#SmallBites

One of the resources I share in Finding Your Blind Spots is a list of people and accounts to follow on Social Media. If you are an educator who has not tapped in to micro and macro social media platform PDs, here are a few to get you started.

History and first-person information on Indigenous American, LGBTQ+, Arabic, and Black communities:

Authors, educators, organizations and hashtags providing information and resources to support teaching diverse populations:

As you scroll, learn more about the changing world around us, in order to serve the families in our communities better.

And when you think of big terms like 'systemic racism', 'culturally responsive pedagogies' or 'gender and identity bias', reduce them to the smallest cog in the wheel. If we not only teach our babies to love other babies, but also learn to better serve the one student standing in front of us, systems will change. The wall comes down one brick at a time.

Who would have thought that a picture of a mug could encapsulate everything I do?

"I promise to teach my babies to love your babies".

There it was, on a white ceramic mug with little hearts in shades from beige to brown, with a little rainbow heart on the end. I'd planned to talk about the Archbishop's judgy, loveless rant about the gaps in today's religions being filled by those who show they care through social justice movements (full transparency, 'judgy rant' is biased language and this sentence is my fixed version of what he said). His words, “We need to tell our story of salvation in a new way, with charity and confidence, without fear”, reminded me of the lack of love in all of our arguments about how to teach and reach every child every day. It reminded me that those arguments 'don't hold water' when held to the standard of the consummate definition of 'charity', of love. (Side note, it also reminded me that Jesus wasn't well liked by the religious leaders of his day either.)

In this episode, I hope you'll listen and remember what educators are trying to do all over the world. Esteem their students and teach those students to esteem others. If woke words bother you, use other words. But if we really want our students to grow into respectful, empathetic citizens, we have to tell everybody's story with love and confidence without fear.

Meanwhile, I will keep on doing what I'm doing. "I promise to teach my babies to love your babies" and I hope you'll be teaching yours to love mine.

Visit Hedreich.com for more vignettes and educational strategies.

I never thought I’d be on a banned book list.

I remember reading Fahrenheit 451 back in high school in SE Texas. I remember being incredulous that literature and Great Works were being burned, and that a select few were governing the thoughts of the many.

Now I am wondering if I should be worried about my own books being slated for a burning, Texas legislator's list circulates with my name on it.  Further, should I be worried about my personal safety?

For people to latch on and use the titles as rallying cries is worrying. Still, the path of change is the one I've chosen. He who has ears, let them hear.

Here's Brian Lopez' Texas Tribune article. There's a link to the list in the story as well. 

Oh so NOW you’re mad? You want to try, judge and jail a teacher for being 'racist'? You want to say with surety she did all that stuff we saw in the video with malicious intent? 

Was it bad? Yes. Was it an offensive and insensitive display mocking the sacred traditions of a community this country has already taken from over and over again? Yes. But before we go casting stones:

Have you ever watched a Western?

Did you watch Pocahontas without having conversations about the real daughter of chief Wahunsenacawh? 

Have you ever celebrated Columbus Day or Thanksgiving without telling your children and students the truth about the Taino and Powhatan?

On the flip side, have you ever organized or even participated in a protest against legislation that restricts multiperspectivity in classrooms?

Have you voted in every local election and researched stances of the candidates who sit on your school boards?

Are you willing to teach truth even if it means losing your job?

The teacher in California made a really bad mistake, one I wish she’d had the education not to make. But: let he who never celebrated Halloween with a “hula girl”, an “Indian”, a “hobo”, or a “gypsy” cast the first stone (fyi, all inappropriate terms and costumes). As an applied researcher, I spend countless hours learning things I should have learned in 18 years of schooling. Unfortunately, like this teacher, the education I got did not arm me with the cultural capital and historical truths to be knowledgeable and empathetic towards diverse populations.

It's easy to feel self-righteous because you know how wrong and hurtful this is; but it's much harder to do the work to ensure that everyone in this country understands that this is wrong and hurtful. 

