From the Humanities Institute to the Humanities Classroom

One important aspect of Humanities House is to attend and participate in the corresponding university class. There are separate full year classes for both freshmen and sophomores.

On March 1, 2017 during the sophomore class, we had a guest, Melanie Meinzer, from the Humanities Institute here at UConn come talk to us. Melanie is a Ph.D fellow whose research and dissertation focuses on Palestinian education in the West Bank. This was a special class having a guest from the Humanities Institute because our normal class consists of presentations typically about events that one of us have attended on campus.

The tone of the class was lighthearted and comfortable, much like every class. Meinzer was joking along with Professor Dyson and the rest of us, making her seem like she’s a regular in class. She started her time with us with an exercise to get us warmed up. She asked us, “What is education? Why are we here?” Meinzer wrote on the board to help facilitate our brainstorming session. The general consensus of the answers for her questions is that education is the transmission of knowledge to others who are learning something new. As a class, we also decided that we are here for the exploration of ourselves, careers, critical thinking, and getting a job in something that we are interested in. However, we recognized that obtaining a higher education does not mean that we will necessarily get a job. Through this exercise, we were able to learn that not everyone sees education in the same way. There was a general agreement that we are all here at the University of Connecticut to learn more about what we are interested in, and most of us are here in the pursuit of a career.

During her time in the West Bank, Meinzer found that her idea of what education has changed. What she was studying here in America wasn’t what she believes education is. The West Bank is a war-torn area due to conflict between Palestine and Israel. This area is under military control. During her time there, she saw students choosing what they wanted to learn, and teaching their peers about it. There is an organization that is located in this area that helped to facilitate this type of learning called Campus in Camps, which addresses the needs and social interventions of Palestinian refugees. Each person is seen as a vessel of knowledge, and they produce knowledge collectively, a process called “mujawwara” in Arabic, and “jar” means neighbor. They are focused on the community aspect of education, and helping each other compared to America where we are told things by authority and asked to just listen.

This talk relates to the Humanities Learning Community because of the obvious connection that Meinzer is part of the Humanities Institute at UConn. Additionally, we are all privileged that we pay for and get to benefit from this thing called higher education. Not everyone has this privilege. The takeaway is that while we are benefitting from this privilege, we should also advocate for, and help, those who don’t have the same access to education as we do.