Amy Mackens – Central Academy

Amy Mackens – Central Academy

There was an element of power that I was not expecting when I first learned the module, one that I did not expect to find in myself. As I tried to move away from this power dynamic, I found that it was also perpetuated by the students. I think this came from their comfort and success in a banking system; the students at Central are smart individuals who do well in a classroom setting, and it can be easy to approach learning the module in a similar style. The class has given me the words to better explain what exactly was off about my time spent in Dakar—I recognize now that the lessons we taught there were one-sided and limited, they didn’t have any heart or meat to them, and didn’t recognize outside of a “modern,” western and scientific narrative. It has helped me to understand that I was partaking in and perpetuating a very traditional banking system of learning, that the privilege of my education and my perceived intelligence as an American university student painted me as a definitive authority figure in our lessons (a perception that no one seemed bothered to verify as legitimate), and ultimately it solidified the suspicion that I gained more from the experience than any of my students.

One of the things that I have drawn from this experience is that I am a member of some very problematic systems. They are passive and hegemonic, and because within them I am considered acceptable—white, upper-middle class, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied and educated—it is very neat and easy to fall into step with them. In particular, it is very simple, very easy for me to accept the respect that I gain for the simple fact that I go to college, and even more so when that college is the esteemed University of Michigan. Throughout the semester I have struggled with accepting this respect. When I describe the desire to have something to show of my time at Michigan, what am I actually showing? Why is it so esteemed in my mind? I think that it is implied that after completing my education, I have automatically become a better, more educated person.

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This is a source of guilt for me, because inherent in the nature of being better is putting yourself in relation to others, and ultimately stacking them up against you, or judging them to be less than you somehow. And maybe this is inherent in human nature, to compare one another. But what is unfair and terrifying to me is that there is one definitive standard for being good or acceptable; there is a strict guideline that shuts entire people out and wrongly questions their validity or worth, simply because they did not or could not follow the acceptable path to being an acceptable person. Implied in my better-ness is that there are people beneath me. People who are not as good or better or more than me because they did not sit through PowerPoint lectures hung over, pull all-nighters to memorize information they would ultimately forget by the next week, or write half-formulated theory papers; they did not go through the precious qualifier: the ‘college experience.’

As much as I have tried to become conscious, the module has shown me that I still held on to the responsibility of enacting change. I cared for ‘the people’ and wanted to help, but did not trust them or allow them to own their social change. Even the idea that I can or cannot “allow” a certain thing for someone less privileged than myself seems backwards to me.

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