Desired Outcome
#classism #racism #terrorism #systemicoppression #climatechange #socialism #postcapitalism #socialjustice #equity #hope
Courses I teach include management theory and accounting. I return often to the syllabus to ensure that learning objectives are achieved. Because it feels like the crises we face are snowballing uncontrollably, I struggle to contain the content we discuss in class to debits and credits or technical versus adaptive skills. Despite this, it’s essential that I remain grounded, present, focused. And empathetic.
Gen Z
At the risk of generalizing, I’ll state that Gen Z students are insightful. They are observant. While they may not be tuned in to mainstream media headlines (“Train Derails, Spilling Hazardous Materials into the Air, Water, and Soil” or “Gunman Kills Three at MSU”), Gen Z is intrinsically knowledgeable about the tragedies of environmental disaster and gun violence. As a rule, beneath the chill veneer, Gen Z is a sleeping tiger.
Last week I surveyed my students. How many have participated in active shooter training? 100%. How many have been involved in an active shooter event? 10%. I could not bear to ask, how many have been involved in multiple active shooter events?
This week I signed up for an active shooter course offered by Homeland Security, my first. I want to know what to do when shots are fired. While terrorized, I’ll need to deploy both my technical skills, barricading doors and blocking intruder sightlines, and my adaptive skills, keeping my students safe, alive. The relentless deficit that unchecked capitalism wreaks upon the bottom 99% of us has come home to roost.
How can I knit the bits of subjects that I’m paid to teach together in such a way that I both deliver skills development while effectively explaining the story of our undoing, as it is unfolding? How do I do this without being “too political” or “too reactive” or “too preachy”? Sometimes my students get impatient, and ask, “What does that have to do with this class?” Sometimes they nod silently, comprehending that our current state is a platform from which we either sink or swim.
Change happens when we connect the dots between what we value and what we do; when we organize ourselves; and when we act collectively. We need visionaries to describe to us our desired future state; we need planners and doers to orchestrate our actions; and we need scribes to quantify where we started and the distance ahead.
I shifted my career from working as a corporate cog to academia because I wanted to channel my potential for positive impact. My hope is to help my students to be as prepared as possible for the problems they’ve inherited and must solve. Classism. Racism. Terrorism. And the most existential of all: Climate Change.
The container that I’ve got feels random and tiny: How did this particular group of students end up enrolled with me? How did I end up in front of them, as their instructor?
While the ripples formed are infinitesimal, they have the promise of infinity.