Living Peacefully Together

Last week I made a tongue-in-cheek post that summarized a conversation with my daughter.  

I said, "I need a facelift."

She responded, "No you don't! There's nothing wrong with aging!"

There was so much to unpack in this short conversation that my friend invited me to write a blog post about it.  Indeed, I could dig into why I thought I needed a facelift. I could have joked about how my daughter used the phrasing she did (i.e., she could have said, "you don't look old"). I could have opined on how women live in their skin, always aware of their skin, in ways that men don't. I could have interrogated my friend Gretchen's view that "isn't it interesting how we still feel that we need to tell women what to do with their bodies, what they do and do not need, and how they should feel about how they look."

Tonight, I write. But it isn't about my face, women's place in the world, or living in my skin, though in some ways, it's all connected because it's about me, my identity, and living in my world.

I need to write tonight because my kid is crying - because of me.

I am both a third generation American, with my grandmother's aunt being turned away at Ellis Island because of an eye condition, and a Daughter of the Revolution, who can trace her ancestry clearly to Anne Bradstreet, the first female American poet.  My mother was the first of her family to graduate college. My father chose the best college for him, even though he had to pay for it himself.

Though the genealogical paths are different, the outcome was the same: my parents really valued their education, and they instilled this value in me.  Additionally, I think I inherited the mindset of both the "born American" and "the immigrant."  Perhaps this is what shapes my worldview. 

Or perhaps it was the revelation I had after I left my rural high school community and was first introduced to a history that was different than what I had learned in the textbook. After one article I read in college my freshman year suggested that maybe Columbus didn't "discover "America, it took me six years, a move to one of the most diverse states in the US, and being one of two white people in a room full of Black teachers to understand that I didn't know anything about race in America. Until then, I didn't recognize that I was white and that being white came with privileges.

My mom had told me this for years.  As a first generation college graduate (shout out to First Gen Day, November 8!), she knew her access to college was different than the families who lived on her parents' childhood streets. Her parents were poor but white, and they were able to buy a house in a neighborhood that allowed their daughter to go to the "better school" in her city. Their Black neighbors, she explained, did not have that opportunity. She inherently knew - and relayed to me - that her race helped her to move forward. Her parents hadn't graduated high school. But she graduated college, a luxury afforded to the white people on the "immigrant" block (in quotes because Black people were not actually immigrants in this timeframe).

There are so many examples of this in history.  But I didn't learn them in school.  Red-lining.  Do you know it?  Did you know that standardized tests are inherently biased, meaning that entry into college has always been (and continues to be) problematic? We don't examine these things in the traditional curriculum. I didn't know them until I had the opportunity to engage in advanced studies.

My experience as the one of the only white people in the room during my graduate school days helped me to refocus, reimagine my history. It also helped me to see, truly see, all the students in my classes when I taught high school (and now college and grad school) - Black, White, Hispanic, LGBTQ+, Female, Male, Muslim, Jewish, Christian - and all other identities. I knew that I could not empathize with every person's experience; but I could understand that everyone had an experience that was different than mine and that each experience should be valued.

So, I guess I became "woke" because I started to see others and wonder how their experiences and perspectives might differ from my own. As an educator, a parent, and a human, I ask questions, I admit when I make assumptions that might be judgmental, and I advocate for systems that do the same. I do not accept that one history/narrative/perspective is "right." I am biased, and I need to question my own biases at every turn.

As a parent of teens, this is particularly hard, but I try, always, to see my kids' point of view and, when appropriate, admit that mine might not be the only one to reign.

Ok, so this is me. This is who I am. Just pause for a minute and ask what might be problematic in this view. I'm willing to take the criticism in the comments if you want to stop reading here. Fire away.

I say that not because I enjoy taking fire. I actually hate conflict. But when my kid comes home sobbing because of my views on life, I need to put it out there. What about these views makes a parent of another child - someone who has met me exactly once in passing and who has never talked to me about anything of substance - tell their kid they cannot hang out with mine? What makes me evil?

Here's the rub. I wrote this letter to the school board when a few parents complained about reading a text that brought current events and racial issues into a classroom conversation. By educator accounts, students were engaged with this text (lots of research to back why they would be), and the handling of the text was balanced.

