Friday, May 16, 2008
In a small town in Mexico, a teacher gave me the chalk and demanded a lesson in revolution.
Oct 15, 1999 | "Grabbing the chalk" has become my expression for instances when memorable students declare intellectual independence of Confucian norms of propriety in the classroom. The chalk migrates to its true home as I give it to a student and take a seat with a class. Such moments are deeply satisfying to all concerned, spreading wonder that the mandarins are still capable of listening.
One of the greatest chalk-grabbers was a student named Peter, who veritably leaped from his seat almost every day to scrawl arcane diagrams on the board and demand from the audience entry into his interior monologue. Once he presented an intriguing model for explaining economic and political systems, a two-axis grid that clarified capitalism, socialism and communism. I dutifully copied it down, not knowing how soon it would empower me to become a chalk-grabber myself.
About a year later, I was on a sabbatical studying Spanish in a tiny Mexican village north of Puerto Vallarta. I was the only student of a woman named Mariana, sitting for two hours each day in front of a crude blackboard while she patiently brought me to a modest level of competency in her native language. Mariana, fervent and committed, was a gentle woman of about 30, who spoke very little English and had a voice I could barely hear. The blackboard was our forum of communication. As ocean waves crashed in the background, we struggled through the intricacies of verb tenses and vocabulary. She cared deeply about her teaching and took great pride in my learning.
Toward the end of our time together, Mariana began asking me to explain basic political and economic theory to her, particularly the differences between capitalism, socialism and communism. She explained that she needed to know where she stood on the "controversias grandes," and wondered if I could help. It seemed preposterous to me, overwhelmed with shyness by the fragility of my Spanish, that I could accomplish such a task, so I shrugged off her request repeatedly.
Finally, after a week of her persistent urging, I stood up from my old wicker chair, took the chalk and stared at the decrepit blackboard. The chalk felt like lead in my hand. She was my teacher, my maestra, and here, in her village in Mexico, I had the audacity to stand up in front of her and presume to explain global economic theories in Spanish.
"Este lamina es un representacisn o modelo de la sistema econsmico y polmtico," I began, drawing Peter's diagram out of the dustbin of my memory and wincing at my accent.
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