The Doe’s Latest Stories

I started taking students on trips right when I began teaching. I believe that travel is important and that all teachers should travel with students at least once in their teaching career. Don’t be scared. Students don’t bite. Much. “Okay chicos, let’s number off! Stevey, pay attention. Laura, stop walking away! Here we go: One!” In an over-crowded boarding area of the Lima airport, a completely off-beat metronome ensues of the numbers one through 40. I strain my teacher-trained, bat-like ears to hear all of my students call off their numbers to make sure that I didn’t lose anyone from Denver to here. Suddenly, silence. Where the hell is Number 22? More importantly, who the hell is 22? I scan my list. “Alexis! Stop searching for the nearest Starbucks and pay attention!” “Oh, Miss, sorrrry. 22! I’m here. It’s me!” And the counting continues. Whew. Everyone’s here. “Okay, chicos, no stopping until we get through customs. Touch your passports! Brady, be the sweeper, you’re tall.” “Miss, everything is in Spanish. How am I supposed to read anything?” “I think I left my passport on the plane.” “Does anyone see my luggage?” “Oh. My. God. Do you see that guy!? He is like, so hot.” “You are literally so annoying already.” “Everyone, look over here and say cheese!” “Okay, chicos. Roll out; to the bus! Bienvenidos a Peru!”

The honest truth is that traveling with high schoolers is exhausting, terrifying, eye-opening, humbling and hilarious.

What Led Me to Chaperoning Student Travelers

Snippets just like this happen every time I take my high schoolers on trips, usually within the first 30 minutes of being at our destination, which is typically a Spanish-speaking country. People think I’m crazy for taking students around the world, especially given my age. “Wait, you take high schoolers? Why?” I just tell them that I am crazy and I love it. It’s in my blood. I’ve traveled internationally since I was five, and with students since the age of nine. Now, traveling any other way has become as foreign to me as some of the places I’ve visited. Don’t get me wrong, there are times on trips when I want to strangle some of my students, tell them to shut the fuck up when they ask “Where’s the nearest McDonald’s?” or accidentally-on-purpose leave one of them in a bus stop bathroom while the rest of us travel on our merry way—but those are fleeting thoughts. The honest truth is that traveling with high schoolers is exhausting, terrifying, eye-opening, humbling and hilarious. But, mostly, it’s absolutely amazing. Seeing students’ eyes light up when they see Machu Picchu or La Sagrada Família for the first time is an experience that, no matter how hectic these trips get, I would never trade. The pure, untainted joy and awe that overwhelms every fiber of their beings is beautiful to witness. As is the silence that overcomes them. For a few moments each day during each tour, my students become so overwhelmed with shock and “holy shit look at that” reactions that their usual Energizer Bunny mouths are rendered completely useless. It really is a priceless moment: their faces simultaneously portraying the appreciation of and inability to comprehend what they’re seeing, something so foreign to them before that moment. And that silence.Traveling with 40 high schoolers to bustling Spanish-speaking countries is anything but quiet, so when those brief moments arise, I cherish them. Inevitably, the silence is always shattered by the guide explaining the history of what we’re seeing, the blare of a car horn or ambulance, and, of course, the chatter of the group itself that couldn’t stay quiet for more than 15 seconds if they were being paid—with comments like “When can we sit down?” or “Can we eat yet?” and the ever-popular “I have to pee.”

Some of the Best Stories Are Bathroom Stories

Every group imprints images in my mind and, truth be told, bathroom stories are among the most memorable. (It may sound a bit childish but it’s true.) The door to the bathroom on the bus flying open while driving up a winding mountain road in Peru, followed by a shriek so high you wouldn’t think that a six-foot, four-inch, 250-pound boy could make that noise. Students peeing while snorkeling in Costa Rica, forgetting that there are people in the water behind them. Walk-running as politely as possible out of the crowded tombs of Spain’s past kings and queens in El Escorial because that half-gallon of water they drank at lunch finally made its presence known—only to be halted by a bathroom line eight people deep. Almost crashing the alpine slide down from the Great Wall of China in an effort to make it to a stall, but accidentally peeing a little on the seat before making it to safety. To this day, when someone has to go to the bathroom on a long bus ride I still call it a “Charlie stop,” coined after a student had to go so desperately on my first trip in 1999 that we pulled over on the side of the road in the lush countryside of Spain to let him run into the field, find the only bush and let loose.

When You Chaperone Students Abroad, Lots Can—and Will—Go Wrong

These once-in-a-lifetime trips are 99 percent amazing, but there are moments that make me question why I do this or instances that put my abilities and confidence to the ultimate test. Once, a girl once lost the entire tip of her finger in Sevilla by reaching into her bag to get her cellphone, only to have it sliced off by an uncapped razor. A student threw up multiple times (including on me) on the bus ride to our school and community visit in Cusco. During that same visit, two students passed out from altitude sickness.Multiple students have lost their wallets, but the most common occurrence is catching students trying to buy or sneak alcohol back to their rooms: When this happens, I always say, “Thank you so much for the present! I know you wanted to surprise me, but how lucky are we both that we just ran into each other like this?” That, followed by the tear-filled, “I’m so sorry, please don’t send me home” apologies and phone calls home to parents. Teenagers are not as sneaky as they’d like us all to believe they are. Plus, because they use social media for everything, there’s no hiding.

But more than anything else, it’s gratifying, and it genuinely restores my faith in the next generation.

Being a Teacher Chaperone Abroad Is the Experience of a Lifetime

I could spend hours talking about what has gone wrong or those stress-inducing moments on trips, but I could spend weeks talking about everything else. During my first trip across England, Ireland, and Wales at the age of nine, I knew that traveling the world with students is what I wanted to do. What I was meant to do. Sure, it can be exhausting making sure everyone is in the right place at the right time, that I haven’t lost anyone, that students aren’t getting too homesick, that students are in their rooms at curfew, and on and on. But more than anything else, it’s gratifying, and it genuinely restores my faith in the next generation. Young people these days catch a lot of flack for being lazy and entitled, but the reality is vastly different. They are hungry for a taste of the world outside of their bubbles; they are curious, they are compassionate, they are excited. They yearn to get out into the world and meet new people and see things that they’ve never seen before. Sure, every single moment must be documented on Snapchat or Instagram ten times over—ensuring that the lighting and angle are just right—but that’s the nature of the times in which we live. I wholeheartedly believe that every teacher, at least once in their career, should chaperone a trip with students. How else are they going to the chaos that is bus karaoke on a five-hour ride after a hot and sticky three-hour walking tour, the priceless open-mouth pictures snapped when they’ve fallen asleep, the shrieks of joy when jumping off the raft into the river, or the genuine happiness that is so palpable and contagious that it literally seeps out of their pores with every new turn and sight? I’ll say it again: Traveling with high schoolers is exhausting. But it is an exhaustion that I will never give up. That depletion represents a day well-spent in a foreign country, walking upwards of ten miles, learning about another culture, eating deliciously unique food, seeing breathtaking sights, and witnessing the most wonderful moments of all: my students taking in every sight, smell and sound. They focus so intently on what’s before them, it’s as though they believe that if they blink, it will be gone.And then we’re back on the bus, off to our next destination. As I sit up front talking with the tour guide about the plans for that evening’s dinner and our departure time for the next morning, I pause. I sit up straighter. I listen. The bus is slowly rocking back and forth down a country road in Panama, rhythmically swaying each passenger to sleep. I take a deep breath. There it is, again. Silence.

From a young age, we are taught that education is the foundation to a good life. In a performance-driven culture, success means everything. Though broad in its definition, when placed in an academic context, the meaning of success becomes a lot narrower and easier to quantify.It looks a lot like an “A.”Throughout school, grades are treated like the end-all and be-all. They’re the difference between going to a failing high school and a prestigious college. They’re the difference between being a CEO and a janitor. They’re the difference between whether you thrive or simply survive. So what happens when your desire for academic excellence causes the world around you to come falling down?

How come the other children weren't petrified by the idea of having a piece of paper determine their worth?

Pursuing Good Grades Is Like Chasing a High

I distinctly remember the first time that grades began meaning something to me. I was seven and about to undergo a set of assessments. As my teacher explained what was about to happen, I burst into tears. I was taken out of class and put into a meeting with my mum and teacher. They discussed how I “put too much pressure” on myself, but I didn't understand why this behavior was abnormal. How come the other children weren't petrified by the idea of having a piece of paper determine their worth? It didn't make sense to me.A month later, tests complete, our results were posted. Again, the teacher called my mum and me to a meeting after school to announce that I had the best results. That was all the validation I needed. I had won. They both told me that I was smart and a “great student.” At age seven, I established a connection between academic attainment and self-worth, and I would chase this serotonin shot for years to come. In many respects, this signaled the beginning of the end.When your belief system is comprised of such reductionist components, it’s easy to lose sight of reality. Before I knew it, I had internalized academia’s target-driven nature. I didn’t need to be popular, sporty or beautiful—I only needed to be top of the class. Year after year, test after test, teachers would confirm the notion that I was a “gifted student.” I heard the term enough times that I even believed it. I fell under the illusion that grades were the key to a good life. But what they don’t tell you about good grades is the sacrifices that you must make to get them.Indeed, as I progressed through the education system, it became harder to keep it up. Although I had managed to get straight As in high school, the strain took its toll on me as I headed to college. After securing a place at a prestigious college, I received my first test score and realized that I wasn't that special. With a score of 58 glaring back at me, I felt my heart drop. I was just another small fish in a massive pond.If I wasn’t smart, then who was I? Did I have a personality outside of education?The truth was, I didn’t.As I felt my life get increasingly out of control, I sought stability elsewhere. Gradually, the obsession with grades transformed into an obsession with my eating habits. I turned to food as a means of regulation—if I couldn't control the grades I was getting, at least I could control what was going into my body. I found myself amid an eating disorder. Each day I would try to consume fewer calories, exercise more and cut out foods. As I saw the figures on the scales decline, I felt a sense of equilibrium rush over me. Finally, I had control over something.

How Academic Success Ruined My Life

For the remainder of my time at college, this toxic perfectionism ruled my life. In this strict world that I’d created for myself, there was little room for error. If I tripped up and ate more calories than I’d planned on or received a mediocre grade, I had to compensate—whether that meant running an extra three miles or staying in the library for another hour. I had to make amends.It paid off, at least for a while. I lost weight, and I managed to climb to the top of the class again.However, my obsessive behavior eventually tore my relationships apart. I declined every social invitation I received, for fear that time away from revision or meal planning would cause me to lose my balance. People around me thought I was weird for spending so much time alone, and soon the social offers stopped trickling in altogether.Without realizing it, I was gradually losing my support network. My friends thought I was rude, my family thought I was insane and anyone else who knew me couldn't get their heads around it.When I graduated, my mind had never been clearer. I took time to travel, and as I sat in the Barcelona sun, I felt freer than I had been in my entire life. Without grades ruling my life, I felt entirely in control. I didn't need to turn to food to feel secure anymore. I had escaped the shackles in my head.In my quest for academic success, I didn’t get the chance to be like my peers. Developmentally and emotionally, this hindered me massively. Simply put, I didn’t know how to function without work.

After 22 years, I’m trying to claw back the youth that I lost to my pursuit of grades.

My Obsession With Approval Stayed With Me After School

As I entered the real world, I learned that obsessive behaviors always find a way to manifest. I brought my nine-to-five home with me and always worked long after I had clocked out of the office.Since I had few friends, I didn’t know how to socialize. I wanted to meet new people, but I didn’t know how. I went on a couple of first dates, both platonic and romantic, but I was a bundle of awkward energy each time. I was like an alien who had never met a human before. To avoid exposing my nonexistent personality, I would ask a barrage of questions. When somebody dared to ask one in return, I’d spin a web of lies in the hopes of coming across as vaguely interesting. On one occasion, I spent an hour talking to a date about The Avengers (which I’ve never seen), to which he replied that we should go back to his place to watch some films together. Out of my depth, I declined, and, alas, I never saw him again.The turning point came when my manager at work saw me replying to emails outside of the office. He swiftly told me that he didn’t want me to fall into the same trap he did. He explained that he wished he'd never started working overtime because now he couldn't escape the cycle. It was the same advice I give to people in school: Don’t make the same mistakes I did; have a life outside of education.After 22 years, I’m trying to claw back the youth that I lost to my pursuit of grades. I've been going to therapy to talk about my obsessive personality, and I've been trying new hobbies to find myself and new people. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m living.I may have a degree and an unblemished academic record, but what does that mean if you have nothing else? I recognize that education is a gift and that I am lucky to have had the opportunities I’ve been given to learn in a formal setting, but we need to take grades down from their pedestal.There’s a world outside of education, and my goodness it’s exciting.

Saying I am familiar with adversity is an understatement. I was born in the Bronx and raised between there and a beautiful island in the Caribbean. My mom, a new immigrant, did everything she could to raise me on less than $400 a week. She did everything in her power to hide her struggles from me until I was ten. That's when we ended up homeless due to her sustaining a back injury and being unable to work. It was my mom and me against the world.At the age of 11, I decided that I wanted to attend boarding school. It would be a new environment, and even though I didn't say this at the time, I knew it would make my mother's life easier on a day-to-day basis. My mom agreed that I could go if I achieved a full scholarship. Challenge accepted, challenge completed. I began at Asheville School at the age of 12. I fully embraced every opportunity: camping, varsity field hockey, varsity track and field, basketball. It seemed as if it was everything I could dream of all on one campus.

The Dream Became a Nightmare

Fast-forward: I am 16, ready to graduate high school, accepted into one of my dream colleges. Senior year seemed to be just about perfect in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Then, in mid-February, I became ill, but no one knew why. I had an unexplained fever, body aches, weakness and abdominal pain. I spent over a week in the infirmary and was told I needed to go back to class even though the symptoms were unresolved. My best friend saw that I was still in significant pain and much weaker than usual. He reached out to a mentor of ours who was also a teacher and asked what we should do. The advice was to go to the emergency room to see if they could help.My best friend filled the requisite paperwork from campus, we called my advisor multiple times and went to the hospital. The hospital was able to give me a diagnosis that explained some but not all of my symptoms. I returned to school later that night, not feeling much better. I thought I would be going back to my room to rest, but my advisor instructed me to head to the infirmary.I truly believed they were just concerned about my well-being only to find out that the administration had other plans.The next morning, I was informed that I would be sitting in front of the honor council for failure to sign out correctly. I was shocked. For the past four years, regimented sign-outs were never an issue. Disregarding the fact that I was ill, I was forced to climb over six flights of stairs to the fourth floor of the academic building approximately three times, each being harder than the last. Around dinner time, I was allowed to eat. I was sent back to the infirmary to await a decision.

Then, the Hammer Came Down

Deep in my heart, I knew what the decision would be because the headmaster had already told me that he did not believe I deserved to graduate at such a young age and that I would not if he had anything to do with it. A physics teacher also told me I would never be an honest member of society and began to spread the rumor that I was pregnant. Sure enough, the morning after the honor council meeting, the headmaster dismissed me with a smile.I was a student who had no demerits or conduct violations. I begged and cried because I knew that several students with family money who had drug violations, multiple honor violations and conduct violations—they were all allowed to stay and graduate with our class.I only had three months left, and I could not understand why this was happening. I was then treated like a criminal: I was escorted back to the infirmary, only allowed a backpack and was told I could not speak to my friends. I asked about my belongings and was told they would be shipped to me. While distraught, I had to remember that this decision fell in line with Asheville School’s long record with prejudice and discrimination while enforcing the conduct system.A couple of examples: When black students ate together at dinner or on the weekend, they were told that they were self-segregating or asked if they were plotting something. A black male student was kicked out of school without any investigation because a white female student claimed that she was afraid for her life after he broke up with her friend.

