Building Community

Accompanied Patrick to a talk given by a gentleman named Laclau at a cafe called No Exit this evening. Laclau is an Argentinian now at an English university, and he has just written a book about populism. He made some cutting remarks about Slavoj Zizek and said an awful lot that I couldn't make heads or tails of. But one of the questions that an audience member asked was, "Is it possible to separate the content of Hugo Chavez' message, his populism, from his unappealing style?" Laclau replied that while it might be theoretically conceivable in some imaginary world, it is not possible now in Venezuela.

I took a course in my last year as an undergrad called "Building Community." I'm so used to seeing people organize around common grievances that I wondered, "Is it possible to create a sense of community that exists in a positive sense, that does not rely on opposition?" I never felt that the class addressed that question at all, but now I realize that the work I did during the class proved that yes, it is possible. I was part-time at the Community School of Music and Arts, and everyone there was tremendously committed to the very positive goal of the school: promoting and providing art education for locals of all ages. Everyone put in more hours than they were paid for, and there were many small crises of all kinds. But although people got tired, they were never angry in quite the same frustrated, fed-up way that the teachers at my school are.

I just checked my email and a funny thing has come up. Being such a small school, the scheduling is easier if each class is split in two sections. So there are two 7th grade sections, 7A and 7B, and the girls stay with the same group all day. Lately, one of the sections has started bullying the other section. "We're better than you." "Your section is full of lames." (The part that reminds me of Iraq is where the teachers say to the disgruntled "lames," "Stay cool. Whatever you do, don't retaliate, we are going to resolve this," but amongst ourselves, we're all wondering what the heck to do.)

So anyway, a section of 7th graders has decided to rally around the arbitrary fact that they belong to one section and not another, and the strong point is their opposition to the other section.

How can we harness people's desire to belong and channel it in a more positive way? School spirit? A more responsible stewardship of our school environment? Does it have to be so stupid and counter-productive?

I picked up a note today that made me really happy. Usually I hate finding these things, because they're just full of incriminating crap. "So-and-so is a b----. I can't stand her. Why do you talk to her?" The other day, I confiscated a fortune teller (a folded-paper toy that's easy to make; in elementary school, my friends and I would fill them with fortunes like, "Your favorite color is blue," or "You're going to marry Ryan"). This one included fortunes like, "There's sh-t in your panties." Boy was that fun. Anyway, today's happy note basically said: "I'm so worried. I'm failing math and I don't want to do bad in school. I hope I can make up this Not Yet but I'm really afraid that I can't do it." The recipient wrote, "Don't worry, I got UR back. You'll be OK." The original writer tied up the exchange: "Thanks for being my best friend." Aw.