National Healing: Race, State, and the Teaching of Composition

Mindful Teaching

Min dful Teaching One semester, I asked my first-year composition students to reconsider their books in light of the principles of communication that Thich Nhat Hanh (1998) discusses in Interbeing. Specifically, I asked my students to consider the ways in which their books inspired anger and suffering, or peace and healing; whether they facilitated or closed down communication between themselves and others. Many of my students must have seen that facilitating or opening communication meant forgiving someone they were writing about, especially when the person caused them pain. It was not always easy for them. As one student wrote, “My baby cousin was killed by a drunk driver, and I want to get my point [about the effects of drinking and driving] across without being rude or hurtful. But it is difficult because I have anger towards people who drink and drive.” Another student wrote about forgiving his brother: “My book is about waking up and finding out that my brother tried to commit suicide and all the emotions I went through throughout the day. I believe my book will open communication because I am writing about how I felt and asking questions rather than judging. I’m looking for a reason, a cause; I’m not blaming anyone. I’m just searching.” Such profound words: “I’m looking for a reason, a cause; I’m not blaming anyone. I’m just searching .” How honest; how strong. So often our students, just like ourselves, are searching for the means and resources for forgiving someone. I have had so many students, over the years, who have written about the fathers who were not in their lives. And I have watched as they searched for healing. As one of my students recently wrote in her book, The Dad I Never Had, “I’m still healing from my dad not being in my life. I hope my book inspires others to forgive and forget, just like I am learning to do.” And another wrote her book about her father who had spent most of her life in prison as a result of arrests related to his drug addiction. After talking about Hanh’s position on using writing to open communication and inspire healing, she thought about her book in terms of her revising process: “This will be in the back of my head when I reread my pages. I want to be sure to be more understanding towards my biological Mindful Teaching    203 father and his illness. I will try not to take my anger out on him in my writing.” What an intelligent and mature response to her own writing, which easily could have turned into diatribe, into an infantile venting of rage. In another instance, a student discovered, through Hanh’s teachings , an understanding of the living implications of rhetoric, a knowledge that has the power to enrich a student’s life well beyond the end of any semester. When writing about her book in which she explores experiences with her alcoholic and physically abusive father: “I am telling the truth about everything my father has done to me and my family . . . at the end of the book I forgive my father. Knowing this makes me want to express everything I have experienced with my father and family as well. I hope my father will get to read this because of how truthful and meaningful it is to me.” This student learned a sophisticated lesson, one that is rhetorical to be sure, but also so much more. Through knowing Hanh, she learned that by opening communication with another, a writer opens new, meaningful and productive communication with the self. And she may even have learned one of the most important life lessons of all if she can see its meaning: namely, that forgiveness is a path to truth. Students also write about difference. One student recently wrote her book about a lesbian couple that opened a bakery in her small town. Her book is a story of prejudice, transcendence, and the love circulating in one kitchen in one small town in the world. It is the love of family. As the student wrote, “I would like to inspire people to be open to others that are different from themselves.” And sometimes our students simply write about feeling different. Responding to Hanh’s teaching that communication that attempts to force people to one’s viewpoint inspires anger and suffering, one student wrote about his book which portrays his difficult high school...