I have to pass the college where I teach on the Interstate to get to the exit, so I can wind my way back around to where it's built. As I've made the drive almost daily for the past eleven weeks, I'm struck by how small and unassuming the building looks. Even though it faces the interstate and has the name of the school in large letters on the front, it sits behind some trees, lower than the interstate, and at 70 (or more) miles per hour, it can be easy to miss. In fact, I'm not sure before I started teaching there I even noticed it. And yet, it's a place that's full of activity. Hundreds of cars come in and out of its parking lot every day. Vendors come, deliveries are made, and it functions like buildings do, whether anyone notices or not. Not only that, but it's a college. It's a place where learning happens. It's a place where ideas are formed, batted around, discussed. Where opinions are strengthened, broken down, changed, and then remade into something, hopefully, stronger and more thoughtful. Quietly, sitting there by the interstate, with the traffic of life speeding by, a really fascinating story is being written, "inside the four walls."
And, here's the thing: that's how it is with a lot of my students as well. See, where I teach, many of the students don't come from society considers ideal backgrounds for pursuing higher education. They work hard to make it to class each night after working all day. They fight to stay focused on their goals, sometimes without much encouragement from their families or friends. They are there, sitting in class, trying to focus on computer programming and thesis statements, when their minds are wandering to thoughts of paying for babysitters, or where the gas money to get home will come from. And sometimes, because of circumstances or preconceived notions that many people have, they can be easy to miss, easy to look over, easy to pass by and think, much like the building that houses the school, that they're "just another group of Tech School students."
And yet, that's not the case at all. As I've walked the halls every day this quarter, interacted with them, and listened to what they have to say, I've learned so much about the stories that are being written "within their four walls." Stories of courage, grief, sadness, tremendous happiness, and hope. Stories that deserve and need to be told, even as they are still being written. Stories that shouldn't be overlooked, because the traffic of what passes for "normal life" is speeding by at such a rate that it becomes necessary, for efficiency's sake, to develop file folders to put everything in ("just another building," "just another student"). Stories that are sometimes hard to see in the midst of the trees. Stories that leave you changed.
