from the Editor

A SIMPLE WORD

A simple word like peace.

Two hands together, we bow.

Paz     Uxolo     Pax

Dawn breaks

yet does not shatter glass.

Joy flies out.

First the sun, then the river, finally

a swan. The moon is mute, yet softens

every jagged stone.

Clouds feather.

Petals flame.

The ground receives our pain.

Even the dead

branch blooms

a thousand shadows.

Reprinted from Anthology 2017: Celebrating Writers of the Pioneer Valley, Carol Edelstein and Robin Barber, eds.

Yin Yang

If you train for the art,

you shall find the power.

If you train for the power,

you shall find the art.

For the art is the power

and the power is the art.

by Maria Doest, Godan

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One Foot in Front of the Other

by Sara Nelson

I live one block off Lake Street in Minneapolis, one mile north of the intersection where Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, and one mile west of the Third Precinct police station that went up in flames. Back in May, I watched buildings a block away as they burned. I joined neighbors in sweeping up broken glass. 

The elementary school where I teach lies another mile west of what is now the George Floyd Memorial. It’s a private Montessori school, serving children ages two-and-a-half through fourteen. The school community is predominantly white, though we work to attract more families and staff belonging to the Global Majority (or Black, Indigenous, People of Color – BIPOC).  There has always been a dedicated group of staff working hard on issues of equity and justice, pushing for the school to embrace anti-bias/anti-racist education. At the same time, many have felt we were already providing peace education - so couldn’t we please just deal with snow-hoarding on the playground?

Suddenly, following the horrific video showing a white cop kneeling impassively on a Black man’s neck while bystanders beg him to get off, everyone is interested in anti-racism.  Webinars on anti-racism abound and sell out within hours. Videos by Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo and Resmaa Menakem show up in my email.  I’m profoundly grateful that people now seem ready to really do this work – and I’m frustrated that it has taken this long, that it has taken yet another Black person’s life before we white folks have chosen to act, before I have really doubled down on my own efforts. I try to imagine what people of the Global Majority, who have battled the horror for over four centuries in this country, are thinking and feeling right now.

I’ve learned a lot these past twenty-plus years teaching young people, all while trying to center issues of equity, to show them how to battle racism. I’ve grown personally and professionally as I’ve tried to shape a school into a community that values everyone in our city, and that actively aims to repair the damage my people have done. I’ve learned I can’t do this work alone. I’ve learned I need to “decolonize” myself before I can teach my students well. That means doing my own work without asking my BIPOC colleagues for help, but at the same time making sure I listen carefully to what they have to say. I’ve learned to look hard at the water I swim in, the racism that surrounds me, that brings about my own unconscious biases.

At times, I’ve berated myself for the mistakes I’ve made – then realized that self-flagellation and perfectionism aren’t helpful. As a white educator, I’m going to make mistakes. The best I can do is to learn from those experiences, just as I’ve so often advised my own students: Sometimes the best lessons are a little painful; often the epiphanies that come from our mistakes are the ones we remember best.

I’ve learned that many of my colleagues, and many of the parents at my school, want to talk with the children about race, but are afraid. They feel unprepared to do so, untrained, at sea. This is particularly disconcerting when it becomes clear that doing it well is not about getting a binder full of lessons, or listening to an expert once a year; rather, it’s a life-long journey, and often a lonely and uncomfortable one.

So, those of us interested in this work have to band together. We need to create a community that shares wisdom, knowledge, and resources; pulls us up when we fall down; keeps up the work when some of us need a respite. We need people who can call us out or call us in, keep us accountable, help us see and learn from our mistakes. We also need leaders and administrators who support the ongoing work, beyond just bringing in a trainer for a two-hour workshop now and then.  If there is no commitment at the top of the organization, there won’t be significant change.

It takes courage. Many of us don’t want to be uncomfortable – and we don’t want to make others uncomfortable. This can cause leaders to shy away from taking stands they fear are controversial, for example, saying “we affirm all families,” but not, “we affirm LGBTQ+ families” – the “all lives matter” equivalent for the issue of marriage equality. Such statements leave marginalized groups feeling betrayed.  

