School's Out for Summer

As the school year completes another circle around the sun and Teaching Fiercely has its first birthday, I find myself in a space of critical reflection. I don’t, necessarily, feel a sense of relief. For me, one of the most beautiful aspects of educator life is the cyclical renewal we’re able to experience with the tides of summer break rolling into a fresh school year. This Summer, however, feels loaded. Not in a bad way, but in a way that calls me, hopefully us, into action.

We are headed into Fall with both opportunity and challenge. How can we use our time in the coming months–this precious time without school in session–to rest, to connect with our families, while also experiencing joy in preparing for what lies ahead?  For me, this duality starts with a solo thought sanctuary and leads to communal reflection. Later, we find time for action–and we never do it alone! Below, I’ll work through some of my personal reflections. I share this in hopes of reflecting with folx communally later this summer.

1. Finding time to bathe in silence makes a difference.

Recently, at a talk I attended between Questlove and Marc Lamont Hill, Questlove beckoned the COVID period as a space where he was able to work without other people’s “noise” affecting his decision-making processes, especially as it pertained to his confidence in his ability to execute a particularly creative idea. He used the exact words, bathing in silence, to describe this phenomenon. I remember this period too! For many of us, life was harsh, yet, it also offered new ways of being in how we work and with whom we work.

This makes me think of life in school. It is of course influenced by A LOT of outside noise. But I’ve found when educators are able to lean into their inner life, or the most intuitive ideas, they feel more confident that those ideas will make a difference for their well-being and their students’ learning. This is certainly true for me, and there’s a ton of research to back this up. (I’m currently working on filling up this research bucket too!). Moving into the summer, I wonder: How might we find time to immerse ourselves in our own ideating, waving off outside deterrents that take away our confidence and our ability to brainstorm without doubt?

Action item: Read something YOU choose. Write a six-word story, nearly everyday if you can, about anything related to your educator-life.

2. Care and comfort are not the same thing.

Human beings, like any other mammal, are creatures of comfort. Our bodies are hard-wired to seek non-threatening environments. This is a challenging context when working towards justice because it requires people to unlearn what they have previously known as safety. For example, schools have been accommodating  for many folx who grew up in dominant culture; traditional schooling norms like raising your hand, sitting still for 45 minutes, or hosting in-person PTA meetings feel normal, i.e. non-threatening; comfortable.

Conversely, for folx who come from non-dominant cultures, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, dis/abled, unhoused, immigrant status, non-English speaking, and more; much of what is deemed non-threatening via tradition is indeed threatening for those groups. The hand-raising, for a child who feels shy about sharing their emerging English, threatens their confidence. The stillness, for a child with neurological conditions that affect their physiology, threatens their well-being in the classroom. The in-person PTA meeting, for an unhoused parent, is two hours away from the shelter they are staying at, this threatens their ability to engage in school activities. Race, gender, and sexuality complicate each of these situations even more deeply.

So, what I’m saying here, is that we must challenge groups who demand comfort in place of caring for our school communities holistically. Sometimes, that means engaging in a great deal of discomfort, disproportionately, for those groups who feel like school is safe. (This is often white, well-resourced families, or well-resourced families who are well-versed in navigating whiteness).

Action item: Quiet reflection on your own: How comfortable do you feel in school? What does care mean to you? Choose to document on your own, or call a friend (who shares some type of affinity with you) and share.

3. Working alone is for the birds.

Look, when Cornelius and I started The Minor Collective in 2018, I had never spent any amount of time managing a business. All my waking hours were immersed in beautiful school communities, my own classroom, and nurturing my very young children. These days, I find myself entangled in the muck of industry and bureaucracy, in the banter of other people’s classrooms (both joyful and fraught), and on the other end of a phone line, listening to both fresh ideas and frustrating, archaic challenges with schooling. Each one of those examples is attached to a 500-page story, and I know I am blessed with opportunity and friendship and radically hopeful communities, but this world doesn’t change with “I”. Rather, it moves with “we”.  

I share these snippets with you because I know everyone in education is entangled in some kind of muck, and it can feel intensely isolating. What I have learned, more than anything, is that the more your try to disentangle yourself on your own, the further you will glide into that muck. However, the more you make yourself vulnerable, connecting with even just one other person, the more likely you are to find some Wellies and make a road by walking towards dryer ground.

Action item: Identify a few people in your life that you can easily connect with to work side-by-side, share what you’re doing, or even asynchronously share and respond to a few working goals.