Tag: America

The Accidental Teacher: An Essay and Memoir (Part 6)

There were ten of us in Professor Randall’s philosophy class. The room could easily have seated fifty, so we were pretty spread out. It’s likely most of us were trying very hard to remain aloof (and perhaps even invisible) by putting as many desks as possible between ourselves and our nearest neighbors.

I, on the other hand, chose a seat right next to a buxom coed named Linda Louise Gartman, a nineteen-year-old from Iraan, Texas (spelled just like the Ayatollahs’ place but with an additional “a”). Her daddy owned a hardware store there—or maybe it was a Dairy Queen?—and she was studying business to prepare herself to partner up with him someday. Most of the other students were male—snuff-dipping types who likely drove pickups that sported Confederate flag decals—and were majoring in agriculture or some such. As for me, I was “undeclared” which is a collegiate way of saying “confused.” I had no idea what sort of work I’d be doing in the future and would have been shocked silly had anyone suggested that I’d end up being a teacher a few years into the future.

I chose my place in class because I liked Linda’s dirty-blond hair and the way her shirts fit. On about the second or third class meeting I put together a masterplan which involved me telling her my name and then saying a few perfectly chosen words that would cause her to fall in love with me. On the day I was to put my scheme into motion, I arrived early to class, slid into the desk next to her, and then froze up. No utterance would leave my mouth no matter how much I tried to push it out. Still, the sheer possibility that I might speak to her made me so hot and bothered that I had heart palpitations throughout the remainder of the class period.

The book the professor had us buy was full of excerpts from the great philosophy texts of yore. Not long into the semester, she assigned a piece that contained the “Allegory of the Cave,” from Plato’s Republic, a text I highly recommend—I count it as one of the hundred most important books ever written. After reading and then discussing it, I could see that the ancient Greek philosopher had had people like me in mind when he wrote it. I was certainly one of those who’d been exposed, up until that point in time, to mere “shadows” flickering dimly upon a wall. In his allegory, Plato was arguing that philosophy can free our minds and lead us out of darkness and into the “sunshine” of greater enlightenment. The idea that I had spent my entire life living in a cave of ignorance caused my head to explode.

I’ve spent so much time on Dr. Randall’s course because it was pivotal. It was the beginning of the beginning for me. It was the class that inspired me to start thinking about what it might be like to live the life of a thinker. To do so, though, I’d have to continue to read texts that would challenge my existing worldview and so I’d have to register for other courses of a similar type. The class was also the end of the beginning. After my introduction to philosophy, there was no way I could remain an intellectual child. I was no longer willing to accept the conventional wisdom—passed off as genuine wisdom—that authority figures had been feeding me all my life.

The course was also memorable for two weird occurrences. The first happened when Dr. Randall asked me to read aloud in class on day. I started off fine, but once I began to take notice of my voice being projected out into quiet space of our classroom, I became queerly self-conscious and terrified in a way I cannot fully put into words. I began to choke up and could barely complete the reading. Luckily, Linda was absent that day. The second weird experience had to do with the young woman I’d been so attracted to from day one. Right at the end of the term, after nearly four months had passed without me saying much at all to the object of my desire, I made Linda an offer—I sort of blurted it out, really. I told her I’d be happy to drive her back to her dorm room if she was headed that way. She then smiled and said, “Would you really do that? That’s so sweet! Yes, I’ll take you up on the offer.” We then loaded up into whatever jalopy I happened to be driving at the time and took off.

After a short trip, I pulled up into a parking spot right behind what was called “The Women’s High Rise.” Linda gave me this telling look and said, “Thank you, Troy. You’re so sweet! I’m sorry I didn’t say this to you earlier,” shortly before leaning over and giving me a kiss on the cheek. Needless to say, I felt completely flabbergasted. After gathering my wits, I drove absentmindedly away. Because the term was almost over, I saw her once or twice more, but then, after the final exam, never again.

 

 

The Accidental Teacher: An Essay and Memoir (Part 5)

I graduated from little Forsan High, in Forsan, Texas, way back when. To say the school was small is like saying that the Sahara Desert is a large area of land covered by sand.

There were twenty-one of us who received diplomas during commencement. It took the superintendent of schools—my mother had married the man not long after our arrival in West Texas so he was actually my step-father at the time—less than five minutes to call all our names and to distribute the fancily printed certificates of accomplishment. We then congregated in the vestibule of the auditorium, with our parents and the other guests still seated inside, and screamed our class chant, a thing we had artfully composed all by ourselves. It was basically an expletive-laced manifesto of how we’d just freed ourselves from tyranny and were about to conquer the world with our brains and good looks.

