Ignorance Provides the Fertile Ground in Which the Seeds of Hate May Flourish

Your tips are greatly appreciated! Upgrade at 30% offI remember my first days as a young teacher. There was one student that the staff recognized as being highly intelligent. I was excited to meet him, but I was surprised to discover I felt slightly intimidated on the first day of class.He came in quietly and took his seat. He carefully arranged his notebook and his pen. He moved with precision rather than urgency as he made himself comfortable. Then he looked up at me.He didn’t make a single disrespectful gesture. His expression was passive. But it was obvious that the gears were turning behind his eyes. “Ah, the famous Michael,” I thought to myself, and all of a sudden I recalled a dozen times I’d walked into a classroom to face a befuddled teacher with a strange expression on his face.“Ah, the famous Walter,” they’d said. They’d looked at me in a way I didn’t understand at the time. I didn’t understand it until I had my own experience on the first day of a class facing a student that everybody knew was bright. Right then, I resolved not to treat Michael the way my teachers had treated me.I think the difference is that I felt kinship with Michael, whereas my teachers had seen me as a threat.It’s a sad thing to recognize we live in a society that fears rather than celebrates education. This misguided attitude has imposed a terrible cost upon humanity.Imagine if we revered teachers the same way we show respect for members of the armed forces. Why shouldn’t we? The modern expectation is that teachers will collapse upon your children like a human shield to absorb the bullets of a mass shooter.It won’t help for a teacher to sacrifice her life in that way because mass shooters use military grade weapons. However, our social expectation is that teachers shouldn’t hesitate to die to protect our children.But how many teacher appreciation days do you see? How often do passersby stop a teacher and say, “Thank you for your service.” They can’t because teachers know better than to identify themselves. They don’t wear hats emblazoned with “teacher” in large gold letters.Teachers often receive less than the basic dignity reserved for total strangers. This is a deliberate choice our society makes. Some teachers respond to this by taking it out on their students.Maybe that’s the point.When I taught in Peru, there were many teacher appreciation days. The parents threw parties for us. They came to school and arranged a grand breakfast. They said, “Thank you so much for guiding our children towards a better future.”Parents and teachers were united in a common goal. We were working for the benefit of their children, and we were treated to a high standing within the community.If you’re a teacher in the United States, parents rarely say, “Thank you for teaching my child.” If you’re a parent, have you ever said that to one of your child’s teachers?More often, it’s something like, “My taxes pay your salary, quit acting like you’re better than me because you wasted four years drinking and called it study. You get three months off every year, talk about lazy.”In the backwards, conservative town where I grew up, the teachers were barely tolerated. I wonder if they had staffing issues in my district. I wonder how many of my teachers were not qualified to occupy their positions.You hear stories of teachers who think a kilometer is longer than a mile, or that the moon has phases because of the shadow of the Earth, or who can’t understand the difference between “descendant” and “common ancestor.”I remember sitting in dusty classrooms. We had chalk boards that were green, not black. You wanted a desk by the register because it was warmer. There was a pole in the corner from which hung a crumpled, faded, moldy flag. We had to stand, turn to face it, and say the pledge. The flag was beside the teacher’s desk, and she too would stand at attention and recite, her eyes shining, as if this ceremony was the only means of avoiding some unknown punishment.I’d hear stories of other parents threatening teachers. We had quite a lot of brutes among our classmates. Fathers would come into conferences wearing hunting knives. Phrases like “headlock” and “tossed that arrogant jerk against the wall” were bandied about in the cafeteria.Kids bragged about how their dads assaulted their instructors. We were grateful for it because it meant the teachers simmered down, at least for a few weeks.Violence was ever present. We were mindful of fists and stones in the school yard. Adults brawled outside of bars. Teachers, too, would intimidate with the threat of corporal punishment.Physical threats keep children in line. But the system of control had to be maintained by different tactics as we grew into our adult bodies.When physical threats stop working, authority must rely on superstition. Superstition based intimidation is only effective on ignorant populations.A system of authoritarian control will, therefore, always seek to sow the seeds of ignorance.My teachers saw me as a threat and I never knew why. Their problem was that they were beholden to an absurd model of authority. They perceived my intelligence as a challenge to their “right” to respect.I’d done nothing.With maturity, I’ve developed some sympathy for the teachers of my youth.Intelligence isn’t the problem. Authority is the problem.What a terrible balancing act educators in rural areas are forced to endure. They are outsiders in a hostile environment where anyone who holds a degree is regarded with suspicion.The general mindset of the United States is not to respect education. We celebrate ignorance. Ignorance is what keeps the population under control. Reason is mocked and despised.“People with degrees have a fancy, expensive piece of paper, and they don’t have a lick of common sense!”“They think they’re better than us!”“We deserve to have equal representation for our viewpoint!”For years I was resentful of the constant, unprovoked, hostile attitude I encountered at my rural school. But when I became a teacher myself, I realized how obvious it is when you have a bright student.They sit in your classroom and shine.It’s wrong to try to dim their light.Instead, we must allow ourselves to be guided by their illumination.Our students are allies in a common cause. There’s nothing to be gained by being adversarial. When we renounce the concept of authority, we stop perceiving our students as threats.We aren’t above them. They are our equals. Some of them are more than our equals, and we have no right to try and change that with threats, force, intimidation, or lies.Authoritarianism evolved because human beings are luminous, and they have a natural resistance to suppression. Humans turn to knowledge in the same way that a plant turns to the sun.To maintain their undeserved positions, authority figures are compelled to dunk their children into cesspools of ignorance. The kids come up sputtering for air, and since they are denied the chance of advancement, they succumb to frustration.Instead of celebrating education, we cultivate ignorance, and we reap hatred.On my first day as a young teacher I looked at my students and said, “There are no teachers, there are only students, and it will be my privilege to learn with you.”Michael and I got along just fine. We had a common purpose and I allowed myself to learn a lot from him.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI'm so happy you're here, and I'm looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe