1 post tagged “good intentions”

So with about ten days left in India, I'm beginning to reflect a little more on my experience thus far.  As always, my conclusions tie back to the value of education-- of cultivating a critical spirit, of introspection, and that in order to make change I have to be the change.  Everyone loves that quote by Gandhi (just look under 9/10 of your friends' Favorite Quotes on Facebook!)--"Be the change you wish to see in the world."  I think I may have misinterpreted it a bit in the past-- instead of just being the agent of change, I've found that I really have to be the subject of change.  Prescriptions for improvement of another society, system, community, or person-- they're all useless if you don't apply the same standards to your own life.  If you believe in equality, does equality mean that everyone in impoverished India, in the Third World should be living as we do in the First?  That, in fact, would be scary.  Imagine the effect if we all, as equals, were all guzzling through life with the same disregard for the environment.  We simply wouldn't have enough resources to begin talking about equality in American terms.  So maybe it's time to look a little more deeply on how my lifestyle, my choices, my vote affects others in our increasingly interconnected, globalized world.

I've had a few debates now in India over this whole concept of youth voluntarism, of global engagement.  Paolo Freire outlines in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed that in engaging with the oppressed, humanitarianism is useless--it's just another form of good intentions based on the "egotistic interests of the oppressors," based on the notion that we know best, as educated, middle-class Westerners.  Through our upbringings, we understand the world and can come and offer skills and ideas to bequeath upon the hapless.  I think many of my peers have definitely moved beyond this level of thought, and are posing more complex questions about capacity building, of "engaging" with communities, of enhancing the capabilities of stakeholders based on cultural sensitivity, etc.  But Freire keeps emphasizing that to help the oppressed, it has to come from within, that you have to become them.  Are we becoming "them" by coming to third world countries for two month stints, for eating local foods and living in homestays, for trudging through challenging environments and coming back to the comforts of our homes in the US and pat on the back for "saving the world"?  We may be learning a lot, we may carry these experiences with us for a lifetime, we may, ideally, apply what we have learned to actually change our own lifestyles at home afterwards, but are we really enabling the oppressed in a sustainable way?  What does sustainability really mean anyways?  I'd argue that sustainability comes from within, it means a lifelong commitment, it means critical dedication without expectations.  

But honestly, I can't really say one way or another what is "best."  I can definitely say that I get really irritated by all of these short-term volunteering stints-- a week in the Third World and coming back "changed."  Tell me what you really learn in a week.  Do such experiences really provoke you to think longer and harder about the politics, education, culture, and economics of these places?  Do they provoke you to look into how US foreign policy contributes to what you've seen?  Hopefully.  I recently read about a high-school girl in my hometown of Columbia, MO, and how she was applauded by the entire community, after visiting some impoverished country, for starting a shoe drive. Basically, she saw so many shoe-less people suffering in that country and her heart went out to them.  In an act of charity, she decided to collect shoes instead of presents for her 18th birthday.  Such philanthropy does not interest me, nor do I we should be applauding such people as if they are creating actual solutions for the world's problem of shoelessness.  Many NGOs here also apply similar band-aids to the cancers of this country, donating shoes and a yearly supply of bananas to primary schools.  Such quick fixes are based on good intentions and feel-good philanthropy, not thought.  And if you acknowledge it for what it is, that's completely fine.  But let's not get mixed up in thinking that good intentions are sustainable.  The road to hell, as we all say, is paved by good intentions.

Sometimes I wonder what we are actually doing at the government school level anyways.  I don't particularly think that my presence in these places is actually creating solutions tangible to them.  I'm definitely learning a lot about education, about the education system and about the nature of thoughtful interventions.  But I'm no radical, and I'm not organizing sit-ins or agitating for more teachers to the government bureaucrats.  And why should I?  I am not a direct stakeholder in this school--these are not my children.  But do I really have a stake in their success, in their development as thoughtful and productive human beings? 

In an ideal world, I wish I could find a way to radically alter the government primary schools into free institutions that create our world's problem-solvers, kids that see things they want to change in their own communities and become the agents for transforming their realities.  They wouldn't bat an eye at Americans or wealthy Indians coming in to volunteer at their school.  Through education, "capacity building" would take place at the roots.  But that's an ideal world, where there would be no complex hierarchies of oppressed and oppressors, no corrupt managers, and where the teaching profession would be valued so much throughout society that the smartest, most motivated, most dedicated people of the world would be teaching in primary schools.  

Can outsiders build this ideal world?  We may not be direct stakeholders, but indirectly, we want to see everyone--including the poorest and most exploited people in society--actively work to change the world in a positive way.  Whether its right or not, effective or not, who knows.  But we can choose to work in these environments, as outsiders, simply because we want to.  There can be no other 100% justifiable reason.  And I'm okay with that.  Youth engagement doesn't  "save the world," and if you are thinking in terms of "saving", we have more serious issues to address.  But we engage with the world because we want to, maybe not because we've found the best way, or because it may be a more "moral" choice.  It may be smarter to cut down on our lifestyles and advocate for a third party government in the US or protest every day outside of the White House for changing our farming and trade policies.  But maybe understanding life in the third world will lead us to question more about our own lives, and I've definitely found my experiences to be true to that.  And for that reason, it has all been worth it.  I've learned so much.