Open Heart

I have more questions than things to saw right now, but they sprang up from something a past teacher once told me. I am very expressive, and open, and naïve in a lot of ways, trusting, and taking things at face value, more than some other folx, and much more than Western society sees as acceptable. This was even more pronounced when I was younger. A long time ago, after being involved in ceremony for a few years, this teacher told me that he had doubted whether I was strong enough to last. That, because of my perceived sensitivity, that he perceived me as weak, and too weak for ceremony, too emotional I guess. Ceremony requires that we be open to our emotions, it forces it really, whether we're ready or willing or not. Funny that my emotional openness and expressiveness is what he perceived as the weakness.

The questions that came up right now while I was remembering this experience of being told that my "overly" emotional expressiveness was perceived as weakness, is why is it that society places so much emphasis on being emotionally closed and paints this as "strong", while seeing emotional expression and openness as weak? I can see how sometimes when we are extremely expressive and open that can leave us raw and potentially open to manipulation, that it can lead us to getting pulled in all kinds of different directions all at once, and how those people in our lives that fall off the cliff of mental wellness into the many abysses of mental illness appear to be emotionally and psychologically "overly expressive" or "open" and this can then be connected to a perceived weakness in them. But I also see how our vulnerability, our ability to feel with and in the presence of others in our lives is one of the most powerful ways to connect and help hold space for healing, growth, and empowerment. How our open heart is what allows the healing to happen. Maybe that's why it is painted as weakness, because they don't want us to heal? And maybe the embrace of being so closed is a residue of our ancestors' coping to survive the harshness of oppression, that maybe they had to allow the callouses to grow thick around their hearts and their emotional selves, to survive the pain and hopelessness? 

It might feel easier to close ourselves off, its less work in the beginning, and feels safer. But in the end it adds to our isolation, it literally closes us off to connection and healing. 

That's my ramble for today. I guess I had more to say than questions to pose.

Ban CRT? Just another racist call to erase our history.

 Photo by Kelly L

Can you imagine if someone kicked down your front door, planted a flag in your living room, and declared your house their property — and then justified this theft, the murder and rape of your relatives, and the pillaging of your home, by stating that you were a savage subhuman heathen? This is exactly what European powers have done for centuries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, justifying their theft of Indigenous lands and the brutal treatment and genocide of Indigenous people with the Doctrine of Discovery; which was a set of documents produced by the Vatican between the years 1452 and 1493, stating that Christian kingdoms had the right to all land occupied by non-Christians, and that all of these non-white pagans were subhuman and could be enslaved, exploited, and murdered at will. In 1823 the US Supreme Court, citing the Doctrine Discovery, ruled that Europeans had the ultimate right to “discovered” land and that the United States, after declaring independence from the English crown, had inherited this right of sovereignty over Native land. Mark Charles makes clear that the Doctrine of Discovery is a documentation of white supremacy, setting the precedent of the dehumanization of Indigenous people, and all people of color, throughout the world, which is followed by multiple documents and supreme court decisions founded on this same white supremacist doctrine of dehumanization of all people not fitting the white male upper-class identity codified. European expansion, propelled by this doctrine, and Manifest Destiny, was deemed, as Richard Drinnon states, a form of progress, modernization, nation-building, and “Americanization,” involving “an assault on family structures and the village” (p. 372). The assault on family and village, on the culture and language of our communities, continues today with attacks on our attempts at creating humanizing liberatory spaces that address the historical, material, and social realities that impede on our freedoms.

The sea of anti-CRT (critical race theory) and anti-history bans that have been proposed in over 28 states, and enacted in 12 either through legislation or other means, is an echo of these past attempts at devaluing and demonizing not only people of color but the very telling of our stories and truths. This round of calling for the censorship of history as a means to interrupt so-called divisive and anti-American aims was spurred by Christopher Rufo, a conservative film-maker, who as he was reviewing Zoom recorded clips of training sessions on anti-racism and diversity during the pandemic decided that “‘Critical race theory’ [was] the perfect villain.” After Rufo’s appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox show, Rufo was intimately involved in consulting the white house on the executive order issued by Trump in September of 2020, banning federal training contractors from utilizing “critical race theory.” Trump continued to push racist ahistorical narratives through the creation of the 1776 Commission, on November 2, 2020 by executive order, aimed at countering the historical notion, put forth by the 1619 project of the New York Times, that the institution of chattel slavery plays a central role in the formation of the United States as a nation. One of the most ridiculous assertions of this anti-CRT movement, one perpetuated by state Rep. Steve Toth in the Texas state bill he authored, is that MLK himself would have been anti-CRT, an assertion ignoring MLK’s overtly anti-racist words and actions, and those of the civil rights movement, which are at the core of critical race theory itself — stark conversations and confrontations of the realities of structural, systemic, and historical racism in the US are necessary in order to create a more just world and society. As a clear insult to the Black community and memory of MLK the 1776 commission released its ahistorical “findings” on Martin Luther King Jr. day, 2021.

The current attacks on telling historical truths is far from new. It can be seen in how the culture, language, and families of people of color have been devalued and demonized as deficient and lacking, assertions that have origins in the beginning stages of imperialism and colonialism — in the numerous declarations of the subhuman nature of people of color as a means to justify their enslavement, exploitation, and murder. It can be seen in how politicians and academics, at the culmination of the civil rights movement, painted the culture of people of color as lacking in the qualities and values that aligned with prioritizing education and the overall betterment of their communities, essentially blaming people of color for the racist policy outcomes of structural racism and poverty. It can be seen in Texas where lawmakers refused to have historians fact-check their history books, which described enslaved people as “workers” and in how Arizona lawmakers banned Mexican-American studies in K-12 public schools as radical and anti-American (a ban struck down in federal court in 2017). These Mexican-American studies programs empowered Chicana/x/o youth, helping them see themselves in history and schooling, to better understand their role in fighting against ongoing racist policies, and led to higher rates of engagement, testing, and graduation.

Our fight against systemic racism starts with us calling out its many iterations — it starts with naming the calls to ban the teaching of real history as exactly what they are — racism. To disrupt the telling of the history of oppression and racism in this hemisphere is a call to “make America” even more racist “again”. The telling of our history as people of color is one of the main responses we have to disrupting systemic racism, to disrupt the racist narratives that have been perpetuated by the omission of any mention of the history of the violent realities of colonialism and its many iterations. Ethnic studies is the field that makes this telling of real history its core mission — telling history in ways that empower communities of color, that empower youth to tell their own stories.

Chicana/o studies, an element of ethnic studies, calls on the empowerment of Chicana youth and communities to tell our own stories, to rewrite the racist history that has been perpetuated as justification for our oppression. Educators who embrace ethnic studies have known for decades that ethnic studies, when designed and taught well, centers and values community cultural wealth and positively impacts students’(of all ethnic backgrounds) academic engagement and performance, rates of graduation, sense of self-efficacy, critical thinking, and levels of democratic dialogue and outcomes. As Paulo Freire, renowned critical educator, would have us remember, it is through telling our own stories, naming our world for ourselves, our counternarratives to the dominant stories that devalue our culture, language, and history, that we, as Chicana people, la raza unida, el pueblo unido, will be able to empower ourselves to overcome the trappings of structural racism and create humanizing liberatory spaces. We need more educational environments where telling our stories of struggle and triumph, personal and historical, student-led and community-driven, are not only welcomed, but are the primary drivers of our schooling process — these narratives of social justice, community, and beautiful strength in the face of oppressive adversity are what allow for all children to feel welcomed — to know that all of our cultures, languages, and lineages belongs within the intellectual and academic spaces of our society.

Old Man Rant

Things I hate about getting old: every little bump and bruise hurts for way too long, much longer than they used to. Was playing lacrosse with my two youngest and one of them smacked my elbow as they were playing defense (I had looked at my elbows before leaving the house, but I didn't grab them - I should have). The rest of the day and into the next day my elbow felt like I sprained my whole arm - like really?!? My index finger, the top joint, has some kind of ligament dilemma, and it's been hurting for days, maybe weeks. Seriously. Go jogging around with the boys again, and my knees start screaming at me (maybe it's because I spend all day sitting at this computer).

Things I like about getting old: patience. I have a lot more patience (sometimes). I hope I am little wiser every day, at least about some things. I get to see my children grow and grow - and while I love every stage and they were really cute when they were younger, their personalities are getting more and more visible. It's beautiful to see them struggle - again, sometimes. Sometimes, with these schools, it's just a headache - I keep forgetting that humanizing practices, seeing students as human first and rule followers and compliance machines second, is just not what most schools are about. 

Learning Loss in the Banking System of Education

The term learning loss assumes that learning is linear, that youth can be in a state of non-learning, and that our current measurements of student learning are effective. It also assumes that there are times that we are losing what we have learned. While I do think that we get rusty with things that we do not practice, as I have experienced this myself, I am not sure the term “loss” captures the essence of this phenomenon; while my swimming is rusty, I am not going to drown in a pool once I have learned to swim; while my Spanish is rusty since I have not been regularly using it, I can still find my way through a conversation, and with some practice and social connection I will grow right back into my previous capacities, my neural networks will wrap some more myelin. We (and definitely youth) are learning all of the time, every day, every moment. Youth may not be learning what “we” want them to learn, but they are learning - there is no such thing as a non-learner, or non-learning (with rare exceptions in the case of acute physical damage or neglect).

The concept of "learning loss", akin to the achievement gap, is based on the use of standardized testing, and represents a colossal failure in our school system - but not a failure of our students to learn or be open to learning. If for decades we continue to see the same results from standardized testing why does the system continue to employ the same testing methods and ask why we don’t see change?

A focus on relationships, caring, and community building are the key elements to creating educational spaces where students will engage in deep learning because they know they belong and have agency. It is in these holistic structure where we focus on the overall health and well-being of youth in order that they be open to taking the risks and sharing of themselves fully, stances necessary for students to effectively build their academic, intellectual, and social-emotional capacity. These interrelational and interconnected factors are the primary necessities of a school community, especially after and during a worldwide pandemic during which our communities have experienced trauma, loss, and disruption. Coming back to school and focusing only on the “rigorous” implementation of academic instruction, essentially eliminating time students have to create community and connection, will only lead to more loss, trauma, and disruption to both academic learning and overall wellbeing.  

Dorn et al’s concerns about the disparity in opportunities for students of color and other marginalized populations are not unfounded. However, their argument is based on standardized assessments and the concept that grade level buckets of knowledge are to be deposited into each students’ brain at each stop along the linear factory model of banking education. Learning is so much more complicated than this and requires holistic collaborative formative forms of assessment, not standardized one-size fits all students, from every community, testing. Of course it is imperative that youth access and develop academic rigor and capacity, in numeracy and literacy, and in art, science, dance, movement, cooking, crafting, music, athletics, critical thinking, acting, medicine, social-emotional dynamics, and so much more; this holistic community responsive and personalized education will not be accomplished in equitable ways if all we keep looking at are the results of standardized tests as our measure of success.

The building of community, of relationships and student agency, is the way forward to building students’ academic capacity. While access to the resources necessary to learn (such as internet, devices, and in person instruction) are very necessary, the gap in access for excluded and underserved communities has been in existence for decades (centuries). The world-wide COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare these disparities, inequalities, and inequities in access to quality education. What we do now with this information should not be to turn back to the decades old models of oppressive capitalist driven schooling methods that have consistently, systematically, and historically created these very disparities. It is time that we see this biological disruption as the beginning of a prolonged social, economic, and political disruption of the status quo. This requires economic and political will, a will that, sadly, I am not confident the dominant social order will permit to persist and take root. But that for dammed sure doesn't mean I'm giving up. 

As Dr. Betina Love so poignantly and powerfully states - the pandemic showed us that school systems, despite the decades long lack of political will (and supposed economic capacity) to respond to the calls of transformation, stop on a dime, move quickly, and provide some of the resources and changes that seemed "impossible" prior to the pandemic - stopped using standardized tests, gave one-to-one devices for all children/families, relied on trusting teachers' pedagogy, expertise and ingenuity - treated almost like professionals (no?), relied on trusting parents as integral partners in education, provided flexible schedules and hybrid models, tech companies gave out free internet, "compassion over compliance". . . So we know these changes are not only possible, they are realistic and doable. So how do we keep this same energy and spirit going? That is the only question in my heart and mind. 

What was normal pre-pandemic was not healthy for our communities - as Dr. Love compels us to fight for - we need to maintain and reinvigorate the trust in teachers, parents, and students that was readily given during the beginning stages of the pandemic - the flexibility around due dates, grading, and standardized testing and curriculum - the abolishment of punitive compliance driven policies - let that shit rest - it's done - at least it should be and we know it has been done before and can be done again.

Student Learning is 100% Teacher Responsibility

Mario Echeverria, educator, school leader, and friend of mine, swears by an interview question for teacher interviews. "How much of a student's learning is your responsibility?" To which there is only one answer. 100%.

I had an interesting exchange on Twitter a few days ago, with a stranger. At first we misunderstood each other, as most exchanges go on social media, but this stranger was there for sincere communication. We are both teachers, educators, and students and we both listened to each other in an attempt to understand the other's point of view. 

He had an interesting first reaction to my statement that teacher's are 100% responsible for student learning. First, he felt that idea could be used to scapegoat teachers, from outside of education, to put the blame of the ills of schooling solely onto their backs, which is a genuine concern. Teachers are blamed for a lot when it comes to the poor outcomes in schools. I reassured him that I am a teacher myself and am not trying to scapegoat anyone. Instead I want to push teachers to embrace the role of curating educational environments were students can bring their whole selves and engage in true dialogue around their learning processes and capacities.

His second concern was that making a statement like this, 100% of student learning is up to the teacher, can potentially reduce a student to a thing, to an object, that the teacher must put upon. That it can potentially strip students of their agency in co-creating educational spaces, that it could be used to uphold a banking system of education. I again reassured him, that the learning that I speak of is liberatory, predicated on the empowerment of student voice and agency in the co-creation of learning spaces.  

This statement is about the power that teachers do have to curate the environment in their classrooms and spaces. Teachers have institutional power to grade, to punish, to stifle, to oppress. Or their power can be used to uplift, empower, and value. Students have power too, as can be witnessed in so many forms of expression, walkouts, outspokenness, and quiet resolve to resist - but many students are disconnected from their power as well.

Dr. Jorge Ramirez Delgado shared this quote from Anzaldua with us during our semester's course, “The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, mojado, mexicano, immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian--our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the 'real' world unless it first happens in the images in our heads”  (Gloria Anzaldua, 1999).  

My father work tirelessly to awaken our Chicana/o/e awareness within everyone he met, to help spark critical consciousness and dialogue in every interaction possible, to shed light on our inner struggles of oppression, and create the conditions for change within the social order, to co-create liberatory spaces. That is the true power of love, to create transformative healing and emancipation, bit by bit, moment by moment, from the shackles of the contorted constraints of colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

"It is 100% the move of a teacher to create a liberatory space, to humanize every child, to hold high expectations of each kid, and to stop at nothing to help each child reach their goals. The passion and purpose need to be aligned. Literally, kids' lives depend on it." Mario Echeverria (2022).

  

mindful moments

My favorite definition of mindfulness is, "returning to the present." Mindfulness meditation is the repetitive practice of returning to the present moment, of noticing when we are distracted, or thinking about something other than our current focus, and returning our attention to our intentional focus - such as returning to our breath in vipassana. 

Mindfulness can take on many forms, other than just sitting meditation. Being present with the ocean or any body of water; watching the waves undulate across the sand, listening to the ebb and flow, or to the trickle or roar of the fluid cascading sparkle of the water before us.

A walk in nature, a jog, or a run. The flow of a good game of basketball, our minds focused on the present moment, our bodies in rhythm, our hearts in coherence. Creating visual art, focused on colors and textures running from our hands as medium meets medium. The flow of writing as our minds are focused on the turn of words and sounds of pens, pencils, or the keys' clackity clack.

Mindfulness can be practiced at any time, during any activity, in any situation. It gives us a chance to get to know our inner-worlds, to become familiar with our patterns of thought, to familiarize ourselves with our internal dynamics, our relationship with the external world, and to exercise our mental attention and focus on the present.

How much time do you spend rushing your teeth in the morning? Two or three minutes?

How long is your shower; ten, fifteen, maybe twenty minutes?

How much time does it take to shave, fix your hair, or put on makeup? 

I know I tell myself many times, through both my actions of avoidance and my inner-monologue, that I don't have time to meditate or to be mindful, that I lack time for a mindful moment. But I know I really do. What might I be avoiding? Maybe an unseen pain, or an attachment to a pattern or habit that I find comfort in?

We can make a shift to be more mindful, intentionally. Five minutes as we sit down before we eat our lunch. Five minutes after we park at work or after we get home, sitting in our car. Five minutes after a Zoom meeting, five minutes outside in our backyard, porch, or taking a short walk. Do we have five minutes for peace of mind and whole heartedness, for self-compassion and loving kindness? I can make the time. I can imagine myself open to daily mindful moments.

Bar Soap - Yep, a post about bar soap

 

Thanks to my brother Ricky I have started to use bar soap, specifically the Defense brand of bar soap with tea-tree and eucalyptus oils. I had to buy new bars a few weeks ago and I realized that I really didn't have any way (or where) to put the soap in between showers - it just sort of sat there on one of our two ledges getting smaller and smaller with every other shower (even when I wasn't using it). So I did some internet sleuthing to see what kind of soap dishes or containers I could to extend the life of the bar. I found a few that made sense, but the two that I was draw to the most both had problems (in my mind at least). I was about to buy a bamboo one, but all of the reviews talked about how it just mildewed within weeks of use. There was another one, a porcelain one, that looked good, but in my mind all I could image was me dropping it in the shower and having to clean up a mess of ceramic shards. 

The other day, as I was using a natural loofa, and I realized I can just put the soap bar on top of the loofa. So far it seems to have worked really well, the soap bar stays much drier in between showers than before (when I used to reach down between bottles and just find a goopy edged bar). I do have to say, if your loofa is a bit long, or curved in any way, you may have to find a little nook, as I have, to slightly lean the loofa with the soap on top, so that it will not fall over between showers. 

If you're into bar soap and would like to look into other ways to prolong the life of your soap bar, check out these two links below. I found them to be pretty interesting.

9 Ways to Store a Bar Soap in the Shower and Make it Last Longer - Loo University

How to store soap and shampoo bars – nul