Elijah Graham
Fairbanks
Essay Topic: How can our schools move students towards civic responsibility, i.e., becoming voters, increasing awareness of local, state, and national governments and political issues, and understanding the relationship of our history to current situations?
Connectivity is the theme of our lifestyle. The era that we currently live in is a highly technological one. If ever there was a time that informative books were obsolete, it is now. But should we really be concerned, or should we be elated? With all these advances and innovations, the world is connected in a way we have never known. We are not only interconnected with those of another country, but we are really able to connect the events of our past to possible outcomes of the future.
I realized my role as a citizen and the relevance of the past during the Women’s Suffrage unit in my United States history class last year. For years I’ve heard that women had to fight for their civil rights, but I never knew nor realized the depth of the events that led to the ratification of the 19th amendment. My teacher elected to show us Iron Jawed Angels. If ever there was a thing as engrossing as a well-written novel, it’s a movie with a message. Reading about it is one thing, but seeing it, reliving it, is something more genuine, more unique. Humans are highly empathic beings and they are becoming increasingly so; to see those women go through what they did manifested nearly every emotion in me – I was in tears by the time they force fed Alice Walker in the movie. I was crying for the cruelty and close-mindedness those men and political figures were exhibiting. I was angry at the fact that humans were capable of feeling such hatred, or perhaps being so unfeeling. I was sad at the cruelties those women went through, something that could have been avoided if people were just and righteous to begin with. After that, I was not only grateful that my female friends had rights, but my appreciation of having rights as an African-American in the United States escalated. I feel that my desire to be involved in society is directly tied to my emotional enthrallment of not just that movie, but any other thing in class that inspired emotion in me.
Numerous times, we were required to write essays, but they were constructed differently than the conventional high school history paper. Instead of producing a slop of dates and names, we were asked to also include our personal sentiments, opinions and reactions. When a student is able to project emotion in that way, it is evident that he or she cares or at least is able to look at a situation with the heart and not just for the sole purpose of making the grade – that inspires awareness.
In that class, we looked at everything; from stories of Africans being brought over and sold to the zoo, to movies on the effects of war on people’s emotional well-being, to firsthand accounts of the culture of Native Americans being stolen, we were exposed to it all. And this lack of romanticizing or sugar-coating history as it happened really opened our eyes not only to how it was in the past, but to how it still is in some areas of the world. Genocide, racism, hatred, in essence, still exists. And now I feel emotionally attached to every other human being on this planet. I feel that their well-being is a part of my responsibility and I’m inspired to do something about it. Being politically involved and fulfilling my role in society may help to exonerate the hatred that still permeates our world. These examples have inspired me to do these things. In order for other students to be inspired and fulfill their civic virtue, we must open our hearts and our students’ hearts by allowing emotions to give life to the events of the past and present.