I Rebounded, Against the Odds

I only had a short time to digest what had just occurred, because within two hours, I was on a plane to Detroit and then New York. They called my mother and told her to pick me up without much of an explanation. Depression set in for the next two weeks because I did not know what my future would hold. On March 18—my best friend's birthday—I began at Danbury High School. I joined the track team and we won a state championship. I graduated in June and started college without missing a beat.I went on to become a Teach for America corps member. I am now a fourth-year medical student who plans to specialize in emergency medicine. One of my hardest moments became my motivation: I did everything in my power to prove the administrators and teachers who doubted me wrong. My best friend is still my best friend, and I am finally ready to tell my story 11 years later. The wounds have healed, but the scars will always remain as a reminder that even though people try to derail your life, what is meant for you is for you alone. No one has the power to change that.

Breathe in, breathe out.Breathe in, breathe out.*Gasp**Choke*My face gets hot and my vision blurs as steam billows outward.A rush of sensations—thoughts, feelings, memories, ideas, dreams, desires, reassurances—envelop me as I struggle to hold a steady breath.“What’s going on?”“Why me?”“What have I done?”*Choke**Cough**Pause*I didn't realize I was in so deep. I hadn’t anticipated that I’d become an accomplice, an agent of the state and upholder of the systems we so critically analyze and deconstruct in my class. I thought I was helping the youth by holding space in my classroom to critique these systems of control. I thought by offering ways to engage in activism that I was empowering them to cause change. I really believed my science projects were an exercise in co-imagining a future where science and technology can open up new opportunities for community growth and empowerment.All of it sounded so good on paper. I didn’t know my efforts in the classroom, although of purest intention, would only feed into a malicious cycle, one that robs each person in it of their soul, their essence, no matter their role.

An Epiphany Changed My Perspective on Education

I spent six long years working on my lessons, teaching strategies, projects, community outreach, classroom management and communication skills so that I could be the kind of ideal teacher I’d read about and admired. But no matter how many students enjoyed my class, or how many awards I received for a job well done, I still felt empty. I figured I’d continue working on my craft until I developed a reputation as a great educator, and that like most of my mentors and idols, the satisfaction of a job well done would fuel my passion and make it all worthwhile.But now I see I was simply asleep—a side effect of working from within a system designed for control.I didn’t expect waking up would be like this: seeing so clearly, feeling so deeply. But I guess there are no coincidences. It was destined to be that way: Once I finally healed enough from my past traumas, my mind, body and heart would align, and my soul would be filled with the hyper-awareness of all the selves I have scattered across time and space, existing in my memory or someone else’s.

I regurgitated this dogma to students and parents like incantations, limiting the capabilities of human creativity to that which can be graded with a rubric.

The Myth of American Meritocracy

I see myself as a child again, being socialized at school to believe American meritocracy will free me from the grips of poverty, ignorance and misfortune. I’m encouraged to compete for the acknowledgment and validation that what I’m so positive about is real and empirically true. I’m reminded that my tears and anxieties have no place in the classroom because it distracts from the learning. I’m assured that my instinctual shyness towards some adults was a result of my unstable home life, and not my ability to feel the darkness and sadness they hide.I feel my teen self seeking comfort in the consistency of the classroom setting, and the constant praise I receive for being “one of the good ones”—the pride in being deemed outstanding for valuing knowledge over trivial feelings. I hear the applause for awards I’d won for executing the complex logical acrobatics the hard sciences require. Yet I struggle to fill the pits of my heart, where the pain lies, and occasionally rises when I’m cold-called to answer a question. But this version of me is eager to please and is good at navigating toxic relationships.I recall the insecurities and overcompensating behaviors during my time existing and studying on a predominantly white undergraduate college campus. I remember buckling under the pressures of a high end, fully-funded science lab that demanded strict adherence to lab protocol—protocol I was learning for the first time, while so many of my peers already knew it by heart.I see myself engaging in substance abuse and unsafe sexual practices to cope with the feelings of loneliness and inadequacy. I experience again the depression and self-isolation I underwent when I realized schooling wasn’t going to deliver on my post-graduation happily-ever-after fantasy.

A Meritocratic Education System Is Simply Not Effective

Being awake now, I can experience these past versions of myself and see the impact this system has had on my development over time. It gives context to my personal experience and weaves it into a systemic issue. But it doesn’t stop there. I simultaneously become aware of the hundreds of versions that have existed and will continue to exist in the minds of my current and former students.The teacher who held space for more personal conversations. The teacher with the fun project. The teacher who failed them. The teacher they dreaded to visit because she was too coldly logical and confusing. The kooky teacher with strange ideas about the mind and the universe. The teacher who won’t let them eat in class. The intimidating teacher. The teacher that doesn’t believe in Jesus. The teacher they feel they let down because they didn't graduate. The teacher they stopped talking to because life got too real and they didn’t want her to be disappointed.There were so many instances where I felt the deeper socio-emotional and spiritual aches my students and I experienced at the hands of this system, but I couldn’t communicate what I was feeling intuitively. I’d been too disconnected from my emotions, for too long. My brain, so good at logic games, would play tricks to convince me that the system could be fixed if I just stayed in it long enough and tried harder. I was sure that if I just gave more of myself in the classroom, all of my students could pass. All of them would graduate, go to college and become successful. I was living proof you could succeed if you play the game right. I regurgitated this dogma to students and parents like incantations, limiting the capabilities of human creativity to that which can be graded with a rubric.As I articulate my current experience with self, I can expand outside my mind’s desire to analyze and judge my unfortunate participation in this system. This newfound awareness brings into perspective that this system isn’t new. My ancestral trauma primes me to fear and respect the powers that be—not to bite the hand that feeds but to beat them at their own game. And although countless authors, scholars and mentors encouraged my ability to reprogram the system from within, I see now that it was a flawed motive from the start.Only when community becomes aligned like our individual selves, can true, large-scale, meaningful change come to education. Only when unity and self-love become the standard all measured are by, will the controlling education system be dismantled.

The Solution Is a Holistic Approach to Education

With this new perspective, I now see so much. My students who ignore the lesson but appreciate my work are my allies—they co-create a space with me that values honest and tender communication. Those students who despise school but come to share their lived experiences with me are my new mentors. They show me the power of human connection and its spiritual value. My anxious students who struggle to complete timed performance tasks, but confidently share their smiles and laughter, are the models of genuine expression I never had in a school setting. Even the students who talk back, defy school rules and hurt others in search of their passion showcase the power of the human heart, regardless of its level of maturity or experience.Aside from the intense personal reflection, my awakening from within the education system has shown me that we are on a path towards radical change—a path that leads to where education isn’t measured by grades assigned to productivity, but rather by the cultivation of healthy relationships. Where the desire to learn isn’t tied to intrinsic curiosity or a belief in meritocracy, but a passion to connect with community, the environment and the cosmos beyond.Our guides won’t be people on a podium, but rather the youth who choose to defy the system: The ones who ditch class to be outside in nature. The ones who cherish their friendships over sitting quietly for hours. The ones who refuse to follow rules. They carry the seeds of the ancestors, which is why they won’t fall in line. Their existence is resistance against the monopolization of logic for profit.As a newly awakened educator, it is my duty to speak into existence the fall of this failing education system, so that these seeds may be sown in the compost, and a new vision for holistic education can be dreamed up from outside the classroom walls.

Back in 2018, when the Parkland shooting happened, all the schools in my area took part in the walkout. Being a politically educated eighth-grader at the time, I joined. At what is now my high school, they had a much different experience. There was a small group of kids who took part with good intentions. There was also a larger majority who had walked out but disagreed with the messages being spread. Their goal was to counter-protest, armed with Trump flags and their trucks. Near the end of the moment of silence, some of the counter-protesters got physical with the other students who were participating in the walkout. In the end, it resulted in a brawl that would eventually have larger consequences.

My Principal Is Leading the Charge

Walking into my high school in the fall of 2018, I felt like I was ready to take on the world. Being a tryhard came easy. The most important activity, for me, was student council. I was and still am there to fight for our students. However, our administration had different ideas in mind. Throughout the year I started to pick up bigger projects. At one point, a student education activist group announced they were looking for schools to be tour stops. The possibility was brought up to the principal. He had a phone interview with the group and then sat down for a debrief with us. The principal made it clear he was insulted and gave details that have been ringing in my head ever since.He informed us that he would no longer allow students to protest or partake in any acts of civil disobedience—big or small—because the students do not know what they are talking about and it makes him look bad. There were also personal insults thrown at me. My school has since shut down or not approved various events that the administration does not personally agree with, like events relating to Black History Month. They have attempted to keep students quiet so no one can hear their stories, with fears of punishment looming.

My School Is Racist

My school has also perpetuated a culture of racism and antisemitism at the expense of the students' well-being. Some kids have dealt with swastikas drawn on their possessions. Other students felt the need to make “swasti-cocks,” which is as bad and offensive as it sounds. Jewish students have been called names like "Jewish cow" and "kike". In addition to the numerous Holocaust “jokes,” one black student shared that while he was on the JV basketball team his teammates called him “Radio”—like the movie by the same name about a young black man who was mentally challenged. One black student had cotton balls dropped in front of him and a white student asked him to pick them for him. My school is majority white: 73 percent to be exact. The students all around know what is going on and so do the teachers, but no one stops it. No one has been punished for saying anything offensive or hurtful. Our administration refuses to take a stance and now, due to their inaction, these problems run rampant.

My School Fails in Other Ways, Too

High school is already hard enough. Everyone works to make sure they get by, graduate on time and not have to spend any extra time there. However, at the beginning of last year, the class of 2021 received some terrible news. Our state handed down a list of 11 different choices for graduation requirements. Every school needed to institute one of those choices. Despite my school being the career and tech hub for the district, we instituted minimum SAT scores. For a school that offers and suggests alternatives to college, it is astonishing they picked that test. My school made its students take more standardized tests instead of helping.When in-person learning was still occurring, my school failed its students. It stopped students from growing or working by taking away their participation and completion points. It barred students from graduation only because they did not meet the standard on a test designed to prove college readiness—not life readiness. My school failed to protect students’ constitutional rights. As a student, I can see that our education system is majorly flawed. I know my school could be a lot worse. I am thankful we have a nurse, counselors for all grades, a gifted and talented coordinator, and no gang violence. Yet we have so much further to go. My school has proven to its students time and time again that when the adults fail, the students must step up. The current system is built to keep students quiet, but just because our school has failed us does not mean we cannot grow and move past it. I and hundreds of other students are hopeful my school will change, grow and evolve to fit the time in which we live. Until then we wait. And we try to speak.

“Are you sure you want to discuss that? It’s so controversial.”“Your problem is that you become too emotionally attached to your students’ wellbeing.”“If you’re always so nice, they’ll just take advantage of you.”These are just a few things I’ve heard from colleagues and administrators in response to my teaching style and curriculum as a high school teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.I’ve been in the LAUSD system for six years, and the last two have been the most challenging. There have been wildfires that impacted my school community, threats of violence in the neighborhood, the unexpected passing of a beloved student and our current COVID-19 crisis.Interwoven within all these challenges and tragedies has been a battle that grows daily over just what roles education space should encompass, as well as how to support and uplift students.

I’ve witnessed a noticeable shift in the paradigm.

The Standardized Testing Debate Is More Prevalent Now Than Ever

I came to this profession with a vision of my role as an educator and a solid understanding of the experience I hoped to cultivate for my students. However, in these past two years, my earnest efforts have been met with prohibitive mandates. I’ve witnessed a noticeable shift in the paradigm: Our education space has moved away from a place of interpersonal and intellectual growth that allowed for radical kindness and honest exploration and into one focused mainly on numbers and scores. In this space, students are rarely seen as individuals, teachers are scolded for being too passionate and the truth has become too political to discuss.My path to the classroom was a winding road, but my love of learning developed at a young age. I’ve always been a curious person, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time school gave me to dedicate myself to exploring, questioning, learning and growing. I was fortunate enough to have amazing teachers who opened my mind and my heart, and encouraged me to grow as an individual, a community member and a human. Attending a humanities magnet school significantly impacted my understanding of my role in the community, the power I could embody and the good I was responsible for doing in the world.It was from this place of engagement, community, care and curiosity that I approached my role as an educator. The first few years were incredibly inspiring and rewarding, albeit undeniably exhausting. I was awarded a variety of grants that enabled me to develop a curriculum in collaboration with museums and leadership summits. I brought students to the Skirball Cultural Center, the Museum of Tolerance, the Broad, Balboa Park and Grand Park. In addition to off-campus field trips, I reached out to my network of friends and professionals who came to campus as guest speakers. Students were given opportunities to learn from artists, activists, museum educators, lawyers, writers and poets. I designed a self-empowerment and leadership program for a group of young women focused on their growth and development as leaders of their community. In collaboration with other teachers, I kickstarted projects incorporating performance, poetry, movement, and science.With each new program, field trip and project, I hoped to provide students with opportunities to explore the world, engage with new concepts and develop their own voice.

My Greatest Achievements as a Teacher Have Nothing to Do With Test Scores

A few experiences stand out as being truly memorable. Hearing from Holocaust survivors demonstrated the power and importance of empathy, and the role we all play in keeping history alive. After a cross-curricular project with a dance class, one of my literature students shared that creating a performance piece allowed him to communicate in a format he'd never explored before. As a result, not only was he incredibly proud of himself, but he signed up to take dance the following year.Bringing a bus full of young women to a Girls Build event where we heard from Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and many more amazing female leaders was particularly energizing. Each student felt special and lucky that an organization was devoted to listening to and amplifying their voices. Their joy, enthusiasm and gratitude reminded me why I chose to do such challenging work.Recently I brought ten students who’ve been studying bias, the pursuit of truth and our judicial system to a summit in downtown L.A. We were able to observe a public trial and then participated in a discussion led by public defenders, Patrice Cullors of Black Lives Matter and George Gascon, a candidate for L.A. District Attorney. My students were genuinely stunned that these individuals were interested in what they thought about criminal justice.

Their joy, enthusiasm and gratitude reminded me why I chose to do such challenging work.

Teachers Are Forced to Work Around Standardized Testing Cons

Each summer I took a breath, gathered more resources, engaged in additional education, applied for more grants and eventually felt ready to do it all over again. I felt invigorated, and absolutely sure I was in the right profession. My skills, passions and ethos were aligned with my work, and I felt that the impact couldn't be denied. My students felt my care and compassion, and were engaged in rigorous coursework that allowed them to ask important questions of themselves and their world. They were given opportunities to advocate for themselves and apply their understanding in a multitude of ways. Furthermore, they experienced community, collaborating with each other and explored what Los Angeles had to offer. Creating space for students to develop as independent, engaged, and empowered individuals was vitally important to me and made a difference to them.That had to count for something in our education system, right?As resources continued to shrink, and our state standardized test scores didn’t grow at the rates the district desired, I felt support for the work I was doing dwindle. Political divisions that were reshaping our country were having an impact on the classroom. Parents were vocal about topics that made them uncomfortable and students were challenging fundamental truths in ways I didn't feel adequately prepared to address. I always welcomed discourse and debate, but I was stunned to see topics suddenly politicized. I was told I needed to stay neutral or apolitical when discussing them.

