Courage of Everyday People

Like everyone, my mind has been occupied with serious events this week.  Our school went mask optional, which was great, but did leave me thinking about some "what ifs."  Tuesday was the third anniversary of the death of one of my students, and since she would have been a junior, it affected many of our students.  A school we are closely associated with suffered a similar loss this week.  I have a couple of students and co-workers going through terribly difficult situations.  And, of course, Russia invaded Ukraine late this week.  It has been difficult for teachers and students alike to maintain focus, but time moves forward.  

One of the pearls of wisdom attributed to the late Mr. Rogers is that when times are difficult, we should "look for the helpers."  It helps to know there are people trying to make things better.  I have also read (though I cannot remember where to credit the source) that resilience can be fostered vicariously through pondering stories of courage.  That's what I've been thinking about this weekend - the helpers and the courageous.

One of my students is adopted from Ukraine, and her mom sent us the names of people on the ground who have been helping children in Ukraine, not only in this situation, but for years (Fathers-Care.org, Marinaskids.net, and https://hebron-academy.com/about.html if you are interested in making donations). I've seen photos online of people rescuing animals as they evacuate.  Our head of school has been keeping us looped in on an email conversation he is having with a Ukrainian school teacher, and it helps to have a name to attach to our prayers.  

One of the best and worst things about social media is how quickly stories can spread.  Right now, it is a great thing.  We are seeing stories of people exhibiting courage on a scale we could not have predicted (certainly Putin didn't predict).  The story that has garnered the most attention is that of President Zelenskyy, and rightly so.  He could have easily justified fleeing the country as a way of continuing to lead his country; America even offered to evacuate him.  His response, "I need ammunition, not a ride" should stand in history with "I have not yet begun to fight" and "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country" as a statement of bravery, loyalty, and leadership.  He could be in a bunker or delegating orders from a comfortable place, but instead, he is out there, looking like a Jeremy Renner character in a tactical vest, fighting alongside his troops.  A MiG pilot, known as "the Ghost of Kyiv," is taking down Russian planes, and regular Ukrainian people are fighting back, throwing Molotov cocktails at Russian tanks.  These people are not taking the invasion of their country lying down.

All of these people are acting with courage and should inspire us, but the ones who I can't stop thinking about are the Russian people who have gone into the streets to show their opposition to the actions of their President.  As Americans, we are used to this.  It seems half of our country is always protesting the actions of our President, and it is not an act that requires a high amount of courage here.  Even those who may be arrested in a protest in America know that, with notable but rare exceptions, it involves a night in jail and a slap on the wrist.  We have the luxury to take the first amendment for granted (so much so that one of the Canadian truck convoy members tried to claim it as a defense, not realizing that Canada's first amendment was not about freedom of speech).  This is not the case in Russia. The people who took to the streets in Moscow last week did so, knowing that it could mean the loss of their lives.  

 

Vladimir Putin has long been a murderer; he was the director of the KGB.  Speaking against him is the fastest way to incur his wrath. As long as they were at home, they were not in danger.  They could have stayed home and stayed safe.  They knew the likelihood was high that they would be arrested (nearly 3000 have been so far) and that it could result in the loss of their lives (Putin's history of poisoning journalists who speak against him well-known), but they wanted the world to know that they did not support the invasion of their neighbors.  

Teachers, as we help our students process their thoughts and feelings about all of the events around them, both worldwide and here at home, we must address pain and fear.  We should not, however, leave it there.  When they are feeling despair, help them look for the helpers.  When they are scared, help them see the acts of courage that normal people exhibit during difficult times.  When they are feeling helpless, help them to find ways they can help, from prayer to charitable donation to writing letters to their representatives to voice their thoughts.

Education - More Complicated Than We Have Patience For

Given that I had already written about the Oklahoma walkout, my general opposition to strikes/walkouts, and the fact that I haven't been a public school teacher since 15 years ago, I had not planned to comment on the rally taking place in North Carolina on May 16.  Some blog posts, facebook comments, and a conversation with a teacher who just left the NC public school system last year changed my mind.  Warning:  It's going to be quite long.  The title should tell you that.

Can't we all just disagree?  
Because we live in the age of social media, we speak only in superlatives (every meal is life, we respond to moderately amusing jokes with "I'm dead," a description of even the mildest scenario leaves us "shook).  Because of this, every conflict in society is painted as an epic battle between good and evil, on the level of The Oddessy or Harry Potter.  Online conversations about the relationship between educators and legislators have become like that.  The NC GOP is Sauron, and the poor teachers are Hobbits in the minds of many people.  (For those on the other side, reverse characters.)  I keep seeing teachers post that they've been suffering for "the last 8 years" as though education hasn't been a political football for many decades.  I see those against the rally describe teachers as lazy and overpaid "when you consider they have summers off."  The worst posts imply the other side is morally bankrupt.  Notice that we can just be in disagreement anymore; one of the sides has to be evil.  What kind of example does this discourse set for our students?

Teachers Are Not Monolithic
If you want to show solidarity, dress the same.  These t-shirts (which, in case you haven't been following, are exactly the same as the ones in Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, and West Virginia - they just change the state shape) automatically present the impression of uniformity, not just in clothes but in opinion.  Obviously, anyone not supporting the rally, or even disagreeing with some nuance of the argument is against education and teachers and for ignorance. 

The problem with that impression is that teachers are intelligent, educated, thinking people.  When you put more than one thinking person in a room, you are likely to get disagreement about important things.  (This is a lesson I learned from a teacher in middle school, by the way).  There are teachers who don't believe they would do their jobs better if they were paid more money.  There are teachers who don't believe all their problems would be solved if there were democrats in office.  There are teachers who don't believe the lottery has benefitted their classrooms.  There are teachers who keep their mouths shut because their opinions are not in line with the t-shirts and bumper stickers, but there are some willing to speak.  Consider this courageous post from a Durham school teacher who has elected not to participate in the rally.  

Real Progress is Slow Progress

Real problems aren't created in a day, which means they also won't be solved in a day.  No matter how many teachers gather at the state house on Wednesday, they aren't going to return to their classroom on Thursday with their problems solved.  They'll have gotten media coverage, but that's not the end goal, is it?  What is the end goal?  In all the online conversation, I haven't been able to find it.

Real progress involves the painstaking work of sitting down with motivated experts, gathering and analyzing relevant data, compromising on difficult issues, and passing laws.  These activities can't be summed up with a hashtag.  They don't get you on the news.  They do take time.  They do require calm and deliberative action.  They do get results.  Isn't that the goal?

Money is Mismanaged at the State and County Level

Here's what gets lost in the funding conversation.  Education in NC is not underfunded, but individual schools are.  According to their website, the per-pupil expenditure in Wake County is $8570, on par with private school tuition (results must be caused by something other than money - more on that in a minute).  That means, if we are going to have a rally, we shouldn't really be having it at the legislative building.  We should be having it at the county office.  

Fifteen years ago, when I taught in Wake County, there was a different rally.  There was a mandatory celebration at the PNC (then RBC) Center, required for all employees of the WCPSS in spite of the fact that there weren't enough seats.  I don't know how much it costs to rent that arena, but I feel like it would buy a lot of paper and copier toner.  The speaker was Jim Hunt.  While I know he prides himself the education governor, he didn't speak for free.  Two days before school started, we would have all rather been in our classrooms, but we were required to fight traffic find seats (or not, I sat on the floor) at this very expensive event.  I am unable to find how many people work in the central office, but I know they are inefficient.  "Keep four copies of anything you send to the central office," I was advised, "because that's how many times they are going to lose it and tell you that you failed to send it."  That person was correct.  I finally had to show up in person and hand walk my test scores from secretary to assistant to higher level assistant until I was certain that I wouldn't lose my license for failing to send something I had thrice sent.  

By the time money gets to the school level, you are limited to a tiny number of copies per month, but it isn't because SCHOOLS in the plural are underfunded.  It's because the money didn't get to you.  That said I don't recall ever getting turned down for budget reasons when I needed to buy something.  I was talking to a friend last week who just left public education, and she said the same.  "There was never something I asked to buy for my classroom that I couldn't," she said.

Money Can't Solve All Problems

That conversation with my friend is what prompted me to write this.  When we started swapping stories, they didn't sound fifteen years apart.  She had a student chuck a backpack at her head; I had a student take his shirt off during class.  In both cases, the kids in the room were more supportive than our administrators or the students' parent.  She and I agreed that the biggest problems we had in public school weren't the kinds of problems that could be solved with more money.

