Letter to students after many stories of personal trauma

May 3, 2019

Dear 6^th 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

Goodbye, Cape Town

               We’re sitting in the airport and the plane is already boarding for Dubai, but Natalia thinks I can write the blogpost before anything happens. She is wrong, because we just flew from Cape Town to Dubai, then hiked through a mile of airport and security and security again, and now we’re on our final flight. We’ll be seeing you all in 14 short hours.

               We’ve been saying our goodbyes for the last two days and the students have found every opportunity to hug and cry. We had a final picnic in the Company Gardens last night, the mama’s braai the night before that, and then all of HFB showed up at the airport to wish us goodbye, and cry cry cry. Mimi would say, I’ll get a bucket for your tears and then we can compare them.

               Today we went to the Kirstenbosch Gardens for an exquisite wander at the base of Table Mountain, every path and hill cut and shaped and planted for botanical representation and beauty, and there, in our final moments amidst the careful growth, students gathered concluding thoughts.

               Perhaps the widest insight from the other side of the world and township experience is an appreciation for historical understanding and learning. Very deeply, our Roosevelt students stated in various ways the importance of history and the political power of honest witness. Steep yourself in the literature and vestiges of Apartheid and then go to a place where its effects are starkly written into a segregation of geography, language and culture, and then ferry back and forth between all-black, all-improvised township and all-white/colored, all-cultivated suburb, and talk across different generations and hear Afrikaners say, over and over in different ways, the past is the past while teenage Xhosa-speakers aren’t sure what you mean by Apartheid; and it becomes very evident that a lack of historical perspective contributes to the legacies of Apartheid, physically and spiritually remaining deeply, invisibly entrenched. But in culture and in circumstance, its easy to see and react to only symptoms, for which the sufferer is likely to receive most blame.

               Roosevelt students in their final reflections observed over and over the disconnect between the history of Apartheid and current tensions and patterns. “It’s so boring!” Dani paraphrased from some conversation with Bellville students. “Why do we have to keep talking about things that happened in the past? It’s time to live in the present.” Zanzi captured a similar attitude: “The only reason segregation is still an issue is because blacks don’t have money. Racism just isn’t an issue anymore.” Alea added that Apartheid is so recent that it’s barely history, so it’s shocking that anyone in South Africa think it such a removed, far in the past issue. But it’s so important not to forget, Zanzi said. It’s easier for me not think about what happened to my ancestors; but I’m going to work on being more comfortable talking about it.

               Our students had many thoughts and observations along the same lines. Dani heard so much “they” talk, especially in Bellville; and it is her goal to get away from us and them talk in her own conversation. Ray talked about how important it is to educate youth because that’s where transformation is grown. He said that speaking with Bellville parents and getting a sense of that generational perspective allowed him to gain a lot of respect for the HFB program and a far deeper understanding of what we’re doing here. Mel discussed the redlining and segregation of Seattle, and how important it is to understand what happened and how it relates to what exists now. Stella reminded students that Bellville students stop taking history classes in eighth grade, which shocked several of our own students as she said it.

               Elias heard a lot of blame in Bellville, and not a lot of blame, alternatively, in Langa, to which Sarah responded strongly, saying that she wants to go home and help, and make a change, but somehow do it without pointing fingers: she wants to acknowledge history without being accusatory, and while trying to work together. Zanzi said that doing so with careful vocabulary will help, and she called back what Dani said about avoiding us and them framing. Acknowledge that we all went through this history together, Zanzi said.

               There is a deep desire on the part of students to understand and acknowledge the infrastructure of race that shapes our history, an aspiration to be changemakers operating from a place of ubuntu, or humanity, unity, compassion: I am because we are; we do because we share history, and we do, in love and in hope, together.

               Our students have been thoughtful and hearts-out, tender, solicitous and open. I didn’t know most of their names two weeks ago. But it’s deep affection I feel now, and I’m moved by them, knowing they have been moved, their goodness conjoining the knowledge of injustice and poverty and shared joy into a wisdom and spirit of activism and giving.

               Maybe they’ll give me a hug in the halls.

 

Put your arms around a buddy / Sway so it feels right.

The morning, we'll be together / Til then, I say, Goodnight.

HFB, goodnight (x2) / Goodnight, HFB (x2) / I'll see you in my dreams.

Penguins, lions, baboons

We saw lions the other day at the Drakenstein sanctuary--29 cats rescued from circuses and overcrowded zoos and porches in Beirut, every single one born in captivity.

