- So hi there anyone that's joining us.
My name is Christina Torres,
I'm normally a teacher
in Honolulu, Hawaii,
I was teaching 7th and 9th grade.
Next year I'll be teaching
8th grade at Punahou,
which is a private school
on the island of Oahu,
where I live now.
Currently though I'm in Helena,
Montana for a fellowship
for the National Endowment
of the Humanities,
so I'm gonna be staying in
Montana, it's beautiful,
if I have a minute at the
end I'll show you the view
from my dorm room 'cause it's awesome.
And I'm gonna be here
for three weeks, so yeah.
Brief bit of housekeeping,
I apologize if you hear
some car noise or some wind and rain,
I had the open the window
to get the best light in
in my little dorm room
that I'm staying in,
so that's what's gonna be going,
you might see me close the
window just to be safe.
But yeah, I'm really excited
to talk with you guys,
so like I said my name
is Christina Torres,
I'm gonna be talking a little bit today
about social justice and self-care,
two topics that are really important to me
and something I've been
thinking a lot about.
If you don't know, by the way,
I currently write a column
called The Intersection
for EdWeek Teacher,
it's supposed to be a weekly column,
I do it about weekly,
sometimes twice a week,
sometimes once every two weeks, rather
to kind of update folks.
But just in case you're
interested, by the way,
I'm hoping this works, I have some notes
because I'm a nerd and
I like taking notes,
so if anyone is interested
I have the notes
that I'm planning on
sharing available online,
I couldn't figure out
how to post it on here.
So I made this really fun little sign,
I had to write backwards and
that's why it looks like this
because Facebook automatically
switches my video,
but if you go to bit.ly/ct_edweek_fblive,
and those are all lowercase,
you can see some of the notes that I have
that I'm gonna be using to
talk a little bit as well.
But really though, these are
just the notes that I've given,
or the notes that I've thought about
when I was prepping for this conversation,
but really I would just
love to open up this space,
hear from you guys, hear
from other teachers,
either just to have a safe
space to share these topics,
or really just to hear how you
guys take care of yourselves.
I'm by no means an expert on this topic.
A quick background about me actually,
so like I said, I was previously
teaching for three years
at a small research charter in Oahu
called the University Laboratory
School, which I loved,
and then prior to that I'd
worked at Teach for America
in a couple of different roles,
and then I actually taught for two years
through Teach for America
at a charter school
in south central L.A.
But really it wasn't until
the past couple of years
that I've been more
deeply involving myself
in this work around social
justice, and equity,
and understanding race, class, gender,
and how societal systems
play into education.
And I know for me, there's
an interesting idea
about identity development,
where after you realize
that identity is an issue
you go through this period
of almost intense anger where
you feel really frustrated
now that your eyes have been
opened to some of the struggles
that exist in the world.
And I definitely went through that,
I became very impassioned,
I really deeply jumped in
to this work around
understanding my own identity,
understanding how identity
played a role in education,
and really starting to see
how those inequities were playing out.
But recently over the past three years
once I went back to the classroom,
the mix of that work, and
understanding that work
conceptually, intellectually,
in addition to
the everyday rigor of
being a classroom teacher,
and I'm part of my fellowship right now,
someone mentioned that classroom teaching
is an emotional beating
sometimes, it's tiring,
just in any situation,
much less those of us
that have work, or
currently work with students
from more pressed backgrounds
or that are facing societal struggles
in their everyday lives.
And so that mixed with
our current politics
and the current culture,
very divisive culture
we see going on right now,
I think has made sometimes
for a couple of tough things,
so I'm excited to talk with you guys.
I'm just seeing a couple of comments,
hi Kristen, I love you, and I love you
for reading my column, it's
so nice to see you out here.
Like I said, I'm gonna
just talk about a couple
of different things, and
in case you're wondering,
again, my notes are at
bit.ly.com/ct_edweek_fblive.
Please feel free to take a look at them
if you have anything I should add,
please throw it in the comments.
Also any questions or any
thoughts that you have
please throw it in the comments too,
I would really love for
this to be a conversation,
I prefer to not be
talking the entire time,
so I'd really love to hear from you guys.
But yeah, I think a quote that
was really powerful for me
that was shared a bunch of times on tumblr
and Twitter and Facebook that
got me thinking about this
was there's a quote by
the wonderful writer
and thinker and activist Audre Lorde,
who said that, I'm reading it
just so that I get the words right,
"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence,
"it is self-preservation,
and that is an act
"of political warfare."
I think, oh thanks,
thanks for putting that,
if you look in the comments by the way,
Maddie who's my awesome, awesome editor
actually just threw in in the comments
where you can see this discussion.
Anyway, so she said that
taking care of oneself
is in a lot of ways preservation
and an act of warfare,
I know for me, this idea
of taking care of myself
was one that was really hard to do.
Teachers tend to be the first
to take care of other people,
we're a very nurturing profession,
and so we don't take the time I think
to take care of ourselves.
But really, especially
those of us who are either
teachers of color or working primarily
with students of color
or students from socio-economic
backgrounds that struggle,
or anything like that,
our ability to be successful as teachers
is directly in correlation
with our students'
ability to succeed.
And so it only helps oppressive systems
when we are not at our best
and not giving the students
the tools they need so
that they can break out
of oppressive systems and
go out and change the world,
change their communities,
change their own lives.
So I think for me, thinking
about self-care in that way,
I found that to be really useful.
Just so you know, and I link
it in the notes that I have,
one of the big things
that stuck out for me
as far as why this topic was important
was especially around teacher retention.
I was looking at a, I think
it's nearly half still,
of all teachers leave
within the first five years,
and actually if I'm
honest, that's why I left
after my first two years, was I was tired,
I had not taken care of
myself, I was suffering,
I had already been suffering
from anxiety since I was a kid,
and I was having a hard time managing that
as a classroom teacher, but
I did not have the tools
to take on the new strain of teaching,
and then on top of that,
trying to understand
the struggles that my
students were going through,
trying to understand my own identity,
was only more difficult on top of that.
And that makes sense when we
start looking at the numbers,
and in my notes, if you
look, the article I linked to
talked about that not only
do a large number of teachers
leave within the first five years,
but that number is exponentially higher
when you look at teachers of color,
because teachers of color
are often already struggling
in a space that is predominantly white,
most teachers, if I'm not
mistaken, are white and female.
They don't have the resources
to talk about these things,
the space to talk about these things,
so I know for me, when I think about
the profession long-term, making sure
to take care of yourself only makes sense,
because we need people to
stay in this fight long-term.
I think if we keep having this
turnover of people leaving
we start losing a lot of
that longstanding knowledge
and that context that can really help.
So yeah, that's what
I was thinking though,
when this topic was thrown out on Twitter,
I actually had two people that brought up
some really interesting things.
The first was the idea of the fact that
self-care is actually something not valued
in Western culture, which
I think is definitely true,
and not something I had thought about.
But when we think about, especially,
we talked a little bit today in my seminar
about the industrial age,
when we think about the
culture of American work ethic
and how that's played out, I
think taking care of oneself,
just taking the time to be quiet,
and nurture oneself is not
something that's valued anymore,
and especially among teachers
we have these long hours
that we're often not compensated
for in a way that's useful,
and we don't take the time
to take care of ourselves.
Something else that was brought up
that I thought was really interesting,
from another person on
Twitter was the fact that
once we became an
American education system
focused on testing, focused
on being product-oriented
and output oriented, we
really lost the notion
of trying to take care of ourselves.
And not just ourselves,
but of our students,
and when I say take care,
I mean really take care
of the whole student,
and the whole teacher,
and the whole community.
When you become so focused,
I think, on a data point,
it becomes really difficult
to start thinking about
how happy are my students,
how are my students prepared
to stand up for themselves
in the real world?
How are my students able to
build empathy for other people
and to take care of other people
in addition to taking care of themselves?
I think that's something
that we really lost,
perhaps as a, I don't know,
maybe as an American culture,
once we became kind of part
of this culture of testing
and being so output-oriented,
so I thought that was fascinating too.
If anyone else has any thoughts as far as
why self-care matters, or why
having that self-care is
important, I'd love to hear it,
please throw it in the comments.
If you have any links to
articles, any things like that,
anything thrown in the
comments as far as resources
or thoughts I'm gonna be
actually adding to the Google Doc
that I've linked to a
few times, by the way,
since it's about the
middle of this broadcast,
or actually this broadcast
is going a little long,
sorry Maddie. (chuckling)
In case you've just joined us,
my name is Christina Torres.
I'm currently a teacher
in Honolulu, Hawaii,
I'm also a writer for
EducationWeek Teacher,
I have a weekly column
called The Intersection.
I'm talking a little bit
today about social justice
and self-care.
I have some notes available
that are in the comments
or on this really
awkwardly-scribbled thing
because I had to write it backwards,
this bit.ly link that you
can get the notes at too,
if you'd like to check that out.
So a couple of things that I was thinking,
I'm just making sure no one has commented,
hi John, I'm really happy
that this space exists too,
and that actually leads
me to one of the points
I was gonna make.
I don't think this space exists enough
for teachers to really have
a place to vent emotionally,
I think, and I say this with
a lot of to the profession,
I think as teachers we are often quick
to share some of our
frustrations and insights
pedagogically or professionally
as far as PD hours,
or pay, and those are all
incredibly important things,
don't get me wrong, but I
think teaching sometimes
has an in-the-trenches mindset as far as
what we think about who
understands the work
and who doesn't.
We tend to focus on, you don't understand
how long my days are, you don't understand
that I pay out of pocket for things,
you don't understand how certain policies
affect what I'm allowed
to do in the classroom,
and I think those are all fair.
But I think because there's
so much of a focus on that,
and again, so much of a focus
on that output-driven nature,
we tend to lose a space to
talk about how we are feeling,
and a space to share those frustrations.
I know for me, this past year,
this past year was my fifth year,
and it was really tough for
me emotionally, if I'm honest.
I was dealing with some stuff personally,
my anxiety's been kicking in,
I wasn't sure where I
was going with my career,
and that made me feel like a bad teacher,
it made me feel like I wasn't
as engaged with my kids,
I also, some classes,
sometimes you jive with them
and sometimes you don't,
and I had a hard time
finding a good connection with
some of my classes this year,
and I really took that personally I think,
and I really had a hard time
seeing myself in the best light
and giving myself the
space to really feel that.
I was really blessed in that
I had a great set of peers,
especially a fantastic department chair,
who was there to listen and just remind me
that teaching is a long-term profession,
and a profession really that
is a marathon, not a sprint,
and that some days are better than others,
and some years are better than others.
But I can't imagine what I would've done
if I didn't have a space
to talk about that,
or to just say hey, I
had a really hard time
even getting out of bed to
create a good lesson today,
and I feel like I am failure at my job.
I think our jobs feel
really high-stakes too,
and because our jobs feel so high-stakes,
we put a lot of personal
pressure on ourselves
in the education world too.
So, let's tie that back though,
what does this mean for social justice?
I think for me, it's really difficult,
we're as a nation just coming into our own
having these discussions,
a lot of us I think have
been having these discussions
for decades, long before I was even
having these discussions at all,
so a lot of folks I think
have been doing this
for decades and generations,
but as a nation I think,
public discourse is just
starting to have conversations
around privilege, and social
justice, and identity,
and what does that mean.
And so I think a lot of
folks, teachers, students,
communities, the media, are just learning
how to talk about this
in a way that's healthy.
And I think for teachers
it's especially hard
to figure out that tension of what do I do
when I myself am struggling
to figure out my identity,
and my place, and privilege,
and how I am complicit in things,
and also trying to meld that
into a classroom space too.
So I took a little notes,
I'm actually gonna start
with teachers, which is on the bottom,
and then go back to
students 'cause I think also
student space is one of
the most important things
that I really wanna touch on.
But for teachers, some quick
recommendations that I had
was first of all, find a
community, find a space.
For me, I really found
that online through a group
called EduColor, if you
check out educolor.org.
Pretty great group of folks
that I feel very lucky
to call colleagues, and mostly mentors,
to be perfectly honest.
But it was a group just
founded to really talk about
education, educational
discourse, and how that affected
students, teachers, and
communities of color.
