Can We Talk? (Weird Kids Edition)

February 26, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Hey, you! Out there! My conservative friends – can we talk for a moment?

You lefties go save a whale or something for a minute, will you? No one can speak openly when you’re around, waiting to be offended by something, and I need to cover a few things with the grown-ups. Don’t you have some drugs to legalize or Christians to mock?

Are they gone?

OK, good.

Look, you and I both know things have gotten ridiculous lately. The inmates are running the asylum, and we can’t even say anything about it because the only protected speech these days is nutty liberal speech – am I right?

“Oh poor little Enrique, don’t give him any zeroes! He’s missing an eardrum and has to sell matchsticks to feed his family!” Like hell he does – his smartphone is nicer than mine and he every bit of American History he knows is from Assassin’s Creed III.

“You need to understand their learning styles! We need an anti-bullying assembly! Don’t count anyone late or expect them to wear their ID’s because what if their lives aren’t perfect? You might hurt their feelings!”

I know. I get it. It’s maddening. We pander to every little touchy-feely trend that sweeps through, then wring our hands and wonder why our kids don’t have ‘grit’.

We already have to accommodate an unprecedented number of newly discovered “learning disabilities,” and NOW we’re supposed to start validating their weird emotional issues as well.

OK, so everyone’s gay now. Fine – live it up. We’ve got girls who are pregnant, boys who think they’re “really” girls, and a few wrecking ball personalities who insist they’re trans-bi-something or other.

And you’re doing your best to pretend this is all beautiful and normal, but you don’t get it – and you’re damn sure not going to learn new pronouns for them!

Most of the time we roll with it, but one more demand for a special locker room, and… WTF?

Please know that I hear you. I understand this feeling, this… sense of insanity at the way these ‘laws’ and ‘parents’ and ‘advocates’ join forces for the sole purpose of BLAMING YOU AND ME – the only two ‘normal’ people in the equation! We’re the ones with jobs and matching socks and everything – and somehow WE’RE the problem?!

But I’d like for you to set that aside for a moment, if you can. Please – just for a few minutes. I’m not negating it, but it’s in the way of something.

Forget whatever moral or emotional issues we have with the outliers or the system that seems to encourage them. Ignore the various weirdos who’ve made things so unpleasant as they fling their issues at you and no one will rein them in because OMG lawsuit.

Silence for just a bit your inherent skepticism about just how innate or genetic or legitimate any variety of lifestyles, identities, or issues might be. In fact, feel free to assume that they’re all poor choices and family dysfunction – every last one – from dyslexia to pony play, it’s all just f****** up and unnatural.

But listen to me.

They’re your kids.

They’re your students.

They are trusted to your care to educate and inspire as you are able.

Yeah, I know – but they are.

Even those not in your class fall under your extended ‘teacher-as-candle-lighter’ job description – including the ones who give you those looks, and who you don’t think much of in return.

The broken ones. The slutty ones. The stupid ones. The annoying ones.

They’re our kids.

They’re supposed to be clueless, you know – that’s why we make them come to school. If they had their act together they could stay home and do this online.

Some of them are hurting so badly they can’t function – not because their lives are any harder than yours or anyone else’s (although some of them are), but because they’re a mess.

Some of them actually have those horror stories we always endure at the faculty meetings to make us feel bad about ever expecting anyone to do anything. Some of them don’t, but they don’t know that they don’t – they feel like they do.

Some of them have it more together than you do. Seriously – it’s weird.

You’re old – you’ve probably survived your share of actual stress, actual challenges, actual hurts. You know the difference between crippling reality and justkindadontwannathinkaboutit. They often don’t.

To them, it’s all the same – delusional though it sounds, many of them believe and feel deeply that they’re overwhelmed, underloved, misunderstood or maligned, abused or marginalized. That kind of stuff is all SO relative that it’s usually impossible to know when you’re looking at a survivor some black hole of personal trauma or the teenage equivalent of a two-year old who doesn’t get a cookie and thinks their world is over.

