White teacher.

With the ruling last night on the Ferguson case, I am deeply disheartened. But I am also inspired to engage in conversations that matter to me, to analyze and reflect and be thoughtful about how EDUCATION is one of the most important keys to inspiring change. Teaching, to me, is a very political act. We take our beliefs, our understandings, and of course our pedagogy and knowledge and impart them to students. We of course aim to remain objective and unbiased, to present all sides, to be fair and nonjudgmental. But we are people with agendas and beliefs...and those are bound to come out in one way or another. For one teacher, it may be an intolerance for the word "heck." For another, it might be absolutely not okay to ever eat in the classroom. These are within realms of normal, but are based on a lived experience of the teacher; what he or she perceives to be acceptable or not.
While many times I feel as if I'm not conveying ANY information (what am I if not honest?) to my Kinders...what comes out sounds very much like the muck in my brain, mixed together as their bright eyes stare at me (or at the piece of string or shoelace in their hand), I do have an agenda in the classroom. (That makes me sound deviant or inappropriate...I hope that's not the case.) But my agenda is to spread kindness...to teach children to be kind and indiscriminating (this is very difficult when patience is low...), to be strong and problem solvers, but also to be anti-racists, anti-homophobic, anti-classist members of our society.
There is a sensitive place here. Am I going to deny children their religious beliefs? Of course not. But will I talk again and again about same-sex parents and normalize it? OF COURSE. Will I provide examples of people of color who have made incredible impacts on this world, and provide children's books that picture people of color...not JUST FOR Black History month, but ALL the time? Of course I will. Will I work to bash stereotypes by opening dialogue even with small children, on gender roles, race issues, etc.? YES. I'm not so great at it yet...I'm still getting down this whole Kindergarten thing, but I have a DUTY as a privileged citizen to spread awareness of non-vanilla ideas. If it's okay for teachers to teach an altered, cherry-on-top version of the first Thanksgiving, Christopher Columbus, etc. etc, then it must be okay for me to bring up the other side. To perspective take. To think critically and deeply. Like I said, I still don't know exactly what this looks like in Kindergarten...but I do feel triumphant when by the end of the school my students KNOW there are no girl and boy colors in our classroom. That boys can have long hair too and that's not "gross". That everyone has different skin colors, and we don't have to pretend we're all the same, because we're all beautiful and difference is BEAUTIFUL. And while I understand the sentiment that we're all the same on the inside...I don't really think that's true either. Our experiences and knowledge and feelings and synapses all make up who we are on the inside...and all those are different, and that's GOOD. I want my students to be more than tolerant, I want them to be self-aware and critical not just of their learning but of themselves, of their surroundings, of the history we're taught, of the injustices so many face. I want them to understand this world is beautiful, but it's flawed. I want them to listen to a superbly well-educated supreme court attorney, and not eat up his words because he says all the buzz words and is well spoken, but listens to the content of his message and uses all their prior knowledge and perspective taking of history to realize how UNJUST this is.
I don't think I'm going to accomplish all this in one Kindergarten classroom. In fact, it's honestly difficult for me to get all my students to grade level in reading/math/etc. I don't know if it's going to be me...in fact it likely won't be. But I'm a piece of a system of educators, and I hope that others see teaching as a deeply political act. Not to save the world, but to maybe prevent some tragedies like this one; to advocate for justice.