Here are the best two minutes of the experience:

Then yesterday, on our way to Cape Point, baboons crowded past our van:

 

 Cape Point:

At Boulder Beach, penguins:

Three Hour Circle, HFB unto itself

        Students finished their day at Bellville and went out again with host families (while we adults went to Lita's gorgeous home for a lovely braai and oryx pie).
        We gathered them on the stage to process their thoughts and observations. As I wrote yesterday, this is a critical moment in their trip, as they see so much so loudly through their homestays in Bellville. We also focused on some of their experiences with male-female interactions, which continued in the halls and in other corners to stand out for them--or rather, for the girls, some of whom had repeated unwanted attentions.
         I met with a couple classes yesterday, a grade 9 English class and a grade 12, and we talked about the usual things they like to discuss with an American teacher about schooling differences: how we grade and test our students, how we divide up our terms and lesson breaks, what we eat at lunch and what sports we play, how discipline works. I asked them a few questions, too. But then I asked, in both classes, about the moments in the Q&A during yesterday's assembly when boys called out for one of our students' numbers, and when another asked if it hurt when she fell from Heaven. I explained that in America, we have been trying to teach our boys not to behave like this. And so, I asked, is this normal here, for boys to feel comfortable being so obnoxious to girls, even though it leaves the girls no good response and makes them feel dirty and unsafe? I used my magical powers as an ignorant American to blunder into a conversation probably too sensitive otherwise, magical powers that are the bridge our American students provide between Isilimela and Cape Town. The grade 9s said it was just the older boys, and they were arrogant and immature. The grade 12s said it was just immature people, and anyway, perhaps the difference between American and South African humor is wide. Ah, humor: I pointed out the social force in laughter, and how uncomfortable it is to be on the wrong side of it--wanting to fit in, we join in on laughter; but this laughter is a powerful way to reinforce social roles and cultural ideas, many of which benefit someone but hurt someone else. Ultimately, the grade 12s said most boys at Bellville are gentlemen. I don't doubt it. But the benign or chivalrous behavior of gentlemen is also not the same as the dignity of feminism I claimed we are trying to teach and embrace back home.
        When observing another culture, it's so easy to see that boorish behavior is not just about one individual being immature or trying to be funny. It's a whole culture providing the comforts and support that allow someone to behave that way. What we observe and feel here confers on us another lens: A) In our American culture, too, it's not enough to simply call out or discipline individuals for what feels to us like individual behavior. B) Cultural change requires teachers.
        Our students are these teachers.
        From our circle on the stage, students made observations about gender and race--through Bellville, towards Roosevelt and Seattle, towards Isilimela and Langa, back again towards Bellville and Hoërskool Bellville. Ultimately, we discussed the contours and comforts of power and the survivals and triumphs of those able to see these contours most vividly, by dint of struggle, neglect, abuse. We talked for three hours. Perhaps they are ready to teach.

       

Bellville Hoërskool

            Our students came to Bellville High School after their first night with Bellville homestays. We, their teachers and chaperones, were discussing the power of this event of South Africa and the growth of our students; through experience, we have seen a big leap when they move from the township to the suburb. And it's happening. This suburb that somewhat resembles what they know--the comfortable little detached houses, the greenery, the evenly spaced shops, the new cars, the many white faces--allows them to take reactions from open minds to the almost entirely alien interactions and environments in the township and sew them back up again. The contrast is not merely one between South Africa and the United States, they see, but neighborhood to neighborhood: resources do exist in abundance here, and they are parceled out in extremes.
            The stark environmental shift did not account for the biggest piece of students' racing thoughts and feelings, though. It's the attitudinal shift that they observe, the questions and comments from the Bellville parents about Langa and pronouncements about race, and the internal buzz of respectfully listening to hosts while trying at the same time to piece together the history students have learned, townships moments they've had, and what relates to America and what seems uniquely South African. Did you feel safe in Langa? Did you feel safe in the school there? We like what you're doing, but understand it's reverse Apartheid here, where if you apply for a job, the Black will get it. And one student reported this statement: Things were better for the blacks during Apartheid.
            We love our HFB families and our hosts, and they have been welcoming, gracious, and generous. What I told students yesterday was that they might hear statements from the older Afrikaner generation that would make them uncomfortable, but to try not to judge or think less of their hearts, but consider it as a useful lens to view the larger South African tapestry. Ideally students can feel grateful and warm towards their families and also be hearts-open to the wounds they see continually cultivated by these, even these nice, good people, to the townships and their residents.
             Do the casual attitudes of comfortable people who have nothing to do with government and who live apart from suffering have an effect on those in segregated poverty? This is certainly a question Roosevelt students, and certainly members of HFB, should be willing to entertain.
             The student performance this morning was electric. The Bellville audience was excited and receptive, and when we started singing "Country Roads," we Americans were all surprised when the audience, who filled the auditorium utterly, including those seated on the floor in the aisles and up to the wall of the stage and all up the wings, thundered in chorus with our students.

            Kate and I worried for our girls, when, during the Q&A, the first question was a shout to Tessa: What is your number. Later another boy yelled out, Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven? Mandy said their students would never say these things in private, but in the anonymous crowd, they felt they could get away with it. The behavior nevertheless highlights the beginning of an effort in America to re-educate our boys so they don't celebrate their masculinity in ways that literally or figuratively pin women down, and in my classroom, to consider what laughter in moments of aggression really carries. Kate talked to Tessa, and she was okay.
            Really, I think she was on a high from the performance, their last one, and one for the books. Our kids were stars.
             (But if you want to see something truly polished, watch Bellville High School win the flashes competition, and if you don't know what that it is, you should also watch it.)