Packages

"So folks poured their wide, juicy selves into those narrow, arbitrary glasses because that was what was expected. Many lived lives of quiet desperation, slowly suffocating as they held their breath to fit inside" - Glennon Doyle, Untamed

"To choose to live out the first few years of my profession as a "new teacher"ignores and silences all the parts of me that are not new to children, to cities, to youth culture, or to literacy."

"Labels cannot cover our whole humanity. Neither can those we apply to students - language learner, special education, gifted, girl, boy, poor, wealthy, minority or white." - Cornelius Minor, We Got This

The two stories above about "glasses" and "labels" have made me think HARD about how the things we tell ourselves and other teachers about students and staff we work with keeps us and them locked behind the starting gate and out of the race itself.

I bet you've had the playground conversations with other teachers that go something like this, "That kid is a hot mess. He can't sit still, on the carpet he looks everywhere except at me. He's just too young to be in kindergarten. He's a boy and boys really need the (air quotes) gift of time". Then comes the agreement and the eye-roll from the teacher who you share all of your kid woes with.

I believe in general, most would agree the statement above has been spoken many a time to a teacher by a teacher. Maybe this particular child DOES need more time, or maybe he/she just processes information through movement. If we've already decided they are too young for kindergarten, where does it leave them? In the same class, you could have a child who comes to kindergarten right after turning 6, and behaves like the almost 5 year old who can't sit down? What is THAT story and how is it different then his/her younger peer?

How many times have you wanted to stand up and walk around in the back of a staff meeting, because you were uncomfortable or your back hurt? Or bored. Maybe you showed up late, had to sit in the back and couldn't see what was going on? Maybe you had a really stressful morning at home and realized you forgot your computer half way to school. Does that make you a “hot mess” in general?

Daily life is unpredictable, so I'm wondering if we put the adults and children in our school into glasses and packages with labels on them because it gives us a predictable and familiar reference point - a way to define their behavior so we can go to the place of, "If this person does A and I do B, most likely C will happen." Predictable. Safe. Consistent.

One box we put children in may say "Boys" and inside that box is a little porceline figurine of a boy standing on a book and breaking a pencil. After all, we know boys don't like to read or write.

Or perhaps there's a box labeled"ESOL" and inside of that box is a little girl with her head down looking defeated and confused with her little hands lying in her lap. If you opened a box labeled "gifted", who or what would you see there? White girls? Asian boys?

So I'll own it. I'm absolutely guilty of putting children and other adults into specific glasses and packaged with labels on them. I have said hundreds of times at parent-teacher conferences, "Don't worry, he's a boy, boys can't always sit still long enough to learn to read." or "She does that because she is

a girl. Girls like to pay attention and do exactly what the teacher says and does because they want our approval." As though boys don't. I was saying those things to parents because I thought for sure those attributes identified the "why" to their behavior, as in, "nothing to be concerned about here!" So what about the kids who don't behave the way children of their age or socially given gender and race "usually" behave? Where do we put them?

I had read a couple of books about how boys and girls learn. The problem though was that I overgeneralized and tended to forget about the boys who really enjoy stories, who loved reading with a partner, or got a kick out of telling a story by looking at the pictures in the book. I forgot about the girls who didn't give a rat's ass about how I drew a butterly on the white board (with good reason), or how I wrote the letter "a".

This year, this new narrative I have discovered about children and adults will be my focus. I will slowly and intentionally pour out the people I have put into glasses. I will do everything I can to rip labels off the people I tend to put in a package. I will do my best to look at children and adults in our school through a clear, untouched photo instead of a filtered one. I will

remember that EVERYONE is multifaceted. THIS thinking is part of our equity work. I know at times I will forget. I will put that kid that triggers me right back in their box, but because I am conscious of this goal, I will begin a new practice that I hope will eventually turn into a consistent way of thinking. Practice, reflect, adjust, practice, reflect, adjust. Last year my mantra was, "We can do hard things" which was for sure the right choice! This year, I think it's gonna be, "Each child and adult with whom I work is a deck of cards that can be shuffled in infinate ways."

Ok - maybe that's too long for a mantra, but it will definitely fit on a sticky note.

Superheros

Batman. Spiderman. Wonder Woman. Whereas superheros have transended time, the idea of teachers as "superheros" is relatively new. I wanted to be a superhero when I was a kid, Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman to be exact. After watching the show, I would promptly get whatever my "cape" was for the day, go into the bathroom, shut the door, and spin and spin just like Lynda Carter, so that I could become Wonder Woman. While spinning worked to change your average girl into Wonder Woman, it never actually worked for me, so each time my spinning failed, I'd slump out of the bathroom feeling completely

defeated. "Try again tomorrow, just the same way, it will happen!" I'd say to myself and off I would go to play with my Wonder Woman Barbie.

Little did I know, later in life, I would BE considered a real superhero, even WITHOUT THE CAPE. Before the pandemic I heard myself and other teachers called superheros, but Lord, DURING COVID, "superhero" became a term that, for the most part, DEFINED what a teacher was. How lovely. Not.

Righ now I'm reading this awesome book about equity in teaching. It's called "We Got This". It was written by a high school writing teacher, Cornelius Minor. The idea behind the

book is to think really hard about how as teachers, we can know our students well so that we can create equitable ways to teach them. It is FULL of resources and ideas that totally resonate with me. The introduction is overflowing with the troublesome idea of teachers as superheros. He says this:

"The story of the superhero teacher narrative creates a set of problematic expectations for our profession. It suggests that one can work alone, that constant sacrifice is the expected method for doing this work well, or that our work is the result of some kind of inherent or mystical goodness and NOT years of careful practice and study. It discredits the work that is in progress or those who do this work in nontraditional ways."

