A sassy little girl rolled her eyes at me as I asked her to do one more thing.

“One day you’re going to be thankful for me,” I quipped.

It was the last day of school before our much deserved holiday break. In the fifteen minutes between P.E. and our whole school Christmas singalong, I’d walked my tiny humans back to our classroom, taught a math minilesson, assessed them, and walked them back to the gym for the festivities. The children took note.

“Work hard! Play hard!” is my mantra. After just over a year with each other, it is a commitment we have made to one another in our learning community. Holiday activities, an early release day schedule, 50% attendance –– the distractions matter not. Absolutely nothing deters me from doing what I was called to do: teach children.

Sometimes the distractions are more nefarious than the ins and outs of working in the context of a public school with innumerable stakeholders who have competing priorities. I learned a long, long time ago that you can be minding your own business, focusing every bit of your energy on doing what is best for the children in your care, and people will still come for you.

Whether it’s divisive politics, racism, insecurity, or something else, it is the nature of human beings who do not choose healing for themselves and as their stance toward others to project their pain. I thank God and therapy every day for the grace that has brought me to a place where I pause to pray for those who choose to, intentionally or not, harm others rather than do the admittedly incredibly hard work of healing toward emotional equilibrium. My own journey has empowered me to frolic in fields of sand spurs.

I am not everyone’s cup of tea. None of us are. But I am especially adept at pushing people to a precipice simply by existing. This hurt my feelings for a lot of my life. I wanted to be liked. Maturity has taught me that it is better to be loved, and even better to love. . .hard.

Tough love pulls us from the dark depths of mediocrity into a wondrous array of possibilities. And so that’s what I do. Whether directly or because of the standards to which I am holding myself, I push little people –– and big ones, too. (And I expect to be pushed!) It’s no surprise to me that it’s the tiny humans who appreciate it the most.

“I already am!” she smiled. “I’ve learned more this year than all the other years of school.”*

*verified by norm-referenced assessments 😉

It’s been quite some time since I gave the following keynote. I thought about it recently while sharing a story. As I reread it tonight, I was convicted. Doing what’s right for children –– ensuring that they have culturally sustaining and developmentally appropriate instruction –– is not the easiest path, but it is a beaten one full of even my own footprints. May I heed my own words and embrace the fullness of their humanity. . .

“Bless you abundantly.” Whether I am sneezing or embarking on one of the adventures that I have become notorious for amongst my family, my Grandma Nita has nurtured me with these words since we first met when I was seven years old. She’s really my step grandmother, but from the moment we laid eyes on one another she has loved me as her own. I’ll never forget that day, the day we met. After a twelve hour drive from south Florida to the Panhandle, I unfolded myself and leaped out of the car. The screen door flew open and Grandma Nita ran out of her house barreling toward me. Her hug turned into a chokehold, her chokehold turned into a tackle, and we rolled around in the grass embracing one another. 

As a retired LPN, Grandma Nita doesn’t have many financial assets, but she is incredibly skilled at taking what she does have and using it in ways that exponentially increase its value. Just over a decade ago, I was journeying to South Africa. In her infinite wisdom this woman who has never traveled beyond the southern United States handed me a package of Wet Wipes. I was unimpressed, but I am not disrespectful. “Thanks, Grandma,” I said as I tossed the wipes into my purse and promptly forgot about them. About a week later, I found myself using the restroom in an outhouse at a restaurant in a rural area somewhere between Johannesburg and Kruger National Park. As I searched for toilet paper to no avail, I remembered Grandma Nita’s gift. . .

Not only did she rescue me, but all of my travel companions were saved as well. With the seemingly insignificant asset of wet wipes, Grandma Nita had blessed us abundantly. You see, “bless you abundantly” isn’t just something she says. It is her way of being in the world. It is the way her life intersects with everyone who crosses her path. Grandma Nita views all humans through a lens of abundance and she has taught me to see her, myself, and others that way as well. 

