Year 9: Week 9 – The Trip And The Election

Next week I’m off to the 5th grade outdoor education trip. This has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had as a teacher at this school. It puts me out of my comfort zone, allows me to get to know my students in a different way, and has challenged me to contribute to a trip experience in ways that I had never done previously (e.g. leading a campfire sing along for the first time). It has been a part of my school year every year I’ve been here, except for last year. A week before the trip last year my second son, Ethan was born so I was on paternity leave during the trip and did not go. Two years ago, the last time I went, was over the Tuesday of the 2016 election.

I’ll never forget sitting with all of my wonderful teaching colleagues on our phones and laptops watching the news and feeling hope leave us. Calling and texting my wife as the night went on and the results that were once unimaginable became clear.  And I hope I never forget following morning watching one of my colleagues announce to the students the results, and seeing the two Black girls in the grade holding hands and crying silently as they realized that Senator Clinton had lost and he had somehow won.

All of this has been coming back to me in the past couple days as I prepare for the trip next week, and the coming election. Going on this trip, this will be my eighth time going.  Going on this trip always feels a little like going back to Neverland. It’s a place that feel so far away from reality, a place where we can focus on the students, and nature, and a place that two years ago was invaded by the parts of our society who could not see past the fear to work towards hope. And now going back, my feelings and my memories of this place are no longer as pure as they were before that night two years ago.

Like being 8 years old, it makes sense that my innocence with this place has been lost. And next week, I go there again, with an election that in some ways is as consequential if not more consequential than the last. I’ll enter that room where the two Black girls cried, and the lounge where the teachers met, and like seeing rain on a sunny day, my emotions will mix, good and bad, joyous and painful. Dark and light.

While I would have rather spent that election day two years ago with my family, and while I am not looking forward to being far from them next Tuesday, I was comforted, as I am now knowing that the work I am doing means something. That day two years ago, late at night I decided to get to work. It was that moment which crystalize a feeling that led to me becoming one of our schools’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion co-chair. All the work I’ve done with that centralizing DEI work in my curriculum has proven as the most relevant, and important work I’ve done in my teaching career.

No matter what happens Tuesday, I know that my work is fighting the tide of ignorance and hate. It’s educating students to go beyond fear, through the discomfort of difficulty conversations to the joy of embracing differences, and the enriching work of becoming a Beloved Community.