Now's the time to do the hard work and leave the stone casting to those pretending to care.

Find out about your local politics here.

Find out how to contact your elected officials here.

Find an organization and get involved here.

For those who watch football, imagine; Pats are deep in their own territory and they run the ball every play, straight up the middle. Now, for those who don’t watch football, just know, that's a pretty ridiculous strategy, even though it's called football not throw ball. Fact is, different strategies and plays will have varying chances of success depending on a variety of factors. Adapting for those factors makes the difference between being 5-1 or 2-4 going into next week's game.

Now, imagine going into every school, every corporate event, every school board meeting and saying, "you are all racists and you are holding up a system based on White supremacy. Feel your White guilt, throw off your White privilege and change." Ummmm, yeah. That's running straight up the middle. Before you can get that 10 yard sentence out, the opposing team will shut you down. 

What are your goals in having conversations on issues of equity and inclusivity? Do you want students to feel welcome whether they are in the majority or minority on campuses? Do you want the stories and heroes our kids learn about to reflect all kinds of people? Do want the musical, artistic and scientific accomplishments of various populations to be known so that we see the world in all its diversity? Do you want students to learn from curriculum that allows them to understand that everyone has something of value to contribute? Those are my goals and I talk to people with those goals in view. I don't run up the middle on every play. It's not effective, it can even be counterproductive. Running up the middle is not the play coaches pull out in every situation so why should it be a foundational strategy for those of us working toward societal change?

This isn't football, it's more like persuasive essay writing. It's about helping people to see the goal so that they want to get on board with making classrooms and campuses welcoming places for every child every day. I'm gonna run up the middle with this one and say, STOP GOING UP THE MIDDLE. Use language and strategies that inspire. The work is too important to do otherwise. 

Here's more on playing to win from Friday's A Spoonful of Sugar, as well as E44, Isms and Phobes. 

Who are our heroes? What do we celebrate? Why do we celebrate them? And if it's still Hispanic Heritage month, do we have to deal with it at all? So many questions. I have no answers. Except, decide to look beyond the surface. 

It seems Columbus day was not all about Columbus. The holiday was always embroiled in turmoil. Now, this day means "see me" to Native American tribes. An acknowledgement of the decimation, genocide, sexual abuse and other crimes committed against indigenous peoples is what the day is about. As a start. So, let's start. Read up on the early colonial lack of regard for life of non-Christian, non-western European people. And tomorrow, reflect and remember. And mostly, share this perspective. Voices that have been silenced should be silenced no more. 

If 'no man is an island, no man stands alone', then the same is probably true of schools. A school is not an island, separate from the community it supports. As we look for ways to close 'learning gaps' and combat 'learning loss', let's first remember that until the 70s, this country was still legally legally non-White student access to the same education it provided White students. That means that 50-something Gen Xers--especially in the south-- were just beginning to go to integrated schools. It also means that many teachers had to teach children they grew up believing were inferior.

Separate was never equal, but integration came with its own problems. The educational gaps we talk about began when it was illegal for my forebears to learn to read. And the great-grandmother who helped raise me was born only one generation out of slavery, so that was not so long ago.The disparities were always there, COVID has not unearthed something new. However, how can we acknowledge what the pandemic has highlighted and use that knowledge to make our educational system better for all students?

This week, start with a little research. Archie Bunker, famed protagonist of Norman Lear's All in the Family,  thought the playing field was level and that "Spics and Spooks" were just too lazy to get their piece of the American Dream. Let's see if that holds true, or if there is inequity baked into the systems. Do some research on redlining, redistricting and gentrification. Oh, and here is a recent article about redistricting in my home state of Texas. As you read, make a few notes. What do you notice? What do you wonder? How is what you read related to 'learning gaps'?Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or IG and let me know your thoughts. Knowledge is power, and learning about the roots of educational gaps will help us become real change makers.

