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Just being angry, just being resentful, just being outraged, does not constitute revolution.
Grace Lee Boggs
Grace Lee Boggs, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 100, spent 70 years working to create change, most of it in her beloved city of Detroit, immersing herself in movements as varied as civil and women's rights, environmental justice, education, and labor. As she evolved over those years, she considered and reconsidered what it means to create change in meaningful, long-lasting ways; how change relies on dialogue, forward thinking, and imagination; and what it means to be a person committed to those ideals.
I've been thinking about Boggs a lot lately as I read headlines, listen to strangers sitting next to me on planes, watch movies or comedy clips, and pore over legislation related to teachers and teaching. I think I'm in good company when I admit that my first reaction to the dismissive and demeaning narrative that is put forth about teachers is one of anger, resentment, and outrage. As a former high school English teacher who now works with many K-12 teachers in my role as an English educator, I am angry that teachers bear the brunt of the "reform" movement, that the current public narrative limits its storyline to the individual teacher and her successes or failures and ignores the systemic issues which plague public education. I am outraged when I read yet one more piece of legislation that relies more on the voices of philanthropists and lobbyists than it does on the voices of teachers.
It's easy to be angry these days. And it's easy to respond to that anger in ways that are ultimately unproductive. Sometimes teachers feel stunned into silence, closing their classroom doors to shut out the noise. Sometimes teachers vent their frustration by complaining to other teachers or sympathetic friends and revel in the momentary solace that brings. Sometimes teachers fire offsalvos to their social media worlds or their congressional representatives and hope that this shot in the dark will change someone's mind. And, sadly, increasingly, sometimes teachers just leave the profession.
But, as Grace Lee Boggs so eloquently tells us, just being angry does not constitute revolution. Anger, I fear, keeps us centered on the wrongs that...