Love or Fear? I’m asking this a lot of myself these days. |
As an educator ready to embark on this grand “Return to Learn” journey, I have a lot of questions about the ‘normal’ that I’m supposed to be returning back to. The normal that already wasn’t serving students who are the most at-risk. The normal that already looked like burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious traumatization amongst my colleagues.
So the normal that we’re aspiring to go back to never felt all that great to me. These past five months have taught me a few valuable lessons about how I see my role as a professional, but like so many, also much deeper, as a person. The crisis that this pandemic has unleashed was not created by it. When we live in a world that favors things over people, in a country that pays more for the weapons that kill than those that heal, and in communities and institutions that can’t recognize the intrinsic value in diversity, equity, and inclusion, all it takes is a force, like Covid-19, and the whole house starts to crumble.
I wish instead we could have taken these five months to learn from all that got us here. To read the signs. To see that the Earth is talking to us, that the heavens are speaking, and that this is our time—to build a new ark, a new covenant with creation.
Love or fear?
When we choose fear, we see the crisis.
When we choose love, we see the opportunity.
The miracle is living with love as the climate within all the illusions in this weather of fear. The miracle worker is the one who becomes the change.
So it’s a choice.
As an educator, I know that a storm is coming. As a yoga teacher and coach, I know that if those who are living and working and breathing and being in that storm don’t look out for #1, they will soon start stepping in a whole bunch of #2. And if that happens, we’re in some real trouble. And by we, I mean all of us. All of us who count on our teachers and schools to not only educate our children in the abc’s and 123’s of life, but also to feed them, to counsel them, to advocate for them in court, to be the place where they can go and know that they’ll be loved and supported and cared for by at least one caring adult. So if that breaks down, if those who care for kids can’t first care for themselves, the real reckoning, the real crisis will come. The brain in pain can’t learn. The brain in pain can’t teach either.
My hope is that all those who will be working and serving young people in schools will do some version of the following for themselves:
- Breathe.
- Repeat #1 as often as possible with as much mindfulness as possible.
- Prioritize at least 30 minutes every single day to take care of yourself. For some, this might mean going for a jog; others, doing yoga; maybe it’s knitting, perhaps it’s coaching sports. What it is isn’t as important as that you can get ‘lost’ a bit in the act of doing it. Do something that allows your body to forget that you have a mind. And if you can do it outside, with your feet on the earth, even better.
- Remember, there’s no such thing as bad kids. Behavior is the result of emotion. Emotion comes from experiences. So if we want to change the output, we have to provide a different input. Preference structured sensory interventions, like art or yoga, for example, to redirect energy and to meet the emotional need.
- Lead with love. Most behaviors, in ourselves and in those we care for and serve, comes from a desire or need to belong. Relationships based and rooted in love will take us so much further than those grounded in fear. Translation: Ditch the punitive interventions, punishments, the detentions and the suspensions. Keep kids in class. Time-ins instead of time-outs. Connect. Use PBIS and your structures of support. Be there for your brothers and sisters. Make allies.
Miracles are real. Just walk into any school in America in these next couple weeks and you’ll see a million of them in every single moment. To all my masked and shielded friends and colleagues out there who’ll be walking these hallways with me, please take care of yourselves. Look out for one another. If not us, who?