My class recently came to our house for the end-of-the-year dinner. It is always a tender time as we get to appreciate them for what they have done, what they have given us and who they are!
We ate, marveling at a large bull snake that seemed to want to share our burritos, and then the students spoke about their final projects.
As teachers, we listened, awed by their presence, their intelligence and kindness, and teared up hearing their passionate concerns for the health of our environment and our nation. We listened to their clear and precise notions about how to work toward a more just and sustainable world.
Everything they stated was infused with concern for an inclusive community, with notions of “self” held in the context of collective well-being. Their concerns often referenced respect for Aldo Leopold’s land ethic — to protect the beauty, stability and integrity of our communities. Their voices rang out loud and clear, exhibiting a tensile strength to right the wrongs they face. Each student showed selflessness and a desire to be a part of the “good fight.”
These same young people are currently in the crosshairs of a shockingly corrupt administration whose brutal antics could not be further from Leopold’s land ethic. These students’ futures are threatened by the administration’s efforts to destroy the “highest aspirations of the human spirit,” in the words of David Brooks. The erasure of climate protections, diminished health care and educational opportunities and a flagrant disregard for basic rights, equality, safety and due process. But even as they face historic attacks, even as one by one their opportunities are stolen from them, they are not cynical. They are eloquent about how and where America’s celebrated yet risky allegiance to individualism went south.
Teddy Wroblewski, a student from Colorado Rocky Mountain School, wrote:
“Living in America, we are faced with a consumerist, capitalist mindset that has been the cause of injustices, such as slavery, economic inequality and environmental degradation.”
My students don’t fall for national anthems that privilege myth over hard facts. They are often living the hard facts, but still they are interested in learning how to create a more just society. They embody what John Dewey argued for: understanding that community must be the ultimate context for education, as it informs the collective conscience for our nation. They engage in our classes as a way of learning to respond to life’s challenges more skillfully, a way of shaping and being shaped by their conscience. Basalt student Max Lowsky, while volunteering for a Congressional campaign last fall, wrote of a conversation where he learned the truth about health care.
“[Author] Bryan Stevenson emphasizes the importance of proximity to an issue, arguing that ‘you can’t understand most of the important things from a distance.’ Speaking to this voter brought me into close contact with the harsh realities of a system that prioritizes pharmaceutical profits over people’s well-being. Her story forced me to come face-to-face with an issue I had previously viewed as abstract, forcing me to confront how it impacts people’s lives on a day-to-day basis. Stevenson states that, “‘the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.’”
CRMS student Morgan Grotjahn wrote:
“The essentials to fighting the good fight must start with this: because we can — and because we must. I feel a deep connection to more than just other people; I feel it with the Earth, with the land, the air, the trees and all living things. That connection makes me want to protect what matters, not just for today, but for the future. Fighting the good fight means using our agency and our voice to stand up for those who can’t speak, whether that’s vulnerable communities or the planet itself.”
Wroblewski further writes:
“Solutions to (these) injustices do not lie in the outcome. Maybe our redemption comes from the struggle itself. Maybe it is in the effort, the striving for equality and freedom, that we become ‘human.’ We must embrace the struggle, the process, if we seek to change.”
To my students: Your reverence for decency and dignity has marked my soul. I’ve seen you try to redeem our nation’s untidy truths, passionately work to balance our individual and collective sensibilities and care for each other with a gentle ferocity, always giving your best. I am truly touched by “the better angels of your nature.”
To our community: As we wrestle with the heartless corruption of today’s government, might we be schooled by our youth, who know that we honor our humanity and the world by fighting for what is right. And that this is what makes us fully human. Roaring Fork student Jane Taylor beautifully articulated the power of mind, body and spirit that forge the core of America’s humanistic tradition:
“What makes our lives worth living is to engage in actions that are in accord with our values, whatever happens in the world … I cannot imagine what more we might ask for, than to live a life that is driven by our values, that is directed toward a project of world-historical importance, to heal both ourselves and the Earth.”