Change
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
Part of my dissertation project involves interviewing lots of people about their work in schools and education policy, and I hear a whole lot about change. How the kids changed with immigration, how they have a lower level than they used to. How policies that have no concept of how things really work in schools come down and make people do things differently. How immigrants from some people refuse to change. How immigrants from others have changed too much, lost contact with their home cultures. How people here want all newcomers to change and be like them. How the teachers need to change, or the students, or the parents, or the whole system.
Hearing all this talk about what people think here has me thinking a lot about change. We all agree that things change over time. We live it, see it in the people we know. But at the same time we see how things stay the same. Inside ourselves, in the people around us, in our communities. The push and pull between feeling things change, and feeling they never will, fascinates me. Do people change? Do places like schools? How does change work? How does one person make another change?
When you close your eyes and think about it, do you believe in change? In yourself, in the world around you? Why or why not?