Category: Bullying

Series: White People Homework: The Cost (8)

How does racism affect children?
The featured image was designed by a 4th grade student in one of my dear friend’s classes.
https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-speech-from-the-great-dictator-

I am an amateur in so many areas, it’s really kind of lame. One of the mental games I like to play with myself is the hidden costs of things, like trying to pull data from chaos. I am ill equipped and humbled. All I can offer is I like to think about big things, and this will be separated by multiple posts.

The question is: How does racism affect white people? Understand this question is not intended to center white people. We’ve been centered plenty. It’s meant to explore why this construct of race and power keeps getting propped up, exploited, and used to keep groups in fear, confusion, disoriented, and in danger.

When I was in high school, I went to a predominately white, wealthy parents, large high school in suburban Denver. Kids wore $300 boots and drove BMWs. I was not one of these kids. I was friends with a boy named Bryan. Bryan was Black. He was funny, smart, and always cracked me up. One evening, when we were at a football game, he told me he and his family were moving so he could attend the mostly Black high school. I did not understand fully why, and was heartbroken. I didn’t have the emotional means to express what was happening then, and I’m not sure I do now. It may have been a mixture of things: wasn’t our current school ‘better?’ And trust me: I tell the truth when I say I also recognized why going to the other high school was important and was indeed, better for him and his brothers. Was my friendship not enough to make him feel part of a community? But we lost. We lost his smile, his gifts, and his friendship. I knew once he moved, even if it was only twenty minutes away, he was moving to the other side of the world, our world.

I found my high school yearbook during the great Quarantine Time of Purging All Closets, and saw his picture. I miss that friend.

Flash-forward to the election of 2016. White kids chanting “BUILD THE WALL” in those predominately white schools in my former district. When I told my principal about her previous school and what the students did she said no, it wasn’t them, it was another building. Her denial was somewhat shocking at the time, but now considering she’s still social media friends with a teacher in the building who is a loud and proud Trump supporter, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The amount of energy and time for white educators and parents they spend on building their mental fort is incredible. What if…WHAT IF…they spent that time and energy saying and doing something ELSE. ANOTHER ACTION.

What if

What if all teachers had to do a study with Jane Elliott’s and Cornell West’s work in educational philosophy? Why, when I was in second grade, did I get the teacher who, when asked if she believed in “women’s lib” answered, “Oh no, I like having the doors opened for me!” I was crushed. I was born a feminist, and to hear my teacher say this was devastating. And the little boy’s smug face as he got the answer he wanted is burned in my brain. Now think of all the trillions of micro and macro aggressions: what if?

What if when people had land, resources, built a community they understood that the community is better with diversity of experiences, gifts, talents, and contributions?

What if…

Threatening teachers’ voices is a common tactic.

Because right now we have administrators, parents, school boards and parents who force teachers into subterfuge and “asking forgiveness” whenever they talk about Malcom X or want to teach books from the #ProjectLit or #DisruptTexts communities. Right now, I’m trying to remind myself as a new person in a district/building that change takes time, even if I’ve been doing this work for almost 15 years as a teacher. Just getting some titles that aren’t white, colonized canon approved is painstakingly slow. There are gatekeepers and bureaucrats.

The hidden costs may include:

  • losing a friend
  • no collaboration
  • decreased joy
  • stale thinking
  • fixed mindsets
  • destruction of parent/child love and relationships
  • loss of respect and inclusion (think of cancel culture but more hidden)

Since this series is “White People Homework” keep in mind it’s not for BIPOC to do your work for you. Take some time, pray if that’s something you do, meditate, relax, and think: how would your life be better if we all practiced anti-racism work?

One idea: if an administrator asks you to do something in your classroom that is counter to anti-racism work, ask why, and request a detailed response. Ask if they are willing to have a conversation with the school board, the parents, and other teachers and students: identify the real stakeholders in the community.

