Short letter to students

Short digression while i put together a reading list...

As we get ready for the summer session, I think a lot of us are still reflecting on the Spring semester of online teaching during a global crisis. I wrote this letter to my Spring students but I think it might help y'all in the summer class see where i am coming from.

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IN NORMAL TIMES, we would spend the last class day talking about the same thing we talked about on the first day of class: What makes us human? Over the semester we have tackled this from numerous angles and interrogated the idea of how we can define something so complex yet also so integral to anthropology.

Reading the news it is easy to get sad, depressed, and fairly pessimistic about our species. Things we thought mattered seem to be less important and the faith we have in institutions to protect us is mostly gone. However, it is important in these times to remember we are not the worst of us. One lesson we have learned is that our ancestors survived because of their ability to form complex social networks & help each other. We can, in fact, be the best of us. Embracing our common humanity, being kind when we can, and supporting our friends and family are the true signs of strength.

Also, it is important not to forget that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength. There are people who are here to help and I am also always willing to talk.

Please remember that you didn’t simply “learn at home” or “take online classes for half the semester.” You did these things during a freaking global pandemic and will be continuing to do this over the summer. Some of you have lost loved ones, been dealing with losing your job, are working in environments not suited to class work, and are struggling to motivate yourselves to do anything. My heart breaks for all of your changed plans, missed opportunities, and uncertainty.

There is a lot I want to say about what is going on but I don’t really have the right words now.  As a professor at a small school I don’t make a lot of money, but I am paid very well because I get the chance to work, laugh, think, and learn with all of you.

This class is ostensibly about human evolution, but I would hope it can be about more than just that. Discussions of who we were are inevitably linked to discussions of who we are.  In other words, we cannot have an apolitical story about human origins. Who gets to tell the story matters, and we will spend time thinking about how more diverse voices in the field can make our science better. When we learn about the processes of hominins becoming human we also get a hint at what it means to be human. And to me that can be a very profound thing.

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