But that’s a distinction without a difference for them experientially, emotionally.

Teenagers are weird, and vulnerable, and subject to change. Add in a little misfittage due to sexuality, race, personal quirks, size, or whatever, and you have quite the fragile critter in your hands.

Some of them you couldn’t impact if you used a sledgehammer, I get that – but you impact more of them more strongly than you probably signed up for. Sorry. With power comes culpability and all that. James 3, baby.

I’m not asking you to put up with bad behavior – sometimes a little structure and tough love is the best thing for them (not always, but sometimes). I’m not asking you to excuse poor work or lower your classroom expectations against your better judgment.

I’m suggesting we keep in mind that we’re the adults, and the teachers. We are sometimes – at the risk of being melodramatic – the last, best hope for a little acceptance, stability, or kindness in their lives.

Yeah, they have a circle of friends – but you really think anyone sharing their Island of Misfit Toys is a good replacement for a relatively stable adult willing to accept and push them a bit? Besides, you have a professional and moral obligation not to be part of the problem, however subtle you think your looks and tone might be.

They’re not, I assure you.

Considering how little responsibility some of them seem to show, you’d be horrified by how many things they strongly feel are their fault – stuff they couldn’t fix, couldn’t stop, couldn’t explain. It’s crippling.

You have no idea how important your acceptance might be to them. It doesn’t automatically validate everything about them you don’t like. ‘Loved without justification’ – this sounds familiar in your paradigm, yes?

You don’t have to use trendy phrases or special handshakes. You probably don’t need to sample their awful musical tastes or pry into their personal cacophony. But don’t be the one who tries to smile but sighs inside and kinda wishes they’d go away.

They’re not stupid.

Consider being a reasonable, normal, loving person in whatever style you are for the other kids – the ones you ‘get’. You won’t go to hell for it, I promise.

The ‘normal’ kids need some better examples of how to deal with those unlike them, and the weirdos could use a teacher – a symbol, however maligned, of the ‘system’ and the ‘norm’ – who insists not that they be someone else, but that they be the best ‘them’ they can be, whatever they decide that is.

You lefties can come back in, now. What? Oh, nothing – just, um… blaming Obama for stuff. Nothing you’d want to hear.

Coffee?

#WhiteSilence, Teacher Edition

January 16, 2015July 31, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 4 Comments

In the current conversations regarding racial parity – especially in regards to public education – there are a number of strong, persuasive voices trying to stir awakening, promote understanding, and challenge perceptions. Some focus on human stories, some are heavy on statistics and graphs, and others weave analogies and throw together a pretty good meme now and then.

Some are teachers. Some are not. Some are even white.

Strange, though, in a system overrun with white educators, that we don’t see more from a demographic otherwise quite active on social media. There are retweets, and comments, and a few blog posts, but nowhere near what the raw numbers would suggest.

Why?

In the interest of trying to shine a little Vitamin D on this issue, I’m going to audaciously speculate – based partly on personal experience, partly on conversations with others, and partly on sundry perceptions and me just making stuff up over the years.

1) Any conversation on race in which a white person participates seems to require so many disclaimers – “I’m not a racist” being the most obvious, but still awkward to verbalize. “Some of my best friends are black” is a classic – and yes, people actually still say this.

“I’ll probably say this the wrong way, but…”

“I’m not saying ALL __________ (insert group identification about which one is about to generalize) are the same, but…”

Or even:

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying, but…”

Their ‘buts’ make them nervous. The bigger the ‘but’, the bigger the potential problem. Often they choose to just… not.

To keep this post under length, I deleted two paragraphs of my own disclaimers. I’m not sure what that means in terms of irony.

2) Reasonably educated white people – teachers – are terrified of saying something wrong. Not merely incorrect, you understand, although that’s problematic as well, but something inappropriate, or taken badly, or, the worst of all evils… racist.

