Given the growing presence social media commands in the consciousness of our tech-centric society, there’s an increasing yearning for people to see and be seen, to hear and be heard. Social media’s penchant for keeping people neighborhoods or worlds apart cognizant of one another’s experiences and perspectives can be viewed as a blessing. Without Twitter or Facebook, I would have never become familiar with Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, or Sandra Bland. I would have never come across some truly dope and important education research by Prudence Carter, Angela Valenzuela, David Stovall, Lois Weiner, Kristen Buras, and Mildred Boveda to name a few; and I never would have met and formed valuable professional and personal relationships with amazing educators like Doris Santoro, Dave Stieber, Randy Miller and Stephen Flemming. (Check them all out for yourself.)
Social media’s infinite accessibility of diverse viewpoints and collective knowledge has been blessing to so many, particularly among education practitioners. Such availability to vast and varied perspectives provides a mechanism for me, to critique and reflect upon my own thoughts and on an education career that I dedicated my life to. Within social media, I’ve found a space to learn, share, and dialogue all with the end result of hopefully becoming a better educator, and more effective education influencer in my own city – which within both aspects, I tend to question my own efficacy from time to time. Still, I am working to be better at both, and thankfully, my social media network is an asset in this Beautiful Struggle.
However, with the expansive presence of social media in the lives of educators, it seems much of the content provided by educators and the edu-blogosphere revolves around two themes: conveying a “solution” for educating students in difficult circumstances or, identifying racial and socio-economic-related disparities within education. To be clear, both are valid critiques and essential narratives to be explored. The public that may largely be ignorant to the realities and inequities students are contending with both in school and out, which certainly impacts their in-school performance, need to be reminded that there is no such thing as standardization or objectivity in the complex process of educating human beings. Additionally, it is needed for educators and the caring public alike to have access to strategies and techniques to help make education more impactful and meaningful. To be sure, educators having access to potential strategies to deliver more effective pedagogy through social media, available on their smartphone, is a remarkable development. Still, it seems something is absent in the commonly shared social-media conversation about urban education and its process.
Before proceeding, I must be upfront about my biases: I have believe that as educators are human beings before anything else, we are just as motivated and influenced by social media and the number of “likes” and “retweets” as anyone else. (I’m guilty of that myself.) And, in the atmosphere of education commentary, few subjects within urban education garner more “likes” than calling out deficiencies within urban education or bringing attention that a certain educator has found the “answer” to forming relationships with students or improving student outcomes. These days, just as likely as we are to read about urban districts NOT having enough books, teachers, computers, counselors, and wraparound services, we’re also equally apt to see clips of teachers performing elaborate high-five routines with students, students dancing in classrooms, or how teaching with a certain methodology yielded higher engagement and improved student proficiency. But parents, educators, and students all know the educative process is much more than life at the divergent poles of unbridled joy or crushing hopelessness, yet that vast middle space which all educators experience is rarely explored or recognized within social media discourse.
As crazy it may seem in this lingering accountability era, no teacher I had regular dealings with over sixteen years in urban education ever obsessed with student performance on exams, or fretted over students graduating as most of us knew what we had to do in terms of delivering consistent quality content, and helping our students progress in their educational journey. The lack of resources within our schools, and disparities in local economics between the communities where we worked compared to more affluent suburbs, though well known, was a subject that occupied little of our attention or conversation. Further, no teacher I knew spent time learning individualized handshakes for their students, and certainly most would have little interest in setting aside class time for students to dance around like there was a block party going on during instructional time.
It could be said that the educational epiphanies describing today’s “best practices” in urban classrooms, or commentaries on comparative disparities are well-intentioned and needed, still something seems missing in the common postings regarding urban education which is the centering of love and commitment within urban education. There is nothing glamourous or flashy about the establishing, and existence, of love in our classrooms or in our purpose to educate students. Love takes relationship building. Love takes trust. Love takes vulnerability. Love is messy and difficult. None of the perquisites for the presence of Love within one’s classroom could be captured in a tweet or on Instagram; and certainly it would be difficult to be packaged and commercially promoted as a solution to the ills, real and perceived, within urban education. Above all, Love takes time to cultivate and is manifest through an educator’s commitment to their students and their profession.
Some days I came home really really disliking my students and really really disliking teaching. Why won’t these students simply do what I’m telling them to do? Why do they get bogged down in nonsense? Why won’t they pay attention in class to look out for their own selves? Teaching is a pain in the ass. All were sentiments I had from time to time, and for most of us educators out there, we have felt that way about our students and career as well from time to time. But most interestingly, we have all felt this way about the things we Love and hold most dear. I’ve felt similar sentiments about my family. I’ve felt similar sentiments about basketball, may favorite sport since I was six years old. And, in full transparency, I’ve felt this way about my wife and my own daughter at times, and I know there have been days when I, likewise, wasn’t their favorite person in the world either. And that is precisely what makes our relationships with Loved ones, much like our Love for educating, and Love for teaching our students so remarkable. It’s that our Love for such things is a choice – a deliberate, and thoughtful decision in honoring our commitment to both when things are seemingly going perfectly, and when things are seemingly falling apart. Our commitment to our profession and our students never has been defined at the polar margins of urban education “solutions” or despair and inequity, but in our repeated choosing to Love our craft and students throughout.
Our resolution to Love (or arrive at Love), and the building blocks we establish with our students along the way, in my view, warrants more exploration and more sharing in social media. How we bounce back when we have the urge to choke the students we Love (or aspiring to Love), how we practice forgiveness when the students we Love (or aspiring to Love) are completely off-the-hook, how we forge mutually beneficial relationships with students, and how we choose to sustain our commitment to the craft and our students should be the content are that yields “clicks” and is shared with the wider social media universe. I do recognize however, that even within education-related content on social media, style and sensationalism garners more views and attention than substance, but here’s to hoping a time will come when educators’ sustained commitment to Love gets more “likes”.