The goal of public education should be education, but that has changed.  The general public now expects schools to do everything from sunup to sundown from ages three to twenty-one (you only think it's 18).  In addition to educational needs, schools are expected to meet students' nutritional, emotional, physical, and social needs.  Expectations of schools have become unmanageable (I wrote about it in this post).   Thirty years ago, if a kid came home complaining about a bully, his mom would have called the other boys' mom.  Now, she calls the school.  Dads used to teach kids about cars; now we expect auto shop to be a required course (and if a school doesn't offer it, the person complaining about it online doesn't volunteer his time to teach it).  Replace that with your pet skill (sewing buttons, chopping vegetables, balancing a checkbook, making change, character education, obesity prevention, athletic ability, penmanship, drug prevention, bullying prevention . . . do I need to list more?  because I can).  Meanwhile, no one wants to add minutes to the day or days to the year.  Money won't reduce these expectations; it may increase them. 

Once people decided they wanted schools to raise kids, they stopped supporting them.  Discipline a kid in school, and the parent you haven't seen all year will show up to complain about it.  Have all the rallies you want; money won't create discipline or solve parenting problems.  

Conclusion

Public schooling is the most complicated problem this country has.  You can make a case that it is immigration or foreign relations or health care, but education is the only thing we promise to every single citizen whose expectations are always changing.  Methods cannot be assessed in the short term, but the clientele has no patience for the analysis of the long term.  As teachers, we should model patience.  That's not going to happen with a hashtag and a rally, no matter how snazzy the t-shirt.

The Season That Nearly Wasn't

I recently tweeted that if I knew how to get a movie made, I would make one about this season of our Varsity Girls Basketball team.  Sadly, I do not know how to get a movie made.  I do, however, have a blog; so I suppose it is the best I can do to bring attention to this incredible story.

When tryouts started, there were simply not enough girls.  It isn't because we don't have enough female athletes.  We have tons of soccer and volleyball players who are committed to year-round teams, and we have a number of ladies on our swim team, whose season is concurrent with basketball.  As preparations for the season were to begin, there were only five players.  Apparently, that is not enough, so our coaches sent this e-mail to our senior English teacher.

This teacher, well known for her ability to convince students, made an impassioned speech to the senior girls.  In the words of one senior, "Her speech had no commas.  She's an English teacher, so she should really use commas."  Eight senior girls went home that night to tell their parents they wanted to be on the basketball team.  In the end, five of those girls were able to follow through to the team, one as stat bookkeeper, some taking the time to Google "rules of basketball."  Each of these girls was very athletic in other sports, but none had ever been on a basketball team.  Two of the players on this team were 8th graders, playing up to the varsity level.  The coaches of this team choose a word every year for the players to rally around; this year, they chose FIGHT.

Under the mentorship of our incredible coaches, Tonya and David Taylor, and their alumni assistant, Lizz Wilson, these eight girls went on to fight for each and every game.  They grew as individuals and as a team, and their season record was 16-7.  They played in the conference championship, were invited to States, and won the first round there.  The team that nearly wasn't blew away all expectations (or lack thereof).

To a woman, they have each also talked about how much fun they had this season.  Senior Reece Goodman said, "If I'd know it was this much fun, I'd have done it years ago."  When asked what advice they would give to rising seniors, several of them said, "Try something you've never done before."  What a great lesson this is for them to take into their adult lives.  The 8th graders were inspired to fight harder than they would have if they hadn't been watching the hustle in these first-year players.  Apparently, the players weren't the only ones having fun.  Coach David Taylor, known school wide for his funny and often sarcastic tweeting, has put up more sincere love for this team than ever.  He has been effusive about the fun he has had coaching them and how much they inspire him.  Here's a sample from my quick stalk of his feed.  There are many more and many that express his pride in great detail.

As a spectator, I'm proud whenever we play hard, regardless of the outcome.  This team and its coaches, however, will hold a special place in my heart forever.  The courage it took for the coaches to reach out and beg for help showed vulnerability at its finest.  The courage it took for those seniors who had never played before to put themselves in a place of potential humiliation showed the best of school spirit.  The fact that teams they have beaten don't know the story of the team that beat them makes me happy in ways I don't know how to express.

As a teacher, I try to make as many memories as possible.  When you look back on your school life, the days can blur together because so many of them are so similar.  Anything I can do to give a student a positive memory on which to look back, I'll do.  This may be my favorite thing about the story of this team.  As adults, they will be able to look back and remember this amazing season and the lessons they taught each other.  They will be able to tell their own children to do something new and share their experience.  They will remember these coaches and the impact they had forever.  These are days that will NOT blur into each other for them or for me.