Grandma’s lens of abundance is less about quantity and more about quality. It is about looking closely and listening. It is about noticing and noting. Viewing people through a lens of abundance begins with an unwavering belief that all human beings have inherent value, that we are all worthy of everything the universe has to offer us no matter what we have accomplished in the past or our present situation. The lens of abundance does not ignore pain or difficulty, rather it faces challenges, while centering assets so that they multiply and become a launch pad for building new strengths both individually and in community. In her ninety-two years of living, Grandma has learned that an encouraging word, a full-body hug, a package of wet wipes and the many other assets she has –– like her perfectly crispy, perfectly seasoned fried chicken –– are sources of abundance that make her and her loved ones take flight. I truly do not know who I would be if she had not taught me to see myself –– flaws and all –– the way she sees me: as enough. . .just as I am.

As we lean into this school year after the last one, which was the most harrowing of my twenty-four years as an educator, I have been thinking a lot about abundance. The pandemic “learning loss” narrative that is permeating the media, our schools, and our children is so incredibly harmful and is setting educators up to continue –– this isn’t a new pandemic problem –– to inflict  what the great postcolonial author Ngugi wa Thi’ongo (Googi wa tiONGO) called “the psychological violence of the classroom.” After over a year of pandemic schooling and learning, in my work I am finding that educators are greeting children with worksheets, computerized worksheets disguised as blended learning programs, way too many assessments, and additional hours of mind numbing “academic activities” at the expense of all the things that make us more human –– movement, the arts, and communion with one another. And for what purpose? Whom does this “learning loss” narrative and this type of response to it serve? 

As Cornelius Minor has said, “Falling behind is a social construct. Where a child should be is not naturally occurring.” What are our children falling behind? How do we know they are falling behind? Whom are they falling behind? WHO is falling behind? Are these the same children to whom Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings wrote nearly fifteen years ago that an “educational debt” is owed in response to the construct of an “achievement gap?” (Slide with quotes or headlines about learning loss emphasizing Black and Brown, poor, and rural) Oh, dear King Solomon was right, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”  Or is there?

How do those of us who hold children in high esteem disrupt this narrative? What is the counter narrative? How can we begin to pay the historical, economic, sociopolitical, and moral debt Dr. Ladson-Billings says our children are owed? How can we mitigate harm?

Though I believe there is a great deal of complexity in this question, today I want to think about two actions you can take right away: 

• look at children through a lens of abundance and discover their assets (both our perspective and theirs) and use them as a springboard for supporting them as they outgrow themselves and we work alongside them to achieve educational justice
• find out where it hurts and nurture healing and social-emotional wellness

I am no stranger to doing this work because, again, this isn’t new territory. I want to introduce you to some glorious children who have taught me the power of looking at all children through a lens of abundance.

Stories about children redacted. . .

How can we learn about what children perceive as their assets? What kinds of questions might we ask? In what ways can we create space for this inquiry so that students learn more about themselves and one another? How can we use what we learn to build further learning opportunities? Some of the questions we should be asking our students this year are, “What have you learned during the pandemic?”

Do you mind teaching us just one of those things?

What do you need to do that?”

What do you think might happen if we asked these questions and created space for children to do these things?

Katherine Bomer says centering children, naming in descriptive and appreciative language what children know and can do can help educators make an important shift.

As you can see, viewing students through a lens of abundance is powerful. We must also view ourselves, our resources, and our classroom environment through this lens. Do we bless children abundantly?

The next important question we must ask of our students and ourselves is . . . Where does it hurt? Civil rights activist Ruby Sales says she learned to ask this simple, but pointed question during the Civil Rights Movement to get directly to “the source of people’s pain.” This question, she said, “unleashes territory” like no other inquiry. 

So today, my dear colleagues, I ask you: As a professional educator, where does it hurt?

We are all, I am certain, occupying different intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual spaces. But after well over a year of a pandemic punctuated by untold grief, unchecked murder, racial reckoning and backlash, insurrection, and collective suffering caused by individual greed, we are all hurting somewhere.

Our students are experiencing this hurt as well. We must build classrooms full of radical compassion and radical love and partner with the mental health professionals in our schools to address this hurt. Going to school each day and acting as if everything is normal, whatever that means, will not serve anyone well. Our children cannot learn without their social-emotional well-being intact. Their social-emotional well-being will not be intact unless our classrooms are spaces wherein teachers and children discover and navigate their individual and collective truths.

