This might be a shameful thing to admit, but I will say it: I’m
glad to be safe. I feel guilty. And I feel sorry. But I also feel safe and glad.
There was so much about
teaching middle school that was hurting, it’s hard to even know where to begin.
So I guess I’ll begin with the parts that have been good: my students, their
spirit, our spirit, the pure thrill of innovation and bursts of success
where you least expect it. Their joy and humor. Their sharp, incisive wit.
Their love. How we all come together around whatever obstacles are in our path
that particular day. Just how they come into the room and everything falls into
perfect, chaotic sense.
But there’s a fair
amount of fear there, too. And anger. And powerlessness.
Outside of my own
classroom, there is no room for all the space I take up…even when I make myself
small, squeezing my too-large body through the tightly packed chairs at staff
meetings in the library, squeezing my too-large voice back into my throat. There
are facial expressions I’ve learned not to make, empathy I’ve learned not to
feel, and a bottomless well of words I can’t say without the grown-ups side-eyeing
each other, glancing anxiously at the clock.
There are broken things
everywhere that I am not supposed to notice or try to fix. There is a piece of
my voice that no longer makes any sound. Counterintuition is the new intuition.
There are families who would have loved me and stood by my side back in the
early Floor Pie days who hate me now, scolding and shaming across IEP
meeting tables. There are speeding buses everywhere, ready for someone to throw
you under. And there is always someone to throw you under. Bonus points
if you trusted them enough to be within those throwing arms’ reach.
There is sexism so baked-in
that I buy into it myself. “We need more male teachers.” There is rape culture
that I haven’t been allowed to call rape culture. “The teacher creates
the culture in the classroom.” There have been braying jokes about girls and
female colleagues and myself that I wasn’t allowed to take seriously. “He’s
just a baby.”
That summer, five years
ago, the school district HR person had laughed patronizingly when I’d called in
the midst of a disappointing job search. He’d all but patted my head when I
said “I want to work in an elementary school” as if I’d said “I want to be a
princess.” He steered me toward middle school instead.
I tried so hard to be
happy about it. I worked so hard to bring the spirit and joy I found in working
with younger students to this darker, scarier space. I searched for the good,
and I truly did find a wealth of good. I’ve connected with so many
students and families. I’ve learned so much from incredibly talented colleagues.
I’ve even been able to make significant positive differences now and again.
Still…there’s fear.
There’s anger. There’s defeat and a sense of powerlessness. There are ruthless,
narrow cracks and corridors to navigate. Even before the quarantine, I knew it
was starting to break me.
Working from home is not
a vacation. It’s a whole new job – new technology, new challenges to calibrate for
social equity, the pedagogy of distance learning, and plenty of raised angry voices
telling us (1) how much we’re failing our students by not providing enough
lessons, and/or (2) how unfairly we are overwhelming our families with all
these relentless lessons. I’m plenty busy. I’m just a lot less broken than I
used to feel. I’m safe, surrounded by my kids and cats and husband, and even though this plague might kill us all before
next year, these last few weeks have felt like the strangest of blessings.
Honestly, I don’t feel as
guilty about that as people probably want me to feel.
We public school
teachers were supposed to be rushing into the burning buildings next week,
saving the city by providing childcare for the folks who are actually
saving the city. First they asked for volunteers. Then they made it mandatory. Then
the union stepped in, and now they’re at least trying to make some sense of it –
working out safety measures, hazard pay, a generally less behind-the-scenes
shady approach to the whole endeavor.
Providing childcare won’t
be mandatory for us teachers now. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there
who hate us for that, but honestly, it shouldn’t be. You don’t want your child
in the care of someone who’s being forced to be there under duress. Just trust
me on that. You don’t. Honestly, you don’t even want your child in the care of some
well-meaning non-ECE professional. But I know most of the world just can’t see
it that way.
For example, in a letter
to our school superintendent last week, our mayor said this:
[T]his is an emergency where our community needs
help now. No one can stand on the sidelines. Every organization and every
person has a new job description: do what is needed. The well-being of our
children is the responsibility of us all, but it is the core mission of our
public schools.
And, okay. She’s not
wrong. These are unprecedented times and each of us has a duty to bring our
best to the situation.
But I don’t consider any
of what I’ve done these past five years – or now, or ever – equivalent to
standing on the sidelines. It feels so fundamentally hateful to even suggest it;
so irresponsible and so uniquely Seattle to guilt-trip vulnerable people
– who are, let’s face it, super-easy targets for this brand of shaming – into
harm’s way without so much as a mask or a thank-you.
How I wish that, instead
of shaming us tired and broken and PTSD’d teachers, that our city could find a
way to recruit an army of talented, dedicated, willing early childhood
ed professionals to take this on, and (for the first time in the history of education)
pay them what they’re worth.
The city may have just
realized that teachers and childcare providers are “essential,” too, but we’ve
known it all along. We’ve been fighting and hurting and holding everything up
with every last shred of our strength all along. Maybe I’ll offer my childcare
services once things make a little more sense and the details have been sorted
out. For now, though, I need the littlest breath of peace and space to heal
while I figure out how to do my actual job under these extraordinary
circumstances.
I hope that’s enough. I’m
sorry if it isn’t.
