, cyberbullying, education, social, stopcyberbullying and