Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a movie on Netflix. It is Chadwick Boseman’s final movie ever. That is literally all I knew about the film when it came out. Truthfully, what else do you need to know? I round up my people and ask them if they want to do a Netflix party (now Teleparty) and watch it together. We watched the movie typing away in the chat box. The movie ended and I was left wondering just what exactly I was feeling.

So to fill in a couple of blanks without giving the story away Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is an adaptation of August Wilson’s 1982 play. Ma Rainey is a big blues/jazz singer who the studio has paid to come down and record a record. It is set in the 1920’s and racism is everywhere.

I don’t want to give the movie away. My descriptions wouldn’t give it justice anyway.

What I do want to convey is that this movie is powerful. Boseman has multiple soliloquies and monologues that are stunning. They are stunning not only because he is an amazing actor, they are stunning because he knows he is dying in real life and his dialogue is so darn powerful. It is hard not to watch and try to put yourself in his shoes.

My final thoughts are that I have been thoroughly Disneyized when it comes to movies. The protagonist wins. They guy gets the girl (yes I understand the issues with this). So yea maybe something may happen in scene one but the ending is always one of hope and happiness. This movie punches the Disney model in the throat. You feel the tension building and when it finally boils over you are left sitting there just staring at the screen saying wow.

The final scene makes a powerful statement. It shows the juxtaposition of the two worlds that don’t quite coexist. The imagery is unmistakeable.

The older I get the more I look forward to things that make me think and feel. Ma Rainey does that. Do yourself a favor and watch it. It won’t lift you up but it sure won’t let you down.

My son and I struggled so much during remote learning I have to put our health in danger. I don’t write that line lightly. Allow me to explain.

This school year I am working remotely and my kids ages 10, 8, and 6 had the option to stay home or go to school. My wife and I made the decision to keep them home because we know schools are petri dishes for airborne diseases. This is not a knock on schools just how things are. So we decided that I would keep the kids home and my wife would go to work.

Now on to my son who is 10 years old. He has ADHD or ADD hyperactivity depending on how current you want to be. This impacts his executive functioning. That means that he struggles with the cognitive skills that help plan, prioritize, and execute complex tasks. Take that information about the executive functioning of ADHD and think about how remote learning works. You have to follow schedules, navigate between Google Classrooms, check due dates, have your materials ordered in a way that you can access them quickly. Guess what that falls under. Executive functioning.

Knowing that he was gonna struggle, we met with his teachers and tried to get them to understand what they were up against. We consulted an ADHD expert for advice. We bought a watch that sets timers, gave him a desk area, printed his schedule every morning, moved his desk so it faced me and I could see what he was doing at all times. If you thought about it we tried it.

Sure enough, the struggles ensued. We met with his teachers again, talked with him, set new procedures for him to follow. Nothing worked. He was reading books during lessons, downloading games, not showing up to meetings, and not getting his work done.

I have ADHD as well. This means that we were both struggling with our schedules and how one day never looked like the next. I wasn’t doing a great job of supporting him.

Honestly, I was not super worried about his academic progress. He reads extremely well and is proficient in math. Here’s why I sent him back into danger. Our relationship was becoming negative. I was becoming an education warden. Every statement was about how he wasn’t doing what he was supposed to. My questions all centered around whether he was in the right meeting. The positive interactions were becoming extinct.

We know as educators that we are supposed to say 5 positive things for every 1 negative thing. That goes for typical children. Children with ADHD may suffer from rejection sensitivity disorder.

“Individuals who have this condition respond extremely negatively to the perception of being rejected: It goes far beyond the run-of-the-mill discomfort that most of us experience.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/friendship-20/201907/what-is-rejection-sensitive-dysphoria

I did not want to have our relationship fractured to a point that there was no coming back. That coupled with the work not being done was enough to push us to send him back to school.

I realize the privilege I have in keeping him home and that some people had to send their kids in without even knowing how safe the schools were. That is not the point of this. The point is that some students are going to struggle even with supports being implemented and a fantastic home and school connection. Remote learning just doesn’t work well for some kids no matter how hard we try. 

