Have you ever wanted to break something?
I have a recurring fantasy about smashing wine glasses. It doesn’t have anything to do with potential metaphorical implications – they’re just small, and thin, and, if you’re going to do it, the point is shattering.
Not sure why that particular vision has stuck around my head so long, I just know that if I was to ever direct a scene in which metaphorical catharsis turned literal, that’s what the heroine would be doing.
Of course, here’s the problem with that – in said scene, you eventually end up with a crunchy carpet of broken glass, and, if the theoretical heroine is anything like me, she’d then feel obligated to sweep up.
That’s my main issue with rebellion. I’m all in favor of window smashing and flamethrowing – except I know how much work it takes to get to the point where you own a window, and I’ve seen how long it takes the scars to heal when someone gets burned.
I used to think of teaching as a form of selling out – becoming the Man – leaving my anarchic journalist roots behind. There are two problems with that version of reality:
*Journalism isn’t as anarchic as it makes itself out to be.
The ink-stained reporter, proudly disheveled and surrounded by clouds of cigarette smoke, is a vanishing species. There are still old-school (and, increasingly, new-school) investigative reporters who have an insatiable drive to illuminate corruption, no matter how much coffee they have to ingest or how mind-numbing it can be to navigate the maze of public reports which form the backbone of most quality exposes. The myth is Deep Throat in the garage – the reality is hours of combing through files, sorting spreadsheets, and asking the same questions over and over again until you break through the carefully polished demeanor of your professional sources and unearth something that sounds like a plausibly genuine version of the truth. Or, more likely, a usable denial that shows you at least bothered to ask the question. Or, even more likely, you get your best information by asking lots and lots of questions of people most people never bother to speak to at all. I will forever love and honor the people who do such work. Their incurable skepticism is the only thing that makes me genuinely optimistic about the state of our democracy.
Here’s the problem: We’ve been laying off real reporters for years. Slashing budgets, refocusing what’s left of the money on the relentless, 24-7, social-media-driven news cycle that has replaced any semblance of reasoned debate. I’ve seen a lot of good people leave. Or take buyouts. Or get fired. Or decide law school will eventually lead to a job with a real salary. Or stick around in half-empty newsrooms, trying not to think about how quiet it is working next to ghosts, knowing the media they grew up with is dying, and struggling to inject the best of its ethos into 140 characters. Journalists are paid to be read. Advertisements pay the bills. Now that classifieds have turned into Craigslist and Sunday coupons have turned into Groupons, dwindling subscription lists and the pennies clinking in from online ads aren’t enough to keep newspapers going. Trying to please the bosses seems like a zero sum game when executive editors are weighing further job cuts versus online pay walls versus … Investing in real news? Turning non-profit in the name of keeping public service alive? Asking all remaining employees to do three jobs and turning to freelancers to fill in the gaps? Withdrawing resources from the far-flung areas of your subscription base? Going hyper-local? Hoping the Internet billionaire who just bought your newspaper actually believes in it? It’s hard to keep the lights on with that many question marks in your balance sheet. I respect the people who are trying.
On the plus side, Buzzfeed proved you can start as an inane collection of user-generated listicles and then successfully harness the populist energy of cat videos to such an extent that you can send foreign correspondents to places the mainstream papers pulled out of years ago. John Oliver proved you can ditch the accepted format, revive long-form pieces, and still go viral. Jorge Ramos proved there are still journalists willing to push back against the increasingly manicured world of political campaigns that attempt to run their own media empires. The latest crop of non-profit news organizations have brought fact-checking back to the election cycle. There are signs of life. The question is: How much of that life consists of shouting from the sidelines? How loud do you have to shout to get anyone to listen? Does it matter how loud we shout if we’re not also listening?
How do you teach someone how to be heard?
*Teaching is way more anarchic than anyone gives it credit for.
Journalism always felt like a drop the mic game to me. Say what you have to say, get out of the way, see what happens. You don’t have that option when you’re teaching. You can say whatever you want to say to the young people who are being forced to listen to you; however, afterward, you have to stay in the room. You also have to take parent phone calls and/or attend tense parent-teacher-administrator conferences, should you ever say something that really rattles cages. People do it anyway. I’ve seen a lot of teachers get themselves in trouble for incompetence. I’ve seen many more teachers get themselves in trouble for standing their ground. Want to know what courage looks like? It looks like hosting a Day of Silence in your classroom, knowing homophobic parents are going to call for your head. It looks like refusing to back down when the child of a well-connected parent with a short fuse turns in a plagiarized paper. It looks like telling the consultant, who makes twice as much as you do despite having less than half an idea of what they’re doing, that you’re throwing away the scripted curriculum and teaching Shakespeare instead, knowing your principal might not take your side.
I’ve seen hardened city reporters shaken by how hard it is to capture the attention of a classroom for a 30-minute guest lecture.
I’ve seen students jump straight to, “Is she quitting?” the first time a teacher walked out of the room in frustration. In a school that almost never finishes the year with the same staff it starts with, it was a fair question. There are lots of schools like that. The only people who will ever follow you down the hallway? Other teachers.
I’ve written a lot of articles. The one time I felt this-might-actually-matter chills was when I interviewed a priest about the roadblocks that had been set up close to his church. Many of his parishioners worked at the nearby slaughterhouse. Many didn’t have papers. When the roadblocks started, they stopped coming to Mass. That one interview turned into a four-part series about North Carolina’s willingness to jump on the immigration enforcement train. The series won an award. I’m proud of that; however, it feels beside the point. I didn’t go to the ceremony. I didn’t even know I was up for the award until afterward. I do remember going to the church. I’ve worked a lot of stories over the phone. Being there in person is always different. It means more.
It’s one thing to write a piece of commentary about race relations in America. It’s another to design a research project around the question, “What is the most effective way to protest systemic racism?” and look students in the eye when they say they believe no one listens to nonviolence.
I don’t want to raise conformists. The world has enough sheep. If something’s wrong, I hope my students are confident enough to say so. Loudly.
Elizabeth DeOrnellas 