Our tongues are powerful weapons; use them wisely
Rosie Sansalone teaches 8th and 9th grade English at Summit Country Day School.
Classroom doors will open to students in schools across our city this week. As I open my classroom door, I face a new eager group of students with the confidence of 22 years of teaching experience, and yet with the burden of the recent maelstrom of injustice which has erupted as a result of a reinforced foundation of divisiveness fostered by a resurgence of words and symbols of hate from history: blood and soil; race; swastika; white supremacy; ethnic cleansing; the KKK; anti-Semitism; slavery; the Black Sun; and the iron helmet of the Nazis.
As an English teacher, I teach the power of language; as a social justice and Holocaust educator, I teach the lessons of history. Never, have I been so eager to open my classroom door to present to my students on that first day the following rule: to respect the humanity of those present and to remember that “our jobs as human beings is to edit the rough draft of history.” And yet, as I write these words today, it is with the realization that we are all teachers who should promote this simple rule remembering that the world is a classroom with the potential of gained knowledge and shared wisdom.
Each of us – even outside the hallowed hallways and classrooms of academia – as engaged citizens and teachers of humanity, can foster respect by listening to the personal stories of others, studying the precise use of language, understanding the lessons of history, recognizing and “unsilencing” injustice, and working to effect change, all in an effort to create positive human connections which empower each individual we encounter to realize his or her greatest potential for good. Did we see the greatest potential for good fostered in the streets of Charlottesville as marchers chanted slogans and carried symbols of hate taken from history?
The weaving together of language and history in the microcosm of my classroom allows me to choose literature which follows a pathway to justice, which includes – in the words of Carl Wilkens, the only American to stay in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide – self-respect, respect for others, empathy and inclusion. As my students and I traverse this path yet again this new school year, I have a renewed resolve to remind them of the words of my friend, Eugenie Mukeshimana, a Rwandan genocide survivor: “Your tongue is a powerful weapon, use it wisely.” Again, shall we bring that lesson outside of the school classroom, by asking: Were the tongues used to express hate and supremacy in Charlottesville, or even those tongues which reacted with vague indifference, used wisely?
As I watched the news coverage of Charlottesville, and the flurry of words which followed, I was reminded of my classroom goals, the lessons of history, and our job as human beings to edit them. As an English teacher, I equate editing to the improvement of using the English language to communicate the complexity of our ideas. This complexity cannot be and should not be expressed in 140 characters or less.
True and mindful editing allows us to massage our word choice to present clear and articulate ideas. We, as educated citizens and teachers of humanity, should expose ourselves to great writing to gain knowledge from shared wisdom – e.g. Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail or Susan B. Anthony’s Is it a Crime for Citizens of the United States to Vote? – to see how writers who have walked the roads of oppression and hatred have precisely and brilliantly woven together a tapestry of words revealing an understanding of history and language leaving the reader a clear message of the need to take action.
Further, compare these writings of our deeply rooted divisive past, with those of Holocaust survivors. Perhaps, we, as engaged teachers of humanity, should read Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir Night, as well as watch his speech, “The Perils of Indifference” – wisely articulated words given to us by a man who experienced the evils of Nazism at its epicenter.
If I had to limit the brilliance of Wiesel’s use of the English language to a Twitter post, I would choose these words: “Indifference is not a response.” Or, perhaps, we as engaged citizens of Cincinnati, should remember the words of one of our local Holocaust survivors, Werner Coppel, who shared his story of escaping the “blood soaked fields of Germany” with thousands of local students and community members: “Stand up against hate and prejudice even if it does not affect you.” Thus, as an English teacher and social justice educator, I use my words here, albeit more than 140 characters, “to stand up” as a reminder that we must follow the examples of those justice seekers from history who came before us; they used precise words and engaged action to support those who faced hate and oppression as a result of the divisiveness of societal constructs.
Indeed, as teachers of humanity, we hold great power – the power to “make neutral” these societal constructs. As a colleague, who teaches in a school for children with Autism, shared with me yesterday: “I try to save my energy to take care of my students who remain neutral with no concept of politics, race, or even gender.” Precisely.
Thus, with the renewed energy of summer rest, we, as teachers – whether in a classroom, board room, yoga studio, museum, retail store, restaurant, oval office, news room, the streets of our communities, or any space where humans connect – must open our “classroom” doors with the goal of taking care of our students. And, for those of us with students for whom that neutrality has been obliterated by the resurgence of the injustices of history, the disconnectedness of social media, and the exposure to violence in the streets and on the screens which surround them, we must carefully guide them to find that neutral foundational respectful ground again with the careful empowering lessons of the moral triumphs of history.
As we edit this rough draft of history with the language of inclusivity, we teach students, colleagues, family, and friends to use the powerful weapon of their tongues wisely as they refuse to be indifferent to injustice. They will “stand up against hate and prejudice” using precise language which emerges from a strong moral center of integrity developed after a careful study of human history whether learned from the blood-soaked ground of the death camps created by the machinery of death conceptualized by Nazi leaders around the table at a lakeside villa in Germany; or from a field in Gettysburg immortalized by the memory of death resulting from economic and societal divisiveness; or from the streets of Charlottesville still stained crimson with the words and symbols of hate.
Thus, teachers of humanity, as you open your “classroom” doors, I implore you to reflect on the words of Holocaust survivor Roman Kent, which he shared with me a few years ago when I met him in New York City one block west of Fifth Avenue: “In your hands is the future of mankind. It is up to the teachers.”