Of course, it took the world about five minutes to distribute all sorts of humbling experiences, which let us know, in no uncertain terms, that our existences actually meant nothing in the larger scheme of things no matter how clever or pretty we considered ourselves to be.

I left home and enrolled in a little university called Angelo State, located in San Angelo, Texas, which was just down Highway 87 from Forsan. I mostly went there because Dwayne Norton, my best friend in high school, had graduated two years earlier and was beckoning me to join him. That plus the town was loaded with bars and discos I really dug with an added bonus being that many of them featured twenty-five-cent-tequila-shot nights on a regular basis.

Up until that point in my life, I had been a good student, but not the sort who consulted with guidance counselors and such. In fact, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up—I still haven’t come up with any definitive conclusions yet—so I wasn’t one of these kids who goes to college with a plan and then follows it religiously. It was more important that I be near Dwayne and in a location where I could party like it was 1999.

I started off at ASU by taking a weird collection of courses that were all over the map. Then, just before the start of my second term, I needed to register for an elective, so I looked at the choices I was offered and picked a class called “Introduction to Philosophy.”

Our professor—I can’t precisely remember her name—but I can perfectly recall how she looked and spoke, was a woman from Belgium, which likely made her the first European I ever had contact with. Her last name might have been Randall—that doesn’t sound terribly Belgian though—and her first one could have been Janine or Jeanne. Anyway, she also taught French in the Department of Foreign Languages.

OK, so I’ll call her Professor Randall. She was probably about in her mid-40s at that time and had greying, curly hair. She wore plastic framed glasses, with thick lenses that magnified her eyes, which was very appropriate because she was able to see so much in the texts we read for class. She spoke with a slightly pinched and nasally voice and a strong French accent. But the thing about her I found most intriguing was her absolute courage. She said things in class that were brave and intended to shake our tiny bodies and minds to their cores—we were, after all, mostly kids from little towns who had never been exposed to any sort of real thinking or ideas in our entire lives.

I suppose it was her job to sort of pull the rug out from under us and she succeeded in that mission. I guess I’m being presumptuous speaking for my classmates—perhaps they all just sat there like giant, single-celled organisms and closed their minds to her talk and the texts—but I soaked it all up like a sponge that had never sipped a drop of water but had been waiting and waiting for the opportunity to do so.

Professor Randall kept pouring out those liquid ideas and I kept absorbing them so fast that I could feel that my mind was bloating. But it never did reach the point of supersaturation. There was always room to take in more and more.

The Accidental Teacher: An Essay and Memoir (Part 4)

Before I tell you the full story of how I had my mind blown at college, I want to let you know that I’ll be voting for Bernie Sanders for president this year. Yes, I am truly and wonderfully feeling the Bern—as are tens of millions of other citizens!

What does this political confession have to do with this essay and memoir? Aren’t I in danger of losing my focus by veering off like this?

Not in the least! I’m at least partly a Sanders supporter because he seems to understand what many other candidates do not—that the President of the United States has to be the nation’s educator-in-chief.

We take for granted that all American presidents have an important military job to play when we refer to them as the commander-in-chief. We also understand that they have a vital role in keeping America’s economy humming along. It certainly goes without saying that the head of the executive branch of government has a myriad of other duties to play.

What we often don’t realize is that perhaps his most important job of all is to help the populace better understand the world in which they live. This makes him or her—I hope we have a woman president very soon, but just not during this election cycle—the teacher of greatest importance and outreach in this large and complex nation-state.

It is perfectly clear that Sanders understands all this. That’s why he expends so much energy telling the electorate things that make so many so uncomfortable. That’s why he speaks about how out of balance America has become and about how the super-rich have rigged the political and economic game so that the remaining 99 percent of us have found ourselves incredibly marginalized.

In a sense, Sanders is not saying anything that many of us don’t already viscerally understand to be true. But to watch someone running for president break such a taboo—to suggest that America has a variety of fundamental shortcomings—is downright cathartic. Most politicians talk about the country in syrupy, self-congratulatory ways that some interpret as “patriotism,” but Sanders shows us that all is not well in paradise. In fact, his critique raises questions about the very notion that America is an “exceptional” country.

