I wish this had happened once in my kids life. We cared for and buried family members, had so many medical emergencies, i had prolonged cancer treatment - and if my son referred to our realities he was told not to make “excuses”.

Just reading this makes me choke up. https://twitter.com/drnicolecb/status/1306594335610163209

I didn’t used to be someone who was prepared to fight a teacher or work to actively undermine them- but years with 504s, IEPs and the rigid focus on metrics instead of the lives and learning of children- left me surprised when I encounter a thoughtful compassionate teacher.

Meeting after meeting to confront teachers with our humanity. To get them to see my child who was hiding himself from them in fear. Battling to breakthrough their projections and beliefs that he “just had to be more responsible” or “work harder”

Begging for scraps of humanity.

I get that they were put in hard, impossible, underpaid circumstances in a toxic system.

It was practically impossible to get most teachers to consider that they weren’t the only ones suffering.

Its my job, and I was and have done excellently at “teaching my kid responsibility”

We teachers to help my kids feel safe enough to receive learning from them.

If my kids were white, and hung out with white kids. I wonder if the would have received more compassion.

Thankfully, after 16 years, we found a space that see their capabilities- and the trauma in our home has gone peaceful for a while anyway, enough to see them finally open up into a good school and talk at end of day about the teachers they love.

I know, for YEARS, our kids made their “teachers jobs even harder”

But if that is the only way you see a kid, then parents have to find a way to protect their kids FROM you.

And I’m a social worker, I’ve been embedded in toxic institutions. believe me, I understand burn out. It is brutal.

And the effects on clients and students and their families is brutal too.