“It’s the first time I’ve ever been asked that, honestly.”
As I sat to analyze all my mixed-methods data from my eventual dissertation, I kept thinking about the various ways teachers of color from across New York City indicated that no one listened to them. I believed it from the younger teachers. School systems like to elevate younger teachers until they burn them out. Once they want to make teaching into a career, the system and its actors start to turn on them. I also believed it from the veteran teachers. Our school systems are conservative in their approach to systemic change. Thus, as many reforms as we’ve seen to schools, they often feel like iterations of prior initiatives. Veteran teachers know this and either adjust or move on. Collectively, these were some of the most energetic and dedicated professionals I’ve ever met and known.
But I kept thinking about the idea of listening and what it means for the listener. In this case, me. And I have you to thank. Let me explain.
How did listening this often and this intentionally change my composition? I spent hours and days listening, re-transcribing, and making notes about them. I isolated my own experiences (to the best of my ability) to elevate theirs. Within them, they contained equal parts hope and exasperation with the current ways we teach children. It’s easy to say “Well, teacher, then teach it your way.” From what I hear, the teachers who can, do. It’s harder to see the levels of bureaucracy teachers need to fight to teach from that body of knowledge and help from there.
People love to pontificate about the state of public education, but the feedback loop often stops at the school building’s door.
But you may be wondering “What is it about listening that people don’t get?” Currently, people say they’re doing a lot of listening. Upon arriving to their posts, new CEOs go on a listening tour and ask carefully curated questions. Opinion columnists start their articles with something they overheard at some coffee shop or their workplace. People in power learn to say “I hear you” in response to righteously angry people, usually to those with way less power.
The trouble with “listening” in these examples is that, time and again, we see how “listening” doesn’t seem to change the listener in power in action or policy. Or, at least, doesn’t seem to affect the listener’s trajectory in any way.
I had to keep that in mind as I formulated questions for the dozens of teachers who took my survey, then opted into an interview. Some of the stories almost made me drop my dissertation altogether. Others had me up all night and into the next day trying to get their words reflected well in my work. (If you know me personally, yes, I actually emoted.) Sometimes, it felt like I was talking to the text and it would say “No, I said what I said. You put that down.” Their curses stayed. Their nuanced vernacular did, too. I set the gossip aside, but pulled out the larger lessons from the stories undergirding the chatter.
I could feel the listening change how I heard my erstwhile colleagues (colleagues in the broader sense) laying out their views of a system designed to never love them back.
At times, I even felt myself taking on their personas. I saw myself chatting with a student about their essay and helping them through corrections. I felt the pride in seeing students who once struggled with literacy cross the graduation stage. It took me a few days to shake off the second-hand hurt and embarrassment of an administrator giving me an ineffective rating for vengeful reasons. There’d be no one in the office I was working with, but I’d feel the isolation of not being around anyone who shared my racial experiences. The news would highlight another teacher who spoke out about their identity and culture and I could see my tongue shrinking lest I lose my livelihood.
I, the educator, knew of these experiences. But I, the researcher, needed to take it a step further to fully listen. Empathy has depths.
I also realized that I had already been doing this type of listening for more than a decade. It’s how this blog became visible. We build EduColor from listening well, too. It explains how, after every speech I’ve done, I end up staying for hours, if not days, just listening. “You made me think how …” “I’m gonna stay teaching one more year after what you …” “This is what I’ve been trying to tell people and …” Part of why I get to speak to power isn’t just my truth, but the truths of many of you. The best educators I know listen intently to their students, families, and communities and adjust their pedagogy, curriculum, and instruction accordingly.
The “body of knowledge” includes how we make meaning of all the signals we receive from the people we serve.
That’s why I had to thank you, the listener, for it all. You should know the written tribute, my dissertation, to those of you who participated in this work of love was extensive and breathtaking. You’d have loved the reactions and conversations from a plethora of scholars, including some who you look up to, reading your authentic voices translated for them. Thank you for waiting patiently, hoping I might drop a hint about what I was up to. But, because you’re part of my community, you knew I was up to something bigger than just me. I don’t wish to speak for people, but I can confidently say my opinions aren’t informed by just me. I’m also informed by so many of you. That nuance is a catalyst for me to speak up and speak loudly about things I might not otherwise have so much confidence in.
And really, I wish for us the things I wish for our children. That they too have someone willing to listen and act upon that listening. Let’s make a world where we can better questions than the ones we have now.
Jose, who would appreciate you sharing this with the listeners in your life …
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