As an immigrant student at a Midwest university in 1987, I was completely disillusioned with the USA I found, as opposed to USA that was marketed to me and the world. At the time Reaganism was in full swing funding death squads massacring campesinos, and the nuns and priests who cared about them. I told a professor, I couldn’t take it more, and even though I’d won a free ride with an academic scholarship, I felt I had to leave and go back to the old country. Her reply, “If you want to fight for a better world and destructive imperialism, then stay here. The USA affects the world. This is where the fight is.” When I think of the amazing teachers I had in what became a long list of higher learning institutions, the sentiment of this cartoon is so foreign to me, yet obviously accurate.
I was not a migrant student; but can testify to the foresight of a secondary school (12 – 17 years old) teacher I had here in Australia.
It was 1972, Australia was allied to the USA in the war against Vietnam; I was 17 and inline for military conscription when I left school.
This was a time of massive anti-war protests that led to the demise of the conservative government of the time.
A teacher put Hannah Arendt’s Crises of The Republic on the reading list.
A quartet of essays: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; and Thoughts on Politics and Revolution.
I have been forever grateful, those essays have stayed with me since reading them and contributed to the formation of my political conscience.
Conscientious teachers, at all levels, are one of the greatest assets our societies can have – et how little that is acknowledged.
As an immigrant student at a Midwest university in 1987, I was completely disillusioned with the USA I found, as opposed to USA that was marketed to me and the world. At the time Reaganism was in full swing funding death squads massacring campesinos, and the nuns and priests who cared about them. I told a professor, I couldn’t take it more, and even though I’d won a free ride with an academic scholarship, I felt I had to leave and go back to the old country. Her reply, “If you want to fight for a better world and destructive imperialism, then stay here. The USA affects the world. This is where the fight is.” When I think of the amazing teachers I had in what became a long list of higher learning institutions, the sentiment of this cartoon is so foreign to me, yet obviously accurate.
Thanks for great comment.
I was not a migrant student; but can testify to the foresight of a secondary school (12 – 17 years old) teacher I had here in Australia.
It was 1972, Australia was allied to the USA in the war against Vietnam; I was 17 and inline for military conscription when I left school.
This was a time of massive anti-war protests that led to the demise of the conservative government of the time.
A teacher put Hannah Arendt’s Crises of The Republic on the reading list.
A quartet of essays: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; and Thoughts on Politics and Revolution.
I have been forever grateful, those essays have stayed with me since reading them and contributed to the formation of my political conscience.
Conscientious teachers, at all levels, are one of the greatest assets our societies can have – et how little that is acknowledged.