Service-Learning for the History Student

Anna Lindner

November 18, 2015

The Relevance of History in Service-Learning

This semester, I am taking Spanish Capstone and four history classes. It’s a good thing I’m a history major, because that’s a lot of history, and it’s sometimes overwhelming. I will admit, I tend to be a person stuck in the past. Rather than the future, I think about how the past has impacted our current realities. For me, history isn’t some abstract discipline. It’s strikingly relevant to my life, and every day in class, I get to connect historical events to our world today, which I find inspiring. As an ABSL coordinator, I engage with the academic aspect of service-learning. I try to have an interdisciplinary approach to my job and my academics, which, of course, means relating service-learning to history. I have been the liaison for African history this past semester, so I wrote the following description of service-learning as it pertains to history.

Service-Learning in the History Department:

The history department, by virtue of its nature, could and, I believe, should have a close relationship with the Service-Learning Center. History is not merely the study of the past; it is also an investigation of humans, the way they perceive and then try to interpret the world around them. In order to learn about history, we as students engage with readings, listen to lectures, and write papers. I personally find these processes to be, when I’m not too stressed out, life-giving.

But is there a way to render the study of people in their cultural contexts more fully, more creatively, more humanly? Perhaps we can learn not only from written texts, but active, living texts as well. Meeting people in both our local and global communities could connect the knowledge saturating our heads with what is currently happening in the world.

I study history because I care about classism, racism, and sexism; I care about justice because I study history. For me, the two are inextricably intertwined: interdisciplinary, and mutually giving. Studying history reminds me of the world surrounding me, but engaging in the surrounding world reminds me why I care about history. The problems of classism, racism, and sexism are not some abstract topics detailed in thick books and locked away in a vault of dusty tomes. No; they actively shape the world in which I live. They intimately affect my neighborhood, my classmates; they affect me.

Service-learning has been essential in my growth as a student and as a person. It allows me to step out of myself, to (literally) step out of the world that has been carved out for me, simply by virtue of my wealth, privilege, and caring family. During those ventures out of comfort, I’m forcibly reminded that this is the real world, full of pain, sorrow, and desperation. But at the same time, there exists remarkable wisdom, hope, and amazing resilience. As I get older, I hope to learn more deeply and fully how to service-learn not to assert my own superiority, but affirm the worth of others. If at all possible, we struggle to put ourselves out there purely because we have discovered invaluable lessons to be learned from those whom we originally assumed we were trying to serve. After many awkward and even painful interactions during service-learning, I receive something invaluable: not the feeling that I helped someone, but that I connected to someone as a fellow human, and thereby gain a genuine friendship and the wisdom they share with me.

For me, Service-Learning has become merely code for another idea: human connection. We purposefully enter an uncomfortable space and inadvertently learn way too much about ourselves. As history students, we are privy to the wisdom of centuries of philosophers, theologians, rulers, scholars, and revolutionaries. But it’s not only the greats who make history. It’s also the common people who contributed to the history we have today. And so we, as common people privileged with the opportunity to learn, should crave the opportunity to connect with other common people who may just one day form the history that future history students will one day study. 

In a Just World

Reflections on 'Vision,' in the document From Every Nation

Today, I read a section of the From Every Nation (FEN) document, which was released in 2004 as a "comprehensive plan for racial justice, reconciliation, and cross-cultural engagement at Calvin College."  The particular section I perused is called 'Vision,' and focuses on a vision of shalom in a multicultural community.

Each day as I stroll into work, I pass a poster representing the Multicultural Student Body of Calvin College.  There are faces in shades of peach, tan, olive, and golden-brown smiling widely at the camera, attached to bodies with arms wrapped around shoulders and waists.  They are unfailingly happy, perfect in community with one another.  What I'd like to tell you is that in this poster, I see a realized vision of the Kingdom of God.  Instead, I see an attempt to portray a Calvin College that does not exist.  We are not a community in which every person, no matter their ethnicity, culture, race or background, is accepted without difficulty.  Calvin is just like any other human institution: even with good intentions, it cannot achieve the perfection portrayed in that poster without a considerable amount of dedication to a goal, and the determination to complete it. 

In order to work toward the Kingdom of God, in which justice and shalom reign, we must first see ourselves not as we wish to be, but as we are.  By our nature as human beings, we are flawed.  Sin corrupts all we do.  Knowing this, we can address the conflicts, tensions and negative emotions that arise within the diverse community at Calvin College.

There are two ways to address tensions within a community.  The first is in the relationship between two individuals.  Even sincere and wholly self-aware Christians can fall into racism or prejudice when they fail to let go of pride in favor of cherished personal identities.  For some, this is due to a feeling of cultural superiority.  This feeling leads to prejudice against those perceived as 'inferior.'  In order to heal this prejudice, we must learn to take each person as they come.  This does not mean that we ignore the color of their skin or the background from which they have emerged - it simply means that we set aside preconceived notions in order to have an unclouded lens through which to see another person.  For others, a sense of injustice due to racism or other forms of prejudice plays into an inability to work toward shalom between individuals.  In both cases, these feelings must be put aside in order to truly engage with people from every tribe, language and nation.

The second way to work toward a just community is to grapple, as a unified group of believers, with the conflicts that arise.  We must together affirm the strengths of diverse traditions and cultures, and work to strengthen the weaknesses of the community in hope and preparation for change and renewal.  No single person or ethnic group can fully represent the Kingdom of God, and so we must become a diverse yet unified community always working toward a more just society.

