You know that feeling when you walk from one place to another on autopilot and once you arrive at your destination you don’t really know how you got there? I’ve always been a little impressed at my practically-subconscious memory’s ability to direct me, while also being a little unsettled. While our bodies can do incredible things, I also feel that if those things we do are not intentional, we run the risk of doing something detrimental to ourselves or others, or of failing to maximize our potential.
I was reminded of this while participating in a moveable seminar hosted by Colgate University’s Educational Studies Department. The way this worked was we walked from our starting place to three different locations on campus (the chapel, the OUS building, and the admissions office), and at each location, a different professor spoke to us about “im/migration, il/legalities, anti-blackness, and anti-oppressive education.” Each talk ended with the speaker posing a question, and the purpose of our walking from place to place was to be purposeful and engage with the people walking around us to answer the question or just share our thoughts on what we had just heard.
Inspired by the Zapatistas practice known as “caminando preguntado”, the critical part of this endeavor was to be critical whilst walking. To be intentional in our movement as we consider topics that generate social movement. To consider anew where we move and why we are able to and what that all means. To ask and answer questions. I find it hard to describe the experience as I sit down now to write, but in many ways, it was a lot like my writing process. If I had to describe it in one word, I’d probably say reflective.
It was also unique that the symbolic road we made by walking was through campus because it was along many of the same paths I walk every day. Usually while walking on those paths I’m looking down at my phone, only averting my glance to ensure I don’t crash into somebody else looking down at their phone. I wonder what it would mean to keep my head up and look around and think while I walk from place to place on campus like I did for the seminar.
While ultimately it may not be of critical importance for me to take note of exactly how I walk to Frank Dining Hall in the morning, my major takeaway from the moveable seminar is the degree to which the way we experience something changes for the better just by making the slightest adjustment to be intentional. Whether it’s a fuller experience of whatever may be in front of you or a deeper understanding of whatever you may have just heard in class or in passing, there really isn’t a downside.
Being on a college campus in today’s political climate demands this sort of intentionality because we find ourselves asking the questions of what does this mean or what can we do? These questions demand answers, and while those answers are never easy, they will not be found unless we intentionally seek them.
