When I leave school to go home, I often see an older man who just sits on the broken part of a guard-rail next to the street. Cars crawl by during rush hour, but he is too tired to even beg for change anymore. He just sits. Put out. Like the trash. I wonder: When was he first put out? Where was he first put out? Will he ever come back? Who will be there for him when he returns?
My best times as a teacher, as a learner, the best things that have ever happened in and around my room, have happened with groups who were not racially homogenous..As a White teacher, I can say unequivocally that having a classroom that centers the voices of People of Color is crucial to good teaching.
Afterschool experiences provide much more than just a safe place to go; students have an extended opportunity to socialize with their peers and engage in problem solving activities. Schools often use 21st Century funds to host family math and literacy nights, where parents feel welcome in the school. There they engage in similar problem solving with their kids and take home resources to bridge the learning in their homes.
There are some moments as a teacher that just never leave you. They remain burned into memory like still photos. These images have stories that all elicit their own emotions, varying widely from invigorating and awe-inspiring to sad and demoralizing. Amid news that a DACA protected student was just deported, I am reminded of one of the single bravest acts performed by one of my students: disclosing his undocumented status to the entire class.
The national mood reminds me of the plants I had expected in my abandoned raised beds. The soil is shallow and the fertilizer isn't good, so not much good is growing but weeds.
While I understand the survival instinct, our profession is at a turning point. We can no longer afford the luxury of caring only about what happens in our classroom.
What may be most absent from the education reform conversation is a focus on the love of teaching itself. Not a love of the public schools versus charter schools. Not a love of one political perspective over another. Not a love of one solution at the expense of another.
I don't know what happened yesterday, but I can promise you it will make its way into my classroom tomorrow. It will be carried in on the shoulders of my students, on the faces of my coworkers. It will be broadcast on the radio on my drive in, showcased on my laptop screen during lunch.
In the classroom Maslow ALWAYS comes before Bloom.
As a teacher, I have intimate knowledge about how the education system may not act in her best interest. At three, she has yet to experience the wide range of road bumps and brick walls that she will have to navigate and negotiate. But, as an educator, I know the power of educators.
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