The Dream Share Project

A Dream Shared by Wes Schantz

chip, if this could really happen, oh man. i have many things i want to do in my life. did you look up studs terkel yet? he is my hero. like what he did, talking to people and compiling their stories, i'd like to travel and see all kinds of places and get to know the people. the thing is that now, more and more, people are disconnected from their community, or maybe it's more accurate to say that their community is not so much the people in their neighborhood as the friends on their myspace or whatever. i don't think we really know our neighbors anymore, we stop talking to people different from us, and our lives become impoverished, our inner life and our relationships, even if materially we have a lot. so the stories i want to seek out would have to do with the connections between people that still exist, and going from this towards restoring community, the neighborhood, as a living place, full of diversity among its members (families) and rich inner life within each of the individuals. in line with this, i really want to work as a teacher. i think learning (languages and literature, especially) is the best way to concentrate on rebuilding empathy, the food that nourishes those human connections, kindness, serving one another in the community, just having a conversation--all of this can be organized and promoted, but for the basis of reflection and the motivation to go out and do it spontaneously, reading, writing, and learning of all kinds can be the key. so i want to be a teacher, for a little while, but eventually open my own school, where this basis of reading for more human relationships will be articulated and made the first principle for everything we do. i have thought and written a good bit about this; i'm starting to post it for lack of anything better to do with it -- http://newschoolnotes.blogspot.com/ -- and i really believe that this is the only real reform of education that will ever make a difference. whether you raise test scores a little or send more kids to college, the fundamental perspective still has to shift... anyways. that will cost a ton of money, opening the school, but charter schools are all over the place, so it is doable. these ideas are in the air, you know? and that's a ways down the line. for the rest, telling stories and teaching, it's the most natural thing in the world.