Shattered Silences

The following two articles, "A Hit and Run Victim and Shattered Silences" and "Icons and Images for a New Millenium," are from the Beyond Report Cards series written for the Wellsville Daily Reporter by Dr. Ellen Weber.

A Hit and Run Victim and Shattered Silences

by Ellen Weber©
Published in Wellsville Daily Reporter, January 31, 2000

Over Christmas break, at my daughter’s home in British Columbia, we partied around several hearths with young adults and their parents. People acted poised and polite initially at these gatherings the way you’d expect. But after a few casual questions, one well-known broker and his wife spoke out about their son. Hit by a car that sped away, 20 year old Mark now relies on his parents for daily care. Six years after the tragedy Mark still does not recognize family or friends, nor can he voice even basic needs or share dreams he once held for law school.

Mark‘s story reminds us to hear and respond to people around us as we would hear valued kin. Your stories after last month’s column, affirm that some remain unheard. If John Vanier is correct that humans need to know and be known, and if your stories of silenced voices are true, we still bury untold treasures. Stories often emerge through care and healing, and two interested ears can usually draw them out. Just as Mark’s parents gave up personal dreams to assist their son, people in less represented groups depend on those who hear to stop, ask and really listen. Desire to hear comes first, even when hearing involves risk. People contribute more at tables where different ideas are encouraged and recognized rather than diminished or subtly excluded.

You suggested practical ways to celebrate more people in our circles. Systemic change may help. Some high school or college classes, for instance, allow students to know others and become known. Others do not. Paradigm shifts don’t happen automatically nor do they follow any single formula. Education renewal means more than assigning and telling, but the best teachers jumpstart involvement in different ways. They value more than one answer depending on background experiences of students. Worried that students will become informationally impaired, others push facts and forget that classrooms brim over with human activity, interactions and dialogues to investigate different perspectives. So at times we lose sight or take for granted how those around us use language from their own past to make new meanings which shape all our futures.

Questions go a long way to unearth varied voices from around our tables. I don’t mean questions that teachers or leaders already know answers to, but questions that probe beyond facts to consider another’s thoughts. Queries help us to build personal relationships across cultures and beliefs. Imagine being asked by mentors or leaders, "How do you enjoy it here?" or, "How can we celebrate your talents in this place?" Questions form the first step used at our MITA reform center to create global communication and education renewal. We find that once folks begin to respond at roundtables it’s hard not to celebrate their amazing offerings.

Vanier is probably right. Most folks desperately want to know and be known. Questions encourage each of us by inspiring wonder, opening discovery and creating understanding. Mark may never become the lawyer he dreamed of. But when his parents affirmed unique values in their brain-injured son’s life, they reminded us all to really hear and refuse to shatter voices among us in the coming century.

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Icons and Images for a New Millennium

by Ellen Weber ©
Published in Wellsville Daily Reporter, January 3, 2000

At Christmas we cling to icons of hope or peace for our broken worlds. But in January we garner symbols to birth a segue into magic places. It makes perfect sense to stop and create new paths. Think of a poet's pause to pluck reflective figures from pools of water, or skaters impressions from graceful figurines. Artists take shapes from tree trunks, stones or the back side of a leaf. Musicians pluck icons from combination chords and authors from expressions on a face or lilt in words. For each of us new visions emerge from icons past that fashioned future dreams.

Images emerged for me when Houghton's student president asked me to address college leaders on the topic, SHATTERING THE SILENCES. Interestingly, I unlocked insights into harmful silences surrounding us more than keys to shatter these. So in January it seems appropriate to share some silences found and you might enjoy a quote Mother Teresa hung on the wall of a Calcutta children's home.

I opened a dialogue with this leader's group to hear their thoughts. Silence is broken by courageous leaders, they agreed, who possess hope in humanity and less confidence than any one group, one country or one race. Peace-makers shatter silences when they hear alternative positions on traditional issues, they emphasized. Yes. As I listened to other cultures represented in this group, I remembered hundreds of similar voices from teens interviewed during my doctoral work. Great ideas emerge when we remember to ask and really hear another's heart.

Shattering silence is not about winning more folks to our side but about greeting and welcoming them on their own. Several quality universities I worked for refused to hire faculty who graduated there, to ensure new voices and perspectives and prevent silence by a few who protect one turf. This policy of opening inner circles to more diverse faculty, students and cultures led to other voices typically heard on larger issues. But shattering starts with each of us.

In addressing these Houghton leaders I concluded that my own education reform model can only shatter silences of race, culture, gender, and denominational differences if we celebrate human voices beyond any one group. Our MITA reform center must open significant spaces for less represented groups. An opposite approach which sometimes occurs in education circles would be to diminish subtly those who express different ideas, by failing to invite their responses or to honor their differences.

Recently, a student teacher showed me how it works. Trina introduced O'Henry's, "The Gift of the Magi," by inviting students in her inner city class to translate, "Merry Christmas" into their spoken tongues. As English classes came and went during the day her blackboard filled with intercultural Christmas cheers from all around the world. We listened with delight to proud voices from many cultures as students shattered silences formed in our circle. This group went on to share values and dreams that other folks hold dear. It isn't easy to welcome all the voices at one's table but it's worth a shot. Mother Teresa hung in a Calcutta children's home a sign that read: "Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the best you've got anyway." Maybe I should stop to buy a helmet with plastic mouth guard to begin this year.

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