teach
The path to peace, MacLean Park, Queen Anne, Seattle. Photo by the author.
Image description: black & white photo of a wooded path with words written in chalk: Equality, Healing, Time, Grounding, Love, TrustFriendship, Motivation, Harmony, Respect, Patience, Peace.”
“Here, let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
Teachers make a goddamn difference! Now what about you?”
from Taylor Mali, “What Teachers Make”
Taylor Mali’s “What Teachers Make” is a response to the patronizing and degrading attitude too many people have about teachers, the attitude conveyed with clichés like “Those who can, do; those who can’t teach” and reinforced by the assumption that a salary is a good indicator of personal and societal value. I wish that the situation Mali captures in the poem were infrequent, but no day passes without teachers’ authority, expertise, purpose, and effectiveness being questioned, if not outright assaulted. I’ve shared Mali’s performance of the poem with colleagues many times both to brush off any buildup of disrespect and to tap into and kindle the passion at the heart of teaching. All teachers can recognize themselves somewhere in Mali’s poem, whether as the butt of hurtful clichés or in the multiple layers of the job that all point to one big task: guiding people to become their best selves.
In the spring of 2001, I was in the final semester of my master of theological studies program. By that time, I’d ruled out applying for PhD programs - by that point, I’d been in school for 21 years. “I should probably try to make some money for a couple of years,” I said flippantly to my mother, who’d asked about my post-divinity school plans. “That’s probably a good idea,” she replied with a roll of the eyes I could hear via long distance telephone. A few months later (read this part with an air of arrogance), I was ready to put my undergrad and grad school education to work in the service of shaping young minds. #noble
I prepared for my classes in world religions and my role as a campus minister with the cockiness particular to young, male teachers. I imagined the ways my students would parrot my commitments and mimic my style. I couldn’t wait to make a difference in these nascent, unformed children’s lives. The universe had my back, too - the first day of classes would be on my 25th birthday, which I understood as an auspicious convergence.
My first day of teaching, my 25th birthday, fell on September 11, 2001. At the 9:30am all school assembly, the head of school delivered a jumble of details about a plane crash, a fire, an attack in New York, and asked for everyone to pray. We were confused and startled, and after a quick faculty meeting, our job for the day was clear: be present. Students moved through their schedule, mostly delighting in each other’s presence after a summer away from each other and regularly remembering the gravity of the day and the mood of the building. Some teachers walked through their syllabi and classroom expectations, but first-day lesson plans evaporated. Instead, they read the room - some groups wanted to talk, some wanted to pray, some wanted to ask questions, and teachers adapted.
Wandering around the campus, I noted the presence of teachers in every public space - in the library, the dining hall, the community center, somewhat occupied with stacks of papers or books but mostly just being there, paying attention to students, ready to attend to questions or concerns or rising anxieties. The head of school spent a good portion of the day at the front door, greeting panicked parents who planned to round up their families and bring them home. “What is she going to do at home all day, watch the television coverage?” One by one, she turned parents away, comforting some, calming others. “She’s here with her friends, she’s got her routine.” I wondered, Is this what she does all day? “She’s safe.”
The job I’d imagined and the persona I was ready to construct were gone, or at least irrelevant. My job wasn’t really to “teach,” but to be present. To make kids feel safe. To make kids feel safe enough to become their best selves. And when they do, they’ll change the world. Twenty years later, I worry that I didn’t look deep enough, that I didn’t ask the right questions or challenge the answers that left me unsatisfied. In the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, independent school students and alumnx created “black@” accounts on social media to share the experiences of students of color. Reading the stories shared about the schools where I worked was painful, and it prompted me to reconsider not just my impact as a teacher but my approach to schools and education in general. All those years I thought I was making a difference...was I just propping up unjust structures and reinforcing unjust systems?
Last summer, Krista Tippett spoke with Robin D’Angelo and Resmaa Menakem about racism and the work white people need to do. The conversation was recorded a month after the murder of George Floyd, and you can hear the exhaustion, the rage, and the deep sadness in the voices of all three. The national dialogue that emerged urgently pointed to the social structures that instill and sustain injustice and systemic racism, but Menakem shed light on why that approach isn’t enough. “[W]hite body supremacy is not just structural,” he explained, “but it’s also a philosophy. That’s why it can mutate. That’s why it can adapt to every situation, and before you know it, whiteness is once again centered, even though you started off with a liberation mindset or trying to effect some type of change.”
What Menakem calls philosophy, I refer to as worldview, the lens, shaped by our experiences and the beliefs and practices we inherit or adopt, through which we know ourselves, others, and the world, and that shapes our practical, ethical, and ultimate decisions. Most folx don’t take (or have) the time to reflect and map out their worldviews. Instead, worldviews operate almost instinctively, come into focus in times of crisis or conflict, and emerge with nostalgia. They come to the surface in times of grief and times of joy. We wrangle over names and words not because of a general human obsession with semantics but because our worldviews conflict. Just focusing on the structures in which our worldviews meet doesn’t go far enough, Menakem suggests. In My Grandmother’s Hands, he gives us a starting point that attends to both structures and the worldviews (emphasis added).
White body supremacy offers the white body a sense of belonging. It provides a false sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, of being part of something intrinsically valuable...there are other ways to belong and many other things to belong to. We can belong as family, as friends, as intimate partners, as neighbors, as countrymen, as fellow human beings. We will not end white body supremacy or any other form of evil by trying to tear it to pieces. Instead, we can offer people better ways to belong, and better things to belong to. Instead of belonging to a race, we can belong to a culture. Each of us can also build our genuine capacity for belonging.
For too long, we’ve blamed and focused on the structures, but how often do we take responsibility for building or buttressing the structures that keep us from becoming our best selves? for dwelling on the conflicts between worldviews, but not the possibilities and wonder that come from dialogue? for expecting others to change but not doing the work to change ourselves? for settling for easy answers instead of harder questions? Without taking responsibility, engaging each other in authentic dialogue, starting with ourselves, and braving the harder questions, what difference can we really expect?