I found them on Twitter,
honestly I found a lot of them
because we were debating
around the organization
I had worked at, and a lot
of them taught me a lot,
and really kind of pushed my own thinking.
But I feel so lucky to have
found that group of people,
and I know someone in the
group, and I'm really blanking,
and I'm so sorry, has mentioned
that one of the reasons
having that space felt so
good is because sometimes
when we're feeling this way,
we tend to self-criticize,
we tend to say, am I bring
crazy, am I being oversensitive?
And sometimes we are,
but sometimes we're not,
and sometimes people
are just telling us that
because they don't wanna validate
the real struggle that we're having.
So having a space where
you can go to a colleague
and be like, does this sound crazy,
I'm feeling some kind of way about this.
And having a sounding board,
and just someone who can hear you,
and either validate you,
or maybe validate you
and then push back on you a little bit,
I think is hugely important.
So finding that online community's good,
for me, I found that on Twitter,
especially living somewhere as isolated,
in some ways, as Hawaii is,
being able to find that
space online was huge,
and just reading other people's writing
and realizing that I wasn't the only one
that felt this way, it
wasn't me, I wasn't crazy,
other people were
struggling with this too,
it just made me feel less alone.
So finding, I think,
your community is good.
Sometimes that means asking other teachers
to make that space,
again I feel really lucky
that I had a department
chair and a colleague
who was just really
willing to help me listen,
and I got to a point where I
didn't feel bad being like,
can I just tell you how
I'm feeling right now?
Because it just made me
feel like I wasn't alone
in this journey, so I think
that's hugely important.
And I think also writing for yourself,
sometimes people say, oh, you write
and that's so impressive,
and I wish I could do that, but you can,
you can do that.
I encourage folks to write
even if it's not for a publication,
just sometimes having a space
to talk through your feelings
and write through your feelings is huge,
and we don't make that space for ourselves
often enough as educators.
Something else I thought a lot about
is just naming your feelings,
again, finding people to talk to.
I link it in there, I really
wanted to recommend Talkspace,
it's an app that I found actually
through the podcast The Read,
if any of you have heard of it.
But it's an online
application that allows you
to sign up for therapy for
a pretty affordable amount
once a week, it's all
text-based, phone-based,
or you can upgrade to video-based.
But you can get matched with a therapist
and talk with them when you need to,
and you can do it on your
phone, texting through an app,
or type up a little message to them,
and a therapist will
respond, and it is awesome.
Again, especially teachers are so busy,
and I think we don't wanna make the time
to go see a therapist, or we're worried
there's still a stigma around that,
or we're worried about
how we're gonna cover it,
if it's covered by our insurance
or not, things like that.
I highly recommend Talkspace as a way
to get someone to talk to,
sometimes you just need
someone to objectively listen to you
and hear about the
struggles that are going on.
And then finally, to
get back to that element
of social justice,
figuring out when and how
to spend time both in
and out of the space.
When I talk about the space, or the work,
I mean specifically work
rooted in social justice
or education and education in equity,
or educational equity.
So for me, when I'm in the work,
and I'm gonna read off my
notes, so I'm really sorry.
But when I'm in the work
some of it is supporting other people,
feeling active, listening to other people.
Obviously sometimes we
just need to sit and stew
and be mad, but I know for me,
after I've gotten over that,
the best way for me to
get outta that feeling,
and to stop feeling
helpless, is to get involved.
Whether it's figuring out
how I'm gonna use this
in a lesson for my kids, or just listening
to someone else talk about
it, being there for them,
finding out a way I can financially,
or with my time or capacity, contribute
to try and bettering the
conversation or the situation,
I find to be really useful.
Also not judging my feelings
when I feel that way,
that's something I've
been working on a lot,
not feeling guilty for
feeling overwhelmed,
not feeling guilty for
feeling helpless or concerned,
not feeling like I'm weak
for having those feelings
I think is huge.
Also researching, arm
yourself with knowledge
so that when people come at you,
you're ready to have a
discussion with them,
and I don't think that always means
getting ready to fight someone,
but really learning how to
empathetically listen to people,
and be ready to think about okay,
if they tell me they feel
this way for this reason,
how can I maybe push back on
them in a way that's helpful?
Self-reflecting on your
own reactions is huge too,
and then having someone
to keep you accountable,
I think that's where
EduColor has been helpful,
and I hope they keep pushing me
because I've been really out of touch
in the past few months
trying to figure out
some of my own stuff.
But just a place that makes
sure that I'm thinking
about this work.
Someone else brought up how it's
how do you balance, or
how do you find that line
between taking care of yourself,
but also not ignoring the
issues that are going on,
and I think having a group, a resource,
that continually brings those issues up
is a big way to help that.
The other thing too I said is make sure
you try and and spend time sometimes
outside of the work too.
Find what moves you and indulge in it,
I think that's a pretty
normal self-care thing,
for me it's running or some
other physical activity.
I practice martial arts, and so sometimes
punching people in the face
in a really controlled manner helps,
if anyone's interested in that.
I've found it to be really, actually also,
I will say, as a woman I found that
to be really empowering too,
so a little push to think about,
maybe move outside of your
comfort zone a little bit.
I also have found this to be useful,
and this is something that my partner
helps me with a lot, is
creating boundaries, that way,
boundaries of how long I
will spend in the work.
I definitely used to, and still sometimes
have a tendency to get
wrapped up in a topic
and fall down that rabbit hole.
And sometimes that was necessary,
especially when I was figuring myself out,
but sometimes that would lead to me
being less productive and feeling like
I couldn't do anything.
And I actually, again,
my colleague Mary Beth
named it really well,
sometimes you can't fall out
of the rabbit hole 'cause,
for her, she has two
kids, and she talked about
I have to take care of my kids,
and I can't do this right now
because I have these two small humans
that I need to care for,
and I think that's huge, of
sometimes acknowledging that
as teachers we're human,
and life stuff comes up,
and sometimes we need to press pause
on falling down that rabbit hole
so that we can, people in our
lives that love us feel loved,
and that we're nurturing our relationships
outside of this work as well.
There's a thunderstorm coming
actually, if you hear it,
so I really hope I don't get kicked off
'cause of the thunder
in Montana, sorry guys.
So what are they saying,
oh yes, so set limits,
I will definitely sometimes be like, okay,
I'm gonna be on Twitter or be
doing this work for an hour,
and at the hour I'm gonna stop
and watch something funny,
it normally involves dogs for me,
or looking at something
that makes me laugh,
so setting breaks to do things.
And then finally just
trying to laugh a lot,
even if it's at the things
that are frustrating us.
I tend to find that being
able to try and find humor
in some things, not all
things, but in some things,
even if it's just
laughing at how ridiculous
sometimes people can be is helpful.
Okay, I'm gonna wrap up soon, I promise.
But I wanted to spend time definitely
talking a little bit about
how I think self-care
and social justice needs
to be done for students.
If you're just joining us by the way,
hi, my name is Christina Torres.
I'm currently a teacher
in Honolulu, Hawaii,
but right now I'm in
beautiful Helena, Montana
for a fellowship.
I write about race, class,
and gender in education
for EdWeek at a column
called The Intersection.
I'm talking a little bit
today about social justice
and self-care, and if
you're interested in seeing
some of my notes they've
been posted in the comments,
because I'd love to share,
and I'll hopefully be adding
anything that you guys add
to the comments in there as well.
So yeah, as far as students go,
I think it's something that's
really under-discussed,
and I promise I'm also focusing on you,
but I'm also trying to see if any of you
have left me comments.
I think there's something
really important to be said
for making sure that students
have the time for this too.
Oh yeah, and some of you have
left me comments, excellent.
Kristen I totally agree,
it's essential to know
that we're not alone.
And yeah, I think that having some kind of
dedicated space to this
is essential for teachers,
and actually, segway, I
think it's really important
that we have this space for students too.
I think it's something,
and again, when we became
a testing or an output-oriented culture,
I think it's something that we lost
as far as teaching the whole student,
or creating spaces for students to think,
and to emote, and to be kids,
and deal with that stuff emotionally.
I mean, I figure for
me, if it's tough for me
to emotionally deal with
things as a grown-up,
I cannot imagine how tough it must be
for my students sometimes.
