American Dream

article by Meredith McKinnie

My profession affords me the opportunity to observe and interact with college freshmen. I teach in the Humanities, specifically writing and literature, and I relish that access to young people’s hearts and minds. They tell me what they’re thinking, and my job is to read and respond – what a privilege. What is most unique about the college experience, particularly in a regional college, where many of the students emerge from microcosms of sameness, is the opportunity to rub elbows and sit beside strangers who look, think, and act differently. The farmer’s son from a rural town thirty miles down the road is paired with a Nepalese student who was eleven years old when the 2015 earthquake rocked Nepal, killing 9000 people. Those two students converse, look each other in the eyes, and experience the fabric of humanity, the beauty of difference. If we’re successful, they come to value diversity and embrace unique perspectives and backgrounds. The college campus resembles the original American experiment, people collected from different corners to grow, learn, and live alongside one another.

In one such classroom, about five years ago, I was meeting a fresh crop of freshmen, all haphazardly spread across the room, awkwardly waiting for my first-day speech of course expectations. My mood, my words, my efforts to build a rapport set the tone for the rest of the semester. I try to maintain control without leaning into authority, encouraging my students to take responsibility for their education and seize the gift of knowledge transfer. I begin by introducing myself and getting to know them, to the extent they’re willing to share. I ask where they’re from, why they’re here, and if they happen to be the first in their families to attend college. The answer to the last question never got much traction before, but in recent years, more of my students are what we in academia call “first-generation college students.” On this day, when posed the final question, several students raised their hands.

A gentleman was seated on the first row, with a beaming smile and an eagerness to please radiating from his aura – we teachers can sense it before they even speak. This is a student I can call on randomly; he is willing to be wrong, to ask the questions others are afraid to pose. We teachers love these students, at least I do. We’ll call him Mr. Jones for the sake of anonymity. He posed a follow-up to the “first in your family” question, asking what it meant exactly. I looked perplexed. “It means, are you the first in your family to attend college?” He paused and said, “Well, yes I am. I’m going to be a doctor.” I tilted my head and responded with, “I believe you.” Mr. Jones smiled.

Later in the class, Mr. Jones raised his hand again, and begged one more question. “What if my parents never graduated high school? Is there a name for me?” I tensed, felt all the student eyes focused on my response. As an educator, we know that every moment of student attention is an opportunity to say the right thing, to solidify student engagement, to build trust. But my emotions must have taken over, and I looked down as I paced the stage from which I profess every day. I paused right in front of his desk, looked him square in the eye and whispered, “You’re the American dream.”

If I’m being honest, I didn’t exactly remember this moment, as these exchanges overlap and quantify with each passing year, but it was told to me by Mr. Jones when he visited my office last semester, four years after the initial encounter. He sensed my emotion, remembered my pauses and awkward pacing. He absorbed my words and internalized my belief in his success. The gratification of impacting the next generation is the reason educators choose the profession. We look forward. We believe in the power of potential. We value mentors and dare to be one.

This May, I watched Mr. Jones walk across the stage and receive a bachelor’s in biology, the first step in the pursuit to practice medicine. He longs to be the black male doctor he could never find in his youth. He believes in compassionate medicine, of connecting with the individual while treating the patient. We’re lucky doctors like Mr. Jones are on the horizon. He, and so many students like him, are the perpetual manifestation of the American dream.