Just this past week, during a demo lesson, I invited second graders to write the pandemic stories that were on their hearts and absolutely had to be told. The children wrote so many important stories while simultaneously processing a range of emotions –– the death of their pets, the birth of siblings, ill grandparents, the first time they rode a four-wheeler, and the passing of great grandparents. There was joy. And there were tears. They wrote with such passion that, even as the time ticked away and writing workshop should have been coming to an end, they did not want to stop. Just the day before, their hard-working, deeply loving teachers had told me that writing workshop was feeling a little tricky this year because the students hadn’t had the same experiences they usually have, thus had no writing territory. They had nothing to write about.. . But when I asked them in a developmentally appropriate and emotionally supportive way, “Where does it hurt?” They couldn’t stop writing!

On March 31, 1968, four days before he was asassinated, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a sermon entitled, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution. In it he alludes to the story of Rip Van Winkle who, in a short story by Washington Irving, falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains for twenty years and awakens to a completely different America, one that has gone through a Revolution while he was asleep. . . 

“One of the great liabilities of life,” said Dr. King, “ is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.” 

I was reminded of this sermon when I asked myself, “Where does it hurt?” While it hurts in so many places right now, the willful slumber of so many folks within our education community and the entities with which we intersect are causing me the most pain today. 

It hurts where educators are being forced to inundate children with standardized assessments. Testing is a poor substitute for justice!

It hurts where I know the results of these assessments will be used to demoralize children and teachers, to tell us that in the midst of a global crisis, we have more deficits than assets.

It hurts where I see so many of my colleagues agreeing with this deficit mentality rather than pushing back on the insanity.

It hurts where these perceived deficits and fear cloud educators’ minds and cause us to make instructional decisions that do not center children or fulfill our promise to care for the whole child.

It just hurts. . .

It hurts where tradition, even in the midst of so much hurt, supersedes our will to do what is right for the children who are sitting, vulnerable, in front of us trusting us to not just do right, but be right.

It hurts deep within, for I fear at this moment when we have the opportunity to dismantle the oppressive systems that were harming our children long before our present crisis, when we should be wide awake, in the middle of a revolution, blessing children abundantly. . . many of us don’t have the will, the plan, or the stamina to make it happen. We will just return to the status quo and the same children who were not being served before or during the pandemic will continue to leave our schools stripped of their identities and their dignity after the pandemic. 

This is where it hurts for me. This is where it hurts for so many of our children, even if they cannot articulate it. This is where it hurts for their communities.

So I ask you again, dear colleagues, where does it hurt? Return to your writing. What do you notice about YOUR educator pain? I believe our pain reveals our purpose, passions, and power as much as it does our illnesses, injuries, and insecurities. What story does your pain tell? Are you sleeping during a revolution OR are you wide awake? 

Today I challenge you to be wide awake. I beg you to take this hurt and turn it into an opportunity to heal. Let us look at children (and ourselves) through a lens of abundance and challenge the narratives that will cause us to do harm. Let’s instead tell the counter narrative, which is actually the truth. Let’s sidle up alongside children, and embrace the joy of learning both with and from them. Joy is and always has been a form of resistance!

Thank you for listening. May this school year bless you abundantly!

Dear people,

Just as in most years past, mailing holiday greetings would extend my capacity to adult too far for me to manage. I can pull off writing a letter here and posting on social media, though.

I’ll lie a lot less than most of you do. For one, I have no children to be a braggart about. (For the record, if your child is less than perfect, they are human and lovable just as they are.) But I’ve also learned the importance of vulnerability over the past several years. And vulnerability requires living in our truth. Though it’s landed me in some places I’ve had to run –– sometimes even crawl –– away from, living with authenticity has taught me how to live my messy, messy life with as much grace, brilliance, and beauty as the universe affords me.

Integrity and resilience unintentionally became my words of the year in 2022. This year more than any other, I have had to choose to be who I say I am over and over again. Dreams that I’d pursued for over a decade became reality. As they did, I quickly discovered that I’d been traipsing down a yellow brick road. The wizards I’d venerated were not just ordinary; they were extraordinarily problematic –– harmful to my body and being.