Julia Hawkins
Summer Office Intern

Readers' Discretion Advised

"In America, there is someone else to despise. In Canada, there is not. In the new racism, as in the old, somebody always has to be the nigger." -Malcolm Gladwell

Read the whole article at http://www.gladwell.com/pdf/black.pdf. Might be something you want to read to your grandchildren when they turn 3. They can handle it.

If only we could stop comparing people and start appreciating people as who they are. We are all, after all, humankind. Be kind to humans.

Lessons From the Weekend

Because all my friends who have being cutting my hair in the last two years of college have graduated, I had no choice but to visit a barber last Friday. So I went to this barber shop not too sure what to expect, just like every time we do something for the first time. The two barbers were white, the clients there were white, and the hair on the floor was all blonde. I am not white. There was this urge to check if there were any sign that wrote “whites only.” No, this is 21st century America-- a free country. OK. I wondered if the barber would treat me differently. It turned out he didn’t. OK. I wondered if this scene was possible 80 years ago, or even 50 years ago. I got out of the barber shop, sporting a new hair style. OK.

Then in class today, the second week of class, I noticed in one of the lectures that all the students of color were sitting in the last row. White students occupied the first two rows. None in that class really knew each other, so my guess is that most chose their seats based on whom they wanted to sit with.

We have progressed so far, yet so little. Maybe the young ones, who grew up in 21st century America, could learn a thing or two from those who lived through the segregation period. Like my barber--my new found friend.

The Promised Second Installment

So I did go to Dr. Trepagnier’s lecture last Thursday. Ryan, Devin and I thought we had the best seats when we grabbed the front row, only to be pleasantly surprised later that 5 more rows were added between us and the podium. The turn out was unexpectedly overwhelming.

Dr.T, the way most of her students address her since almost no one can pronounce her last name correctly, shared her thoughts from her book for about an hour and fifteen minutes. The gist of her thesis argues that everyone has racist ideas, including well-meaning white people. The core of her strategy to take on racism is to educate people that “heightened race awareness is more important in changing racial inequality than judging whether individuals are racist”. Check out http://silentracism.com to make sure I didn’t misquote her. When people are more “race aware”, they will be more likely to identify racism, their own and institutional racism.

Dr. T also suggests that the question, “Am I racist?” shouldn’t be the one we ask. Instead, we should ask ourselves, “How am I racist?” Dr. T contends that unlike 5 decades ago, the notion of either one is racist or not racist doesn’t work today. Rather, she proposes that racism should be seen as a spectrum, where silent racism overarches this spectrum. On one end are those who are “less racist,” who are “race aware” and strive to combat racism. On the other end of that spectrum are those who are “more racist,” those who ignore racism or are overtly racist. Therefore all people are on this continuum.

If silent racism is silent, then does it still matter? Dr. T’s answer is an affirmative yes. She considers silent racism “instrumental in the production of institutional racism” and believes that if thoughts are how we see the world, then they will likely one day spill out through our words or actions. At that stage, I think, the damage could be too great to clean up.

What should we do to contain, and then reduce, racism? Dr. T thinks that “race awareness” is the start to countering racism. To tackle racism, we need to do it without guilt. To interrupt racism, we need humility and courage. The last two ideas mean we should speak up in whatever way and action against racism, and that it is not alright to be racist.

Racism: Silent and Alive

The first activity for the UNLEARN week begins with the L.O.F.T service. In fact it is happening right now as I write. UNLEARN week is a series of activities, initiated by the Multicultural Student Advisory Board (MSAB), that includes “lectures, panel discussions, daily chapels, and other events which try to breakdown ignorance and misunderstanding for the purpose of fostering racial reconciliation, cultural appreciation, and an authentic Christian community.” If you are new to Calvin College, want to find out more about the UNLEARN week, or the MSAB, please visit http://www.calvin.edu/admin/msdo/anti_racism_programs/unlearn.htm

I read Dr. Barbara Trepagnier’s Silent Racism: How Well-Meaning White People Perpetuate the Racial Divide this past summer and am trilled to learn that she will be speaking on campus this Thursday evening. Sharing her research findings in the book, Dr. Trepagnier highlights how racism is still prevalent today. It seems that hints of racism and racial inequality is embedded so deeply in local contexts that as a result, people do act in racist ways, however slight it may be, often unknowingly. I will read the book again, attend Dr. Trepagnier’s lecture this Thursday, and come back with more thoughts and notes. OK, I will attempt.

Looking at racism from another angle, I wonder if racism is the result of miscommunication and/or the lack of interaction with other people. I can give you an example.

Several months ago, I had to get to the Ronald Reagan Airport before 5:00AM to catch a flight back to Grand Rapids. Since the Metro wasn’t in service that early in the morning, I hailed a taxi. It was the first time that I had a black driver. Because I had taken the taxi to the airport before, I knew exactly the quickest routes to the airport. That morning, however, the driver took me on an extremely long route that included a stretch of road that was partially under construction. In an unfamiliar environment, with a stranger steering the wheel, and juggling the worries if I could get to the airport on time and if there was an imminent danger to my life (and not to mention I was half-awake), the uncertainties brought anxiety. To cut the long story short, I did get to the airport safely-- it turned out that the driver missed an exit. If I had asked him why he took that route earlier, I probably won’t have had such a stressful ride. If he had mentioned that he missed a turn earlier, I probably would have been less nervous. Whichever the case, the lack of communication and unwittingly stereotyping members of ethnic groups, in moments of stress, as how the media have subtly inculcated us colored my perception to what could have been a non-event.

For his honesty and willingness to take responsibility for missing the exit by reducing the fare on the meter, I tipped him handsomely. While I will probably never see him again, I will remember him for teaching me that although this is a crazy world, good and honest folks do still exist out there… and that includes those often mistaken by society for being chronically delinquent.