May 3, 2019
Dear 6th period,
Truly,
you are dear to me. Yesterday was so tender and raw. Mostly I just want to
acknowledge this. What was intended as a 10 minute journal meditation on power
and empowerment became a full sharing of wounds, trauma and deep wondering
about how to go forth; harassment, fear, imprinted trauma and anger, and what
happens to our pain and what happens when someone else’s pain is directed at us.
You
have such beautiful good hearts. When I see how the poisonous world has taken
its shots at your trusting hearts, I ache—as a father and as a teacher. And
when I see how you open yourselves up and genuinely try to hear each other and
help make sense of the disorder and pain and loneliness that’s laid bare, I am
grateful to you as a human being and inspired as a citizen of the world.
We’ve
talked about the importance of witness and what it means to witness well. It
takes empathy, understanding, compassion—and space. And giving space when you
are witnessing means letting go of judgment and control, and the advice and solutions
that aggressively impose them.
We
have also talked about silence and shame as a mechanism of power and
marginalization. Witness is the answer. Testimony is the answer. They are themselves
not just an act of healing, but of healing the world.
Our
books are these acts of self-revealing
shattering silence. They fight: they’re fighting not just the forces of
silencing but the unchecked abuses of power and powers of abuse.
And
when you as an individual feel safe enough and ready enough to share, when you
as an extraordinary class feel safe enough to share in this semi-public forum, it
is brave, and it is also a gift, and not one you ever need to do before you’re
ready; and you are fighting, even if you feel broken and small when you do it.
When
you as a class are listening hard and giving people room to feel their feelings
and share their stories, you are not only tending to the pain, you are not only
learning and growing wiser from it, you are fighting, even if you feel hurt and
helpless as you do it.
You
are breaking through shame and breaking the silence, giving shape to the hurt,
and you are fighting the toxic complacencies that otherwise allow smaller and
larger acts of violation to keep wounding us and to keep shaping our culture with
impunity.
Testimony
and witness are the first step. But it’s the step that gives heart to all the
others.
I
know I dealt with the sharing awkwardly yesterday. I know it felt messy and
unresolved. I sensed hurt feelings I didn’t have the wisdom to answer. And
then, trying to leave you with a communal sense of something other than the raw
pain we had all just shared, I inflicted a one-minute dance party on you that
ended up just feeling misplaced and desperate. I still don’t have the wisdom to
know how to respond to the hurts that were stirred up. So this letter is just
to do two things:
To
acknowledge the tenderness of yesterday’s discussion.
And
to let you know you are important to me.
David Grosskopf
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