Friday, July 25, 2014

The Best of All Possible Classes

The last day of class has finally and all to suddenly arrived. I have always, and always will, hated goodbyes. But it is time to say goodbye to my wonderful teachers and classmates and I don't want to. I want to the SJRA to keep going forever. Unfortunately, I can't start a coup or a protest movement to make time go slower. If I could I would have though.

As much as I dislike endings, I recognize they have value. For instance they are good for reflecting on the experience as a whole. And I do love the peculiar mix of nostalgia and hope that indicates that we have arrived at a unique place where we are simultaneously looking back and looking forwards. (It's a contradiction. That's what social justice is all about.)

Class this morning went on as usual, except that some of my peers had arrived early to put up thank you posters and decorations for all our teachers. We had a guest lecture by Anthea Butler, who was easily one of my favorite guest speakers in the entire program. She is awesome.

Afterwards we shared our reflections on the program and what we hoped to achieve when we got back home. When we returned from lunch, a musician group Mahina Movement performed several songs for or about social justice. The rest of class time was just spent hugging. (Social Justice Research Academy students are big on hugging.)

 Because the best way to deal with creeping sadness is museum visits, Shebek and I finally achieved our goal of seeing the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We have been nagging Mr. Hilyer to take us there for weeks, and on account of his being the best-ILC-chaperone-ever-in-the-history-of-the-ILC, we finally achieved our goal. The museum is enormous. I could stay in it for days not hours. It was an amazing thing to see the works of people I had previously only read about in books. It is amazing that for the cost of a mere $14, I can see some of the most culturally significant artifacts of Western Civilization.

After our excursion to the art museum we had a dinner of cheesesteaks in the shadow of the Divine Lorraine Hotel, a defunct building which a rich history as a base of social justice movements.

I'm already missing everyone. We haven't even left yet.

No comments:

Post a Comment