Yeah, I know – compared to actual real-world discrimination it seems pretty trivial to worry that someone on Twitter might think you’re a jerk. And it is. But we’re far more swayed by our hopes, lusts, or fears, than our cold intellectual calculations regarding what we SHOULD feel. So we don’t post. Worse, we don’t reply, or question, or insist on clarifications. If we’re not in complete accord, we just move on.

3) White educators feel grossly underqualified. If you’ve never been a minority of anything, it’s hard to truly fathom the experience for those who are. Women have a better shot at it than men, I assume – but I, um… I don’t actually know, being a SWAMP (Straight White Average Male Protestant) and all. Gays, other minorities, even folks from non-dominant religions have some context. The rest of us have a few movies, books, and whatever history we’ve read.

You know that reaction you get when someone who’s never been in combat tries to talk about war? When people without kids try to lecture on parenting? That sensation you get as a teacher reading “expert” advice from people who’ve never run YOUR classroom? Yeah, that’s who white people don’t want to become when trying to speak about anything even remotely related to race.

None of this means they have nothing valuable or sincere to add; it means they feel pre-emptively invalidated in whatever they have to say. If you wish to do more than rah-rah voices of color, you shut up. No one likes to feel stupid or marginalized.

And yes, I hear my pigmented friends shouting “EXACTLY!” in response to that last statement. I recognize the irony and imbalance in the claim. But your broken leg doesn’t heal their stubbed toe; relativism is useful to promote understanding, but it doesn’t negate experience.

4) The lines between racism, prejudice, ignorance, questioning assertions, challenging assumptions, and just plain arguing are WAY too blurry when race is involved. There are so many raw nerves out there that unless those involved have a particularly close and trusting relationship, the chances anything they say will be received poorly are high.

Of course, if they DO have a particularly close and trusting relationship, they’re probably not the ones who most need to be having these sorts of discussions.

5) Some of them are very frustrated by patterns in their students they believe they’re not supposed to notice. Their band kids can be frustratingly single-minded, and those three kids from the Ukraine kinda have a style all their own… but when faculty notice “Hispanic attitudes” or what they think of as “Black behavior,” they’re afraid to think it too loudly, let alone talk about it they way they do those Drama kids.

Their daily experience tells them there are patterns of behavior among certain groups, and that stuff that drives them crazy tends to come from the same demographics. BUT, they don’t feel like they’re allowed to state the obvious – and that makes it worse. It build resentment because it must remain unspoken – the Voldemort of public education.

Except, of course, for bloggers calling out disparities in disciplinary measures.

Because we’re being all figuratively naked here, I’ll tell you – and this is something most of my white teacher friends believe but will never say publicly and only carefully express privately – most of the time they can’t fathom WHY it’s not OK to simply expect minority students to behave the same as everyone else. As with stereotyping, when these things can’t be addressed comfortably, they build up power – muddling and obstructing other thoughts and feelings related to race.

There’s a type of honesty that’s not ugly – we need to find it and practice it and disinfect our collective subconsious.

6) They’re tired of being told that everything any minority kid – or ethnic anyone anywhere – does is THEIR fault. You want me to just let some students behave disruptively or do poor work because my grandparents treated them badly? Isn’t that “soft racism”? The “soft bigotry of low expectations”?

You have no idea how deflating it was to discover that Bill Cosby – a guy we were SURE was legitimately BLACK, but who wanted people to speak properly, pull up their pants, and take a little personal responsibility – is some kinda serial rapist. Dammit! How SELFISH of him to do this to us – er… I mean, to those women!

7) They resent the implication that everything they’ve accomplished – every challenge they’ve overcome or misery they’ve endured – doesn’t count because it’s all White Privilege, so it was easy for them… so get over themselves.

