One Does What One Can

The world is on fire right now.  Things are atrociously wrong. There is a call to action.

There is a perpetual question: What are YOU doing to help?

Admittedly, I have not taken to the streets in protest, though I admire those who do with strength and peace.  I have not taken my voice to the internet, though I admire those who do with effective wordsmithing and words of courage – not noise.

I teach fourth graders.  Day in and day out, we spend our time together, living in the society and social contract that we have created together.  This commitment keeps me from taking to the streets or to the inter webs in protest, because my physical body and my voice are needed in this room.

So, what am I doing to help?

I made a short list.

I greet my students at the door each morning with a hug or a high-five.  We make eye contact and check in with each other.  (I tell them this is the telling moment when I know if they have brushed their teeth, not because I’m checking for cavities, but because their breath meets my face.  We brush at night to keep our teeth; we brush in the morning to keep our friends.)

I am finishing a geology unit, where we learned how impossibly old is the timeline of the earth.  How if we stretched that timeline the length of my arm, people don’t show up until the very tip of my middle finger.  We are the new people here.

In Colorado History, we talked about Westward Expansion, the concept of Manifest Destiny, how people moved in and conquered the land and the people by saying God wanted them to do this.  We talked about how the natives have the most beautiful relationship with the land, of any people group in the history of this nation, and yet people with more weapons and momentum moved in without trying to build a relationship and learn from the people who lived and looked differently.

In math, we are practicing multiplication of 3- and 4-digit numbers, and they are learning lots of algorithms to do this.  They learn to look to the person to their left and right, to collaborate on the answer, to see if somebody thinks differently so they can learn about other people’s minds and ways of solving problems.

In literacy, we are doing a novel study of Wonder.  We are talking about characters and plot, how each person deserves a voice, how nobody is ordinary and everybody is extraordinary, and how to choose kind.

We are practicing writing opinion paragraphs (Should Teachers Assign Group Projects?) so we can organize our opinions, support them with facts, and peacefully disagree. We practice distinguishing sentences from fragments, so they know how to communicate on paper, how to use their voice for change.

And in the margins of the day, I shut down bullying with such ferocity that nobody will question what is acceptable.  In this corner of the world: We. Will. Be.  Kind.

We practice the four-part apology. 
I’m sorry that I ______. 
It was wrong because ______. 
In the future I will _____. 
How can I make it right?

And we talked at length about the people on the right side history, the ones who stir up good trouble by doing the right thing.

At the end of the day, I send them on their way with the reminder: I love you.  Your words matter, so use them wisely.

Anne Lamott has been sharing a story recently about a war horse and and sparrow, something like this: The war horse finds the sparrow on a path, and the bird is lying on her back with her feet up to the sky.  The war horse says, “Sparrow, what on earth are you doing?”

The sparrow says, “I am holding back the darkness.”

The war horse says, “How can you hold back the darkness?  You weigh barely an ounce.”

And the sparrow says, “One does what one can.”

One does what one can.