February 22nd, 2023—A manifesto is a public pronouncement of personal belief; the deep private-self made available for others to see and react to. A manifesto, by its nature, is often political, passionate, and committed to a certain path that questions some aspect of the status-quo. I have been thinking about a manifesto because it was central to a recent class I taught. We were studying, Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey. The book is a manifesto because it is a clear critique of “grind culture” which Hersey defines as the combination of white supremacy and capitalism. Before entering into the conversation around the essence of her argument, I started with a brief definition of a manifesto, and then invited the class to write the first two sentences of their manifesto for change in education.
After a ten-minute free write on the question, I shared my drafty draft manifesto, which I wrote, on the spot, with the rest of the class.
“I believe in the sanctity and divinity of all involved in the healing profession of education. To educate and to be educated is to live into the fullness of self, others, and the Spirit.”
There is more I need to write for this to be a full manifesto, and some editing yet to be done, but these two sentences are a good start on a personal statement articulating my beliefs on education. After I penned these words, it struck me that almost every word requires unpacking and deeper examination, starting with the word “I”. By “I”, I mean the current formation of self that I can articulate and make present to others. “I” is the elements of self that my students witness every time we sit down together in a classroom. In addition to this external manifestation, there is an internal aspect to “I”. This is the place of the Spirit, the divine collection of unique talents and gifts that I bring to tasks of teaching and learning. “I” in my manifesto draws wisdom from both temporal and transcendent worlds that I inhabit.
When considering the “sanctity and divinity of all”, I’m pointing to the spiritual and moral aspects of individual students and teachers who inhabit educational spaces. There is a holiness and sacred quality to everyone. A wholeness and completeness, even when I don’t see it right away because of personal bias or social misrepresentations of what it means to be human. Sometimes it takes a long time for me to see what I believe is there but isn’t fully evident yet. The word “all” is a curious word in the context of this phrase. When I first wrote this sentence I inserted “everyone”, but in a revision I scratched it out and inserted “all”. “All” carries an inclusive sense that embraces both human and more than human elements of education. It includes books, articles, students, me, and less tangible but equally impactful elements like soul, spirit, and heart. This is the “all” of teaching in high-quality and inclusive educational spaces.
Many students enter classrooms with a range of social, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual wounds. Modern society isn’t kind to people who can’t, don’t want to, or are told to fit a normative model of identity that isn’t consistent with who they are in their divine wholeness. The message, in various forms is, you don’t fit because of racial, gender, intellectual, or spiritual identities that exist outside society’s narrow definitions. To fit in, society states that the person needs to change, even though change isn’t always possible, or change becomes a denial of deep-self.
In Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, Hersey points to the ways that capitalism and white supremacy, for instance, are dedicated to the task of capturing the body and turning into a tool of production in service of economic gain. The Divinity of the self becomes fractured and bound up with indicators of performance. A person’s worth becomes what they do, not who they are deep within their being. In less drastic ways, schooling has a tendency to homogenize the diverse ways that individuals experience the world into a unified sense of what is normal. Learners who don’t fit the standard mold articulated by social values can feel lost and disassociated from the true essence of self. Education’s balm for woundedness is healing, an invitation to reclaim the inherent sanctity and divinity of the self.
The end result of educating and being educated is to “live”. As Howard Thurman notes, “Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that…” To live in classrooms requires a healing space that centers learning on the sanctity and divinity of the student. Without these elements, learning can devolve into a sanctioned activity following pre-programmed, by external forces, notions of curriculum and instruction. Learning becomes transactional and stagnant not transformational and alive for self and others. There is limited opportunity to investigate the questions and experiences that can bring learning alive, and if these questions are asked there is often no opportunity “go do” the work that brings a student alive.
Students who are alive, are open to mystery and the unfolding of elements of self that have been covered over by social norms and expectations that seek to dampen and control the divine nature of self. Transformation means reencountering true-self after the overburden of social norms have been removed and cleared away. What is true for the self is also true for others. This is the communal nature of education, which although individually gained is for the benefit of the collected whole. Education, to be real, must be energized and directed by and toward the Spirit. This is the mysterious force of purpose and transcendence that students and teachers feel as a sort of magic.
What are the first two lines of your educational manifesto. What is the wisdom and insights deep in your heart that guide your practice? What would these commitments sound like if they were written as a series of statements visible to the outer world? Why are you choosing some words and not others to anchor your beliefs and practices? Start with two sentences and see where your words take you.