The Importance of Dialogue

A highschool teacher relayed his own story of frustration and misunderstanding to myself and peers, and I feel this story helped me with my own perspective of the Working Centre and its community members, and as such, I thought I would share:

The teacher knew of a single mother of three, who strived to provide stability for her family on a consistent basis. Relocating housing; and fending for food to eat, clothes to keep warm, and shoes to walk in were a norm for this family. Every month, the mother received a cheque from welfare to help her support her family, and every month she would spend her cheque the same way. Her and her family ritually proceeded to a local restaurant, splurged the funds on a feast of fine dining, and left the table full for the night. Not once did the family abandon this custom.

The teacher was perplexed and offended by this. A family staggering in poverty, three children succumbed to the hardships of starvation and instability, fully reliant on their mother who seemingly wasted his hard earned tax dollars away on one night of extravagancies. He could visibly see the needs of these individuals by the tatters in their clothing and shoes, and in his mind conjured a thousand more efficient ways to spend the cheque in order to provide lasting, more worthy essentials to the family. He thought silly of the mother who seemed to abandon the needs of her children by her frivolous expenditure.

After turning his head time and time again from this routine, my teacher finally decided to take a stance and approached the mother. He expressed concern for the well being of her and her children, and continued to explain his disapproval of her wasting the cheque on dining out when alternative investments were blatantly imperative.

Her unexpected response was simple. All she had known since becoming a single mother was poverty, and thus, this life was all her children had known as well. Their lives were infiltrated with insatiate needs and demeaning judgment from onlookers. So, when she used her cheque once a month to indulge in an extravagant meal, it served as the one day a month to escape from this life of oppression. For one meal, her children were satiated, for one meal the family was lifted from poverty and equal to those around them, for one meal there were no worries and life was bliss. It was a memory and gift given to her children despite all the suffering they faced, and something none of them wanted to sacrifice.

From this story, I have learned to better appreciate that negligence of preconceived notions and judgment is necessary. As Freire reminds us, only dialogue can create understanding, and thus, solidarity. Rather than passing judgment and imposing our views on others, it is quintessential to stop, discuss and learn. Only through this may we fully allow others to be human, and fully humanize ourselves in turn.