Arguably, there is nothing of value in my head. I have no original thoughts, I have no insightful maxims, and I have no answers to the big questions.
The power of words is strange. As soon as I typed those last two sentences, I stared at the monitor, and then I watched my weird, motionless hands on the keyboard, and then I got lost in the picture of French Polynesia on my calendar.
Words have weight, heft, baggage. When a person says something, they can’t unsay it. When I write these words down and send them into the cyberspace chasm, they are indelible. While it may be true that no one reads a thing I write, and/or no one gives a damn about what I say, the words have impacted me. They reflect something.
I read recently about a teacher from somewhere who wrote some critical things about her students in her blog. There were no names, but she wrote some very inflammatory things about people in general. While I haven’t read the whole thing (mainly because I don’t care enough), what I did read is probably true of students across the nation. One thing in particular that she said rings true, which is her appraisal of the prevalent apathy in high school students.
Half of me (the younger half, I suppose) absolutely identifies with the inability to connect to high school classes and commit to them. The information is oftentimes archaic, the teachers are holier-than-thou, and the social environment can be toxic. High school students CAN BE (which certainly doesn’t mean they always ARE) incredibly cruel and immature, and any honest student in high school will admit as much. Teenagers are just tired. By junior year, for example, most students have been in school for at least 12 years. Nothing is fun for 12 years. Think of anything that makes you happy, then think about doing it for eight hours a day, five days a week, usually with additional hours devoted to practice, homework, a job, volunteering, and “family bonding” time; okay now it sucks, yes?
The other half (the mature half?) looks out at a sea of faces and sees raw potential being flushed down the toilet every single day. I watch people who are remarkably intelligent throw paper wads, and color in coloring books, and text until their fingers cramp. Why? Because they simply don’t care. Or maybe, more accurately, they are tired of caring. But as an educator, it doesn’t hurt any less to know WHY they harbor the apathy; it’s only evident that they do. There is no room in their heads for the deep and raucous intellectual arguments of Plato and Foucault and Singer, because that space is reserved for something else. I wish I could telepathically import the knowledge to them that learning is good. Knowing how to think (and finding different and varied ways to think) is actually beneficial, no matter what you choose to do with the rest of your life. You may be a nurse or an engineer or a psychiatrist or a stay-at-home parent, but every single day of your life, you will benefit from being able to think. That’s all I’m trying to do, every day, is give that to students. And you know what? They usually don’t care.
So…how powerful are words, really? Do I ever get through? Or is it only when I say something stupid (which is bound to happen when a person says a million words a day) that they focus in and pay attention?
I’m beginning to think that maybe the words are only powerful to me. Maybe only in my head do they sound impactful. Perhaps I should get that job scanning useless items at Target after all.
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