You are not alone

 

Dedication to Ben Aaronovitch’s “Broken Homes”

Hi.

Feels like there's a lot going on, doesn't it?

If it's seemed a little quieter here on the blog recently, particularly given the state of the country, it's due to a lousy bout with flu, which even still has me just back to being able to do my usual routine. It has left me with very little energy (or brainpower) to spare on things that aren't core to what is required.

This has made me think that we should be folding into our consideration on responses to the world being on fire that a lot of people are sick right now, too, in what I've seen called a "quademic"( flu, COVID-19, RSV, and norovirus). And recovery on some of this is long and slow.

This is another reason, I think, to think of the resistance to so much of what is bad right now as a team effort. None of us can do everything, and none of us is going to be pushing back constantly. We take turns. We do our bit. We spell each other. 

I know that I previously have quoted from the rabbinical teachings Pirkei Avot: "You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to desist from it." It isn't up to any single one of us to fight the whole fight; it is up to each of us to fight the part we can.

And thus: you are not alone.

Specifically in education, perhaps because we have both the "close the door and teach" and lots of local control at the district level, I fear that many feel they are alone in coping with the flood of things--executive orders! 'Dear Colleague' letters!--that have been coming out from the federal level, particularly when so many of them are accompanied by threats to federal funding.

In this, Governor Mills of Maine offered, I think, a very good model in her response to President Trump last week: her response made it clear that it is the state of Maine, not any individual district, that responds to any threat to Maine's funding. This is true in every state in the country: your district does not get funding* directly from the federal government, whether that funding is from U.S. Ed or USDA. It flows through the state--in Massachusetts, that's DESE--so it is a STATE fight. There is no faucet or column in D.C. that says "your district's name" that they can zero out.

We're in this together. Not every battle is yours to fight, and none are yours to fight by yourself.

You're not alone.

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*save in some very rare cases; Bedford, this footnote is for you