I Have A Dream

      The first month of the year is almost over, and I've worked a grand total of 5 days so far this year. The first week back two of my favorite things in the world--Alabama football and Trump 😑--combined to take away our first instructional day. Then, shady roads in a giant county brought us three snow/anti-flu days. 

     I can't complain. I know my kids are safe and will return to school as soon as we can. I renewed my love for my blankets. I read some books I'd been meaning to get to. My roommates and I started playing board games at the same frequency old ladies play bridge or canasta. In addition to getting to spend a lot of time in bed, slowly morphing into Dwight Schrute as I rewatched The Office, and laughing with friends over burritos larger than my face, the unexpected snow break helped me get my head in the game.

Speaking of getting my head in the game, no big deal, just rolling in a few million dollars and winning at Life.

      After a pretty good Christmas break (minus the afternoon our dog died and Grandma hitchhiked across town...), I came back to work ready to see my kids and friends, but I can't say I came back ready to teach. Thankfully, the few days we were back at school coupled with this time off have gotten me psyched about my job again.

Plus our Martin Luther King Jr. party. Pin the Dream on the Martin helped too.

     I teach a self-contained special education class. We got a new student this semester so I am up to a whopping five kids. (I know I have the best job in the world, but I promise you it often feels like my five are at least ten kids.) The last few years we've mixed things up and changed the placement of my kids for science and social studies during the second semester. Instead of just teaching my class in the afternoon, my class joins another kindergarten class, making a mega class for science or social studies, and the general ed teacher AND I teach the mega class together. 

     There are a lot of reasons we do this, and I believe it is better for the kids and teachers involved. I might need to talk to my fellow teachers about this considering this is my third year of co-teaching and third new co-teacher, but details schmetails. The change in schedule excites me, and it challenges my kids too. I love it.

     And I love how we've gotten to introduce the change the past two years. 

     Martin Luther King Jr. hadn't ever been my favorite. I didn't dislike him like I disliked Johnny Appleseed getting a month of the spotlight, but he definitely didn't rank up there with my Leslie Knope level of fascination with Joe Biden or the Pope. I didn't like MLK because he plagiarized papers. I didn't like him because he liked ladies who were not his wife. 

It's always a good time to include a picture of Good Guy Joe. 💗

     Now, while I still know he was a flawed man, I know Martin Luther King Jr. was multi-dimensional man and no doubt a gifted leader. He was 26 when he led the Montgomery bus boycotts. I highly doubt I will lead anything other than an approximation of a "line" out to recess before I hit 26. To have such powerful influence at such a young age and to wield it for so much good makes him an important man, flaws and all. 

     And we get to teach about him as our first unit as a mega class.

Martin Luther King Jr. wisdom that sadly, is all too relevant today.

     At first, I was intimidated. How do I teach such innocent, curious little people about the evils of inequality and segregation? How do I teach it so that they don't start highlighting differences, seeing things through the lens of us vs. them where there was no lens before? How do I teach this without it devolving into Michael Scott in "Diversity Day"? 

     As with every lesson, it gets better every year. We've yet to have a "Diversity Day"-level crisis. If you stay on your toes, you get a lot of teachable moments that steer the conversation. This year I really played up how sad it makes me feel when I think about how things were when Martin Luther King Jr. lived, but sad, unfair things still happen today. We talk about skin color a little, but we talk more about how it would be unfair if people with blue shoes, black hair, or the letter J in their name got special treatment or weren't allowed to do things we take for granted. I also botched that egg experiment where we compare a white and brown egg only to find out they are the same inside.

     Each year, the kids surprise me in beautiful ways. We always expect our kids to get sad when they find out MLK was shot by a bad guy. This year was no exception, but as they asked questions about how to honor him and about heaven and hell, I was proud of their tender hearts and curiosity. The day we talk about our dreams and how to continue to make the world a better place is really the one that gets me though.

     Last year my boy JM had me feeling like the wind was kicked out of me when he said he didn't have a dream because he couldn't do anything. When I tried to encourage him to think about how if he was a superhero and could do anything for the world, his beautiful dark brown face looked at mine and matter of factly told me that superheroes only come in white. Though I figured there was someone out there who could, I couldn't argue. This awesome five-year-old didn't know of any heroes that looked like him, and because of that, he didn't feel like he could be a hero. We talked about how Martin Luther King Jr. was kind of like a black superhero, then abandoned the assignment of coming up with a dream and instead came up with a plan to write about a black superhero and get it into the hands of as many kids as we could.

     This year, our dreams made me happier, but the kids impressed me nonetheless. We had a few who had trouble coming up with one, a few who couldn't get over the whole it-is-a-wish, not-a-literal-dream thing, but all in all, we had some real winners. 

     We had dreams for people to be nice. 
     We had dreams for presents for everyone.
     We had dreams that people don't fight.
     We had dreams for great weather.
     We had dreams for everyone to be safe.
     We had dreams for new friends.
     We had dreams for everyone to be able to play together, to travel anywhere. 

     We had little dreamers who dreamed of a world without constraints, without borders, without reason for division. They don't just want their families to be safe; they want everyone to be safe. They don't just want some kids to be able to play together; they want everyone welcome. 

     Martin Luther King Jr. reminds me of a lot each year. His legacy reminds me to not plagiarize. His legacy reminds me that it isn't always [ever?] going to be comfortable to speak up, but if something isn't fair, it is always right to speak up. His legacy reminds me to dream big. His legacy reminds me that I am in fact a leader, and if I forget I just have to look to my favorite little kids who parrot every word I say to know that I have followers too. 

     I hadn't ever been one for sharing how I feel or voicing my opinions, especially when it might stir things up, but with all this talk about fair and unfair and doing the right thing, I can't be okay when a leader (not to be confused with a good leader) deprecates an entire sex, class, or nation. I might be sad that these are conversations that continue to be needed, I might be mad that some people refuse to see the reality of inequality and injustice, but I am not hopeless. As Malala Yousafzai explained, "I think it's pointless to be hopeless. If you are hopeless, you waste your present and your future."

     Our kids are our future, and we have them in our hands right now. We have the power--no, we have the responsibility--to stand up and say that things aren't right. I am thankful for all of those people who have done this for me, but our work is not done. It is just getting started.

     January is a time of lots of reflection, goal-setting, and resolution...ing. I hope that everyone joins me in resolving to help make the dreams of our kids a reality by being a better adult and leading them to be better kids. Teachers, parents, friends, family: we've got a big job to do. I hope you're excited to change the world for the better.