A terrific short piece on the purpose of the university…

Drew Gilpin Faust, president of Harvard, had a great piece in the New York Times Book Review Sunday – The University’s Crisis of Purpose

She writes “Universities are meant to be producers not just of knowledge but also of (often inconvenient) doubt. They are creative and unruly places, homes to a polyphony of voices.” I love this characterization of universities, and these are the very reasons why I love my job, and why I wanted my job in the first place. But it also creates a bit of a conundrum when I work collaboratively with people who are not in universities, but working in institutions where a polyphony of voices is not seen as creative and generative but dangerous. “Unruly” for many institutions (including K-12 schools) is often read as uncooperative, not a team player, and thus, not a practice that is rewarded. So when I’m sitting with a group of folks in various settings and begin to feel uneasy about the intense focus on the here-and-now or the “truths” of such-and-such practice, I live the impossibilities of the work we do in universities, “…to be practical as well as transcendent; to assist immediate national needs and to pursue knowledge for its own sake; to both add value and question values,” as Faust puts it.

Faust argues that perhaps the university has become too intertwined with the market world and the immediate demands of society and has forgotten about our work as “critic” and “conscience” for society. She refers specifically to the economic crisis and her wondering if “universities – in their research, teaching, and writing – have made greater efforts to expose the patterns of risk and denial? Should universities have presented a firmer counterweight to economic irresponsibility? Have universities become too captive to the immediate and worldly purposes they serve? Has the market model become the fundamental and defining identity of higher education?”

I wonder myself, and I also draw parallels with education.

Universities find themselves accepting contracts to write test materials, score tests, and engage with school policies that continue to narrow the nation’s public education curricula and “purpose.” We (broadly defined) are perhaps “too captive to the immediate and worldly purposes” of education and will droves of writers in ten, twenty, thirty years be wondering where we were and what we were doing while this crisis crippled our public school systems?

It’s very hard, at least for me, to figure out both how to be friends and colleagues with folks in the K-12 system, be supportive of public education as a parent and professor, and still do the “job” that I truly believe in, which includes intelligent, informed, and public research and criticism of a system that continues to fail droves of kids and families.

Sometimes I find myself acquiescing to expectations of the system that is broken – and I hate it. Sometimes I find myself engaging deeply with the kind of critique and critical consciousness work that is my passion, and someone else hates it (and sometimes this includes a friend or colleague who is deeply committed to and embedded within k-12 education) – and I hate that too.

Faust’s brief piece reminded me of why I love what I do. Even when my actions may seem and feel contradictory as I weave between and stumble among the important purposes of a university at large, and one faculty member finding her way.

Georgia’s Promotion/Retention Policies – Advocating for Parents, Students, Teachers, and Administrators

We all know how ridiculous it is to decide a student’s fate on one test score. It doesn’t make any sense at all from an academic, social, emotional, or policy perspective. Teachers, students, and parents know best about how a student has progressed across a year – and if a teacher doesn’t know that, then she is not doing her job. I can’t get to this issue though – because kids’ lives are being ruined by unthoughtful decision-making about whether they should be promoted or retained. Wanna know the odds that a kid will finish high school if she or he is retained one time in their educational career? Not good…check out the statistics for yourself.

I’ve heard numerous stories about students in all grades being spontaneously “retained” at the end of the school year because – and only because – of the CRCT scores. And kids are carrying home this news on the last day of school – crying on school buses. This is regardless of how well the student has done all year.

Here are some facts about the Georgia state policy on promotion/retention:

THERE IS ONLY A STATE POLICY FOR 3RD, 5TH, AND 8TH GRADE regarding CRCT scores -

THERE IS NOT A STATE POLICY FOR OTHER GRADES regarding the CRCT scores – DO NOT LET SOMEONE TELL YOU THERE IS (or ask for it in writing – I can’t find it anywhere). That means that any last minute decision to hold back a child in K,1,2,4,6 based on CRCT scores is not substantiated in state policy – and parents, teachers, students should fight this decision if it is not in the best interest of the child.

For 3rd (READING SCORES ONLY – DOES NOT REQUIRE MATH SCORES), 5th, and 8th graders (BOTH READING AND MATH):

1 – The school district should have a local policy about how the CRCT is “weighted” in decisions of promotion and retention.

2 – The school district should have a local policy about the other factors that will go into deciding whether a child is promoted or retained.

