Schoolcraft College does not close on Martin Luther King Jr. Day; a position I wholeheartedly support.

Simply giving students and faculty the day off does not really honor a man who once said, “Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education”? A far better way to honor Dr. King is to hold classes in which we encourage students to reflect on the issues raised by him.

Consistent with this philosophy, I recently proposed that the Season for Nonviolence Committee sponsor a seminar focusing on cultural imperialism, ethnocentrism, and personal responsibility. The 50 minute seminar would be offered throughout the day on January 16, 2007 and would lay the groundwork for issues that members of the faculty could address throughout the semester. After reviewing my proposal, a colleague reported that some students had been critical because the 2005 seminar did not spend time specifically talking about him; a criticism that would also apply to my proposal.

Except for some international students, it should be safe for us to assume that our students have a basic knowledge of Dr. King’s biography; at least those basics that would be highlighted in a short seminar. I fear that if we spend too much time telling students about Dr. King, we will not have time to then engage them in any type of meaningful discussion. Instead, a two or three sentence biographical sketch supplemented with a handout about him should be sufficient to meet the needs of students who are unaware of Dr. King’s contributions to society.

Rather than focus on biography, our time is better spent getting students to critically think about issues of racism in such a way that we give them tools to develop their intelligence and their characters. Last year, when Dr. Faye Schuett showed an excerpt from Jim Crows’ Museum and then asked students to discuss it, she did just that. And she did it well. Maybe the students who left the seminar were not exposed to important passages from King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” or his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” But to be merely forced to confront their own internalized racism is an activity that King would approve.

King should not be like some fine china that is pulled from the cabinet and dusted off for a special occasion; a fine china that we forget about except for that special annual holiday; a fine china that is pretty yet essentially useless in our daily affairs. On January 16, my responsibility does not end by taking students to a seminar honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. The seminar on January 16 only begins a dialogue that needs to be continued throughout the semester.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Follow-up
Posted December 9, 2006

I agreed to serve as web master for the Dialogues Honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. which will be held January 16-17, 2007.

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