Read on Twitter
I admit I am in my feelings right now as I put in another Sunday trying to figure out all the impossibly complex & competing demands of running a building during a pandemic & I need to vent a bit, so twitter therapy it is.
This isn't a pro/anti open rant. It's bigger than that.
This isn't a pro/anti open rant. It's bigger than that.
I find it especially infuriating hearing people (mostly GOP but some dems if I'm honest) from fed, state and local levels using mental health, social emotional needs, and widening opportunity gaps as the reasons to fully open things up.
I mean, where were you when we asked for these supports in every budget session? When we need policy to support more teachers of color, support for anti-racist work, more social workers, counselors, functioning facilities, & time.
Vote after vote tells me you don't really care.
Vote after vote tells me you don't really care.
Vote after vote tells me that your propping up of our students very real social/emotional needs, and growing gaps are an excuse for you to push an agenda.
Just be honest. Your policies & votes have established that schools are the corner stone to this whole unjust economy.
Just be honest. Your policies & votes have established that schools are the corner stone to this whole unjust economy.
Schools are now home to onsite dental care, vision care, housing support, before/after school child care, mental health support, addressing food security, etc
Then you castigate us when asking for additional resources to make it all happen.
Then you castigate us when asking for additional resources to make it all happen.
If schools said no, we are going to just teach academics. We are going to focus on that which we are trained to do, people would, rightfully so, be up in arms.
We would never do that though.
And folks use it against us in policy and budgets.
We would never do that though.
And folks use it against us in policy and budgets.
This isn't to let us as schools off the hook. We got our own work to do - especially our white folks (myself included) who too often disengage from the work when it gets tough or uncomfortable. Who too often shy away from accountability and student outcomes.
And I'm not talking standardized tests. I don't need an MCA to tell me that we have too many Black, Brown and Indigenous children unable to adequately read by the end of elementary school, which slams the door shut to so many opportunities in school and beyond.
Some chalk it up as 'oh they're just late bloomers' or they need to Maslow before they Bloom. Our students need both.
And be real...if it was most of our white students in that situation, the whole damn system would have been torched to the ground decades ago.
And be real...if it was most of our white students in that situation, the whole damn system would have been torched to the ground decades ago.
Instead, our largely white system collectively shrugs our shoulders and goes back to doing things how we have always done them. Same thing for the last 400+ years.
A hallmark of white supremacy.
A hallmark of white supremacy.
As we hopefully prepare to come out of the pandemic here's what I need:
1) Spare me disingenuous claims of supporting the wholistic needs of our children until you start voting to support them both in & out of school.
Just be honest - You need schools to fully open the economy.
1) Spare me disingenuous claims of supporting the wholistic needs of our children until you start voting to support them both in & out of school.
Just be honest - You need schools to fully open the economy.
2)Address, through policy & action, the systems of injustice that make school based learning infinitely more complex - housing, food, judicial, healthcare, ed licensing, etc
3)Listen to teachers & leaders doing this hard work, especially those with a track record of success.
3)Listen to teachers & leaders doing this hard work, especially those with a track record of success.
4) Avoid the false dichotomy of SEL or academic needs. They are connected & its about time we stop placing them in silos. Kids need both all the time. Sound academic instruction includes SEL.
5) Budget for academic & SEL support - in actual staff and PD grounded in anti-racist practices & sound instruction.
We need strategically placed resources including intense support for students AND teachers, while providing the most valuable commodity of all - time.
We need strategically placed resources including intense support for students AND teachers, while providing the most valuable commodity of all - time.
6) Be okay with needing to address slower rates of school based learning while we were surviving the pandemic.
Not because students, teachers, & families weren't busting their butts this whole time rather because, like it or not, the U.S. has an incredibly short memory.
Not because students, teachers, & families weren't busting their butts this whole time rather because, like it or not, the U.S. has an incredibly short memory.
Okay, rant over. Thank you, twitter. Now back to figuring out tomorrow and beyond with our youth because just getting through it is not enough.