This would be a good time to remind the reader that I’m not making these arguments or validating these impressions. I’ve been there – I get it – but this is not me at the moment. (“Doctor, I have this, uh… ‘good friend’ who has this, uh… little problem…”)

This is an incomplete and oversimplified list, but I’m sure you’ve noticed it’s built on perceptions and feelings and fears and frustrations rather than facts, people, or specifics. If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you know I believe those are the things that most drive human behavior and attitudes.

I hope sunlight will help reduce our confirmation biases, our spurious correlations, and our general ‘blurry thinking’ when it comes to race. If you don’t think I’ve quite found that light, the Comments section is below. Help me. Having deleted my best disclaimers, I’m pretty sure somewhere in here I’ve been unintentionally offensive to someone. But I don’t know how to move forward with this so-called ‘conversation on race’ we keep hearing we’re having unless we find a way to better communicate what’s really on our minds.

I’ve shared mine as best I can, and now I’m taking the liberty of approximating others’.

We’ll see what happens.

Related Post: Dear Student of Color…

The Colored Chalk Learning Revolution

December 21, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The challenge of incorporating technology in the classroom has always been finding ways to utilize it effectively. It’s tempting to begin planning around what the technology can DO, building the lesson from that rather than the reverse.

Got a screen that responds to touch? Let’s make lessons that involve kids running up and smacking the big expensive screen we don’t have a repair budget for! Look at them whacking at that screen! How very interactive! And this thing over here has a camera? OMG – no more writing! When we cover Populism and bimetallism, instead of explanations I’ll assign a PHOTO ESSAY! No words, just… truth of the soul.

The opposite error is far more common, however – that of merely taking existing lessons and activities and throwing them onto some high-dollar tech in hopes they are now modern.

1980: Hey kids! It used to be Jeopardy w/ pockets of index cards – but now it’s on the Overhead Projector!

1990: Hey kids! It used to be Jeopardy on the Overhead Projector – but now it’s on the Dry Erase Board!

2000: Hey kids! It used to be Jeopardy on the Dry Erase Board – but now it’s on the Smart Board!

2010: Hey kids! Handheld personal interactive devices! Instead of SAYING your answers, you poke the tiny expensive screen we don’t have a repair budget for and your answers appear on the big screen! TECHNOLOGY! INTER-F***ING-ACTIVE!

At least in these efforts, though, teachers are trying to be creative, to connect, to find ways to keep kids engaged. They avoid our deepest institutional loathing.The serious scorn is reserved for those of the Section Review – the users of Ancillaries, the givers of Worksheets, the dark perpetuators of… (please pardon my language):

BOOK WORK.

Hide your kids, hide your wife, they’re mimeographin’ everybody up in here.

There is no greater sin against pedagogical piety than sit-down, shut-up, paper-pushing. Follow any edu-spiring Twitter account or attend any PD of the past, oh… 200 years, and your cup will overflow with the essential role of student collaboration, interaction, teachers who build relationships, the individuality and quirks of each and every little darling. How dare you limit and categorize them with due dates! Grades! Assignments! Stop ruining the future, you maladaptive crony!

Facing such venom, the façade of technological revolution has had to settle for second place – runner-up status in the ranking of all things shameful.

Until now.

Introducing “Virtual Learning” – it’s misused technology AND worksheet learning!

Before you get your EduTech Panties in a wad, I realize there are teachers using technology in wonderful ways out there. For that matter, there’s a time and place for a little book work. But let’s be honest about what we’re doing the rest of the time, and why.

“Virtual Learning” is a flashy new euphemism for “book work and worksheets,” but online.

Students who for whatever reason fall short on credits, or can’t handle the rigors of participating in a regular class, are plopped in front of a computer and allowed to scan through some direct instruction, click some A B C or Ds, type out a few short answers for a real person to look over, and to keep clicking as often as necessary until they get enough correct to proceed to the next ‘module’ – what we used to call a ‘chapter’.

There’s no real interaction with the teacher, none at all with other students. There’s no discussion, participation, or any of the things the rest of us have been told we’re stupid (and quite likely dangerous) if we think students can learn without.