ASK ABOUT THESE TWO POLICIES. ASK FOR THEM IN WRITING.

3 – If a child in 3,5, or 8th grade does not pass the CRCT, the family must be notified BY FIRST CLASS MAIL WITHIN 10 DAYS OF THE SCHOOL’S RECEIPT OF THE SCORES WITH THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:

a) The below-grade level score on the CRCT

b) The specific re-tests to be given and testing dates

c) The opportunity for accelerated, differentiated, or additional instruction (this can be like summer school – but this is NOT mandatory for students to attend prior to retaking the test. It is only mandatory for the school to offer it).

d) The POSSIBILITY that the student might be retained for next year

IF THE STUDENT RE-TAKES THE TEST AND STILL DOESN’T MEET GRADE LEVEL EXPECTATIONS:

a) The principal may choose to retain the student – and if so, the student’s family must be informed BY FIRST CLASS MAIL of this decision, AND of the option of the parent/guardian or teacher to APPEAL this decision.

IF A PARENT/GUARDIAN OR TEACHER APPEALS THE DECISION:

a) A “placement committee” must be formed and convened to discuss information about the child from across the school year that one might not know from looking at the CRCT scores. This committee would be: the principal OR a designee, the family/parents/guardians/ (I would add other advocates), and the teacher or teacher(s) who know the student best in the subject of the CRCT. If a child receives special education – THE IEP COMMITTEE IS THE PLACEMENT COMMITTEE).

b) In addition to other things, the placement committee must establish ongoing assessments for the child in the next year to monitor her/his progress.

c) The decision to promote to the next grade must be unanimous.

BUT – IF IT IS NOT – THERE IS A WAY TO APPEAL THIS DECISION THROUGH THE LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT. CALL THEM AND ASK FOR THE POLICY IN WRITING AND ASK FOR SOMEONE TO EXPLAIN IT TO YOU IN PERSON OR OVER THE PHONE AS WELL.

Listen – the No Child Left Behind Act has created a machine that eats up children, families, teachers, and administrators. CRCT is part of the machine. Everyone is working over-time to cover their own butts – and you’ll find VERY FEW PEOPLE going out of their way to save a child who is dangling over the edge getting ready to plummet into the grinder.

If you don’t do it – no one else will.

STAND UP FOR KIDS.

(ALL INFORMATION PULLED DIRECTLY FROM PROMOTION/RETENTION POLICY DOCUMENT “STATE BOARD RULE” 160-4-2-.11.PDF ON THE GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION WEBSITE. I have paraphrased most of this given the complex language of the original document – but I have also pulled some direct quotes. I have the full pdf if someone wants to contact me about getting it)

How to Make School Not Suck #1

I’m aching to write a book called “School Sucks,” but I don’t want to be too negative, you know? I mean I am an education professor, surely I should not be preaching about how much school sucks, right? Surely I should be the person waving a banner recruiting people in, being a cheerleader for schools, teachers, education, and schools, right? On the other hand, school does – in many cases – suck. It sucks as a kid when you’re stuck in a chair and get yelled at by the teacher for falling off it after a couple hours of test preparation madness; it sucks as a teacher when you’re finally doing some cool stuff with your kids and the principal comes in and wants to know what standards you’re covering; it sucks as a principal when you want your teachers to do what’s best for kids but the district office will punish you if you don’t meet AYP; it sucks as a parent watching day after day go by knowing that your kid is going off to a place where kids are expected to behave like robots, learn their math facts like computers, follow rules like – well, who follows rules??; it sucks to be a kid and go to  a place every day where you’re not expected to be like a kid at all who would prefer curiosity, experimentation, play, humor, physical movement, friendship, nurturing, kindness, and un-sucki-ness.

So I’ve tried to make the title a little more positive – a little nicer for those who may never read a book called “School Sucks.”

