March 12, 2010

Education is Progressive Part 11: Students are Giving me Cause for Hope

Yesterday after my first class, I had a conversation about politics with two of my students, Yvette and Andrew. A few days before that, one of my students in the same class told me that she was going after class to the rally against the tuition increases at the University of California. I explained the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case to Yvette and Andrew, and how the Obama administration is fighting an uphill battle against entrenched corporate interests. Both of them totally got it. In fact, they helped me with it. Andrew mentioned that Obama must have found out that he wasn't as powerful as he thought he would be as President, and I confirmed that essentially that seems to be true -- much of the power has already been apportioned to corporations, to the wealthy, to the Supreme Court, something that most of us rarely think about. I told Yvette and Andrew that we are up against a wall, and we can't just blow it down; we need to chip away at it, and eventually, it will come down. "I see it that way, too" said Yvette, this didn't happen in a day, and it won't be undone in a day, but it needs to be undone, she related to me.

I think the attitudes of Yvette and Andrew are fairly typical of college students now. These are not students at an elite school, either, but community college students who may constitute a large portion of the future electorate. It is clear to me that we are not talking about low information voters, here. They are putting their education to use, broadening their perspectives and seeing how our society operates more and more clearly as time goes on. I have gone through the same process, myself, although I have innately always been a progressive. For all I know, there could be a sudden progressive revolution, or on the other hand, World-Mart could happen, but I doubt either of those will happen. I think our future electorate will chip away at the conservative military-industrial-political-religious alliance which has been thrust upon America, until eventually, there are only remnants of it remaining. It will take many years, but these people are young, and they have many years to do so -- if not them, then the next generation, and the next. I plan to stick around as long as I can, myself, and I am in very good health.

Another community college student who gives me cause for hope is my good friend from the internet, David Walker. He may not be typical of our young adults today, but he certainly represents a growing portion of America, who see that populist actions for progressive causes, is the way to make our future brighter. David just made the Dean's List at his community college in Chicago. With people such as David out there fighting the good fight for the public, I feel better about our future.

Of course, reality will surely slap us in the face eventually, showing us what atrocities humankind has commited against the planet, and against each other, as global warming continues, fossil fuel and food supplies dwindle, and mass extinctions continue. I believe that the current generation of young adults, and subsequent generations, will understand how we need to change our worldview. They will expect a good and inexpensive education, and if they don't get it, will protest in large numbers until they do. If universities become unaffordable, they will go to community colleges such as mine. There, they will receive the information they need to help them understand the realities we face in this world. Once they understand this, they will do what is necessary to create a better reality for us all.

To me, college is not some place other than "the real world." It is the real world. Those who live in the fantasy world of big business, with its delusional billionaire superstars, are the ones who are not living in the real world. These few individuals who are so fortunate as to be billionnaires, not because of inheritance, but because of their business, seem to fancy themselves to be "self-made" billionnaires, as I heard them referred to on NPR yesterday. What nonsense! It is the system, and the work and money of countless other persons, which allows these few people to become billionnaires. If I could, I would send all of these billionnaires back to college, to live as students with little money, so that they could learn what the real world is like. But given that is not possible, I am glad we have a generation of progressive minded young, informed voters and political activists to bring our power structure back to reality.