interlexionality

I mean… I just figured you would want to know!

I wrote this post for Ed Week about one way schools can approach this political transition. I was asked to by my actual work, which was super meaningful for me.

It was written before these insane EOs, but I hope the reader will offer it grace for not including those and the added terror they have brought to many hearts.

Here’s my favorite part, because it was such a weird and shitty moment in person that I got to make into something maybe useful:

I recently heard a teacher say “let’s not get political” in response to a colleague who suggested that to teach third graders about the need for clean water, they could use the crisis in Flint, Michigan as an example. To be clear, the teacher hadn’t suggested they teach the third graders that the governor was a scoundrel to have allowed it, or that poor people’s access to safe water should properly come second to a local government’s attempts to cut costs. The suggesting teacher responded with a calm question: “What is political about people needing water, and not having it?” It’s an illuminating question, as the answer forces an acknowledgement: If we grant that in our country, access to clean and safe water (or healthcare, or food, or public education, or the right to vote, and on and on) has become politicized, we must grant that whatever decision we make about sharing it with our students is a political decision. Choosing to include Flint, or choosing to exclude it, are both political, and personal, decisions.