They also highlight just how fraught being a teacher can be. First, the idea that a teacher posting a picture of their wife/husband/partner, or saying something like, my wife and I went to the movies this weekend, is somehow an agenda when straight teachers discussing and sharing the same things is not, is just absolute rubbish.
Yet this is reality.
While this story is getting a lot of attention now, the event was from last year, and I have several thoughts. One, that an angry parent,ONE, complaining can get someone suspended with no actual evidence of misconduct is horrifying. Two, this family has been in punishment limbo for a year. And I can only imagine the toll of attention, loss of job and the salary that goes with it, has meant.
But this is reality.
This past year, I had a younger teacher ask me after yet another school shooting what the best way to talk to their students was. It was not even close to their subject matter, and was such a touchy subject among the staff and students. My answer was that with these types of topics you cannot proselytize, but I always try to frame both sides IF THERE ARE ACTUALLY BOTH SIDES- issues of racism and bigotry DO NOT have both sides, and I will not entertain that they do. So I try to frame things like "well, some people believe X but others argue Y and here are their reasons why." When my students ask my direct questions though, as they did after some of the shootings, I will not lie to them. So when students ask me what I think about teachers carrying guns, I tell them that I do not think that's what schools should be. I tell them that I believe schools should focus on learning, and children being safe, and taken care of, and to me that is not an environment created by guns. I tell them there are larger issues with civilians not being trained, and racial bias to consider. I tell them that traumatic situations do not make for ideal judgement calls. And I try to point them to specific data and studies. But I don't attack other opinions, or people who hold them.
It is a tight rope to walk.
In the last several years, college professors have frequently made the news for things they've said on social media, some taken out of context, some just in poor taste, or in the heat of the moment, and some totally common sense statements I still don't get were blown up, that have had serious consequences- death threats, rape threats, SWATing, doxxing, as well as loss of jobs or salaries, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. I feel both that the political speech should be protected, that their institutions should stand up for them (or at the least NOT enable their attackers), AND that to think in this political climate those things don't have consequences is naive. I think if these news stories have highlighted any lesson it is that the Internet is a fraught place to be public about social justice ideals, and that if you are a woman or woman/person of color, or LGBTQ+, or any other vulnerable or marginalized group, the situations you find yourself in, and the consequences, have higher stakes. News, which a friend recently reminded me, is NOT news to those of us who have experienced these things for years, decades even, through our associations with fandom.
Higher ed doesn't seem to be learning from these lessons much. Many academic conferences still do not have clear anti-harassment, anti-racist policies, as many fan cons now do. Many universities are still stumbling and/or throwing gasoline on the fire when their faculty come under attack. And in many cases, faculty who hold positions of privilege are NOT actively speaking out if these events do not affect them directly. They should be pushing all their institutions through faculty senates and other formats to have a set in place response if hate groups attack their faculty. IT should have clear policies that can immediately be enacted when faculty are threatened and absolutely, the jobs of these faculty members should be protected.
For high school teachers, all of these issues are amplified and without most of the thin protections higher ed faculty have. While many schools do grant tenure, it is not tenure as it exists in higher ed. It's more, if you teach for three years you keep your job indefinitely as long as you don't do something ridiculous, it's not a protection of free speech. Mostly, I think, because most k-12 teachers don't conduct research or scholarship to be "protected" so tenure is not framed as a safety protection for that work.
If a teacher teaches in a non-union state, there is often no protection for them at all.The ACLU and other groups has been doing great work in defending teachers, but I always wonder about the end result, which almost never receives the news attention of the original story. And what about the in-between? How does this teacher, or any teacher, feel knowing that their school, their colleagues, their admin threw them under the bus? How does this teacher support themselves in the interim? How does this teacher, their family, continue to live in this community? What is it like to have this drag out? What is the ideal solution? Giving them their job back? Would YOU want to go back to that? A settlement? How do you pick up and start over, whatever that looks like after? In the age of the internet, these stories follow you forever.
Most teachers are in precarious positions, politically, economically, socially. So politics are a minefield.
But outside of rubbish stories like above, how do we as teachers, NOT take a stand? How can I look at my students and not be sure to tell them that in my classroom they are safe, that ICE cannot come in? That I will always be there for them, to help them? That my LGBTQ+ students deserve safe spaces in all classrooms not just mine? That my class and my curriculum isn't just not racist, but is actively anti-racist, that I consciously and explicitly create a classroom to give them the tools to help bridge the gaps of poverty, gender, race? And explicitly acknowledge how all of these barriers to success affect them in my classroom and what we'll do about that?