Standardized Tests Don't Accurately Measure Students’ Potential

This fear was doubled because my students' work wasn’t always reflected in their state testing scores.I remember a student debating the role social media has taken in our society, and how it’s impacted everything from what we think is true in the world to what we think is true about ourselves. A visiting faculty member was moved by his remarks because she’d only known him to be a shy student who struggled to pass his classes. He’d found his voice and was exceptionally good at articulating his thoughts verbally. Unfortunately, the state standardized test didn’t recognize these skills or have a measure for his personal and academic growth.Each of the memorable field trips and projects I mentioned faced incredible hurdles in the fight for approval, and some almost didn't happen. Usually, the reasons are money, time away from the classroom, testing schedules or, frankly, that it doesn't fit within my designated curriculum. I know too many teachers who have tired of these fights and no longer pursue these types of experiences. To give up would require that I fundamentally shift my role as an educator, and it’s led me to re-examine what an enriching, rewarding, educational experience should look like. Despite the challenges and frustrations I’ve faced, I firmly believe that care must be a part of the equation: I know that while it might not immediately translate into an easily digestible score on a piece of paper, it certainly makes a difference to the individuals we are educating.

I have been a high school English teacher for 29 years. In a way, I became a teacher by default. I really wanted to be an actress. However, once I realized both how difficult it would be to make a living as an actress and what I was not willing to give up, I figured that teaching would be the next best thing. After all, teaching is like acting and performing. My mom was an English teacher. I thought she was so smart and I admired the way she interacted with her students and the clear impact she had on them. I saw myself doing that as well.Although it wasn’t my first choice in a career, I have grown to truly love my job. I think any teacher will tell you how wonderful it is to see students understand a concept, improve on a skill or discover something about themselves that will affect the trajectory their life will take. The potential effect of a student’s experience in a class, with a teacher or with a subject, can be transcendent and can make a world of difference for a young person. While high school is something that pretty much everyone “does,” we would be foolish to underestimate its importance in a person’s life (even for those who have a negative high school experience). It’s also important to note, with any type or level of education, that its effects are often not seen for years, in direct contrast to our current desire for instant results or gratification. Today’s high school students have grown up in, and are conditioned to, a world where most things come fairly easily. They can do research without ever going to a library or opening a book. They can order most anything they want online and receive it in a few days, if not within a few hours. They can request a meal without getting up until it is delivered to their door. It’s hard to put stock in something that has a later payoff if you are conditioned to getting everything quickly. But education is not something that can be done quickly.

Education is not something that can be done quickly.

The State of Mental Health in High School Students

I have always affirmed that struggle and hard work builds character and makes a person better. We see it today with the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests across the world against police brutality. People have been protesting and advocating for change for years. The best literature I teach is all about suffering and struggle. It is the story of humanity. The best achievements come with struggle.In November 2016, a Time cover story, “Teen Depression and Anxiety: Why the Kids Are Not Alright,” explored how teenagers were depressed and anxious, struggling and suffering more than ever had previously been seen or reported. Moreover, they were not reaching out to tell their parents or other adults in their lives. This seemed to mirror what I was seeing as a high school teacher. At that time, in addition to teaching, I was the coordinator for our school’s International Baccalaureate (IB) program, an academically rigorous curriculum for high- achieving students. The IB program is hard. To be successful, a student must learn to manage time, be attentive and engaged in class and study. In other words, struggle (and, in their own words, “suffer”). I have seen the IB program transform students’ lives and watched them reach well beyond what they believe is possible. When IB graduates come back to visit, they talk about how hard the program was, but how it was so worth it because of the sense of accomplishment they felt having done it. To them, the IB is a perfect example of the payoff that can come from hard work over a long period of time.

The best achievements come with struggle.

Mental Health Is Just as Important as Education

In 2015, when I began my IB job, I anticipated the majority of my work would be administrative, such as helping students choose courses, register for exams and the like. What happened, however, was that I spent more and more time working individually with students who were anxious and stressed out. The majority of these students were more than capable intellectually of completing the IB program, but the pressure (both academic and social) that they felt from themselves, their parents and others became overwhelming and hard for them to manage. My students experienced struggles that were so similar to those reported in Time: The article featured teens engaging in self-harm and some who had tried to kill themselves. As schools became more aware of how difficult life had become for teens, many began planning and implementing additional mental health resources. Conversations among teachers and administrators included an intentional focus on really tuning in to students’ mental health, getting rid of the stigma surrounding depression and anxiety, and building community so students would feel supported and encouraged. We worked on being cognizant of things that might trigger anxiety and depression in our students and were ready to help them find a way to either manage or eliminate these stressors. We wanted to make sure that our kids were alright and that they knew we were there to help them navigate these difficult teen years. In addition to being a teacher for 29 years, I also have been a mom for 24 years. My concern for my students was mirrored in my concern for my own children. As a parent, I constantly checked in with them to make sure they were okay mentally, not struggling or considering self-harm. All three of my children were far more stressed out and anxious than I was at that age. As both a teacher and mother, though, I have to ask myself, “How much is too much struggle?” At what point do the potential benefits of the struggle outweigh the stress on a teen’s mental health? One of my good friends (also a teacher) contends that in the interest of preserving mental health on the one hand and ensuring that they have what it takes to figure things out on the other, that we are raising and educating students who are afraid both to challenge themselves and to advocate for themselves.

Addressing Mental Health in Schools Should Be a Top Priority

Things have not changed much since the Time piece hit the shelves. I spend more and more time working with students on managing the mental health challenges they face as high-achieving students. The trend now is for students to leave the IB program (with their parents’ blessing) due to the stress. Many other parents worry about their children even attempting to pursue an IB diploma because they don’t want them to be overwhelmed. While my work is primarily with these high-achieving students, I know this is the same for most high school students and parents. I think this is one of the most important challenges for high schools and parents of high school students. We must find a way to balance caring for and monitoring their mental health while encouraging them to take on challenges that we know will only improve the way they feel about themselves and the world. It is a challenge we must be ready to take.

I feel uncomfortable already. In fact, I anticipate that I will feel uncomfortable for the entire process of writing this. And beyond. I plan to cling to that discomfort. I hope to reeducate myself into a place of perpetual discomfort because closing my eyes and going back to sleep is just no longer an option. I probably will make mistakes. I am sure I will re-read my writing in a month, a year, a decade and wish to take the most menacing red pen that I can find to the whole thing. I’m prepared to be called out. Please call me out. I cannot grow as a teacher, a mother or a human if I do not participate in what is appropriately being termed “The Great Unlearn,” a title owed to Rachel Cargle.I know, however, that in my whiteness I need finally and completely to embrace this 400-year-old problem as mine.

I know, however, that in my whiteness I need finally and completely to embrace this 400-year-old problem as mine.

My White Privilege Made Me Blind to the Racism in Minnesota Schools

I embody a unique role in our society: I am a teacher. Fortunately, I am a teacher. But also ironically, I am a teacher. Teachers exist in systems that are simultaneously change-making spaces as well as oppressive perpetrators of systemic wrongs. Binaries aren’t a thing. No one system is all one thing or another.Being a white teacher is complicated. According to the National Center for Education Statistics 2017-2018 data, 79 percent of United States public school teachers are white, while 52 percent of their students are non-white. Got it?I grew up outside Minneapolis in a very white, privileged suburb. In May 2020, to acknowledge the stark contrast between protest footage in South Minneapolis and the area just twenty minutes west, where I grew up, was a violent eye-opener, accompanied by an almost paralyzing shame. This inequitable juxtaposition always had been there. Where had I been? What had I been doing? My cloak of privilege had left me disgracefully blind.So my waking-up began. As a teacher. But diversifying the literature that I teach or even analyzing my biases publicly in the classroom would never be sufficient.Torn about how to act, I texted a group of my colleagues, did some quick research and started a “white affinity group.” I know how that title sounds. It probably makes you bristle. (It made me bristle.) But let me explain what a group like this is: a gathering of white people congregating to have honest, uncomfortable discussions about race. The name comes from a Spring 2009 article in the University of Pennsylvania periodical Perspectives on Urban Education, “Becoming an Anti-Racist White Ally: How a White Affinity Group Can Help.” In it, the authors Ali Michael and Mary C. Conger claim, “Somehow, white people discussing race together can seem wrong or threatening. Because of this inherent fear, white people often wait to talk about race until we are in interracial dialogues. This is problematic, however, as many white people are hindered in such conversations by our inexperience discussing race, ignorance about the legacy of racial injustice in the US, and underdeveloped racial identities.”

My cloak of privilege had left me disgracefully blind.

It Wasn’t Just Me Who Wanted to Fight Racism in Schools

The response to the possible formation of our group was eager and unanimous. As educators, all of us knew not only that we had to do better but also that we needed to grapple with discussing race—even with a lack of experience doing so.I am neither an expert in groups like these nor am I confident in our work together so far. I am just here to narrate one teacher’s experience starting a collective of this nature in response to George Floyd’s murder. It is a response 400 years overdue. Our group is in its beginning stages and, like so many waking up with (offensively late) untrained eyes to our world, I know we will make mistakes. I fear that our discussions will devolve into yet another patronizing white group condescending to intervene and solve the violence and oppression of people who are black, indigenous or people of color. That fear is my greatest motivator to do the opposite.So, we gather. Currently, there are ten of us. All white. All teachers. We meet in the middle of a weekday. Why do we meet? Because of important perspectives such as Tre Johnson’s Washington Post piece, “When black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs.” In Johnson’s commentary, he describes the exhausting time loop where the white response to police brutality against blacks materializes as buying frequently tagged books. Johnson writes, “Their book clubs will do what all book clubs do: devolve into routine reschedulings and cancellations; turn into collective apologies for not doing the reading or meta-conversations about what everyone should pretend to read next; finally become occasional opportunities to catch up over wine. It is hard and harmful to know that all of this keeps them in a comfortable place, even if doing just little feels like a reach when the Race Alarms are sounded.”We don’t drink at our meetings, eschewing the all-too-ubiquitous wine bottle at the center of white female culture in this country. To me, that wine bottle is the ultimate symbol of privilege. “Let’s relax and chit-chat about all the history we weren’t taught and didn’t bother to ask about while numbing ourselves more and more to our purpose for congregating in the first place.”I refuse to have just another book club.

Putting a Stop To Institutional Racism in Schools Requires Action

Our group began to amass multimedia materials to serve as starting points, but we made it crystal clear at our first meeting that we need to arrive at a place of action, not merely to read. In the dry heat of summer, we democratize ourselves into a circle and look at our white faces. In them, I see both eagerness and confusion about what at this point might be our most effective role. None of us want to return to the status quo in the fall and I’m not sure this universe would let us anyhow. That first meeting, we walked through the norms listed in the University of Pennsylvania article: Respect confidentiality, speak from the “I” perspective, listen to each other, embrace discomfort, monitor your own participation, none of us are experts, be open, avoid judgment and focus on whiteness as a racial category. Looking again at the white faces, we all confronted our own race and what it represents. In our discussions, we tried to assume the shoes of our black and brown students in order to feel what a sense of otherness it must be to come up in our school system, while simultaneously knowing that most of us have no idea what it is to be “other.”The most important question to surface so far—“So, what does this look like at our school?”—is the question that I hope leads us to much-craved direct action. How do we change systemic racism? I see progress. We note disproportionate suspensions and expulsions, tracking (separating students according to academic ability thereby widening the opportunity gap), co-taught classes (concentrating large groups of special education students within an on-level class resulting in impossibly high numbers of Individualized Education Programs), calling on- level classes “Gen Pop,” (it’s originally a prison term), overt or covert lowered expectations for students of color, and curricula and testing instruments that favor whiteness. Our list is growing.

It’s Every White Teacher’s Responsibility to Fight Racism in Schools

At the beginning of this article, I expressed fear, anxiety and shame. I still feel those all. However, our group is working to use those emotions as motivators instead of disincentives. No more erasure and denial. No more complicit participation in our racist systems. No more benefitting from the privilege that we have been trained is ours without even knowing that it is ours.When we wrapped up our latest meeting, I asked a few of my colleagues what their hopes were for our group as it matures. One woman wisely noted that before we ask our staff in the fall to confront these issues, we may need to practice doing so with ourselves—so that we can start the conversation in a humble versus confrontational way. At our next meeting, we hope to each share something we’ve reflected on in our teaching that we now know we need to change. Another colleague, though, balanced this suggestion with the idea that we also point out something that we think we are doing right. As I stated earlier, binaries aren’t a thing, and even though we need to make responsive changes to this system, that doesn’t mean there aren’t racially sensitive decisions that we already have made which we can strengthen and perpetuate. Finding those will take more reflection. I hope they are there. I know that many of us believe we have really been doing the work of anti-racist teaching. In any case, it has not been enough. White educators, it’s time to get to work. It’s time to do better.

I was working from home on a weekday afternoon when a friend dropped round in the hopes I'd be able to entertain her, despite the work piling up on my desk and the unanswered emails screaming in my inbox. We sat down in the living room, where I curled my legs underneath me and watched her warm her hands on the cup of coffee I’d just made her.As I half-listened to the stream of mundane information coming out of her, I made a to-do list in my head: reply to Cathy, make notes for tomorrow’s meeting, read that student’s draft. By the time I returned to what she was saying, she was discussing marriage. Someone she worked with had recently ended their 14-year marriage after an affair. It was messy: hurt egos, kids caught in the middle and a rising financial cost.“I’ll never get married,” I said, without a thought.My friend blew on her still-too-hot coffee, a reminder of how slowly time was passing. “Never say never,” she said, her voice oddly casual as she dismissed me with three simple words. “You never know where you’ll be in a few years.” She seemed ignorant that she had just outlined one of the most quoted arguments against marriage: divorce.