It’s everything teachers have been badgered and mocked for, in pop culture and required PD, minus the human interaction. While teachers are gathered in one part of the building being told for the hundredth time that “students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” and that any lesson built around teacher-selected content or students working individually is outdated, ineffective, and grounds for dismissal, students are gathered in another part of the building (or on laptops at home in their sweats with Teen Mom blaring three feet away) working individually on teacher-selected content without a clue what their teacher even looks like, let alone “how much they care.”

This is known as “working at their own pace” through “adaptive software.” In other words, if you click too many wrong letters the first eight times, you get to click them again. If you haven’t clicked enough by the end of May, you fail. Hey, we gotta draw a line somewhere, kid.

Fallout: New Marzano this is not.

Don’t misunderstand me. There’s a place for this kind of thing if we’d just be a bit more honest with ourselves. The State in its wisdom has set forth requirements for garnering a diploma, and we know the statistics for kids who can’t or won’t meet them. Given the choice between holding fast to the importance of World History and English II for future cosmetologists and mechanics, or finding some way to check the box on the paperwork so the kid can get on with their lives employed and happy, I’ll check the box and ship them forward without guilt or regret. Besides, the State has required that we offer this option as part of their drive for, um… “higher standards.”

(In other news, irony is dead.)

It’s unfortunate we can’t have two flavors of high school diploma – one saying you made it through in some form and met minimum requirements, another to say that as best we can tell you’re as ready for college or other post-secondary pursuits as anyone can be at 18.

But we don’t.

So I get it – we need options for kids who are going to fail otherwise. Failing them helps no one – not them, not us, not the community, the economy, the world, no one. So we find ways to check the box and move them on.

I just wish we could do it without the rhetoric and euphemisms. I wish we could call it what it is – a safety net for kids who can’t or won’t join the class discussions, collaborate effectively with their peers, or inquire-base their own learning. It’s worksheets online – a few passages and questions from the Florida version of Wikipedia, a little extra work by some classroom teacher who’s never met this kid, and some flexibility regarding whether they fill in the blanks for an hour a day or simply cram it all in one weekend during the Simpsons marathon.

While we’re at it, maybe we could ease up a bit on the teachers doing similar things in class, just trying to get their kids through. Yes, they’ve photocopied a crossword puzzle for review. No, they won’t be winning any awards for creativity. But instead of condemning them, maybe we could notice the way they’re impacting their kids in other ways – taking those random one-on-one opportunities or dragging the whole group kicking and screaming into the light of basic knowledge.

Doing the things that 2007 Dell can’t, whatever its other impressive features.

Let’s keep all of our options open, but let’s call things what they are. It’s easier to make the best decisions with the tools at our disposal if we do.

Related Post: Hole in the Wall Education

Related Post: Pedagogical Time Loop Hell

Cognitive Dissonance

December 2, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It’s been a rocky school year. I’ve been doing this for fifteen years now, and thought I had a pretty good handle on how to teach freshmen. But they’re not getting it. It’s not that they can’t – it seems they’re going out of their way to NOT.

This is frustrating, because I like to think I’m a pretty decent teacher. I’ve taught the same subject for several years now, so I’m scrambling less – which is good, because I’m getting a little older and a little tireder.

So what’s the root of the problem?

It matters because what I’m observing, feeling, and experiencing, don’t mesh with what I believe about myself and my chosen profession. This creates cognitive dissonance – it rubs me the wrong way, internally and often subconsciously.

We’re wired to want cohesiveness, patterns, things that make sense and allow us some control over our responses. When things don’t fit, we make them – even if that means adjusting our priorities, our perceptions, or the facts themselves. Otherwise the world is playing out of tune with itself, just a shade sharp and off-tempo – and it’s maddening.

So, what’s up with my students this year?

Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’ve been careless or cocky or I’m just getting tired. Perhaps I haven’t been as focused, or put in as much energy. I could be letting other things take too much of my time – like this blog, for instance. I don’t like that solution, though – it makes me feel like a failure, and I don’t want to spend less time on the other stuff I like.

Maybe it’s this focus on skills. I used to just teach some history, but no – we’re supposed to make them think and analyze and all that. From po’ baby to independent learner in less than a year? When everything else in their world is designed to coddle and entertain them? Impossible! I like this solution better, but… I kinda value the skills thing. And it’s not an entirely new thing, so it can’t completely explain the problem this year.

Maybe it’s this generation of freshmen. I’ve already noticed more helicoptering parents, more coddling by concerned adults, more learned helplessness. I mean, it’s not that they CAN’T do this stuff! They just don’t… listen! Or think! Damn kids – I do all this work, and they go out of their way to be clueless!

THIS satisfies on several fronts. It explains the results I’ve been getting, but without reflecting poorly on me as a teacher. It doesn’t require any major shifts in my personal priorities or beliefs about pedagogy or anything else. It’s easily reinforced as I interact with coworkers – I’ll always find agreement on negatives.

Best of all, the students can’t defend themselves since I’m unlikely to actually explain why I seem so increasingly hostile. They lack the tools or information to make a case for themselves even if I did.

Once I’ve unconsciously chosen a path towards resolution (of my cognitive dissonance), I find a trove of evidence supporting my solution. These freshmen really are clueless sometimes. That’s always been true, but that doesn’t matter – it’s true right now and feeds my narrative. There are always a few who go out of their way to be irritating. Again, always – but for now, proof.

“I mean, there’s only so much I can do if they simply refuse to pull their heads out of their behinds!” This really helps build some steam, as it lends emotional intensity to what could still prove an intellectually messy paradigm if confronted consciously. The more emotions in play, the less reason is required – awesome!

I’m unlikely to even question my internal framing – the assumptions behind “they simply refuse” and the disdain implied by “heads up behinds.” I just feel, perceive, and believe.

Because I’m not making an argument – I’m resolving an internal conflict. Like breathing, blinking, sweating or swallowing, these inner workings proceed involuntarily and automatically. I’d have to stop and focus to suspend them for even a few moments. To do that, I’d have to be aware of what was happening – which I’m quite contentedly NOT.

Cognitive dissonance results from conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. It’s uncomfortable, which usually leads to a change in attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.

It’s so clear in others – the smoker who can rationalize away any health warning or medical problem, the friend whose husband shows every warning sign of cheating but turns on you when you express your concern. It’s a large part of why students with a ‘fixed intelligence’ mindset reject or belittle work they find challenging or confusing. It’s an even larger part of why they don’t “care how much you know” until they “know how much you care” – no one wants to meaningfully learn from someone they don’t like or respect. It creates dissonance.

A small group of believers know the time and date of the Second Coming. In preparation, they sell all they own, forsake jobs and families, and stand ready. It doesn’t happen. What would you expect to come next?

Those who admit they were wrong or deceived are a minority. The truly faithful double down, increase evangelical efforts, refigure times and dates, and become more passionately committed as a result. Facts are adjusted, doubts eliminated.

People with clear opinions about climate change, military spending, or immigration, are provided extensive information which may challenge those opinions. The most common result is greater conviction in their original views, not adjustments to them based on new facts.

Comrades of a police officer, soldier, teacher, doctor, or clergyman who takes a questionable turn have a natural sympathy for the position in which that individual finds themselves. They understand better than most how things can be, could have gone, or should be different. They feel the feels, face the challenges, and share the convictions which led them to the profession to begin with.

They face the same daily grinds and the same withering judgment of those on the outside, who simply don’t know…

As that comrade is questioned or criticized, dissonance intensifies. The easiest solutions are to either reject the accused (which creates its own internal conflict) or throw oneself more wholeheartedly into their defense. As commitment solidifies, facts adjust in support. Priorities shift to accommodate.

