Posted on

Strength to fall, strength to fail, and courage to rise

peanuts-tarot

I am not a Tarot card reader, though I’ve always appreciated the art, both the visual art and the reading art of it. The reading of people is an art form I lack, woefully. Sometimes human behavior mystifies me, and I fill in my lack of knowledge with pure lizard brain responses. Or maybe it is that I read people all too well, but haven’t developed the kind, soft tools to maneuver or add nuance to these interactions, especially when they go south. Unfortunately for my personal and professional relationships, this doesn’t always take the form of gentle, self-reflective musing, but bursts forth, unconfined, in a shower of detritus, flinging emotional responses. In other words: me and my big mouth.

One such big mouth moment happened recently. When these moments happen, I think, analyze, reflect and seek to gain understanding so I can avoid it in the future, handle it differently, and get to the root of the issue. I will always respond to a student in tears with a protective momma bear instinct, but in this case, I question my biases that have been brewing for months now. I am angry at how children have been left out of this conversation, intentionally and egregiously by a certain politician and his followers. Let me restate: not left out, but further abandoned and marginalized with exacting motives.

These motives are embedded with so many historical precedents it boggles the mind. Do we ever learn?! No outcome for this amount of hatred is going to have faithful, hopeful, or loving landing spot. We crashed the towers fifteen years ago, and we’re still falling hard to the ground.

There are many Muslim students at my school who are anxious, even slightly terrified, of current political events. When I saw a child in full Muslim dress, of whom we have many, and this child is distraught, did I overreact because not only are students of this faith currently being targeted by a certain ‘politician’ and his minions? Did I grossly project my concerns, or what I’ve been witnessing, absorbing that level of anxiety? And if that is even a tiny possibility–what do I do now?

He is also seditiously targeting Hispanic and Latino students as well. And the white kids are most likely confused, and the Black children have been hearing the angry, ignorant banter against them for generations. Please do not misunderstand: reflection is painful — if this bias in any way informed my response then I need to get myself in check. It was just a girl crying because of all the emotions that come with being a 7th grader, and trying to follow the rules. And when she didn’t follow the rules and was chastised by another person, she was upset and came to me. Nothing more. Right?

Today is the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11. As it gets further away, the children are younger and have no living memory, but their families do. And we’ve gone further away as a nation from the place we were on September 12. Or at least I feel this way–that may not be true. I honestly don’t know anymore. I do know I am feeling more protective, more vigilant, and less tolerant of deceit and bigotry. Especially when it comes from family, whom I have no control over, or friends, which I do. I cannot imagine being a teacher and considering voting for one of the candidates. He has told us exactly who he is. We need to believe him.

As for our students from all walks of life, experiences, creed, color, faith and nationhood, I am asking my colleagues to consider one thing — we are living in a new situation and context that we have not faced before as a nation or as teachers. If you had told me fifteen years ago that we would be in this place now with normalized lying and hate mongering I wouldn’t have believed you. We flew flags, we prayed, we cried, and we held the hearts of heroes in our hands. We wanted them and their families to be helped, supported, and nurtured. Now Congress won’t pass funding to help the first responders who have many long-term health issues. I am not sure where the money that was raised went. Did it make it to the families? And why is a politician allowed to make the same false arguments and conclusions that were done to Japanese Americans during WWII? How can his followers be so hypocritical, and forget painfully learned lessons?

The tower tarot, when upright, is a sign of upheaval, disaster, and chaos.

Just like a wall.

When upside down, it’s avoidance of chaos. Just like when the walls come tumbling down.

I am self-reflective, but let this be known: I will always stand up for a crying child, and never apologize for this. Sometimes my big mouth is right, and I hope we all have better ears to listen. I have faith in this, and faith in myself to get this right.

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

One thought on “Strength to fall, strength to fail, and courage to rise

  1. “I do know I am feeling more protective, more vigilant, and less tolerant of deceit and bigotry.” Me too. My patience is short, along with my temper, for people who devalue and dehumanize.

Comments are closed.