Then, I organized a group of parents to attend a school board meeting to counter a petition that was proposed by the same group of parents. This petition said:

The changes enacted to the English Curriculum in August 2021 exceed the intent of the [state] statutes and engage in social justice activism, promote radical progressive philosophies that conflict with the values and beliefs of the community.  These initiative have created a hyper-racialized, divisive, environment resulting in the silencing of students and a concern amongst parents that if they speak out, their children will suffer retaliation by high school administrators and/or teachers.  The proposed changes to the History curriculum for the fall of 2022 will further exacerbate these concerns and create an unsafe environment for the students and result in further parental alienation.  To address these initiatives, we the parents of the District request the following remedies be implemented immediately:

1.  Remove books from the English Curriculum that are not grade level appropriate and/or promote social justice concepts like white privilege, white oppression of “minority or disadvantaged groups”, inherent and irredeemable racism based upon the pigmentation of an individual’s skin color, concepts that portray law enforcement as murders of minorities and support dividing our community into opposition groups based on race, gender or sexual orientation.
2. Repeal the 2021 changes to the English curriculum and consider alternative, balanced approaches that comply with the NJ Student Learning Standards.
3. Prevent the re-evaluation of history from the perspective of race as planned for the fall of 2022.  We request that no revision to the history curriculum be implemented without prior review by the community.  Specifically, we request that any changes be posted to the district’s website and that public comment be solicited prior to board approval and school implementation.
4. We request that an ad hoc curriculum committee, composed of board members and the community be created to assist the board with the creation of a balanced curriculum that is in compliance with the LGBTQ and Disabilities Act and the Diversity and Inclusion Act and does not disenfranchise parents and students in our community.

When I first considered a response to this petition on a Tuesday, I invited a few friends to join me over a glass of wine that Friday to discuss the issue. I figured if the petition thought that the values of the community were represented in their writing, then we should have the chance to say "not all the community." Within a day of sending the email to 25 people, I had people I did not know from neighboring towns contacting me, asking if they could attend the meeting. Within four days I had so many people that we could barely fit in the house where we gathered. It was a great example of "snowballing" (for all you researchers reading), but it also told me that I was not alone. The values expressed in that petition were not, in fact, the values of our communities. 

So... I did what I do. I organized like-minded people. I communicated what was going on in our world. And I continued to uphold my moral values. We submitted a letter of support that garnered 1500 signatures in a week, started all from an email to a few friends.

After the school board meeting, where we had an amazing turnout and heard from students and parents alike about their diverse experiences in our district, I continued to listen, to support, and to advocate for students and educators - pretty quietly, I might add. I emailed those who signed up to get news. I did not post on social media. I did not write letters to the media. I did not even speak at school board meetings. I literally just sent email updates to those who were interested.

But now we are in a heated school board election.

Let me repeat that. A heated school board election. Yep. In one of the most diverse states in the US, and I have been added to the list of public enemies.

According to my Facebook timeline (and  my memory), not too many years ago, I had to write in candidates for school board. Nobody wanted the job - BUT we convinced some good people to step up, and we had a collaborative board that worked well with the administration (who, by the way, have advanced degrees and training in teaching and learning... just saying). But this year, everything is contested, and it's a contest of "parental rights" vs. educational excellence. And I cannot be clearer - if someone is running on parental rights, they do not care about educational excellence. They care about their limited-view agenda. Educational excellence requires caring about all students and all perspectives.

I know this for a lot of reasons but most importantly because my kid came home crying tonight.

I am not running for school board. 

I DO support individuals for school board.

I DID invite people to talk about a petition to our school board that I disagreed with, and our response garnered 1500 signatures in 6 days. 

I DO believe that educators are trained professionals and have insight that parents don't.

I DO believe that parents should be able to - and CAN - participate in the school and curriculum process and that there is ALWAYS room for improvement. 

I DO NOT believe in publicly shaming anyone for their beliefs, calling them names -

OR

Making their children cry for it.

Though I know the names of the people doing this to my child, I'm not naming them. I'm just asking them to think of our family as human beings who have a different perspective. And maybe our children's generation, by grace of us allowing them to do so, can figure out how to live peacefully together.

As always with this blog, I'm writing it out. I'm trying to figure out how to be a parent in the moment. This moment is not great. As my kid said tonight, it feels a little like Romeo and Juliet. But I countered with the fact that I'm open to her friends - and her friends' parents. If only they would be open to me.

Perhaps this message will get through. And if not, perhaps it's the next generation who can figure out how to live peacefully together.