Resources:

Merritt, K. (2017). Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge Studies on the American South). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316875568.

https://www.macucc.org/racismhurtseveryonecoststowhitepeople

The English Teacher Companion

Prevention for late-work.

via GIPHY

English teachers: the stereotype is fussy, middle-aged woman whose sole job is to sneer at students’ misplaced commas and deny acceptance of late work. There are posts and tweets about how a student turns in late work, and the sheer amount of gleeful, snotty remarks dishearten me to no end. And after I remember to breathe after my raging, fist-shaking, and look deeper into what may be at the heart of this, I am asking all of us who love to read, to write, and to speak and listen to get back to the heart of what we love about being English teachers.

via GIPHY

It is well known that English teachers carry the unfair, unbalanced burden of too much grading. Our standards are vast: we shoulder the weight of teaching all students how to communicate clearly and well in the English language, a language fraught with peculiarities and nonsensical rules, more broken than adhered to. Our scores (along with math teachers and sometimes science) are “counted.” During staff meetings and data carousels, the reading and math scores are displayed on metaphorical pikes for all to see, judge often under the pretense of “growth.” Administration are pressed to raise scores, and if they are truly instructional leaders they promote a school-wide approach. If not, they turn the data walks into fuel for petty discourse and grudges.

While we can’t excuse all of the grading, because we are the expert in the classroom, and our feedback and insight is ultimately what our students desire, I am offering some alternatives to lessen the burden. However, if you are one of those for whom control is more important than your students’ learning, I don’t have a lot of hope. Please –with love-ask yourself if it’s about control versus guidelines.

Consider:

Writing Workshop.
Please: Do not let students read each other’s work. This is not about finding spelling mistakes or misused comma. The reading of the piece is a critical part of this, as is the listening, undistracted, by the feedback giver. The writer reads the work. Follow this protocol for some truly inspired writing experiences. https://mrskellylove.com/2019/07/31/writers-workshop/

Studio: my personal teaching philosophy is that teaching of humanities should be more like teaching art: help the talent grow and guide, but remember art is subjective > objective. If the creator can defend his or her work, allow them to make a case for it. Display students’ work as often as you can, and provide chances for open gallery feedback and discussion.

Single-Point Rubrics
Jennifer Gonzalez has a great post that my own master mentor and friend, Holly, suggested to me years ago. Great ideas do that: they spread, sharpen, and improve. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/single-point-rubric/

Don’t grade everything.
Pick one or two larger pieces of work. Give small check-in grades for progress along the way:
1. Pre-write
2. Draft
3. One revision pass
4. One editing pass
5. Final published work

Do not assign reading logs. Alternative: assign curated content. (Are your students checking up on your and your reading logs? It’s not much fun when we think about it that way.)

Speaking: give students a chance to talk, and you can provide an accountability piece if they share something that’s on their minds.

Listening: Read aloud. Play author’s interviews and speeches. Listen in workshop.

Calendars and Conversations: do not work in isolation, if you can help it, and reach out to colleagues to see if they’re giving assignments that can be cross-purposed. Make sure to help students with time management (Pomodoro method, etc.)

but…mah deadlines!

Deadlines do matter, but I offer that we take a version of ‘love and logic’ about deadlines. English teachers: make a promise to yourself and your students: if they miss a deadline do not offer sarcastic responses. We had a saying in the Puget Sound Writing Project: “Writing is never finished, it’s only due.” Tell students ahead of time that deadlines matter for everyone’s peace of mind and self-care, theirs and the teacher’s. Getting it done and something turned in gives everyone a place to start the feedback and discussion. I would tell students, if you turn in nothing, I am like the fire department: I don’t know if you’re drowning or if you’re on fire. I need to know how to help. There was always the last week of grading where I gave a small window to turn in missing/late work, or redo-work. Some kids took me up on it, some didn’t. Some…couldn’t. I think as we learn more about depression and other trauma we will have new means of helping students with deadlines. And, since we’ve been testing our students since kindergarten, not allowing free play time, we are facing a generation of students who do not know how to self-manage. We’re seeing more anger, violence and disruptions, and the solution seems to be keep kids in the classroom, and we’ll solve the root causes later. But that’s a post for another time.

via GIPHY

We have our jobs to do, and putting in grades and accounting for production is deeply embedded in our educational systems. Until that changes, or we make adjustments where we can, we are going to become increasingly burnt-out. We can be creative and thoughtful about this process, and above all: respectful. Modeling both self-respect and respect for our students will create a safer, gentler community of readers and writers. And who knows? They just might meet their deadlines.

