Walk at Their Pace

Last week’s Hooray for Monday focused on?building resilience in our children. It was painful this week to find ourselves digging deep for resilience in the wake of another school shooting.?

Trauma like this can make us feel helpless. But we’re not helpless. Exhausted, frustrated, weary and angry, yes. But not helpless. Educators may not have the political clout to solve the problem of gun violence, but our elected officials?need to hear our voices. We may not be able to prepare for every possible disaster that can befall our students, but we can prepare them to be critical thinkers and problem solvers, so they have their own set of tools for navigating the unknown.?

I was struck by the words of Archbishop Gustavo Garcia Siller of San Antonio, TX in a recent NPR interview. He urged those wishing to help the people of Uvalde to “walk at their pace.” And that is a useful reminder for the students in our own classrooms as well.?

Creating the space for students to express their feelings and wrestle with thorny issues doesn’t require us to have all the answers or even set goals for outcomes.?Walking at their pace means we keep ourselves open to evolving our plans and learning by their side.?

This very long school year is almost over. We are all doing what we can to simply take care of our students, and hopefully ourselves, as we finish the school year. Walking at our students’ pace right now might mean focusing on joy, making slime, offering longer recess, winding down. That’s important too. And in the months ahead, we will have more time to think about what walking at their pace might look like in the new school year.?

This summer Inspired Teaching is launching a new format for one of our flagship youth programs that is all about learning with our students at the center. We invite all DC secondary teachers to consider becoming?Speak Truth Fellows. We are launching this program in partnership with Ford’s Theatre, and you can learn more about the details below.?Speak Truth?is an excellent way to bring student voices to the fore. The discussion format offers fertile ground for young people to explore issues that matter and begin to see themselves as changemakers.

Walking at our students’ pace means willing ourselves toward forward momentum.?It means prioritizing space for the hard conversations. It means working in partnership with our students to create safer schools, and listening to their ideas about how to make that happen. It’s the antidote to helplessness. It’s the hope at the heart of our profession.

For more resources, visit this issue on our site here.

Subscribe to receive the full Hooray For Monday straight to your inbox here.

Listen to Hooray For Monday on SoundCloud here.