Surprise and Difficulties

     In my last blog, I spoke about my upbringing and the prejudices that were formed because of it.  I went to John Carroll because of its reputation and because of scholarship opportunities.  I had experienced a great education so far:  I was near the top of my class in high school, I had already been accepted into pre-semianry programs, I enjoyed learning, studying, doing well on exams, the whole academic "atmosphere" excited me to no end.  I also dreamed of being a teacher now and that was exciting in itself.  The freedom I experienced also had its perks and I was "riding high" with expectations for the future.
     Little did I know that a different type of education awaited me.  At JCU I experienced a diverse classmate population for the first time.  Here were African-Americans in my classes that many times made better grades than I.  What a shock--was it possible??  I prided myself on trying to be more open with others and shedding my formed prejudices, but it was much harder to actually do than I thought.  By the end of my sophomore year, I was speaking openly to African-American classmates and starting to see things radically different from my upbringing.  My political science, history, sociology, and psychology classes began to challenge my prejudices and educate me as to the reasons neighborhoods were deteriorating--and it wasn't just because the inhabitants were lazy.  I had to realize that many landlords were not as conscientious as my father in keeping their properties up in the inner city and were often taking advantage of their renters.
I learned so much, but it was only slowly sinking in. 
     I came in contact for the first time with Jews, atheists, libertarians, gays and lesbians, liberals and conservatives thinking in ways that were very different from me.  My reaction to many of them was to often write them off--often with wry humor--and to stay with "my group."  I remember when a college friend, with whom I had been in class for three years, a fellow history major, first told me he was a Jew.  I remember being stunned.  I had never considered it.  Not that it should have made a difference, but I remember now that it did.   We slowly grew apart and I cannot help but think now that my subconscious played a part in that.
     As I was in my first two years of JCU, I prepared to enter the monastery:  a place that was filled with people who thought like me and most of whom shared my ethnic background.  In fact, sharing a common ethnic background was one of the main reasons for which I was joining.  I had known many of these priests and monks since I was a child.  My father was known to them and they worked side-by-side in promoting Slovak-American affairs.  Imagine my surprise when I entered with an African-American young man 13 years my senior (I was 19)!  Needless to say, there was going to be alot of adjusting for me and him over the next several years.
     In hidsight, I now realize that, although I tried to reach out, there was plenty of baggage to get through.  But I have to admit, I tried and I tried hard to move through it all.  We engaged in many conversations about our past and our experiences.  He was from southern Ohio (Dayton area) and had lived a life under a military father who had been stationed in Texas, the Southwest USA and eventually in Dayton.  We both had a liking for classical music and we often shared these events and concerts together.  But the ethnic elements of the monastery and in my own psyche came out time and again.  The subconcious had to be emptied slowly, but it was a trying process.   This classmate in monastic life was the first African-American to visit my family home, the homes of my relatives--I dare say the first ever to step foot in my neighborhood or my street.  Of course, I didn't live with my parents anymore.  I was now a citizen of Cleveland, the southeast side my family had left in 1970.  I began to see positives and negatives with the neighborhoods and began to learn much more about the urban situation.  Unfortunately, I thought this classmate would be as interested in his African-American culture as I was in my Slovak heritage.  I was wrong.  Although there was a respect there, and a sense of belonging to many African-American cultural things, the desire was not there as mine was to me.  I could not understand it.  But I eventually realized, after a number of years, that people often think differently about their own culture and that sometimes people can feel embarrassed by their culture and the negatives that can spring from it. 
     Spending more and more time in preparation to be a faculty member at the high school the monastery operates, I began to realize the different dimensions of the African-American culture--and other interpretations of culture from other peoples and backgrounds.  I am much less likely to judge other people and cultures now, but every so often I catch myself with a subconscious notion that needs to be "redeemed" to a wider perspective.  It has been difficult, but progress has been made and the discerning movement between cultures is more easy now than 18 years ago when I first began teaching full-time.  As an administrator, I pay much more attention to the way people treat each other in the school, and I can see that I have not been alone in the experiences I grew up with, the prejudices which helped to shape me, and the challenges of learning to respect, work with, appreciate and understand other cultures and people's experiences.   May the journey I have been on and continue to experience help bear fruit in the experiences of others who may share the same struggles.