This Is How We Fight Back
This Is How We Fight Back
This has been a week. There is so much to do and there is not enough time to do it. There is also no time not to do it.
Silence is Violence.
In my role as an educator, my guiding light has always been, “Teach individuals; not subjects”
How can I keep from singing the songs of the communities I teach in?
How can I keep from crying along with the children and families of the communities I teach in?
How can I keep from feeling scared with and for the folks in the communities I teach in?
I cannot. I will not.
The educational system and the society has taught us that as teachers we only need teach the curricula and if we do this, the kids will be allright. As Maury Povich would say, the data from this past week, has proven that is a lie.
This post is an open call to action for the educators out there — especially the white educators, and the white male educators.
This post is also a pledge about my commitment in working to support and be an ally to my students and their families; most of them who are black and brown, women, with disabilities, trans, LGBT, Muslim, Latix, and immigrants. This commitment extends the support to my students and their families from the inside of the classroom to the outside the classroom,
My plan of action is below. I hope you join me in any capacity that feels alive to you.
- I will not police and/or minimize my students’ feelings during class discussions regarding what this presidency might mean to them.
Yesterday I was facilitating a discussion with my high schoolers about our feelings. They asked me what I thought about Drumpf, so I told them that I was angry, sad, and scared and disappointed and I also told them that that anger was going to become the fuel for fighting against injustices in the world around me. They all said they were scared and angry and “pissed off” and then apologized for their language. I told them that I understood their feelings and that they could express themselves in whatever ways they wanted. With the fucks, and the shits and the yells and the “fuck this shit”, truth and honesty started to flow. The curse words and the space gave room to talk about the reality and facts, both regarding the president elect himself, but also about the system that elected him. My students did yell “fuck him” AND also said “how did a rapist and a tyrant get to be elected president?” My students did call him “Kim Jong Putin” and they said how scared they were about who might kick their asses when they left school each day.
As they said that, I began to say my thoughts of: “I see your concerns but that is not going to happen. As bad as things are, there are not going to be people out in the streets hurting you.” Before I finished that sentence, one of them interrupted me to say “the fuck do you know”
And so I apologized and shut up. They are right. The fuck does a white cis man know about getting their ass kicked just by being brown or black or on the autism spectrum.
From then on the conversation flowed for another twenty minute as we held a “talking stick” to not interrupt each other, and every time someone interrupted each other, they apologized and we reminded ourselves to be gentle with each other as we are learning how to not interrupt each other. The “talking stick” is a new tool I have introduced in my classes and it comes from the practice of restorative justice circles. It is quickly changing our dynamics.
We talked about creating music that protested the current electoral system, the white supremacy in America, and that supported rights for everyone. We talked about standing up for what is right. We talked about making music that showcased out feelings; those of anger and fear included.
2) Education is how I fight back.
The whitewashing of history and the erasure of the importance that all oppressed people have had in this country stops now. I am proud to say that I have been engaging in this kind of work for quite some time but now it will be even better and stronger.
Through curricula, we change the narrative, we re write it, we restore it. Every lesson has a purpose, every unit of study has the possibility to create the kind of change needed so that there is not a single person in this world who would even consider voting and electing someone who stands for racism, misogyny, crime, and bullying. Even if that candidate promises more jobs and less taxes. Especially if that candidate offers to make your life better at the expense of making the lives of others worst.
I teach music. Teaching Elvis Presley or rock and roll before or without teaching about Sister Rosetta Tharpe is an act of violence towards my students of color. It is really not that far from saying “Columbus discovered America, he was the first” Whitewashing history is a strong way in which we teachers keep the cycle of white supremacy alive in the schools. White supremacy and patriarchy put Drumpf where he is, there is no doubt about that. By keeping white supremacy (and patriarchy and all kids of oppressions) alive inside school, we keep them alive outside schools too. Schools are not vacuums. What we teach inside our classes, makes it out of our classrooms’ walls. The walls of our classrooms are quite porous, they are conducive of symbiosis. What we teach and how we teach can change the world. That is why most of us do it. Right? Keep that in mind and act on it. Let it be your compass.
I am of course not advocating becoming a “social justice warrior” in your classes and or lighting your textbooks and worksheets on fire. What I am advocating and trying to model, with my work, is to teach in ways that are reflective, relevant and responsive to a) justice, b) my students’ needs and c) my own happiness and sense of purpose.
The use of well thought out and intentional essential questions can be an easy (not simple) way to start doing this work. Start asking open needed questions about your subject that promote dialogue, that cannot be answered with yes/no and that span larger than your subject. For example, I would ask: What is the role of the music maker in society? or How do artists affect change in their communities? Those questions will link the dead curriculum with what is alive in your students. I have resurrected “TaTa-TiTi-Tas” countless times by asking students those questions and linking their new learned knowledge to things they care about and that can connect.
In education vs. schooling, I try to keep in mind that I am not the pot from which my students serves themselves bowl of “education”. I am only a part of the experience and even though I am mot times the facilitator, I am not he who owns the truth, facts and building blocks of music making. We learn together. In using education as a tool again tyranny and oppression, we must center everything, around students and their needs.
If we as educators can only find white examples of anything that we are teaching, we are not looking hard enough. If we cannot find works by women, POC, immigrants, Latinx, Queers, Trans, differently abled folks, we are failing our students. I know how hard it is to find them. White Supremacy makes it hard, but it is not impossible. If I can do it, you can too.
3) Live outside the classroom what you teach inside the classroom
This is something I pledge to do better as of now. I am an artist and so I need to make more art regarding it all. This is what I preach but I have not been doing it. Shame. On. Me.
This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. — Leonard Bernstein
As a privileged person, one of the best ways in which I can live my truth outside the classroom is donating $$$, resource and time to organizations that are on the ground. I am a public school teacher and I live in NYC, I don’t have lots of money. I barely have enough. But I have enough. Monthly payments to organizations that I feel close to my heart and whose ideas I believe in, are not possible, but I can donate a few bucks here and there a few times a month. For me these organizations are the ACLU, Planned Parenthood an #blacklivesmatter. You find your own. Every cent counts. There are lots of POC folks who are about to be policed more heavily (and killed, hurt.) There are a lot of folks who will be losing health insurance. There are too many women who will access to legal access to abortions, if they choose to have them. There are lots of immigrants, mainly Latinx, and Muslim who will face deportation (and death, and broken families) and who will need legal advice, counsel and support.
If you, like me can only donate a few dollars each year, do so. If you can donate more than that, do so.
If you are can only offer non monetary support, do so. If you are or know any legal or medical professionals, please engage in the work by volunteering in your communities. If you have the time to mentor youth, do it.
If you write curriculum that is designed at changing the status quo, share it. If you’d like, you can use the hashtag I have been using: #thisishowwefightback
If you love social media, engage in it. Be patient with folks but don’t be a chump.
If you hate social media, don’t engage in it. Talk to the Drumpf voters in your life. Hold space for conversations but NOT at the expense of your own self care. The more privileged we are, the least self care we need.
Engage in being active in your communities in any way that feels alive to you. Action is the word. Just do it.
This is the time for doing it. Wherever we go, that’s where we are. Let’s be there. Together.
Much love, peace, community, strength and power,
Martin Urbach
@pinkmohawked