To see so many responding to Sanders so positively suggests that the nation is ready for such an explainer-in-chief. Sanders happened along at a moment in American history when a large segment of the population was feeling self-reflective and ready to accept uncomfortable truths. Learning is often a painful process whereby the learner has to give up old habits and beliefs in exchange for growth. The nation appears ready to make this tradeoff, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

The Accidental Teacher: An Essay and Memoir (Part 3)

I grew up just north of a tiny community called Georgetown, Texas, a sleepy place of approximately five thousand inhabitants. The nature of the village was such that it was easy for its citizens to live dreamy lives.

I have vivid recollections of the town, as it used to be before it became fast-paced and congested, before it became Austin’s premier bedroom community. Today, the town—it’s more of a city really—is on fire with development. The few old-timers who still live there speak wistfully of a slower and simpler past.

But, back in the day, it was a quiet village, filled with grand Victorian houses that were shaded by tall pecan trees. There was a stop sign or two and maybe a traffic light. People got their groceries at the little Piggly Wiggly and their clothes at Gold’s Department Store on the square. There were a handful of churches and every family attended one. The schools weren’t crowded, nor did they resemble the fortresses of security that we so frequently see today when we drive past one. I guess it was pretty much Central Texas’ version of Mayberry R.F.D. I realize I’ve dated myself some with that reference to The Andy Griffith Show spin-off. I remember a slew of other programs that are part of the lore of 1970s television. Such is the memory of a man my age.

When my parents broke up, I moved, with my mom and brother, to Forsan, Texas, with the result being that I left my life in a small town to start anew in an even tinier one.

The point of all this is that I came of age in conventional places where people never dreamed of entertaining thoughts that were the least bit radical. Most citizens of Georgetown or Forsan didn’t even know what they didn’t know. The vast majority of children grow up similarly, I suppose, in places like I’ve described. It is universally true that the family and the local community give us our shape. By “shape,” I also mean our “limits.”

When I went off to university, I was a small-town boy who was intellectually stunted due to no fault of my own. But because of the influence of those individuals I mentioned in my previous blog, I was also the fertile ground into which the seeds of all sorts of new ideas could be planted. So, when I registered for classes like philosophy, political science, sociology, psychology, and literature, strange flora began to sprout and the terrain of my mind was changed forever.

The Accidental Teacher: An Essay and Memoir (Part 2)

1986 was my rookie year. All these years later, I’m still in the teaching game. You could easily refer to me as a grizzled veteran without running the risk of exaggerating. You might also call me an old crank. I’ll answer to pretty much anything.

All these years of experience have provided me with ample opportunities to think about my profession, and I’ve even had an insight or two while doing all this cogitating. For one, it seems that there are basically two types of teachers: Those who chose to get into the profession and those who happened into it by sheer accident. This second bunch I call “Accidental Teachers.” As the title of my essay and memoir makes clear, I certainly consider myself a member of the latter group.

Not long ago, during a Thanksgiving get together, I had a conversation with Betty, the wife of one of my cousins. Several months prior to this talk she had completed her degree in education and was now teaching at Central High School in San Angelo, Texas. She told me all about how her new job was going, what her students were like, and stuff like that. She also revealed that she had always dreamed of being a teacher. When I heard her say this last bit, about she’d always wanted, from the cradle onward, to stand up in front of students and spout, I felt momentarily dumbstruck. It was because her experience was so different from my own. Once this first feeling passed, I felt as if I wanted to congratulate her. She had dreamed of doing the very thing she had ended up doing. I would imagine that’s a pretty rare accomplishment in these United States of America, which might explain why so few people are really happy about the work they do.

Unlike Betty, I had not always (or even ever) wanted to work in the classroom. I had grown up wanting to learn, though, and I owe several members of my family a huge debt for having helped me become the curious person I’ve always been. First of all, there’s my mother, a woman who brought me into this world and then proceeded to carry me around when I was a wee tyke. While doing so, she would point at things and help me really see them for the first time. She would then tell me what these objects were called. I am almost certain this is why I later became so intrigued by words and language and such. Secondly, my father, the dreamy artist and philosopher, helped me learn about the power of the mind and the will to create new and beautiful things. From him, I learned quiet introspection and deep observation. Thirdly, my maternal grandfather, a man now dead for many years, instilled in me a love of current events. He was an opinionated fellow who loved to reason and make arguments. Even though he had little formal education, I still, to this very day, think of him as one of the most influential people I’ve even known as far as my intellectual development is concerned. For example, he instilled in me a deep fascination with politics and international affairs.