Not Everyone Dreams About Their Wedding Day

The thing is, I did know.I hadn't been raised to think of marriage as aspirational. Instead, I was raised by a single father who discouraged relationships of any kind. He built up a small world, one that was impenetrable to outsiders. We saw our extended family once a year, he never dated and he discouraged the pursuit of romance over education. Once, when I was eight years old and still unsure of my sexuality, I asked when I should have my first girlfriend. “In your twenties,” he said, “when you’re done with school.”Through watching him, I had learned the value of independence and a particular type of working-class emotional repression that was hard to shake. I was never quite comfortable when someone else paid for dinner.I had also grown up queer, questioning my sexuality and gender identity ruthlessly. For the first twenty-one years of my life, marriage wasn’t an option that was actually available to me. There were civil partnerships, but their perceived status, both culturally and politically, was second-class to marriage. So while my straight peers dreamed of white dresses and quaint countryside churches, I checked out. I thought about sex and exploration. I thought about my future, about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. I thought aimlessness and the fact that I floated between potential professions, unable to moor myself to anyone, was the biggest issue facing me. Marriage was never even part of my plan.Now, in my late twenties, marriage is an ever-present specter. Mornings go by scrolling on Instagram, which is often filled with the delicate fingers of young women adorned with diamonds that could sink a ship. These women, who are often burdened with making the announcement, caption their photos “I Said Yes,” alongside an engagement ring emoji. Then there are photos of bridal fittings, wedding fairs, pink champagne, hen nights, stag parties and nuptial destinations, before the eventual walk down the aisle.What I began to notice more and more, though, were the LGBTQ+ people engaging in this type of behavior and the way that type of content often went viral. On Twitter, I saw a video of two women at Disneyland. One pulled out a ring and got down on her knees. The other screamed and pulled a ring from her rucksack too. I read Tinder bios of men looking for “husband material.” I saw women in tuxes in front of the altar and men posing outside churches in a shower of rice. The posts, and the way they spread across the internet, spoke to just how much the culture at large wants to see queer people married.For the better part of a decade, gay marriage was the rallying cry for the queer liberation movement: The theory held that this major legal milestone would burst the dam and give way to a flood of total equality. Then, when it finally happened in various places across the world, this hard-fought-for parity felt anticlimactic. If anything, it created another stick with which to bash nonconformists while fueling the already tense respectability politics within the LGBTQ+ community. Much like second-wave feminism, the queer liberation movement was now keenly aware of what “type” of queer best-served progress. Was it the hypersexualized gay that could be spun by right-wing pundits as perverted and predatory? Or was it the sweet innocent gay dreaming of one day getting hitched?

To them, the choice was either marriage or life as a spinster.

I Don’t Think Gay People Should Get Married (or Straight People)

A month or two after that conversation, I met up with another friend for a walk. The heat was oppressive, and my back dampened with sweat with each step I took. As we caught up, I listened to her lay out her life to me—work, family, pressures and assorted stresses—until we got onto the topic of her boyfriend. She was in a long-distance relationship and struggling with isolation. The post-university shift, where everyone either goes home to reconfigure, transplants themselves to the capital or follows a job offer, had left the two of them hundreds of miles apart. The question was not only how they would navigate their current position—using FaceTime, Skype and expensive train journeys—but also their future status. Where would they settle down? My friend suggested that moving in together would most certainly lead to marriage, and she had decided she was comfortable with that. She saw it for herself and always had. She'd attended a Catholic school, after all.“What about you?” she asked.“What about me?”“Do you think you’ll get married?”"I don't think gay people should get married," I said in a tone harsher than I intended. "At least, in the political sense."She looked at me, puzzled. “Surely, you’re joking?” she said.Marriage was in the abstract for me. I had no long-distance boyfriend and so, annoyed that I had to consider my decision in relation to hers, I became oddly defensive.“I’m just not sure we’ve thought it through,” I said. “It feels like all these gay people are rushing to get married, and what is marriage but a heterosexual concept, one that is built on a history of female oppression and patriarchal control? How can gay people fit within a structure that wasn’t built to include them without compromising?”She was still silent.Over the past few months, I had been reading and informing myself about the politics of gay marriage. I was marching towards 27, and I realized that I would have to heavily defend my decision not to marry for the next few years. I'm the last single adult in the family; thus, I needed the ammunition.It seemed that most people cast me as a bitter queer who was turning down something I had not yet been offered. As if, when the offer did come along, I would be grateful that someone had come to rescue me from the stew of resentment and loneliness I was broiling in. They arrogantly assumed their heteronormative predictions would prove fruitful and I would eventually succumb to their way of thinking. It didn’t seem to occur to them that my disavowal of marriage didn’t mean I would live my life alone. It didn’t mean I couldn’t be with someone for a long time, or that we couldn't draw up legal contracts regarding co-owned property or how we would split up assets if we broke up.To them, the choice was either marriage or life as a spinster.My friend took a deep breath and decided she wanted to move on. But I wasn’t done.“I mean, don’t you think it’s fucked up?” I went on. “Queer people spend their adolescence being treated like shit, called names, beaten up, and then when they get older, they’re so conscious of what the straight majority thinks. So what? They get married as if to say, ‘I’m just like you, please stop hating me.’ It’s super weird.“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I give no weight to conservative objections to it. Fuck them. But, I don’t know, I think it’s more complex than people realize.”“Isn’t marriage about love?” she asked, absently, hoping this brief interlude into radical social politics was coming to an end. I didn’t know if it was worth entering into the debate around marriages as transactional and the idea of “love” being used as an institutional selling point. So we walked on.

The view that LGBTQ+ people and straight people are now equal is a blurry illusion.

Queer People Can’t Be Expected to Fix a Straight Institution

For a long time, there has been a feminist argument against marriage, and now there is a queer one too. In her book Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino posits that there is room to change the gendered implications of marriage because, in the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges, same-sex marriage, “reconfigured it as an institution that could be entered into on gender-equal terms.” Relying on queers to revitalize a heterosexual institution, rather than allowing them to create their own, is problematic. We're not going to come in and Queer Eye an outdated tradition by putting it in a shiny metallic bomber jacket and teaching it to love itself. That is not the path to queer liberation.The view that LGBTQ+ people and straight people are now equal in Western society is a blurry illusion. We’re now allowed to engage in traditionally straight activities such as marriage or raising children, and while these are essential legal rights, they aren't precisely equality. They merely equate to assimilation, or the right to be treated fairly if you conform to the structures already in place. This means that LGBTQ+ people who don’t wish to enter into marriages—especially those who might be non-monogamous or in “unconventional” romantic arrangements—are judged differently and not offered the same social status who follow straight traditions.It is no mistake that marriage offers certain legal and social advantages that no other agreement can. In that way, marriage is incentivized to gays and straights alike who seek legal security for their children, healthcare benefits and insurance payouts. But, I believe this speaks to how we should offer alternatives—a straight female friend of mine recently talked to me about how she would much rather have a civil partnership. “All the benefits without the patriarchal history,” she called it. I am inclined to agree.The queer feminist writer Audre Lorde wrote that when trying to build the vision of your future within the confines of a racist patriarchy, "Only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable." But how does that affect queer people? Have we, as queer people, given up any hope of forming our own rules now that we have the right to abide by someone else's?

The Painter Problem

In the summer of 2018, I dated a painter for two months. At no point did we talk about marriage (why would we?), but that didn't stop the idea from percolating amongst my friends. He was, on paper, a perfect match for me. He was American, an artist, chilled-out enough to balance my neuroses and occasionally even thoughtful. To others, it seemed that I'd found my match—and that was it. I had done what every single person was supposed to do: I found a potential end to my singledom. Though, as the weeks passed by, it became increasingly clear that I was unnerved by the prospect of monogamy and the idea of lifelong commitment.Even in the hypothetical, marriage was terrifying. It felt like I wasn’t just talking about the painter as he was, but also as he would be. Would his scatterbrained nature prove annoying in the future? Would I eventually find the weed smoking tiresome? Would we be happy together, forever, in a three-bedroom, semi-detached in the suburbs? I felt like I was having a pre-approved future forced upon me—a quasi-heterosexual life that felt like it would close in on me with its mortgages, baby clothes and shared cemetery plots.Could I spend the rest of my life with the painter? Doubtful. Was it possible to know that after two months? No. So, why then was I going insane over lifelong compatibility? I was considering his potential through the lens of heteronormativity, subconsciously assessing our whatevership by heterosexual standards. Then, when it ended, it felt more like a failure than the two-month romp that it was. Would it have felt that way if the pressure of marriage or longevity weren’t so prevalent?My disdain for marriage is born from a confluence of reasons, some personal and some political. Mostly, however, it comes down to the fact I’m not made for it, and it was not made for me. Yet, I am expected to want it. The idea of it makes me anxious. (While writing this essay, my right ankle broke out in a stress rash.) But it also makes me angry: angry about a lack of understanding from heterosexuals who continually promote marriage as the pinnacle, and mad that it’s me who’s expected to alter my perception, rather than them. Instead of doing their part in dismantling the heteronormative patriarchy and the systems of oppression, they ask that I, as a queer person, enter into their institution and try to galvanize it—to make it cool again as if it were a '90s tracksuit or Polaroid camera.That day when my friend rang my doorbell as I was trying to work, I realized how little sense the whole thing makes. My friend was mourning the death of a marriage because we see marriage as success and divorce as a failure. What if, as queer people, we were able to opt out of that, and create our own systems of success and failure as we see fit? What if you happily spend 20 years of your life with someone and then break up? Is that failure? What if it were normal for people to split and move on when things became a little stale or were able to spread their wings sexually without the curtain-twitching neighbors getting curious? What if it were normal not to expect all things from one person, if society were set up to value close friendships and nurture them alongside romantic ones? Why not let queer people figure out that new vision? Let us make our own rules and not bend to someone else's.When she finished her coffee, she stood up and made to leave. I followed her out into the hallway and slinked around her to open the door. She stood still for a moment, looking out onto the street. I wondered what she was thinking. She turned me to, hugged me briefly and headed off into the afternoon.I sat back down at my desk, opened my inbox, and got back to work, but I couldn’t shake what she’d said. Never, I thought defiantly. Never, never, never. Never.

I have a confession. It’s not a deep, dark secret. It’s more like the kind of thing that makes for a great truth in “Two Truths and a Lie” during icebreaker sessions. “I have a Jack Russell terrier mix, I was homeschooled for ten years and I like to make ASMR videos in my spare time.” It’s the kind of thing that sounds absurd and patently false, but for me, it’s 100 percent true.I was homeschooled for ten years.For my junior and senior year, I went to public school, but from first until tenth grades, I learned at my kitchen table. Or in the backseat of a car. Or wherever we happened to be when there was learning to be done. I had a desk, a bright red one that had a top that opened, usually to a mess of half-finished worksheets, hole-punch confetti and broken pencil nubs. But if I wasn’t at that desk, it didn’t matter. I was able to go to school anywhere I could find a flat workspace.

My family moved a lot.

Homeschool Made Things Easier for My Family

My family moved a lot. We weren’t military, which is what people assume when I say that. My dad just followed his tech job across the country from New York to Silicon Valley, then moved back to Alabama to be closer to family as they aged. By the time I was 12, I’d lived in four states, and six different houses. In a traditional environment, I would have changed schools three or four times by then. Being homeschooled allowed those transitions to be less difficult. It also allowed us, for instance, to spend two months driving across the country when my dad had to go back to California for work.When we were getting ready to move cross-country in 1996, at the end of our lease, my mom and dad put together “car kits” for all of us. They had an eight-year-old, a five-year-old and a three-year-old. Mom was seven months pregnant, and we were all going to be driving across the country in our old, reliable 1986 Acura Legend. This was long before the concept of smartphones—I don’t even think we had noise-making toys, probably for the sake of my parents’ sanity.Mom put our schoolbooks in my and my brother’s kits, and board books in the kit for my then-youngest sister. We all had paper and pencils and crayons, and she put small “journals” for us to write and draw in—to write about the things we saw as we journeyed. We had toy cars that my brother and I raced along the armrests, small pillows and our teddy bears. We counted cows in the Great Plains, played “I Spy” to help my sister learn her shapes and colors, and even the alphabet game. The first one to find all the letters in order won. We never won anything, but the pride of victory was just as good back then.

Textbooks Aren’t the Only Way to Learn

We were able to spend a month on that first long drive back, stopping at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and anywhere else that tickled our fancy. My family learned about geysers and how mountains were made. We learned about weather, and how it changes even across small portions of the country. We saw how the roads crisscrossed the land and talked about how the pioneers made this same journey over a hundred years earlier, in the other direction.I learned about the Great Depression and the public works that FDR instituted at the Hoover Dam, one of the many things created as a result. There was a film we watched there, in black and white, that showed the men using dynamite to clear stones. Another film, at Mount Rushmore, explained how the carvers used the same substance to help create huge busts from a sheer mountain face.In every place we stopped, we helped my mom find a natural souvenir. At one point, she had little glass vials of sand, sediment or water from every river, lake, stream and beach we ever visited. She stole one rock—just one—from every national park we visited, searching for those that looked like they had their own story to tell. Once, she even tried to take leaves to press, when a kind person took the time to tell her it was poison oak and best not to touch it.

Homeschooling allowed me to learn my own way and at my own pace.

I Learned Adults Can Be Wrong, Too

I had textbooks, too, of course. Saxon math books will always be both nostalgic and terrifying, all at once. Thanks to homeschooling, though, I also got far more real-world lessons than you can possibly cram into a traditional classroom setting.One of the most important lessons I learned as a homeschooler is that adults aren’t always right. One day, in what must have been second grade, we were doing a unit on Australia. For some reason, my mom was not there to read my spelling words for a test, so my dad did it. It was Australian animals: kangaroo, platypus, Tasmanian devil, those sorts of things. Halfway through, he said a word I had never heard. “Coo-ay-lay,” he said. I spelled it like it sounded: cooaylay. But he marked it wrong! I was still arguing with him when my mom got home. It must have been a sight. He demanded that my mom pronounce it, because I’d been telling him that he’d said it wrong and that was why I missed it and so (obviously) it shouldn’t count! She made him say it first, and then—I will never know how she managed it—she managed not to laugh as she pronounced it right: “Koala.”Most importantly, homeschooling allowed me to learn my own way and at my own pace, and my siblings at theirs. I learn best given instructions and the freedom to make mistakes and fix them myself. My brother is hands-on and learns best by doing with help. My sister? Tell her once and let her loose.I am the oldest of four. In my senior year, my youngest sister was a third-grader. She went into a traditional school that year, when my mom went to work full time. Her teacher, a lovely older woman who had taught for 25 years, prepared herself for a child who couldn’t read, couldn’t do math and would be a “difficult student.” What she got was an honor roll student who struggled with division and whose only disciplinary issue was talking too much—which, in my experience, is an issue for lots of third graders.

The Stigma Against Homeschooling Is Based on Stereotypes

The most interesting part of being homeschooled, though, isn’t the stories from my childhood. It’s the reaction I get whenever I tell people I was homeschooled growing up. They generally assume I grew up sheltered and uneducated or as a hardcore Jesus freak. Or both. They’re often shocked to find out that I actually grew up—and remain—largely nonreligious, and I like to think I’m at least as normal as most nerds. I think this reaction is because mainstream media relegates the choice of homeschooling children to societal outliers. The Duggar family, for example, or those clickbait articles with shocking reports of half-feral, unvaccinated children being “unschooled” —which means they’re being allowed to run wild and do whatever they want. In the real world, homeschooling is a diverse option, one many families choose for reasons that are largely practical.My mom chose to homeschool because it worked for our family at the time. It helped that when she tried to put me in a traditional kindergarten, they turned her away because they were not going to “challenge” me. It also helped that we were living in a place that had a lot of support for less-traditional schooling options. Those first few years, we had a program that offered onsite classes once a week, as well as a district home education specialist who came and helped my parents put together lessons, made sure I was on track and generally ensured that we were on pace with the traditional path—even if we didn’t follow that path exactly.

When we moved to Alabama, I began to see why I always got asked if we were Jesus freaks.

