I Asked for Help and the Interwebs Responded

Yesterday, I was at a loss. I was overwhelmed by displays of hatred and violence and I wrote how I needed help explaining displays of ignorance and intolerance to my kids.  Today, answers came through and some of you asked me to share them, so here they are.


First, Ashley Cassandra Ford, a writer at Refinery29, posted this on Instagram. When I saw it I was happily waiting for my coffee with my kids. I love the idea of smiling and living my life full of joy and using all of my time and resources to counter hate and terror.

Then, another writer of color, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, shared her plans for the day, and her work as a writer and educator reminded me that the resistance is in our art, our writing, and our teaching.

The rest of my day was spent getting Kiara ready for her first day of kindergarten, back-to-school shopping, and a popsicle meet-up at the park for our neighborhood public school where she will continue her Spanish education.

As I sat down to do a little writing, I came across the twitter hashtags #CharlottesvilleCurriculum and #CharlottesvilleSyllabus. Check them out. So worth looking at as a mother, a teacher, a writer, and an activist. We have to illuminate the past to understand what is happening today.

I will continue to seek joy, to write the truths of my American experience, to teach my children and my students how to be kind and helpful and brave. And on Tuesday, I will continue the work of empowering my students to read critically, question thoughtfully, and find their own voice within this grand cacophony. There is work to do, and we are ready to get it.

Ten Blog Posts to Start the School Year: Teacher as Activist

The summer of 1992: Oregon Governor's School

I approach teaching as activism. The summer before I started college at the University of Oregon, I worked at OGS, Oregon Governor’s School. I had political aspirations and thought working with young leaders to help them find themselves through service fit with my future plans. On the last night of that program, the director, Tony Gerlicz, an educational leader, told me I should consider teaching. I heard him, but had other ideas about where I was headed.

In college, I was a political science major and activist. In organizing work, I found that much of my time was spent trying to gather people in a room who may or may not be receptive to whatever message the organizers were promoting. I enjoyed working for causes I cared about, but didn't feel particularly effective. 

Then, I took a year off from school to work with AmeriCorps, a national service organization like a domestic peace corps. I was placed with the I Have A Dream Foundation in Portland where I worked everyday in high schools. Unlike political work, where you are organizing to get people somewhere, at schools, students magically show up each day.

It was that year of service learning, when the seed planted by Tony Gerlicz at OGS, combined with my growing understanding of what political organizing looked like, and a blossoming love for school communities, that a decision grew: I would finish my degree and give teaching a try.

My teaching is activism, but it’s not a form of political indoctrination. When my students show up, I am the teacher in the room, and I am unapologetically myself.  My classroom challenges my students’ thinking but doesn’t tell them what to think. We explore diverse historical perspectives, whether it’s re-examining Columbus or our past presidents’ relationship to slavery. It’s reading an article about poverty, or a poem about racial profiling, and the thoughts and responses my students bring lead our discussions to exciting and interesting places. It’s about building trust and community and empowering students to feel ownership over their words, their thoughts, their stories, and their lives. It’s hopefully cleaning up some of the muck that has built up over the years with so many preconceived notions of what school is and what English class should be. Hopefully, the muck will be replaced with a glistening opportunity: this class is a chance to learn, think, and grow. That’s thing about my teaching: it's activism. 

A morning inspired by Pete Seeger

On this morning of Obama’s State of the Union address, I hear that Pete Seeger has died. I immediately hear a banjo in my mind.



I think of Bruce Springsteen. I remember Pete leading the country, along with Bruce, at the Lincoln Memorial at President Obama’s inaugural concert. I was so proud of our country, so filled with optimism about the direction this anti-war, progressive president might take our country.

Six years and a full election cycle later I’m proud of our president’s Health Care initiative, but I’m mostly disappointed. I imagine Mr. Seeger is too for President Obama’s drone strikes, continued militarism, corporate bailouts, and privatization of our public schools.

Twitter asks what I hope to hear from our President tonight. I’ve learned from five previous State of the Union speeches that high hopes will lead to great disappointment. It’s not like it was during Bush when every sentence brought offense. No, with this POTUS I have to listen carefully because it is the subtext I need to decipher, particularly in the education section of his speech. He will surely address accountability in our schools which really means disempowering our unions and rewarding teachers based on test scores. He might say we must not teach to the test, but he will likely emphasize just how these crucial these tests are.

So, before I head to work in my union red this morning, I listen to Pete Seeger, and I’m reminded why I write, why I’m a union activist, why I teach in a pubic school, and why I’m compelled stand up for what I believe, even when it gets lonely.