These individuals prepared me well to enter school and do well once I got there. I grew up a pretty capable kid, and then I went off to college and fell in love with studying all manner of esoteric subjects. It was this fascination which became a double-edge sword. It both set me free and left me enslaved.

The Accidental Teacher: An Essay and Memoir (Part 1)

In the fall of 1986 my life took a turn. I’m in a pretty good mood today, so I won’t say it was a turn for the worse. Ask me tomorrow, though, and I might describe it as a swerve that took me right up to the precipice. It’s all a matter of perspective.

In the fall of 1986, I became a new graduate student in the Department of English at Texas A&M University. The head of the department met with me in person, shortly before sending my acceptance letter, and told me he found my academic performance, as an undergrad, praiseworthy. As a way of demonstrating how impressed he was, he offered me the job of “Graduate Teaching Assistant”—or GAT, which rhymes with GNAT, an interesting similarity given that both are located quite far down on their respective food chains. This meant I would be both a student and a teacher. Of course, I said yes to the offer.

The department then handed me a textbook and a syllabus and pointed me in the direction of my classroom. The assignment I’d gladly accepted—but began to feel less and less confident about as the start of the semester neared—consisted of teaching two sections of a course called “Introduction to Freshman Writing,” or something very similar to that.

In truth, I was scared shitless about the whole teaching thing but was happy to have the job. That’s because they promised to pay me almost nine hundred dollars per month. Today, that sounds like nothing—and it is—but to a poor student—one so underfed that the outline of his ribcage routinely showed through his shirt—the sum promised groceries in the fridge and thus three squares a day.

The day before my teaching job was to begin, I tried hard to imagine what it would be like having so many faces staring at me from so many rows of desks. Then the actual first class happened and it was even more traumatic than I’d ever dreamed possible. The expressions on the faces of my students suggested that they expected me to say important things and give them helpful guidance. This meant that they actually thought of me as a real instructor with knowledge and ability and such. This fact scared the hell out of me and made me question all sorts of things, including the sanity of those who’d hired me.

Needless to say, I was terrible during that first term. What I did in the classroom should in no way, using the most liberal definitions available to us, be called “teaching.”

Here I am, these great many years later, still in the classroom and still wondering if I’m good enough. (Evidence suggests that I’m a hell of a lot better than I was when I first started.)

The following blogs will tell the story of the teacher who never should have been a teacher and will chronicle my growth in the profession.  They’ll also be about the foreign places my teaching career has taken me and the insights I’ve gained while doing this work. I hope those who read the blogs will find them interesting, humorous, and maybe even a bit thought-provoking.

“Take the Other to Lunch”

If you’ve never seen Elizabeth Lesser speak, you’re in for a real treat. Have a look.

Her talk made me think about my own divided self.

On the one hand, if I want to be true to values I cherish, I have to live as tolerantly as possible. A good example of me being open to difference is the relationship I have with a Mike, the fellow who lives next door to my mother and a guy I always like to spend time with when I’m visiting in the little town of Big Spring in West Texas.

Mike and I are totally different in just about every way you can imagine. He’s spent his life doing very physical work in the great outdoors, and I have earned my living inside, in classrooms, where I use my brain more than my muscles. He joined the military and loves guns and hunting and such things. I, conversely, enlisted in the Peace Corps and am a pacifist who fiercely advocates for stricter gun control. He watches FOX news and I regularly read very progressive websites. As you might guess, we are polar opposites when it comes to most political subjects.

Still, every time I visit my mom, I spend time with Mike, often shooting the breeze while we sit on his front porch. For a little variety, we occasionally load up in his pickup truck and drive to a Tex-Mex restaurant for an evening meal of enchiladas and frijoles. Every time we participate in such an outing, we are putting Lesser’s “initiative” to the test.

On the other hand, I know that Mike is very likely a fan of Donald Trump and those of his ilk. I certainly have heard him say things that were very Trumpish. When he does so, I always squirm and feel extremely uncomfortable. That part of me that champions tolerance argues that I should look past what he’s said and focus on those aspects of his personality that are good. Plus, I was raised by old-fashioned parents who instilled in me the importance of being polite. As a result, I find it very difficult to confront others even when they say things that offend me. I suppose this turning of a blind eye is a kind of goodness. Keeping my mouth shut, though, always makes me feel like a sellout.