All Forms of Schooling Has Problems

When we moved to Alabama, I began to see why I always got asked if we were Jesus freaks. Alabama, at least when I was in school, was not as supportive of alternative schooling options. Here we had “cover schools,” which were largely hands-off, mostly deregulated and almost entirely church-based. My mother—without the assistance of the internet, which was in its infancy at the time—found one that didn’t require us to sign a statement of faith or regularly attend their church. She paid the low fee to enroll our whole family. Our friends, still in the program in California, shared their curriculum with us and we tested using the California standardized tests.The one requirement I remember our cover school had was that we had to have a bible class. That’s the only requirement my parents ever skirted in my entire educational journey. It wasn’t hard; the cover school visited once or twice a year and looked over our records, and since we did go to church—Sunday school, once a week—we were able to show we had one (even if we technically didn’t). We continued to follow the path presented by our Californian compatriots, and we all four grew up to become functional members of society.Homeschooling isn’t perfect. It involves a lot of extra work on the parent’s part: making sure they find a curriculum that meets requirements and keeps a child learning, all of which has been outsourced to paid professionals for a very long time. They also have to find ways to ensure that kids have a chance to be around other kids. With homeschooling, the built-in socialization that occurs in a traditional school has to be shipped in or manufactured, like snow on a ski slope in October. This, on top of handling all the day-to-day things a parent must as they guide a child into adulthood. It’s a lot, and it isn’t viable for every family. But it isn’t just for Jesus freaks and “unschoolers.” Perfectly normal human beings can come from homeschooling, too. Most days, I like to think I’m one.

I meandered through my education. Bouncing between inner-city public schools as a child, I excelled thanks to nightly family read-alongs and weekend trips to museums, but I was bored in class. Teachers would hand out worksheets and I’d finish them within minutes.“What’s next?” I’d ask with a child’s glee. It was always another worksheet.Although the monotony of rote learning crushed my soul, it didn’t hamper my performance. My high scores got me a scholarship to one of the country’s top prep schools, which counts the rich and famous among its elite alumni. (They definitely weren’t doing worksheets.)When I got there, school suddenly became challenging for the first time in my seven years of education. On top of juggling advanced Latin, French and English, I was supposed to break down the chemical composition of my shampoo and understand what authors from the 1800s meant when they wrote effusively about the moors of England and Moors of Spain.The less I understood, the harder I worked.I was too used to getting As to stomach anything less. I studied a lot, and it paid off. The reward wasn’t just about the higher grades. It was also about the pretension I had picked up from my new classmates and was now able to partake in. “We must be destined for greatness,” I thought, “If we can translate accounts of Mount Vesuvius’ eruption decimating Pompeii!”The sense of intellectual superiority and hard-earned top marks felt good momentarily, but it was an empty triumph. I didn’t really care about the chemistry of my Pantene, or rural British life centuries ago. Learning became nothing more than a hard, dull chore.Burned out and bored once again, I was determined to get out of the drudgery so I transferred schools.I chose wisely. My new school had no grades.

I chose wisely. My new school had no grades.

How Does School Even Work Without Grades?

As a 14-year-old who’d always wanted to slack off but was too scared to, I couldn’t believe that I was being given the freedom to learn without accountability. “Why would I bother studying?” I wondered. This progressive school’s answer was that I’d be propelled by my excitement about the content. I could pick from a diverse selection of classes, and this ownership and choice would motivate me intrinsically to work hard.This wasn't the case for me—at least not that first year. I dropped Latin immediately, and took as few classes as possible. I did the bare minimum to get by. I couldn’t get past my newfound freedom to arrive at the love of learning I’d been promised.This is where most of today’s students are headed. With remote learning becoming the norm during the pandemic, many teachers have abandoned grades for simple pass-fail measures. Eliminating grades last semester didn’t lead to a great learning transformation where American teenagers dropped their iPhones to pick up fat books. But it could have.In my case, it took a couple of years without grades—and with classmates who had been learning this way for their whole lives—before the philosophy of learning for learning’s sake sank in. Still, my core belief that “school = boring” held on for dear life.

Moving to a Pass-Fail System Is Only the First Step

This is the challenge we face today. If grading systems change, but school cultures don’t, a transition to pass-fail becomes meaningless. When I was a teacher, the most common questions weren’t about digging deeper into the content I was presenting—they were variations of, “Will this be on the test?”When education is limited to being a means to an end, it strips learning of the chance to be joyful. When my high school removed the end from the equation, I realized it wasn’t that I didn’t like to work hard—it was that I didn’t like to when what I was working on was meaningless to me. I don’t care what my shampoo is made of, just that it washes out the dirt.Even in the idyllic learning environment of my high school, I still took tests. Thanks to Latin class, my strong vocabulary helped me ace the SATs. That, along with my teachers’ written reports (our school’s stand-in for grades), got me into Yale. Once I got there I wasn’t worried about returning to being graded. I was realistic. I figured that if I got Cs I’d be happy. I would be going to one of the top schools in the country, after all.I felt out of place in the Ivy League. None of my new classmates understood my gentlewoman’s C-average plan. For many of them, the fun was in the competition for As, not the learning.I wrote papers on subjects I wanted to learn about, not what professors assigned. My instructors didn’t love my approach, but couldn’t deny the effort I put in, or the quality of what I produced. I wasn’t getting A-pluses, but I wasn’t getting Cs either. And I was getting deep knowledge of subjects I cared about—that was how I measured success.After college, when I became a middle school teacher, I kept this same metric: Are my students enjoying learning? Are they taking initiative? Are they working up to their potential? If the answer to these questions was “yes,” I thought I should be crowned teacher of the year.My supervisors didn't agree. What mattered most to them were state test scores.

I felt out of place in the Ivy League.

If We Get Rid of Grades, Let’s Also Eliminate Standardized Testing

Most standardized tests were canceled last spring. This was good news. Today more than ever, kids need teachers to engage them in meaningful ways, not “drill and kill” them with test prep.This pause in grades and high-stakes exams presents an opportunity to transform education. Can we trust students' curiosity and innate desire to learn, not just the accountability of GPAs?If we do, we’ll give kids the chance to let joy guide their learning. With this freedom, their enthusiasm, attention and abilities will be astounding—like nothing we’ve seen in traditional school. After the pandemic ends, let’s not go back to our old ways.When we leave the jail of quarantine at-home schooling, let’s not return to the prison of grades.

During one of those terrible first-day introduction sessions in college, one of my professors told us that he volunteered his time to teach at correctional facilities. Maybe it was the desire one feels to have a productive college career that made me ask him about what he had said. He was glad to speak to me—he had been trying to get students involved for a few semesters, and I was the only one to reach out so far.Several conversations later, I contacted the head of the organization with an idea for a class I wanted to teach. She was a sweet woman but warned me it was not for the faint of heart. After much discussion, we finally reached an agreement. I began a yearlong process of shadowing classes inside facilities and preparing a curriculum with those same instructors and several of my own university professors.

Teaching Inside Is Pretty Much Like in the Movies

Before the pandemic, teaching inside a correctional facility was a lot like one might expect. You needed to have the appropriate credentials to enter and submit to a thorough pat-down for contraband. The materials you brought in with you were scrutinized before you went to the designated classroom, hoping to meet your students.I must place a particular emphasis on the word “hoping" here, since I often wouldn’t get to meet my students at all. Issues would frequently arise, whether it was a missing inmate in the headcount, a potential fight or found contraband—all of which were cause for a lockdown.Sometimes it was a lack of proper scheduling or mismanagement of time between guards that would delay my students' mealtime until it conflicted with our class time. On one Thanksgiving afternoon (I taught on Thursdays and would not miss it regardless of the holiday), I sat in my classroom waiting for my students for an hour. Eventually, a few of them walked in and apologized for their tardiness. Their guard had caused a delay in their block and they almost missed their one chance of the year to have turkey and gravy. Despite the special occasion, they'd quickly chowed down to make it to my class for a portion of our session. I was flattered they rushed through such a sacred, and, for them, rather infrequent meal to make it to my class.

It was also because of their dawning relentlessness.

Prison Education Is Good for Prisoners, Society and Me

However many hurdles I had to get over, there were seldom events I looked forward to more in my week than my afternoons teaching at correctional facilities. This wasn't because of the compensation I received or for any acclaim that fell upon me as a result. (On the contrary, I rarely mention my involvement in this program to people.) It was because of the students' willingness to learn, reflect on the material, and engage in discussion.It was also because of their dawning relentlessness.I had individuals come into my classroom—some with 15 or 20 years of their sentence behind them, others with the same amount ahead of them—eager to better themselves, regardless of a situation that would drive many to depression. I learned much from watching them consistently overcome their challenges, and to keep on pushing themselves further.Prison education programs don't just benefit prisoners or their teachers. They also provide a long-term economic benefit that is difficult to overlook.Statistics provide a strong case for education in prison.Individuals in these systems are significantly less likely to return to prison—a massive expense on the federal and state budgets—than those who did not participate in these programs. Some studies indicate every dollar spent on prison education saves taxpayers between four and five dollars, providing the government with enormous incentives for supporting such programs. Simply put, states—and, more specifically, taxpayers—save money for each individual that leaves prison and doesn’t return. Education programs make this happen more often.When the education is accredited, the benefit becomes twofold: It provides society with more self-sufficient citizens, better potential job candidates and entrepreneurs that are less likely to be reliant on welfare. It also makes it more likely for former prisoners to have children who obtain a post-secondary education.The benefits inside are immense too.Education in correctional facilities has been correlated with a decrease in violence by creating a safer environment for both inmates and staff. This was something I realized from instructing some of the most cordial and respectful individuals I have ever met and what I heard firsthand from a student.One afternoon after class, a student thanked me for coming and told me how much education had helped him become a better, less violent and more forgiving person. At one point, he said, he had been willing to fight anyone on his block for the slightest stare. Now he’d become friends with most of the guys he lived with.

So far, there have been close to 150 confirmed cases inside the facility where I instructed, and one staff death from the virus.

Teaching (or Not) During the Pandemic

With correctional facilities experiencing significantly higher rates of infections and rates than outside, education programs in many prisons have been forced to move to less conventional approaches—or even stop outright, stalling the benefits they were posed to provide.It may come as a surprise to some, but prisoners generally do not have access to the internet or the software needed for virtual learning. This means that while many educators have the luxury of assigning their classes PDFs to prepare for classes, I do not. My students also can't afford outrageously expensive textbooks, so my only option was to provide the materials myself. That often means a simple four-page reading for a group of 20.When the pandemic stopped instructors from being able to go in, I felt dismayed. But, thankfully, nonprofits like the one I instruct for don’t lack for creativity and stead. Unlike other programs, we haven't been forced to stop—just to adapt—and we've had to use some unconventional approaches to do so.Recently, we were asked to prepare weeklong courses in a four-page-maximum package distributed to students while in-person instruction was suspended. We had that space to provide the expectations we had, a handful of readings and some assignments. For me, at least, this meant prompts that allowed the students to reflect on the passages I picked out.The prospects of this project were promising, but the results have been stifled by ongoing virus outbreaks and lockdowns. So far, there have been close to 150 confirmed cases inside the facility where I instructed, and one staff death from the virus. The packets for students, delivered weeks ago, haven’t been distributed yet and are creating a backlog in the program.Waiting for the packets to be distributed may mean an indefinite amount of inactivity. Instead, we continue to try and figure out alternatives. There’s a promising virtual program that provides students with specialized tablets, and, with the current state of affairs, it might just happen.Teaching in prison has also been an opportunity for me to learn from my students. Now I have a chance to put into practice the attitude they've taught me: We must not fail to persevere. Resilience, particularly in the face of adversity, must always win the day—if not for our sake, then for the sake of others.

Millennials like me were taught that it's as essential to have a career you’re as passionate about as one that supports you. During my junior year of undergrad, I realized finance wasn’t something I could see myself pursuing for the rest of my life. Instead, I became a substitute teacher for the same school district I attended throughout my childhood.I’d always had a passion for children and education, so after my stint as a sub, I decided to earn a master's degree in education—a decision I sincerely thank God for bringing me to. These experiences led to the opportunity to teach abroad in South Korea for two years. As an African-American woman, I had to adapt and adjust to Korean customs, their education systems and the overall work-life and social construct within their society.

Teaching in South Korea Gave Me a Sense of Fulfillment

Teaching made me feel happy, like I was walking in purpose. I wasn’t only helping them build a foundation in English development, but was giving young people raised in a homogenous culture some much-needed exposure to a person who doesn’t look like them.It didn't stop there.I taught them to be kind to one another, even if the person looks different from you. I shared my hobbies and pictures of my family. I exposed them to American culture that they didn’t see in the media. It was an honor. I woke up daily with a sense of happiness, a joy I've never experienced.Koreans are no strangers to hard work. A regular workday can last ten to 14 hours. The education system is actually two systems: public schools and private schools. Public schools are funded by the government, but private academies—also known as hagwons—are funded by parents.I worked for a hagwon. I had students who attended public school from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., then went straight to math academy, science academy, taekwondo, piano, swimming, private tutoring or English academy. I recall a 12-year-old telling me they couldn't wait until Tuesday, when they had 30 minutes scheduled to play with a friend. Mind you, this was on a Thursday.

In a way, I envy how education is viewed in Korean culture because they strive at all costs to be the best.

Living in South Korea as an English Teacher Meant Working All the Time

Education in Korea is highly valued (as it should be), but not at the risk of mental health, emotional and even physical sacrifice. (Koreans have the tenth highest suicide rate in the world, and the public high school across the street from where I lived didn't let out until 10 p.m.) In a way, I envy how education is viewed in Korean culture because they strive at all costs to be the best. Their eagerness matches my own desire to teach.Outside of the classroom, their parents ensured the children got some type of physical activity. My students would tell me about spending weekends visiting grandparents, museums, indoor water parks, camping or hiking. One of my favorite things about teaching kindergarten was our field trips: Once a month, we would visit a national park, science museum or fire station. We also had a cooking class, where the students made snacks from simple ingredients. It was cute and fun.I taught English, while my co-teacher helped with class management and bathroom breaks. (I’ll get to those a little later.) Throughout the day, sometimes even during class time, the co-teacher would take pictures of the student to send to their parents. At first, it was awkward and took some getting used to. Korean parents are so invested in their child's education that they have daily updates and pictures sent to their phones throughout the day.I thought it was a bit much, but I'm not a parent.

I got written up for using the bathroom too many times in a day. I wish I were kidding.

Social Hierarchy Is a Very Real Thing in South Korea

The hierarchy system is very real in Korean culture. Our superiors at the school were passive-aggressive in a way that threw me for a loop. They’d ask the foreign teachers’ opinions on making things more efficient and effective but ignored our suggestions. There were many times I felt devalued as if my voice or opinion didn't matter.I was seen but unseen. I couldn't speak to my boss directly. I had to share my thoughts, concerns, ideas with my co-teacher (who was Korean), and she would relay the message to our supervisor. Instead of approaching me directly, they would relay their own messages. Back and forth we would go.Here's an example: I got written up for using the bathroom too many times in a day. I wish I were kidding.I could use the restroom at lunch, but often would struggle to get to 2:40 p.m., the end of the following class. That was just one slot where I became uncomfortable during the week. If I wanted to use the bathroom for even two minutes, I'd have to call in my co-teacher, which was an issue.Eventually, my solution was to drink less water throughout the day, and when I had evening classes, I wouldn't drink water at all. I actually had to discuss my bladder with my co-teacher and supervisor—so there's that.

I’ve experienced my share of prejudice in the States, but to experience the same type of discrimination across the world hit differently.