This is not to say that it doesn’t work for anyone, nor am I saying that remote learning shouldn’t be used if the school shuts down for snow or pandemic. What I am saying is that if you don’t understand that remote learning doesn’t work well for all students you are going to cause a lot of damage to your relationship with them, their guardians, and yourself. 

Give your students some grace. Still call home and try to get the students involved. Just remember that not every student is going to thrive in this environment. Don’t judge the parent who is working and can’t provide support. Don’t write it off as the kid not wanting to be there and do the work. Learn about the family. Keep asking how can I support the student and their family. Send positive notes when something heck anything is done. Check-in on the student and just say hi with no other motive than to keep a positive relationship going. 

When all this clears if we are not careful we are going to have even more jaded parents and students who will have a negative association with school. 

I am trying to keep perspective.

I am small. Barely an atom in the universe. My trials and errors matter none in the history of the world. I am one of billions living on this planet at this current moment. Unknown to the masses and scarcely known to those who I am lucky enough to interact with. No matter my course of action, history will largely forget me. This I know as fact. It is not negative. Instead It helps me put myself in perspective and not become overcome with burden.

I lay this out before you because my levels of fear and anxiety are rising by the day. Temperatures are rising, storms are becoming stronger and doing more damage, Black people continue to get shot by police. White supremacists are shooting protestors and walking away unscathed. The economy is crumbling. The days of change that Obama spoke about seem to be light years in the past of our history. I worry about my children’s future, my future, the world’s future. 

Everywhere I look I see hatred. White people refuse to listen to their darker melanated brethren as they scream and plead for social justice. Kaepernick protesting was peaceful and was treated with disdain. Rioting is not peaceful and treated with the same disdain. There is no right way, place, or time for People of Color to demand change. Our prophets of Malcolm, Martin, Hooks, Freire, Lourde, and Barber go unheeded. The wealth in this country continues to get funneled to the top while the poor and barely middle class continue to struggle through life.

Honestly it is getting harder and harder to find joy. To see hope. To continue to believe the arc of the moral universe continues to bend toward justice. 

One thing has allowed me to breathe. To believe that I may be a small part of change. It is the equity work that my school is doing. Val Brown and Rebekah Cordova have come in and trained 20 educators to be equity warriors. It may seem that the world is falling apart around me but the hope that my school district is moving towards social justice for its students keeps my soul afloat. To see a district’s leadership bring in top notch professional development around race gives me hope.

Maybe, just maybe, Lawrence can shift their moral arc. Maybe just maybe, Lawrence can create an environment where all students can feel celebrated for who they are. Maybe, just maybe, Lawrence can provide an environment for students to be their authentic selves without fear of repercussion. 

I know it may seem like I am grasping for straws. Truthfully, I am. And yet hope is the only thing I have. The driving force that allows me to continue to believe that my life can be meaningful. That I can make a positive impact. That maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I need the light. I need to feel that I am here for a purpose and that the world can be a better place. We all need the world to be a better place. 

Dear White People, (to steal from an awesome show)

We need you in this fight toward collective liberation. Val Brown and I have been grappling with the idea that:

“No one is free until we are all free. My liberation is tied up in yours and vice versa. For example as long as White people are invested in their racist ideas, Black people won’t ever have true liberation. Until Black people are free, White people will be prisoners of their racist ideas.”

I am specifically talking to White people because we are the ones who created the problem and we are the ones who need to work towards rectifying what we have done. Plus I can only speak to the groups I am a part of and understand.

If you have already been joining the fight towards collective liberation since the beginning of inning one skip down to the second to last paragraph.

If you haven’t started yet I am glad you are here! There will be some who rightfully question what took you so long. That is a question you will have to wrestle with. What bias and hatred allowed me to go so long without working towards correcting the wrongs of this country? How could I live without knowing how much my inaction was harming people? How come I am just arriving to the fight in the tenth round? And we still need you.

