I’ve been thinking about what Heart Soul Joy means lately. When I started HSJ, the intention was to share my passion for teaching and to help other educators with tech tips & teaching resources. I hoped it would be a place to share my love for good soul food and meal planning that gets me through tough teaching times. Most importantly, I wanted it to be a place to share things that bring teachers joy… a place that brings everyone joy.
I have failed.
So I am changing the way I look at things. If you are a teacher or a parent of school aged children, I am asking you to please read on. If you feel so led, please share or comment. As we as a nation are battling some major issues in education right now, more than anything, I’m pleading that you please consider changing the way you look at things too…
Back in March of 2019, when the pandemic hit and schools were shut down or sent to virtual learning, much like other educators, I found myself on TikTok. I started just watching videos, then I started making videos and having fun. Like really having fun… doing silly dances… lip syncing. I started getting lots and LOTS of followers. It was (and is) a ton of fun. It was (and is) a great creative outlet for me. It was (and is) a fantastic place to network with other educators across the country. You can knock TikTok all you want – or any other social media platform for that matter. They all have some serious flaws for sure. For me, I found an audience of like minded educators, a friendly community that supported each other, and a great way to blow off steam.
Sometime shortly after the presidential election happened – somewhere after the craziness that was January 6th and somewhere in between the haze of impeachment and the questioning of ev.er.y.thing – I felt confused about everything that was happening in our country, BUT I also felt passionate about everything that was happening too. More than anything, I felt like I needed to voice my opinion about what was happening to try and make some sense of the craziness and thought that it might help to lighten things up. I didn’t give a second thought as to being neutral or what the consequences of my posts would be. I made some political posts. I went off on educational policies – masks, vaccines, Ted Cruz leaving during the winter storm… I ranted… nothing was off limits.
…And it got me more followers. Lots of followers. So I kept going, not realizing that what I was posting was blatantly divisive – especially as an educator. I mean, educators have first amendment rights too… or so I though. What I was posting seemed well received and popular… or so I thought. The summer came, I got even more vocal about some very controversial political topics. More followers. This must be what everyone thinks and agrees with!?!?
Not exactly.
The first week back at school, I made a TikTok video that went wildly viral…. Many millions of views… retweets by politicians, celebrities, journalists. I remember the day that I made the video clearly. We had just finished a staff meeting and we were told that (unlike last year) if we needed to quarantine for exposure to Covid, that it would cost us our personal and/or sick days. I was blown away. Teachers on our campus were blown away. But this wasn’t just a local thing, it was coming from the state. At the time, our district did not have a mask mandate in place, and teachers everywhere were nervous about starting school in person for the first time in 18 months when the Covid numbers in our county and our state were continuing to skyrocket.
At the end of a very stressful day, I took to TikTok and poured my heart out. I never imagined that 500 people would watch the video… let alone 5 million. I was asked to be on the Dr. Phil show and requested to be interviewed
by many national publications. I was blown away by the number of comments and which were a mix of everything from “if you feel this way, you should quit”and “teachers shouldn’t voice their opinions on social media” to an overwhelming amount of support from teachers who felt just like me. I was interviewed on CNN and then later The Tamron Hall Show in New York City. It was an incredible experience that opened my eyes to a bigger world. I spent four days in the one U.S. city that first encountered this virus. I was amazed that they had massive vaccine requirements and nobody seemed to be questioning it. Nobody was protesting anything. Everywhere we went, they asked for vaccination cards, and nobody batted an eye. It was an entirely different world than Texas.
When I returned from New York, I learned that our Governor had signed numerous laws into effect. My immediate reaction was to take to TikTok to voice my opinion. I made a video stating that I did not believe that I could stand during the Texas pledge of allegiance (Yes, Texas says a pledge to our own flag immediately after the National pledge) when our Governor had signed so many laws into existence that seemed to violate women’s rights, put the safety of students at risk, and added increased burdens to teacher’s already stressful lives. In that video, I said that I would be sitting down for the Texas pledge and asked other teachers to join me if they felt the same way. Another viral video.
Although I pride myself on being the type of educator that has the ability to set my political beliefs aside when I am teaching in the classroom, that’s not what appeared to be the reality to many because of the nature of my posts. Even though I didn’t think of this as a protest, there were some who thought it was. I can understand now how it looked – how this was interpreted as me literally bringing politics into my classroom (even though I had no intention of involving students or even really talking about it beyond the posting of the video). In my mind, I was just blowing off steam. Nobody stands for the pledge anyway I thought… not a big deal. Well, it was. And it was inappropriate. I took the video down, and have since spent some time thinking about where I crossed the line and how I got here.