Teaching English Abroad as a Black Person Taught Me Discrimination Is Everywhere

For the most part, I loved Korea. I ran a 5K, made rice wine, floated in a tethered hot air balloon, spent my thirtieth birthday in Bali and created moments with new friends that challenged me to become a better person.But I also remember a time when I went out to a bar with a group of friends who were also black girls and there was a sign at the entrance that read, "No Foreigners." I’ve experienced my share of prejudice in the States, but to experience the same type of discrimination across the world hit differently.Still, it was an honor to teach in South Korea. I highly respect their value for education and culture. As an educator, I feel it’s my personal responsibility to influence and contribute to society by helping students become global thinkers and competitors along with the rest of the world. Teaching internationally has charged me to continue to shape learners for tomorrow and to be able to provide students the opportunity to unify with others as they connect to other parts of the world.

Unpopular belief: We are not the best country in the world. Hell, we aren’t even the best country in the Western Hemisphere. Before you roll your eyes or start running—maskless, I assume—to grab your torch and confront the anti-American behind the keyboard: Hear me out. Have you ever traveled outside of the U.S.? If the answer is yes, thank you for being willing to experience another country’s culture. Keep exploring and learning. If the answer is no, you don’t have a leg to stand on in this conversation until you’ve done it. So sit down.

How Can We Be Number One If We’re Ranked 27th?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the United States. I love living here, and I am (most days) proud to be an American.I am, however, also acutely aware of what and where our country lacks, and where there is room for growth. These realizations would not be so deeply embedded into my belief system if it weren’t for my firsthand experiences in other parts of the world. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to 32 countries and, each time I travel, it’s more glaringly apparent than the last that our country is still the newcomer to the game. I have walked on streets and sat in restaurants that are literally ten times older than our entire country. That epiphanic moment is as humbling as it is incomprehensible. It is heartbreaking, yet completely unsurprising, to learn that in 2018 the United States, a country that so loudly and naively proclaims itself to be the best and most powerful in the world, ranked 27th in the world for education, when in 1990 (coincidentally the year that I was born), we were ranked sixth. How can a country with such a presence that it needs no opening act be so far behind? How can a country with such an influence on so many aspects of everyday life around the world not be in at least the top five? If the U.S. is really number one, then why are so many countries ahead of us? At least our nation comes out on top in one area: student debt. The United States charges an asininely high amount for higher education—a number that continues to rise, while household incomes stay close to the same. My students, many of whom won’t go to college with any sort of scholarship, will inevitably and unfortunately be in the same lifevest-less boat I am when they graduate: inundated in debt. According to an article by Value Colleges, “The cost of higher education has surged more than 500 percent since 1985 [and] two-thirds of American college students graduate with college debt, and that debt now tops $1.2 trillion” nationwide. You read that correctly: trillion, with a t. On the far opposite end of the spectrum, dozens of countries around the world offer completely free higher education, including Germany, Argentina, Greece, Turkey and Uruguay. When my students find this out, there’s always a cacophony of disbelief, followed by the defeated admission that they don’t know how they’ll be able to afford college. It’s heartbreaking to see teenagers who are usually so eager to grow up and get out of high school suddenly slammed with an undeniable, unavoidable truth.

At least our nation comes out on top in one area: student debt.

My Favorite Teaching Tool Is Culture Shock

And that’s just the tip of the “not the best country” iceberg. I could ramble on about the fact that in France it is illegal—yes, illegal—to run a negative political attack ad on an opponent. Or how in Spain they have a two-hour break in the middle of the day where businesses close and students leave school to go home and decompress. (My students are obsessed with this, and would “literally be so happy” if that trend were to jump across the Atlantic.) Or how in every country in Europe, students are required to start learning a second language at the age of five, so that they are able to communicate with people of different nationalities and cultures instead of assuming that everyone speaks “their language.” Or how across the world, on every continent, countries offer free healthcare. Yes, taxes are higher, but the stress of figuring out how to pay for medical bills is virtually nonexistent. Many of my students don’t yet fully comprehend the significance of this, but I always assure them that in their very near future they will realize just how monumental universal healthcare truly is.The list goes on, but to show my students what the world is like outside of their rose-colored bubbles, they must experience different things and go to places they’ve never been before. They must interact with people who don’t speak the same language, have the same skin color or have the same religious beliefs. They must be made uncomfortable. And in that discomfort, they can begin to understand—and hopefully appreciate—not only what they’re fortunate enough to have, but also that what they do have doesn’t make them better than somebody with less. It also forces them to confront the reality that, no matter what is preached on TV, the radio or at home, the United States of America is not always number one—and that we as a country have a lot to learn from the world around us, for better or worse. This is why I take my students on international trips every summer: to expose them to different ways of life, to different forms of government, and to show them how even in a one-room, straw-roofed hut that houses seven family members with no running water, children can be so incredibly happy simply kicking around a soccer ball made of plastic bags tied together with string. At this sight alone it is impossible to avoid the realization that our country doesn’t have it all right, that our priorities are not always in line and that our “moral compass” sure as hell doesn’t point due north.

I truly believe that travel has opened my students’ eyes to a world vastly different, and at times better, than the one in which we live here in the U.S.

If You Travel and Aren’t Changed by the Experience, You’re Doing It Wrong

Ever since I can remember, my dad has always said that traveling expands your horizons and once those horizons are expanded, it is impossible to put them back to their original dimensions. The perspectives that traveling gives students about life for other teenagers abroad are irreplaceable. Traveling offers students the opportunity to see what others happily live with, and what they are able to live without. The material things don’t matter as much. The latest “must-have” trends and technologies aren’t a driving factor behind work. The emphasis that our country’s society has placed on status and material wealth is embarrassing. While yes, other countries and cultures have these same desires, you don’t see it prominently displayed in every single direction you look. While traveling, my students are able to find joy in the moment, and in the subsequent realization that they haven’t had cell service for an entire day. They have meaningful conversations with people who attend the same school but have never seen before, let alone spoken with. They have an immense sense of pride and independence because they were able to have a conversation in Spanish, choppy as it may be, with a local salesman who doesn’t speak a word of English. They are able to appreciate the homes that their parents have provided them when they walk into a village with no electricity and running water, let alone beds for everyone. Free healthcare and higher education aside, I truly believe that travel has opened my students’ eyes to a world vastly different, and at times better, than the one in which we live here in the U.S. My students come home from these trips with a greater appreciation for what they have and a larger sense of what it truly means to be a part of a community and live in a country that values its citizens, their time and their well-being. That comes with age and experience. It comes with traveling and allowing ourselves to realize that we still have a lot of growth ahead of us, and a lot of catching up to do. It comes with being quiet and listening, something we could all do better. It comes with being willing to accept the fact that while yes, we are a good country with some incredible qualities, we cannot continue to claim to be the best with so many blindly obvious shortcomings. It’s something that I believe we are starting to accomplish, especially with this younger, fire-in-their-eyes generation. The United States is still young. We’re still learning to walk in these massive shoes we’ve created for ourselves. If we really want to be the best, we need to be willing to learn from the lessons and mistakes of those who have walked this path long before us. In the meantime, you can bet your ass I’ll continue to hop on planes every chance I get to explore this great big world, even if I have to leave the “number one country” to do so.

Autistic spectrum disorder is a social disorder that affects one's ability to take in sensory information and influences how they understand and react to the neurotypical world around them. I was diagnosed with ASD a year and a half ago, at age 16. Since I started school, I have had classes with boys who have ASD (one in 34 boys do), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, or any combination of the above. There was always at least one guy in my year at school who was neuro-diverse (not neurotypical).But during my education, I have never met a girl who I knew had ASD. That makes sense because only one in every 144 girls is identified with it. Statistically, there were fewer than half of the necessary number of students in my year groups to have even one girl with ASD. Twenty-five percent of boys with ASD are diagnosed before age six, while only eight percent of girls are. By age 11, half of boys with ASD have their diagnosis compared to 20 percent of girls. There are fewer girls than boys with ASD because there are fewer girls than boys diagnosed with it.For those of us who have been missed (including myself, up until the last year and a half), living without a diagnosis means living without the necessary support.

I’m always thinking about something: usually multiple things at once.

How It Feels to Have ASD

On a good day, my ASD can feel like a bouncy ball bouncing inside of me, giving me energy and motivation to be hyper about everything. On a bad day, my ASD feels like my brain is made of macaroni and an ant is traveling through tubes making the inside of my head itch. On the worst days, my whole body turns into macaroni tubes full of ants. It's unsettling, stressful and exhausting.Most of these feelings make it very difficult to learn at school. When I'm in a good mood, I have too much energy to focus on the lesson. When I'm in a bad mood, I don't have enough energy to focus—or even be awake.My ASD means that my brain runs 24/7. I’m always thinking about something: usually multiple things at once. As a result, I struggle to sleep at night, which means that I have disturbed sleeping patterns, which affects my concentration and energy levels during the day.On a typical school day, I can only really focus and give my full attention to something for about half an hour before the other thoughts get too loud. That means in the rest of my classes, I am distracted and not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, or else it takes me considerably longer to get through a task than everyone else.So, long story short: I'm not very productive in classes.My ASD makes me feel the need to plan everything. On my way to school—on the bus—I'll plan conversations with people I know I'm going to see. If I am given a task at school, I will spend a lot of time planning how to do the task instead of actually doing it. In my German class, that means taking five minutes to just sit and figure out how to approach a textbook exercise before starting. By the time I'm ready to do the exercise, the rest of my class has finished. Because I spend a lot of time on planning, the plan becomes very important and unchangeable to me, so when someone wants to change something—or something comes up that prevents me from fulfilling the plan—that can be really stressful and make me feel stuck.

So, long story short: I'm not very productive in classes.

One of the Things I Find Difficult Coping With Is Change

It can be as little as one of my friends wearing something I've never seen before to finding out I'm getting a new teacher. The former will be distracting for the remainder of the day, but not get in the way of me doing anything, while the latter is extremely stressful and makes me very angry. Significant changes exhaust me and take up all my energy, which prevents me from doing anything else, which can be super problematic when I am at school and have to get things done. Changes can make me want to isolate myself and give me a nasty attitude toward the activities I enjoy and the people I like.My ASD makes me very set in my ways and very sure of my opinions. This can become challenging when I don't understand or agree with something or someone in class. It’s not that I think the other person or what they are saying is wrong. I just can’t understand, and I become super fixated on digging into the topic until I finally do understand. People can often get frustrated with me because I can come off as argumentative when I'm just trying to work out the differences between what I'm thinking and what they’re thinking.In terms of schoolwork, if I don't get something, I usually won't bother going through the process of trying to understand it—it can feel like a fight. Consequently, I don't understand parts of my courses.Socially, I find if someone says something I disagree with, I have trouble accepting it. One time a teacher told me they thought Mozza was better than Pizza Express. I didn't like it, but I was able to move on. Another time a classmate told me they felt uncomfortable about trans people. I struggle to talk to them about anything other than schoolwork now because I find it impossible to accept their stance on the topic.In every class at school, I have my own chair, and if I don't get to sit in it, or someone else is sitting in it, I can get extraordinarily stressed-out and uncomfortable. I also have routines at school that I keep. Every Friday, I have pizza for lunch with a friend and when others come along, even just once, I get furious. The whole experience becomes horrible for me. It’s not necessarily that I don't like the person, but because I feel like they’re not meant to be there. They’re not usually there, so why are they now? It makes me confused and agitated.Some of the ways I feel towards certain situations can be confusing for others. They often dismiss the case as not a big deal, and my behavior as childish, immature or unreasonable. Others’ attitudes in situations that I find stressful can often be more stressful than the situation itself. If a teacher doesn't understand how anxiety-inducing I find doing classwork in a group or pair, or if they think I only need to sit in a specific chair because I’m difficult, I feel guilty, self-conscious and angry at myself—on top of the anxiety.

I don’t see my ASD as a problem.

My Challenges as an Autistic Student—and Woman

ASD in women isn't a big conversation or portrayed much in the media. As a result, when I talk about my ASD at school to friends, I am met with skeptical comments like, “You don’t seem autistic.” One girl even went behind my back and told my friend she thought I was lying about my diagnosis.I don't “seem” autistic because of something called masking. If I don't know how to behave in a situation or what to do with myself (most of the time), I subconsciously hide my natural behaviors by imitating others around me, which can make me appear neurotypical.I don’t see my ASD as a problem.It doesn't impair my ability to achieve things, particularly in areas that interest me. In fact, if I'm interested in something, I will focus on it until I know everything about it (and I will end up knowing everything about it). Because of my ASD I look at, and engage with, the world around me differently than a neurotypical person, which enables me to ask questions which might not occur to a neurotypical person.When I was first diagnosed with ASD, it felt isolating and limiting. I really didn't want it. But over the last year and a half, I have realized that my diagnosis explains my reactions and feelings toward a lot of things, which allows me to understand what I am going through and why. Learning about my ASD has also taught me that it’s not limiting—it's empowering.

Do you ever, in the middle of a conversation, have your mind stray to fantasies about what it would feel like if you headbutted your professor? Or perhaps the colleague slaving on the desk right next to yours? Maybe a family member?I do, a lot, ever since my brown feet stepped into an American university eight years ago. Now, after five years in journalism, the imagined sound of a racist’s nose cracking brings me more calm than ever. In fact, not even a borderline Xanax overdose could relieve my 20-year-old insomnia better than imagining myself piledriving a colonizer or an Uncle Tom on a diamond slab. You see, I’m a Muslim Arab suspended between two of the most racist and imperialist fields in America: journalism and academia.My existence in these fields is what I like to call a pendulum-piñata—I hang by the noose, swinging to and fro, taking hits from both sides. I’m only as useful as the sugary goodness that’s smacked out of me and if my candy proves flavorless, it’s either because whoever consumes me doesn’t understand what I’m supposed to taste like or they’re trying to control my flavor.The 12-year-old me who first fell in love with writing couldn’t have imagined that things could turn out this way. Now, I at least know what I want for my future—a place where writers like me aren’t ravaged with the distressing, depressing and dehumanizing faces of white supremacy, where our stories fill pages with color and no white space.

I’m a Muslim Arab suspended between two of the most racist and imperialist fields in America: journalism and academia.

I Grew Up With America, But Not in It

I wasn’t always like this. In fact, I only realized I was brown when I came to the States. As a kid in the desert, most of what I consumed was American comic books and hip-hop culture. All of my teachers growing up were white Westerners. People like me grow up under U.S. hegemony, the products of centuries-old power dynamics—from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, from the Age of Exploration to the postcolonial world, with every form of Orientalism, imperialism and racism in between. But being in America isn’t the same growing up American.It’s not like I didn’t know. We were raised on everything American, so I must have had some idea—I had no other choice. I suspect those moments when I thought I didn’t know were probably intentional.I consumed more than enough American culture to know how transcendent racism is, and more than enough to know that the U.S.’s participation in the wider world was just an extension of how it treated black people.However, like most of us seeking a better life here, I was blinded into thinking this nation would reciprocate. I was a fool in thinking it would see me as a human—not just a shadow of one.Almost ten years ago, a few days before graduation, my high school class was sharing the universities we’d be going on to. After praising our acceptances, my white American homeroom teacher asked us, “So aren’t you guys afraid of living in America?”He paused, I remember. “You know,” he quickly added, “All alone in a new land and a new life?”Our teenage selves paid no mind to his wording, which, in retrospect, was either chosen to lament and foreshadow a reality where brown folk hold no power or, just as likely, to subtly mock our private-schooled, spoonfed little selves.It was the time of the Arab Spring, when the political sentiments of a post-9/11 War on Terror world were more laudable and visible than they are now, a time before diversity programs and inclusive hiring became so fashionable.People are far more critical and outspoken these days, but these sentiments still exist. In my experience, they still soar behind the clouds of academia, through the Fourth Estate’s true-blue liberal skies.

