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Unless a Grain of Wheat . . .

TOM GRIFFITHShowa BostonBoston, Massachusetts, United States

� Edge (2003) worries that the integrity, even the physical safety, ofESOL teachers may have been compromised by two forces: an imperialU.S. foreign policy and disingenuous Christian evangelism. Though heidentifies the March 2003 invasion of Iraq as the “watershed” (Edge,2003, p. 703) in his own thinking, I believe the anxiety he voices iswidespread and longstanding in our profession. The English languageteaching business has grown in tandem with the globalized economy,exploding in recent decades. But our careers are founded on a paradox.Most teachers get into ESOL because they love other cultures. Yet byspreading English and its embedded values, they may be eroding the verycultural diversity that attracted them in the first place. Has this dilemmaworsened because of the trends that Edge identified?

As to disingenuous Christian evangelism, I think most Christians inthe field share Edge’s concerns for transparency. I know that I sharethem—I routinely identify myself as a Christian to new classes, but I bendover backward not to proselytize through my teaching. I’ve never had astudent complain of pressure to adopt my perspective, and I hope Inever do. If Christians lure students to evangelistic English classeswithout being up front about the purpose, that’s wrong.

Yet for members of TESOL to complain of ideologically tingedteaching is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. TESOL members arepassionately, incorrigibly idealistic. No one seems content simply toteach language—TESOL professionals must have a larger purpose, theymust shape students’ values as well as their grammar, and they must usetheir classrooms to change the world.

Why else does the organization’s vision statement cite the need for“effective communication . . . for peaceful coexistence and for solvingmany of the problems now facing the world”? Why do its values include“individual language rights . . . collaboration in a global community . . .[and] respect for diversity and multiculturalism” (TESOL, 2004)? Whydoes TESOL pass resolutions on AIDS education and nuclear weapons,support peace studies, and write official letters to the U.S. president toprotest his foreign policy?

These may be admirable goals that are self-evidently correct to mostmembers. But what do they have to do with English? Do teachers ofArabic sign on to such statements through their professional organiza-tion? I don’t know—perhaps. The point is, all teachers teach out of their

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worldview, and honest ones admit it. The classroom can offer almostFaustian temptations of power and influence. It requires maturity anddiscipline not to use our role as a pulpit—Christian or otherwise.

Edge’s other charge is that recent U.S. foreign policy has changed theUnited States’ role from a hegemonic to an imperial one, in which ESOLteachers are unwillingly complicit. Formerly, English language teacherscould feel that helping students to acquire English at least broughtstudents material rewards and equipped them to take part in the globaleconomy. But are ESOL teachers simply paving the way for a renewedcolonialism, based on a U.S. thirst for Middle Eastern oil?

Perhaps considering the history of the British Empire, which theUnited States has supposedly succeeded, can shed some light. U.S.dominance since the end of the Cold War has prompted Ferguson’s(2002) Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and Lessons forGlobal Power and James’s (1994) The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. Bothauthors are unsparing about the British Empire’s aggressiveness, ruth-lessness, racism, and brutality, but both argue that its ultimate legacy isdifferent, and better, than that of rival empires.

The British were hobbled by their own ideals. They were proud oftheir liberties and of the judicial and legislative institutions that pro-tected them. To justify conquering other peoples for 3 centuries, theycited the spread of these ideals as a beneficent moral mission. Theirsubjects, including the American colonists, took notice. Between 1776and the 1960s, succeeding groups of nationalist rebels reminded Britainof its ideals as grounds for independence. Although Britain resisted thedismantling of its empire, the process occurred far less violently forBritain’s empire than it did for those of France, Spain, Portugal, orRussia. James (1994) quotes Mandela to suggest the moral force of thisheritage:

You must remember I was brought up in a British school, and at the timeBritain was the home of everything that was best in the world. I have notdiscarded the influence which Britain and British history and cultureexercised on us. . . . [It] is the home of parliamentary democracy and, as apeople fighting against a form of tyranny in this country, we look upon Britainto take an active interest to support us in our fight against apartheid. (p. 629)

In other words, the British Empire bore within itself the seeds of its owndestruction. I suggest that the same is true of the power that hassucceeded Britain’s global dominance. The United States had its phaseof explicit imperialism in the 1890s, but it met strong public resistance.The hypocrisy was too blatant, and ever since, people in the UnitedStates will only support a war if it has some idealistic rationale—make theworld safe for democracy, defeat fascism, contain communism, endterrorism, and so forth.

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My point is not to whitewash modern U.S. history, which has its sinisteraspects. Rather, I would argue that one safeguard against domination byEnglish-speaking societies is the diffusion of the English language. ARussian proverb says, “Gain a language, gain a soul.” Students of Englishgain access not merely to a linguistic code, but to an outlook, a way ofbeing, a culture rooted in human rights. They fall heir to a longliterature of freedom, from the Magna Carta and the Declaration ofIndependence to the Federalist Papers and the Gettysburg Address.

This yeast of freedom, both economic and political, drives globaliza-tion and will outlast the current upheavals in geopolitics. It elevates thepurely materialistic incentives to learn English, and provides the allure ofU.S. culture. D’Souza, an immigrant from India, testifies to this deeperpull: “The subversive American idea is one of shaping your own life, ofmaking your own destiny, of following a path illumined not by externalauthorities but by your inner self” (2002, p. 181).

In sum, I don’t think that teaching English in 2004 puts teachers inthe service of any overweening national interest. The little efforts ofteachers’ careers are part of a long historical process that is, in the end,for those drawn into the English language community, not just enrich-ing, but liberating.

THE AUTHOR

Tom Griffith began teaching ESOL in 1973 with the Peace Corps in Niger. He hastaught immigrants in California and Massachusetts, and college students at theUniversity of Masschusetts at Boston, Harvard Extension, and Boston University. Heis ESL director of Showa Boston, a branch of Showa Women’s University in Tokyo.

REFERENCES

D’Souza, D. (2002). What’s so great about America. New York: Penguin.Ferguson, N. (2002). Empire: The rise and demise of the British world order and lessons for

global power. New York: Basic Books.Griffith, T. (1994). ESL: English as a subversive language. Unpublished master’s thesis,

University of Massachusetts at Boston.James, L. (1994). The rise and fall of the British Empire. New York: St. Martin’s.TESOL. (2004). TESOL’s mission, values, and vision. Retrieved September 17, 2004,

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