I can kind of remember
from when I was a kid,
but I've blocked out a
lot of those memories
from my adolescence, so trying
to make this space for that.
So something somebody
put in there in my notes,
there was a really great
story out of Baltimore
about a school that
started using mediation
and socio-emotional learning
instead of detention,
and the research and the results
around that were fascinating.
I think it's something
that we don't do enough,
when we think about alternative ways
we can work with students.
But instead of just being punitive,
how can we really start
treating instead of punishing
when it comes to our kids?
How can we start giving
them some great spaces to
learn how to deal with the
feelings that they're having,
it's so huge, creating
spaces for them to heal.
I know a bunch of people I know
were at the Free Minds,
Free People conference,
which looked amazing by the way,
and a lot of them talked
about how so much of this work
really is not just about
action, but about healing.
Healing ourselves, healing the community,
healing our students, creating
spaces for that healing,
so I think starting to offer
socio-emotional tools for that are huge.
Right under that I linked to Toolbox,
I know that's something that
the school I was previously at,
the Lab School, used the past two years,
my school has actually been researching,
or the school I used to teach at,
was researching socio-emotional
learning in the classroom.
We found it to be hugely
helpful with so many things,
and it's funny 'cause you kinda think
kids are gonna treat it silly,
but the teachers were sharing with me
that you will hear kids be like,
oh, I'm gonna use my breathing tool,
or things like that so that
they can calm themselves down
and really reflect on
how they're thinking.
So Toolbox is a great thing to check out
that schools might wanna use.
I actually started making it a point to do
5 to 10-minute meditations
every morning with my students
just to get them in a good mindset,
and making it part of that
routine I think is huge.
I also know that schools are starting more
social justice support groups
or identity-based support groups,
I linked to in there Steph
Rivera, who's an amazing teacher,
she had a great video made about her,
but I know that she does
a ton of awesome work
around social justice and making,
I think she has a feminist
club at her school,
which is awesome, but just
creating a space for that.
And then all of Teaching
Tolerance's winners last year
for their Excellence in
Teaching Award were fantastic,
and especially Henry Cody Miller,
that guy to me as someone who created
a really dedicated space for students
to deal with those issues,
to talk about them,
to just have a venue
to explore those things
that isn't output-oriented,
I think that's one of the problems,
is so often when we're
planning for our students
we're like, what's the output?
And I think not being so
product-oriented in this case,
because sometimes there
isn't a tangible product,
sometimes the conversation
isn't over, I think that's huge.
And then I just threw in there
something that I've been
trying to use more and more,
especially as we've had more
discourse around politics
that's been more emotional,
is I try my best to hear my students,
even, no, I always hear my students
when they disagree with me,
but sometimes it's hard when my students
really disagree with me,
and they've said some
things that have really
struck a nerve with me,
certainly around immigration, for example.
But the thing I remind myself is
to validate, question, and affirm.
So no matter what, love
your kids, love on them,
treat them with radical love,
even when they frustrate you
I think is something I try and remember.
So for me it's validating
that my students might
be saying things I don't like,
but they have every right to
one, be saying that of course,
and also to be pushing, and questioning,
and figuring stuff out,
because they're human
and they're kids, and
they need that space,
and sometimes, God, I know I thought
some really ridiculous
things when I was young,
not to say that all the things
my kids say are ridiculous.
But I know I needed the
space to question that,
so validating that they have a right
to bring up these points,
and bring up these ideas.
Then I think, when I truly am unsure,
or sometimes disagree, instead
of having a gut reaction,
I think for me, a lot of it
is learning how to question
why are you thinking that,
where does that come from?
I actually got that from another teacher
in a different discussion I was doing,
as far as consistently questioning
where are you getting that information?
Not only do I find that
useful for students
to start metacognitively reflecting
on their opinions and their beliefs,
but I've also found it useful as a way
to start figuring out how can
I best build a relationship
or build contact with my students
in a way that will be useful,
how can I build that bridge,
what's pushing them to think in this way,
so that maybe I can find
better, more useful ways
of questioning them.
And then finally is to affirm,
for me that's one of the biggest things
I can provide as a teacher.
