After 9 months writing daily with a goal to find reasons to hope, to sustain morale, to keep trying within our school buildings, I am conceding to the need to go outside the school building. Returning to school, I saw a look in teachers’ eyes: Here we go again. I fought weariness at the prospect of once again navigating through chaotic pressures, complex measures of accountability that take time from just plain teaching our children.
In the back of my mind that first morning, was the Chicago parents’ hunger strike to save their children’s neighborhood school from being closed. The situation for our children, their families and communities is dire.
This video from GoLeftAmerica about their effective action in Detroit is so important in this minute. We hear the steps taken based on knowing the rules, the laws, and the actions that had been taken that crossed those lines. We hear strength, clarity, determination and knowledge in the ‘thousands of hours’ they put into legal action.
My goal has been to find reasons to hope, to sustain morale, to share evidence that we can prevail. We can prevail. Its a long struggle.
I now realize that even though others are sharing these stories, there might never be too many of us sharing. I see now that while the political (and physical) battles that determine our fates rage outside, we must still look for spaces within our buildings to do what matters for our kids and spaces in the world outside our buildings where we can change the course of the corporate juggernaut looting our public school system.
We need to connect our actions, our knowledge and wisdom–within and beyond—resisting in our buildings and classrooms with our daily practice and outside into the political arena among our communities.