Uncertainty – the biggest bandwidth-stealer – has been the only certain thing for a year and a half. Worry adds to bandwidth depletion. Given that, I’ve written these reflections on education using my available bandwidth…
About two weeks ago I read about the discovery of the bones of 751 people, Indigenous children almost certainly, at the site of a residential school in Saskatchewan, just weeks after the bones of 215 children were discovered at an old residential school in British Columbia. These schools operated from 1883 to 1996, funded by the federal government and run by Christian churches, mostly Roman Catholic and Anglican. I have read that over 4,000 children are still unaccounted for after they were removed from their families and taken away to residential schools where their way of life and language were untaught to them in what some call cultural genocide. I am saddened by this discovery, just the latest piece of evidence that we humans have a disturbing way of making some very bad decisions about our children’s education.
At the same time, I’ve been thinking about the current spate of state laws and school rules in the US that say teachers, in schools from elementary to college, are prohibited from teaching about slavery and systemic racism. The blanket condemnation of “critical race theory” as something that breeds ill-will and conflict and so should be kept from students is an excellent example of counterproductive education policy. Simply stated, critical race theory asserts that it is impossible to understand current US society without consideration of slavery and its lasting imprint on the social and economic realities of black people today. It is analogous to wiping out any teaching about the landing of the Mayflower or the British tea tax or the writing of the Declaration of Independence. These are all things that happened without which we would not be where we are in 2021.
Especially now as we continue to emerge from a global pandemic and a year of social unrest about violence against black citizens, effective education at all levels will be predicated on having authentic conversations, not closing them down. We need to relate with each other across all kinds of differences and capitalize on the strength that comes from a group of individuals who bring a variety of perspectives to an issue or problem. In fact, I can’t think of one major challenge facing humanity that will not require an interdisciplinary approach to finding solutions.
We need everyone at the table. We need the mind of every child to be nurtured and encouraged in community with their classmates and neighbors so that, together, we can find solutions to global crises related to, for example, governance, environmental sustainability, and a decent and secure standard of living for every person. In the US and Canada and in every other country, we need to be willing to face our histories - the good and the awful - and learn from them and decide together to make better choices today. Our collective future depends on our coming to terms with our past and we can only do that if we can look at it straight in the face, accept our missteps, and decide to make different choices in the future. Our children and youth are capable of this kind of honesty and they should not expect any less from the adults in their lives.
What does this have to do with bandwidth? It’s relevant at two levels. An organization has bandwidth, just like people do. Hiding things takes up bandwidth, if you’re a university or a public school system or an individual student. Honestly facing reality expands bandwidth in the long run because none is being expended avoiding unpleasant parts of our history, personal or national. (Although, admittedly, facing the truth about US history when you have not known it can take up bandwidth in the short-term.) It will take all of our collective cognitive resources to come to terms with our past and head into a more equitable – and better - future for all of us.