(above) Malik Harvey meeting with his advisees on the Academic Quad on a warm spring day in May.
By Malik Harvey, Physical Science Teacher
“Why I Teach” is a recurring column in the Chronicle in which we invite Cardigan’s teachers to share their thoughts in their own words. It explores why these individuals got into teaching in the first place and what it is that gets them out of bed each morning. It is also ultimately a testament to their hard work and dedication, to all the planning and preparation, as well as the heart, that they invest in each day on The Point.
I really didn’t choose to teach; teaching chose me. When I told my friends, who were all embarking on their own professional careers, that I would be teaching, their responses included, “This is the perfect job for you,” and “You will make an excellent teacher.” I was taken aback. Me? I never saw teaching as a path for me to travel. I only knew myself as a lifelong learner.
Very early on in my college career, my passion for basketball dissipated and I found myself tugging around an injured body to play a sport for which I had minimal interest. During this time, I was going through a metamorphosis; a change was occurring in my development. My attention shifted slowly away from basketball and to other things: What was the purpose of life? How did I get here? Where will I end up? Where do all the humans end up? This led me all around the St. Lawrence University campus, absorbing all types of literature focused on religion, cosmology, and nature. It was the first time in my life in which all future decisions were not weighed in relation to basketball. My participation in the sport did not falter––I continued to play just as much recreationally––but the mental anguish that accompanied my participation in collegiate and organized basketball was gone. I had been rationalizing the pain of discipline to reach my goal, and it took the latter half of my college career to go through the grueling process of recovering from my injury and figuring out what was next.
This pivotal stage in my psychic development coincided with the global pandemic and the major events of the Black Lives Matter movement. There is a saying that good times make weak men and hard times make strong men. When I was going through the most unnerving parts of my own development, an array of turbulent issues had its grip on the world. I felt truly embedded in the world, and it became clear to me then that we are all interconnected. Zen Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh, whose YouTube lectures had a great influence on me during that moment, coined the concept interbeing:
“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here; the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So, we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.”
It may seem obvious, but I realized during that time how distant we have become from one another. Humanity has created vast expanses, not to be touched by others. We see this manifest in the lack of emotions in males in our population. Me included. The times we are in explicitly show us how vulnerable we are and how much we need each other.
When I choose to sit and grapple with my own purposes for teaching, it ultimately comes down to those moments in college when I saw that life is bigger than any one human. Society has become increasingly distant; the devices that I grew up using only allow us to connect mentally, but not connect heart to heart. I teach because I want children to get along. I want them to learn how to engage with each other, and when they disagree with each other, I want them to be able to depart with their self-esteem intact. What is a school for if it isn’t a place where a child can learn more about his own physiological processes and how to address those sensations and sensibilities when they emerge?
I teach because I want children to get along. I want them to learn how to engage with each other, and when they disagree with each other, I want them to be able to depart with their self-esteem intact. Malik Harvey
I teach because it takes time to parse through all the information and decipher what is counterfactual. In the digital age, in which I am just a little ahead of my students at understanding, it’s important that the information that students obtain has no hidden or secret motivation. My only purpose is to help them map out their world; it will be on their own volition how to proceed. I share Thich Nhat Hanh’s definition of interbeing because when I can perceive the interconnectedness of all things, I exist because they exist. Within the African diasporic culture, we refer to this as ubuntu: I am because you are. I want to help my students understand this message.
As I teach and as my students develop, I develop alongside them. When one child has a breakthrough, we all have a breakthrough. Therefore, my motivations are also in part selfish. And, when I can facilitate the growth of a student, even if I have a marginal effect, I feel elated. Teaching is one of the few professions in which when you succeed, you don’t get a monetary return. You get something even better: a rush of endorphins and other feel-good chemicals that will last forever and are recurring through memory.
It’s a blessing and honor to hold the title of teacher. My superpower is just in my acknowledgment and acceptance of the predicament that I am in: I am a stranger, in a strange place, that I never made. But as I find my way, I help my students find theirs. Teaching has graciously given me this opportunity, and I am thankful for it.