Here is the text of a post I just put on LINKEDIN. I think it will be of interest to readers, especially those involved in education. Text:
History should not be forgotten -- even recent history.
We can try repression; we can try denial. We can try omission for textbooks and speeches. We can refuse to acknowledge. We can pretend it did not happen. We can operate as if time could be rewound. We can treat the past as "past." We can psychologically trick ourselves into thinking that what is done is done and then we can ignore the impact of past bad acts.
But, for the reasons explained here, we cannot bounce back. We cannot ignore our past. We can bounce forward -- indeed, that is one of the only viable options. It is the only honest option. That is why "resiliency" as defined by many is founded on a false premise --- namely that we can bounce back. No we can't. We are forever changed by what occurs -- that is where plasticity comes into the picture. As neuroscientists know, when we have a brain injury, the brain is forever changed. We can recover because we are plastic but our brain is always going to be scarred. We can do workarounds; we can compensate; we can learn in different and new ways. But, once damaged, the brain readjusts and never ever goes back to exactly what it was.
It is this flaw in how we process toxic stress and abuse and trauma -- this assumption that we can restore the status quo ante -- that impairs our capacity to improve the lives of those who have suffered these events. This is a realization I detail in my book Breakaway Learners and its new concept of lasticity. And, lasticity can and does inform how we think about past and current trauma -- as people and as institutions. See www.breakawaylearners.com.
It is in this context that I almost flew out of my chair when I read the paragraph below in the Chronicle of Higher Education's morning briefing today. I want to quote it at length so that its full impact can be felt.
Quote: "Earlier this month the University of Virginia was home to a deadly clash of white suprematists and counter-protesters. Now some students want to teach their peers about the campus'sracial history, and how and why the clashes happened, complete with fliers for the first-year students. As students and faculty members return to Charlottesville, Va., for the fall semester many members of the campus community want to know how much the traumatic weekend will define the new semester."
There is a hyperlinked follow-on article on how the events at UVA may change the new semester -- and in positive ways. Here's a link to that story: http://bit.ly/2viAH.
Here's the wording above that is so so so bothersome to me: "....many members of the campus community want to know how much the traumatic weekend will define the new semester." Really? One has to ask that? How much?
Perhaps the real question is not how much. The question is "how." How will the traumatic events affect the semester? That is the question. But it is not at issue whether there will be a profound effect. Trauma has an impact. There was violence at UVA. There was a death. There were injuries. There was tumult. There was spoken hate. There was tension. There were institutional responses. There were community responses. Of course that will have an impact. Suggesting it will not is at once naive and wrong-headed. Words matter and the Chronicle wording demeans trauma's call.
So, the question confronting UVA and many other campuses and communities now and into the fall and beyond will be how to deal with the inevitable impact of trauma on the campus, the lives of students, faculty and staff. And we can and should rightly consider how that trauma can lead to some changes that are positive, how that trauma can lead to some understandings we are now missing, how that trauma will inform our actions, our words, our comprehension.
Many years ago, the institution where I worked sat virtually at the doorstep of the World Trade Center. And then, the towers stood no more. Very few people thought we would just pick up where we left off when the institution re-opened. Seriously, we would just re-open the texts and launch. No way. No how.
The conversation among the community was how to restart. How do we adjust to the changed world in which we are now living? How do we teach law in a time of lawlessness? How do we deal with the trauma that has affected us as a whole and individuals in their own ways based in part of their own past?
We did a myriad of things: we had therapists from NYU Medical School on site for weeks and weeks. These trained individuals saw anyone who wanted to be seen -- faculty or staff or administrators. We had special cards with contact information so we could refer students in need. And the professionals saw people quickly.
Then, we wrote and published our reminiscences -- reissued on the 10th "Anniversary" of the event. These amazing statements, compiled in a book called Eight Blocks Away, was given away to new students. It was in the halls. It was given to everyone who was a member of our community -- and the local community too. And, it now sits on my coffee table all these years later as a reminder of the events that happened and when I have courage, I try to re-read what I and other wrote. And, I try to reflect on how it changed all of us --- and in some ways for the better.
Trauma can produce positives if we look for them and nurture them and recognize them. Paralysis and darkness can be augmented with new understandings. Stated concretely and perhaps somewhat controversially, hypervigilance can have a positive side.
And, as the book was being published, we organized a set of seminars and wrote law review articles about how lawlessness and the collapse of the Twin Towers affected our respective areas of law and our thinking. And, the piece I wrote haunts me still. And, like the reminiscences, I re-read it cautiously from time to time. To remember. To acknowledge a time and place. To reflect on progress. Here's a link to that piece: http://www.nylslawreview.com/w...11/46-3.4.Gross_.pdf. Look at its first footnote for starters.
So, here's what I have to say with respect of the UVA community and all other communities that have and will have traumatic events. These events are your history. They are part of who the institution is and what it will become. The issue is how we will deal with that traumatic past and how we can embrace that past to inform our future. And, most important of all, that past is not disappearing. It never will. Nor should it. What we can do is reflect upon it well; we can learn from it; we can have it inform who and what we are.
We can't bounce back. We can bounce forward.
Comments (6)