Another year, another collection of posts and comments. Another time to say thank you for your faithful readership and express grateful appreciation to Faculty Focus’ extraordinary editor, Mary Bart.
Our lives are busy, full, and boisterous. We get a sense of that when the semester ends. Oh, there’s plenty going on at home, especially this time of year, but at work it’s quiet. Classes are done, and there are only a few students left scurrying around campus. Yes, there’s grading, but that now gets done without many interruptions. For a while we relish the quiet. The sidewalks aren’t crowded. Coffee can be had in the student center without a wait. We have the library to ourselves. But then the silence turns to emptiness. What is a campus without students?
Do we need silence and quiet times every now and then? I think so. The noise of busy academic lives makes it hard to examine any questions beyond what’s next on the to-do list. I find a quiet space in the woods where I walk with a faithful beagle. On a still, frosty morning, as the cold starts to seep into my shoes, I find my way to the more significant questions. How am I doing? Am I doing work I consider important? Am I giving enough? Am I getting enough? What moments do I savor? Which moments should I forget?
The endless political noise of the recent presidential election was deafening—a discordant cacophony that made many of us want to cover our ears. Those of us with a college education have been pitted against those without one. We’ve always stood in separate places, but the gulf between us seems wider. We holler back and forth about walls, bridges, climate change, and the lives that matter. Shouldn’t we be reaching out? But how? And with what?
The value of education used to be taken for granted. When we first moved to Marsh Creek—a place populated by those uneducated, white, rural folks—I was encouraged by all the talk of “going up to the University.” Then I discovered that people were going there for jobs. Penn State is the best employer in the county. It takes years to get a job at the University; and when somebody does, everybody in the valley here knows about it. In this quiet period between the end of one political era and the beginning of another, questions arise about the role of education in a democracy. What is the responsibility of those of us who have it to those who don’t? Collectively? Individually?
I think we ought to declare December the month for listening… and I mean truly listening. Typically, when someone speaks—especially when they’re making an argument with which we disagree—we listen at the beginning, often just long enough to get the gist of their point; then our listening derails as we redirect our mental energies toward framing the response, the counter-argument, the better answer. Yes, we need to have a dialogue; but I think we’d learn more if we focused on the message before we start to formulate our response. Isn’t that what we’ve learned when we take the time to listen carefully to our students? Isn’t that what we encourage our students to do?
So, this season I’m wishing you quiet times, silent listening, and a hopeful confrontation with all that education is and can be on our campuses, in our communities, and across our diverse culture.
This Post Has 4 Comments
This has indeed been an unusual election season. It started eight years ago and has been non-stop. With respect to Professor Weimer, there appears to be a subtle, “micro-aggressive” underlying statement that separates those with college degrees into a pile that must have voted one way from those less educated citizens that must have voted another way. That cannot be the case given the state-by-state outcomes from this latest election process. The so-called highly educated group voted both ways, as did the low information voters and the uneducated masses. As we embrace “silence” during our respective semester breaks, I hope everybody has time to reflect upon the process we have endured and results gained. Too many people use the process to make a social statement or have some other agenda that is contrary to the fact that we are actually hiring somebody to do a job and must look at their credentials, accomplishments, and failures. So, in this time of reflection I hope both sides stop, listen, put aside their agenda, and think about why the other side voted the way they did.
Wow! What an elitist sound to your post, Maryellen…”When we first moved to Marsh Creek—a place populated by those uneducated, white, rural folks—I was encouraged by all the talk of ‘going up to the University.’” And you’re so educated as to bad mouth whole groups of others? “What is the responsibility of those of us who have it to those who don’t? Collectively? Individually?”
Wow! You’re no one I want to ever hear from again. You’re a liberal as long as everyone thinks as you do, right? Hypocrite! You don’t really believe in freedom of speech, do you? Think about it…and listen…as you say! But you won’t hear, will you…you’re a PhD.
John Schmidt has it right, but not you, Maryellen.
A season of silence sounds like a nice break – once I finish reading final papers and exams! A great many of us voted for the President-elect, and we are in fact educated. We have different values. And the other side had a candidate who had a poor record, poor platform, and poor character. A good start would be for the losing team to acknowledge that many of us voted for Mr. Trump knowing his flaws. We are not uninformed hollering idiots; that’s just not a great starting point for a “dialogue.”
Harlan,
I concur with your comments about the Democrat candidate. I found Weimer’s comments condescending, insulting and divisive. Her blog is not the place to start a dialog.