Sunday Night Memo 10/1/17

Microaggressions

A friend shared an experience he wrote to share with his school team. As we continue our conversations around bias, I wanted to share his experience. I imagine this has probably happened to each of us at some point in our adult lives. I have certainly had my fair share of these types of moments. As adults, we are able to recognize it yet can still find it difficult to confront. Imagine what kids must feel when they are unsure of how to advocate for themselves:

This year, one of my projects is working with our incredible student leaders as they plan our faculty development sessions focusing on microaggressions. The implication is that I’m an expert on handling microaggressions. And yet, recently I was on the receiving end of two microaggressions within an hour and I did absolutely nothing.

We were at a birthday party for my friends’ daughter. My wife, Melissa, was talking to my friend. Melissa couldn’t remember which of his sisters-in-law were there. He pointed to one of them and then reminded us that the other one has the “Jewish nose.” He put his arm over my shoulder and said, “we’ve talked about that before, right?” I honestly don’t remember, but I said, “sure,” and changed the subject to asking about his kids.

A little while later, several of us were sitting around a table outside enjoying the weather. My older daughter, Maddie, went running by amidst a horde of children aged 3-6. She stopped and asked my wife a question about something and took off running again (can’t miss out on running in a horde!). My friend’s mother-in-law looked at her and said, “Is she Italian? She has to be… or Jewish? She’s Italian or Jewish, right?” My friend’s wife said, “she’s Jewish,” and the conversation ended. My wife and I just looked at each other.

When we got in the car to leave, Melissa and I were both stunned. Who asks that? Did that really happen?

Then, I started doing what I do so well. I played the events over in my mind and came up with different responses. I wasn’t as worried about the “Jewish nose” comment, because I know that I could have fixed that instantly. I didn’t, but I could have. The guy who said it was in my wedding… we go way back. But I ran the mother-in-law’s comment on a continuous loop in my mind’s eye. In this imaginary role play, I jumped to the “naive question,” as put forward by the Adaptive Schools training. The idea is to ask a question that is naive to get people to question their own thinking or assumptions, without sounding accusatory or obviously leading the conversation. “How do you know she’s Jewish?” “Do Jews and Italians look alike?”

Then, I moved to another imaginary tactic: lying to get a response. “No, she’s English.” “We adopted her from Egypt.” “Sure we’re Jewish, but we converted.” Just to see what the mother-in-law would say, you know?

My next mental exercise was to act indignant. “Excuse me? It’s none of your business.” “So what if she is Italian or Jewish? Who cares?” Or, my personal favorite, which involved a slew of curse words and epithets aimed back in her direction.

In reality, though, I did none of those things. In fact, I did nothing.

We were having a great time. They didn’t mean anything by it.

Those were the reasons I told myself, but really, I was afraid.

I was afraid to upset my friend by calling him out. I was afraid to cause a scene by calling out his mother-in-law. I was afraid to ruin a great party. I was afraid to be marked as a “social justice warrior” or “overly sensitive” or “politically correct.” I was afraid of embarrassing my wife. I was afraid of interrupting Maddie’s fun if the confrontation led to us leaving early.

Whatever the reason, though, I was afraid to confront it.

On the other hand, they had no problem making us uncomfortable. That’s what makes this work  so important. Doing nothing values the comfort of the offender at the expense of the comfort - or even the safety - of the offended.

As adults, we need to be sure that we are teaching our students not to remain silent in the face of inequity and injustice. And that means that we, as adults, need to learn the same.

I still haven’t said anything to my friend about it.

Attendance

Please make sure to take attendance at the start of class and submit it into SIS. It's important that we take accurate attendance every hour.

We've had a few students who have moved without officially checking out. This has resulted in a loss of 3 Chromebooks. If you hear a student talk about the possibility of moving, please let Ms. Banks know so she can make sure. Losing Chromebooks is a big hit to our budget and technology resources.

Grades in SIS

I've had a handful of parents share concerns regarding grades in the gradebook. Please make sure you are entering them in so parents are able to have conversations with their kids. We expect parents to use the portal to see what's going on in classes, so it is important we enter grades for them to see.

October 11th

October 11th is a half day and will also be an A DAY. We will make sure it starts going in the announcements so kids are not confused.

Custodian Appreciation Day

Monday, October 2nd is Custodian Appreciation Day. Ms. Hunter is not going to be in on Monday, so our custodial team will celebrate their day on Friday with a thank you lunch from the front office. Our building could not run without our amazing team and we are so appreciative of their dedication and hard work.

I hope you had a great weekend enjoying faller type temperatures. Have a great week!

With Gratitude, Grace