MICHEL DEGRAFF: So why the personal in this course?
Well, at every occasion when the students present
their discussions-- because they often
have a friendly discussion-- or when they write their essays,
I do ask them to include some personal information
in what they write.
In fact, one essay was strictly about that,
about their linguistic biographies.
Because I feel that often students
can be overly ambitious.
Of course, there's this earnestness that we appreciate,
but often they want to go after global changes
like changing the environment or changing
the outcome of elections.
But those are the kind of changes that you often cannot
make, especially not in a one semester course.
But if they are able to understand the way
those global patterns affect their own personal lives
in their own small social groupings,
and if they can actually try to integrate what they learn
in the course to actions in these localized spheres,
then there's a better chance that they can actually
make those changes.
So I like to tell them that the change that they
can make in themselves resolving those issues
are also affecting the wider world.
Because if each person can affect themselves
in their small groups and, in turn,
if everyone in that small group can also affect changes
in their own small groups, then the effect is exponential.
You see?
And I think by the end of the course they do appreciate
being able to share their personal experiences
through essays, through their presentations.
And also they can see the effect that this
has on their own classmates, because some
of their classmates come from very different backgrounds.
So they get to understand how someone, say,
from Guatemala who came to the US
with parents that emigrated without papers
and how that life experience can be inspiring,
because if you can make it to MIT with that kind
of background and then you can actually share it
with others while you are actually succeeding as an MIT
student, that can be life changing for some of us.