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An hour and a half later, I was in my car heading to school to meet in real life with part of a leadership team.
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Mask on face. Enter room. Colleagues jovial and distant. We begin to gauge each other on how close is too close...where we fall in the contagion scale.
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It's a new team. New personalities. Besides my principal, I am the oldest. I'm only forty-three. This is the generation of leaders to fill the role that I have stumbled through. I found myself in an Escher print of my life. More on that much later.
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Culturally Relevant Teaching is the buzz word of the decade. It is both exciting and fearful. Three years ago - THREE YEARS AGO - I mentioned that equity was becoming more of a buzzword and less of a state of moving toward, and now, everyone is a CRT expert. I get it. I'm excited about the passion. I also know that there's so much I have left to learn and become cautious when people tote the word expert.
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And then, I had one unsettling moment to illustrate how much more I need to grow. I have a colleague. A young black professional who SPEAKS UP for her black students. She is passionate and beautiful and I love her energy and I'm full of hell yaaaass. BUT - she is a devout Christian, and makes the assumption that all follow Christ, thus having a Christian classroom, unintentionally perhaps. But, oh the isolation. For all of those kids who share different beliefs. And I want to pull her aside and say, I hear you. I'm working on being a better white person and pushing for equitable practices and dismantling the unjust system that our society is built on. I will be better on this. But, I need you to be better for all of the children that are in your classroom that aren't Christian; that are Muslim, Hindu, Atheist, Scientologist. Culturally Relevance extends further than race. It pushes past all of the bullshit. So I don't know. I'm mulling over my voice.
This is one of three times in which I have been with a group of humans in six months. Overall, it was enjoyable.
