Safe Space and Education Post-Election

I’ve been a teacher (both high school and college) on and off since 2005. As any teacher will tell you, this profession has its positives and negatives. But overall, I really can’t complain, and for the most part, I have been enjoying it.

 

One of the first principles of my teaching philosophy is to create a space that has a great sense of safety for the students. Anxiety or dread or fear are not allowed to seep into the consciousnesses of students in my classroom. There is no room for that. Having gone through Communist educational system (former Yugoslavia), I detested the statist and ideological machinery that moved the gears of totalitarian “learning.” We were all the same. There was no such thing as uniqueness of each student. Teachers had no problems calling us “stupid” if we did not know the answer.

 

As a teacher, I am interested in lifting up students, helping them see their potential and their gifts without totalizing them as human being. My mission and purpose, when I am in the classroom, is to facilitate learning in a philosophical, somewhat Socratic manner, and helping the students make their own intellectual conclusions and take responsibility for them.

 

Safe zones and safe spaces that have been emerging in the universities (particularly after the election) are quite artificial and contrived. There isn’t an ounce of authenticity. Instead, it’s just another heap of regulated and mandated morality that has nothing to do with the entirety of human person. It is way for students to hide in their bizarre refusal to grow up, become adults, and take responsibility for their choices, whether intellectual or deeply personal.

 

One does not discourage hatred and exclusion by creating bubbles of artificial space. It actually encourages such actions, not to mention breeds linguistic and finally, emotional neuroticism. By designating spaces as such, it is as if one may not be a bigot or a hater in one space, but may be elsewhere. Such strange processed and canned attempt at tolerance is bound to fail.

 

Safe space means freedom of expression. With freedom, quite simply, comes responsibility. We are responsible for what we say to others, good or bad. The point of a university or any educational system is to make students into victors, not victims. The point is to make them agile and quick in their thinking, not sloppy and thin-skinned. 

 

The world is a dark place (and students should be aware of that) but it also has many illuminating lanterns of knowledge and acts of good will. Wouldn’t it be better to stop imprisoning students in the world of soft, chewy, and saccharine fantasy land? Wouldn’t it be better to show them that they too can carry illuminating lanterns with pride and intellectual prowess as opposed rendering them poor victims, forever dependent, useless, and unable to take care of themselves?