If You Condemn the Capitol Riots, Go Thank a Teacher
No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher.
There is a lot of talk about privilege in our country. Privilege can come from many places, including the color of your skin, your sex, your place of birth, and your wealth. I myself am fortunate to have privilege in all of those areas. However, I believe that my greatest source of privilege comes not from something I was born with, but instead something that I happened to luck into early in my life. And this is the fact that I truly had some of the best teachers in the world.
My teachers have contributed more to who I am today than I ever could have realized while in school. The deadly events of January 6th, when an angry mob stormed the US Capitol Building, have made me think long and hard about my life and my place in the world. I came to the realization there is far less separating me from the rioters than I previously thought. We both care so deeply about our country that we feel the need to enact change. We are both angry at the state of the world. We both feel like our voices speak the truth, and we are both beyond frustrated that our voices aren’t being heard. The only difference between us is that I was fortunate enough to have teachers who taught me how to choose the right things to believe.
To be clear, that is not to say that they are without blame for their own actions. Quite the opposite. They are grown adults who, in my opinion, committed treason. They only have themselves to blame. What I am saying is that without the lessons taught to me by my amazing teachers growing up, I might have been choosing to storm the capital right alongside them on Wednesday, and I am so eternally grateful that I wasn’t.
My teachers taught me many valuable things, both inside and outside of class. They taught me to think critically about the information I receive, especially if I already agree with it. They taught me to build the arguments for what I believe on solid reasoning instead of blind belief. They taught me that I will never always be right, and to always operate under the assumption that I could be wrong. They taught me that I should have patience, compassion, and understanding when confronted with an idea that contradicts my own.
Without these lessons, I might not have had the ability to discern what is true from what is false. I might not have been able to see Trump’s constant use of logical fallacy, just as I might not have been able to see the damaging effects of his policy and rhetoric. I may have agreed with him because of the way what he said made me feel, instead of what it made me think. I might have then built arguments and reasoning in my own head to justify that feeling, instead of building them from the evidence I had seen before me. It might not have been long until I was storming the capital because I felt that the election had been stolen from the American people based solely on the lies of a false idol.
Mr. Miyagi, the sensei in The Karate Kid and one of the best on-screen teachers of all time, famously said there is “No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher.” Well, if that is true, then so is the inverse. There is no such thing as a good student, only a good teacher. I am who I am not because of how I was born, but because of the effort of the people who took their time to help me grow into the man I am today. Nobody is self-made, and we all owe our teachers a debt of gratitude for everything we are.
With that being said, I would like to take this time to thank some of the amazing teachers that brought you the person who wrote the blog you are reading. In no particular order and from the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank Jean Lare, Julie Korchowski, Kristin Brockman, Kristin Rouyer, Cheryl Murgia, and Rebecca Barnett. The five of you have made an impact that will be part of me until the day I die. Whenever I have the opportunity, I strive to be like you and pass these lessons on to the next generation.
Growing up, no one really taught me how to cry, so I am often unable to do it, even when I need to. However, thinking about this has brought me to tears every single day this week, because I am just so damn grateful for everything you did for me. So once again, I thank you. And I encourage everyone reading this to do the same for the teachers who impacted their life.
