I present a collection of beautiful and absurd people.
I credit that phrase to my advisor, Dr. Timothy Lensmire. Well, co-adviser. Cynthia Lewis and Tim shared me when I was a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota. That was over ten years ago now.
Tim is one of the beautiful and absurd people in the picture above. He’s the one with luxurious locks. Over ten year ago, Tim invited me to join the Midwest Critical Whiteness Collective (MCWC). This was a gathering of scholars that met monthly around Tim and his wife Audrey’s dining room table. Audrey is another one of the beautiful, absurd people in the picture above. Tim used the word beautiful to describe our group because it was, well, beautiful. We thought hard about hard things and we did this together. Tim used the word absurd because we talked, thought, and told stories about things that people who weren’t absurd would have avoided. Nothing was off the table, including whiteness.
I joined this beautiful and absurd group of teachers, scholars, superintendents, thinkers, activists, storytellers, and big laughers at some point in 2012. This fall, over ten years later, I was reminded of how important that group was to me. It mattered to who I’ve been and who I continue to become.
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MCWC never officially ended. Still, the people in the picture above took jobs at universities and schools across the country. And then the Covid-19 pandemic happened. We drifted away without closure.
Tim told an audience that closure was part of why MCWC held a conference in Minneapolis this fall. We gathered to give talks, share stories, and reminisce. I sat on a panel at Augsburg University, where Audrey is a professor. My writing partner Erin and I shared a chapter of the book we’re working on in session at the University of Minnesota. We sat together around Audrey and Tim’s table. We ate Thai food, we drank wine, and we told stories.
I was reminded of the early 2010’s. I almost lost my teaching job over some absurdity that was not beautiful. My stepfather committed suicide. My mother was dying. I got married. I was working on my PhD. Katie and I were trying to have children and then had children. Many heavy things were happening. Coming together around Audrey and Tim’s table on Sunday afternoons became an important part of how I moved with those heavy things. So much so that I’d miss watching Brad Childress’ Vikings to be there. Or was it Leslie Frazier? Either way, the offense was abysmal. A far cry from Denny Green’s pass heavy West Coast attack. I’d sit with MCWC and drink beer and answer stories with more stories. Tim and Audrey usually had Summit in the fridge. Our conversations were complicated. They were open. They were improvisational. I learned so much about what it means to be a teacher and a scholar at that table.
MCWC is made up of some of the smartest, most devoted educators I’ve met. Our talks were never easy, and I usually left the table more confused. But I also left with new thoughts. And new thoughts can make space for other new thoughts. Transformation was possible around Audrey and Tim’s table and transformation is the substance of pedagogy. I realized, as we gathered around that table once more this fall, I owe something to the vitality and life I experienced in MCWC. I realized that there was a distinct kind of love in the way we came together each month at Audrey and Tim’s table.
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MCWC accomplished some things. We published this book. They published this article in Harvard Education Review before I joined. Here is a blog about that article that I found. All of that work is well and good but, for me, what matters about MCWC is the vitality that was produced in and through our relationships with each other. The energy we cultivated and the energy we shared is more powerful than pieces of writing or teaching projects. That energy gave birth to new energy and new energy can lead to more new energy. We keep moving forward into the universe.
So much of the scholarly work I’ve been doing since graduate school was born out of my time in MCWC. It’s easy to lose sight of beginnings. I’m serving as an interim co-department chair this fall. I’m coordinating an English Education program. I’ve submitted my materials for promotion to full professor. It’s easy to lose sight of why I’m doing what I’m doing. Our reunion reminded me of what matters to me in my work as an educator. The transformational love that can be shared through teaching and learning remains what I want to be about. In my teaching. In my writing. In my improvising. In my art-making. In my department-chairing. Love is vital, transformational, and only possible in relationship with others. Love is the thing matters. I’m seeing that more clearly as time continues to pass quickly.
I owe some of my clarity around love to the beautiful and absurd people of the MCWC.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 