So, I was a little sick. Sorry I missed you. But I came back to share that despite President #45 declaring victory over Covid, it ain’t going nowhere no time soon. No vaccine or cure is coming to save any of us in the near future. So with that being said, what do the regular folks living on planet earth do in the meantime about our lives? I think, while I was ill, this was the singular most daunting question that I pondered the most. While I did not have Covid and lost my mind trying to find my daughter a local testing site for her age ( because apparently toddlers do not have droplets or are perceived non-transmitters I guess with almost no testing sites urgghh), this question captured my mind. What do we do in the meantime? As an educator, thankfully, local Atlanta schools decided to keep schools closed due to recent spikes and fear of further community spread. But closing doors does not mean we have answered the true challenges our kids and their families are facing in this moment. No amount of Zoom video chats will fix what is broken in our educational system during remote learning and that is the anachronistic industrial design of American learning systems. At the start of compulsory public schools in the 1920s, they were built to prepare kids for industrial and standardized jobs that did repetitive and simple tasks ( and to keep kids from competing in the labor market), not to grow and nurture individuals. So in this season, whole classes are not aggregated together as the sum parts of basic and average kids depending on each other to learn or not. Kids are by and large, individually learning at home and have never experienced this level of independence to finally explore themselves as an individual and discover what works best for them. What’s more parents have mostly never had the luxury of this individual learning experience for themselves so they definitely have no reference point to help their own children through this new modality of learning as well. Even this week, as I tried to help one of my students figure out what supports she needed to improve in class, she said, “Those Youtube Videos are too long for me to watch and teach myself. I just want to know where the answer is so I can be done with it.”. This mindset is pervasive with most kids that just want an answer so they can just be done and fit in with everyone else. But what if kids understood their individual passions, strengths and weaknesses and didn’t just want to go with the crowd? What kind of world would that be? Harvard Professor Todd Rose, Ed.D, coins this focus on individuality in students as their “jagged profile” because he believes that their is no such thing as an average student but students who have jagged edges and don’t fit any singular mold. Yet, while schools are fretting over the average kid in this pandemic will lose 20% of their skills because of this disruption to traditional learning, Rose counters this with group level statics that were not designed to serve and reach individual students. Education has been playing to group averages so long with the same assignments and standardized assessments and oversized classrooms that in this moment we don’t know how to reach individual students and meet their needs. So parents are screaming to let their kids come back in massive school buildings with thousands of kids and no safety protections when we really need to simply be creative and innovate on our design with our individual students in mind. As always, what does that even look like: Sadly, Rose does not give us a picture of how this works for everybody involved. But I will take a stab at it and invite others to help me imagine this new space as well. So let me first say kudos to Atlanta’s Mayor for heeding the call for more citywide support with the city’s learning pods. While this was a great first step, the learning pods were full within days of announcement and were not a part of a larger more comprehensive strategy put forth in tandem with other community partners, districts and even corporate employers. When I think about serving EACH INDIVIDUAL CHILD in Atlanta, I think about the overwhelming undertaking this would be for a school alone. But with an entire ecosystem of support what could really happen? We could
The reality is Covid is not going nowhere for a while but neither will our kids if we don’t get darn creative in how we get them through this season. We have to use every tool at our disposal to go beyond the average and toward meeting the needs of each individual. Zoom can’t save us and neither will reopening the same ol school that’s failing 80% of our students. Other industries have gotten really creative, now it is the schoolhouses turn or the result could be more deadly than the Covid virus for our most vulnerable kids.
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I don’t know about you but I know I was furious to watch another black woman talked over and not heard during the Vice Presidential debate last week. I mean it was embarrassing how many times Senator Kamala Harris had to say, “I am talking” to hush the incessant interruptions by Pence. I mean she played nice and smiled and respected him. What’s so hard about her getting the same in return? But sadly, I know the answer to this question is that this runs deeper than just one debate. It’s systemic within all of our institutions where the voices of Black women are counted last and go unheard and even one of the future highest ranking bi-racial woman in the land can’t get a break. So as a Black woman and mother myself, that’s the all too familiar reality of what happened on stage and in so many Zoom calls and meetings across this country. Black women are seldom heard or respected in this country.
