November 16th, 2022—These days it seems that the landscape of education is in various stages of disruption. Teacher attrition is high. Schools are still recovering from an enrolment slump and academic challenges post COVID. Educators feel pressured and stressed by parents, community members, and school boards to stick to the status quo. The societal message is clear, avoid the impulse to support and care for students who feel disconnected by race, sexual orientation, or neuro-diversity from school. If, as a teacher, you choose to speak up and out, be prepared for harsh criticism and possible disciplinary action. The vision of a better life through education, its historical mission, seems far away, unrealistic, or scattered.
Given these circumstances it seems like a good time to ask, what does it take to see beauty in the presence of devastation? Is it possible to know beauty when so much around is laid low and battered? I ask these questions, not to diminish the reality of schooling in crisis, but to raise the prospect that even in the midst of pain there is some enduring quality of beauty.
I’m drawn to these questions because I experience a sense of loss in my educational context as low student enrollment equates to financial cutbacks. This often means reducing programs and cutting staff. Fear is more palpable than opportunity and joy. Whether true or not, it feels like the institutional imperatives of efficiency and productivity are more important than human relationships. And even as I raise this concern, I know that cost reductions are necessary to save the institution from total collapse.
In the midst of my conflicted emotions of loss and acceptance, I wonder where can I turn for some solace or images of wholeness in what feels like a fractured world? As is my nature, I often turn to literature that exists outside the field of education for ways to see anew. A case in point is a book of poems and short vignettes from J. Drew Lanham, a Black birder, academic, MacArthur Fellow, social justice advocate, and proponent for intentional living with the land.
In a recent book (2021), Sparrow Envy, he describes the experience of walking through a forest that was recently clearcut. All the trees were removed, trucked to local mills and processed into lumber and other wood products. As I read and reread his essay, “Field Mark 52: Gestalt” I encountered ways to see my academic world with freshness, even in the presence of what feels like a form of human, intellectual, and educational clearcutting. Early in the essay, J. Drew Lanham describes walking through the brush and stubble of the new undergrowth, emerging post-harvest. As he wandered and explored, he periodically stood on the stumps of trees. This perch above the thicket provided an opportunity to look around. To see what he might be missing. To see if anyone else was making their way through the cut timber and brambles.
Lanham’s experience and sense of wonder, while fully experiencing loss, speaks of deep wisdom. As I navigate around the stumps and detritus of change on campus, I should seek out high ground to stand on. Take the time to look around. To really see what the landscape is revealing, unknown and unseen elements that were obscured by the thick forest. As Lanham scams the surrounding area, he notes the presence of bluebirds that otherwise shy away from thick forests. To his eyes and birder’s heart they add splashes of color to the dull palette of loss.
I’m invited to ask, who or what are the bluebirds that I have yet to see because I’m too busy grieving the losses around me? I’m invited to remember that there are other people walking through the clearcut. Students, faculty, and staff who periodically appear when they stand on the stumps they find. I’m not alone. I have companions who are also feeling the loss and are looking for newness. We can share our sorrow and our discoveries. We can tell a new story about what is possible for the future of our academic forest. It will take a long time, but clearcut forests and their aftergrowth will recover and flourish once again. As Lanham notes, “Yes, the forest will regrow, and yes—the stunted pines … needed a new start for the landowner to gain enough financial ground to hold onto the land” (p. 35). Even while noting the value of cutting timber for environmental and economic reasons, Lanham also is “saddened” by the removal of ancient trees and their “understory consorts”.
In addition to seeing anew and accepting that some clearcutting is necessary, Lanham’s essay offers yet another piece of wisdom that I can use. As he approaches the far reaches of the clearcut, Lanham finds a tree stand for hunting deer, a stand he installed five or six years ago. He writes, “Finding my stand in the harvest aftermath was like finding a piece of home after a storm has tossed everything else asunder”. He climbs up the old ladder, watches a hawk, and listens to the trees, “talking in leaf rattle to the river rushing by” (p. 34).
Lanham’s discovery of his old tree stand is an apt description and metaphor for the lived experience of many faculty and staff in higher education. Their passion and calling to serve has experienced a clearcutting of the heart. The loss is painful and disheartening. Daily, I see these brokenhearted colleagues as they walk across campus, lamenting the devastation of their once verdant profession. I too know that projects that I have committed my life’s work to are likely to be cut in the process of budget management. This is a painful and necessary reality, even if the changes are a necessary process of removing old programs that are overshadowing new emergent ideas.
To me the brushiness of the new landscape can be disorienting. Yet, if I poke around and explore, I may still find my old stand. A solid reminder of the longstanding haunts and spaces that initially called me into the profession. I might have to clear away some brush and check on the stability of my ideas and commitments before climbing. Once I’m perched, I can survey the changed landscape to see what I’m missing. What is still present that I’m not seeing because of my grief and pain? In my work, there is still much to know, experience, and attend to that is life giving and holistic. Like the trees “talking in leaf rattle to the river rushing by”, I have colleagues and students who are speaking the language of the heart to the river of educational reform. We are still here. We are still capable of making changes to a system that often values economics and survival (as it is programed to do) over things that can’t be commodified like, humanness, love, and care for each other.
What might it mean to find your stand again? How would it feel to be at home in the devastated landscape of education? If you listen closely and with intention, what is the “leaf rattle” saying to you and the rushing river of delight flowing right outside your classroom door?
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