Some of you have been asked, begged, besieged, and implored to use your massive platform for social justice which you have ignored. Your blatant disregard for the most vulnerable students allowed harm to be reproduced in classrooms around the country and the world. You have some hard questions to answer when you see yourself in the mirror. Why are you arriving in the tenth round when you could have been fighting since the third? And we still need you.

Still, others may be young and just entered the field of education. You have been raised in a White bubble (like myself) and through the purposeful guidance of our communities and family, you have not fully grasped the magnitude of the problem that permeates school. Now is the time to listen before you act. Listen to queer Black feminists and the leaders in social justice within the world of education such as Val Brown and Dr. Rosa Perez-Isaiah. Listen to professors of sociology like Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom. Once you have listened follow the people who have been doing the work for years. Nothing you are thinking of is new. Activists have been working toward collective liberation for years. You as well are just coming into the fight in the 10th round. And we need you.

Finally, to those White People who have been passionate about working toward social justice and collective liberation accept the new members who are here. You may have been here since the beginning bell or some round in between. Make George Floyd’s murder the crack that allows the light in. This is not to excuse those who have allowed harm to be inflicted on their Black students (again myself included). I am not writing to say let White people colonize movements because suddenly they see there is a problem. What I am saying is that in order to make meaningful changes in our schools and society we need everyone on board. Every human needs to come into the fold and work towards collective liberation.

Actively hating on where people are in this journey doesn’t bring us closer toward our goal. And most of all we continue to need you because you can check those of us who are just realizing there is a fight. You can help us avoid the pitfalls that will either get us knocked out or cause us to throw the towel in. You are the coach in the corner giving advice. You are the coach in the corner connecting us to training camps to grow and sharpen our skills. Without you we will get rope a doped by whiteness. We will flame out throwing punches in a flurry and exhausting our resources. You may be tired and angry with us as well for being ignorant and foolish. And most of all…we still need you.

It was the second day of a new journey I will call the Swing Set. To give you some background my father had guilted me into buying my kids a giant swing set from Costco. The price was right and with his help, I could afford it. “There are only two left” he proclaimed not allowing me the option of procrastination until the decision was made for me like I usually do.

Five giant boxes later my calendar was filled for the week. Every hour not working online would be dedicated to the swing set. On Day one it took me two hours just to unpack everything and get it ready to assemble. Every piece of wood was numbered and had to be laid out in order. A table was set up and was looking closer to the letter u than I would have liked due to the weight of four boxes of bolts, nuts, washers, and screws.

In total, I put in over four hours of work on day 1 and was on step 10 of 55. Not exactly blazing speed. If this was an episode of Man vs Swing Set; Swing Set would have destroyed me.

The next day I was ready to start again. Kidz Bop was blaring over the speaker because that is my favorite music to listen to, or my children were “helping me”. You decide. I wouldn’t say I was frustrated but I wasn’t cool calm and collected when my youngest hit the screws off the platform I was working on into the thick grass never to be seen again.

At this moment a small sporty Mercedes pulled into my driveway. It was a two-door sleek black vehicle much too inconvenient to be of use to Amazon or UPS which were the only other vehicles to grace the driveway in the past month.

As the driver got out of the car I experienced a moment of something isn’t right. Something similar to a 7-year-old seeing their teacher in the grocery store or the mall. The idea that this doesn’t make sense. Why is this person here? I thought all of our interactions happen in that brick building.

The driver was one of my administrators named Dr. Toohey. He proceeded to place a red rose down on the ground along with a cookie in the shape of an apple and decorated with the phrase Thank You.

Instantly I realized that the administrators at my school were dropping off teacher appreciation gifts to all the staff. The momentous amount of time and effort needed to do this for every teacher in the school was not lost on me. Lawerence Intermediate School has teachers from all over NJ and into PA.

I will never hate on a free meal. I love when the teachers get lunch or breakfast at school. Driving to every single teacher’s house was so far above and beyond the norm that it made me feel appreciated in a way I have never been before. It was even better than a glowing evaluation or an email stating how great an event or lesson had gone. This was people giving up their time to show appreciation for their staff. To me, time is the ultimate gift. It is so precious that I personally feel honored when someone is willing to give me some of theirs.