Just need to sit with that for a second. Now that that can resonate for the people in the back to hear it. We can now talk about why this matters for kids in the middle of a pandemic. Right now, over half the country’s 56 million students are in some form of virtual or remote learning which means kids are mostly with parents learning. But more importantly, in metro Atlanta where over 56% of the population is Black and there are over 600,000 students and 60% are from low-income communities, who is most likely to be at the helm of educating our kids during remote learning? I would venture to say Black women and Black mamas are leading over 300,000 kids through their learning everyday right now. So we probably should listen to them ya know. The facts are almost half of Black households with children are headed by single women, and so must face issues of child care and virtual schooling on their own while they are also more likely to work outside of the home as essential workers.. So if they are leading homes and the workforce by themselves, do they have a chance to talk? Secondly, if they do speak up for their kids, who is listening to their struggles and challenges in this season? Sadly, I bet the answer is probably no one or MAYBE a part-time, under-resourced Parent Liaison who serves hundreds (so again no one). But the answer has to be school and district leaders must listen now more than ever before. With only 27% of black students reading at grade level by 3rd grade o and 27% proficient at math by 8th grade in Metro Atlanta, we must talk to and truly listen to their parents who are integral component to improving all of our students’ outcomes, if only we include them in authentic and meaningful ways. To some, this data may suggest something is wrong with the parents, especially Black parents ( which as I said are mostly single Black mamas). But this deficit mindset is the wrong approach and instead the answer is in all the times black parents have said what they need but those pleas were unheard. So no this does not mean another mandated Title 1 parent night with a dump of information onto parents nor does it mean schools have to do this work alone. In these Covid times, this means a continuous and open forum and dialogue surrounding student needs, family needs and relevant resources that support meeting these needs with the school and community. One such radical model is from Minneapolis called the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ coined after the Harlem Children’s Zone). NAZ is a collectivist approach that frfr places students and (Black) parents at the center of all of their work through leveraging a collaborative ecosystem, streamlined technology and continuous communication FOR and WITH parents. Intractable problems like poverty and racist systems need more than a parent night, they need an entire integrated response from a well-organized ecosystem of support that is setup to listen and prepared to respond. I am not saying you have to make a NAZ but hey if we could, let’s go to work. So what can a school or district do to champion black parents and their voice in this season?
But no matter what we do, the most important thing that we all WILL have to do is begin to listen more to black mamas (and grandmamas) who carry the lion share of this load. We have to make space for them to be heard with every decision we make and truly allow it to drive our decisions about the best way to move forward. I will say that I am sure most think this work is already happening, especially if you have a black woman leader. But, I disagree. I mean as an educator and advocate, I have even been muzzled from speaking by even black leaders to protect the status quo. But to get to the other side of this pandemic, better than where we were ( not back to normal) we will need to uplift and champion the voices of black mamas more and even at times hold black women and all women accountable to do the same. As a black mama myself, I am committed to listening more and using whatever privilege I have to champion other black mama voices in this season. If you are too or are a black mama in metro Atlanta, please sign up for our newsletter to learn more about our work and how we are disrupting educational inequity in Atlanta (and not black women speaking). We are under assault everyday with a new trauma in front of us, but the world expects us to keep moving as usual. From blatant police murders of black bodies, to a Global Pandemic that has taken millions of lives globally in less than a year, we are constantly pushed to just keep on grinding. I mean the POTUS would not even denounce white supremacy on the global stage but we supposed to just be good and keep on pressing on. Sadly, this has been coined as “Grind Culture” where no matter your trauma, pain or emotional well-being, society pushes you to continue to keep grinding no matter what. We see evidence of this as the President of the United States (POTUS #45), recently took severely ill with Covid-19 and shared that he had no plans to hand over power and rest during his “recovery/quarantine”. Yet yesterday morning, we had mixed reports of his condition and health. Like why couldn’t he just rest? More importantly, do we as a society see weakness in pausing for rest and healing?
