By Sarah Andes and Dana Harris
This moment is one of tumult for our nation. In the past year, multiple mass shootings have left hundreds dead. Wide exposure of workplace sexual assault has prompted challenging reflections, conversations, and reckonings. Kneeling athletes and protests in the streets have launched a national dialogue about the experiences of communities of color and the meaning of patriotism.
Unprecedented political divisiveness has contributed to a national discourse simmering with anger and suspicion. For students and educators, it can be terrifying, it can be overwhelming, it can be uneasy. It can also be incredibly powerful.
As educators, school leaders, and school partners, it’s easy to exist within the illusion that we are able to script our students’ educational journeys. We agonize over curricular development and homework completion. We mandate graduation requirements and work tirelessly to perfect course schedules. And yet, students’ lives exist within and beyond those bubbles. And their eyes are wide open to the travails of broader society. Rather than luring students back onto our prescribed paths in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., tragedy and other moments of upheaval, we must make our schools a space where they can make sense of the world…
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