The Resuscitation of Education in America

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To bring back to life from apparent death or unconsciousness is to resuscitate. It is hard work, sometimes gut wrenching work. The act of resuscitating a human who has lost consciousness may be what seems to you as an eternity; arms shaking, deliberate movements to find life, and a hope-filled energy that moves you to not quit until you have heard a breath or found a pulse. 

The unconscious body being resuscitated is symbolic of our education system as it hangs on for dear life, not quite lifeless yet but nearing the threshold. Years and years of oppression, segregation, manipulation, drawing of lines to separate Black from White, rich from poor is taking its toll. From political destruction of our system to outright mandated teaching methods that simply do not work, our students are finding it hard to stay conscious folks, that is unless they are wealthy and live in the right school districts. Our system that is supposed to educate its youth is tattered, hanging on for dear life. Will it survive?

Who will be the hero? Who will be the one to fight, even when the bell has rung and class has been dismissed?

I imagine you have that person in mind. You may have envisioned a bold person, tough and strong, a mover of heaven and earth, a leader, a spirited individual, someone who won't backdown, and one who will move mountains to resuscitate our education system. Someone who will work for countless hours to close the ever widening learning gap that shows a disparity far and wide.  If any of those descriptors flooded your thoughts, you were indeed correct. For this person is all of those adjectives and more. 

Who is this hero, you might ask? It is none other than the teacher, the collective teacher. The one who will fight, arms shaking, battered down, mind ablaze, often looking like she is in a haze, the teacher will be the hero in this story. Oh indeed she will. She will fight the good fight to remedy once and for all the injustices that plague our education system and she might be spat at and called a traitor or a liberal, but she is simply a truth teller, even the unequivocal truth that makes her knees shake as she spews the words out of her mouth. 

The teacher, filled with pride for her country, will teach the truth and not leave out the facts that the wealthy White elites and political tyrants want to wipe clean. She will teach the history that needs to be told, she will nurture and grow young minds who are often left hungry for more, she will feed and clothe, she will listen, she will support, and she will find ways to have her students critically think so they are not lost to the reliance of others during child-centered learning when their minds go blank, with shrunken pathways where dendrites once fired,  now left slow-walking, waiting to be told where to go and what to do as the dendrites no longer move unassisted. The teacher will keep working to revive this system that wants so bad to be alive but keeps wavering in and out of consciousness. 

How will the teacher manage to save an entire system of injustices?

I could ramble off a list of things I imagine will work, but maybe we need to first start by going directly to the people that are affected.


You may choose to ask Rammya Nambala. After all, she is a current high schooler. Why not go directly to the source for answers? I know I am. I am starting with them and with the leaders in our field, not with political figures who have never taught. Much work is to be done as we fight the good fight.

While I ponder and continue to take notes, research, and find ways to keep our education system alive for the most vulnerable, I have some reading to do.


 Here are some books on my to read list:


 






If anyone wants to join me and have a discussion on any of these books, I would love that! Class Rules is really calling my name, as is Why They Hate Us. Wow, those are going to be great books!

Until then, the work continues to find a way to keep this system alive and not only breathing but truly living for all, not just the wealthy.



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