The Conflicted Enterprise
Ideological movements are inherently conflicted enterprises of the emotional variety, since faith and optimism are oriented towards the future, while the condition in need of “fixing” persists inexorably in the present. Activists whose ostensible aim is to alleviate suffering in the present, ply their efforts fully knowing that ultimate success is often deferred and is certainly never promised. Such guilt must constitute a painful existence for the activist and for the reformer, so resigned as they are to an emotional sobriety, despite any buoyance they must, too, necessarily feel or project.
Imagine then, what it must feel like for the educator. Educators must don a mask—a semblance that conveys the optimism of an abiding hope, truly felt, yet tempered with a sick feeling experienced deep within the craw of their bellies regarding children and their current state. Burden for the educator is particularly acute since the subjects of concern are particularly vulnerable, as young people are. And yet, if immediacy were the sole criteria for warranting the initiation of movements, I doubt any would ever begin at all.
Education reform’s “flavor of the month” approach regarding innovation is most likely borne, rightfully so, from a sense of crisis concerning present circumstances, but devolves quickly and transparently into panic, which, in any crisis, remains an ineffective way to respond. While the sheer energy of quickly moving from one idea to the next may result in a catharsis of immediate action, the ultimate effect is nil.
On the other hand, a thoughtful more deliberate approach is certainly more protracted—demanding even greater forbearance than is already necessary—yet may prove more effective in the long run, which is just as well since the change we wish to see in the world—that is, change of the most profound sort—is often bound to a generational perspective.
Social change—and the moral evolution of human kind—may very well be temporally tethered to a generational scope, since education, itself, is generational in practice. What is classroom teaching, for example, but the passing down of information, knowledge, and skills from one generation to the next? And yet, the mere planting of seeds means an abiding nature for educators who endure years before witnessing any bloom on the vine.
In the meantime, educators continue their work on behalf of souls, particularly young souls, which, sadly enough, often means bearing witness to souls in deep crisis. Tending to these souls—aware of how results are often mercilessly deferred—feels sometimes like watching a patient on an operating table slowly bleed while doctors toil away at a cure.
Even so, it’s just such desperate imagery, worming its way through the mind, that drives the reformer forward, patiently, resiliently, rigorously in their onward labor.