I’ve been transparent about my health journey since my diabetes diagnosis in the spring. What I haven’t said is how deeply I believe that all the work I’d done since my PCOS diagnosis twenty-six years ago, when I was warned that I was at high risk for developing diabetes, was foiled by the harrowing circumstances of the second half of 2021 and most of this year. I have been known to surrender myself to my work. It’s easy to do when it feels less like a career and more like a calling, especially because the best thing this world has to offer, our children, are the ultimate recipients of my sacrifices. But I was giving too much. I was a martyr. Something had to give. . .

I let go.

Of it all.

I leapt.

I would never take full credit for the good in my life. I believe in God. I believe in the people in my life. I believe in therapy. But more than during any other difficult circumstances in my life, when I began my descent, this time I caught myself. “This isn’t the medicine,” a doctor told me. “It doesn’t work this fast. This is YOU.” It was me. It was me at the gym doing the work. It was me filling my plate with foods that heal rather than harm my body. It was me who chose integrity and humanity over publication. It was me showing up to my weekly therapy appointment. It was me finally showing up for myself.

That yellow brick road brought me to some harsh realizations. But it also sent me on a journey back to myself. It brought me home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPiM-CD25xc

I am all kinds of things. Those of you who really know me have seen me go from forcing my belly to bulge like the Buddha’s and rubbing it to make people laugh to forcing folx to reckon with white supremacy in a matter of minutes. This year has taught me again that I am, above all, the kind of person who does hard things. There is no easy way to live well. Life requires us to be born and to die again and again. That is the nature of being.

May this holiday season be an opportunity for you to love infinitely and reflect on your own being. Wishing you the best. . .

Love always,

Aeriale

Being a professional educator has always

given me the advantage

of being reflective as the years pass by (too quickly). It is possible,

but incredibly difficult

to spend the majority of your days

with children and not constantly be

simultaneously living

in ways that consider the past,

embrace the present,

and look toward the future.

The tiny humans demand that I bring my best self

to the meeting areas

and u-shaped tables

where so much magic happens.

I don’t get up from the floor

in one quick movement

the way I used to. The little people I lean in to

confer with often mark the years with their words:

“You are getting more white hairs, Ms. J.”

If I’d stayed put in the place where I began,

retirement

would be as close

as all their lives are to my heart.

Am I old?

I don’t (really) think so.

I’m in better shape than I have been

thanks to the gift of ‘livabetes’.

My mind is

as

sharp

as

it

has

ever

been.

My heart is full of joy beyond words

and that peace that passes all

understanding.

It is well with my soul.

And. . .

I am half the age my grandmother was upon

her passing.

My time here is not up.

But time is not feeling

infinite.

Am I

making

every moment count?

Am I

living

in a way

that the only words I’ll be desperate to utter when the time for

my

eternal rest

is nigh

are something like,

“Thank you,”

“I love you,”

“I’m so glad I was here!”?

I’ve tried, dear ones. I’ve tried.

Every choice I’ve made doesn’t seem

like the best one

to the people I love.

But everything I’ve done was right

for me.

Perhaps only in the moment.

I’ve self-corrected.

If I have no other stance toward life,

I am a learner.

I am grateful to the Universe

and everything that inhabits it

for being a teacher.

For teaching me.

“There are years that ask questions

and years that answer,”

wrote dear Zora.

The years that do both are harrowing.

Chaos brings out the best

and the worst

in me.

45.

A pandemic. A cross-country move.

A new job. A place to call home.

An abundance. Loss after loss.

The sting of racism.

Again and again and again.

A new job. Again.

Racism. Again.

Abundance. Again.

I’ve had years like this before.

This time

something was different.

I was different.

The past made the present easier to see

clearly.

This too shall pass.

I have a

hope

and

a future.

I have a knowing.

I know how to heal.

Alone.

On land I’ve never traversed.

With my heart wide open.

With gratitude

for it all, but especially the abundance

that allows me to travel

from wells of pain to those of hope

and back again –

renewed,

ready to be present

now and in the future.

46.

Okay. Not really. But this quote from “Steel Magnolias” comes to mind every time I think about how I have arrived at this professional juncture. Integrity. Conviction. Ardor. COMMUNITY. All of these have played an integral role in the decisions that have led to the announcement I am proud to make today. Most of all, though, it is the children who have led me here. In my role as a staff developer over the past year, the best part of my job has been what I’ve loved most since I walked into my first classroom in Walnut Hill, Florida in 1998: the tiny humans. They are my why – and my how, when, and where, too. I am a classroom teacher at heart. I always will be. I believe this is why I am uniquely positioned to make a broader and more profound impact on children’s lives by embarking on a journey alongside the educators who serve them.

