I want to keep the blog apolitical. Real life (the shootings) intruded, and we rightly needed to talk. I went numb, we all did, and something in me and in many of us will never be the same. However, I need to state clearly here that our purpose in this group is to keep our focus on improving our TPRS/CI skills and supporting each other in that endeavor. Political discussions dilute that.
We are a professional group and an emotional support group as well, but our emotional support of each other should stay connected to our work as teachers and not spill over into any other areas. Otherwise, the blog would become a big mess very quickly. My function here is to keep that from happening and to keep our focus on teaching and surviving teaching, which I say with no levity at all.
Thus, a post like the one entitled “The Tragedy” becomes a legitimate way to express feelings, but should never have been allowed to escalate into a political discussion. I was at fault with the Piers Morgan link – that’s when the discussion stopped being an expression of my own grief and and anger and crossed the line into politics. I should have taken that elsewhere.
Next, Chris S. threw in his honest opinion, which I didn’t even read carefully, had a knee jerk reaction to, and quickly deleted, which I should not have done and apologize to him here formally. And then off we were to the races last night, and none of it served the purpose of this group.
If someone were to begin to post about the need for gun control in the wake of this event, for example, I know now that I would have to censor that just as I would censor any comments about gun control not solving the problems of failed mental health care.
So we’ll keep our work here focused on the two goals of becoming better teachers here and of supporting each other in this massive, and I mean massive, change. That is enough, right? My job lies in knowing how much “extraneous” commentary is actually necessary to keep the group a team, a cohesive, organic community growing forward to become better teachers. We serve kids, and the deepest purpose of our work here is to serve the best interests of children in spite of the kitchen sink being heaved at us right now in this dark world every day in our buildings. We will prevail.
Y’all make it a great day. Crawl, scratch, pray, laugh, do whatever you have to do to get to the finish line and the well-deserved rest just in front of us. Nobody said this was going to be easy. Change is never easy. It’s ugly. But we’re badass. Seriously, I don’t think there is a more badass group of people in education out there. We are not messing around. Y’all are amazing. We can do this. We can all do this. For the kids, and for us.