I am trying very hard to gauge the capacity of my 115 undergrads and 22 grad students. I saw a marked shift from Week 3 to Week 4, both in classes and office hours. Some are feeling the effects of unexpectedly living with multiple family members,...1/

Worrying about the whole family’s financial well-being, and are getting really sad about letting go of the futures they were on the cusp of experiencing. Yet others are in tolerable or ideal situations (considering), so there’s a HUGE range of capacities all in one class. 2/

Some of my colleagues are drilling these undergraduates down for midterms and stressing them out. We shouldn’t model over-identification with patriarchal, anti-Black anti-Brown and anti-queer structures of achievement and ambition. Humanity is first. 3/

But also as educators we gotta understand how important it is to demonstrate resilience. It’s our job to be architects and encouragers of the possible and the apparently impossible. This is not the occasion for young people to abandon dreams for self and community. 4/

TBH, given where most of my undergrads are right now I really just want to use class time to tell stories of how we’ve crossed, climbed, run, and crawled to glory time and again. 5/

Right now some of my students can’t turn on the mic or video for zoom because they’re learning from a crowded kitchen with their backs to the fridge and an apartment full of family. A mighty, stressful, valiant effort that more than meets the requirements for an A.