At first, I felt that my First Amendment rights were under attack. I spent a good deal of time researching what does and does not fall under First Amendment protection for teachers when it comes to expressing political beliefs on their personal social media channels. Obviously, as educators, we need to remain professional. Whether we realize it or not, whether we LIKE it or not, everything that we post can be interpreted as an extension of our classroom. It may seem unfair, but that is the reality of being a teacher. Teachers are “government” employees, no longer citizens (to an extent). What this boils down to is this: educators don’t necessarily have the same first amendment rights as any old regular folks. And for some of us, that’s a hard pill to swallow.
One of the hardest lessons that I’ve learned from having several videos go viral, is that if I’m going to teach students to think critically, to express their opinions, and to value the opinions of others – that they will only be willing to do that if they know that I am capable of remaining neutral. Once I developed a very large social media platform based off of politics, my ability to be an effective teacher inside the four walls of my classroom was diminished in the eyes of some parents and administrators. I mean think about it – why would you want to voice your opinion to your boss if you know that you are going to be judged and attacked even if your opinion is valid? Same concept. The following excerpt from the ACLU website sums this up:
“Generally, your outside school speech that is not related to your work and is on a topic of public importance is protected by the First Amendment. However, if school officials can show that your speech could adversely affect school functions or your effectiveness as a teacher, the First Amendment may not protect you.
Public schools cannot restrict teachers’ speech when they speak as a citizen on a matter of
public concern, even when teachers identify themselves as school employees. However,
expression in furtherance of one’s official employment duties is not protected by the First
Amendment.”
That last line is really the important one, and it is also the hardest to figure out. “The law is clear that the First Amendment protects speech about matters of public importance made by public employees as citizens, not employees” (Pickering v. Board of Education, 291 U.S. 563 1968). For example, a teacher speaking publicly at a school board meeting or writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper.
So where exactly is a teacher’s free speech not protected under the First Amendment? I like the way the FreedomForum.org states it:
“Public employee social media posts about protests, Black Lives Matter, police brutality and systemic racism would all clearly qualify as speech on matters of public concern or importance. These issues occupy the minds of many across the United States and beyond.
Thus, a public employee disciplined for a social media post about any of these societal controversies or events clears the initial hurdle in a Pickering analysis. The speech would be considered more akin to speech on public concern than a private grievance.
The problem for public employees would come in the balancing part of the equation. Speech perceived as racist or highly offensive to a segment of the student and parent populace can spell real trouble for the offending employee.”
So there we have it. Even though teachers are going through an incredibly tumultuous time right now, simply by expressing our opinions on things, we could very well be stepping outside of the umbrella of protection provided by the First Amendment if that opinion upsets a “parent populace” that deems we are incompetent of teaching without indoctrinating their children with our beliefs. When exactly did we get here?
And when I say tumultuous… I mean an unprecedented amount of attacks from every angle: pandemic issues, mask and vaccine issues, sub shortages, student absences, the constant questioning of teaching CRT, teaching multiple perspectives according to HB3979 – being told that we need to teach the other side of the Holocaust, crazy school board meetings, wondering what this means for the future of teaching, getting pulled from our conferences and lunches to cover for other teachers, extra duties, books being banned, questioned and reviewed, teachers asked to close their classroom libraries, more required tutoring, increased demands with standardized testing, less resources, no increase in pay, but increased observation demands, increased behavior problems with students that have not been to in person school in over 18 months, scrambling to help quarantined and sick students, wanting to help students whose parent/s have passed due to Covid. Dealing with students who have passed. Dealing with colleagues who have passed………….. All while there is an unspoken expectation from the nation that things are normal.
Things are not normal, and if I’m being honest… I can’t see how they ever will be again.
It’s easy for teachers to feel passionate about what is happening in this world right now when sooooo much of it is centered around education and affects teachers on a deeply personal level. It’s NOT so easy for a teacher to voice concerns over these issues anymore. I understand that every parent in our country has the right and should care deeply about the quality of their child’s education.
