Suffering, Crisis, Moving through it

"According to Buddhism, life in this world involves suffering. And people suffer beacause they attribute meaning and substance and value to knowledge, signs, and represenations of reality rather than reality itself. Relating to the world through our knowledge can lead to suffering...Despite its problematic nature, we often cling to knowledge, perhaps because we have learned to find comfort in its everydayness or common sense, or perhaps because we see that the accumulation and reproduction of official knowledge matter in schools and society...the goal is to treat knowledge paradoxically: use it in ways that help us improve our lives, but constantly interrupt the suffering that results from how we learn and what we think." (Kumashiro, 47-48)

I find that the passage above really connects to what Kumashiro says about "crisis" in chapter 2 of his book. Knowledge, as we experience it in the many facets of our lives, can be incredibly damaging and painful to experience. I feel very much that we can work through it and become better people as a result of having gone through it. I do not believe that bold, real learning is entirely comfortable or easy. What we should seek to do as educators and mentors is to be there for students as they go through crisis, as they encounter knowledge and the suffering that comes about as a result of engaging with it, while interrupting that suffering and boldly growing and maturing through it all.