Angela Davis, legendary abolitionist / prison industrial activist / Black Panther icon recently gave an interview that made me snap my fingers a few times. An excerpt:
If structural racism and state violence against African-Americans, aided and abetted by global capitalism, are as rampant as Davis says, isn’t she disappointed in the failure of the US’s first African-American president to speak out when a case comes up that seems to dramatise what she is indicting? Davis smiles and recalls a conversation she had with Hall two months before his death. “We talked about the fact that people like to point to Obama as an individual and hold him responsible for the madness that has happened. Of course there are things that Obama as an individual might have done better – he might have insisted more on the closing of Guantánamo – but people who invested their hopes in him were approaching the issue of political futures in the wrong way to begin with. This was something [cultural theorist] Stuart Hall always insisted on – it’s always a collective process to change the world.”
and
Isn’t she letting Obama off the hook? “Perhaps we should always blame ourselves,” she says. “Why have we not created the kind of movement that would put more pressure on Obama and force the Obama administration to deal with these issues? We might have arrived at a much better healthcare plan if those of us who believe healthcare is a human right were out on the streets, as opposed to the Tea Party.”
The interview is a magnificent read, but this excerpt shook my core. At a time when more teacher leaderships have popped up than ever before, and even the US Department of Education has finally taken a strong interest in teacher leadership initiatives, I find Davis’ words a quake in my boots. She calls us to action in the most subtle ways, eschewing the narratives of personal responsibility, but in a way that still puts the onus on us.
This interview has given me remarkable perspective on leadership as a whole, whether it be teacher leadership, school administration, or district administration. About a year ago, I sat on a panel in front of almost every superintendent and network leader in the city and implored them to think of themselves as public servants. Yet, when I looked around, folks looked ecstatic or shook, and nothing in between. Did they want to hear how much we loved accountability, high stakes testing, and top-down management or nah? Did they want us to embrace the decade plus of managerial hodgepodge of BloomKlein-era, No Child Left Behind, Race To The Top, corporate-style, whats-best-for-kids legerdemain? Or did some of them think it dangerous of us to rethink leadership?
Shortly after coming off the stage, one of the organizers of the event told me, “Everybody here reads you! It’s just that some people here read you because they love you and others read because they love to hate you.” At least they feel something.
Similarly, many of us are afraid to speak to this truth, where we don’t just blame one single thing. We know that our current education discussion centers less on the systemic faults of public education, but on the role of teachers, and way too often. Many of us have pored through the research and discussed the talking points from the research ad nauseam. We’ve yet to move the needle much in the way of student achievement because we’re stuck in an innovation holding pattern, mainly from folk who use the word “innovation” and “disruption” too often (and often, with bad intentions).
But when do we all take some time and, instead of lobbing grenades across each others’ moats, we look at the castles we’ve built which are not nearly as flawless as we’d like to tell others?
How do we look at ourselves as part of the inner workings and find ways to forgo the one-directional gossip and find the inner strength to say, “This stops here?” I don’t know the answer to that, either. As a math coach, I often felt like I was fighting an uphill battle for respect from my colleagues, but eventually, I got it and I appreciated it. Yet, in four years, I still looked around and wondered “What have I done to affect my school community?” I could say I tried my best, but I can’t say I ever felt satisfied as a math coach with my progress even after four years. Did I help build a movement to make the experience of school better for students or are we still mired in trying to stay afloat?
This is the moment where we move past personal, collective, and systemic responsibilities and consider all three at once, the fourth level of consciousness.
Now that I’m back full-time in the classroom, I find calling myself and others to task has me rolling perfectly round boulders up the steepest mountains. With fewer people understanding why I want it rolled up there. I have a feeling many of you empathize.