Barry Lopez on Resistance
New wisdom from the Spring 2006 Georgia Review (though it took me a while to discover it):
We’ve done a horrible job of covering for these people [students] while they’re trying to get an education. Students have every right to go to the adult community and say, “I can’t fix this. I need seasoning and tools, and you need to hold the fort while I do that. When I know what I mean and can say what I mean, and can stand solid, it’ll be my turn to take care of you. But for now, you have to hold the line. You can’t come to us at age sixteen or twenty and say, ‘Sorry we screwed it up, now it’s time for you to clean it up.’” No. I always tell kids they have no obligation to go out there and put themselves in the policeman’s face. They’re not going to prevail, and worse, they’ll pay a terrible price for it….
We’re trying to work together here, I want to say to them, and your job is to drain everything you can out of this classroom. You’re not here to learn how to become an employeer. You’re here to learn how become a citizen, to become a mother or a father, to develop a way of life. You’ve got to pay tuition, get a job - yeah, all that. But while you figure out how to deal with those things, we owe you some cover. We’re in dire need of your informed citizenship and your future good parenting. We need to ensure you get this and that you have the time necessary to understand this.
–Barry Lopez, interviewed by Christian Martin
