{"id":141627882,"date":"2024-02-13T07:43:16","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T07:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writetosuccess.net\/on-equitable-education\/"},"modified":"2024-02-13T07:43:16","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T07:43:16","slug":"on-equitable-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writetosuccess.net\/es\/on-equitable-education\/","title":{"rendered":"On Equitable Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why resources often trump resolve <\/h2>

This is a piece I wrote last spring, but wanted to share as the issues it raises have not gone anywhere. Education demands equitable access to resources, or it will end before it starts. <\/em><\/p>

\"gray<\/figure>

On Tuesday, around half-past-nine in the morning, my cat jumped onto the sink. An instant after I turned the tap, the water stopped. Cue a three-day saga of landlord, electricians and plumbers clumping through my workspace and accusing glares from the cat as he nosed the unyielding tap.<\/p>

My three dry days coincided with reading George Orwell\u2019s Down and Out in Paris and London<\/em> with my students.<\/p>

\u201cIt is altogether curious, your first contact with poverty. You thought it would be quite simple; it is extraordinarily complicated. You thought it would be terrible; it is merely squalid and boring. It is the peculiar lowness<\/em> of poverty that you discover first; the shifts that it puts you to, the complicated meanness, the crust-wiping.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>

Replace \u2018poverty\u2019 with \u2018no running water\u2019, \u2018no electricity\u2019, \u2018no food\u2019 or any other noun phrase related to a basic necessity. The principle stands.<\/p>

To lack something one requires for survival is complicated, squalid, boring, low, crust-wiping<\/em>. Whatever one\u2019s other resources, the absence, scarcity or precarity of water, food, shelter, warmth, etc. is destructive.<\/p>

Deprivation makes education harder to attain. Moreover, it robs whatever education one has acquired of its value.<\/p>

Attention<\/h2>

In the elegiac opening sentence of \u2018On Being Ill\u2019 Virginia Woolf writes:<\/p>

\u201cConsidering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed\u2026 it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love, battle, and jealousy among the prime themes of literature.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>

For when the lights of health go down<\/em>, let\u2019s substitute: when you can\u2019t flush the toilet, or wash your hands.<\/em><\/p>

My first unnerved thought, when I realized the water wasn\u2019t returning at the flick of a fuse-switch, was, oh crap<\/em>.<\/p>

Literally. I have had severe IBS for over a decade. Proximity to a clean, functioning, private convenience is high on my list of essentials. Higher, in fact, than food. Food, once consumed, rapidly becomes a problem.<\/p>

Not having water turned the next three days into a pathetic war of attrition with my internal organs, which I\u2019d rather think of as friends than enemies. Boiled white rice became the meal of choice to minimize digestive demands.<\/p>

Disarranged eating and hygiene stress combined to drag my mind away from classes. And I\u2019m the teacher.<\/p>

Imagine how much harder it is for students to cope with scarcity\u2019s effect on attention.<\/p>

\"boy<\/figure>

Intention<\/h2>

Education helps us learn to make good choices. We learn to think critically, plan, weigh options, critique, etc. (ideally, anyway).<\/p>

Orwell was well-educated and possessor of a rare mind. He argues, \u201ca man who has gone even a week on bread and margarine is not a man any longer, only a belly with a few accessory organs.\u201d<\/p>

Science bears out this observation: the brain is around 2% of body weight but hoovers up 20% of the body\u2019s glucose-derived energy (Mergenthaler, et al., 2014<\/a>). Depriving the body of the energy it requires disproportionately affects the brain. The body attempts to compensate by purloining glucose from other vital systems but subpar nutrition still takes a crowbar to cognitive functions (Glucose and The Brain: Improving Mental Performance, 2013).<\/p>

Other forms of deprivation, such as lack of running water, may not have the same immediate physiological implications, but they swiftly cripple good intentions.<\/p>

Not knowing when the water would be back, I couldn\u2019t plan dinner, much less anything in the more distant future. Clothes and dishes needed washing, cat bowls needed refilling, plants needed watering, but it couldn\u2019t be done nor anticipated. I learned to live in the moment, in the worst possible way.<\/p>

Interaction<\/h2>

Working from home, my attire tends more towards casual than smart. But there is a huge difference between informal and plan dirty.<\/p>

I take the ability to be clean, and therefore socially appropriate, for granted; fortunate am I.<\/p><\/div>

Day one was tolerable but by day two the BO was bothering me. The morning of day three there were some unavoidable errands. After slathering on deodorant and shoving my grimy body into clean clothes I skulked out, coat zipped to the chin and masked. During the brief exchanges that followed, I stood as far away as courtesy allowed, marrow curling with self-consciousness.<\/p>

I need to start donating to clean water projects<\/em>, I thought. Then thought of all the people who live in places clean water projects don\u2019t touch: places like Spain, the United States or the UK. In developed countries, broad access to running water, hygiene products, etc. obscures \u2014 and no doubt exacerbates \u2014 the trauma of those who cannot access these fundamental resources.<\/p>

Not being able to wash and groom is uncomfortable on a personal level (I was hyperconscious of my bodily fluids and functions). And it is fatal to the ability to interact with clean human beings on an equal footing.<\/p>

If I were a student who couldn\u2019t wash, stuck in a roomful of well-scrubbed peers, I\u2019d want to crawl under the floorboards. Or maybe I\u2019d act out, to distract from my discomfort. I was lucky to not have the precise experience as a kid, but I can imagine.<\/p>

One thing is for sure: my mind would not be on my studies. I\u2019d be counting the minutes till I could flee.<\/p>

\"persons<\/figure>

Thursday night, the kitchen tap spluttered to life. Borderline delirious, I scrubbed the dishes, wiped the counters, refilled the cat bowls. After a long, hot shower I put on clean pajamas, sat on the sofa and stared at the unlit furnace, spent.<\/p>

The tiredness that gripped me wasn\u2019t ordinary end-of-the-week stuff. My energy and volition were sapped, as if I\u2019d run a marathon.<\/p><\/div>

The argument of Mani, et al. (2013) <\/a>that \u201cpoverty itself reduces cognitive capacity\u2026 because poverty-related concerns consume mental resources, leaving less for other tasks\u201d made perfect sense.<\/p>

Education is wonderful thing. There isn\u2019t much I\u2019d rather do than teach and learn. But deprivation is its undoing.<\/p>

As a teacher, and an individual, I have a responsibility to work towards a more equitable society where people have the resources they need to benefit from education.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why resources often trump resolve <\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141627882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Equitable Education - Write To Success<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/writetosuccess.net\/es\/on-equitable-education\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Equitable Education - 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