It doesn’t make us bad people – it’s the most human of reactions. It does sometimes mean we’re dangerously wrong. It makes it easier to do unforgiveable things to maintain congruence. It allows us to corrupt ourselves and harm others rather than face our dissonance in other ways.

If there’s an ‘other side’, the same thing may be occurring. Grays are washed away as sides are chosen. Moderation is condemned from all angles. While it’s unlikely that both sides are equally right or wrong, an unbalanced equation does not justify the dismissal of all inconvenient variables.

Life is messy, and almost everything important is more complicated than it first appears. Real conviction is impossible without a willingness to dismiss messy details (hence faith’s essential untethering from ‘sight’). We would be crippled by doubt if we properly pondered all information and considered every possible angle before every important decision.

But let’s not fool ourselves regarding our passions. We value conviction and consistency more than we do content. We prize clarity over breadth of vision. It’s how we’re built, so presumably there are uses and advantages to such inner workings.

In my classroom and in my world, though, I’m going to try to do a better job of stepping back and being aware of how unreasonable my convictions may be. Right or wrong, I’m going to try to recognize my internal paradigm shifts and reality adjustments. I’m going to strive to expand my vision, and increase my clarity.

Besides, that way, I can do a much better job of setting everyone else straight on theirs.

Related Post: Condemnation Bias

Dear Student of Color…

November 21, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 3 Comments

I should start with a warning that I’m probably going to say the wrong thing. I know this because I often say the wrong thing – not just with you, or with other students of color, but in general. Saying the wrong thing is something of a specialty of mine.

In this situation, however, the wrong thing is more daunting than usual. Here I am, an old white guy – one of a hundred or so Caucasians staffing this school, except for one assistant principal, one para, the security guard who subs when the regular guy is gone, and of course most of the custodial staff. And I want to talk to you about race – as if I have the slightest credibility to do so. You’ll feel partially obligated to listen, but I have no idea how it will actually be received or understood.

I’d like to apologize for – well, everything. I don’t mean this sarcastically or melodramatically, and under no circumstances am I interested in riding the liberal guilt train through your limited time here and expecting you to know how to respond. I’m pretty sure, though, that I’ve said or done things in our short time together which validate everything you find annoying about old white people, or perhaps add whole new things to the list.

It’s just… I try to avoid allowing racial subject matter to carry stigma or the wrong sort of power into my classroom or my interactions with students. Embarrassed whispers and the rushed clichés do little to improve our understanding of one another or anything we’re trying to learn.

I’m also trying to stay out of the sandtrap of comfortable white avoidance. It’s dishonest to simply steer around anything inflammatory, or reduce loaded issues to pre-compartmentalized tropes. It’s far too easy to reduce the most important human realities of social studies, literature, or history to abstractions with far less power to confuse or scare us.

We distance ourselves from the strange creatures all those centuries ago capable of Indian Removal, Slavery, War with Mexico, or Japanese Internment Camps. I’m not ignoring that in some ways we’ve made huge strides towards equality and mutual respect and kumbaya – but we’re afraid to confess man’s eternal drive to camp with “us” and go to war with “them”. We tell ourselves you’re not developmentally ready to question or explore the evolutionary, social, political, or fiscal aspects of our collective urge to form teams and fight over land, food, women, cultural norms, or oblong inflated pigskins.

I’m sure in my efforts to be transparent and ‘real’ I’ve often only managed crass, or clichéd, or awkward, or just… wrong. I may make things worse as often as better, but if the alternative is to avoid these discussions altogether, I’ll keep taking that risk.

I apologize for my muddling, though, and I hope you recognize my intent if not my navigational skills.

As to race or other elements which make people more interesting, most of my understanding is second-hand. Through no control of my own, I was born a straight white male, and a fairly conservative one at that. As my preferred political party lost their collective minds over time, I drifted towards a kind of libertarian idealism… but one willing to settle for liberal efforts until some sort of educational revolution makes self-sufficiency a plausible –

You know what? I’m rambling, and I know from our last quiz that most of you don’t actually know the meaning of half of the things I just said.