Two additional resources:

Georgia’s Math Teachers Need to Know the Pacing Guide is Ableist

https://www.middleweb.com/31398/rick-wormeli-the-right-way-to-do-redos/

Survey for bullies.

Please take the survey on the Widget list in the right-hand column. Thank you.

I’ve been working since I was nine years old. Granted, it was mostly babysitting gigs and poorly run lemonade stands until age thirteen when I was a busgirl in a Mongolian Barbecue restaurant. But I’ve worked constantly. Along the way, I’ve met my share of sexism and microaggressions from all manner of coworkers and supervisors. And in those four decades of work experience, not once have I ever witness a bully paying any kind of consequence for their actions. Maybe there is some invisible karma that gets metered out, or some moment of self-reflection in a quiet, pensive moment where the bully thinks, “Gee, whiz, I was kind of a jerk. Since [X] happened to me, I now understand when [this other person was going through the same thing] how awful I was to them.”

Is empathy really empathy when it requires the same exact event? Well, that’s a question for another time perhaps, although my first instinct is to answer empathy is a proactive emotion, it gets in front of another’s pain in order to prevent further damage.

In a recent discussion thread, a parent shared her detailed concerns about her son. I know from a teachers’ perspective addressing bullying is a daunting task: children, and then they grow up to adulthood, get deep pleasure from the control and social status when they bully others. Even in one of my classes now, a new student says something that makes other boys snicker, just because they aren’t used to his colloquialisms. So: time for a conversation with those two young men. It can’t be ignored.

What bullying is:

  • Persistent and targeted harassment regarding someone’s personality, social status, race, gender, health or cultural viewpoints.
  • Putting someone down or marginalizing tastes in clothes, music, movies, books, and other media
  • Not having an established understood relationship (friendship) that has its own rules and boundaries for ‘trash talking’ and teasing and proceeding to harass or intimidate another physically or verbally
  • Systematically shunning someone from a group or social situation

What it is not:

  • Differences of opinion or approach regarding a common goal or objective

This is from a discussion thread, and he shares insightful information:

I am sorry to see that this is going on, and a repeated daily matter no less.

The thing that saddens me is that schools ingratiate this behavior and “the person in question” will continue to go with a belief that they are invincible. This will carry on throughout life and unfortunately at some time “the person in question” will do real damage in the workplace.

Schools and companies have been far too risk averse and don’t want to deal with real issues because it takes time and too many resources. But there needs to be the line drawn at any kind of physical assault. The name calling and belittling, unfortunately, will be part of life and that should not be acceptable. While I personally would not condone it as it interferes with your son’s learning process (as you have already demonstrated with the vomiting).

Fortune 500 companies do nothing about a workplace bully on 99% of the cases. Ultimately the target is diminished, emotionally beaten and crushed, their work performance suffers and eventually leads to layoff or termination. The bully will usually get a promotion or move on to other larger projects to help feather their nest.

The rare occasions when a bully is held accountable is when they have done something so egregious that there are too many witnesses or it is so flagrantly damaging that it can not be concealed.

Just moving around and transferring schools is not going to be sufficient. There are always going to be cliques and factions with their small minded people who think they are responsible for choosing who is important in life.

–Allan Rei Tan

Have I ever bullied someone? Yes, once. And it’s a painful story for me to tell, and I pray for forgiveness. I didn’t derive any pleasure or status from the event, but regret and shame.

My plan as an educator is to continue helping students recognize when they’re bullying, or being bullied: to empower those who are being harassed and flip the script on the bully. But it can’t come from a single voice, but that is where it starts.