Writing Remix Ep.86 Note from Dan
For each episode of The Writing Remix Podcast, I’ve written a “Note from Dan.” These episode notes are in the podcast newsletter that goes out along with episode-specific reflection questions. This note is from the latest episode with special guest Nat Garcia from Nova Southeastern University. At the time of this episode’s release, a white supremacist murdered 10 people in a grocery store in Buffalo, NY, and while I was writing this note, another mass shooting happened in Uvalde, TX that took the lives of 19 children and 2 teachers at Robb Elementary School.
Screenshot from Episode 86 of Writing Remix Podcast
“Vulnerability can be probably the most powerful tool to an academic if we embrace the discomfort that comes along with it.”
–Nat Garcia
Nat Garcia’s quote echoes loudly and it will continue to echo because everyone needs to look deep inside themselves, to dig into those dark places, those emotions and fears we rather ignore, and face them all, together, as a community, or we will certainly see more tragedies like we’ve seen on May 14th and May 24th because we haven’t hit rock bottom.
On May 14th, 2022 there was a racially motivated terrorist attack in Buffalo, NY that took the lives of 10 Black people. Ten days later in Uvalde, TX, there was another mass shooting at an elementary school that took the lives of 19 children and 2 adults.
This will happen again, and politicians will send their “thoughts and prayers,” while nihilistically moving forward, “business as usual.”
And why wouldn’t it be “business as usual” in the US. The police continue to murder citizens at an alarming rate, two years since the racially motivated murder of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020. It doesn’t surprise me that it took a presidential executive order for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 to be pushed into action because our elected officials couldn’t agree on the value of human life before their petty political ideologies.
While I’m writing this, there have been 212 mass shootings in the United States since the start of 2022. What will it take to see change?
Practicing vulnerability in the classroom, and being vulnerable with our students serves as an example for our students on how to practice vulnerability in the public. In this episode, Nat Garcia not only speaks about classroom pedagogy, they speak about public pedagogy, a human pedagogy that people are desperate for right now.
I was 17 years old, a junior at Mineola High School, when the news of the Columbine High School shooting happened on April 20th,1999. I remember being in the cafeteria in a time before social media. The news started to ripple through the room, and then someone yelled out in pain, there was crying, shock, and confusion.
In the weeks that followed, there were a number of threats that ended school early. I remember being rushed out of the school and onto the bus home with no explanation why or if we’d return the next day. One day an actual hit-list was posted on the vending machines. I didn’t think we’d ever get back to “normal.”
Fast forward to 2022, and what I considered shocking has become “business as usual” in America.
“Knowledge can be a painful process.”
–Nat Garcia
When Nat and I sat down to have our conversation in April, we could never have predicted how Nat’s quotes would speak to these specific tragedies, shedding light on a variety of issues outside the classroom, or how poignant and revolutionary their ideas/pedagogy would be.
It seems America refuses to learn from pain. Ignorance is America’s approach, its coping mechanism. Even when someone is screaming for help, gasping for air, begging to be seen, heard, and treated humanely, America continues, “business as usual.” Instead of learning from the centuries of pain, America turns away.
My hope is we strive for more than “going back to normal” as a country, because normal wasn’t and isn’t working, at all.
I’ve been honored to have so many amazing conversations with so many vulnerable and open people. I’m humbled every time by my guests, and this episode is no different. Knowing Nat Garcia is out there gives me hope, because they’re doing more than “the job.”
Over-intellectualizing vulnerability is dehumanizing. I will return to Nat Garcia’s words, share them with my students, and challenge myself to refuse any steps towards “business as usual.”
Nat Garcia PRACTICES that pedagogy in their everyday life, and in these uncertain times, when we need healing and a dramatic shift in how we value each other as human beings, I find solace knowing they’re out doing the real work.
Grab your pens and notebooks, or whatever you write notes in these days, and absorb the wisdom from Nat Garcia.