After experiencing the exhaustion of so many educators as seen through their stories on social media throughout this first 6 weeks, I am on heightened alert. How do we fight off the demoralization and feelings of futility that I talked about in Friday's YouTube episode? 

In her "Seven Strategies for Embracing the Emotional Labor of Teaching", Colorado State's Dr. Ashley Harvey explores strategies for not only reframing beliefs in students but also some to help us re-evaluate where we are in our practice. How much do you have to pretend happiness and calm in your classroom? Twenty percent of the time? Forty percent? More like ninety percent? If you find that experiencing genuinely positive emotion is difficult, or even worse, nearly impossible, it's time to reflect on how you can make stainable changes. 

Visit hedreich.com and read I'll Rise Up for more coping strategies.

This week's episode continues to explore "learning loss" through an Education Week article by Mark Lieberman in which he cites instances of all the wraparound services provided, often as mandates without funding. He writes, “All the while, we’re asking schools to accomplish more than what their funding allows and their employees to do far more than they’ve been trained to do. And we’ve been doing it for a long time."

Truer words have never been spoken.

How do we advocate for ourselves, our students and our schools in order to get what we need so that we, as educators can concentrate on teaching and learning? How do we look for more sensible ways to check for understanding (read: less time and money intensive) so that we can concentrate on teaching and learning? How do we ensure that students get "wraparound services" through appropriate channels so that we can concentrate on teaching and learning?

I am only just beginning my research on "learning gaps" as a societal problem rather than an educational one, and I look forward to your accompanying me on this journey. At this stage, I know that activism (advocacy + action) as well as community and industry partnerships need to be a part of the equation.

I will never let a student go hungry, and I do not know a teacher who would, even to support the longterm goal of not "propping up the system". And yet, I am sure that schools are being asked to do too much.

The thing about interrupted learning, is that we are treating it like this is the first time learning has been interrupted. Oh, we acknowledge the summer slide and consider year 'round school but we don't consider the many systemic interruptions that have brought us to the place where we just can't get the learning gaps to close. 

Our educational system is like a woman trying to get into a dress she bought because she intended to lose weight. It didn't fit when she bought it. It didn't fit after the first big fad diet. It didn't fit after the second, third or fourth weight loss attempt. And it does not fit today. 

Marginalized populations have consistently experienced community and societal factors that disrupt learning. From the Middle Passage, Western Expansion and broken treaties to Gerrymandering and redlining, the systems of inequities have been like the dress that never fit to start with. 

Until we look at the educational and societal systems that have only just begun to be recognized as inequitable, the dress will never fit. COVID "learning loss" is simply one more event that has disadvantaged populations who have endured one traumatic learning interruption after another. My generation is the first post Civil Rights Act generation and that means that the challenges to rising above poverty caused by enslavement, reservation life, immigration, etc. are only now beginning to be addressed. How do we examine the root causes that keep marginalized populations marginalized? How do we connect those root causes to the interrupted learning outcomes we see today?

First, we have to look holistically at poverty in our nation and decide to resource our communities without using an educational system to provide "wraparound services". Next, and most importantly, we have to look critically at intergenerational trauma and the adverse childhood events that impact teaching and learning with an eye toward critically reevaluating the systems themselves, rather than the students those systems serve. It's why culturally sustaining pedagogies have to be in our teacher tool belts. For example, understanding how slights endured in the fight to survive take up cognitive energy means one, that physical and mental health outcomes are impacted, but it also means that there is learning taking place, learning that is not measured on standardized tests. Different kinds of learning as well as missed opportunities to learn in formal settings across  generations has to be a part of every learning gap conversation, including the one around this latest interrupted learning. If we approach COVID learning loss as if it is something new and specific to COVID, we will miss an extraordinary opportunity to do a hard reset in which we reevaluate learning gaps, learning evaluation and learning itself.