Getting back to Lesser’s talk, I’d like to add one suggestion to her list of guidelines to follow when taking “the other” to lunch. When you’re with that person, look for common ground—it could be something as simple as an activity you both enjoy doing—and build on it. In my case, Mike and I both grew up in Big Spring, Texas, and we’ve found, over the years, that it’s possible to spend hours talking about our fondest recollections of the place. This sense of shared history has brought us much closer together than we otherwise would have been.

As Lesser correctly points out, these truly are dangerous times. There is way too much “otherizing” going on right now. If we’re not careful, bigotry can become all-consuming and then we’ll find ourselves in a dark place, one hard to escape from.

 

 

Waking Up

on the riverwalk

It’s been really hard to shake the feeling that I’ve just woken up from a really long sleep. That’s because these recent weeks seem so dreamlike, so unreal, or perhaps, even surreal.

Just about eleven weeks ago to the day, I got word that a company that hires civilian contractors for the US military was interested in employing me to do educational work of an intercultural sort. This news came suddenly, while I was visiting my sick grandmother in West Texas. The job offer came with one stipulation—that my wife and I relocate to San Antonio, Texas, within a matter of days.

So we packed up, quickly. We were only able to take with us the few things we could fit into our Subaru. I managed to get online and was able to reserve a room in a place called Studio 6 Extended Stay—an old Motel 6 facility that had decked out a number of its rooms with kitchens and cooking utensils.

We moved into the place, bought groceries to fill up our fridge. The following day, I started one of the most intense orientation and training programs—along with seven other trainees—ever devised by human beings. I arrived at my new workplace a few minutes after 6 a.m. each morning. Our days were filled with “briefings” and then we did all sorts of practice teaching that was observed by a large number of people who wrote up reports on what they’d seen us do. We were like lab rats sent running through mazes in search of chunks of cheese. Not all of us passed these early tests. It was boot camp for teachers and some of us were let go before the real work even got started.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that it’s been a touch less than three months since we arrived in San Antonio. In some ways, it seems like a year or more has gone by. In other ways, it seems like mere days.

I’ve been mostly exhausted since all this got started. Finally, though, I’m beginning to catch my breath. I’ve even started to wake up from this dream-state I’ve been in. I’ve mostly been in survival mode, just doing those basic things that each day required of me, but now I’m beginning to think about writing. The old creative juices are beginning to flow again. This means more blogging—of a regular sort—is in the offing.

The photo I’ve included, at the outset of this piece, is a nice one and full of symbolism. It was one of the earliest ones I took in San Antonio—on one of our visits to the city’s famed Riverwalk, downtown. In it, Azza and I have just stepped across a threshold and a dome-shaped ceiling can be seen overhead. Behind us is a wall, a waterfall, and the past. We are wearing shades as we are looking forward, toward the camera, into a bright future. We are smiling and wearing expressions of expectation. Something about us in the photo suggests that we are travelers or explorers, embarking on a sojourn that will provide plenty of wonderful surprises.

 

My Recent Twitter Spat with a Conservative

I don’t post very much on Twitter. That’s mostly because I find it very hard to say what I want in only 140 characters—I’m generally more expansive than that. So I enjoy lurking there. It’s immediate and allows all sorts of voices, which I like.

Having said that, some voices bother me more than others do. Bigots and political conservatives are two of the bothersome kinds of people I see posting on Twitter. Actually, not surprisingly, bigotry and conservatism often go hand in hand. It’s not that I believe that such people should keep their mouths shut. It’s just I wish they would take the time to think a bit before tweeting. Or, if that’s too much to ask, then to make sure they don’t post things that are factually incorrect.

I see so many posts about Obama being a secret Muslim and/or Supporter of Terrorists and/or Communist and /or Socialist. Ninety-nine percent of the time I just roll my eyes and ignore such gibberish. It’s not that I’m in love with Obama and thus want to scream at people who say bad things about him. Actually, I’ve said plenty of bad things myself. But I generally try to make sure my criticisms are not based on obvious falsehoods and misrepresentations of reality.

I recently saw a tweet by a woman named “J_.” According to her profile, she hails from Texas and describes herself as a “conservative” and “libertarian” who loves “America,” “the military,” “guns,” and so on and so forth. In her tweet she said we have to remember that Obama “supported the Muslim Brotherhood” during their time in power. And then she included a link to this article.

