A Blank Slate

Where to Begin

What is the one thing you’d like to change?

A colleague posed this question to me earlier today. It left me speechless. So many things — all of the things — was all I could think, but the process of actually transferring any consistent, coherent , and intelligent sounding thought into speech failed me. Ideas and answers flittered about in my brain like moths assaulting a hanging light bulb — you know, like the ones you used to have in your basement laundry room? But I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t elucidate one single thing. Besides everything.

Educators spend a lot of time talking about change. Changing the system, changing the way we grade, changing the seating chart, changing the world. For instance, in our Teacher Leadership in Writing Institute we are discussing how to change the world through the teaching, learning, and art of writing. Initially, this purpose catalyzed a nervous chuckle in my typically cynical and snarky self, but then it got me thinking about the nature of change, and what it means to create and cause change.

Let the world change you, and you can change the world.

The sentence is the tagline of my favorite movie, Motorcycle Diaries. The movie centers on the early life of Che Guevara, as he ventures northward along the spine of the Andes Mountains with a friend on an old Norton motorcycle. His stated method of travel is improvisation, and he soon turns his focus to understanding the gross inequities throughout South America, especially among the indigenous peoples. When I mine this quote for meaning I fumble my way to the understanding that prior to creating any sort of external change, one must first commit to acts of reflection, self-betterment, and internal change.

And so here we are. 16 years in the classroom and I have to ask myself if I’ve allowed the world to change me? Like much of my life, I feel like I’ve mostly operated in direct opposition to the accepted norms and status quo. I have an unfortunate knack for rejecting a lot of what is directed to me from down the bureaucratic educational pipeline. I often question, investigate, and invite discussion on the procedures and principles we are governed by. I find that too many of us are just willing to accept what is as what should be. Outwardly, I’ve done my fair share of acquiescing as a means to maintain employment, please bosses, and move on. Inwardly, however, I have refused to let go of my belief of what an education can and should be. During the hardest moments of the last 16 years I’ve sometimes allowed myself to dream and imagine what a school would look like if I had the opportunity to help design one..

I have now begun that opportunity.

Let the world change you, and you can change the world.

Over the past 11 months I’ve been part of a team granted the opportunity to develop a new charter school in Madison. Through monthly meetings, countless emails and text messages, and laborious challenges, we have laid the groundwork for establishing One City Preparatory Academy. We have hired our teachers and staff, and are now three weeks into what is essentially a two-month inservice, prior to welcoming our first scholars in September. We’ve accomplished a lot so far, and we have so much more to accomplish in the future. We are putting relationships first, and engaging in a process of collaborative ideation in an inclusive and positive manner. My experiences working with the colleagues at One City and developing the school have caused an unfamiliar emotion to appear in terms of how I feel about my job.

Dare I say it’s joyful? Challenging? Oh, for sure. But like the most joyful kind of challenge — like having one last scoop of ice cream. And sure, it’s early and maybe premature and too early to celebrate and be self-congratulatory. But, it’s a good start.

Back to the question I was asked this morning: What is the one thing you’d like to change? I know now this can’t be an external answer. I can’t say I’d like to change the way we assess writing until I first internally change my philosophy regarding the role writing should have in a school. I can’t say we want to eliminate the achievement gap until I first extinguish my own self-doubt about actually being able to do so.

And so, what is the one thing I’d like to change?

I’d like to continue to feel joyful in my work. I’d like to hang out with this new emotion of contentment for a while and see what we can do together.

I’m beginning to realize that if I can replace the greedy bites of anxiety with genuine joy and optimism, I can then authentically pursue the myriad of pedagogical questions a new school requires. I’ve fallen victim to the notion that if work isn’t stressing you out, you must not be working hard enough. That a job is something to endure, not enjoy. I need to leave such an ethos behind in a gray box on a white shelf. Or maybe just light it on fire. And watch it burn.

And so, the first thing I want to pursue is a culture of joy in teaching and learning. The reasoning here is quite obvious: a joyful teacher creates a joyful classroom full of joyful scholars being their best selves.

But there’s always more.

In our Teacher Leadership in Writing Institute we’ve thought big. Perhaps the grandiose nature of our thinking is best summarized when Professor Vieira posed the question, How can we teach English so people stop killing each other? Immediately upon hearing this question a lightning strike split my reaction into two equal halves. One part of me wanted to call “b.s.”. The world is too far gone, our institutions are faithless, bloated, and vapid, our culture built upon toxicity, greed, and violence. That for every person who dares to dream, there’s a disillusioned man with a gun. And his finger is on the trigger.

However, the other part of me was inspired, captivated, and charged. Yes, that’s it! That is the purpose of an education. If a teacher isn’t willing to step up to such a creed, then they lack the courage to be a teacher.

I believe it will be important to keep both minds and reactions with me, so as not to live too fully in an ideological bubble. Reality matters, and reality can sometimes be hard to accept. On the one hand, teachers must truly question the extent to which we can create lasting systemic change. The forces and politics turning the gears of planet earth are immense and entrenched and to think we can use poetry to reengineer the mechanics of it all to solve global inequities is foolish. I know this sounds pessimistic and defeatist, but so it goes. I’m open to believing otherwise.

Yet on the other hand, teachers must realize we have enormous opportunities as well. Is it too far-fetched to believe we can cause students to be critical thinkers? To abhor violence? To be kind and caring? I believe such ambition is realistic and worthy. I know the process of doing so is predicated upon causing students to think for themselves, and not on teaching them what to think. I realize such an approach dances on the line of politics and partisanship, but I have to hope concepts like open-mindedness, acceptance, and peace transcend political ideologies (though as I write this, I’m not sure they do).

And so, I’d like to amend Professor Vieira’s question to How can we teach so people stop killing each other? The challenge with allowing this query to guide one’s pedagogy is being brave enough to allow one foot to bound towards ambition, while keeping the other foot planted in day to day existence. Such a balancing act takes me back to the notion that internal change must come before the external.

I believe I have prepared myself to undertake such an internal transformation — to see education as an opportunity for joy as opposed to a dynamic predicated upon pressure over test scores, missing work, and insipid professional development. The opportunity to have a role and have an authentic voice at a new school — a school dedicated to truly putting scholars first, and actually treating educators as experts is the ideal platform to continue to grow this mentality.

But there’s always more.

Can teaching and learning lead to social justice? The last few years have witnessed a zeitgeist of rhetoric professing demands for social justice. While needed, noble, and right, are these yard signs and stickers effective? Are they vacant virtue signaling attempts motivated by white guilt? Where is the line between authenticity and being trite? What does real social justice look like, how can it be achieved, and what role can education play in this process? How will we know if we’ve achieved justice? Is social justice an internal state of mind and individual behavior, or is it a set of policies passed by legislatures? Is it both? I want to explore what real justice looks like and feels like in a school.

Learn everything you can about the field of Peace Studies. The objective of peace studies is to develop a more desirable human condition. Sharing much with Professor Vieira’s question, this field captivates me and I want to drink from its fountain of ideas. I also want to question it, discuss its validity and possibility of growing roots— or lack thereof — and perhaps develop a future seminar for our scholars based upon it.

How do I keep the momentum? I’ve had a remarkably productive week, and feel energized and inspired. The volume of writing I’ve created in the last five days has been incredibly helpful in processing my thoughts, feelings, and ideas on all things — personal and professional. I want to keep this going. I don’t want the school year to start and feel stuck in the pattern of holding on until the weekend, or the next holiday break. Rather, I want to remain present. What practices will allow me to experience consistent productivity?

And so, I will continue to keep my course of self growth and learning while developing a new school. I will continue to seek balance in all that I do, to take time for myself, and be an amazing father and husband. I plan on using the opportunity I have been given to build something transcendent. I will continue to allow the internal to drive the external, to allow the world to change me.