I CAN’T STRIKE, CALL IN SICK, NOTHING!

I can’t do it! One of the topics trending in education right now is to call in sick in protest of standardized exams. As I watched the movement spread and grow on social media, a growing, uneasy, sinking feeling grew each day in the pit of my stomach and I just couldn’t figure out what it was. I mean, I believe in the cause!  I really do! 

The argument is that we are in the middle of a pandemic. The pandemic has had adverse impacts on black and brown communities in a number of ways. In the world of education, we are watching our families lose income, die from lack of access to quality healthcare, and our scholars fall further and further behind academically due to the digital divide. To add insult to injury black and brown educators and their scholars are being held to academic expectations and standards that are almost impossible to achieve, as a result of an ever-growing opportunity gap, and which further put us at risk for more harm. Teachers are still being evaluated according to a system designed for the brick and mortar world and that system revolves around standardized testing that is biased towards black and brown children. (More research on the racist bias of standardized testing can be found here: Standardized Test Architects are Racist GateKeepers.)  And it would seem that even as we watch our communities and our families suffer, educational leaders and decision-makers would rather we put our lives at risk by showing up to the school to administer standardized exams and to continue to perpetuate a racist system than to actually strive to support and truly educate our communities. 

So again, I get it! However, I cannot call in sick, not even for one day. One day in a poor, black and brown, underserved community, is the equivalent of a lifetime for a child already in need. Everyday, I listen to the ambulance sirens blaring through the community where my school is located. COVID cases are increasing and my families are being adversely impacted. Children log on daily because for some school is the only safety and stability they have. So no! I can’t call in, for as much as I believe in the cause, there has to be a way to stand up for what we believe in that does not do harm to the ones we are fighting for. 

I remember back in the day when I was a new teacher. The union in New York City had called a teacher strike. And like this current movement, I believed in it wholeheartedly. Teachers were not being given adequate prep time to plan and prepare for their scholars. Planning periods were being taken away at a last-minute notice to cover classes or fill other duties. Teachers were stressed! If you are an educator, you know that this is a familiar and unfortunately, continuing saga! But the point of the matter is, that when the Union called a strike I was all for it! Down for the Cause and ready to participate by any means necessary! So like my colleagues, I called in, went on strike! The next day, I remember hearing descriptions of schools in chaos because teachers were striking, and even amidst all the disparaging stories, I remember being like, “Yes, exactly!” “You see what we are talking about!” “Power to the People!” But I loved my job, so I went to the school to pick up my lesson planner and some other materials to prepare for the upcoming week because I knew that I was going back to work! Happy to be a part of the cause, but I missed my classroom and my kids. 

The sight that I saw when I approached the school building in the Bronx where I worked could not even be described. Kids were everywhere, running amuck. Mothers stood in frustration at the entrance of the school chastising a disgruntled child, and administrators were moving frantically through the space trying to calm parents and guide wayward substitute teachers! It was madness, so I went in the side door to grab my things. I was not about to walk through that melee. I still felt a sense of pride. In my mind I was like, see, ya’ll need us, so treat us right! 

The tear-jerker was waiting for me in my classroom though! I had a couch in the reading area of my classroom. I was one of the few fortunate teachers to have such a luxury. The reading area was beautiful. My scholars loved it and my passion for Harry Potter meant that space was decorated as if scholars were entering Gryffindor’s common room. My kids were literally transported to a whole other world when they entered the classroom library. The lights were off in the classroom and they flickered on at the first sign of movement. I walked in and went to my desk and noticed what looked like a little tuft of hair hanging over the armrest of the couch. When I walked over, one of my students was laying on the couch! Child, I jumped back so fast and was ready to high tail it out of dodge! But I caught myself and said, “what are you doing here!” My student said, “Oh I’m sorry, Ms. Clement, I wasn’t trying to scare you!” I repeated my question in the same frantic tone that I had originally said it in, this time with a serious eye roll! He said, “well, I came to school like I always do. I did page 32 in our math book, I read chapter 5 of the Half-Blood Prince, and I was going to answer some questions in our Social Studies book.” I said, “sir, that’s all well and good, but I don’t know if you noticed, we don’t have class.” He said, “I know, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” The sadness and heaviness, of the words that came from his little 10-year-old body, crushed the heart of my 27-year-old body. The movement didn’t feel good anymore. At that moment, I thought I would die! 

You see my scholar was homeless. He and his family were living in a shelter. Unfortunately, his parents were drug addicts so he didn’t have very much support. The school was all he had. Now that we are in this virtual space, these types of realities are made even worse. So no, I can’t call in, no matter how much I believe in the movement, even for a day, because I know that there’s a child, in fact, several children depending on me to log in to my zoom class or to call and check on them. This is why I say there has to be another way to fight this fight without hurting the ones we love, even if just for a day!