Changes?

Change is hard. No one wants to be the one to have to give up something so someone else can have a fair shot. Any time we perceive that we are going to be on the short end of the stick, we put up our defenses. Whether that is a change in services for our kids, an unfair coach, or a system that has failed our kids for years, we are naturally inclined to defend our own. Mama bear and papa bear always come out. There is nothing that can be done to stop it, but we really need to ask ourselves who are we serving? Is it our entitlement speaking? Our privilege? Maybe a bit of both? Are we, as Dr. King said,: "the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice"? If we do what we've always done, what is going to be the outcome?

I have spent the last month working with kids to help them understand the origins of the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Kids are amazing. Teaching them beyond the Georgia Standards to show what really happened is super important. According to the Georgia DOE, kids in fifth grade only need to know about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall. These are the traditional black leaders that educators teach every February. By selecting only these individuals, we are saying we don't want to recognize that the Civil Rights Movement was truly a conflict that led to big-time changes in an organized and methodical way. 

So being the rebel that I am and building on my fearless ideas for the year, I jumped right in and taught the Rosa Parks myth to my fifth graders. She was not a tired, old woman who decided to stay in her seat on the bus because she couldn't stand up. She was actually a woman who was actively engaged in the planning and implementation of creating a situation that could no longer be ignored. I love working with 5th graders because they get angry for all the false history they have been taught. 
They ask questions and they want to know why the world works the way it does. As an IB school, we spend tons of time inquiring into difficult issues and developing a deeper understanding.

It's been a while since I've written a post because I've been a little disillusioned with the fight lately because the loudest adult voices around me have been extremely negative. However, then one child asks me "why can't we just learn the right history from the beginning?" and all of a sudden all is right with the world! Kids are going to be the ones that fix the world. We, adults, have really messed it up. I'm just thankful that I get to be a little piece of what they are going to accomplish.

The last few months have also been a period of discovery for me. I've been listening to new voices and reading lots of new books. Every time I come across a new voice, I am intrigued to dive into a conversation or study to determine if I can grow from the ideas. Most of the time I find a way to do it, but it's been really tough lately with many adults in the world. 

In the moments of frustration and anger, Tupac has often come into my head because it's so true. 

We gotta make a change
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
And let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
What we gotta do, to survive.