KINDER BENDER, which began as a quippy blog name, is now KINDER BENDER Consulting, LLC. I have felt both thrilled and terrified as I take steps to start my own business. More than any other emotion, however, I have felt loved. The universe has put so many brilliant and kind cheerleaders in my path who have convinced me that this is the time and I am an important part of a community of thinkers, writers, speakers, and educators who are rising up to dismantle all forms of oppressive harm in our schools and build anti oppressive systems that affirm the humanity of all children. I cannot wait to partner with organizations and schools working to align their actions with these values.

I will be a consultant focused on equity and inclusion, building joyful and meaningful learning environments for early childhood students and multilingual language learners, and literacy instruction. Additionally, I will be setting aside time to write professional texts that will help educators love children more deeply and embrace pedagogies of liberation, imagination, serendipity, and joy, beginning with finishing The Possibilities of Poetry with Clare Landrigan, which will be published by Stenhouse. I also want to be a children’s book author when I grow up!

I look forward to the future with anticipation and hope. Thank you to all who are with me on this intoxicating journey. . .

I have tried to say something meaningful here

dozens of times since I last posted.

All the starts turned into stops to catch my breath.

Every word typed was eventually

deleted because it wasn’t. . .

right.

I just don’t have the words,

but I will try:

I don’t quite have the confidence

or competence

to tell other educators what to do

when I myself am traipsing through this unknown terrain,

praying each step I take is safe for the children and me.

I would like to be able to say that I am going before them

like the protective Momma Bear I am inclined to be.

But that is a lie I cannot tell.

The truth is, we’re

lado a lado,

desperately holding onto one another

for protection from the dangers we can

and cannot see.

Separately, the children and I

cannot. bear. the. burdens.

Together, we are a force.

Contrary to what people

who do not work with children

would like you to believe,

my beautiful Brown babies are learning

— a lot.

They were offended when I told them

what the media was reporting.

And though when I ask them what about school brings them joy

they sometimes mention fractions

and books

and social studies,

what they mostly talk about is love.

They love themselves, just as they are.

“I love being a Mexican American.”

They love each other, fiercely.

“I don’t wanna log off. I miss you guys already.”

They love me, with a passion

I don’t deserve.

“I’m so glad you’re feeling better, Ms. J.

You’re the best teacher in the world.”

And they love the world in which they live

enough to want to change it.

“The past and the present are connected.

We should notice how they are.

If we look to the past

and bring what we learn to the present,

we can change.

I want to change.

I want to include people in things.”

We have faced many challenges,

personal and school-related,

together since we were rushed off campus

on March 13, 2020.

And though I know with certainty

we are better readers,

writers,

mathematicians,

scientists,

and historians

today than then,

what really matters is that we,

all of us,

are more compassionate human beings.

We live

and work

week after week

with the certainty

that our classroom community is. . .

fuerte,

that we are infinitely

better together than we are apart.

Each one of us has a lot to teach

as well as learn.

We know that the ideas of the child

who writes paragraphs at warp speed

are not more valuable

than those of the one who has to

“write in the air”

because they cannot yet

put pencil to paper in

conventional ways.

When they ask to speak,

they prove what we already know:

“I wrote thank you to Biden

for wanting to keep my family together.

Trump wanted to send my parents

back to Mexico.”

Palabras give us the gift of expression,

but being an emergent multilingual

does not mean

that your thoughts are not powerful

and your heart is not burdened,

that you do not deserve a place

at the table where we are all somehow

(be)com(ing).

I guess that’s the punto

I have been meandering toward

since the first words I typed and let

be:

I cannot tell you what to do.

I have no magic formula,

no silver bullets.

But I offer this advice to you:

In the midst of all this

stress,

confusion,

chaos,

and,

yes,

darkness,

do not miss out on the opportunity

to love the tiny humans

on the other side of the screen or plexiglass.

Welcome them with a smile.

Sing with them.

Laugh with them.

Dance with them.

Learn alongside them.

Make a fool of yourself for them.

