Today was a unique class for all of us. We had a 30-yr old student share his story of battling stage 4 testicular cancer and choosing to continue his goal of competing in an Iron Man Triathlon. Later we discussed his story and how impactful it was... my students said... you hear stories like this but when you discover that person is sitting next to you in your class and is part of your community, it changes everything. I understand what they mean, but asked them, why do we have to KNOW the person in order for their story to mean something to us. Why is it only powerful when we have some familiarity with that individual?
I think the answer is, most of us don't have a sense of The Human Community that we are all a part of. Everyone not in our daily lives is considered a stranger with no connection or ties to us. Their suffering or joy does not reach us through empathy. We are separated, disassociated and they are other.
We need to find ways to make this not so. As educators we need to build community in our classrooms, so that our students have at least one place they can be human and have a feeling of connection, compassion and empathy. If this is the only thing we are able to teach our students, then we have done our job.
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