Yesterday, in my 3 classes of Advanced Placement Government students, I asked them that question. And so began one of the more interesting class periods they, or I, have experienced.
It is an open-ended question. It is one for which I am not about to give them an answer, but rather work with what they say. It is one for which their answers will vary as much as their experiences have varied, as much as their hopes are varied, as much as they differ from one another.
It is an example of a "big" question, one asked not for the purposes of preparing for an examination, but rather for its own sake.
It is a question for which the answers students offer are not the end of the discussion, but rather the beginning.
It is also a question for which we do not - and probably can not - have a generally accepted answer, for if we seek to impose one answer do we not violate the integrity of the individuals upon whom we impose it? Would we not ignore the difference of the worlds in which they live, which can be equally as varied?
So why did I, a teacher of government, ask that of my students, mainly sophomores?
We are in the time of the year when students begin to register for the following year's academic schedule. For some of my students I have to explore why they are taking on 5 or 6 Advanced Placement courses as juniors, for others why they are signing up for only 1 or 2. For courses in Social Studies I usually have to sign off on their selections, and if I disagree, particularly for a student wishing to take an AP course, I need to discuss it with the student. If I refuse to give my blessing the parent can override my refusal anyhow. Thursday was "signing day" when I had to affix my initials to their registration forms. There were so many occasions when I was unsatisfied with the discussions between the students and myself that perhaps I was primed for what happened that evening.
I went to Busboys & Poets at 14th and V in DC. This is the original of the stores, named for Langston Hughes. Each has dining facilities, each has a bookstore run by Teaching for Change. My reason for this visit was an event with an author, cosponsored by Teaching for Change and by the College of Education at the University of Maryland. The author is very distinguished in education, but also controversial because of his past. His name is Bill Ayers. That Bill Ayers.
Earlier that day I had received a request from the publisher of one of the books he was supposed to discuss at the event to consider reading and reviewing it. Because Ayers had never responded when I had sent him the review I had done of another book, I thought I would use it as an occasion to meet him and to assure myself that I had not upset him with the previous review. I respect his work as an educator and his skill as a writer.
The room was packed. I got to meet him when he came in. And yes, I will review the book. But he did not talk much about his books. He spoke, often with humor, about many things, but most of all about teaching, about what we as teachers do, about what we can do, about how we can co-learn with our students.
Half the audience were teachers. Before he began a teacher from the District was invited to get up and offer one of her poems. It was a powerful start to the evening.
For me what was important was Ayers talking about the Freedom Schools in Mississippi in 1964 - he was there, along with the three young men who were killed and buried in the dam near Philadelphia MS (and here I must remind people that it was no accident that Ronald Reagan began his 1980 campaign for president with a speech at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia - talk about a dog whistle!). Ayers talked about the importance of using big ideas to organize learning, of invoking the students in helping guide what and how they learned, in learning from them as we exercised our responsibilities as teachers.
After I solicited some preliminary ideas from students, without my offering any criticism, but sometimes asking for those with a different approach, I would use what was offered to go further. I came prepared with several questions to further the discussion, to which I would turn if appropriate. One of those was to ask students to consider the 4.5 years since they entered 6th grade. I asked them to think of the most powerful or important learning experience they had had in that time. Then I asked if for any of them the experience was independent of formal instruction - it did not occur in a school setting, it was not directed by someone whose official role was to teach or tutor or coach them. In each class about 1/3 of the students had experiences that were not part of "formal" education. I asked who would share (for some it was too personal).
In one class, a young lady talked about the previous summer, when she and her family had gone to Latin America on a missionary trip and she had truly experienced poverty. The person immediately after her had at a family funeral met a cousin he had never before seen who was in his 50s and who spent several decades incarcerated as a drug kingpin who now devoted his life to trying persuade others not to follow in his footsteps. I asked students what they found in common between these two experiences. We got a variety of answers, and that led to a discussion of how we use what we encounter - do we have the ability to recognize things around us, how to we organize and classify them to make sense, when do we find we need to rethink how we organize and classify because something does not fit our current framework.
That is but one example. One young lady in that class at one point expressed frustration that no matter what they said I seemed to find a loophole. I probed gently on that word, "loophole," which as I expected she did not mean as most of us would interpret it - a way of getting around or if you will through a legal wall or restriction. Even that misinterpretation of the word led to a further learning opportunity - I asked why they thought I and other teachers would continue to ask them questions. I got a lot of good answers, but one thing I did not hear, so I offered it. I asked if they might consider that I or another teacher might actually want to learn from what they said, so we were seeking to clarify our own thinking.
At some point in each class we got to the nature of teaching as part of education. Some felt that education was the acquiring of information, although others said merely learning facts and skills was not really being educated. They discussed among themselves the imagery of a teacher presenting them with what they must learn. That provided me an opportunity to explore the Latin roots of the word, which is derived from ex- out and ducere - lead. That is, educating can be seen as leading out. I mentioned the ideas of those like Locke who thought students were a blank slate upon which things could be written, to the different viewpoint of those who think the task of a teacher is to help the student make sense of the world, to use what the student already knows and about which s/he cares to help learn how to learn, to develop skills that can be used not just in isolation but applied.
We had discussions about assumptions, with some students pointing out that as those in a science and technology program of necessity they had to start with assumptions, but they also had to test those assumptions, validate or reject and reform based on the evidence obtained - after all, that is the heart of the scientific method.
There was no logical end to the discussion. It varied by class, it had different meanings for different students within class.
I sincerely doubt that many of the students would at the end of the period have felt more comfortable in defining the word than they had been at the start of the period.
I would also suggest it may have been a very powerful learning experience for all of us - especially for me, their "teacher."
Normally I teach with a great deal of intensity in my voice, energy in my body. For most of the three periods I sat. I spoke fairly softly. I allowed a lot more time of silence between statements than I often do in order to ensure they had time and space to reflect. I modeled listening to them as I hoped they would listen to one another.
What does it mean to be educated? I would suggest it is to realize what you do know, what you don't know, to be able to recognize the limits of one's own understanding, to have had the experience of moving from that recognition to being able to take some things one does not know or understand and change them to things at least partially known or understood.
I would suggest something else. Near the end of each class I asked them what they thought the biggest question was. I heard their offerings, and only then offered my own, which some had offered at least partially, and others I heard say but were afraid to say to the entire class.
The biggest question, for me at least, is also the most basic. It is only three words. "Who am I?" We explored the meaning of that - how many had been told by others "If I had your gift at X I would do Y" or "surely as well as you can do that you will be an X." I asked how many felt that just because they could do something well did not mean they wanted to do it - perhaps half the students raised their hands. I pointed at an exchange in a film most have seen, The Blind Side - it is after the incident at Hurt Village. Sandra Bullock's character has finally caught up with Michael. She tells him as they sit outside that she knows there is a question she should have asked him a long time ago - does he even like playing football. He says he is pretty good at it. She understands, but wants to be sure he wants to do it, not just because he is good and others want him for his football. She would be happy with whatever he does - "It's your life, it's your decision."
I can only hope that my young people can give themselves enough time and space to reflect on who they are, to learn how to learn, to locate themselves and their desires and hopes into the larger world around them.
What does it mean to be educated? I hope they continue to reflect on that, even as I hope they begin to understand that in seeking to answer that question they are only exploring part of the more basic question, the one that really matters: Who am I?
Peace.