I don’t know if or when it’ll ever become a book, so I decided just to share some of my random thoughts about some things that make school suck for kids here, especially since a friend told me he wouldn’t respect me if I didn’t get started on this project immediately. So here’s my eensy weensy start…

#1
Stop smiling so much at the kids with nice clothes.
You know it happens, the kids who dress “nice,” or as some kids might say, like “preps,” “jocks,” “stuck-ups,” “teacher’s pets,” or “rich kids,” get all the positive attention even when they don’t deserve it. Even when they come to class late, don’t do a good job on their homework, whisper mean things to kids on the playground, and secretly exclude the kids with the not-so-nice clothes, the kids with nice clothes still get treated nice. Stop doing it! This makes school suck for kids who don’t want those stupid clothes, don’t have money for those clothes, or who are trying everything they can to get those clothes. Even kindergarteners notice when the well-dressed kids get all the attention. Stop it. Besides – without even knowing it, you might be promoting materialism and consumerism just by rewarding those who pay big bucks for cheaply made clothing in sweatshops and other subpar working conditions across the globe with your smile and special attention. Smile more at everyone – make school not suck.

#2
Stop gushing over kids who went on exotic trips during spring break.
It sucks, I know, seeing seven and eight year olds trot around the globe like nobody’s business, seeing things in real life that you’ve only seen in books or on television. But stop gushing over it, alright? All this gushing makes school suck for kids who went to a babysitter’s house and thought they had a ball all week until you made a big deal about the trip to Paris little Lucy went on. Make everyone’s spring, summer, fall, and winter breaks seem cool, valuable, educational, and admirable – not just the kids who happen to have been born in a family that can afford to go on expensive vacations. Besides – without even knowing it, you might be promoting an elitist and colonial attitude toward “others” around the globe who are assumed to be there for us middle-class Americans to gaze upon and wonder about. Gush over everyone’s fun and sorrow over school breaks – make school not suck.

#3
Stop saying things like, “He’s never even been to the zoo!”
What kind of school God made the zoo the pinnacle of all experiences that will magically make all our academic dreams come true? It really sucks when all the cool things you’ve done with your family don’t seem to matter to anyone and all that really matters is if you’ve seen caged up animals who are in fake habitats and gawked at all day by well-dressed families trying to do everything they can to give their kid an advantage in school. Besides – without even knowing it, you might be promoting the idea that animals are put on earth to be controlled by humans and to become humans’ entertainment as they live their lives in captivity. Find educational reasons to value everyone’s home experiences – make school not suck.

#4
Stop announcing the names of kids who still haven’t brought in field trip money.
This REALLY makes school suck for kids whose families are barely surviving and don’t have the money for life’s necessities, much less the $6.00 fee to go to the zoo where they keep animals in captivity and we gawk at them for our entertainment. Here’s the thing – if out-of-school experiences mean so much to educational success (and I would agree here that this is true), then tell your school and district to stop wasting millions on test prep materials and testing materials and use that money to pay for field trips that mean so much to educational success. Or, find lots of free field trips to go on. Or, use public transportation so the cost is lower. Or, convince your principal to create a fund that pays for families who can’t afford it (without announcing it). Or, have an open conversation with your students about the fact that because we live in a society that inequitably distributes economic resources, we expect that different families will be able to pay different amounts for field trips and that sometimes means that families are not able to pay anything at one time or another. No big deal. The big deal, in fact, is that our society should make sure it has decent paying jobs for everyone so that everyone could afford the field trip fees. THAT would make school not suck for the kids who don’t have the money to pay and can’t stand the humiliation and shame that comes along with not having the money to pay and go home angry at their parents because they don’t have the money to pay.

#5
Make field day free for all students! At a middle school in Northport, AL, students had to pay $10.00 each to participate in the end of the year field day; those who didn’t or couldn’t bring money were sentenced to study hall. What were organizers thinking when they made these decisions? Field day doesn’t cost anything, but even if there were expenses involved, how could anyone think it would be right to keep non-paying students inside? I’ll be circulating a petition to make Field Day free for all.

#6
Stop privileging school athletes by giving them a day off of school for “athletic day.” While the middle school athletes spent a day at Alabama Adventure Amusement Park, non-athlete members of the geocaching club, chess club, math club (etc. ad nauseum) stayed behind. Why can’t everyone in the school community be invited to go to the amusement park? Do athletes, and athletes alone, deserve a special day? Of course not! It’s absurd!

