Waking up

I used to get angry at individual people for their ignorance; sometimes I think I would even get frustrated at their lack of insight on issues of sustainability.  I've finally gotten to the point where I understand the time that it takes to move through life toward enlightenment of a sort--seeing things for what they are without all of the rhetoric and advertising that surrounds them.  You have to wake up and start the journey to this place, and that is not easy to do.  First you have to wake up when everything in our American culture works to keep us sleeping or not thinking about the issues that really matter:  Television, hollywood, keeping up with the neighbors, advertisements that tell us who we are or who to be, thoughts of getting ahead/racing to the top, buying more stuff, all of these work to pacify us and lull us into a false security.  Even if a person manages to wake up, she has to sift through all the clutter of this American shattered dream to figure out what really matters.  That process could take years.

While I am angry still at our systems and processes and the propaganda of those seeking to remain in power,  I have some empathy for the Americans who are still trying to wake up.  I also realize that we can't always stop our government from creating wars and making terrible decisions about the welfare of our own people or the people of other countries.  We can speak out, but that isn't always enough.  We can demonstrate that there are other ways to live.  We can start change in our own communities.  We can create a sense of real community and caring based on things that truly matter to those living here.  We can choose to be done with the things that someone else says should matter to us, and instead we can reprioritize.  I'm not really sure what this might look like but maybe it means we need to tell the schools what we want them to teach instead of listening to some test designer in Washington D.C.  Maybe we need to create a community garden or some other shared cooperative.  Maybe we need to demand better work hours so that we can contribute to our local communities rather than being a slave to a company that doesn't really care about us or our neighbors.  Maybe not participating in the traditional economy that benefits stock market gamblers is the best thing we can do to regain our sense of self.

Community Service

My students are writing about whether Community Service should be part of the requirements to graduate from college. A good majority feel that college students don't have time, or find in unappealing based on their definition that serving the community means cleaning up trash, working with the homeless or working in a nursing home. As an teacher, I have used Service Learning in the past (connecting practical hands on learning about the subject to service in the community) and would like to use it again.
I was amazed and impressed by one student who talked about how she is already involving her children in community service. She has her children pick a "cause" each year and then they decide how they will help. She then went on to describe what her kids did for a local organization last year by having a lemonade stand.
I think that if we could find more creative and non-traditional ways for college students to serve their communities, such a requirement would not present a problem for students and would benefit both students and the communities. Making such requirements easier for students, might mean more work for counselors, teachers, and colleges. For me, the real question is can we get the faculty and staff on board to do the work?