Advocation

 

The word sounds stuffy. It sounds more than a little authoratative. But tonight, thinking of the new school year that’s going to happen without me, of the students who get a brand new teacher this year, and of the teachers who will be teaching “my kids,” that was the word in my mind. 

I have been far from the perfect teacher. In fact, I haven’t even tried to be perfect. In one of the lectures I attended when I was preparing to become a teacher, a veteran teacher made our group of would-be teachers repeat a phrase several times in unison: “nobody does everything.” Whenever I have felt like a failure as a teacher, that phrase has been a comfort. Sometimes, though, knowing I was definitely not doing everything, I have wondered if I was doing even anything. Now, from the luxury of a tiny bit of distance, I can see one thing I consistently did: advocate. 

It isn’t something I tried to do; it isn’t a character trait I consciously cultivated. It’s just who I am. I know my school board has often rolled their eyes at me, sometimes even challenged me. I do have to say that they were always polite and always, at least to my face, respected me and listened to the requests I made on behalf of my students. Sometimes I felt crazy and dramatic next to their unbiased stoicism. I wondered if I had said to much, made a small situation bigger than it should have been. I sometimes felt like my heart got ahead of my head. I even felt embarrassed.

Now I feel relieved.  I know that what I did was for my students’ sakes and I know I did all I could to help them. The shameless begging to be heard and the countless times making a fool of myself may not have always brought the change I was looking for, but it did help. The school board may have gotten tired of my coteachers and I ranting about how no one in the upper grades had learned their multiplication as well as they should have but in the end they relented and got us an aide to practice flash cards with the kids a couple times a week and Now those children know their multiplication. My begging got me a very unusual paid trip to a meeting where I learned about different behaviour management and teaching techniques for children from hard places, and about teaching children with special needs. These ideas  made me a little crazier than the typical Mennonite teacher, but they helped  me understand all my students, not just the ones with special needs, better. Last year I took over advocating for a child who was approaching middle grades and couldn’t really read. Her teacher from the year before had been trying to get help for this child and not succeeded, but she continued to stand by me and support me in my quest for help. Neither of us ever really got anywhere with that; although we did get the school board to become open to giving this child the different program she needs, we could not convince the child’s parents. I failed, But at least I know I tried. Another child came to school with the weight  of a difficult home environment on her to shoulders. I can’t tell of the conversations with many people I had to try to get her the support and safety she needed to thrive. Often I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, or I was doing all the wrong things. I still don’t know. But I know I tried, I know I spent sleepless nights worrying and thinking of ways to make her life easier, I know I did my best. And becos she now trusts me and sees me as someone she can talk to, I can comfort myself that I at least did something a little right. Another student was struggling to deal with the loss of a close family member; when I finally, together with his parents, figured out what was troubling him, I could do some advocation in a different way: research. We came up with a way for him to remember and write or draw happy things about his grandma whenever his sadness got too much for him in the classroom. And this helped! (Would definitely recommend a interactive grief journal for a child who’s struggling with the loss of someone close to them.)

These are only a few of the ways I advocated for students. There are many small ways I advocated, most of which I can’t even remember. The above are just examples. 

Weeks have passed since I wrote this. After  feeling kind of cheap about posting this becos it makes me too vulnerable, I’ve let it languish in my drafts for a month. After a Sunday Dinner Table Conversion where I argued with a closed minded white person and (too?) loudly advocated for a brother in law of mine who has fasd, I remembered this unposted writing about just that topic. And, again I realized that advocation is something I do without thinking of it. Do I do it enough? Too much? I don’t know. But is it ever a bad thing to advocate for someone who can’t speak for them self? 

(Someone does it for me.)