The text below this paragraph is a post I wrote in 2018. The message is still the same, all these years later: if you have the privilege to work in education, then you have a moral imperative to protect all your students. When I wrote this post originally, it was in response to a situation with a transgender student, but today, I reshare it with an updated emphasis on students who are in families facing immigration issues. Please note, the discussion is not done regarding transgender students. I just wanted to bring this up again in light of our newly inaugurated President's directive allowing ICE to make arrests in places such as schools. Be clear, to me, this is not a political issue. It is a human heart issue. If I am being totally honest, I acknowledge that there is an immigration issue in this country and it needs to be addressed. But I will never condone it to be addressed in a way that is harmful to kids or uses children as pawns. Allowing ICE to approach or come into schools is a (pretty effective) scare tactic designed to strike absolute fear into the hearts of families who face immigration issues of all sorts. Allowing ICE at schools has the very real potential to make schools a less safe space than so may school children already feel it is. Kids already regularly face bullying. Many fear school shootings. Now many will have to worry about being yanked from a classroom by someone or having their parents ripped away from them potentially right in front of their eyes. I understand the financial burden more kids can place on a school district before anyone decides to bring up that argument. It's legit. I get it. But for those who work in education, the first and most important thing is protecting kids. School boards can work on funding and resources (trust me, teachers already are doing this -- they always know how to do more with less: less money, less time, less support). In this day and age, political leanings seem to be a part of everyone's identity. However, for anyone who works in education, that needs to be put to the side when it comes to taking care of those kids in the classrooms, hallways, gymnasiums, and cafeterias. If you cannot commit to keeping the students in an environment that is going to be a safe space for them, get out of education. You don't deserve the privilege.
Earlier this month, I was incensed to read a story about a transgender middle school student who was not allowed to shelter with her classmates during an active shooter drill because nobody seemed able to decide if she should shelter in the boys or girls locker room. I had to wonder if the kids were all going to take a shower or change their clothes during this drill, because if they weren't, then I can't for the life of me figure out why it matters which locker room she or ANY of the other students went in. If there was a real active shooter, are students going to have to follow gender norms in order to stay safe? What would happen if the boys locker room was locked? Do all the boys have to stay outside while the girls get to be safe? Of course not! But that's not the point I'm trying to make.
Being in education can be tough. We have to think of the students first, not ourselves. That means we do things like pull ourselves together when the kids walk in the classroom after we had a fight with our teenager in the car on the way to school. That means we treat with kindness the student whose parent is a constant thorn in our side and we just don't like. It also means we protect all of our students when they need protection. All of them. We have to put aside any personally held beliefs or prejudices we might have. So when we see kids bullying the little girl who comes to school in the same clothes every day of the week, we step in and protect her. And when we hear kids use a racial slur when talking to a student of color, we step in and protect that student. AND when we practice how to shelter from an active shooter, we make sure all students have the safest possible place to take cover without regard to gender.
If you work in education and you take issue with students based on things like socio-economic status, religion, parents' political leanings, race, ethnicity, religion, immigration or citizenship status, health issues, sexual orientation, or gender, then you don't belong in education. Because as an educator, you have a moral imperative to serve all the students in your classroom and school -- you don't to pick and choose. And, by the way, when I say "educator", I am speaking of teachers, administrators, secretaries, aides, custodians, cafeteria staff, bus drivers, and anyone else who works with kids in a school.
If you are an educator and you can't be an advocate and protector for each of your students because you let your own thoughts interfere with the total acceptance of the little humans in your care, then you don't deserve to have the privilege of being in a position of influence for those young lives.