So thank you Dr. Toohey, Ms. Fischer, and Ms. Rello for showing our staff how much you really do appreciate us. Your actions spoke much louder than any words could.

Read Across America has come and gone. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Read Across America was created by the National Education Association to, “help you motivate kids to read, bring the joys of reading to students of all ages, and make all children feel valued and welcome.” A lot of schools use Dr. Suess as a huge part of the week. They read his books, dress like his wacky characters, and create a festive atmosphere to foster the love of reading.

The problem of this is that Dr. Seuss and his characters are racist. The Cat in the Hat was based directly off of a blackface character from the minstrel shows of the past. The portrayal of  Mr. Brown, who is Asian, is portrayed negatively as well. If you want to read more about his racism read this article: The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, AntiBlackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss’s Children ‘s Books.

I want to talk about my favorite Dr. Seuss video though. The classic Sneetches. The Sneetches basically is about an in-group and an out-group. A guy comes along and plays both groups by changing the groups until no one knows who the in-group or out-group is. I used to think this was the best way I could possibly teach anti-racism to my students. I then read the paper above and realized that the Sneetches weren’t about being anti-racist but was more about being confused about which group should be oppressed.

My knee jerk reaction was that we should leave Dr. Seuss in the past. The problem is even if I wanted my school to my school was still using it. Instead, let’s talk about how all of our heroes are gray. Let’s discuss the issues with the characters. This is exactly what happened in my health classes this week. The conversations were driven entirely by the students. They knew more about him then I did!

This article: DR. SEUSS’ RACIST PAST ISN’T THE PROBLEM – YOUR REFUSAL TO HAVE HARD CONVERSATIONS IS makes a great point on how Dr. Seuss grew over time and evolved.

My final thoughts are that in the era of cancel culture let’s be transparent about our past history as a country. We can’t act like this never existed. Let’s be honest with our students, don’t they deserve it?

It’s been a while since I have written a conference reflection piece. It’s time for #njahperd20 day one to be reflected upon.

Glow: The keynote to the conference was Michelle Carter and Yasmeen Taji-Farouki. Together they shared their stories growing up Puerto Rican and Muslim in America. Their stories made you want to cry. They were vulnerable and authentic. The crowd was introduced to privilege in a way that wasn’t attacking or dismissive. They talked about privilege being, “a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor.” We all have various privileges and most have identities of marginalization. The idea is how do we use the privilege that we have to help our students and how do we shine the light on the marginalization that our students are having imposed on them.

Glow: Health Moves Minds. This is the future of SHAPE America and NJ AHPERD. Not only does it teach SEL it will also be lifeblood to sustainability. Check it out and get signed up.

Glow: Dr. Irene Cucina’s session on consent. Consent is more than tea. It is more than physical touch. One newer idea that was presented was about enthusiastic consent. This is where all parties are willing participants in whatever endeavor they choose. One ironic part of the session is that most students don’t willingly consent to be in our classes. How do we address that while still giving the students the autonomy to have some control over their lives?

Glow: Beyond the Binary: Understanding Gender Identity. Dan Rice took us through a basic vocabulary of sexual and gender identity. The gender unicorn was a really cool resource.

Grow: Communication Skills for Middle/High School students. The session was decent but I need more activities. Show me multiple ideas about what we can do.

Grow: NJ standards are changing. They are being paired down from 6 to 3. Naturally, that means a lot of what is being taught under the standards will disappear. Listen I have to be honest. The newly provided standards need a lot of work. Identity has been completely stripped out of the standards. We have moved away from an abstinence-plus program to a program where drugs and alcohol will give you STI’s. Pregnancy is talked about only once and there is no mention of abortion of other pregnancy prevention methods. The new NJ standards are HOT GARBAGE! Linda P. Eno, assistant commissioner, said to me that the state is not looking to roll back the sexed standards and this was an oversight that will be fixed. I have to be honest. If you do not speak up and email chpe@doe.nj.gov our state will have one of the least progressive curriculums in the union. You need to look at these standards and speak up!! You can find the new standards here. Again our most vulnerable students will be ignored and our sex education will be almost nonexistent. Speak up, people!!! This is an attack on our children!

