Dear Interns, November 9, 2011
One message we come to understand as we mature and grow into our profession is that life is for learning. The message can be phrased many different ways; we say life long learning or learn from your experience, or becoming a reflective practitioner. Our whole tradition of reflection in the PDS is essentially that we should try to think deeply about what our observations and experiences really mean. Through our classes and activities in the PDS we are always urging you to look beneath the surface, try to make sense of what going on, and use that knowledge to inform the way we act and think in the future. This way of seeing the world implies that we must give extra effort to understanding human nature as well as human actions. It is not an easy habit to maintain, but it is a habit of mind that is essential if you intend to be a great teacher.
Human events can sometimes be terribly complicated and difficult to understand. What complicates matters is that we are more than just thinking beings, we are also feeling beings. I can remember only a few times in my life where thoughts and feelings have come together so strongly as they have this week. Maybe you share my sense of sadness, shame, anger and grief for what has come to light at Penn State these past few days or maybe you have other thoughts and feelings about the circumstance we find ourselves in at the moment. Whatever your reaction to this tragedy, I hope you ask your self three important questions. What did I learn? What does it mean? How can I use it to inform my own life? Let me just give you a brief personal reaction to these questions. I don’t expect your answers to these questions to be the same as mine, nor is what I am about to write comprehensive enough to express my total reaction to this situation, but it’s a start. If you want to discuss the matter further, I am more than willing to meet and talk with you. I’m sure that your other PDAs are as well.
What did I learn? I guess I learned that there truly is evil and sickness in the world that I would rather not have known about. I still cannot believe that child abuse of this nature happens and that it could happen right next door. I learned that fear has the power to prevent us from the doing the right thing even when we know we should. I learned that there are always outsiders quick to condemn and cast blame even when they don’t know the facts; people are quick to judge. I learned that sometime the most righteous indignation comes from critics who have never really done anything with their own lives but criticize others. My goodness, how can some loud-mouthed sports reporters tear into the reputation and character of a coach that has given so much for so long to so many? I learned to never doubt the power of community. Good or bad, we are all connected.
What does this mean? It means that even the best of people can suffer a mental illness or be driven by an insidious aspect of their character. It means that power can be very abusive. It means that doing the right things can sometimes take enormous courage. It means to me that compassion and forgiveness are in short supply when outrage is in the air. But it also means that our community sensibilities are to safeguard and protect children who are helpless and to transgress against defenseless kids may be the most unforgivable of crimes. I learned that the law is not the final word when it comes to justice. There are ethical principles beyond the law that better define what is right and what is wrong.
How will I use this to inform my own life? I suppose I will try to have a sharper eye when considering what might be an abuse of power on any level. The words “social justice” have a deeper meaning for me now. I’d like to be more thoughtful and less quick to judge others. That doesn’t mean I won’t judge others. It does mean that I have to be more conscious about what information informs my judgment. This situation also reminds me that we can be loyal to an institution, but that we cannot expect any loyalty in return if we mess up. Do I love Penn State, or do I love the spirit embodied in how Penn Staters relate to one another? I have also been thinking more about the words of Parker Palmer – “Your life is your message.” If that’s so, then I’d like to thank Joe for living his life with us here at Penn State. Even the best people mess up. I want to work harder on trying to forgive his mistakes as well as the more egregious mistakes of others. That will take some effort in this situation. I want also to keep in mind that I am (WE ARE) Penn State and that our collective goodness will far outdistance the evil that has occurred here.
Bern
Dear Bernard: thank you for reminding me of the kind of intellectual and ethical leadership that can make such a profound difference at times of great strain within an institution. Your words are thought-provoking, inspiring, and troubling for me. I had two elements I wanted to reflect on in the response to your post and the Penn State events.
ReplyDeleteYou did not mention the swirling discussions focused on McQuery, who as I understand it was a teaching assistant at the time he witnessed sexual assault of a boy. If my information is correct (it may not be--) McQuery reported the incident to his superiors—the very powerful head coach. Now there are calls to fire McQuery. I wonder, in my late 20s would I have called the police—would I have known to as a teaching assistant in a sports program? I also think about our candidates—out in schools and subject to the complexities of their positions and the sometimes gross dysfunction in the schools we serve. When are we complicit with work in schools that harms children? How far do we expect, encourage, or support our candidates in their fledgling efforts to speak out? How far should we speak out and to whom? As we cope with late semester conflicts in SOE and schools, I wonder.
Second: Having lived through abuse in my family, your ending call to forgiveness troubles me. I struggle with the connotation of forgiveness in our society. When people tell me I should forgive, I often get the sense that their desire is to make the conflict go away—almost as if I could pat my abusers on the head like mischievous children, saying that whatever was done is ok. I cannot do that. I still rage; I still grieve for a life not tainted by adults and community who looked away.
When I turn to etymology—what is this word, forgive? Where did it come from and what did/does it mean in our collective history? I get a little closer to agreeing or accepting when I read:
forgive
. The modern sense of "to give up desire or power to punish" is from use of the compound as a Germanic loan-translation of L. perdonare (cf. O.S. fargeban, Du. vergeven, Ger. vergeben, Goth. fragiban; see pardon). Related: Forgave; forgiven; forgiving.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=forgive
I agree, it is possible--and that I/we should acknowledge great achievement and great flaws simultaneously. It is possible to say that this is now past and to the best of my/our ability I/we will not allow it to happen again. It is possible to love and admire and yearn for the brilliance we admire in a person, or parts of what s/he has given us in the past and perhaps to welcome what s/he might contribute in the future.
My concern is that the wholeness of the person-- that includes the grave weakness that irreparably harmed others—will be shadowed because we do not know what to do with it. I worry that our discomfort and desire to protect ourselves and our children will mean the ugly twistedness and harm will always be a footnote against greatness. Is it punishment to fire someone? Is it punishment to voice their/our errors just as clearly as their/our strengths? How do we reconcile a desire to recognize the humanity of others (perhaps this is to forgive) and a need to ensure our own pain, anger, disappointment, and shame are not minimalized?
We tread on the spiritual here, and our institutions do not do spiritual well. Bernard calls for us to witness the humanity in others—even others who have done terrible things. I concur. As I work in the ending weeks of a semester filled with young women who have rushed to judgment and tried to assert their power to get their way, I wonder how we help our candidates learn to pause, to sort through the complexities of their humanity and ours.