I would like to tell you all a little story. This happened just a few days ago but over the years other incidents have led me to the same feelings. My students were assigned readings for class. One of them was ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ by Martin Luther King. Two young ladies who usually sit together near the front were talking about the piece and saying how poetic the words sounded. Then they related this story to me.
The night before, when they sat down to prepare for that day’s class, one of the girls did not have her book. It had been left at school or somewhere. Anyway, her friend offered to read the assignment aloud so she would be prepared. The girls were in the lounge area of their residence with several other students present. The rest were not happy to be subjected to this as they carried on their conversations and mulled about doing other things. One boy was listening to the radio while studying for his own classes. Another girl in the room vocally protested the idea that they would all have to listen to the girls’ homework. Still my student convinced her that the piece was short and they needed it for class the next day.
And so she began to read. Over the course of the next few minutes the room slowly fell silent so that before my student had read even a quarter of the piece no other sound could be heard but her voice. Even the boy with the radio turned it off. King rose from the past to reach across time to the minds and souls of these young people. Each young person in that room hung on every word, feeling again the hope and determination born of the desire for freedom. When she had finished reading the girl who had protested came forth to say how glad she was that my student had not given in to her protest.
We ask so often what is wrong with this generation of young people. This should tell us loud and clear. We face a generation with a search for meaning that is not being quenched. Our education system in its soulless mania to make them cogs in some corporate wheel has forgotten that first and foremost they are humans.
That is why I am a teacher. Because little incidents like this pop up to remind me that I can make a difference and sometimes beyond my own students as in this case. It makes all the frustration and long hours worth it. I water souls, could anyone ask for a more noble calling.
