Global Search for Justice

St. Catherine University, where I teach, requires all juniors and seniors to take a course title "Global Search for Justice."  Those teaching this course can choose from a number of topics including immigration, women's health, voices of dissent, etc.

This past summer I spent a month in Korea with my co-instructor, learning and traveling to prepare to teach our new section titled "Women's Voices of Dissent and Women's Health".  Now that we are back it is time to plan out the details of the class: how to combine history, cultural perspective, current events, and health care issues as they relate to women.  The themes have to be universal.  The women on this trip need to learn as much, or more, about themselves than they learn about Korea.  They have to learn to see from many perspectives, how to set priorities that make a difference, how to use the small things to build a network for change... But how do you teach these things?  Can young women from the United States spend 3 weeks in Korea, now a wealthy developed country, and feel the pain of the ghosts that continue to reside there?  Even if they can grasp the pain of the journey, can they transform that pain into action?  Can they become the compassionate leaders who will find a way to end war, provide health and nourishment to the next generation, do away with greed, and move the world to a new reality?
Of course not.  But they can build a foundation for themselves that may ripple out in ways we can barely imagine.  My charge is to pick and choose the experiences that will provide the fodder for their thought, craft the reflections that will touch their hearts; all while keeping them safe, happy, and entertained.

It is a big charge, but an exciting one.  To teach is to touch lives in ways that play it forward, to provide opportunities to stretch both the mind and the heart,
Yesterday I put posters up around campus.  The posters are an attempt to start the process.  The many wonderful people of Korea will do the rest.  I need ideas on how to bring it all together to package the experience for processing and growth.  Undergrads need structure.  They are not yet mature enough to realize that they are weaving their own tapestries.

At times like this it is easy to feel inadequate.  I have to remind myself that my experience is my own.  It belongs to no one but me.  Likewise, my students will liver their own experience.  They will mold themselves from what they take away from their own experiences and their own dance.  While I can touch their lives, I cannot (and do not want to) shape their lives.

Our inadequacies and imperfections are our art.  They are what makes us grow.  We each own a tiny piece of history.  It is unique.  It carries our personal and unmistakable scent into the winds of time.  What makes history so fascinating is the combination of personal imperfections and genius dancing together in simultaneous harmony and conflict.

Just as many topics and experiences come together in this course, our students will come together making their collective and individual mark and taking away with them their own impressions, the messages that impacted them most profoundly.  They will process in their own way, come to their own conclusions, and touch those around them beginning a chain reaction.  I am sure that I will be one of those touched by their vision just as much as I am a catalyst for their thinking.   Now to work on the structure on which students will hang their new experiences to let them distill, mature, and begin their growth.  The structure needs to be generic enough to flow with the dance, but sturdy enough to form a foundation.