Humble yourself enough to know

that school is not the only place where children learn.

Their families and communities teach them

the things most essential to their survival.

Many of our children are safer at home

where they can keep their identity

and dignity

intact.

And while I implore you to love them,

do not be confused about what I mean.

Love is not pity.

Love does not always make

hard things easy.

Love supports

and challenges.

Love makes us take

long, hard looks

at ourselves

and our biases.

Love tears down systemic barriers

— permanently.

Love prioritizes.

Love speaks truth to power

for the sake of our children.

Love finds a way

where there seems to be no way.

Love is a force.

Together, in love, WE are a force.

And though we may stumble,

and even fall,

we must continue to hoist one another up.

The challenges we professional educators are facing as we navigate serving children during a pandemic multiply by the hour. The media, the general public, parents, district office personnel, administrators, coaches, consultants — anyone who does not actually interface with children daily — all have an opinion. . . and a silver bullet. Turn off the chat box. (You already know how I feel about this.) This is the best videoconferencing platform of them all. Give them an incentive. . .

This “easy, quick fix” mentality is not surprising to veteran teachers. (I have been doing this for twenty-three years, y’all!) It is the snake oil education reform has always been made of — by folks who do not truly know children .

While I do not believe that you have to be in the virtual classroom every day to have a voice, you do have to show up. And when you do, you need to log on with a learning stance. All of your preconceived notions about what school “should” look like have to be thrown away. These are not “normal” times. Children are not learning under “normal” circumstances. And “normal” wasn’t working for the majority of children anyway.

For so many of our dear children, normalcy was erasure. When we expect “normal” — which has always been a harmful social construct rooted in all forms of bigotry — we fail to see the bold brilliance and beauty of the actual children who are sitting in front of us.

When we fail to see children, we cannot possibly make them visible in our curriculum, libraries, instructional practices, or our individual and collective class and school hearts. Under these circumstances, children become invisible. This isn’t a pandemic schooling problem, but it is now exacerbated to the point that not acknowledging it is willful ignorance.

This week I had to administer a computerized assessment to my students. While I question the rationale behind standardized testing under our current circumstances (I’m just lying. I question it under all circumstances!), there are some battles I choose not to fight because I know I will become weary to no avail. So, I showed my students how to log onto the assessment platform and told them they needed to find the quietest place in their homes (babysitter’s, tio’s, or abuela’s homes, or daycare centers) to work:

“I am at school right now and no one is our classroom but me, so it’s quiet. But if I were at home, I would definitely take my iPad to my bathroom and shut the door to take my assessment. My bedroom is noisy because I live by the train station. The rest of my house can be noisy because I live with a lot of people. When I have to record something, I really do go in the bathroom and shut the door.”

Not only was this an intentional move, it’s the absolute truth. Every PD video I did this past summer was filmed in front of the cabinetry of my bathroom. (You didn’t notice, did you? It was the fancy lighting I rigged up.) No one who participated in my professional development was harmed by this “abnormal” behavior, quite the contrary. It got the job done! I wanted my kids to know that it was okay to live in a noisy house and to find “out of the box” solutions for getting away from the jubilation when necessary.

One of my loves said, “I’m going to take my iPad to my grandma’s closet. It will be very quiet in there and I can focus.” She headed for her intended destination, sat down, and got to work. When she was finished, I looked at her assessment report and the results were phenomenal. She, in defiance of the “learning loss” narrative that is being perpetuated throughout US schools, was right where she needed to be to begin the challenging work of third grade. And. She. Took. The. Assessment. In. Her. Grandma’s. Closet.

There are so many things we need to release to truly meet children’s needs as we embark on this school-year-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic. But I hope we will all quickly come to understand that perhaps the first thing we need to toss into the basura is “normal.” We are not returning to “normal.” We cannot.

The past several months have laid bare the inequities that exist in our society. Turning off chat boxes, perfect videoconference platforms, and incentives will not erase them and make education equitable. Only dismantling this system that does not live up to its calling will do that. And this begins with deliberately meeting children, their families, and their communities as they are, right where they are (and not trying to “save” or change them). Even if that’s in their Grandma’s closet.

And you can meet me in my bathroom if you want to continue this conversation. I’ve been working there since I was a child, to be honest. . .

