How to Be a Teacher After Today
I spent the morning hoping it wouldn’t be as bad as I anticipated. I was hoping the information sent out by my school district about policies in place protecting students on school campus from ICE wasn’t really as needed as we all were feeling it would be. I was hoping the -isms and phobias wouldn’t reveal themselves as obviously as had been during campaign season. This hope I sat with reads equally as insolence to the severity of the incoming administration, a severity that has been put on display day after day for the past eight years. I sat in this state of denial because of the 120 students I will face tomorrow, many of whom are the targets of the volatility and violence of this administration.
As I watched the inauguration, I was continuously thinking about what this event communicated to our children, to our next generation, to my students.
I watched as President Obama walked in and the news commentator relayed how loud the BOOOOOs were in the Capitol Arena full of MAGA hat wearing Trump supporters. I thought about how this communicated that it's cool to boo people who think differently than us. We can think we are right and they are wrong, we need not value differences of opinions.
I watched as those given seats front and center were majority not women (unless wives), were not policy powerhouses or forces for good, but rather were rich white men. I thought about this message of democracy and governance not being about political prowess or diplomatic discernment--it is purely about money. Be friends with the rich, that is what makes life good: money=power. Not goodness, not giving, not gratitude, but money.
I watched as commentators reminded us of the crimes the incoming president has committed, and that it was found just fine for a felon to hold the position of Commander in Chief. I thought about all the sentiments spewed from him and his supporters about getting rid of “the criminals,” but what they really mean by that is criminals who are not white American citizens. I thought about the number of people in my community who were labeled today by the President of the United States as criminal, illegal, alien, solely for arriving at our borders as one that the Statue of Liberty welcomes: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” (Emma Lazarus, 1883).
I watched, horrified, as anti-vaxers were rewarded for their denial of science and care for their community. I watched, horrified, as he promised to DRILL, BABY, DRILL on sacred lands, on ashened lands, on lands already ravaged for the oil beneath soil. I watched, horrified, the newly elected president say the government would recognize two genders, and two genders only. I thought of my babies, my dear students who were just told by the leader of the government that their identity is not valid here; that they are not welcomed here. How damaging, how demoralized, how disgraceful to espouse and defend a statement that tells a child, you do not exist here. How do we, as teachers in this nation, speak to the children we are entrusted with, the majority of mine, whom, after today, are considered illegal, unwelcome, not a real person?
As an English teacher, I pay attention to word choice. Words like marshall and American citizens placed in sentences with seeming casualness hit my ear with weight. But what really got me was the audacity to characterize his administration as, “We will be a nation like no other, full of compassion.” To characterize his allocution as compassionate was unfathomable. To be compassionate is to be impacted by another’s suffering and want to do something about it. Our nation is not compassionate. What was communicated today does not mean action on behalf of trans youth battling every day to find the will to live. I do not think this compassion will extend to Black and Brown youth suffering from violence in their communities. I do not think the current administration cares for the pain of anyone beyond those chosen to sit in the front row for the inauguration: the rich, the white, the men.
So, what am I supposed to say to kids tomorrow?
Sorry we failed you.
Can’t say that, I know ardent supporters of the current administration in our midst who feel they have won.
This is a safe place.
Can’t promise that when continual information and training is offered about ICE in our communities and schools preparing teachers for the apparent inevitable.
It will be ok.
I don’t know, I’d like to think we as humanity will stand up against tyranny, but look at where we are today.
How to be a teacher after today? The only answer I found was the song I hummed all morning, “Ella’s Song.” Ella Baker, grassroots leader and youth empowerer in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, provides a model for us. Equip and empower youth to use their voice to make a change. As “Ella’s Song” intones, “Not needing to clutch for power, not needing the light just to shine on me, I need to be one in the number as we stand against tyranny.”
So, teachers, how will we teach? Submitting to the whitewashed version of history our district pushes? American exceptionalism and capitalism is the best? That life should be ‘merit based’? To be quiet and ‘keep the peace’? What peace, and for whom? No. We must teach our children to stand up and fight, to believe in freedom and not rest until it comes, to act as many did in the Civil Rights Movement with voices, with words, and with nonviolent actions. We must teach our kids to act not with hate of others, but hate of oppression. We must teach our kids compassion, to stand up for our neighbors who suffer--and the importance of those of us who suffer not to be the first to stand. The money will run out, the oil will dry up, and the power will fade, but love or hate is our legacy to choose. Which will you choose?
“Ella’s Song”
Sweet Honey in the Rock
Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon
We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes
Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons
Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers’ sons
That which touches me most is that I had a chance to work with people
Passing on to others that which was passed on to me
To me young people come first, they have the courage where we fail
And if I can but shed some light as they carry us through the gale
The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on
Is when the reins are in the hands of the young, who dare to run against the storm
Not needing to clutch for power, not needing the light just to shine on me
I need to be one in the number as we stand against tyranny
Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot, I’ve come to realize
That teaching others to stand up and fight is the only way my struggle survives
I’m a woman who speaks in a voice and I must be heard
At times I can be quite difficult, I’ll bow to no man’s word
We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes
