Nov. 15, 2017 - First Followers: Raising Quiet Voices

Yesterday I needed to tend a matter away from the classroom just as my freshman English students were entering the room. I asked Zane to get the class started reading--a routine that has gone unbroken for our 58 days together and goes like this: At an exchange with Siri ("Ten-minute timer!"/ "Ten minutes and counting!") silence descends like a curtain on the room. I love the drama of it. And I love the fact that my room--for 10 minutes each day--is a place of calm and solace and reading.  I know that kids by and large love this reading time too, because they tell me they do.

So yesterday when I returned to the classroom and expected to witness silent reading, I was disappointed to instead see about half my class trying to read, another smattering clearly unhappy with the non-reading atmosphere, and a handful of wild things happily celebrating cat's-away play time.

I know better than to leave my classroom unattended, even for a few minutes. One of high-school students' unwritten rules is that anything goes if a teacher is foolish enough to step out of the room. So hoping they'd be reading belies my too-trusting nature as much as my students' normal adolescent behavior.

But this episode carried extra weight for me yesterday. Since last Tuesday's election, I--like many others--have felt a renewed sense of the importance of speaking up, speaking out. I'm realizing my country is going to be led by someone whose sense of civility, whose attitude toward name-calling, whose willingness to speak untruths, are in direct conflict with mine. And given the president's position of power, this will likely mean that the language choices and attitudes Trump displays will become increasingly normalized.

We've seen this already. One example is Trump's inaccurate assertion about the NYTimes on Saturday. The choice of Trump to use his now world-megaphoned voice to discredit (inaccurately) one of the most trusted sources of journalism did not get much traction as a news story because there are so many louder, more urgent stories--such as installment of the dangerous alt-right Breitbart "news source" Steve Bannon as Trump's shoulder angel.

But this is how culture change seeps in. Trump's false claim that NYTimes is losing thousands of subscribers was retweeted 34k times. NYTimes editor Clifford Levy's correction of the inaccuracy was retweeted 13k times. The ratio of inaccuracy to accuracy is more than 2:1.

Trump's election demands that sane, civilized people speak up. Kindly, accurately, firmly. If those in power are willing to berate free press, to degrade people expressing their first amendment rights, to marginalize swaths of people through name-calling and/or policy, those of us mild-mannered sit-and-watch folk will be drowned out. The new normal will not include our voice.

And this brings me back to my gabby freshmen yesterday. When I quieted the room, I asked who among them had wanted to read. Many hands shot up. I then asked who had spoken up to direct others to settle in and get to reading. About half of the hands went down. "We tried..." a couple of students muttered, and I thanked them for that. But we then talked about the need for "first-followers," people who recognize a good choice and step up to support it, creating positive momentum to embolden right action. "I am confident," I told them, "that if all of you who wanted to read had united, you could have quieted the room."

They probably didn't believe me. And maybe they're right. It takes a lot of quiet people drown out the loud ones. Nevertheless, I am going to work with my entire Eng9H class to help them develop their confidence and skill in putting voice to good. The world needs people who are willing to do this, even in small ways, now more than ever.

How to Start a Movement: First Follower TED Talk by Derek Sivers