A chance encounter with an old friend prompts reflection on the importance of asking others “how are you?” amidst global hardships. They emphasize that despite pain in the world, beauty and joy exist, advocating for continued connection and support among each other.
The author reflects on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass,” emphasizing the significance of the seventh fire in Anishanaabe prophecy. As spring unfolds, they stress the need for both introspection and forward movement, advocating for connection with nature and the wisdom it offers. This journey aims to inspire positive change in the world.
Protests continue and activism is growing in the US today. We struggle against a great deal. What are we struggling for? What might we learn from our elders and history?
Half of special education teachers leave within five years, reflecting significant challenges in the profession. The author’s personal journey highlights the need for supportive, community-oriented educational systems that respect teachers and foster genuine connections to enhance learning for all students.
Listening this morning to an old song, “We Are the World” and found myself drifting away into the land of music, asking “what makes a voice beautiful.”
We are in a hard time of struggle both internal and external. It is a time to find our something to hold on to that keeps us safe while we grow strong with love.
I got hit in the face this past week. I’m a special education teacher these days, so in my current line of work while that’s unexpected it’s also very much expected. It’s basically just a bad day at work.
Over the past few years I’ve been hit, kicked, shoved, scratched, bitten, sworn at, threatened, had desks, chairs, and all sorts of other stuff thrown at me, and dealt with and been covered in just about every bodily fluid elementary school students can excrete, not to mention being covered in all the globs of macaroni and cheese or whatever other food is on the menu. So, why note getting hit? It wasn’t a bad punch. It knocked off my glasses, but didn’t break them or even leave a physical mark. It was one of those hits that came at the wrong time though and for that moment I broke into tears.
It happens to all of us who work in our schools today, especially in schools like mine that serve significant populations of students who are from low income families, struggle with maintaining housing and paying their bills, and who often have generations of history that tell them school success isn’t meant for them. Eventually, our hearts break.
I felt the tears come to my eyes as soon as the student’s hand hit my cheek. I knew I needed support to address the situation, so I called on a staff member in the hall nearby to takeover and I walked as quickly as I could to the office space I share with the other special education teachers at my school. I was crumbling. I was a broken mirror in which each of my colleagues could see themselves. One went to get ice and a health care staff person to check my cheek. The others each offered support and let me cry out my tears. They created a safe space for me for which I will always be thankful.
The hit hurt not because of the hand that landed on my cheek, but because I’d spent my day, like more and more days lately, trying to help not only this student but others, my students who simply don’t have the emotional skills to handle being homeless or dealing with any other horrendous and unfair situations they and their families are in. So often their emotions fly all over. One moment they seem to be fine, calm and settled. The next they’re screaming and throwing chairs. It worsens as their life situations become more chaotic and all I can do so often is just try to be that steady safe person they can trust. That can be good and it can be hard. After all, I’m the one they know won’t hit back. They can show their anger, fear, and sorrow, and it hurts.
It’s tiring. I don’t know how to change the situation in our schools, but I do know it can’t go on like this. I took a day off to just take care of myself before coming back to help my kids again. That helped me for the moment and gave me the strength I needed to give to these kids again, but it’s no solution. We ultimately have to stop focusing on teaching subjects and start focusing on teaching and caring for kids. There has to be a way. These beautiful kids deserve the best.
Like millions of others around the world and thousands here in Madison, I stood holding a candle last night to honor the passing of Renee Nicole Good and the far too many others who have been murdered along with her by ICE. Standing there in the cold I found myself thinking about the past 30+ years that I’ve spent standing on those capitol steps at rallies and vigils, working toward justice and peace, and recognizing the connection of my years to the those of others. We’ve stood for so long and each time the crowds are larger and stronger.
I thought about the Anishanaabe prophecies of the eight fires and wondered if we are indeed at that place spoken of in the seventh fire where we are facing that critical choice between destruction and balance. I believe we are and we must seek that balance both internally and as a whole if we are to find peace. Afterall, peace doesn’t come through war. I wish I had some answers. All I know right now is that we must reach out in peace. We must find those seeds of joy admist the chaos and nuture them, help them grow into the trees of celebration that they are meant to become.