I read the whole piece, including this paragraph, the sixth one, which I’ve cut and pasted below:

“Upon further inspection though, it seems that while the Egyptian qualms hold some water, the American complaints appear to be more recognizable as mere partisan discourse. The money, said to be intended for the MB, is actually for the Egyptian military and is obligated to be used to pay U.S. defense and security companies providing equipment and support for the military, according to the Guardian.”

I immediately stopped reading and tweeted a response. I asked her, “Did you even read the article?” Of course, I was not surprised by the information in paragraph six. Anyone who knows even the most basic facts about America’s aid to Egypt knows that the vast majority goes to the military, thus allowing them to buy all sorts of new equipment, a cute way of funneling money into the coffers of American companies that build armaments and such. Furthermore, since it was the armed forces that removed Mohamed Morsi from power, it can very easily be argued that by giving aid to this group, the US government played a key role in the overthrowing of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Of course, coming to these kinds of conclusions requires a careful examination of the facts of the case and the ability to do nuanced thinking. J_ seemed either unwilling or incapable of doing either of these things. Or perhaps she was aware she was deliberately distorting the evidence and simply wanted to smear Obama. The most likely explanation is that J_ was simply too intellectually lazy to read the entire article and thus missed the key sixth paragraph.

To make a long story short, after about three more exchanges, she blocked me. Before doing that, she tweeted a response that included the hashtag #LiberalLies. Not surprisingly, she failed to see the hypocrisy of her tweet. So I pointed it out to her and then created a hashtag of my own—#ConservativeLies.

I tell this story because J_ seems to be a typical case. Conservatives very frequently seem to view facts and evidence as of little importance. They build elaborate arguments based on hunches, prejudices, things they heard their neighbor say, or whole cloth. Do you remember how George W. Bush used to talk about “thinking” with his gut?

This recent twitter exchange has got me wondering. Perhaps we progressives need to start being a lot more aggressive in confronting distortions of the sort I’ve written about here? Because we are generally tolerant people, perhaps we take it on the chin too often without punching back? Maybe, given what we’re up against, we have to start being as pugilistic as the other side?

The Resolve to Evolve

I am a learner. And a teacher. This video reminded me of these facts about my life. It also reminded me what learning is all about and how important it is—or how important it should be—to each one of us, individually, and to the nation, as a collective.

I grew up in small towns in Texas. My upbringing was “typical,” meaning that my family, those people who got first shot at shaping me, were fairly conventional in their thinking and behavior. When I got old enough, I was sent to public schools and had an early education that was structured around official state curricula. I did well, made top grades, and was recognized as a young person with potential. This recognition meant nothing more than I had successfully acquired the knowledge and skills the authorities had wanted me to acquire.

I graduated and went off to a little school called Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. I enrolled in the normal courses students are supposed to take. Then, in my second year, I did something that would change my life forever. I had a chance to choose an elective, so I registered for a class called Introduction to Philosophy.

Taking that first philosophy course was the beginning of the end of my childhood. Up until that moment, my intellect had been carefully managed by all sorts of authority figures, none of whom were interested in exposing me to anything more than mainstream thinking, which is another way of saying “conventional wisdom.” As a child, I had been led to believe that the world of ideas was only so big, when, in fact, it was actually infinitely large. It’s like I had spent my entire lifetime locked in a little room and had been led to believe that that there was nothing more than this tiny space. Philosophy showed me the door leading out of that room. Once I opened it, I could see how imprisoned I had been.

America, in its political thinking, is a bit like I was before I was exposed to philosophy. Too many of its citizens believe that the way things have always been done is the only way things can be done. These worshippers at the altar of the status quo are holding the nation back.

In the upcoming election, Bernie Sanders is playing the role my first philosophy teacher played. He is exposing the nation to ideas and truths that are certain to make some people uncomfortable. But America needs someone to drag it into the twenty-first century. The nation needs to grow and expand its thinking in many areas. Bernie Sanders appears to be the person with enough insight, courage, and conviction to accomplish this noble task.

Thom Hartmann used the term “revolution” in the introduction to the clip I’ve included, but I think “evolution” is the more appropriate word. Sanders is trying to help the nation evolve in its thinking. Of course, once this evolution occurs, a revolution is bound to follow.