I don’t understand how we came from an entire nation of teachers who has spent years and years trying to warn people that there were cracks in the ship – that water was seeping in – to being accused of causing the cracks. We’ve shown up every day, not just to captain the ship, but make to make repairs while sailing. We know every angle of this ship, we know how to fix it… yet nobody trusts us enough to give us the tools to actually fix it for good. We know where the bigger cracks are that have been shoddily repaired. We know what has caused damage to the hull and how to prevent further damage, but nobody seems willing to listen to experts anymore. We know where the tiny hairline fractures are that will cause catastrophe over time if left ignored. And they’ve been ignored for decades. We’ve seen the damage that has been done, and we have worked tirelessly to fill buckets of water to dump overboard to prevent sinking… only to come back and find more water… more stress… more requirements.
We’ve begged parents to come on board the sinking ship for years… To get involved. To come to conferences. To join our PTA’s. To attend open houses. To come to our parent nights. And year after year, we’ve been met with radio silence. Until recently. Although, this doesn’t feel like the kind of parental involvement and support that we’ve been asking for. It doesn’t feel like anything productive towards fixing the sinking ship that is our educational system. There are new cracks forming, more water pouring in, sinking faster, and we are working as hard and fast as we can to try and save the most important passengers – the students. And we know it’s not working.
Maybe the pandemic is the iceberg that sinks us. Maybe that’s what needs to happen so that a new educational system can be reborn. When I look around, I sure do see lots of teachers across our country jumping ship. I’ve certainly thought about it because it sure as heck feels at times that if I don’t jump ship that I’m not going to survive the stress and chaos of what teaching is right now. There’s one major problem though – the most important passengers can’t get off the boat. Our students don’t have a choice. They need parents and teachers to work together now more than ever. It’s obvious that the educational system in our country is very very broken, but we can save what matters most. The only way that we are going to save our students and our children is to start looking at things differently, but we’ve got to do it together.
I am calling on teachers across our nation to try and find the joy in teaching again. I know this seems like an insurmountable task – maybe a bit like the musicians playing on board the Titanic. I’m not asking teachers to ignore the fact that the boat is sinking; I’m pleading that we somehow look at things differently to try and save the passengers. Maybe that means holding ourselves accountable to only working our contract hours. Maybe that means saying no to being pulled from your conference. Maybe that means holding our students accountable for thinking critically while analyzing everything. Maybe that means better communication with parents… I don’t know!?! I don’t know how much more we can do or what we can do differently… but I do know (and I bet you do too) that what we’re doing right now isn’t working. It’s time to look at things differently.
I am calling on parents across our nation to trust the teachers. We are the experts. I am calling on the parents who are angry and jaded and worried that teachers are teaching CRT or have inappropriate books on their library shelves. I am pleading with the parents who think that teachers are indoctrinating students with political ideas to reach out to the teachers. I am pleading with parents to try and take a step back and look at things from a different perspective. To have real conversations with the teachers at your child’s school. Maybe this means making an attempt to try and look at things objectively, to try and sift through swirls of information to find the unbiased truth. Maybe this means setting up a conference. Maybe this means asking questions about how the curriculum is being taught. Maybe this means inquiring if you can observe your child’s teacher teach the lesson… I don’t know… but I do know (and I bet you do too) that what we’re doing right now isn’t working. It’s time to look at things differently.
I am calling on our leaders to step in and help. Principals. Superintendents. School board members. Politicians. Isn’t it clear that the teachers are drowning? Isn’t it obvious that the parents are desperately crying out for help and and guidance!?!? It seems that we have reached a fever pitch of chaos and without your help, the future of our nation is going to suffer. Maybe this means reaching out to build bridges between parents and teachers – developing committees that will agree to come together peacefully to find solutions at local levels as to how to best solve a district’s individual problems. Maybe this means stepping down from the school board table and into classrooms not to observe a teacher but to support. Maybe this means covering for a teacher so that another teacher doesn’t have to give up their conference period. Maybe this means anonymous feedback forms. I don’t know… but I do know (and I bet you do too) that what we’re doing right now isn’t working. It’s time to look at things differently.
So let there be no doubt: The future belongs to the nation that best educates its citizens — and my fellow Americans, we have everything we need to be that nation. We have the best universities, the most renowned scholars. We have innovative principals and passionate teachers and gifted students, and we have parents whose only priority is their child’s education. We have a legacy of excellence, and an unwavering belief that our children should climb higher than we did. ~ President Barack Obama (March 10th, 2009)
We cannot best educate our citizens if we are at war with each other. We cannot continue to point fingers of blame at each other and expect for anything to get better. We cannot continue to ignore the fact that our nation’s children are currently on a sinking ship. So where do we go from here?
I think it’s time that we radically start changing the way we look at things. Because if we don’t, the things that we are currently looking at are never going to change.