Historical Silences, Sign of the Times
the Academy + the Pandemic = an Academic
It’s clearly visible to most that the world silences some elements of history while giving others a megaphone. It’s well-established, for example, that our literate world considers written materials normative—oral histories are relegated to the status of ‘lesser than.’ But when we prioritize the general truths we obscure specifics: we end up not seeing how the problem affects us in the here and now; we may not see that there are structures and conditions which alter the history that will be told by us and those that may come after us.
This abstraction collapsed down into something concrete a few weeks ago, when I chanced upon a passage in Virginia City: Secrets of a Western Past (U. of Nebraska, 2012) by Ronald M. James.
Two paragraphs were enough to dispel any reticence I may have inherited about the utility of oral histories; two paragraphs were concrete enough for me to understand how the abstract rule plays out in the world, in real-time, and why a definition of “history” based on the written word alone is insufficient:
Most of the Fourth Ward School’s desks and chairs have long since been removed to storage in upper-floor rooms. What remains are the footprints of each desk and chair. The floorboards wore around the iron feet of the furniture, underneath which the wood is nearly pristine except for the three-hole pattern left by the screws. The most dramatic examples of wear, however, are deep groves in the floor. This is where children’s feet kicked back and forth by the hour as the scholars sat, unable to expend youthful energy in any other way . . . Evidence of the classroom experience is found in the hundreds of desk carvings, yet another expression of tedium and opportunity coinciding. Of particular interest are desks that have deep notches cut along the edge facing the student. Oral history collected from a visitor suggests boys used these to hold wooden rulers, which could catapult spitballs across the room. It takes oral histories to understand the significance of a cornice platform or a cut in a desk, but nothing more than touching the wooden floor is needed to appreciate the furrows, scars of a former time. Here the material culture bears the imprint of use, and a vivid image of what it was to be a child on the Comstock emerges. [Pg. 92]
Without these oral histories (and historians to care enough to collect them and use them) an element of the historical narrative would have been shrouded in mystery. But what this example shows—that some elements are silenced and others highlighted by the definition of history we employ, and what materials we allow ourselves to put “on the table,” as it were—isn’t as foreign to us as we may think. As a college student for the last two years, when I came across Ronald James’ words, the lines seemed to draw themselves—we have recently lived through a more obvious historical event than usual, one unlike the others which invisibly boil around us: the Pandemic. What elements of our history have been silenced, and which have been magnified?
Amid crippling uncertainty, students and professors have had to adapt to undreamt-of situations. In some cases our adaptations required prioritizing ourselves and our own time and energy over outside impositions. In some cases, we enacted small and tacit rebellions within the university system—revolts which the administration, also under diverse stresses, had to silently accept. A minor but undocumented example of this is the tendency for students to participate in asynchronous classes at their own pace to avoid self-destruction.
Discussion posts in online classes show most strikingly how the environments which COVID populated were not designed to exert the rigorous bodily control that a physical classroom environment can. Much to student’s surprise and benefit, asynchronicity allows them to engage in discussions at their own pace, considering their own needs. Deadlines for discussion posts are entirely arbitrary in an asynchronous class: the student can still see the discussion after the deadline has passed and is able to respond and participate long after others post.
I have seen many people respond to discussion boards after the deadline, and I’ve done so myself; I’ve seen many people’s post length, post punctuality, and post quality vary from week to week, as has mine. I know we’ve had to assert ourselves in this small way so that our education can fit into our lives without our having to totally re-arrange it to accommodate. Either professors realized this and relented (we have to keep in mind that they are themselves also struggling in the same environment we do) or they understood and approved.
My point is that bringing this issue up in any official capacity, in a system as managerial and deadlines-based as higher education, would require actions and reprimands. A system of discipline and authority would put us at risk if we were to communicate this element of our history openly, so we do not. There are constraints acting upon what we may or may not commit to paper, and what enters into, or is silenced from, the historical record. It is true—we have committed the grave sin of not living by the manager’s deadlines and the administration’s clocks, and our professors did not castigate us with the power of the administration. I, for one, am overjoyed.
But, upon further consideration, I also do not think this should be silenced from history—especially because it is a useful lesson in how things can be silenced from history to begin with, and that they still are. Whether out of carelessness and an inability to pay attention to certain events and people, or whether out of a system of incentives that effectively silences certain elements of reality, things can be silenced out of the production of historical materials. This is the same force that acted upon schoolchildren, and it is a reason why they did not write an awful lot about the use for the notches on their desks.