Exposing a Fertile Stereotype – a narrative

Exposing a Fertile Stereotype

I know what they say about poor girls.
Tryin to get pregnant to keep a boy around.
Havin babies to get a welfare check.
Trappin men by tellin’em they’re on the pill when they’re not.
Hell, I was even in a hospital not too long ago when a receptionist started talkin about the poor girls around town who were taught by their parents to have “no morals” and to start pumpin out those babies as soon as possible to get more money comin’ in.
Of course that woman didn’t know she was talkin to a poor girl inside the woman’s body who had health insurance and classy lookin clothes on. She assumed I was like her – middle class or whatever – and hatin on folks without insurance or with Medicaid or looking for some kind of supposed free ride.
But you know what assumptions do, and they did it right there in the hospital when I was fumin mad about what she was sayin and she just kept on sayin it. Even followed me out to the waiting room to tell me she was raisin her girl different. She was the ass because she wouldn’t shut her mouth and didn’t know what she was talking about, and I was the ass because I was the very kind of girl she was talking about.
Even though she didn’t know what she was talkin about.
I don’t even recognize what people say about poor girls though.
Trying to get pregnant?
All my life I’ve been with girls and women doing everything they could to avoid pregnancy. Well, almost everything, since most of them still had sex. So, I’ll put it this way, the girls and women I knew who were having sex were doing everything they could to not get pregnant. And they talked about it all the time.
This pill.
That pill.
This condom.
That condom.
Pull out.
Watch the calendar.
Count days from your period.
Know your options if it happens.
Let me be clear here. The girls and women in my family think kids are just as adorable as the next person does. We just knew the costs.
Mostly we knew about financial costs like being out of work because you’re sick while you’re pregnant then being out of work because you’re in the hospital havin the baby then being out of work because you’re recovering then being out of work because your kid is sick then being out of work because the babysitter didn’t show up then being out of work because you’re just too damn exhausted to get your ass out of bed on time to go to work.
One day off work could mean the light bill isn’t paid.
Two days could mean rent is short.
Three days? Don’t even go there.
We knew the financial costs because every woman we knew suffered those. We didn’t know anyone who was salaried or got paid personal days, paid maternity leave, paid vacation.
We didn’t know a woman who didn’t worry too much about going in an hour or so late when a kid was sick.
We only knew women who clocked in and clocked out and was only paid for the work their bodies did during the minutes between those two times.
We only knew women who busted their asses on the restaurant floor, behind a bar, on the factory line, cleaning someone else’s house, over the café grill, watching someone else’s kids, poking cash register keys, dry cleaning clothes.
We watched our women come home off the bus, out of a friend’s car, out of a relative’s car, out of a borrowed car, out of a barely-gonna-make-it-but-it’s-my-own car and they were tired. Pooped. Exhausted. And they knew and we knew that still when the check came in or the tips were added up it wasn’t going to quite cover what it needed to cover.
It wasn’t gonna cover the grocery bill after all the bills were paid, it wasn’t gonna cover the field trip money expected at school, it wasn’t gonna cover the new shoes little Sammy needed after his toes burst out the front, it wasn’t gonna cover the drive-in movie she promised the kids on the weekend, it wasn’t gonna cover bus fare or gas or the small payment she gave to her friend who drove every day.
It never quite covered.
Something was always left uncovered.
Exposed.
Poor girls are exposed all the time to the harsh and judging world and their exposures are spat out of people’s mouths, “Look at her, now why on earth would you dress like that?” “What’s she doing with a boy that age? She’s just trying to be like her welfare queen mama.” “Don’t even think about dating her. She’s a gold digger if I’ve ever seen one.”
You’ve heard more of this spewing than me of course, because most of the time I was excluded company when these things were being said.
But my world of you-better-not-get-pregnant-girl and please-god-it’s-me-poorgirl-please-don’t-let-me-get-pregnant and oh-my-god-what-am-I-gonna-do-now weebled from side to side when I realized that some girls tried to get pregnant.
Rich girls though.
And I’d never heard you-know-those-rich-girls-only-tryin-to-get-pregnant one time ever in my life.
Never.
And girls that weren’t so rich, but had more money than I’d ever known, were doing it too.
Yep. I was stunned when I found out that those girls I never knew tried to get pregnant.
Shocked I’m tellin ya.
Shakin my head and blowin through my nose I tried to get a handle on this new world I was discovering.
Not only did some girls (or, women, by the time I knew them) plan to get pregnant, they made it a full-time job to figure out how to get pregnant.
Damn.
They should just talk to some of the girls I knew who seemed to know the secret even when they were tryin everything to avoid it.
But these girls are se-ri-ous. Fertility books, visits to the doctor, prenatal vitamins months before they even thought they would try to conceive, halting their alcohol habits, curbing their caffeine in-takes, thermometers, sex on certain days, calling in their spouses when the temperature was just right, doing all kinds of yoga positions immediately following sex, reading more books, seeing more doctors, getting shots, paying thousands and thousands of dollars to try to get pregnant.
I mean damn.
Again.
This world was so foreign to me.
“You mean you do all this to get pregnant?”
And they think the poor girls are tryin to get pregnant.
But poor girls are so strapped by their finances we can’t imagine a pregnancy, the furniture needed, time away from work, the long-term financial costs, the exhaustion after a double shift, the food, the bottles, the formula, the childcare.
Other girls, to my amazement, seem to have the pleasure and luxury of focusing on the “joy” of pregnancy the “joy” of nursing the “joy” of child-rearing the “joy” of becoming a mother who has the time and resources to make a room for the newcomer to buy all the necessities (plus) for the baby to take time off work to recuperate to visit the doctor without worrying about the bills to take the baby to a pediatrician who works in a colorful, spacious, inviting office in the suburbs rather than wait in long lines at the cold, damp, gray local health clinic to see the one pediatrician who comes each month.
I know what they say about poor girls.
But I think they got it wrong.
I’m 37 years old now and, after giving birth to an unplanned beautiful baby girl who is now seven years old and the love of my life, I’m still trying to avoid pregnancy.
It’s in me.
The fear.
The anxiety.
I have insurance now.
A salary.
Time off when I need it.
And the room for a new baby in the family.
But I know the costs.
And I still feel exposed.

