Sometimes it seems wrong to write about anything else other than the suffering and darkness, the oppression and destruction that is directly affecting many of the children in our schools and all the people in their communities. I have been writing this blog every day in a search to find reasons to keep going when it gets harder and harder, nearly impossible to do what I believe is good for kids in their daily lives spent in schools.
The answer I find lately is that there is no other choice. Every act, every time we use our voice, take a stand, we are keeping the struggle for justice and life going. This has been going on a long time.
Some of us can choose to ignore the struggle because we are not targeted. Or because we can suspend belief and sell ourselves on excuses.
I have seen our work in schools, every chance we get to provide information and help children think, argue, act, as part of this struggle. I cannot in good conscience let myself quit. So I keep looking for how to keep on.
Lately, I see that I need to take another step deeper into understanding the system as it directly affects our kids and their communities and indirectly everyone. Right now, I am finding information and explanations and insights listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates in interviews, reading discussions of his writing in The Atlantic here and here, and reading his book, Between the World and Me.
I have glimpses of getting to another level in my capacity to see the context in which we are living, the context in which our kids try to survive. My hope is I will be better at knowing what to do, how to think about what we do, how to talk (argue) about what we need to do, when school starts in the fall.
Yesterday I took a break and read poems. That was a privilege. Today I’m trying to learn. I’m trying to get smarter. I want to come up with a way to act, to speak (argue), to work more powerfully this coming year. Our kids need us to counteract what is happening out in the world.