Last week, I got a smile-splitting e-mail from a best friend, serving as a PCV in Uganda. In the middle of this letter--she asked, "do you worry about sustainability?"She, nearing the end of her service, working with agricultural NGOs in her town, she shared, is thinking a lot about sustainability--both environmental and programmatic: how does she prepare the projects she has been working on to continue (and adapt, and then continue) to function/provide services after she heads back to the States.
and in other ways, and in ways I never imagined, I too am deeply contemplating sustainability. And my role in enabling, preparing for a sustainable society.
One of the challenges I just don't know how to overcome, and to help prepare these students for 'their' generation, is the rampant apathy I see in my students.
For example--today is the 7th of March--the day that the first school for women was opened in Albania. and students weren't interested at all. Perhaps the documentary was really boring, perhaps they have seen it before. but it was just depressing to feel like I was forcing students to learn about what should be (or is that judging too much?) a valued event. especially within a community where the women in the generation of our parents didn't necessarily have the opportunity to go to school. in this context, education, especially for women, feels all the more important.
maybe I am sexist--or more sexist than I think I am (perhaps the case)--but it bothers me especially when men--especially in such a patriarchal system--don't care about the history of women. and even more the history of 'their' women--women in their community, women speaking their language. these aren't women who I am asking, imploring, begging them to respect for their contribution to 'my' society, but to their own.
Especially in a society, in a community that speaks so proudly of their heritage, their culture, and what it means to be 'Albanian,' and then to then see men/the youth totally disinterested in their history (and the history of women), has just broken my spirit. How can anyone be proud of their heritage and not care about their history?
It's one thing to feel disrespected by students--human to human. but to see them then showing this kind of disregard for authority, society, history and their culture makes me question the kind of society that can come from this generation.
These are the students who have not shown any spark of interest in anything (which, I must say is certainly not all my students--but a healthy contingent). And it makes me wonder what will happen to them, without passion, without curiosity or interest in the world (or those) around them, without engagement, or desire to expand their minds, their worlds, their perceptions. It certainly is a depressing prospect for the future: a generation who doesn't even know, or care to know, what they are missing, or already have missed, through letting the living around them disappear into the glow of their touchscreen telephone worlds. Letting cell phones replace being alive.
sigh.
For if they don't value something, how can they care about it--or motivate themselves to do something to either preserve or change it?
and I fear that this is a fundamentally unsustainable generation, in their perspectives on life, the world, people. No sense of consequence for their actions. no sense of respect. honesty or sincerity. no sense of fear, or respect. no responsibility.
and this is what the future is made of?
And it's hard to stay focused, motivated, believing in a profession based solely upon the idea(l) of creating a new generation--shaping them, building them into independent people, critical thinkers, compassionate be-ers. And looking at this small group of students, I honestly, don't have a lot of hope. Because the behaviors they exhibit are not, and can not, be sustainable--environmentally, socially, ethically. and probably not economically either (at least in the long term. in the short term I'm sure this attitude will bring profit).
And this is the future? our future leaders? teachers? citizens? parents?
and what scares me is how, where will people who want to change the system, who can and will invest in society--not in their personal profit--where do those people come from? And where are they now?
and what will happen to them in this hostile environment, a place where I, who, for 23 years, have have prospered--academically, emotionally, mentally--in a supportive, nurturing, and alternative educational system. and yet, even this does not seem to make me strong enough to survive this negativity.
and to top it off. today is Teacher Appreciation Day.
the ironies of life.
