Do's and Don'ts

I re-posted a version of the “How Do We Begin?” post on Facebook and the comments affirmed what I feared. People needed to hear these words because they weren’t being spoken in their beginning-of-the-year staff meetings. Instead was the barrage of online trainings, Powerpoints and administrative announcements about all the things they can’t do. From both sides of the political spectrum. We can’t tell the truth about slavery, we can’t sing a song that was once used in a minstrel show, we can’t use this word or that word, we can’t include a banned book in their reading list nor suggest a book that might trigger a trauma and on and on with the list of “cant’s.” What are we, five years old? Having to obey the rules others set down, be they hateful, arbitrary or well-intentioned? 

 

The end result is that all of this stops independent thought, stops the needed courageous conversations, erodes the trust in our own values or the possibility to have the needed discussions with kids, parents or fellow teachers when lines invariably get crossed, they way they always do and always will in human relations. Caught in the Web of the “gotcha” culture, we shut up and shut down and tiptoe around worried that we might say or do or think the “wrong” thing. And worry is a kissing-cousin to stress, anxiety and fear and that puts us exactly in the part of the brain that is the anti-thesis of education, that slams the door to higher thought and offers only fight, flight or freeze. 

 

It also robs time from the real questions. What can we do that will unlock our students’ imaginative, intellectual and humanitarian promise? That helps us return to the source of our passion for teaching? That helps teachers remember their shared purpose in a community alive with curiosity, fun and togetherness? Where is the spot on the agenda for these kind of questions? Where is the trust that we are intelligent and caring people who can figure out the kind of world we want to live in for the next 175 days and create that world together with each other and the children?

 

Sold down the river to the politically incorrect andpolitically correct fearmongers. In the ongoing crisis that is today’s world, the proper response is more intelligence, more imagination, more humanitarian promise from both teachers and kids alike. What we certainly don’t need is this atmosphere of distrust, fear and sheer nonsense (the wonderful job skills enslaved people learned/ singing Jingle Bells as supporting vicious racism). And yet be it in “Progressive Schools” or “good old boys” institutions, here we are sitting slack-jawed in front of the screen ticking off the pre-programmed little boxes of do’s and don’ts.

 

I retired not a moment too soon. But still I care.

 

(Below is the re-posted excerpt, along with a photo. By all means, share! Text it to your teachers while you’re sitting bored in the staff meeting!).

 

As the school year begins anew.  I send good wishes to teachers far and wide. As they get together to prepare the year, may the Powerpoints be few, the bureaucracies tucked away in locked drawers, the 55- page staff handbooks lie unopened. May teachers gather in games, songs, dances and the meetings be filled with exciting new ideas for collaborative projects. May discussions include the children and how to give them what they’ve always deeply needed—worthy work, the feeling of welcome, the sense of being seen, known and valued, the permission to play their way into understanding, the deep sense of connection— all of which they need more than ever in a world in short supply of all of the above. May teachers reaffirm their vows to nurture, nourish, protect and tell the children the truth, Republicans be damned, about how the world has been broken over and over again when we refuse to see what has happened and why and how every act of kindness, love, understanding can help heal it. Amidst all the details of how to get a school year up and running again, may they all keep their eyes on the prize and let the children swim out to the waters of their infinite possibilities.