Give us back our kindergartens!

This news story reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (with some good, and some so-so quotes from me – I hate when I get riled up and don’t say what I want!) and the comments by readers has me thinking about our little ones who are already, or almost, in school this year. I hope some of you will get in on the discussion about this article – and start your own at your schools and with your friends and family.

Kindergarten teachers in different regions of the U.S. have shook their heads, pursed their lips, cussed a little, and even shed a tear or two as they tell me stories about what they feel they have to “do” to their students. “I don’t even have time for teaching – all I do is assess, assess, assess,” one teacher told me referring mostly to the DIBELS (phonics-driven) assessment mandated in her school and used to evaluate teachers at the end of the year. Other teachers have written emails to me panicking that their principal had just taken away recess – or choice time – or crayons – or P.E. – or rest time to make room for more testing and test preparation. They wanted my help. I wrote thoughtful messages back to them, citing research about play-based approaches to learning and social, emotional, and academic needs of young children. I gave them ammunition from the “experts” in education…but politicians and publishing houses (who sell the big-money test prep and test materials) wield more power and often get their way in schools. These conversations and email correspondences have driven me mad. Some of the best teachers I’ve ever seen in action – and they’re looking to me for help and I fail them.

I’ve also been in kindergarten classrooms where teachers weren’t outwardly questioning the mandates to make sure kids were writing complete sentences with appropriate capitalization and punctuation by December of kindergarten. And I saw children falling asleep, crying, acting out, and checking out. I didn’t blame them. I was checking out too.

Some of the trickle down of test preparation into the kindergartens has prompted particularly middle-class parents (who feel they can question the “system” of schooling) to keep their kids out of kindergarten a year longer until they’re “ready” for the more rigid behavior expectations (no running! no talking!) or the higher academic expectations. I’m all for kindergarteners learning a ton in that first official year of school – but through hands-on experiences, explorations, projects, play, and movement. Not through sitting-at-the-table-with-nothing-but-a-piece-of-paper-and-pencil. And no talking!

All around the country kindergarten teachers are angry about this, parents are confused, and children are suffering. Teachers are stressed, children are stressed, and families are stressed.

