Thread: I just found out I'm on paid administrative leave from my school district because I taught a poem to my middle school students about racism towards Asian Americans. And I had to find out through an article.

Background: I teach poetry in a March Madness bracket to encourage engagement with students. Our last match-up was slam poetry, facing off were "Tick" by Brandon Leake and "It's funny how..." by Joe Limer. https://twitter.com/intowildplaces/status/1366091472357847043?s=20

With each poem, we've had a routine: learn background information on the author, preview the summary of the poem, and preview poetic devices we would see in the poem. With "It's funny how..." by Joe Limer, we spent a bit more time.

The reasoning was two-fold: one, because I wanted to give students space to process the Atlanta Spa Shootings in class (if they were emotionally ready to), and two, because it was important to review our mentor text guidelines.

Since the beginning of the year, we've had a page in our modules about why we use mentor texts in our classes, how they support our learning, and why our mentor texts include what some might believe is "controversial" or "explicit" language. We review this routinely.

The task with each poem has been the same throughout the unit. This was intentional to support their summative assessment at the end of the unit. First step: watch the slam poem and note what stands out to you.

Second step: listen to the poem a second time and annotate for poetic devices. In the case of "It's funny how..." the poetic device we were focusing on was alliteration.

The analysis for the activity continued after the poem on the document, with students analyzing the slam poem for structure and theme using in-text citations. This was preparation for their summative assessment: an analysis of a bracket poem (their choice) for the theme.

In my district, 7th-graders are required to read and analyze poetry per our scope and sequence. I am grateful that in my district I have the professional freedom to select which poems I have my students analyze each year.

When I selected this poem, I used my professional judgment and knowledge of my students. I kept in mind their reading levels, backgrounds, and experiences. I recognized the language it had and decided its messages about racism and privilege were more valuable to discuss.

When we did this activity, I had one student out of ~70 who opted out. I had no guardians contact me. Do you know what I did have though? About 10 students who used this poem in their summative assessment to connect its themes of racism to our essential questions for the unit.

Now, it's 5 weeks later, a different trimester, a different unit, and I'm being dragged through the mud in a parent group and an article because of this poem. A slam poem about racism. A slam poem about white privilege in the entertainment industry.

None of these guardians contacted me, set up a dialogue. Instead, they posted about it on FB and went to the press with only part of what actually happened. Now I'm on administrative leave for teaching about racism and I had to find out about it through an article.

More than anything, I'm disappointed. Disappointed that teaching right now means living in fear. Our guiding question for this year is, "How do others experience the world differently than I do?" I will not apologize for asking my students to think critically about this question.

It’s not lost on me throughout this that AAPI Heritage Month is mere days away and if I was in class, I’d be having discussions with my students and integrating content throughout their current unit.

I know I am not the first, nor I’d imagine last, teacher this has happened to. I’m disappointed because I love the content I teach and I would go to the ends of the earth for my students. More than ever, please support @AAAJ_AAJC and @StopAAPIHate

There are lots of folks I’m learning from as I continue to develop my antiracist and trauma-informed teaching. Here are but a few (including orgs) I recommend: @teachntransform @TooCool4MS @AlexSVenet @caitteach @TeachMrReed @learnforjustice