5 things on my mind

I left my middle school English classroom at the end of the 2020-2021 school year to pursue a PhD. It has been seven months since I walked out of my classroom for the last time, and it has taken me this long to even begin sorting through the messy and ambiguous chaos that I experienced as a classroom teacher.

There are five things that I’m sitting with right now that I want to name. And explore. Then dismantle. And ultimately annihilate.

One. Educational researchers have been observing teacher burnout for a good many years now. There have also been explorations into secondary trauma that teachers experience because of the trauma their students suffer. I think we need to start adding something crucial to this conversation: teaching is traumatic.

Beyond ridiculous workloads, beyond literally impossible expectations, beyond 60-hour workweeks, zero collective bargaining power in right-to-work states, beyond the capitalist signposts of unsustainable workplace conditions, beyond the processing of the trauma they see their students withstand (and sometimes succumb to), teachers are experiencing trauma from their actual job. We need to put this into conversation and address it. Now.

Two. True equity and justice for all students is likely impossible in our current system. I’m not even close to being the first person to say this, but saying it means detonating your own professional land mine if you’re still in a classroom.

But I’m not in a classroom for the time being, so I’m saying it.

LGBTQ+, Indigenous, differently abled students, and students of color cannot consistently thrive in the system we have. The very nature of our educational business model places anyone outside of a white, typically-abled, heterosexual, cis-male body in the category of a deficit.

No matter how many amazing educators come up with and are able to enact innovative and affirming educational experiences for all students, they must still actively work against the system to do that. So, let’s at least – as an embarrassingly bare minimum – start being honest about this.

Three. There is no way to name the “solution” to the educational crisis we face because there is no one “problem.” Every single student in every single classroom in every single campus in every single district across every single state is subject to a different set of circumstances at school.

Hear that again. Every single student is subject to a different circumstance than their peers every day at school.

Of course every student in every classroom will have a different experience; that’s the nature of a human life. I’m asserting that every student is subject to a different circumstance. Seat to seat, classroom to classroom.

Four. If every student is subject to a different set of circumstances (as could be argued, too, about teachers and administrators), it leads me to wonder: what should students be experiencing at school instead of this? What is public education actually for?

I don’t know what the purpose of public education is, but my experience as a student, teacher, and parent tells me that the current role of public education is many, many, many things and that no one can agree on which of those things is most important.

Here are a few purposes:

• Euro-centric academic knowledge of literature, math, science, and history

• Diverse (like, in all the ways) academic knowledge of literature, math, science, and history

• Ivy league college readiness

• Private college readiness

• Public college readiness

• Community college readiness

• Nutrition (food service)

• Nutritional education

• Social emotional learning

• Mental health

• Suicide prevention

• School shooting and community violence prevention

• Social norms and etiquette

• Bully prevention (in person and online)

• Online etiquette

• Source awareness

• Physical activity

• Physical education

• Sex education

• Abstinence education

• All of the arts

• Communication and debate

• Health care

• Childcare

• Student government

• Community involvement

• Identity-affirming spaces

• Identity-denying spaces

• Job readiness

• Military readiness

• Future career readiness (Coding, robotics, shit we don’t even know yet)

• Trade career readiness (mechanic training, cosmetology, carpentry, nursing)

We could list the roles of public schools for days, but the take-away here is that the purpose of education is different on every campus in every district in every state. And none of it adds up to a fulfilling or even satisfying existence for every human that leaves the system.

Five. I think that whatever it is that public school should be doing isn’t something we’ve ever seen before. It’s a new book we must all collectively write.

If I let myself drift into a daydream about what school could be, I imagine a few things.

Teachers wouldn’t be teachers. They’d be facilitators. Sacred caretakers. There would be three or more times as many as there are now and they’d be compensated handsomely for their time.

We have the wealth of human knowledge and global connectivity at our fingertips 24 hours a day. Maybe children don’t need adults to tell them how to be or how to think or which information is valuable and which isn’t. Maybe what might be more helpful is a compassionate guide that is an invaluable resource, a crucial support.

What if children spent time in community, instead of in class? What if growing gardens, cooking their own food, exploring nature, experiencing art, dancing, singing, making music, contributing to the community at large, following their curiosity about history, architecture, physics, language, mythology, weather, biology, the cosmos, the very depths of the ocean, or whatever else they dream up was the name of the game?

What if we stopped using desks?

What if we stopped giving a good shit about grades and test scores? What if we all agreed that grades are arbitrary, that tests are arcane tools of a society poised to implode on itself, and started remembering the absolutely mesmerizing magic of learning something new.

What if we stop saying, “well, we have to have some way to know what students know?” Do we? Do we really need to know what a child knows? And if so, why?

What if we stopped forcing the heartbreaking notion that a 16-year-old doesn’t need playtime or story time?

What if we stop trying to tiptoe around identity, around history? What if we reject the premise that a students’ embodied experiences need to be “accommodated” and start seeing their embodied experiences as their superpowers. What if our students’ embodied wisdom was the driving force of what they did all day at school?

It’s hard to answer these dreamy questions because I don’t know what this would look like. I’ve never seen it happen.

But I’m here for it. And I have hope.