Over the course of my career, the school has experienced a range of leadership styles, and anti-racism efforts have taken many forms. Back in the late ‘90s, there was SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) training, with professional development opportunities and outside experts. We did some good work, but a period followed where it was overshadowed by a leadership focus on other issues. Later, a dedicated group of staff brought in more experts, to talk about intercultural competency and racial identity development, but our efforts felt piecemeal, like a lot of talk and not much action. It felt like wading in wet concrete.

Subsequently, our Equity and Justice Committee convinced the administration to have the entire staff take the Intercultural Development Inventory, a test that measures intercultural competence (defined as the ability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to differences and commonalities). It helped us see intercultural competence as a continuum, and our initial assessment as our starting point on the continuum. But while understanding yourself is key, and this work was helpful, it didn’t battle structural racism. It didn’t make us look at our own racial identity, or help us figure out how to teach little children to understand why their friend has a different skin color, or the older students to understand redlining or the school-to-prison pipeline. And so the work must continue.

We’ve come to see that, until we at our school have people of the Global Majority in positions of power, we have not succeeded; and we have to listen to our BIPOC colleagues. We have sought ways to empower colleagues and students in the planning of school assemblies, making them more relevant to current events, bringing in new songs and stories that better reflect the Twin Cities, and assuring teachers who are sad to see old favorites go that, really, it will be ok.

The arrival of a new principal coincided with the pandemic, with the murder of an unarmed Black man just blocks from th e school, and with unrest the likes of which none of us had ever seen. But this principal has been willing to put the time in and seems interested in pushing the school to really walk the walk. Even before the world started to crash down on us in earnest, he was willing to listen, and to support our ongoing work on anti-racism and equity in education.

Rather than shying away from controversy, we were able to put out a strong public statement, one that made promises, that delineated clear changes we wanted to make to be a better school for our community, one that would hold us accountable. We asked if we could hang signs on the school supporting George Floyd. While some worried that our windows might get smashed, the principal gave us permission and helped us figure out the best ways to hang signs.

This summer, a large group of us are working on the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit-Building Challenge from the Food Solutions Network. We’ll be digging into the various readings and videos, with scheduled times to meet and talk. Another group of us attended a two-day webinar on dismantling white supremacy culture in schools, and we have a group of Montessori teachers from all around the Twin Cities that meets regularly to share resources and inspiration, holding each other accountable. We are committed, working on our own personal transformation, as well as figuring out the next steps for the school, including hiring some part-time equity directors. We are talking about ways we, as a school, can make reparations to the Black community and to the Native community whose land we use.

I feel hopeful. I have a better sense of what my own whiteness brings to the table. I see the racism in myself and around me more clearly. When I screw up, I can pick myself up, dust myself off, and figure out a better way. I see more people at school willing to embrace this work, knowing it will never end, that it’s more of a lens with which to view the world than a set of answers that will suddenly make everything ok. We talk about having “Failure Friday” or a “Celebratory Mistake Wall” - to keep us accountable, and help us remember mistakes are the way we grow and learn.

Joe Truss of Culturally Responsive Leadership introduced himself as “a recovering white supremacist and an aspiring anti-racist.” I’d like to think I can describe myself that way, and that I can say this of my school. We are working together; we have a leader who is willing and courageous enough to take these next steps. We may falter, but we will keep walking.

Melanie DeMore wrote a wonderful song the day after the 2016 election. She posted it on YouTube and a bunch of the staff learned it and sang it as we marched in the Women’s March. The song goes, “Put one foot in front of the other, and lead with love.” This is all we white folks can do. And we have to keep doing it – it is a life journey, and it is worth every step, difficult though it might be. That song is worth a listen; you can hear it at this link. When the going gets rough – and it will get rough – we’ll hear her lovely voice in our heads, and it will give us strength.

Sara Nelson is a teacher of Junior High School Humanities and English. She studied martial arts for ten years with Shifu/Sensei Koré Grate.
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