A week ago I viewed a professional development video that made me cringe. The presenters said that the chat box in our virtual classrooms should only allow students to communicate with the teacher, not one another. “They might be silly if you let them chat,” they suggested. I took to Twitter to express my very refined thoughts:

I had to listen to someone leading PD say “they might be silly if you let them chat.” Meanwhile teachers are on a back channel text thread sending emoji reactions. Do you know what children are? They are people! Your oppressive policies need to be shut down, not the chat box. pic.twitter.com/p3RJsKdHQM

— antiracist aeriale she/her/we (@arcticisleteach) August 13, 2020

When we shut down schools in March, I had no idea what I was doing. I had never taught a class of elementary school students online and was not even sure it could be done effectively. But I’m the kind of person who does hard things. Always. I mustered together my resources, found other educators facing the same challenges, leaned into the ambiguity and discomfort of the moment, and radically imagined new possibilities.

As I began to navigate this new territory, the thought of closing the chat box never crossed my mind. It wouldn’t. It is an instructional practice rooted in adultism and control. I believe in the humanity of children and their freedom. And they never, ever let me down when I maintain those values, even when the world seems to be spiraling out of control.

California is ablaze right now. The Bay Area skies are filled with smoke. When we returned from our lunch break yesterday, the children were filled with questions (and answers) about what is happening. So we skipped my intentions for our writing workshop and spent some time asking our friend, Google, our questions. We watched videos and read an article. As we came to the end of our inquiry, a message appeared in the chat box:

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH 2020?

I gasped.

“I know, friend,” I responded verbally. “This year does seem to be very difficult, doesn’t it?”

And then, the chat box exploded (correct spelling and punctuation courtesy of me):

I agree with you, (student’s name).

I know! First Kobe died.

What else?

BLACK LIVES MATTER!

Sad.

I wish I wasn’t born in this time.

I agree.

I agree.

I agree.

Am I going to die?

2020, why? Just why?

I agree.

*Hits 2020 and eats it!

We have COVID-19 and now we have wildfires? Jeez!

This is super scary!

How much more?

*Crying emoji

What’s next 2020? Just don’t make it bad!

I want to see 2021!

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

What’s next in 2020 that’s gonna be bad?

Please, 2020, make something lucky, not worse!

I’m going to 2021.

I agree.

Me too.

More like 2022!

No. Wait. Go to 2016. That was the best year!

I am going to 2019.

I hate 2020.

Bye!

Nooooooo!

Bye! I’m going to 2022.

I want to be a baby again.

I’m sick.

Every year except 2020 is the best year. You want to know why? Because there was no virus.

Take me with you!

Virus! Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

Oof!

*Forty crying emojis

My family’s still alive.

No, no, no! It’s like this. First Kobe Bryant dies. Then alarms go off on our phones. Then quarantine. Then fires! Like jeez! What else could be next?

2019, I miss you.

Me too!

Seriously!

This thread began at 12:39 and ended at 12:50. We engaged in deep dialogue orally as the children processed alongside each other in the chat box. Our conversation led us to make a heart map that posed the initial question: WHAT IS GOING ON WITH 2020? While we listed what was troubling our hearts, we also thought about the joy that the year has brought us as well. Our time was running short, so I offered a teaching point: Writers think about hard things and process their feelings in their writing. We spent three minutes quick writing from our heart maps and decided we would continue this work today.

These pieces are still working drafts, but let me tell you that I was blown away by the power of my third graders’ writing as they shared today. I didn’t teach any craft moves or require the writing to be done in a specific genre before the quick write yesterday, but appropriate ones for this topic — like poetry and narrative, and repetends and dialogue — surfaced naturally. I cannot wait for them to finish these pieces. Their drafts are already so good!

And now I have to wonder, would any of this have happened if I had limited their chat box use to communicating with me? You already know the answer. . .

Children might not “be silly.” Children will be silly. They are children. But they will also be brilliant if we stop trying to control them to accomplish our desired outcomes, which only serve to fuel adult egos.

I have said it a million times, at least. I will say it a million more. Children are the epitome of everything good in this world! It is children who will set us free. I feel more empowered to navigate this harrowing year already having had this incredible experience with them. . .all because I did not stifle their voices and trusted them to use the chat box.

Any fellow educator who really knows me is aware of my obsession with Opal School, which is in the Portland Children’s Museum in Portland, Oregon. I know, right?! What a great place for a school. Opal is a Reggio-inspired elementary school that serves preschoolers through fifth graders. The work the educators there do with children is breathtakingly beautiful because it is rooted in a deep respect for children and their families and a firm belief that children are not becoming, they already are brilliant, capable human beings.

I have learned so much from Opal School educators and children over the past several years. Every opportunity I have had to spend time at Opal School has left me overflowing with love for children and gratitude that I get to spend my life learning from them. Sadly, we had to gather online for this summer’s symposium. I missed seeing some of my favorite educators, but I was thrilled that they gave me an opportunity to be a featured speaker.

I wanted to share some excerpts of my presentation here to both give Opal a public shout-out and preserve the thoughts I am having in this moment. (And, if I’m being honest, to post without writing something new.) In case y’all didn’t know, this is really more of a public teacher diary than anything else. . .

I opened with a viewing of Keedron Bryant’s viral outcry:

Colleagues, I cannot protect your feelings or mince words with you today. The world, as my dear friend Sara Ahmed says, has given us a curriculum. It has been offering itself to us for an incredibly long time, actually. But the very system that purports to be the great equalizer, the foundation of our democracy — allegedly free and ostensibly appropriate public education — was never designed to listen to all of its stakeholders or serve all children. Our education system has always been, and currently is, a tool of white supremacy. Racism climbs inside fancy boxes that say “teacher-approved,” it slips between pages labeled “peer-reviewed research,” and hides itself between the lines of discipline referrals that read “non-compliant, disorderly, and distracting” in an attempt to dupe us. But those of us who refuse to be, at this point, willfully ignorant know the truth: For the Black, Brown, and indigenous children in our care, education requires assimilation to whiteness. And assimilation by its very nature is racist and stands in stark contrast to genuine listening. This dear boy, Keedron Bryant, every peaceful activist pounding the pavement, every author behind antiracist texts, every Tweeter, every artist, every anti-bias/antiracist teacher, even every brick hurler and every looter who are authentic protestors. . .all of these people who are crying out #blacklivesmatter, #mylifematters. . .are former or current students who have been systemically, perpetually unheard. I hope that you will listen to me today. 

I just wanna live.

I told a number of Black, indigenous, children of color’s stories before closing out the presentation as follows:

The trauma that the refusal to listen to and believe Black, Brown, and indigenous people causes has ushered our country into upheaval. And if we stop and do an honest analysis, we will discover that our classrooms are microcosms of society inclusive of the same problems. The only answer to the challenges we face is antiracism. Educators must become co-conspirators who actively work to dismantle a system that is oppressing all of their students. 

For Black, Brown and indigenous children, schools are places where they must shed their identities, and often endure affronts, in order to simply learn. Their schooling experiences are so contrived, so disconnected from the lives they lead in their communities, it is as if they are living two separate lives. This double consciousness weaves the tangled web of a colonized identity marginalized children will spend their entire lives untangling in order to “get free.” Surrendering ourselves is too high a price to pay for an education. 

I just want to live.

The centering of whiteness — a social, not a biological construct, designed for the purpose of subjugating people of color — is problematic for white children, too. What does it mean to grow up with your way of being in the world centered all of the time while you watch others get cast aside? How do you learn to listen to varied perspectives and live an inclusive life beyond Ethiopian food delivery if the world in which you live is always all about you?

The most powerful action we can take right now is to get proximate with our children and their communities and listen to them — both their verbal and nonverbal communication—with no intent to respond and without an expectation to hear what we want them to say. When educators truly listen, we develop the kind of empathy necessary to humble ourselves in the presence of our children and their communities. When we embrace a pedagogy of listening, we begin to see beyond our biases and the children and their communities begin to shed light on how we can be anitracist co-conspirators as they seize the power that Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to as “our birthright as inheritors of the American Dream.” 

We just want to live.

I am so blessed to be able to think alongside the Opal School community. They have pushed me to continuously dig deeper and work harder to ensure that the children I am blessed to call my students never experience the tyranny of what Paulo Freire called “adultism” in our classroom. May the children in my care always know how it feels to be free. . .

Thank you, Opal School!