Glow: The backyard bbq was amazing! The band and the food rocked.

Glow: Literally the bonfire glowed! What a fun time to hang out and connect with our peers.

Day one in the books.

I have come to the conclusion that the content I teach has less value than the manner in which I teach it. 

We hear how important relationships are yet we rarely hear how to create and improve relationships. Sure, we have all seen the video of the teacher doing the high fives handshakes and hugs at the door. If that was all it took every teacher would be a master in relationships.

The first thing I do is I specifically go out of my way, say hello, smile, and check-in with my Black and Brown students. I do this because I know I have bias (white guy) and I want to establish multiple positive interactions before there are any negative interactions. This also forces me to create positive associations with the students in my own head. I am basically making sure that I am not allowing my internalized racism to go unchecked.

Another tool I have in the old belt I use is to circle the class up and ask the students to share with me. This opening allows both them and me to talk about our lives and to see each other outside the student and teacher power dynamic.

Learn the students’ names and use them when I pass them in the hall. Smile at them as well.

Give the students room to be kids. Kids are going to talk. They are going to laugh and fool around. People want to talk and fool around. Check out your faculty meetings and see how many are sitting there talking when they should be listening. There is a fine line between high expectations for behavior and unrealistic ones.

Check-in with students when you feel there has been a negative interaction between you and them in class. This can be done after the class or before the next class. Either way, ask some questions. My newest one is, “I feel like there was some resistance when we spoke about…..” This gives them the opportunity to give you their point of view about what happened.

Talk about the tough topics. People, (kids are people too) will respect you more when you aren’t scared to talk real to them. When a subject comes up spontaneously go with it. If you don’t know anything about it tell them you are ignorant about it.

Here is the toughest one. Find something to like about the student who challenges you the most. Everyone will tell you to not take things personally. That’s impossible to do in my opinion. What is possible is to force yourself to find positives about the student. The next class keep repeating that positive to yourself. Another trick is to thank them for coming to your class.

Play music. All types of music. Sing badly.

Make bad dad jokes.

Final Advice: Liking the kids you teach is a good start. Being reactive to their wants and needs is necessary as well.

Minimize the harm you do. Maximize the joy you bring to the class. Celebrate the identities of those that are in the room with you.

There is a #DecadeChallenge going around the interwebs that asks you to reflect on the last ten years and give a quick recap of what you have accomplished. The responses on the thread are amazing. People have gotten doctorates, created their own companies, and done things that make me feel like I am on the Average Joe’s dodgeball team.

Today I finally understood what my #DecadeChallenge was.

I judge my decade by the times I have cried. I have cried exactly five times in the last ten years. Each time my child was born and each time I put my dogs down.
What a decade.#DecadeChallenge

— Justin Schleider ABC, BBD (@SchleiderJustin) November 24, 2019

Today was the fifth time I cried this decade. Today I put my second dog down in the last three months. We got my first dog when we got married. Sasha was her name and she came from a farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She was a protector and smart as a whip. Both my wife and I work so I felt bad leaving Sasha by herself. The only sensible answer was to get another dog right?

Duke came from a breeder in Missouri. He was a long-haired German Shepherd and Belgian Tervueren. We picked him up at the airport and immediately fell in love. He was a prince of a dog. We brought him home and he immediately became part of our family. He was a gentle soul. My kids would climb on him, use him as a pillow, put sunglasses on him, and he would bask in their attention. I never worried about him. He was the greatest friend a man, a dad, or a kid could ask for.

Duke has been getting sicker and sicker over the past few months. Today he couldn’t get up. It was time. I never thought about this day when I got my dogs. I was naive and young. I know better now. This day sucks.