I'm not sure when arguing that everyone deserves a good education, fair treatment, equitable access, and a life without hunger and poverty became radically subversive political ideas, but that certainly seems to be where we are.
Social justice warrior gets tossed around like an insult, but I don't know how you can be a teacher and NOT be aware, concerned, and involved in these issues.
But I do know the stakes.
- In a school improvement team meeting, someone was reading a paper, that featured a story about the school board debating teacher raises. The quote shared was that the board cared about their teachers. I made the comment that if they cared about us they'd pay us. A member of the team complained to a board member, who then complained to the superintendent, and I was forced to write a letter of apology to keep my job.
- I have frequently taught The Scarlet Letter as part of my English 11, American Literature curriculum. A parent complained that this made me a devil worshipper and this complaint went to my principal AND the superintendent.
- Another time, I worked in a department that required community service. Students had to pick a social issue, research it, then perform their community service in that field, and write up the research, and how their community service helped. A student wrote that their community service was tutoring at their church, but they identified their social issue as helping people not go to hell. I told them they had to revise it, and even commented that refocusing on the helping students, mentoring younger students was the way to go. The parents complained to my principal and superintendent that I was anti-God, sent an email to their entire Church population to pray for them as they dealt with this heathen teacher. I defended myself by volunteering my parish priest, who knew me as a trainer of alter servers, liturgical reader, and Church decorator, to come down and speak to them.
- I have had parents complain about my Twitter handle. My blogs. My scholarly research.
- I have had parents complain that I teach climate change as part of my social issues unit.
With seventeen years of teaching experience, these are just the more horrific cases. But there are more.
In not a single case was I defended. In not one case did the administration defend me by telling the parent it was nonsense, although I had one tell me he got complaints about me all the time and didn't tell me.
In each of these cases, either implicitly or explicitly, my job was threatened. In most cases, I was presented with the choice of losing my job, or acting like I had done something wrong and apologize in order to keep my job.
I should never have had to do that.
I know, even now, with so much evidence to the contrary, that there are academics who can't BELIEVE this stuff happens. Because it shouldn't. Because it's not fair. Because...reasons. But it does. It happens all the time. And not all these stories make the news. I'm sure a lot of teachers are forced to do ridiculous things as a mea culpa to keep their jobs. I'm just as sure, just as many, aren't given that chance and lose their jobs. And no one cares.
But that is reality.
A few weeks ago, I asked some advice on Twitter about an education job. I got a snide comment from someone that they'd answer me, but I have a locked account, and who on academic Twitter has a locked account. My first reaction was- you're a woman on the internet, where have you been and how can you ask that? My second reaction was one of disappointment. The comment seemed mean, and judgey, and out of touch. I explained that as a high school teacher whose scholarly focus included the devil, and whose politics tended towards liberal, it was just common sense to have a locked account.
I've been on Twitter eight years at this point, I have a good "academic" following. I've done a damn good job of branding me and my work- people recognize me as Dr. Devil- and each conference, people find me, follow me, become part of my network.
I still manage to do plenty of public work on teaching, pedagogy, technology, and specific scholarship through my blogs and sharing of Google Doc resources.
The only thing my locked account does is protect me from unfair people and circumstances. From trolls. And death threats. And rape threats. And SWATing. And doxxing-in fact when my account was unlocked I got dragged by a misogynist because he didn't agree with my spelling of doxxing.
I wish we lived in a world where people, particularly women, could speak the truth, discuss big ideas, and advocate for themselves and others, without having to consider the consequences. I know there are many who fight these battles online every day, despite all the crap that goes with it. And I admire them. Seeing the abuse they get, I honestly do not know how they do it day in and day out. I amoften saddened, depressed, and exhausted just following along. Some of them have some positions of privilege they do this from, but not all. Some do it just because it is important. And there are no limits to the admiration and respect I have for these advocates.
But, at least these days, that cannot be me.
I do not have job security. I do not have economic security. I do not have a support system or back up plan if something goes horribly wrong. I cannot afford to protest, get arrested, lose my job. This does not mean I do not advocate for myself, the causes I care about or my students. It just means that the ways in which I have to do these things is more careful, more thought out, more fraught.
So, in part I write this so people realize. Realize the stakes for high school teachers, realize that if they are in a position of privilege it is their responsibility to advocate for those who can't, and to realize that just because YOU don't have these problems and YOU have not seen this, it doesn't mean these things do not exist and don't have very real, and often severe consequences.
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