Essay 1: More than.

In my AP Language class the first week of second semester, we read an excerpt from Mike Rose’s “Lives on the Boundary,” called “I Just Wanna be Average.” 

It’s a brilliant story, one with meat on its bones as Rose takes us through the reality of being a kid who doesn’t feel comfortable--or accepted--at school, the armor we create to protect ourselves, and the reality of seeing “a handful of students far excel you in courses that sound exotic and are only in the curriculum of the elite.” 

While the essay itself is phenomenal, it was a last minute addition to the Education & Learning unit I put together. The class before, we read Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s 1980s acceptance speech of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, where she identifies the value of education to push back against fear mongering and oppression. My goal is, and always has been, to show a wide array of voices to students, to encourage them to see what education can--and truly should--be used for: not a grade, not a stepping stone, but, as Rose says, to “[enable us] to do things in the world.”

But it wasn’t just Rose’s essay, or Kyi’s speech before that, which spoke to me. It was the reaction of my first period; it was the way they settled into a near 14 page reading and found themselves engrossed in a reality that was different from, yet oh-so-similar to their own in some aspects. The way that they would whisper to me, “Ras, this is the best yet,” when I walked by to check on their progress, and the way they would look at one another when they were highlighting something like, “you have to get to this page.” 

When we began our discussion, each four-person table taking a moment to share what connected them to the reading, what struck them, what they felt, etc. before coming back, I was struck once again by the willingness to speak--the desire. Although I am always lucky enough to have students willing to share, it is often the same five before I begin cold-calling people, which is necessary, but often feels disingenuous and a little forced when they share. This day, it started with a few people, and a few more, until it was new hands in the air. Many mentioned the idea that Rose brought about how difficult school is for many people, for many reasons, creating a persona that is adopted after a time, one that accepts the label the system has given them and makes it into a personality. Rose goes on to identify that the true  “tragedy” of this is that students must “twist the knife in [their] own gray matter to make this defense work.” 

Suddenly, faces in my classroom were steady, accepting; heads were nodding and hands were flying in the air to share. In particular, one student response paused us all: “I was most struck by the reality that education was so willing to tell him his place in the world and make him accept it…”

This was not the end of the conversation. But for me, it was the moment that stuck–so much that I was still ruminating over it the next few days, because while he was not wrong, education does and has historically pigeonholed students for one reason or another, making them feel as if they didn’t have a choice--or keeping them from accessing that choice for one reason or another--I was mostly stuck on his sentiment because it so closely mirrored a question I have of our lived-lives--those we do choose: why do we allow the world to tell us our place and so willingly accept it?

It’s no secret how much I hate TikTok and shortform content. In fact, I actively have to work not to BUZZ at students who start a conversation with, “So, Ras, I was scrolling TikTok the other day…” It’s not TikTok specifically--it could be Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, whatever else…it’s the reels and shortform content that offer very little in the way of a story arc or endurance for their viewers. This is where I am stuck, like Mike Rose, wondering why we have allowed the world to tell us we are people who need bite-sized pieces that lack any real conviction beyond common mockery or base humor. 

Why have we accepted the easy path of relief from the world instead of challenging ourselves--and more importantly, our children--to dig into something meatier, richer, more complex, and try and make sense of it?

Why have we allowed our consumption of others’ content to keep us from exploring and thinking on our own?

My 7th period got a diatribe from me on the same day my 1st period had this meaningful conversation and sparked my indignation, because while we were discussing what made a protagonist round and dynamic, I--like a real jackass for using those alliterate and consecutive numbers--said something about book “six or seven” of Harry Potter, and instead of joining me on Harry’s journey as a protagonist who was not, in fact, always a “good” guy, most of my freshman proceeded to balance their hands up and down and yell, “six-sevennnnnnn….” like the trendy lemmings they are. 

Thus started my “stop allowing someone to make you a minor character in your life by taking the one thing you can always count on: your ideas and your words.” They were not inspired, if you can fathom, and I am more certain now than ever that I might, in fact, fit the NPC mold my 6th period accused me of being. (Hilarious as it was when they acted out my character’s path from the courtyard to my classroom and back as I shook my fist and stole souls.)

Almost a month later, and I still beg the question: why are we willing not only to allow someone we don't know to tell us who we are, but so ready to accept it? 

I watched Olivia Anne do the hard thing this weekend: play a Baroque piece in front of really accomplished pianists and an adjudicator and make a mistake--one that led to a small series of mistakes while she course corrected, and in that moment--the one where I could hear her right hand playing but not her left, where she repeated the refrain (no idea of that's what it's called) more than she was supposed to, where I saw her fingers hesitate and pause for just a moment while she gathered herself--I understood that maybe there are times that we do need people to tell us things, to remind us of things. Like the fact that she didn't slam her hands down on the keys and sob, or pick the piano bench up and heave it, rather, that she collected herself in a silent auditorium and played the rest of her piece before standing quietly and bowing, still sans tears, was the most poised thing I've ever seen--certainly more poised than I've ever been.

And when she sat back down and I could see the trembles on her fingers, in her little shoulders, the embarrassment and disappointment written on her, I wanted to tell her "let's get the hell out of here." But instead, her dad rubbed her hand, and her piano teacher whispered, "great finish," and I did nothing but grip her trembling fingers and be proud to have a daughter who sat through the next five pieces with her head high and her back straight.

So maybe (probably) this conversation is not about allowing someone else to tell us who we are and what to do--or not just about that. Maybe this conversation goes beyond this one instance and these examples. Maybe it even goes beyond TikTok and other social medias, though I can blame just about anything on them when I put my mind to it. The reality is, this conversation of identity, of labels, of listening to the words others say to us or about us and taking them as gospel goes back to people–who we are and how we view ourselves and one another.

And--maybe--it goes back to our willingness to think the worst of ourselves and our neighbors, so when someone else tells us what to think and who to be, it feels more like an answer to a question we had, rather than a limitation we can’t yet see. Mike Rose didn't fight back against the labels--not until Jack MacFarland showed him he could simply by talking to him and treating him as more. Not because he told him he was more, but because he talked to him, asked him questions, reminded him that by reading, he could understand anything. Experience the world. Find a place in it.

Which means, I guess, that just as I did with Olivia when I took her hand and overcame the urge to reassure her she had not failed, and instead just sat with her, my job as a teacher is to educate by exposing students to the possibility of more, whatever that looks like, and laughing when they mention TikTok and Instagram, and then challenging them to identify that just as they are more than the label education sometimes places on them, they are also more than a trend. Much more.

(And, maybe, admitting to them that watching a puppy video or five with Olivia to make her laugh before we grocery shopped and got on with our lives was exactly what (stupid) short-form content is for: a quick laugh or reprieve from a minor setback before gearing up to face the day again. But goddamn, go read a book afterward.)