Driving to the animal hospital I was filled with regrets. I didn’t play with him enough, walk him enough, show him enough love. There was no music in the car. Just the heavy silence of melancholy and the infinite sadness.

Walking into the clinic I was filled with dread. We filled out the paperwork and get called to enter the final room Duke would take a breath in. The walk down the corridor seemed endless. We finally arrive and the nurses and doctors come in and out asking questions and preparing us for the final moment of Duke’s life.

The time comes and the medicine flows through his veins. I put my head on his. Tell him I love him. Willing his last visions to be of my face. The last smells of my skin. The last touches of my hands on his face.

He is gone. The tears flow down my face. My heart breaks, reforms, and breaks again.

He was a dog. Yet he was a part of the family. A friend. A child’s playmate. An owner’s emotional support. The type of animal that made you feel that you were loved and appreciated. The unconditional love that only a dog can give you.

Life continues. The feelings of melancholy will slowly dissipate. Until then we just cry and remember. I love you Duke.

We all want to be “good” people. We want to be down with the cause. Yet most of us do nothing more than puff our chest out online and make minor changes to our lives. This blog was on my mind all day and then I read Pran Patel‘s blog so I knew it was time to race to my computer and clickety-clack away until some sort of written thought tornado was transferred from my brain to the screen in front of me. If you are reading this then you definitely should go check out his work. His blogs are about Leadership, Mental Health, Wellbeing and Decolonisation of the Curriculum.

In Pran’s blog, he uses the term “allyship”.  According to his definition:

The whole point of allyship is to redress the balance, to use that proverbial unearned money to:

1. To amplify the voices of the silenced (oppressed).
2. To use my systemic privilege to support those without privilege.
3. To give up the systemic privileges which we did not earn and use them to do the above.

Link

I feel like I do this well. I amplify the voices of the silenced, use my privilege to support those with less, and attempt to share my systemic privileges which I did not earn (white male). To be honest this isn’t that hard. Once you realize the overrepresentation of white males in all education areas you know something has to change. Recognizing that being an ally is needed is the hard part. Allyship is the easy part.

The problem is being an ally is relatively easy and does not take a lot of energy nor exposure to harm in order to achieve. While it is a great first step it is the bare minimum that we (non-oppressed people) can and should be doing. It simply means we redirect focus elsewhere, take up less space, and amplify others. Is that enough though?

In the article titled Ally or co-conspirator?: What it means to act #InSolidarity posted on the Move to End Violence website we find out just what the problem is. They state, “… many activists now bristle at the word “ally” and how people have used it to claim that they are supportive of a cause or community without having to actually engage in meaningful action or build meaningful relationships.” This idea that all we have to do is retweet Black women or like a post about a social justice conference isn’t actually doing anything. It is simply a keystroke that does amplify but requires little to nothing from me.

Ernest Owens penned an article in Philly Mag that explicitly lays out why being an ally is not good enough.

1. Allyship arises from and perpetuates a self-deluding savior mentality.

2. Allyship sees conditions to supporting the marginalized where there are none.

3. Allyship validates the ally and not the marginalized.

4) Allyship treats advocacy as a transaction rather than a moral obligation.

5) Allyship and being in solidarity are two separate things — and it’s the latter you should strive for.

The idea of being a “coconspirator” goes beyond simply being an ally. In the Move to End Violence article, we can see clearly why being a coconspirator is so important.

“Co-conspiracy is about what we do in action, not just in language,” says Garza, “It is about moving through guilt and shame and recognizing that we did not create none of this stuff. And so what we are taking responsibility for is the power that we hold to transform our conditions.”

Coconspirators are doing something. Something that oppressed people tell them that is needed. They listen to those they are trying to serve and decenter themselves in the process. They put themselves in harm’s way. They give up something while gaining only the knowledge that they are working toward the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.

At the end of the day, I go home to my suburban house, in my white neighborhood to my family. I easily slide back into my power and privilege without even noticing that I have. I am working towards self-actualization which looks very much like being a  coconspirator. Right now I am simply an ally.