how do students come to be...

the people they are? How do we come to be the people we are?

How do we learn to empathize with what is distant in time or place? How do we come to understand material links between the conditions of others and ours?

I am thinking here of Kathryn's observations about a student's response to Katz's essay. How does one grow up to think that the Holocaust has nothing to do with one's current existence? Is it difficult to grow up thinking that? Is it weird to desire one's life to be easy and uncomplicated?

Under what conditions does one grow up to be socially active or to understand that there are connections between, say, the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina (or, say, Hurricane Stan) and job loss in the manufacturing sector?

And what are our responsibilities as teachers of a communications class to persuade students that making these connections -- both in order to empathize and to understand material conditions that cause what we think is evil or bad -- is not only worthwhile but a foundation of a life lived morally with others?