What I’m getting at, though, is that it wasn’t until I started teaching that I started really caring about and trying to understand why some students act this way or that, while others are more likely to do such and such. In the abstract I have limited patience for talk of the ‘culture of poverty’ or ‘racial identity development’ – I just want anyone without a clearly defined disorder to make some effort to do their work, show a little mutual respect, and not be, you know… annoying.

But my students aren’t abstracts. Like you, they’re right here – with names and personalities and wants and needs and everything. And most of the time I really like them. My beliefs or opinions or emotional reactions to abstracts or groups of abstracts were no longer helpful.

I found I could care deeply about my students and still not ‘get’ them, which made it difficult to really fulfill that whole touch-the-future teacher thing.

That’s not always because of race, of course. White kids can make no damn sense plenty of times, and there are limitless reasons why I may grasp one kid’s world more intuitively than another’s. But clearly there are… trends. Visual clues who I’d ‘get’ and who I’d not. Even outside of class, stuff I’d hear or read began to resonate differently because they were suddenly not about abstract types of theoretical people but MY KIDS.

As you continue to read and learn and experience things, you’ll discover that “us” and “them” loses its endurance when real faces and names enter the picture. You know from our last unit how important it is to demonize and “other”-ize the enemy in times of war. Without effective propaganda and group buy-in, it’s rather difficult to get super-excited about shooting someone in the face or blowing up their family. You may have noticed that even in ‘shooter’ video games you’re generally mowing down masses of generic scary looking –

I’m getting distracted again. I’m sorry. I’m not sure I’m doing a very good job here.

I guess what I want you to know is that I’m trying. I’m reading books about racial dynamics and adolescence and trying to understand more about cultural norms and common experiences without reducing you or anyone else in my care to a category – the Asian, the Mexican, the Beautiful Strong Dark Black Girl. I’m on social media listening, asking, and sometimes annoying those I think useful. I don’t mean to annoy, but they can handle themselves – they’re of age and not my personal responsibility.

You are, at least while you’re here.

I hope you feel free to speak to me about anything related to… you know, stuff. Feel equally free NOT to speak to me about it. My ignorance may impact you, but it’s not your responsibility. You don’t owe me lessons on your world – you’re 14. That’s also why I won’t actually have this conversation with you. It’s just me and my Eleven Faithful Followers on the interwebs.

One more thing, though – something I probably WILL approach you with before the year is out. You know we have a pretty diverse group of students here. We’ve talked in class about what a huge advantage that is for us collectively, and I mean that – it’s not inspirational fluff like most of what we fill you with. But you’ve probably also noticed that, as I referenced above, we have a painful scarcity of teachers of color. I assure you the mass of old white folks running things really do mean well, but we’re somewhat limited by being, um… a bunch of old white folks.

As you move through high school and decide where to go for college… as you discover the strange mix of amazing options and inexplicable hurdles which await you… please consider teaching.

You’re one of my best – and I don’t mean “for your race” or whatever. I mean you’re quality – period. You’ll have more options than I could have imagined at your age. I’m not telling you not to follow your calling if it lies elsewhere. I’m certainly not telling you money and professional respect don’t matter, because they do – and you won’t get much of either if you teach anywhere in this beloved state.

But what you could do, if you’re so led, is to be that teacher you didn’t have. That example, that reference point, that option, that important part of the equation that we’re not nearly close enough to at the moment. I don’t know if I can promise you’ll change the world in the kind of dramatic ways we see in the movies, but – at the risk of being a little cheesy – we all change the world by what we do while we’re here. We all make “a difference”, for better or worse.

Consider making this one, better than me, for the ones who’ll be you when you’re me. Consider being amazing for them in small, thankless ways, because I wasn’t, or couldn’t, or just didn’t.

Thanks for hearing me out. You should head to class.