It is also important to realize that the underlying circumstance is wrong: professors should not be a managerial arm and students should not have to prioritize their well-being over their education or vice-versa. There is a darker truth which is also not present in the written record of student’s lives, and university newspapers: the majority of students work and cannot keep up with the readings, the essays, the group projects, or the endless litany of assessments that the administration requires professors hand out. Especially not when they are multiplied by whatever number of classes a college defines as “full time.”[1]
The truth is that studying, thinking, and learning—as well as teaching and grading—are labor. Scientifically, they require energy and calories to perform. They require being sound of body and sound of mind, having reliable access to shelter, to food, etc. That is, access to precisely the things that our society has disastrously chosen to turn a profit on, in addition to education. Any discussion with fellow students will quickly give one the insight that they do not have the time and attention required to go to work—where they are likely underpaid and very likely have no insurance—while also giving full-time attention to their studies. And if I mention the time and energy required for family, mental health, physical wellbeing, and then the time to rest… Does anything else need to be said?
It should be no wonder that students are more and more learning to put on the façade of studying, learning how to evade managerialism and to “bullshit” their way through and arbitrary and unjust system. (A skill which, functionally speaking, is not useless.) A system, it is worth adding, that is not even designed with providing a quality education as its first priority—and has not been for some time now.[2]
But it should not be this way. Students and teachers should be able to benefit from their labor, to be paid well, and to derive a good education from their time and money. Students should have enough time to cultivate critical thinking, media literacy, and to participate in the sacred task of knowledge transmission. Otherwise, what are we even doing? Why subject people to a transparent rat race and then expect people to live up to its arbitrary managerial expectations?
We have no time and no energy for self-improvement. The pandemic allowed us to take advantage of a certain moment of crisis to assert ourselves in a way that will likely be lost to time, though I hope not entirely. But, as we return to normal, we return to more long-term, long-standing problems. Students cannot benefit from the education they have paid for because they have no time and no money, which are the same.
The only question is: what is to be done?
Addendum:
I wrote the first draft of this post almost a month and a half ago, and since then I’ve returned to it a couple of times after showing it to some of my good friends and fellow writers. I ended my original draft with an open-ended question because I could not see a way out, or a path forward. It’s easy to fall into despair and hesitation when one has access to only one point of view: one’s own. However, Brotato, my significant other, fellow member of the TerraGenesis Collective and co-blogger at Forest of Doors, provided an answer and hope that I had myopically lost. It’s surprising how, in art as in science, the perspective of others can cast light on an issue—the eye truly is the lamp of the body in more ways than one. I bring this up not (just) to advocate for peer review, but because credit is due to the ensemble just as much as it is to its constituent players.
Their words were so perfect and impactful—so reminiscent of those famous verses, “I once was lost, but now I'm found; was blind but now I see”—that it would be injustice for me not to quote them. Why try to hold a candle to the sun?
If we don't write down our acts of minor transgression, people in the future will need to transgress anew, without precedent. They will need to reinvent the tiny revolts that have already been fought a thousand times before, without the knowledge that it has been done. They will also lose any evidence that the system they’re in can be fought—which is a difficult leap of imagination when systems are entrenched. Silence reinforces that entrenchment, concealing who knows how many cracks—who knows how many vulnerabilities in the system? We must write things down, memorialize even our minor transgressions.
While Brotato’s vision is not the end of discussion, it is the literal beginning of one. If one of the problems is that historical silences afflict us, and always have, what other solution can there be but to speak up? Whether in private spaces, like a diary, or in semi-private spaces, like a blog, or even in the face of power itself, we must build up a history of the transgressive, of the forbidden, in real-time. Let it be a guideline for the future, a monument to the past, and an undaunted reflection of our lives.
Endnotes
[1] In the United States, the IRS classifies you as a full-time student if "you are enrolled for the number of hours or courses the school considers to be full-time." (Kelci Lynn Lucier, ThoughtCo.com)
[2] For more on this, I recommend Comrade Rybin’s excellent and upcoming dissection of the education industry in the United States.
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I honestly relate to this a lot. I was working multiple jobs while trying to train to be a teacher all while the pandemic was going on. It feels good to see someone actually putting words to this