Teaching on the Day after Trump Is Elected - Entrepreneur Generations

A few days into my teaching career, 9/11 happened. We were dismissed over the PA at around noon, and everyone was sent home; there, I sat with my two roommates -- both first-year Baltimore City teachers themselves -- and we watched the devastation of what was happening on the streets of New York City and Washington DC. In between those two cities, we sat in our cocoon of grief and shock for much of the night, before learning through the news that we would indeed have school the next day.

A colleague's sign made me feel better.

September 12, 2001, was a hard day to teach. I was 24 years old, just 2 months from living on a college campus, in the throws of the beginning of my first year of teaching, in a city where I knew no one. The grief and confusion were overwhelming. However, it felt good after those 15 or 16 straight hours of watching coverage of devastation to go back to school, to feel like I was part of a community again. I was grateful to my students and peers, with whom I could talk and share and feel like the world wasn't ending.

It's disrespectful to compare the events of September 11, 2001, and November 8, 2016. No one died yesterday; we weren't attacked by foreign entities (at least, not so with a bomb... the e-mail hacking is another story I guess). But the feelings of shock and mourning today were reminiscent of that day back in 2001.

As I entered the building before first period in the cold rain, it was hard to look anyone in the eye. I skittered off to my classroom, and, almost immediately, I was glad I was there. My students looked tired but they were okay. Some were smiling and chatting; some were trying to get their homework done. It felt good to see them.

Unfortunately, throughout the day, I had no words of wisdom for them. I really didn't have the language yet; the shock was too huge. Several students looked at me and asked if I was okay, that I looked miserable. I was. Kids wanted to talk with me, asking me what I thought. Some asked who I voted for. I saw kids with streaks of tears down their faces, others whose "I've come to expect this attitude" belied their obvious pain. And I noted that my complete shock in the results was a part of my privilege. I've certainly witnessed inequity and experienced some discrimination and hatred, but I haven't witnessed it or lived it like most of my students: not even close. Of course these results aren't a shock to them. For me, I was expecting a 3rd straight electoral college presidential victory; for these kids another reminder that their interests were expendable (after Freddie, after Trayvon, etc.) wasn't a surprise. After all, for these kid, the memories of Barack Obama being elected in 2008 were distant; they were all still in elementary school.

Teaching while being heartbroken is as hard as one can expect. I was up until 2am and woke up feeling crummy and thought about making today my first Sick Day of the year. But I recognized that I wanted to be among my students. For me, the results of this election scream to me that I don't matter, that my rights don't matter. But for my black and brown students, especially female students, the scream is louder. I hail from conservative southwest Michigan, and didn't really fit in, but I still don't recognize a nation that would elect an open misogynist and bigot like Trump. It feels like the United States has, with this election, repudiated what I considered to be our values of compassion and inclusiveness. I guess I was wrong. I wanted to be back in school, where things make sense.

So today I scrapped part of my lesson plan to show Hillary's gracious concession speech. I offered some time for discussion. I shared how saddened I was. I lightened up on the work. Tomorrow, I will try to offer more.

James Baldwin has a line in "My Dungeon Shook" where he says, "But remember, most of mankind is not all of mankind." And that optimistic line in the middle of that essay -- set aside with parentheses -- is one of the most important lines to me; it's the flashes of optimism in Baldwin's rage-filled work that make it so powerful. And one thing that has given me some solace today is to remember that HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE. This isn't most of us -- but it's enough to give Trump the Electoral College victory. That's one thing I'll share; it made me feel better and it might them.

And being around my students helped. They are sad but they seem to be able to move on quicker than adults. Their resilience is inspiring. But the despairing kids also are inspiring, because I know they will channel that into movement and action. And, tomorrow, I'm going to try to be better in bringing forth my glass-half-full philosophy. Teachers need to be optimists, even in the face of pain and upheaval. And I will try, and I will get better.

from Epiphany in Baltimore http://epiphanyinbmore.blogspot.com/2016/11/teaching-on-day-after-trump-is-elected.html Teaching on the Day after Trump Is Elected - Entrepreneur Generations

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