Think about this - the superhero story is a formula that goes like this: a problem is caused by a supervillan, then, shockingly enough, a common citizen turns into a superhero, and the superhero saves the day. It seems to me that teaching could and should be anything BUT a formula that is used and reused over and over and over again.

Standardized tests, schedules to fit all grades into specials, lunch and recess. On top of that, there is a schedule for the amount of time for recess, movement and lunch. These schedules, SOL's, worksheets and homework are the public school villians .

Don't get me wrong. I'm not questioning the importance of all of those things - they are a necessary evil for a school to ensure access to playgrounds, lunchrooms and specials for all students. The testing, worksheets and homework I'm not so sure about.

The real question for me is how do we spend our time with our students in between those mandated hours? Do we teach writing with out teaching student voice? Do we teach writing completely absent of punctuation? So much so that it is impossible for a reader to understand what the piece is about? How much time do we spend on writing? How about spelling? How do we hit the standards in a way that acknowledges that all children can learn, but they cannot all learn in the same way? How do we know what they know? How can we give them more meaningful ways to spend their time during the day? How do we spend the time to get to know the student well enough to even know what works best for them as people rather then just students?. Can we group them for reading in a way other than reading groups 1,2,3,4 or 5? All the questions. How can we

EVER make all of this work? In my opinion it's practice, reflect, adjust, practice, reflect, adjust, practice, reflect adjust. Unlike Wonder Woman, we don’t have to answer these questions alone. We can be Batman instead AND use all the Robin's we can find to be our partners in this work. Our grade level teams,specialists, admin, SPED and ESOL teachers can be Robins.

Because I love challenges, I find myself actively refusing to teach in sedentary wheels. I'm not arguing to ditch PLC cycles or any that are relevant to improve our practice, but there are many that just don't serve a purpose anymore, like the paper and pencil pretest, pencil and paper homework, then the pencil and paper post test. It's like this: because we will have to hold every single student and class we will ever have differently, we should take a look at what works for them as groups and individuals and what doesn't.

So now, as an adult, I guess I don't want to be Wonder Woman after all. I don't want to keep spinning in circles and never really get anywhere. That spinning just makes me feel defeated and dizzy. PLUS it puts the kabosh on finding OTHER ways to turn into Wonder Woman. After all - who wants to continue with a practice that we know doesn't work every time for all students. I'm not how long it took me to finally give up on the spinning but I know this coming year, I'm giving up on the same old, same old.

Babies

Last year I was hosting a virtual baby shower for a friend. I was looking for pictures of "cute babies" for a game . When I typed the words "cute baby" into a popular search engine, I noticed something immediately: of the first 40 pictures that came up, 34 of them were little. white. babies. Eventually I spyed an asian baby, then finally, a black baby. Curious and kind of disgusted, I went to a second and third search engine and typed in the same thing. Not a black or asian baby to be seen. Anywhere. "Well, I can't unknow this.", I thought - I find myself saying that a lot these days.

And we wonder why internal bias is blazed into our brains. I get many of my photos from a popular online website. And again: Where are the black families? Where are the black parents? Where are the black children? Black teachers? Apparently there are none. Only smiling white, skinny, female teachers - with blonde hair of course.

Sweet Jesus. Where can we possibly go from here. I've done quite a bit of reading and work with anti-racism. I still have a LOT to learn. I took an anti-bias test online. Apparently, deep in my "woke" self - I am still not woke. My test showed that I was most frightened by: black men and that I associate black men with guns. I was PISSED.

Recently I went on a date (oh the joy of dating in your 50's) and on the surface, this guy seemed to have similar values as me. We chatted for a bit. The chat was just ... hmmmm, o.k.

FINALLY, he started asking me about my job, which is always a huge mistake. I haven't learned yet that not as many people find my job as interesting as I do.

I began telling him about the Anti-Racist Educator class I had just finished. He looked at me and without missing a beat said, "Well that must have been an easy A". I looked at him and in the same instance wished I wasn't there and wanted to stay. For me it's always important to have conversations with people who think differently. Especially about the important things. I want to get into their brains so I don't feel angry anymore, so I have a better understanding of where they are coming from. I took a deep breath and asked...

"Why do you say that?"

"Because. You just don't see it anywhere."

"Can you tell me more?" (can I STAND the more he was about to say?)

"Well there's no such thing as black or white. I mean, I don't see color. I have a friend who is black and he doesn't see color either! Every Wednesday we go out for watermelon and chicken. I mean, both black and white people eat that. And we always have a great time!"

I just looked at him. I was dumbfounded. I literally did not know what to say or if to say anything at all.

I know I'm supposed to speak up or I am just as culpable as he is in allowing racism to continue and black lives not to matter. So, I stammered and said,

"Hmmmm. Interesting." Not a strong repsonse I know but, WOW. Then I pulled it together and said:

"I know it exists. It is rooted in all of our political, economic and public school systems. It may not look like the KKK all the time, but it is an insideous form of cancer in our country."

"Well, I just don't see it", he said, then he moved on to his lifelong dream of living in the woods and his problem with the government for auditing him and cheating him on his tax return. "That's white racism!", he said with his his eyes squinched up and his jaw clenched.

As you might have guessed, I asked for the check. As I said good bye what I wanted to say in response to his white racism comment was, "but I thought racism doesn't exist!". Instead, I left him with this:

"Go search 'cute baby' on the internet. You'll see that all the cute babies look just like you and you'll feel much better. You'll see that white racism doesn't exist at all."

Mic drop. I was out.

(Just to exemplify what you get when

you type in "cute black baby" - these pictures were

right next to each other.)