When are we going to say, “Give us back our kindergartens!”

working against assumptions about students…Kyle part 1

Kyle: Learning from a fifth grade reader who can’t find space for his interests

Kyle, a quiet and thoughtful fifth grade African American boy in an urban public school, drew in his writer’s notebook every day. In fact, while the other thirty-three students in his classroom were busy writing something in their notebooks each day, Kyle continued to draw page after page of human-like figures in various poses and wearing various kinds of attire. He was a prolific artist and demonstrated so in his notebook without a single written word accompanying his drawings. His fifth grade teacher was frustrated with him and his lack of engagement in writing (which crossed over to reading as well) and in a conversation with me as a staff developer in her school she reported that Kyle was “resistant” and was probably trying to mask a “learning disability” by focusing on his artwork instead of writing because he also “struggled” in reading. Additionally, the teacher reported that she was considering reporting Kyle and his artwork to the principal because she perceived them to be violent in nature. Kyle was drawing semi-human, cartoon-like characters with swords, blood dripping from the occasional wound on a body, and the characters were often in sparring-like stances with fists clenched and feet ready to kick. The teacher said that though Kyle had never exhibited any violent tendencies in class that this artwork may be the workings of something going on inside him, and that these terrible thoughts should be officially reported to the principal, the psychologist, his family, and maybe to the local police. In addition to Kyle not writing a single word during the first month of school in writing workshop, he had drawn himself into a pathology – one that was being read by his teacher as struggling academically, resistant to reading and writing, an unidentified learning disability, potentially dangerous, and reason for official reporting.

And then came the turn-around for Kyle’s teacher…

When that concerned, well-intended, frustrated teacher finished telling me about Kyle she waited with wide eyes, hoping that she had found the person with a magical answer to all the problems she saw in Kyle and his classroom practices. Instead of offering a solution I asked the first question that came to mind: “What does Kyle say about his drawings?”
The young teacher looked at me quizzically, “I don’t know.”
Genuinely surprised I asked, “You haven’t asked him?”
The teacher responded, “No. Should I?”
“Of course. We can’t know where to go from here until we start to understand what this artwork is doing for him.”
Kyle’s teacher agreed to have an open-ended conference with him during the week and bring what she learned back to me the following week.

book on Class wins AESA critics’ choice award!

and it rains…time for critical inquiry

I have never been so happy to see, feel, and hear rain in all my life. My windows are being pelted with droplets, the leaves on the trees are dancing wildly, and I am smiling from ear to ear. When news programs claim one day that “experts” say the greater Atlanta area has 3 1/2 months’ supply of water and then the next day those same “experts” say we are already down to 81 days’ worth of water, what is one to do but panic?

How does the ol’ saying go? The mother of innovation is necessity (or something like that, no?)

Well, we certainly need water. So where is our innovation now? Or do some people still hold onto the hope that a magical spring will be discovered to replenish our lakes?

It is time to conserve.

It is time to imagine.

It is time to be innovative.

It is time to be critical.

And what a perfect time to engage students of all ages in interesting critical inquiry work around water.

Wouldn’t it be great if students researched a community’s water usage and plotted the usage alongside size of family? Size of home? Size of household income?

Having lived a number of times as a child without running water in the house, I know for a fact that folks struggling to pay the water bill are likely to conserve and reuse water supplies in the home. It has been said before, but I’ll ask it again here, could we learn valuable lessons from people with humble means about stretching resources, conserving resources, and living in ways that are more eco-friendly?

Now there’s a great critical inquiry: What is the carbon footprint of a family with a low income level versus a family with a high income level?

but back to water…

Who is using all our damn water???

Could students learn about and work toward promoting climate-appropriate landscaping versus the kind that needs constant watering?

What about swimming pools, fountains, and other privately-owned luxuries that slurp up water supplies? Now that would be an interesting mathematical investigation: How many gallons of water are used in the greater Atlanta area (or any metro area for that matter) for private swimming pools? If those private pools were not filled in late summer, at what levels would our major lakes be now?

And what a great ethical inquiry too: The Army Corps of Engineers has been releasing millions of gallons of water from north Georgia downstream to save the mussels in Florida. When wildlife and humans both need water, and the water supply is greatly diminished, who gets the water?

How Should We Work Toward Social Change? An Angry Commenter Pushes Me…

A comment was sent to me about the hospital letter and it is the closest thing to hate-mail that I have ever received. The more usual comment/email I get is glowingly complimentary thus I wasn’t sure what to do with this particular post!!! Though the writer was passionate in her expression of disgust towards me for writing the letter about my experience, she did raise a couple issues that might be important for readers to consider as I work through them myself. She claims that the worker had a right to freedom of speech, that I should have stopped to “educate” the worker regarding my experiences and views that opposed those she was espousing, and that I should not have sent a letter to her supervisors but instead handled it with her personally.

