Rethinking Schools (ICE in Schools)

 

Recipes of Resilience: 

I thought that this article was very well written, it was engaging and palatable to people looking to learn more about the realities of students and educators. Ross Irons writes about a community based gathering that was aimed at building collective community and reminding the community that they aren't alone-- which is especially important when the realities are so terrifying. There were a couple lines specifically that caught my attention-- "You don't deserve this". 

The idea of someone "not deserving this" -- no one deserves deportation, no one deserves the dumanization that comes with with ICE, with the criminalization of existence, and with the violent removal and uprooting that comes with deportation. 

It's more than people not deserving it and also it's more than making salsa verde with your students and having second graders cut up cebollas and bringing the community together. Resilience is community, it is togetherness but also at the same time the only word I have to describe it is cute. It's cute that we have these grassroots groups that are coming together to have community and feel like we're doing something. I wish it were helpful, more than just passing out Know Your Rights cards (I have many if anyone would like some), more helpful than hosting information sessions and restorative justice circles (which I have also done), and more helpful than being cute as a community. I wish there was actionable steps we could make to create real change, to get ICE agents off the street, to stop people from wanting to BE ICE agents (ICE hires very easily and pays a lot), I wish the president would follow the law, but most of all, that immigrants and immigrant communities were no longer dehumanized and targeted. 

Increasing the Possibility of Liberation for All: 

This interview highlighted the utopia that exists in the imaginations of not revolutionaries-- but regular people who hope for a better world. It starts with the idea that everyone has what they need, in a world (world being a placeholder for the word "place", the United States of America) where people-- and many people at that are struggling to get their basic needs met, it's hard to plan for a world where people's more than basic needs are met. These needs are listed as food, shelter, education, health and beauty, clean water, and art.

It's really powerful to see a list that truly does meet a lot of the needs of a successful population, I'd add to that-- community, connection. 

Ruth Wilson Gilmore describes abolition as an evolving and expanding process of generating questions-- and Mariame Kaba answers that we can answer questions and ask more questions with imagination. One tangible step that she suggests is creating a "social dreaming lab" where students are asked to talk about what they want from the world and from their lives. 

I think that this could be really impactful with the right community of students and framed the right way. I could see it working well if framed in a serious way, but I know for a fact some of my students would say things like "I want to fly". I wonder how we can talk about imagination and creativity, how we can introduce more steps of an abolitionist classroom by framing it the right way-- what would that framing look like within different age ranges? 

Another thing that has been on my mind, especially after having experienced my third grade students take RICAS and in reading about abolition, liberation, and change, I can't help but think how literacy is so closely connected with liberation. At the beginning of the school year it was really hopeful to think that my student who came in crying and saying "I can't read" would feel like he found even a bit of literary success. But after seeing him crying for around an hour while taking RICAS-- what do we do. Literally, what can I do? What can I do when my school cares so much about curriculum and grades and test scores? How do I teach my student to read, how do I have my third grade student catch up two grade levels while he's in my class. I am only doing what I can and am giving myself grace as a first year teacher but as the school year winds down, I can't help but feel like I'm failing. 

I'm failing my students and we (collectively, us) are failing the world (the world both literally and the world as in, the rest of us).