Not necessarily, and I
think anyone who is a parent
I'm sure, I'm not, but as
a parent, can affirm this,
loving someone doesn't mean giving them
everything you want, or
everything they want rather,
loving someone doesn't mean giving them
everything they want, and
loving someone doesn't mean
telling someone they're always right.
So when I say affirming
and loving on my students,
I don't at all mean just feeding them
consistent praise and positivity,
not that I don't wanna do that,
but it's more no matter what,
affirming that my students
are wonderful, worthy
humans in and of themselves,
even when they are imperfect.
And also affirming them
by questioning them,
by pushing them, by loving them enough
to ask them the difficult things
and have difficult
conversations with them,
I think that often comes through.
And also at the same affirming
and loving them enough
to know when to give
them space to process,
to know that the conversation
doesn't have to end
at that class period,
that maybe it's an ongoing conversation.
I was talking today with the
group that I'm with about
trying to figure out some
of this identity stuff,
and it's funny, it's so multi-modal,
the person running the seminar,
his name is Dr. Fuller,
he mentioned that for him,
he didn't fully understand
some things about culture and loss
until he was at an art exhibit
and he saw pre-colonial
art and post-colonial art,
and how much that had
changed just in an instant
once colonization happened.
And for him, it's not
that he hadn't heard it,
it's not that he hadn't believed it,
but for some reason
seeing it in that art form
is what hit him.
So I think in some ways too,
realizing that this
process is multi-modal,
it's evolutionary, it's long-lasting,
it's a marathon, not a sprint,
and so knowing that the conversation
doesn't have to end at that period,
that sometimes kids need space and time
to get to where they need to be.
So for me, that means creating a space
where all my students feel safe,
that means safe enough to speak
and space, I'm sorry, safe
enough to be themselves,
but that means making sure that
the language in my classroom is uplifting
and supportive of each other,
by that the same time,
giving kids the space
to disagree with each other,
and to have differing beliefs
and to talk those things out
in a really positive,
critical, and thoughtful way,
I think is huge.
Anyway, I know I have been talking for
probably way too long,
those are some things
that I have been thinking,
I'm gonna wrap it up
in just a few minutes,
I'm just looking to make sure
there aren't any comments
from you guys that I've missed,
if I've missed anything, if
you guys have any questions
or thoughts you'd like to
throw out to the group,
please throw it in the
comments, I'd love to share that
in the time we have left,
if I'm able to open
this at all, let me see.
But yeah, I would just really
love to hear from other folks
as far as what are some
things for self-care,
excellent, oh I'm seeing
some things, great.
Thanks you guys, I see
some positive comments
and I just really appreciate you,
I'm seeing some questions too.
I absolutely agree Mark,
that students can tell
when we give false praise,
and so I think that's why
the affirmation needs to come
very much from a place
of authenticity and love,
and so for me that means being like, okay,
I see why you might think that,
maybe we can talk about this more,
and not just being like, oh yeah,
you're totally right, for sure.
Someone has asked me a question,
and now I've lost it, oh, Mark,
Mark asked, "Do you think
it's okay for students to know
"we're feeling overwhelmed,
or should we maintain
"that facade that everything is fine?"
Mark, thank you so much
for bringing that up,
I totally blanked 'cause I
meant to talk about that.
For me, and this is something I learned,
actually from the teacher at my school,
or at the school I was at
who was researching this,
her name is Betty Skiles, she's awesome.
She actually, for some
reason I just, I don't know,
it's not that I hadn't thought to do this,
but she really named it.
She was like, yeah, that means being,
when she was talking
about teaching mindfulness
and socio-emotional
learning to 6th graders,
she noted that for her,
that meant being up front
about her own emotions,
and so she will walk in
to the sixth grade learning lab
that's kind of a little study hall,
and say, "You know what guys,
"I'm feeling really
kind of crazy right now,
"I just need five minutes to calm down,
"so why don't we all breathe together."
I think, again, it's not that I hadn't
necessarily thought to do that before,
it's just that kind of
authenticity is huge.
We model things for our kids,
I think as teachers we know that right,
we know that sometimes we
provide that role modeling
for how to handle situations,
for how to treat other people,
and so when we can model the authenticity
to be like, you know what, I'm
kind of in a place right now
and I need a minute, is huge.
