Virginia Tech
I received a beautiful, incredibly wise e-mail from the service-learning director at Virgina Tech today that went out to a list of service-learning practitioners. She reminded us all that the lesson in the shootings is not that we need to tighten security but rather that we need to find some way to open our hearts to the disenfranchised, alienated people in our communities. Keep doing the work, she wrote, that you already do.
I read this e-mail tonight at a prayer vigil on our campus. I thought the message was so thoughtful and so brave.
Sometimes at this point in the semester--not to mention this point in my career--I find myself impatient with my students, tired of attending to them. I snap at people who knock on my office door when it is closed. I ignore the student worker who comes in to organize my shelves of service-learning supplies for the week, mumbling hello but not asking how her weekend was. I get frustrated at the student who is failing, even though she's trying her best. I ignore the long e-mail from a student who wants to explain why she missed class--and to tell me something about her life in the process.
Today I tried to slow down--not because I worry that one of my students might murder more than 30 people, but because I think that in a way, we're all responsible for these murders, all of us who do not attend to those around us, who miss opportunities to be present. I don't mean that we should feel guilty--but rather that we should listen more deeply.
I spent 20 minutes just chatting w/ a student who has been in my class for this entire year about her major, about what she liked about UMM. I responded to a long e-mail that explained a student's absence, trying to be attentive to the student's panic and pain. I helped a failing student with her paper, careful to praise her for each small improvement in her writing.
I left school with more papers to grade than I'd hoped for; I'll have to go in early tomorrow. But I was present while I was at work in a way I haven't been in the past, and I left work feeling as if I had actually accomplished something that mattered, had found a way to attend to the day-to-day drudgery and to the people who are affected by that drudgery. I pray I'll be able to stay present.
I read this e-mail tonight at a prayer vigil on our campus. I thought the message was so thoughtful and so brave.
Sometimes at this point in the semester--not to mention this point in my career--I find myself impatient with my students, tired of attending to them. I snap at people who knock on my office door when it is closed. I ignore the student worker who comes in to organize my shelves of service-learning supplies for the week, mumbling hello but not asking how her weekend was. I get frustrated at the student who is failing, even though she's trying her best. I ignore the long e-mail from a student who wants to explain why she missed class--and to tell me something about her life in the process.
Today I tried to slow down--not because I worry that one of my students might murder more than 30 people, but because I think that in a way, we're all responsible for these murders, all of us who do not attend to those around us, who miss opportunities to be present. I don't mean that we should feel guilty--but rather that we should listen more deeply.
I spent 20 minutes just chatting w/ a student who has been in my class for this entire year about her major, about what she liked about UMM. I responded to a long e-mail that explained a student's absence, trying to be attentive to the student's panic and pain. I helped a failing student with her paper, careful to praise her for each small improvement in her writing.
I left school with more papers to grade than I'd hoped for; I'll have to go in early tomorrow. But I was present while I was at work in a way I haven't been in the past, and I left work feeling as if I had actually accomplished something that mattered, had found a way to attend to the day-to-day drudgery and to the people who are affected by that drudgery. I pray I'll be able to stay present.
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