What’s New? When I first wrote this post almost two years ago I never dreamed that things could be even worse. Shame on me. I’m old enough and have logged enough years in this profession to know how foolish to hope that things would get better. But to be a teacher is to be an optimist. While I believe that we reap what we sow, many of the seeds that I plant I will never see grow. To be a teacher is to believe in a better future. But I am tired, despite all my work to plan for a soft landing, this week has been a struggle every day. End-of-semester grading wrapped up with a dozen tedious responsibilities as a writing project director preparing for our summer programming leaves no room for any of the joyous parts of my jobs. I already miss my students because reading about their delightful final projects and weeping over their final reflections is not a replacement for writing and laughing and crying with them. It is simply not fair that finals week falls on Teacher Appreciation Week.
Earlier this week someone asked when we should schedule Teacher Appreciation Week and that is a good question. Is there a sweet spot on the school calendar where we could all spend the week just enjoying our classrooms and students? Is there, in fact, a week in America where teachers could be spared from attacks on their persons and their pedagogy? No, there is not, so it seems fitting that as we “celebrate” Teacher Appreciation Week that the public health emergency ends with widespread ignorance of the many impacts of the ongoing pandemic on all of us but especially those involved in education. Headlines and pundits will continue to decry supposed “learning loss” while ignoring the long-term damage of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top combined with years of pandemic trauma. I skipped the faculty appreciation picnic and the ceremony honoring my years of service because I just want a true change and true appreciation. I’m too old and too tired to tolerate any more empty gestures.
Original: I thought I was done writing about pandemic trauma and teaching after Be Full of Grace and I Am Broken. In fact, the act of writing about pandemic/teaching trauma has been tremendously healing as has the loving outreach of my community and my own actions to reclaim my life. I have been having a really good week on so many levels: writing a lot, practicing yoga, catching up with family and friends, and even preparing food for my family (something I only enjoy when I am not stressed). Basically just living my best life. But a confluence of events that happened to me or to the broader community has driven me back to the keyboard to once again write about trauma. The tipping point for me was Simone Biles.
Simone Biles is a national treasure that we do not deserve. She has sacrificed her body and her mental health on the altar of USA Gymnastics for a decade. She has done it for a sport that celebrated the physical and mental abuse of its athletes. She has done it for a country that continues to celebrate the exploitation, abuse, and murder of women – especially Black women. She has done it for a country that continues to celebrate the exploitation, abuse, and murder of Black people of all ages while ravening crowds demand more blood, sweat, and tears from Black athletes, especially female Black athletes, because too many Americans still possess the mindset that they own Black bodies – especially female Black bodies. But this post is not about Simone Biles. Forgive me if I use her too, but while listening to the coverage of her decision to withdraw from the Olympic team finals I was struck by the gift of leadership that she gave by taking that stand. We all owe Simone Biles yet another debt for that lesson. I heard one sports journalist say that Simone Biles has given the sport more than it deserves and I think we can go one step further and say that Simone Biles has given America more than it deserves. This post is about those in the education community who have also given America more than it deserves.
My friend Kevin Hodgson pointed out one of my lines in I am Broken:
Just because you love something doesn’t mean that it loves you back with the same intensity.
I need this on a pillow, a t-shirt, and maybe a tattoo because it is a lesson I cannot seem to learn whether it comes to ice cream or my career. I celebrate Simone Biles for everything she has done as a gymnast, but it is her work as a human that I want to celebrate now. I keep thinking about one comment she made to the press following her decision to withdraw from the team final: “I had the correct people around me to do that.”
This is so important because for a long time the broken USA Gymnastics system did not offer the “correct people” to the athletes in its care. We have only to look at this image of Kerri Strug from the 1996 Olympics where Strug famously competed through an ankle injury in her final vault attempt to win a team gold in 1996.
Kerri Strug carried by U.S. Coach Bela Karolyi
What we did not know then was that Karolyi needlessly pushed Strug to perform that vault as the team did not need her sacrifice to win gold. What we did not know then was that Strug and her teammates were victims of an abusive system that inflicted physical and mental trauma. But again, this is not about Simone Biles, Kerri Strug, or USA Gymnastics. This post is about teachers and the US education system – and it is about America.
Much as Simone Biles has given gymnastics more than it deserves, educators have given US education and America in general more than it deserves. We have done it for our students, because we knew that what we do is important work and it is work that we love. But the Simone Biles news cycle and response has reminded me again that our work and our system does not love us back and does not value us. Some of the humans mired and broken by this broken system love us and value us, but the work and system will not and cannot. And so we owe it to ourselves to be like Simone Biles and not sacrifice our bodies and our hearts on the altar of US education – or at least declare that the sacrifice stops here and now. The system is bigger than all of us and will willingly grind us up and then the machinery will move forward over our mangled bodies without pause. We need to remember this always.
So many athletes, like Kerri Strug and Simone Biles, and so many educators, including everyone I talked to this week, have always powered through. Just yesterday I was talking with my friend Seth Thatcher about the students we were not able to get past the finish line in the spring and how deeply we felt that failure. But another friend Tanya Baker reminded me both in a comment on Be Full of Grace and privately that powering through leaves us with “nothing left in our tanks.” Who is served by that depletion? We can give our all, but there will still always be students who fail because our systems are broken. I keep trying to remind myself that each of the failures that Seth and I mourned was not our failure. They were the failures of the broken political and education systems of our country, but especially failures of our broken culture. These broken systems have been failing students, families, educators, and America for decades and perhaps always. Once America was on a path (however slow and painful) to improve these systems, but we have faltered on that improvement and the pandemic spotlit every crack and fissure. Now we see how these broken systems are causing tremendous upheavals in the service industry, but America better brace itself for the backlash from educators, too. Educators have already given America more than it deserves. This was true before the pandemic and somehow America had the audacity to demand still more. This educator says no more and thanks to the correct people in my life who helped me reach this decision. I hope that I can be one of the correct people in the lives of the teachers in my community so they too can reach a decision that preserves their health and sanity.
Featured image of apple by David Cardinez from Pixabay
Love to you, Deanna, and to all of us.
Deanna, “powering through leaves us with “nothing left in our tanks.” Who is served by that depletion? We can give our all, but there will still always be students who fail because our systems are broken.” Yes, yes, yes.
I’ve heard before that we should never say “I’m JUST a teacher.” After how we were treated (and you could taste the deplorable comments) last year, I’m going to hold my head up high and say, “I’m an educator. I take care of myself first, so that I may do my best – despite how the system works, and despite what the community says of me. “