And actually when she mentioned that,
I started doing that, I started actually,
and of course, I'm trying
to be professional,
and I'm not saying that I
spill my whole life problems
to my students, 'cause
they don't need to deal
with my life problems, but rather,
just being up front with
my kids and being like,
guys, listen, I'm kind
of in a place right now,
I'm feeling some kinda
way, give me a minute,
or hey, let's focus
and let's take a breath
because Ms. Torres needs a breath.
After the election too, I
was just really up front
about my feelings, and told them
that everyone had a right to their opinion
and I was just struggling a little.
And even kids that I know
didn't agree with me,
I think when you create
that culture of love,
and understanding, and authenticity,
it's not that they needed to
agree with me professionally
or politically, but just as a human,
they were like, "Oh, Ms.
Torres is needing a minute,
"and needs some love," and
kids give that in spades,
kids are so willing to be loving,
I think if we give them
the space to do that
and show that we're willing
to give that in return,
that was huge.
So Mark thanks for bringing that up,
I absolutely think that idea
of not maintaining the facade,
of finding a way to, in a
balanced, very authentic way,
share when we're struggling
too, and maybe when we need,
when we're taking some time
for ourselves, I think is huge,
so thank you for bringing that up.
Just seeing if there's anything else.
I think for the most part that's it,
but yeah, thank you so much
for the folks that jumped on today.
Mark thanks so much, yeah, I think that,
oh, you brought up your point too,
that when we're vulnerable
we build trust right.
There's a great talk by Brene Brown,
she's got some books I think too,
about the power of vulnerability,
how important it is to be open
and vulnerable with people,
how that builds, sorry, lightning
just shot across the sky
and it was awesome, I'm so sorry, anyway,
how, anyway, being
vulnerable makes this space
for people to be honest.
I think for me, I was
part of this discussion
around having tough conversations
and the woman brought up
that there's a difference
between being trusting,
(thunder booming)
sorry, trusting, and trustworthy,
what do the two look like,
and how you really need both.
You both need to prove
that you are trustworthy,
but also show that you can be trusting,
if you want people to
be vulnerable with you.
And that means sometimes
being vulnerable for ourselves
and modeling that for
ourselves, and building,
I think that helps
build that relationship,
so absolutely, that's such a great point.
With that, again I've been
talking way, way longer
than I think me and my
wonderful editor planned,
and also a thunderstorm is coming in,
so I should probably wrap it up.
Thank you guys so much for joining,
and just for letting me talk
about this for a little bit,
and also for sharing in the comments
and creating a space
to talk about this too.
Yeah, I am so appreciative of all of you
just tuning in, and all
the people in my tribe
that have helped me, or my
group that have helped me
when I've been struggling with this.
So I'm gonna wrap it up,
again, if you joined us late,
or if you're checking us out
at the end of this conversation,
my name is Christina Torres, I write at a
column on EdWeek Teacher
called The Intersection
about race, class, and
gender in education.
We talked a little bit
today about social justice
and self-care, maybe a little
more focused on self-care
than anything, but I
really hope it was useful.
In the comments of this
broadcast is a little Google Doc
I had put together, as
far as some of the notes
that I was thinking.
But please, if you have any thoughts,
anything I missed, again,
I am no expert in this,
I don't know if I mentioned
I've only been teaching five years,
I still have a lot to learn,
so if you have any thoughts, any comments
you'd like to add, please,
I would love to hear it.
(thunder booming)
(laughing) I really just
wanted to make a space
and a resource for these things too.
Anyway, as thunder and lightning
start coming down in Montana,
I'm gonna wrap it up here.
And again, thank you
guys so much for joining,
I hope you guys have a
great evening or afternoon,
wherever you are.
If you want, by the way,
here, I'm gonna show you guys.
So this is Montana, this
is my first time here,
and actually I've mostly
been in Hawaii and California
my whole life, so ooo,
sorry, so it's beautiful.
That's some of the
mountain ranges in Montana,
you can see the, oh,
that is some lightning.
The weather changes here, it
was like 90 degrees earlier,
and yesterday, and now there's a thunder--
