Everything's Political - The Need for Problem-Solving-Focused Education

As a graduate student in a Student Affairs in Higher Education program, I endeavor to eventually work on a college campus, encouraging students to mind their civic habits and responsibilities, while simultaneously teaching them about life throughout that journey. In working with the Wilks Institute, I have managed to perform bricolage, mixing two seemingly disparate elements together: politics and education. Through Pondering Politics, I have organized a series of discussions in which students having no knowledge of politics can contribute to a conversation on what politics means to them. I guess one could metaphorically associate this effort with the training wheels needed for what is hopefully a life-long career marrying civic responsibility with education.

My motivation for pursuing what can be an all-too-frustrating task was initially selfish. I was a political science major. I didn't have the guts to denigrate characters in political attack ads or the logical skills needed to practice the law. I liked living and working on a college campus as an undergraduate. Voila. Student affairs allows me to straddle the line between politics and education.

But, as many a graduate student has come to know, this line I speak of is fictional. That's the lesson I have learned this year, perhaps nowhere better than these dialogues. Navigating a curriculum rooted in social constructivism, understanding that there is never a "right" answer, but merely socially-constructed knowledge, has sharpened my realization that politics is in everything we do. Yes, it's in presidential elections every four years. It is in the partisan bickering and strategizing that goes on in Washington. But it is also in fraternity and sorority elections. It is in where you get your coffee in the morning. It is in the choice of news you wish to consume. Politics is everywhere.

My experience with undergraduates at my former place of employment and Miami reveals to me that I was not alone in seeing the line. Politics can be compartmentalized into a convenient box. Students associate politics with Washington DC, voting, Congress, and the like. In one of our political dialogues, one of the students expressed boredom with politics. "Whenever I see politics on TV I change the channel," they explained. "It's just not fun. I don't really want to get involved." Yet, the act of channelsurfing itself is political. They did get involved in their decision to forgo public affairs programming.

I am recognizing that while higher education staff and faculty spend quite a bit of time on social justice education, we tend to spend less time on civic education, developing the set of tools needed to engage in one's community. While service-learning and voter registration drives have been trendy on college campuses during the last two presidential campaigns, engagement in local and state politics continues to suffer. It's no wonder students associate politics with dysfunctional Washington.

If we were to take a problem-solving approach to learning, we might make some headway, ridding higher education of the “mind/body split” that compartmentalizes intellectual discussion from one’s public actions (hooks, 1994, p. 16). A problem-solving approach would require the construction of deep and sustainable relationships between student affairs employees, faculty, and administration; a problem-solving-based model would necessitate an emphasis on the common good, meaning that students would see departments and offices role model this approach by collectivizing agendas as much as possible and placing the institution’s mission (which would ideally emphasize problem-solving) above their own. In addition to the construction of strong relationships, a problem-solving approach would encourage student affairs educators to create Freirian relationships with students; with an emphasis on community problem-solving, student/teacher and teacher/student “learn from and teach each other” – “doing ‘with’ rather than ‘for’” (as cited in Manning, 1994, p. 95).

In this model, collaboration is the name of the game. The common good is at the heart of this effort, with problems uniting academic disciplines, student affairs staff, and students as opposed to egos, departments that are siloed off from each other, and disengaged students. To get here, we do need to re-examine our social justice efforts.

In order to face society’s problems today, our students must first begin the process of understanding and exploring their identity, their values, and how they view difference. In addition, the educational nature of problem-solving demands from students the ability to see an issue from another’s perspective. Following these tough lessons, students also need to learn about power and privilege, the source of many of the problems our students will be trying to solve.

As we redouble our efforts to solve these problems, politics does not have to be perceived as a bad thing. The derivation of the word -- “polis” is the Greek word for a city or state, thus “politikos,” or politics, means affairs/issues of the city/state -- is hardly negative. What is bad is that college students associate the broken system currently in Washington with politics; consequently, "politics" gets a bad name and other, more positive opportunities for political engagement become invisible. With just a bit more effort, all of us associated with higher education can reveal the other side of politics -- civil conversations, learning from others, changing their realities to help themselves and others -- and align programs with our institutions' "citizenship"-laden mission statements.

References:

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.

Manning, K. (1994). Liberation theology and student affairs. Journal of College Student Development, 35, 94-97.

Scholar Leaders Plunge into Chicago

The week before Spring semester classes started, twenty-eight members of the Scholar Leader community, including myself, bundled up against the cold and headed to Chicago for an annual trip the program takes called Plunge. Plunge provides Scholar Leader members the opportunity to visit a city in order to do service, meet with community leaders and organizations, and generally "plunge" into the environment and culture of a city separate from Oxford.

Having never been to Chicago, I immediately fell in love with the city: its picturesque position on Lake Michigan, the entrancing skyline, but most importantly, the people. People of a variety of colors, sizes, cultures, mindsets, values, and lifestyles, all blustering past me in the frigid Chicago air. Coming from a considerably small town compared to Chicago, where buildings are considered tall if they are four floors, it was thrilling to be in such an energetic and different environment from what I am used to.

It was clear from the first day of our visit that Chicago would provide life-changing experiences. Our visit began with the option to explore the city for a few hours. This exploration opened our eyes to typical attractions such as Cloud Gate, or more commonly "The Bean," in Millennium Park as well as the Art Institute of Chicago. However, it also opened our eyes to the bitter reality of homelessness and poverty in Chicago, as we encountered many people battling the cold in order to find enough money to have a meal for the evening. These encounters were some of the first connections to the theme of our trip: power and privilege. This theme was continued in full force that evening when we met with the organization LIFT, which fights poverty in Chicago and works to give those living in poverty the resources needed to begin changing their situations. The discussion made us even more committed to making a difference in Chicago during our time there.

The next day found us at the Greater Chicago Food Depository boxing food for senior citizens that would help feed them for three to four days. Lined up in a very energetic assembly line, we packed these boxes for almost three hours generating a product of 880 boxes, each containing rice, cereal, mixed vegetables, condensed milk, and canned salmon. We all left in high spirits knowing that we were now involved in the fight against poverty in Chicago and were helping to feed 880 people. This experience was followed by a conversation at DePaul University about power and privilege, which was continued spontaneously throughout the rest of the trip.

Our final day of Plunge was last Friday and began with a visit to Access Living, an organization that works to find independent housing for those with disabilities and advocates for disability rights and opportunity. After a tour of Access Living's building, built following universal design, we had another discussion on power and privilege with members of the Access Living staff, and how this theme relates to those with disabilities.

All of these experiences were complemented by community bonding adventures including visits to China Town, Little Italy, Shedd Aquarium, and the John Hancock Observatory, which also gave us the opportunity to explore the many cultures and sights that make up the city of Chicago. The trip came full circle when we were able to see the Miami University Glee Club perform Friday night at St. Vincent de Paul Church. Despite being in a city much different from Oxford, we were able to connect our experiences in Chicago with our lives at Miami and see that our impact is in no way confined to a single area.

Plunge was a wonderful success this year. It showed how much one can grow in just a few days and also that a place may be incredible, but it is the people you encounter who truly make an experience worthwhile.