In this moment I am just reaching out to all of you, my brothers and sisters in the struggle and sharing this electronic hug and wishing you love in your lives.
My work for social justice for the past few years has largely been working in special education. It looks a lot different than my days running non-profits or organizing on the streets, but ultimately the same questions are there. It’s always about recognizing the underlying issues if we want to find the long term answers.
Because of the federal government shut down SNAP is running out. Millions of people will be losing the benefits that make it possible for them to feed themselves and their families on November 1st. Many states are jumping in to hold off the crash and to keep people fed.
As a teacher at a school that serve many families that receive SNAP benefits, I’m wondering what’s going to happen. How long will states be able to keep their finger in the dike to stop the hunger flood? What will be cut from those state budgets to make it possible to keep the families fed?
Mostly, I find myself asking what happens not only in the loss of SNAP but in the fear of the loss? When families are in that spot of having to choose whether to buy food or pay rent, which will they choose? So many families are already making tough choices to make ends meet and it impacts our kids far beyond the dinner table. Families are choosing between buying food or paying for gas. When they can’t keep gas in the car, kids don’t get to school. In many schools this means that not only are they losing out on their education, but they’ve also missed out on breakfast, lunch, and probably a snack which they were entitled to via free and reduced meal programs. It’s an awful circle. Not enough money for food and gas, so buy gas, then no food at home so skip eating from lunch until the next day. Buy food and well, can’t get to school and parents can’t get to work.
I wonder how our attendance rates will be affected in upcoming weeks with tightening budgets and already stressed parents facing yet another strain making it more and more to keep themselves together and get their kids to school. I wonder how behaviors will change. Kids are ultimately mirrors of the stresses in their parents’ lives.
How to we amplify the voices of these kids and their families so that those in Washington can hear them? How do we make their struggle visible? How do we take this moment in time of losing SNAP and point to where it leads us with kids going hungry, struggling in school, struggling in life, and just not going anywhere?
It was a great rally. It was many great rallies. It was more than 7 million people out in the streets saying “No Kings!” It was also simply a tool in the process of organizing.
I started as a professional community organizer back in the late 1990’s working for an organization called SOCM in East Tennessee. I was just out of college and had the justified anger and the will to fight every day for social social justice and the big environmental wins. I was there to stop the multinational corporations that were clearcutting the foresting and stripmining the hills. I knew if we just fought hard enough, rallied enough, yelled loud enough, we would win. We had to win. There was no other option. We had to save the world.
Every month I had to take on the hardest struggle of my organizing work. I had to first write my work plan then, even more challenging, I had to sit down with my boss, Mo, and review and edit that work plan. Every single month Mo would ask me the same question multiple times as we went down my list of things to do. She kept asking me over and over– “How does this move the work forward?”
That question still echoes in my mind. “How does this move the work forward?” Rallies are great. They are important. Writing to your legislator, voting, writing letters to the editor, signing petitions, volunteering, and some many activites are wonderful things. But, we must remember that each is simply a tool. What is it that we are working to do? It’s not enough to simply point out that Trump is not good for the US or the world. We have to develop and work toward a different answer.
Are we working to save democracy? What does democracy really look like? What is the role of the grassroots in a healthy, functioning democracy? Once we start asking ourselves those questions and really coming up with our vision of what a healthy, functioning democracy based in the power of the grassroots might look like then we can speak to that question “How does this move the work forward” with each and every action that we take. Each thing that we do needs to move toward the goal.
We don’t rally for the sake of rallying. Rallies are a tool. Let’s use them in the best ways possible. Let’s ask ourselves “How does this move the work forward?” When we make our path and goal clear the seven million engages beyond the day of the rally and the movement multiplies. We can win. First step is knowing what winning is. Is our goal to save or rebuild democracy or is it simply to get Trump out of office? Second step is figure out what we need to meet that goal. Third step is to determine how we get those things that we need whether it be redistricing or strong presidential candidate or any of a hundred other things. Next we prepare to act while asking ourselves every step of the way, “How does this move the work forward?”
It is a long and hard journey. We know that. We also know that long journeys are often much easier once we pull out a map. It’s time to create our map of where we want to go.
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