We all have our reasons for what we believe about ourselves and the world around us. Living into your values, speaking your truth, being authentic, and practicing what you preach are all very important concepts to me. While I might not always use my platform to speak into my values and beliefs around racial equity, they are there. Instead of using my words, I try to align my actions in my profession, decision making, and how I treat others as a part of my every day experience. Part of that experience has been taking a stand when situations arise that bring light to the systematic equities and hypocrisy in the leaders and systems within public education.
The first time I took a stand for racial equity was in November of 2017. After my involuntary transfer and choosing to stay at the elementary school I had been moved to. The district decided our entire staff would attend the B.D Equity training around racial equity. I declined the learning opportunity.
Why did I decline? I would be interested to hear what every ones first thoughts may be when reading this. I know a lot of people at the time wondered this too. Racist? White privilege? Republican? Fragile? Not of importance? I shared with my colleagues after. The quick answer is: love.
A few days prior I had been informed that one of my former students, a then 15 year old boy of color and boy with a disability, who was impacted by my transfer, had been harassed and discriminated against for the last year by some of the people involved in the equity training. It wasn’t only that this students rights had been violated and he was treated disgustingly unfairly, his current place of residence was a juvenile detention facility.
Sitting through an equity training provided by the district, in collaboration with the very people who made the decision to move me, without thinking about the impacts, and perpetuating the aftermath of their decision, felt like a disaster waiting to happen. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to learn or attend the training… or that it was something I felt uncomfortable attending or talking about, it wasn’t. It was that I was emotional and wouldn’t be able to control raising my hand and announcing who the hypocrites were in the room. I wouldn’t be able take the training seriously. Their words did not align with their actions for equity, especially racial equity, and once the fire starts burning inside of me, it’s almost impossible to put it out. I would have let a lot of people in that room have it because my emotions were on fire… and it would have taken away from the message that some day I hope the district actually embodies and learns how to put into an authentic practice. I loved myself and my students that I felt it was in the best interest to take a stand for the importance of words and actions aligning… while not getting myself in trouble for my passion… aka… “unprofessional” comments that most likely were to leave my thought bubble.
The second part to this was the decision maker who involuntarily moved me was going to be my guest teacher with my new students. I went into protective mode over them and myself, love. I saw how her decision making was impacting my former students, I didn’t want her to impact my new ones. Which she did in a million other ways anyways. My declined invitation to attend this training was used against me months later and called my character with the district into question. Cause and effects are real… and the importance of listening and understanding is even more real.
Maybe I should have gone. I did attend the training 6 months later. I’ll never know how this decision could have altered my story, but it’s now a major part in it…and there’s nothing we can do to change the past. We can only look back to see how far we’ve come, learn from it, and use it to make better decisions for tomorrow. I did what I did, what happened, happened, and it’s now a part of my story… of our story.
When we choose to love others, especially those who have different views than our own, our love spreading expands… and to me, that is how we build an equitable and inclusive community. If love for my student was included, maybe his story wouldn’t end the way it did. If love for me was included, maybe my story would have turned out differently. Every choice we make has a cause and an effect.
In real life and in the social media world, it’s important to practice what we preach. It’s important for our actions and words to align. Sometimes we slip up and that’s okay. We all have our own way of doing things. To me, things done in love are done well (van quote), and all things should be done with love for ourselves and others at the forefront of our words and our actions. When the love for power, love for being right, love for prestige, and love for status get involved, the love becomes only about ourselves. Part of being in a community and working with and for others, is love for humanity… all humans. We are stronger together and our love becomes stronger and morally just when we expand our scope of whose included in our love. Self-love is important, but love for each other is too.
When we choose to love others, especially those who have different views than our own, our love spreading expands… and to me, that is how we build an equitable and inclusive community. If love for my student was included, maybe his story wouldn’t end the way it did. If love for me was included, maybe my story would have turned out differently.
If you’re making decisions done in love for yourself and for others who have less power than you… you’ll never make the wrong decision– even if it doesn’t turn out the way you had hoped… and maybe our words and actions start to align, just a little bit more… so trust can build and change can be made. That’s what I choose to believe anyways…
The two days of the equity training I declined I taught my literacy groups about cause and effect. I didn’t realize the role that lesson, on that day, would come to play in the future as I’m sharing my story.
with kindness | ashley
