PSA: This particular piece is lacking the witty humor that characterizes most of my posts. Because COVID. If you are not a teacher, you may hear this as a teacher who is martyring themself, or a teacher who is complaining for no reason because we have summers off. To you I say, find a different blog s’il vous plaît. This place is not for you. Look I even used the formal vous—that’s me using my polite voice.
I’ve heard so many people say that teachers have the most important job in the world….that of educating our children or the future. What a beautiful sentiment loaded with tons of pressure, right? I used to almost blush at hearing someone say this….what an honor to be part of a profession that is so widely appreciated! But lately that same statement that I think is meant to be a compliment actually sends me spiraling downward into a deep rabbit-hole of snark and pissy-ness. That’s French for….pissy-ness? It’s from the bottom of that deep rabbit-hole that I write today.
Who’s the expert??? We are in the midst of a pandemic, several pandemics, some say….a health pandemic, a racial equity pandemic, a police brutality pandemic…..um hello? an education pandemic? One would think that during such trying times, the world, our president, parents, administration, would start to see, like really see, the gigantic inequities in our system and maybe… you know… ACT on these realizations. But from what I’ve been experiencing, the “PICs” (people in charge) in education continue to develop CYA (cover your ass) policies, and allow the voices of loud, privileged, and yep I’m gonna say it….WHITE….parents to dictate the direction of education. I have experienced a system that calls upon or even guilts teachers to be more, give more, and do more, meanwhile ignoring their voices when they say “this idea sounds lovely, but in reality, it will not work.” Again, I ask for the millionth time in my career….why the French is no one listening to the licensed professional in the room? When you want to know what heart surgery is like, do you ask someone who knows a heart surgeon or the actual heart surgeon themselves? Like really, who’s going to give the best advice? When you want to know how to decorate your house like a Magnolia (see Fixer Upper on HGTV) house, do you talk to your cousin who has a nice house or do you watch the actual video of Joanna Gaines who is in fact an interior decorator / home decor inspiration to all / business mogul / and epitome of all things fabulous? Again, where will you get the best advice? Your cousin could be spot on, but when trying to mimic the Magnolia style, why mess around? And now let’s bring it home; when you want to know what the French currently goes on inside the classroom on a daily basis, do you talk to a principal who’s in the classroom for 5 minutes a day, or do you talk to the person who teaches in a classroom every single day from 8-3 or some version of that time frame? I exaggerate…some principals enter multiple classrooms a day for 5 minutes each, so I suppose that’s about 20 minutes a day.
Why the buzz words? Why does education or people who are in control /charge of education – “the PICs” – lean so hard into buzz words????? I am a French teacher….do I strive to have an inclusive classroom? Note: inclusive is a buzz word. And, duh, of course I do. That means that I include all learners when I think about my lesson plan, that I try to form relationships with all the young humans that I teach, and that I try somewhat successfully to reach all students including those with IEPs, 504s, and those who just need more love. And when I do not reach them, I try again. What teacher doesn’t do that? The answer is probably a small percentage….because what happened is … a small group of aholes decided to become teachers and did some f-ed up shit in the classroom that made the national news and now America is a bunch of teacher-haters. Why you gotta hate, Murca?? So, the PICs decided to use the word “inclusive” before the word “classroom” to assure parents that teachers are fair and love all the kids, even the hard ones. And problem solved. Ohhhh wait. As it turns out, one word, even a BUZZ word cannot solve the systemic problems with an antiquated education system!
The next buzz word that makes my skin crawl every single frenchin’ time I hear or read it….equity. Calm down, I don’t hate equity. Quite the contrary – I’m a fan, a huge fan of making sure all students have equal access to education, specifically French, even if it means I design 57.65 versions of the same lesson to meet all my learners’ needs because I strive to be inclusive. I’m such a fan that I print out all the equity graphics that I find on Facebook and tape them on my wall so that I have constant reminders to keep this at the forefront of my mind. This does not mean, however, that I need to use it in every conversation, or have it stuffed down my throat at every PD, in every meeting, and in all emails pertaining to remote versus hybrid instruction.
Equity is the driving force behind my district’s recent decision to begin hybrid learning next month. What’s hilarious about this is that over half of the district’s black and brown families have opted to stay remote. Note … I use the adjective “hilarious” here in the most sarcastic way possible – because as one teacher put it on Facebook, if I can’t laugh at this, I may never stop crying. So what does the hybrid model entail? First of all, let’s be clear …. French and all other electives will remain remote – just the core classes (meaning Math, Science, English and Social Studies – you know, the ones that the school counts on for test scores that equal financial support) will attempt to meet in person. But even then I ask … where’s the equity here? Let’s imagine that I teach English….during hybrid learning I will have a small population of students in my classroom that I am teaching in person while the students who have chosen to remain remote will be logged in to a Zoom livestream. There is an extreme likelihood that I will be teaching mostly white students in person and my black and brown students will be logged in remotely. Is this a certainty? No. But I challenge all of my colleagues who teach core classes to take a mental picture of the make-up of their in-person students and tell me I’m wrong.
Statistically, black and brown students feel less connected to school. I know this because in every PD I’ve attended in the past three years, it opens with some jarring statistic along these lines. I’ve also given up my lunch period to attend a PD in which I learned all about disproportionality in education….and a week of my summer to attend a racial justice in the classroom workshop…and countless unpaid hours of my personal time to read about inequities in education, to examine my own internal biases as a teacher who presents as white, to participate in book studies on this same topic. I’m not trivializing these experiences at all; I have learned more about myself as an educator and as a person in the last three years than in my entire teaching career.
Let me be very clear here…the PD and the unpaid work is not the problem. Like most educators, I consider it a privilege to learn more so that I can reach more. What I have a huge problem with is this: the district who has encouraged me and sometimes guilted me to do all of this self-examination in the name of creating a classroom where at-risk students feel more comfortable, more engaged, more connected, etc. ..this SAME DISTRICT…seems to be starting a hybrid learning program that benefits predominantly white students while leaving our black and brown students once again…disconnected. Drop the frenchin’ mic. WTF?! Cheers to the buzz word!
I ask you, how are the students tuning in on a livestream Zoom going to feel connected to a class when the teacher can barely communicate with them? How are these students for whom teachers have done so much training, work, and self reflection going to know that they’re loved when teachers can’t personally connect with them? When all students are in Zoom, it’s easier. You private chat students individually, you pull them into breakout rooms, you share a Google doc, etc. Is it perfect? Um, no. But is it better than teaching in person, where a teacher is responsible for the students in front of them and the students watching on the computer, while at the same frenchin’ time trying to limit the spread and not catch a disease for which they have not been vaccinated even though they’re considered a necessary, can’t live without profession? Yes, I’d say so.
So what’s my point? This pandemic has been the worst and is hard for everyone. All families are stressed and want their kids back in school because in person learning is the best way to learn. However, at what cost? Aren’t we sitting on an opportunity here….an opportunity to uproot this ridiculous system that empowers only a certain kind of students and leaves the black and brown children out? WTF, education?? Take your buzz words and either buzz off with them or put your honey where your mouth is….get it? because buzz and bees?
Midlife Yogi 