by Darin Jensen
So, you’re reading Teacher-Scholar-Activist. I’m glad you’re here. Chances are that you know me or Patrick Sullivan or Christie Toth. And you know that we all shout about things relating to the community college—an institution in which we’re deeply invested. We think this is an important space to gather P-16 educators in building a community of teachers who pursue democratic values in education both in and outside of their classroom.
For me, I’ve voted in every election I could since I was 18 years old. I have given money to candidates, signed petitions, and walked in parades. I have also been a classroom teacher and administrator for what’s coming on 20 years now. It hasn’t been enough. It just hasn’t. Part of Teacher-Scholar-Activist is meant to address that gap in my life. I need to work directly to influence democracy and education—two things I see tied together in affirming ways. This website is part of the response to that need.
For some time, I have tied my work to democratic activism. I have taught in community colleges—the institution type that serves the most vulnerable students—most of the first-generation students, most of the refugee and immigrant students—most of the students of color—most of the working class and working poor students. I have come to believe that working in an English classroom to develop students’ literacy skills gives them access not only to economic opportunity, but also to democratic opportunity. Arming students with critical literacy allows them to understand and resist the dominant discourses about them and their communities. And my students believe in education, too. Just last night, I was working with a Karen student whose parents have done backbreaking work in meat packing plants and restaurants to build the smallest window of opportunity for their daughter and other children to get an education. Now, we know it’s naïve to think that most of the students will get as far as they’d like—systemic racism and oppression and the destiny of one’s zip code are powerful. But there’s hope. And hope is good.
But it isn’t enough. I look around at my state of Iowa which is considering vouchers, which has already destroyed collective bargaining rights, which is considering a bill that would mandate professors’ political parties, and which has struck a blow against women’s health, and I shudder. I look at the national landscape with its spike in hate crimes, executive orders seemingly meant to create a police state and terror amongst immigrants, journalists left out of press conferences, waves of anti-Semitism, islamophobia, and racism, and I shudder.
I respond in small ways. I’m not a movement-leading person. I wish I was, really. So, I volunteer at the adult literacy center and with a homeless shelter to teach reading and writing to refugees. I volunteer at the local food pantry unloading trucks of donated food that remind me of all the Hamburger Helper and canned green beans I ate as a kid. And I work on this website. For me, these are activist moments. And they are direct moments where I engage in the conversation of our culture to model the way I want people to be. It’s an expression of my values.
In my classroom, I have modified my first-year writing curriculum to talk about fake news. We’re working on information literacy as well as the outcomes of composition I. We’ve written an essay defining fake news. We’ve created a website multi-modal composition where the students had to “teach” an audience of 13-yr olds about fake news. Now we’re comparing and contrasting stories in the news sources. We’re discussing the importance of accuracy in sources, and rhetorical positioning, too. I don’t know what the students will take with them, but it feels like the attention to the conversations going on in our country is good for them.
I don’t write all of this to brag. Really. I was raised in a Midwestern Lutheran home where one just didn’t talk about oneself. One went to work. So instead, I say it to catalog what I’m doing, to outline my small moves toward activism. I help feed people and I help people to learn to read and write because that is a kind of power; I help people to think critically about the torrent of information that washes over us every day because that, too, is a kind of power. These are small moves. I know that.
But I want Teacher-Scholar-Activist to be a place where we share our small moves—where we collect them and add them together. I want it to be a place where we bear witness to the work educators are doing in and out of the classroom to hold up our democratic and humane values. I want it to be a place where all the little local actions can come together to weave a larger tapestry. It sounds hokey. That’s ok. I think the student I worked with last night would have appreciated that. I think some of the students I teach appreciate that. I think my children appreciate that. And that’s what lets me sleep in a world filled with troubles and greed.
I hope that you’ll like Teacher-Scholar-Activist and follow it on our WordPress site, Facebook, and Twitter. I hope you’ll join us in writing about the local activism you are engaged in both in and out of the classroom. I hope that you’ll share the things you’re reading that make you sane and give you hope. I hope you’ll share the actions you are taking in your community. After all, as Red Green said: “We’re all in this together. Keep your stick on the ice.”
Darin Jensen is an adjunct English instructor at Des Moines Area Community College. He is a co-founder of Teacher-Scholar-Activist. He teaches, writes, and works in his community. He’s also going to catch all the Pokémon one of these days while walking with his black lab.
Passing this wonderfully refreshing form of activism onto teachers, school board members and students in our community and beyond.