As we are coming to the end of – wait, I don’t like that
word, “end” – doesn’t seem right. Rather, I think I want to reflect a bit on
the things that I will carry forward. As I was going over our generative lists,
the questions I will continue to ask with the new lens of my understanding kept
landing on two themes. Interestingly, I was struck by the dualistic nature of
two.
As I have previously noted, the use of texts in the
colonization of nations and peoples is something I have never given much
thought to. I don’t know why. I guess my
“eyes” had just never really been opened to the role of written words in
codifying the “shared exterior” of my realities – the things I accept as true
and right and, well, “normal.” These have all been constructed by “texts” and are
not just the “norms” I have taken for granted. I am not sure how I thought “norms”
developed, but childlike, I apparently have just accepted the veracity of the social
claims of many, many, norms in my lifetime. The longer I live, though, and the
more I learn, the more I am struck by how little we (I) question how big T
truths have been constructed. Learning about the role of texts in history by
colonizers to promote favored ideologies, justify acts of suppression, even
campaigns of war and genocide, will never allow me to “read” a text again
without questioning the motives and the message. That is something I will carry
forward.
On the other hand, though, the ability of one educator to
empower those they “learn” with will never leave me, either. I don’t think we can “measure” the outcomes –
the potentially far-reaching effects – that helping just one person to find their
voice can have. By voice, I mean giving a person, an adult in our case, the
tools with which to make sense of their world and to take action in their
lives. Even the simple action of understanding how to fill out a form, perhaps,
or write a letter, changes a life. And adult educators get to do this again and
again. That is more than an occupation, that is a calling. Thank you. Susan
Susangale,
ReplyDeleteI am reading the posts from bottom up and the cumulative effect: I'm getting choked up. (I cry at movies too.) This post deserves multiple readings; you have a gift for expressing sophisticated and subtle ideas with ease and economy. The "power of words"...how many layers of meaning this has: social, ideological, conceptual-linguistic...and to think it is all a construction that forms the foundation of consciousness!