Author: tedoned

Dear ALA

Posted on by tedoned

Dear ALA,

Sometimes I fear you miss the point.

If 'Academy' means ‘place to fight for college admittance,' means, in essence, a way to join the rats and their race, then the point of learning becomes to run fast, or at least faster than the other rats.  We adults should be careful to make sure that is not the lesson we teach, in class or as an institution.

If 'Leadership' means ‘#protecteachother,’ means, in essence, “Us Against You,” then leadership is about tribe, not about value.  Students should take care not to confuse popularity and the energy of standing up with the righteousness of a cause.

Africa?  What should that mean? Not for me to say.  But can you get the point of the continent right if you miss academy and leadership?

Words are arrows.  They can be shot poorly and strike the wrong targets, stick in deeper and wound more severely than intended.  I take responsibility for my poor marksmanship in anything that follows, if I aim  at things a more prudent archer might he.

That is, I'll bet I have missed the mark already, because despite my fear ALA thinks too much about Harvard, I think most ALA-ers should go to college, in America if not elsewhere.  Colleges in the U.S. remain one of the last great things about that country and attending school there in no way means you endorse the behaviour of the country, past or present, or that by doing so you will get channelled into a certain kind of life.  I don't want the adults at ALA to leave you with the impression you need to run through a maze to succeed, but Rochester and Notre Dame are excellent places to become more interesting and, yes, more employable.  Anyone who works at ALA can be proud that in such a short time the academy has learned to play the college admissions game well enough to help so many deserving students partake in a liberal arts education.    

And it takes real leader-like guts to write open letters and and confront Dean Hatim.  To marshal others to your cause and demonstrate passion for surely qualifies as one of leaderships essential skills.  Students who show  bravery and skill in this respect deserve our praise.  Moreover, any high-pressure school can be frightening: to meet your expectations and those of your family, to compare yourself with others while discovering yourself as an adult, to want to be good in a place that claims to measure what good means--any of that can bring with it the terror of, "who am I" and "am I good enough?"  If students can band together to offer each other safety--even if it looks like lashing out--well, then, there's hope in that.

But it does look like lashing out and, well, students, a first plea here is to give the adults a break.  Maybe academy should mean launch-pad in Joburg or ipeline to jobs or Prep-School leading to Stanforda ten-year old school has the right to keep figuring itself out, to not know exactly how it will look once it passes through puberty.  If you get mad at us it is not so much different than yelling at a child. 

Indeed, don't miss the point that leadership is not about  #protecteachother it is #protecteveryone. If Miss Kofo pisses you off or Dean Hatim looks controlling or Wellness disappoints, your job is not to get angry and prove you can write a rant or lead a rebellion.  Your job is to go take care of those people.  Your job is to be better to them--more understanding, more forgiving, more tolerant, and more competent--than any of those you think are unforgiving, intolerant, incompetent.   As Faith says: Don't hate it.  Fix it.  

But, adults, if kids are frightened so much that they come up with thinking of themselves as needing protection then we’ve failed something somehow.  I know, this kind of revolt is standard at schools of teenagers.  But we think these students special and the leadership I am describing

,  . . .  well, I can't even hazard a guess.  Something better than "America" or "Europe" or "Russia,"  more than just a banner people wave when that feels good, I hope.

I am trying to pin practices, rhetoric and beliefs to a mirror we can reflect in.   No more than that.

Dear Blue:

Posted on by tedoned

Dear Blue,

Some of you take The Bible or The Quran as your sacred text.  Hamlet is mine.

In the meditations that follow I write about the first seven lines of the play (though mostly the first five) and make the argument Hamlet converts us, you the African students, and me the American teacher, into the black at the back of the glass.  In the reflection that results, we can see what the play tells us: God is the metaphor that won't die.

You might well think it controversial to suggest Shakespeare can help us cross the gap between old white guys like me and young black people like you, especially if you are already offended by how I am bringing god into the picture.  While I fear talking like an old white American, one who has no idea how offensive he might be, I am not working to protect you as a believer.  I even fantasize that our spending time together with Hamlet might enhance rather than undermine your faith.

The catastrophe of distance between people--between individuals and groups, East and West, old and young, black and white, and all the rest--calls for every bridge we can build. But you would be right to suspect this one comes from my side of the rift and read accordingly. Yes, I think the bridge I have in mind can serve any and all of us, even if its foundation is Shakespeare rather than an African writer and even if my argument is for the power of imagination rather than for anything in what you might call scripture. We need something that links us all, one to another, and I see that link, that bridge, as human consciousness embodied in words rather than a specific deity, be that deity Christian, Islamic, Jewish, or some other. Connected to this, or to offense of any kind, is what I said to some of you in class when we were together.  We must be able to disagree, even disagree vehemently, and then eat lunch together.

Still, if what I say is stupid or blasphemous in your mind I seek your forgiveness up front.  Luckily, you are more likely to get bored by this project before you care about it enough to be angry because if this play can be read as a map back from tragedy, including the tragedies located in race and gender and Africa vs. not Africa, it will take some time to explain how and why. And surely you have more important things to do. 

Before you go on to the first mediation or before you click away forever, let me remind you that no one on campus knew less about Africa than I did when we met.  Any little thing I know now about the continent comes from you.  (Well, you and Mr. Dash.)  Thank you for all you taught me and teach me still. Thank you all the more for the generosity, hospitality, and hilarity you showed me.  I was the less deserving.

And you should know that I have used some of your names as a rhetorical device here.   Marubini, Sefa, Nduta, Jimcale, Keabetswe, Ladouce, Fred, Fadekemi, Ayomide, Samkelo, Umar, Numay, Zeinab, Ashna, Temi, Amina, Sean, Melanie, Michelle, Sizo, Tomisin, Eniola, and Jonathan make appearances in what follows.  But it is their names, not their characters I am borrowing, as you will see.  I beg your forgiveness if you mind my taking this liberty. 

Sooner than you, I will become a ghost.  But if, between then and now, you need to question something you read here or think I can be of help to you in some practical way, I hope you will call on me.

With love,

--Mr. Ted

P.S.

Let us say that what follows is for Khesa.