Being in America isn’t the same growing up American.

Some People Believe Racism Doesn’t Exist Anymore

I do remember how one classmate answering the question. He said, “Sir, last night I watched Remember the Titans, the one where Denzel Washington coaches a football team of whites and blacks, and I think the way it ended is what America is now.” He went on to ramble about interracial fraternity, which our teacher greeted with an apathetic smile and spiritless nod. It’s an image that’s still ingrained in my mind.“Titans.” A word that makes me hiss whenever I hear, speak, read or write it.The Titans, divine creatures from whose essences the world was supposedly made. Some were subjugated by old, white man Zeus and some were slaughtered. Some, like Prometheus, served him. The Titans, the nonwhite students and journalists who are both studied and journaled about. The Titans, who seem to exist only to serve a self-fulfilling prophecy, where at best Zeus is a god offering salvation through slavery, or at worst a pimp offering liberation through whoredom.I learned from my own pantheon of Olympian subjugators. There are white professors who privately made bomb jokes and white students who mimicked the contrarian racism of any curricula. There are white peers who hum along to the cacophony of journalistic malpractice and white friends who think “dune coon” or “sand nigger” are just jokes. There’s my personal favorite: white editors who favor objectivity so much that they’ll publish a story about a neck and a sword, only to begin and end with the latter’s perspective.

As an Arab Journalist, I’ve Received My Fair Share of Racial Slurs

The worst part of it all was the silence, including my own. It felt like I was the one swinging the sword on my neck when I didn’t report the white writing professor who told me, “Profanity is fine, just no plans to bomb the place.” Or when I just sat there as a white editor assigned a white peer a story profiling Muslim athletes. Or when I held my tongue when a white philosophy professor called my people “backward enemies of civilization.”It all built up slowly. My silence gathered enough moss, enough shame, to reduce me to worse than a colonizer and worse than an Uncle Tom. I became a swampling, an abomination, there to serve something worse than the white supremacy I abhor: its imagination.Enough was enough. But like the beginning, a series of moments is how it ended.Not long into my master’s program in the belly of the beast, the nation’s capital, one of my stories was spiked. It was about Palestinians in the area but the professor told me, “It isn’t local enough.”I brushed it off, silent again and slowly boiling. Besides, arbitration is the name of the game so I continued my silence all while facing a rising heat. One day, the program director, after noticing how unenthused I’ve been, playfully asked, “What’s wrong? You’re a reporter, get to reporting.”“I’m not,” I muttered. “I’m a writer first.”“No,” they replied. “In here you’re a reporter, and you’re gonna fake it till you make it.”I didn’t know what was more insulting, policing someone into adopting a mantra devoid of morality, or believing in one that maintains the order where the fraudulent must either feign sincerity or suppress it. This is when it hit me: We people-of-color journalists weren’t being welcomed to the table. We were being trained as house slaves.

The worst part of it all was the silence, including my own.

Academia Perpetuates Racism in the Media

I wasn’t silent anymore. I started fighting back. Later that academic year, I had a foreign policy and media class where we would learn how the two fields interacted. (As if a Muslim Arab didn’t already know.) The professor, however, kept applauding my “peculiar sense of humor” and egged it on, reminding me to stick to it when my contributions were too much of a “polemic discontent for neo-conservatism.”This is the same professor who, when I grew a bit quieter after the pandemic hit, sent me emails saying he missed my sense of humor. Funny, because whenever I spoke the only person laughing was him. Old man Zeus chuckling away at students who dared to confront him and his “Wuhan virus” anti-Chinese tirades or his insistence that the world was shaped by chaos and not power dynamics.Really funny, considering how Zeus believed Chaos was a primordial void, and how Zeus ultimately enslaved the Titan Chaos.I was a one-man-minstrel-show for Professor Zeus. And if I tried not to be, I was an uppity sand negro.Nonetheless, as much as I still can’t believe it, Zeus wasn’t the worst. What happened next was.

I was alone and I mostly still am.

Fighting Racism in the Fourth Estate Feels Hopeless

After seeking the guidance of some friends, who all urged me to be transparent and confront this demon of a degree (a degree that would soon be stamped on my resume where my banana allergy would fare better), I called for help. I contacted another professor, a person of color who’d previously opened up about their own career mishaps, and I let it all out. I explained my woes, in more detail than I do here.Their words—their only words—were, “You knew what you signed up for.”No.There was no rage. No mouth-to-floor shock. No subtle “fuck you” to the professor either. I was alone and I mostly still am. I’m not coming down from the mountaintop with a revelation that aims to save all. If anything I’m climbing up to one. Up to the pantheon, I climb. There’s no other place to go.And there, the Titans will live and roam again.

Ever since I was in middle school, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I loved my high school experiences, especially those afforded by my elective teachers. This included two teachers who both taught “Parenting Decisions” and a “Food for Thought” class. Each day, I lived for these classes. I loved learning about the psychology of people, how babies develop, different parenting styles and, of course, the vast world of culinary studies. I would soak up the information like a sponge, always curious and always wanting to understand more. When I started college, I knew I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my high school teachers and teach Family and Consumer Science (FACS) courses. Little did I know that this program was taught overwhelmingly by older females. The rate of new teachers entering the program was so low that it was discontinued at my university the year that I moved home and began student teaching. When I started applying for jobs nearly ten years ago, I noticed that each high school offered varied but limited FACS courses, including many I hadn’t been exposed to during my student teaching. For example, I continuously saw open positions for classes such as “Sewing 101,” “Interior Design” or “Life Management.” This made it very difficult to find high school FACS jobs within a state to which I would consider packing up and moving. I couldn’t justify teaching a subject about which I wasn’t passionate. Finally, after many days searching for courses I wanted to teach and a handful of interviews later, I found a high school position teaching “Culinary Nutrition” and “International Cuisine.” I uprooted my life from the Midwest to the East Coast and started my teaching career in Southern Maryland.

I couldn’t justify teaching a subject about which I wasn’t passionate.

Electives Have Real Value

At the start of my first year teaching, students always would say, “This class doesn’t really mean anything” or “I don’t even need this class to graduate” or “All we do in this class is cook, right? That’s why I signed up.” To hear that my class was a “joke” was disheartening, but I knew my classes were valuable and wanted students to be as passionate about the subject as I was. I took it upon myself to prove to students that my class was important and provided a skill that everyone should acquire during their high school career. In staff meetings, I would hear the push for standardized testing, prep for SAT and ACT, and guarantees that students covered everything in the Common CORE before they graduated. Math, science, English and social studies were always hot topics of conversation. After-school tutoring and credit recovery were promoted for students in order to get extra help, pass courses and check all the boxes along the way. This left elective classes as a last resort for students if they had room in their schedule or needed an elective credit to graduate. Class sizes were kept small and some students were “placed” in my classroom in order to meet their graduation requirements. As any teacher does their first year, I was determined to have the most interactive, fun and varied lesson plans that I could possibly fit into a 48-minute class period. I stayed up until 11 p.m. most nights working tirelessly on the perfect plan that all students would comprehend and love. Each day, running on little-to-no sleep, I would get into work an hour early to set up and have everything laid out. I was young and enthusiastic, but also naive: Most students were focused more on their other classes, home lives, jobs, putting food on the table and personal relationships. I quickly realized during my first year that my classes were neither a priority for a majority of students nor were they a part of the big picture of our school.

I quickly realized during my first year that my classes were neither a priority for a majority of students nor were they a part of the big picture of our school.

I Got Creative and My Students Responded

However, stepping back and looking at the curriculum, I also saw how easy it was to use real-life experiences to create more engaging lessons. For our “Safety and Sanitation” unit, I bought a black light and glowing gel to demonstrate the spread of germs and the benefits of thorough hand-washing. I found recipes that required more culinary skills than mere baking. I showed pictures of architecture, history and cuisine and told stories of international trips that I had taken—even though some of my students never had left the East Coast. I assisted students in hosting a luncheon for their teacher of choice and had students execute a meal as well as set the table properly. By grasping what students needed to learn to function on their own and presenting it creatively, my class numbers started to grow. Students realized that they wanted to take a course where they could eat, but also learn how to follow a recipe, know if the food is healthy and broaden their views towards other cultures. I would hear students in the hallways say, “I want to learn how to cook for my girlfriend” or “Did you know it’s a lot cheaper to cook a meal than go out?” or “I hope to travel to Italy one day and try their pasta.” Once students realized the benefits of my class and really started enjoying it, word spread like wildfire to their friends. My classes became filled with 30 students in each, with a waiting list for any available spaces. Over my nine years of teaching, I’ve come to understand gaps in students’ knowledge as it relates to basic life skills. A number of students begin my class not knowing about healthy eating, for instance, or basic culinary or knife skills or being able to budget and prepare their own meals. Many people believe that students just will “learn” these everyday life skills throughout the course of their lives. Unfortunately, most don’t. As I hear my students acknowledge the importance of my classes, how they master cooking alone and understand proper nutrition and lifelong health, I smile knowing that my job prepares them for the future. I don’t teach FACS classes just because I love them; I teach them to see the growth of students from start to finish. Electives should be a requirement for all students in order to graduate because electives, too, teach skills that prepare students to function in today's ever-changing society.

When my university shifted to remote instruction in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, instructors in my department experienced all manner of challenges. They reacted to these challenges with frustration, anxiety and, in a lot of cases, equanimity. We employ a number of English graduate students as instructors of first-year composition in the writing program I direct. My role involves training and mentoring these students as they work through their first semesters of teaching. If one of them wants to express feelings about challenges of any sort—including those concomitant to the transition of face-to-face instruction to online instruction—they come to me.Around the early part of May, one instructor reached out to explain how disrespected she felt by a particular student’s egregious lack of participation. Many more have grumbled about students’ faltering contributions to online class discussions, or, in more cases than we’d like to see, failure to submit major assignments. Both are a sad reality of online classes. There are others: For a student with an outstanding paper to turn in, it’s easier to evade an online instructor than one you face twice weekly. And it seems a matter of common sense that students who never see their peers in a classroom will suffer from a lack of connection to the course community—and, a potential consequence, a slump in motivation. But these are structural causes of nonparticipation. When the online structure of education is non-negotiable, in the face of a public health crisis, and the time available for redesigning course activities is virtually zero, any response to the tune of “that’s just the way it is” would be unhelpful, I knew. After all, in addition to a structural shift in the delivery of their instruction, students were experiencing a public—and, in some cases, personal—health crisis.

Students can’t be expected to succeed, in learning or in anything else, when they’re overcome by trauma.

Engaging With Students Means Engaging With Trauma

The appropriate response to this graduate-student instructor (let’s call her Carley) would have been, “I’m sorry, but these students are going through traumatic changes. It would be difficult to understand the range of ways they’re affected—suspended jobs, lost income, sick family members, kids at home and on and on. If they don’t perform well this semester, that’s just got to be okay.”But that could only be part of the response. Another part had to acknowledge Carley’s own trauma. She didn’t sign up to teach in an online format a course that she’d designed for face-to-face delivery. She didn’t sign up to lose hours at her second job as a bartender. She didn’t sign up to see the graduate courses she was taking radically and imperfectly convert to online delivery, or to have her contact with her cohort of grad students and other communities abruptly stop. At times like this, it’s useful to remind graduate-student instructors—and oneself—that, in many ways, they are similar to undergrads. It’s easier that way to sympathize with the struggles of both, and for instructors to offer generosity and forgiveness both to their students and to themselves. Unfortunately, at about seven or eight weeks into social distancing, with numbers of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases and of deaths continuing to climb, it was difficult to see how things were going to return to what we had come to consider normal.Many educators have begun to think and write about this problem. At just about the time I learned of Carley’s challenges, Cathy Davidson laid out some principles for designing courses for the fall 2020 semester. She asked readers to “Imagine the classroom of students in face masks sitting six feet apart, one part of the brain focused on school, another on parents or partners dying, on an uncertain future, on a crashing economy”—a point I’ve come near but never quite connected. Students can’t be expected to succeed, in learning or in anything else, when they’re overcome by trauma. In Davidson’s words, “if the trauma is not addressed, accounted for, and built into the course design, we fail. Our students fail. None of us needs another failure.” She recommended that educators design courses in ways that address the “emotional workload” our students are facing, and that we seek, now more than ever, to deliver “empowerment and agency” to our students by using “meaningful activities beyond the screen that extend the lessons of the course, building in ways students can be co-teachers as well as co-learners, actively contributing to the course.” “We need,” she concluded, “to think about what we all can offer one another—curiosity, imagination, knowledge, power—as antidotes to the present disruption and trauma, as tools towards building a future.”

Why would students come to college in a post-COVID world?

What Role Does College Play in a Post-Pandemic World?

Davidson’s provocation got me reconsidering how I should approach the teaching of first-year composition. Over the past few years, in my administering of our writing program, I’ve developed a curriculum centered around the intellectual exploration of argument. Students study the various positions previous writers had taken in a particular controversy and how those writers have argued for their views. Only after learning about multiple positions, and different strategies for supporting them, are students ready to register their own perspectives directly. The nature of the controversy they teach is the instructor’s to decide, and I encourage the instructors to choose one in which they have some interest and expertise.Like most of our social institutions and practices, higher education has been thrown into crisis by the coronavirus pandemic. Numerous fundamental questions have emerged about what these institutions and practices should—and even could—do and be going forward. A virtue of the curriculum I have used is that it prepares students both to participate in their civic community and to succeed in their academic careers. After all, controversy, whether civil or acrimonious, is necessary both in civic life and in academic disciplines to produce knowledge—about how community problems should be solved or about how we should understand historical, sociological, biochemical and engineering challenges. Citizens and scholars write to engage with problems their peers are struggling with, and they contribute to solutions by engaging with those peers. But what if social distancing became the new normal? Would public deliberation continue to be the process through which policy emerged as it had in democratic societies since classical Greece? Will the economy recover? If so, in what form? What will employment look like in the future? What role will higher education play in preparing citizens for the jobs of the new future? How will that affect college enrollment? Or to put the question differently: Why would students come to college in a post-COVID world?

I needed the old curriculum to do more of what it was always meant to do.

