This past month, we experienced the June solstice. This event is realized as the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere and the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, solstice is an Old French word from the thirteenth century. It is derived from the Latin word solstitium – the “point at which the sun seems to stand still.” The first syllable comes from sol (meaning “the sun”) and the second is from sistere (which means to “stand still or take a stand”).
Wikipedia explains that the solstices occur “when one of the Earth’s poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun.” For example, “the summer solstice is when the sun reaches its highest position in the sky and is the day with the longest period of daylight.”
NASA’s Space Place website (an excellent resource for teachers and children) provides the following explanation for the seasons in the two hemispheres:
Earth’s tilted axis causes the seasons. Throughout the year, different parts of Earth receive the Sun’s most direct rays. So, when the North Pole tilts toward the Sun, it’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere. And when the South Pole tilts toward the Sun, it’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
Although the tilt of the earth’s axis is “relatively stable over long periods of time,” it does change. Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA, has noted that strong earthquakes can change the tilt, because massive amounts of rock are moved. In 2010, a major earthquake in Chile (8.8 on the Richter scale) was so powerful that it shifted the earth’s axis, which resulted in the days being shortened. These changes in daylight are so small that we humans are not aware of them. The Chilean earthquake is estimated to have shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds. (A microsecond is one millionth of a second). Even stronger, at a magnitude of 9.1, an earthquake in Sumatra in 2004 apparently shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds.
Other than the fact that I like to use the seasons in my Chair’s Reports, what does any of this information have to do with TIRF?
In the month of June, news of the ongoing pandemic was almost overshadowed in the US by reports of the death of Black people being killed – some of them in altercations with police. As a result, there have been numerous demonstrations against systemic racism and in support of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Several professional associations in or related to our field (IATEFL, AERA, ACTFL) have produced position statements regarding this situation.
This month, the TIRF Board of Trustees voted to endorse the TESOL Statement on Racial Justice and Inequality. (TESOL is the parent organization of the Foundation. Its Board of Directors voted to start TIRF in June of 1998.) Although the Foundation is not a membership organization, we are grappling with our potential role in advocacy issues. The questions we are facing include the following:
- Should we take action or avoid taking action on an issue that is not directly tied to our mission?
- Should we take action or avoid taking action that is (or seems to be) related to one particular context/country/culture?
- On a case-by-case basis, should we take action on position statements that are related to TIRF’s mission but have been issued by other organizations?
- Should we be more proactive and generate position statements of our own on various social issues?
Thinking about these questions reminded me of the metaphor theme that guided my Chair’s Report in the May 2020 issue of TIRF Today. I used the image of an earthquake and its aftershocks as a way of thinking about the effects of the current pandemic.
Now, I want to tie the images of the current political upheaval to the idea of earthquakes. Just as a strong earthquake can affect the tilt of the earth’s axis, so can political action change our lives. Although the result may seem small – the social equivalent of 6.8 microseconds – it is change nevertheless. I remember the anti-war demonstrations of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the anti-segregation marches, the women’s rights movement, and the gay rights activism of the latter half of the 20th century. Many of these struggles have borne fruit, although they continue today. There has been progress, but there is still so much left to do.
The following point may seem like a very tame ending to this Chair’s Report, but I want to remind you, as noted in the article above about TIRF’s reference lists, that the Foundation has some resources that may be helpful to you. As you think about these important, current social issues, especially about how these issues may be confronted from a language education research-based perspective, you may find these tools to be helpful.
The reference list collection provides citations to research on many topics related to social justice concerns. I encourage you to consult that body of scholarship, even though each individual book or paper may seem as small as a microsecond relative to the problems our world is facing today.
In the Chair’s Report of the December 2018 issue of TIRF Today, I shared a link to the song, “A Drop in the Bucket” by Mitch Barrett and Carla Gover. Whether the image we use is a microsecond or a drop in the bucket, small change can make a big difference over time.
In closing, I would like to share another song. It is based on a poem by an Icelandic poet named Sjón (Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson). The poem, called “Solstice,” was translated into English by David McDuff. You can hear it rendered as a song by Björk in a video with beautiful images of the earth. Here I will share just a few lines that relate directly to my theme:
The earth (like the heart)
Slopes in its seat
And like that it travels
Along an orbit
Drawn in the darkness….
And then you remember
That you yourself are a light bearer
Who receives her radiance from others.
Best wishes,