I’ll briefly respond to each of these issues below, then write about what all this might mean as we work toward a more socially-just way of being in the world:

Freedom of speech: This is tricky territory isn’t it? When does my “freedom of speech” become diminished as a result of the professional expectations of my job? How, or does, freedom of speech get played out differently in one’s work life and in one’s private life? I haven’t given enough thought to these questions to offer any insight here, but I do know that as an educator I do not see it as my “freedom of speech” right to denigrate groups of people who are supposed to be served by the educational system.

Stopping to “educate”: African American folks often complain that they are constantly expected to “educate” White folks about their racist ways, even when they were presumably unintended. Some people take on this position happily while others steer completely clear of it. Perhaps working-class and poor people should also be expected to “educate” middle-class and affluent folks about their classist ways – even if they are presumably unintended? I don’t believe this is always possible, nor always the best route to take, but I’ll offer some thoughts here:
1. On a better day, I might have pushed back a little and (too) politely asked, “Why do you say that?” or “I actually disagree with that,” because I do those things on a regular basis. But I was in PAIN, exhausted, and more than anxious to just simply get out of the hospital and get home. I didn’t have it in me in that moment – and there are many other moments when I don’t have it in me either.
2. I completely agree that personal interactions are an important way to work toward changing racist, classist, sexist, etc. beliefs and behaviors. But such change is not likely to happen in a 5-minute one-time talk with a stranger. At least a letter to the facility will put the issue on their radar and perhaps create opportunities for more “talk” about the issue to be ongoing and productive rather than a one-time shot.
3. So, I guess, I believe that it takes lots of efforts on lots of levels (interpersonal, institutional, private, public) to work toward a society that is filled with people who respect one another and act in respectful, non-judgmental ways.

Don’t go to the supervisor: Would the commenter suggest that this is true if the worker violated me directly (shaming me for being on Medicaid) rather than indirectly? My guess is no, at least my advice to anyone who is personally violated by a worker in an institution that is supposed to be caring for citizens would be to approach the worker’s supervisor to register a complaint. So…how is it different when the listener of offensive comments does not directly belong to the group that is being overtly offended? Does the listener have the right to complain? Ask for an apology? Go to a supervisor?

Here’s what I think: Different experiences are differentially “offensive” to me as a person, and differentially offensive to others as well. I have experienced thousands of interactions that are blatantly classist – some against me, others against me indirectly, and still others that were much farther removed from me personally. Sometimes these experiences make me feel so powerless in the situation that I simply can’t respond in the moment – and those are times when after-the-fact letters, complaints, conversations, etc. may be the only recourse. Other times the experiences are so enraging that I can’t help but lose my temper in such moments. But, most of the time, the experiences are somewhere between those poles and I make decisions about which offensive comments to essentially ignore, which ones to register in my mind and decide not to patronize the business any more, which ones to “talk about” with family, friends, and colleagues afterwards, which ones to push-back on in the moment requesting that the offender reconsider her/his comments, and which ones to take-on beyond the offender.

On my spectrum of offensive, had the woman in the hospital stopped the bantering when I tried to wheel myself out of the office, I would have likely ignored it or talked to friends, family, and colleagues, but little beyond that. It was the persistence of the comments even as I was trying to politely excuse myself that pushed me to take-on the issue in a broader way. I was not in a position to “handle” this issue with the woman personally, and feel very strongly that this is an issue that is much bigger than me and the woman in that office. It is unfortunately an issue that impacts millions of people’s lives daily and therefore should be talked about, cared for, and responded to in public, private, and institutional ways.

What are the best ways to work toward change?

My favorite answer – it depends.

Sometimes it’s interpersonally, sometimes it’s publicly, sometimes it’s through writing, sometimes it’s through relentless pushing-back, sometimes it’s through revolt, sometimes it’s through teaching, sometimes it’s through kindness, sometimes it’s through anger, sometimes it’s through sheer desperation. But it’s always through passion and persistence.

Positive Responses from Hospital

I received two phone calls this morning from representatives of Athens Regional Hospital. They were each genuinely concerned about the experience I had at the hospital and vowed to make a change, including conducting sensitivity training through their Human Resources department. Each of them said that such comments are never appropriate, but particularly inappropriate in the context of Athens Regional Hospital in Clarke County.

Kudos to Athens Regional for taking a stand against classism and racism in their health care facilities.

And for the rest of you out there – silence is complicity. Speak out – do something to make a change.

peace,

stephanie