Diversity of students enriches teacher’s life

My name is Liesl McQuillan and I am a teacher.  I am fortunate to teach philosophy here at Richland and to teach the best students on the planet.  Seriously, my students are amazing. 

I could spend pages gushing about how good they are, how bright and how giving of themselves, but that might be a little self-indulgent.  Instead, I find myself pondering the thing that Richland has fostered in our student body that makes our experience here so rich: diversity.  

Oddly enough, diversity has become a dirty word to some people.  It is often taken to mean the forceful pushing of natural relationships or integration where integration is not wanted or needed.  My experience with it, however, has been akin to something woven together through the crossing lines of our differences, making those lines turn into stitching rather than barriers.

I am grateful to the powers that be at Richland for fostering this diversity because it has made my teaching experience and the experience of my students in my classes so much better. 

Every semester my students tell me that they hadn't known before my class how many differences of opinion there are out there and that knowing those differences made them better people.  I know that in making my already amazing students better, the diversity of thought that is brought into every classroom at Richland makes ripples in this world beyond our fair borders.  Imagine the possibilities of those ripples.

Teaching is a two-way street.  I'm lucky to have learned as much from my students as I have taught them, if not more.  Take, for example, my former student, Adam.  Adam is devoutly Muslim and giving enough of himself to have taught me so much about Islam and what it means to be a Muslim-American. 

I've maintained for years that Adam is going to be our first Muslim-American president, not just because he is tremendously smart, but because he understands the difference between his faith and the beliefs of others.  He told me once that if he were to be president, he would be able to distinguish between his faith and the multitude of faiths or non-faith in this country, and he would not govern as a Muslim but as an American. 

I found that idea profoundly important, not just in relation to governance, but in our relation to each other.  We move through this country as citizens who are free to practice our beliefs in any way we choose as long as it does not harm others. 

That being true, it is incumbent upon us to recognize that our beliefs are not the beliefs of others and we must find that sweet spot of interaction where we cannot only tolerate others' differing beliefs but learn from them.  Like Adam, I find that it is not my job to attempt to force others to see as I see; all I can do is live my life as best as I can and hope that what I do causes the least amount of harm to others.  

I've had a lot of Muslim students in my classes.  I confess, I didn't know anything about Islam before teaching these students and probably had never talked to a Muslim in depth before knowing them.  I have one former Muslim student, Bahadir, who still calls me on Mother's Day.  He knows I do not have children and he calls or texts me to thank me for the support I've offered him.  Adam does the same thing. 

I had a pair of Muslim sisters, Saja and Sam, who make me smile every other day.  Sam is a tiny firecracker whose force of will is a thing to be reckoned with.  She'll do tremendous things simply because she can.  Sam's sister Saja is also a firecracker, but in a different way.  Saja's compassion for all living creatures emanates from her being and can't help but infect others.  Do you understand why I feel so lucky in my students and in their diversity, yet?

The point I am trying to make in all of this is that if it were not for differing beliefs and the freedom to practice those beliefs, we would not become the richest people on the planet that we are today.  I say "rich" because I mean that our lives are that stitching I previously mentioned of belief, opinion, compassion and thought.  

If we begin to try and limit those things through the denial of a person's or people's right to worship or build community centers or churches or mosques or temples, our stitching together will begin to unravel;  the delicate balance we have built on the foundation of religious freedom, of the freedom from tyrannical thought, will degrade. 

If we begin to allow our misunderstanding of others to dictate whether or not those others have the ability to practice their faith or their non-faith we run the risk of attempting to make the world in our own image.  I don't know about you, but I like knowing that what I know is not all there is to know.  

I ask you all to get up now, open your eyes to the goodness in this world, and embrace the otherness we see every day.  I ask you to go out and make some ripples of your own.  Don't just "be the change you want to see in the world;" (Gandhi) be the stitching that holds it all together.