Day #106 Writing Through COVID-19: "Heavy Is the Head" and Both Sides Now

This morning I browsed through poems and found Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband," a sonnet that has my mother's name written all over it. I may have already shared it with her, but if I can't remember, neither will she. Also, good poems are worth re-reading.

I wrote her a letter, detailing every little boring thing I've done in the past 48 hours, and tucked in the poem as well. 
---------------------

This afternoon I participated in a Zoom Webinar hosted by Dr. Terry Harris, an educational leader in the St. Louis schools. His guest presenter was the amazing Dr. Sharonica Hardin-Bartley. One of the participants took notes doodle-style and shared them on Twitter:

Learning from Dr. Sharnica Hardin-Bartley, illustration by Ann Reed

Hardin-Bartley's message was delivered so powerfully, I felt my heart racing as she talked about the responsibility we have to address systems that have maintained inequity among our students.

The systems in place, she reminded us, continue to benefit those who hold the power. Calling out racism takes courage and hard thinking (especially if you are one of the people who has benefitted from the same policies that have diminished our BIPOC students). Her presentation, titled "Heavy Is the Head: the Intersectionality of the Head + Heart for Educational Leaders," compelled her learners (us!) to shine our lights, use our voices, and use our heads to address the inequities in our systems.

As a teacher in a rural SW Iowa district, I have overlooked (Were my eyes even open enough to SEE to overlook?) ways our educational systems promote policies that value some groups (middle-class/ white) over others (our students who live with a variety of trauma issues/ our students of color/ our LGBTQ students). Anti-racism demands a reckoning on all accounts. We cannot be anti-racist while marginalizing other groups.

Something Hardin-Bartley said hit me where I live: Those of us who have somehow (through our privilege, our hard work, our luck, our skin color, our education, or whatever) secured a place at the table of decision-making have a RESPONSIBILITY to speak loudly (Don't Dim Your Light) in addressing failure in our systems to value each student as deserving of policies that assure equity.

Each child's education "should fit like a well-tailored suit," Hardin-Bartley said, as I scribbled furiously in my notebook. Since when have we approached education as trying to FIT the CHILD as opposed to trying to make the CHILD fit the SUIT (system) that is already in place?
----------------------

Whew.
Follow the hashtag #saysomething to participate in next week's webinar.
----------------------

This afternoon I renewed my teaching license and submitted a couple of yearbook spreads.

After supper, Dan and I met in the sweetcorn patch to see if the middle rows look better than the scraggly edges (they do). We enjoyed shouting corn-related observations during our COVID-distanced date.

COVID Dan in the sweetcorn patch, July 1, 2020.

Tonight I called my parents. "Is Mom getting her bearings?" I asked my dad.

"Here, I'll let you talk to her," he said.

My mother laughed as she took the phone and made a quip about her bearings, losing them, finding them.

My sister and her daughter have squeezed into one bedroom to give my parents the other. They are putting together puzzles, playing board games, encouraging outdoor time for everyone. They are knocking themselves out.

So what does my dad choose to report? "No one plays Bridge here."

I am reminded of how often I'd hear my dad talk to my siblings on the phone and overlook all of the GOOD things we'd done in a day and instead mention a small inconvenience.

I am seeing this from both sides now.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison