Holding Our Children and Community

I’ve worked in schools for over 20 years and it’s still the connection to our students that gets me out of bed every day. I cherish the thousands of connections I’ve had with our students over the years, whether it’s on the playground, in advisory, on the curb, or simply in passing. I spend every lunch period with kindergartners who are boundless in their joy and emotional expression as our newest community members. And, I’m wrapping up another cycle of advising with my 8th graders who are looking to their futures beyond Redwood Day. As they move through our program, every child/student is known at Redwood Day. We know how important it is to see and value each child’s experience, lens, and family - her story. Over the course of the last three days, we have drawn deeply on our understanding of each child in our community in thinking about how we process the results of our presidential election.

 

Like many of you, I have experienced so many different emotions over the past couple of days. As a mother, I have wanted to wrap my arms tightly around my own children and protect them from what is to come, to sooth their tears and alleviate their anxiety. And as I sit writing this letter, they exercise their right to protest and march with fellow high school students to San Francisco’s City Hall, because this is one way they have to respond and process their feelings about what this election means to them. And, it’s not just high school students who are expressing their feelings, younger students also need an outlet and forum.

 

This was an incredibly divisive, inflammatory election season and what concerns us most as educators has little to do with any political party. The president-elect is a person who explicitly isolated, denigrated, and marginalized specific communities of our country. His election sends a message to LGBTQ, Muslims, African-Americans, Hispanics, people who are differently-abled, non-Christians, women (girls), that they are “less than” and unworthy of consideration, protection, and equal rights to thrive and survive in this country - that America does not include them. At Redwood Day, we have members of these communities in our community, and we cannot ignore the fear, sadness, and confusion that many of our families and children may be feeling. We need to hold them close and reassure them that they do belong and are safe.

 

This is not about party politics, not about liberalism or conservatism, it’s about the core values of our own community - equity, justice, inclusivity, and empathy. And, this means that we all need to wrap our arms around all children, not just our own. In every grade, students are grappling with what this election means for them, their families, their friends, and their teachers. They need to feel safe, validated, and reassured.

 

We also need to give children space to ask questions, and this is where we ask for your continued partnership. While teachers and administrators have organized and facilitated developmentally appropriate conversations with students, we can’t always anticipate what may be said on the playground and in more unstructured settings. As students try to make sense of this election outcome, some have unknowingly hurt their peers’ feelings by repeating language from the President-elect’s platform. While our instinct as parents is to protect our children and consider them too young to engage in this dialogue, we need to. Our children are listening, observing, absorbing, and repeating. If we do not engage, we leave them on their own to figure this out, and they so desperately need the adults in their lives to help make sense of all of this and to answer their questions. We need to have explicit conversations about this election for the sake of all of our children.

 

As we help students make sense of this election, we also have the opportunity to put other core values into place. We are talking with students about stretching their perspectives to consider motivations of all kinds of voters, consider life experiences both similar and different from their own. We can think about how to collaborate and how to make space for other perspectives and also demand respect. I know that our families in this community represent many perspectives, experiences, and family structures. This is the beautiful diversity of our Redwood Day community. Each of us is processing and responding to this election differently, and we need to make sure that we support our children in their own journey in a way that connects to who each child and each family is at the core.

 

Below are a handful of links to articles and essays that our faculty and staff have referenced as resources to support conversations with your children. Also, click HERE to read John’s letter to families yesterday afternoon.

 

 

 

 

In the meantime, look forward to the three-day weekend as we honor our servicemen and women for Veteran’s Day tomorrow.

 

Be well,

Cheryl