So this is my dilemma/question for our elected officials, school leaders, other influential decision makers and even parents, why don’t we care more for the emotional and mental well-being of our kids to provide space for rest and healing? I mean the assault on adults has been catastrophic with over 13 million jobs lost ( of which most will never return or don't pay a living wage), 200,000 deaths from Covid-19 nationally, the rate of food insecurity doubled for households with children, one in five families were behind on rent in July, surge in more domestic violence and abuse and the litany of trauma just keeps on coming. Let me add, if you are black or a minority/marginalized racial group or LGBTQ+ or a woman or a combination of all of these then times all this trauma by 5. Now let’s look at all of this hot mess from the lens of a child. Schools track record supporting the mental and emotional well-being of kids before the pandemic was SUS. The counselor-to-student ratio nationally is 482:1 and in Georgia 490:1 and social workers are normally a shared resource for multiple schools or are part-time serving thousands. After working this week with therapists to host a Virtual workshop on healing for my students, it was no surprise that one of the therapists even shared that she left school counseling because she truly had no time to work “with kids” only “for” them as she managed clerical and administrative tasks like scheduling. Then the next question is who is talking to our kids about everything that is going on in the world and helping them process their emotions if it's not a counselor? If we are lucky an amazing, yet overworked teacher or an intentional parent or mentor but still we need more help. Now that our kids and emerging young adults are grappling with issues that adults can barely wrap our minds around like rent, hunger, job loss, missing key milestone events and even, illness and death ( more now without any health insurance to get care and coping tools), what are we doing for them? Are we sending them the same “Grind Culture” message to keep it moving and business as usual? Sadly, the answer is yes as Georgia’s Board of Education voted against Superintendent Wood's recommendation to not have the Georgia Milestone Assessment Test for high school students not count toward their final grade in the midst of a GLOBAL PANDEMIC, In an 8-4 decision, the state board chose "accountability" over healing and restoration for kids. This is a lot to digest in this moment but in the words of Georgia's State School Board Member Mike Royal, “ I am not ready to give up on this year…”., demonstrating that our leaders don't think so. But this sentiment is what is hurting our students more, that somehow we are giving up if we don’t value a standardized test instead of valuing the mental and emotional well-being of children more. This “accountability” culture and “Grind” culture is toxic and has set us up to fail our kids when we can’t create space for them to simply heal in this unprecedented moment in history. So what can we do to change? As schools prepare to reopen for hybrid or in-person instruction, yes it is vital for us to make sure everyone is tested, wearing a mask and sanitizing but we also must create space for authentic ways to truly check on our students’ emotional well-being. We also must prioritize and value our children’s emotional well-being in this season above all else. What does this look like? Having school leaders engage with partners like Chris 180, ChopArt and PlayWorks that fosters embedded mental wellness support for children into the school schedule. Right now, teachers are charged with this work in morning meetings or worse for a quick warm-up/pulse check. But we really have to commit now to doing more and committing more time to this work at every level of school. Also, it requires us to divest from Grind Culture and stop overworking kids, especially in this season of trauma, so more out doors time or personal conversations and less screen time. Ask your child do they feel comfortable sharing how they feel with you or other adults. Most I have spoken with, in middle and high school, say they do not. Let's talk about why. Something, I do with my little one also is I do sensory boxes to create space for us to unwind and focus on being present with an activity with all of our senses and practices. This is super helpful with smaller kids. No matter the age, this work is not easy, but we have to go deeper and do this work well. Lastly, it will require us to please write to the state of Georgia’s School Board for the next 30 days and submit our heartfelt public comment that we VALUE OUR KIDS WELL BEING MORE THAN A ACCOUNTABILITY WITH A MEANINGLESS HIGH STAKES TEST. OH YEAH, AND TWEET THE POTUS TO REST AND GET WELL. HOPEFULLY, WE ALL WILL FIND HEALING IN THE PROCESS. ACTION: Please CLICK HERE for Public Comment to the Georgia Board of Education TODAY!! |
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