I Came Up With a Plan for Redesigning Our Writing Program; Then I Threw It Out

All these questions swirled around my mind in May, as I flirted with the idea of putting them at the center of the curriculum for the upcoming academic year. In my alternate curriculum, students would study such questions as: What do I want from a college degree at this time, particularly if the link between a particular major and a job has been severed? What role should universities play in American society? What portion of the expense of that service should be shouldered by the public, and what portion by students? Can the quality of education delivered remotely compare to the quality of face-to-face instruction? Should remote learning be priced the same as on-campus learning? One could even ask larger-picture questions. If the socio-economic crises of 2020 resulted in a radical transformation of the state, and something like a universal jobs guarantee were to emerge, students would never again need to choose a major simply because it could land them a job. What would be the consequences of such a transformation for the higher education classroom, for the liberal arts, for students, for society?I have decided not to pursue this alternative curriculum after all, for two reasons. The first is practical. There is nothing mutually exclusive about the form of controversy and the posing of these questions of (and to) higher education. In fact, one would be well advised to guide students through the study of these questions by considering their different answers to constitute a controversy. This is, of course, simply a different way of saying that “controversy” names how we can study a topic, while “the purpose of public higher education” names what we could study—the topic itself.The second reason is more important, and it concerns the pluralizing of 2020’s crisis. COVID-19 was politicized in the United States almost from the start—perceived through partisan lenses and difficult to apprehend in anything like an objective way. That original crisis, therefore, wouldn’t be resolved with a unified effort, which turns out to be a pretty big problem when the crisis is one of public health. The crisis of a rapidly spreading virus, then, became a secondary crisis: that of whether and how the public could recognize, much less respond to, the primary crisis. But that wasn’t all. There was also police brutality. The murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain. The protests and the brutal police responses. And, naturally, the divided public reactions, which sorted roughly along partisan lines. We were witnessing, again, a crisis rooted in an inability, if not a refusal, to understand others. It was clear that I didn’t need a new curriculum for our graduate instructors to use—I needed the old curriculum to do more (and better) of what it was always meant to do.

We Need to Study Controversy in Order to Understand Our Crises

For students of public discourse who follow Cicero and what we might now call his theory of disagreement, the spread of a highly contagious virus ought not prove terribly contentious. Sure, there was much about the novel coronavirus that virologists and epidemiologists did not—and still do not—understand. Even so, that enormous swaths of the population in every country were getting sick and that COVID-19 was killing people at tragically high levels should be facts everyone could agree on. Stasis theory conceives of facts as the fundamental place where argument must begin. If opposing parties don’t agree on facts, they can’t agree on the quality of those facts or on the kinds of ways we should respond to them. There was no reason to suspect that we wouldn’t conclude en masse that the novel coronavirus constituted a real danger to public health. Agreeing on these points would have given people of different political persuasions some common ground to begin from. From there, different people might disagree about the causes of the disease or its transmission or about how to respond, but we would expect at least to be able to achieve a wide consensus about the danger of the virus. Such a wide consensus, in fact, has proved difficult to achieve.It was, of course, far less surprising that Americans should disagree about the proper response to the claim that Black Lives Matter. No thinking person failed to anticipate the reaction, “All Lives Matter.” That public protests would be met with tear gas and arrests was also easy to forsee. This disagreement’s predictability, however, makes it no less harmful or tragic. Nor does it make the disagreement less difficult to resolve. Still, one might have hoped that, in the face of protests about the violence perpetrated regularly on black bodies, the official response would have been something other than the violent suppression of protests. If there is good news, it is that public support for the Black Lives Matter movement is increasing. Unfortunately, a rush to modulate, to make more palatable, to redefine what protesters demanded—and thus to take control over those demands—ensued almost at once. (A quick search for “What does ‘defund the police’ mean?” yields a dizzying number of articles with titles that are but a slight twist on the very search query.) Also, too many opponents of Black Lives Matter have little understanding of the nature of the protesters’ demands. The problem with these results isn’t that they fail to produce the policies I support. The problem, rather, is that they are yet one more illustration of our continued failure to argue productively.

Can We Argue Our Way to Empathy?

In my view, the most important thing a first-year writing course can provide is rules for—and practice in—deliberating as a public in ways that produce better understanding and policies. I am admittedly working from a wishful assumption here, that people who listen well enough to their opponents to understand—and I mean really understand—their reasoning will develop some empathy for them. This is not a matter of whether the opponents deserve to have their positions understood, or of who deserves a response. It’s simply a matter of thinking that to understand another person’s motivations—the pain, the anger, the loss, the zeal, the hope, the indignation that lead people to believe and to act as they do—requires me to recognize in that other person something that we share. Call it a fundamental vulnerability to the world that causes us pain, anger, loss, indignation. It is not mine but ours, and it is quite difficult to experience this recognition and to go on as though that other person should be ignored, silenced, defeated or treated with cruelty. Not impossible, perhaps, but difficult.The study of controversies, I am suggesting, can produce this kind of readiness for empathizing in students. It requires them to read with sensitivity, with the purpose of understanding other authors’ motivations as well as their conclusions. It requires them to respond to others who don’t already share their attitudes and positions. It encourages them to delay their own judgment and certitude until they have understood a range of possibilities. It asks that they conceive writing not as a one-way medium for expressing their own thoughts, but as an act of participation, both an answer and an invitation. Writing can—and should—be part of an interactive process that can move us toward insight, toward better decision-making, toward effective and fair solutions.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, the pandemic has brought up feelings of uncertainty that often surface as an oppressive state of mind. That feeling of being stuck, having no movement or direction—a prisoner of my own thoughts. I began my educational journey searching for answers on how to break cycles of my own oppressive state of consciousness. I’ve been on a journey of self-discovery to understand how societal norms have affected past directions and amplified insecurities as a first-generation Latina. Even at 35, I feel disconnected by cultural expectations not aligned with social norms.

I'm an Educational Trailblazer in My Family

This past year, I became the first in my family to obtain a master’s degree—not only a social justice-related triumph—but a milestone. The earning of my degree has been an important accomplishment. And it is pioneering. This reward, from working hard, has changed the history of my family. Like many individuals in my community, there is a lack of academic resources that lead to higher education. On a personal level, earning my master’s degree is a step closer to becoming an agent of social change and an advocate for social equality and academic reform. It included several roadblocks and underlying emotions of oppression: The struggles confronted by familial obligations, cultural expectations and environmental challenges contribute to daily stressors growing up Latino.

I take pride in my community and feel a sense of responsibility to be the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Now, I Am Focusing on My Community

I currently work in a charter school in Lincoln Heights, one of the oldest cities in the Los Angeles area. I call this city home. I take pride in my community and feel a sense of responsibility to be the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves. Working and living in the same area is integral to building trust in the school community. Changes don’t necessarily need to be positive for everyone, especially for the economically disadvantaged communities that struggle every day to keep up. Within my community, I can relate to many of my students who begin contemplating post-secondary aspirations. I have observed many students who worked hard for good grades dash their dreams of attending college in exchange for meeting their cultural expectations. Students who have been accepted into college forgo their dreams because it is too expensive and they don’t want to be a burden on their family’s financial stability—or they need to work to help their family make monthly rent payments. In many of their voices, I hear myself. As an American society, we continually overlook partnerships between schools and families. Both schools and parents have a set of cultural norms; in some cases, they do not square. For instance, in a family’s home, tardiness and speaking out of turn might be acceptable. In contrast, when a student enters a classroom, he/she is expected to be on time and raise their hand before they speak. Many parents send their children to school to “learn” and to obtain a diploma. Their endgame and hopes for their child may be to start working upon graduation. Their social construct is to be loyal and help support the family. At school, a student may be taught the importance of college. The child may have adapted to both sets of cultural norms: Which will prevail when the student graduates? I have worked in a high school for ten years and have seen this play out several times. The role of a school-based social worker is to create an ongoing dialogue and action plan for students and families. Mental health is often a taboo among the Latino community; students often rely on advocacy from school community personnel. Social workers often become allies who provide them with safe spaces for dialogue.

In many of their voices, I hear myself.

It All Begins at Home

Home-based advocacy is an integral part of this process, too. The social worker can assess further needs with the perspective of being culturally sensitive to the family system. Changes to families, whether it’s physical or emotionally, can influence grieving symptoms, therefore causing disruptive patterns. For example, a parent losing a job due to immigration status, or domestic or community violence can cause a disruption to a child’s interpersonal development. My experience with social injustices influences a strong desire to seek improvement in my community. In my life, I have been confronted with several forms of oppression because of my cultural background. I come from a family that is socially and economically disadvantaged. It has been a challenge to prioritize education when so many other needs have taken center stage. Overcoming poverty is a battle in itself, which has diminished many opportunities. I started working when I was 14 years old to help my family financially. Being a high school student who was charged with balancing school and a workload proved overwhelming, hurting my chances of attending college. I knew very young that growing up Latina in Los Angeles would be a challenge. In addition, my parents didn’t have the proper guidance and education to understand the importance of building confidence. As a family, we had an expectation of survival rather than seeking educational growth opportunities. Growing up in an environment where community-based violence was a norm attributed to daily anxieties. Exposure to this environment triggered a sense of emotional shutdown and inability to self-reflect. I turned my experience into a part of my passion for the students and families I serve. I work in the same neighborhood I grew up in. It allows me to identify with my students. Children of these communities are expected to gain success through an educational system that is not sensitive to their needs. Parents have challenges engaging with the school system, which creates a myriad of issues. Many of these challenges arise from inadequate communication by schools, issues coping with policies that can be unwelcoming and, perhaps above all, language barriers. I have served as the office manager and parent liaison at my school, charged with building a bridge between parents and the school. Besides facing institutionalized barriers, the families face a lack of resources, poor living conditions and high crime rates. Lacking knowledge on how to navigate the American educational system becomes a development barrier to further academic progress. In some circumstances, students turn down educational opportunities because they feel unsupported. The focus of social workers in schools can establish a foundation to develop community opportunities that can provide a connecting point of advocacy. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought awareness of the necessity of mental health support needed to promote self-advocacy, self-care and decrease negative coping skills. The social worker code of conduct stands for protecting the rights of individuals with integrity, cultural awareness and diversity. To further the work, we must instill within our communities the importance of being agents of social change.

For years, I pondered joining graduate school for psychology. I had been fascinated with various areas including sports, industrial-organizational and educational psychology. I’d been very blessed and always wanted to give back, so I ended up choosing to complete graduate school in psychology.What is a school psychologist?Very few people can answer that question correctly. Honestly, I fully didn’t understand when I first entered graduate school. We are not counselors, although we do provide counseling. We are not teachers, although we need to understand Common Core State Standards (CCSS). We are not officially administrators, although we are authorized to act in this capacity during special education matters.

The Role of a School Psychologist

The role is loosely defined depending on the district, county or state. In essence, we are diagnosticians that identify, qualify and link students for the appropriate special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which operates under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Ultimately, this law states that any student with a suspected disability should be tested for special education services. However, we are also responsible for the well-being of all students under the schools to which we are assigned. This often includes being the final place of support for solving problems that other departments cannot resolve.Best practices also recommend that each school psychologist be responsible for approximately 1,000 students in order to operate with fidelity and efficiency. Optimistically, I grinded out three years in graduate school learning about best practices—only to find that the system does not care about best practices. Rather, it is contingent on politics and top-down leadership that rewards blindly following directives and punishes innovative and critical decision making.I incurred $65,000 in student debt that would soon become $135,000 to be paid back, after interest, to learn about practices that are not even implemented in the systems in which they are built upon. (Student loan debt brings up a whole other issue, but I feel like this is another example of how the education system continues to fail us.)Throughout the years, I have faced various challenges in my role. I have worked for five different school districts, ranging from underprivileged, urban environments to the most affluent areas in the Bay Area. Seeing that I have only worked in California public schools, I can only speak to this state’s issues. However, I have found that the California education system tends to have fundamental issues with its infrastructure and organization.

My job can be very difficult—a lack of support makes it damn near impossible.

Issues in School Psychology Are Systemic

The greater issue stems from a lack of accountability to individuals and a lack of support for its employees. Mental health professionals—specifically school psychologists—are often overworked and under-supported. I know I sound biased, and maybe even bitter, but my job can be very difficult—a lack of support makes it damn near impossible.One year, I was assigned to a high school with 2,400 students, which was essentially double the caseload of the average psychologist. There were three assistant principals and six guidance counselors at this school but only one psychologist: me. Almost every day that I arrived, there was a teacher, parent or student waiting to speak to me about an issue. On top of this, I usually had about several people knock on my door each day to discuss a concern. Normally, I would be happy to speak to anyone anytime: Honestly, that’s why I chose to do the job.However, the problem was that I had a list of five things left over from the previous day on top of what I had already assigned for that day. Every minute of each day was already accounted for—for the next few months. This led to me staying two hours past contracted hours on a daily basis. For the matters that were not urgent, I would add those tasks to the end of the day and eventually roll over to the next day. However, there were often times when I had to drop everything to address pressing issues.

Dealing With Matters of Life and Death

If I were to share a typical day when I was at this particular site, it would look like this: I arrive at school with a teacher sitting outside my door. This teacher starts off saying, “I really need to speak to you.” I inform her that I have a meeting in 15 minutes that I need to prep for, but I can check-in for a few minutes. She then shares a note that Student A left in her class in which he alludes to how being dead would be better than being alive. I speak to the teacher for as long as I can until a parent arrives at my door for a scheduled meeting for Student B. I inform the teacher that I will come to see her during lunch to follow up on Student A. Once I complete the meeting with the parent, I have to complete testing with two other students, C and D, for upcoming deadlines, and I have to counsel two other students, E and F.While assessing Student C, I hear a knock on my door. The assistant principal informs me that there is a student who has expressed thoughts of self-harm: Student G. I inform Student C that I have to send her back to class and will call her back later. (The issue is that I have to complete testing by the end of the day, so I can compile my scores to set up the meeting, which is due in two days because we have to meet legal deadlines for special education assessments.)I then have the assistant principal bring in Student G, who shared thoughts about self-harm and conduct a risk assessment to see if we need to take any next steps. This student informs me that he is depressed, but he does not have any intentions or plans to harm himself. However, Student G does not feel like going to class. I inform the assistant principal that I recommend he sit in the office and take a break because I do not have time for this student to sit in my office. However, I will come and follow up with the assistant principal and Student G in the afternoon. I, then, call Student C in to finish testing before calling in Student E for counseling.

I already have 20 students on my caseload for counseling, which is four times the amount of the regular psychologist

Taking on More Work Than You Can Handle

I decide that I will skip lunch to follow up with the teacher about Student A and spend the remaining time during lunch to get prepared to call in this student. Mind you, it is extremely difficult when you have to start off your first meeting with a student like so: “Your teacher brought me this note.” Immediately after lunch, I call in Student A to check-in and conduct a risk assessment. After this meeting, this student shares that he would like to speak with me regularly.I already have 20 students on my caseload for counseling, which is four times the amount of the regular psychologist, but I tell Student A that I will do my best to keep checking in with him. Once I finish with Student A, I hear an ambulance outside. It turns out that the assistant principal has called the authorities to take Student G in for a psychiatric hold. I walk out and ask her why she has made this call, and she shares that she does not feel as though I was taking this seriously. I tell her, “I respect your decision.” Then, I call in Student D to complete testing. However, it takes until the end of the day, and I am unable to meet with Student F for counseling, which would then be added to the next day.As I am about to start working on approximately two hours’ worth of paperwork that I have been unable to complete, the parent of Student G calls me and angrily asks why I called for her son to be hospitalized for an evaluation because the assistant principal referred her to me. My day just got even longer.

There is a Dire Need for School Psychologists

This is the reality of the role of a school psychologist.Even though I've asked for help, it always fell on deaf ears. Because I was capable of doing well enough, I continued to get more and more work and less and less help. The worst part for me was leaving each day feeling frustrated, knowing that I could not do enough and there were plenty of more kids who needed a concerned ear. Sadly, we are losing good, qualified people each day because they are getting burnt out and not being supported.