Each day, educators greet and teach bright, smiling faces from all walks of life and all colors, representing lineages from all over the world. However, amid much of the chaos and uncertainty in our country stemming from public policy, many of those smiling faces are no longer smiling. What teachers see is uncertainty, confusion, and fear.
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to kidnap — and even kill — people, many students across the country fear that they or members of their families could be next. With the recent leak of a memo that says ICE agents are allowed to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, that fear is more tangible than ever.
What Teachers Are Seeing Right Now
If you’re an educator whose students and their families could be in danger, it is understandable that you may have a strong desire to do something to help… beyond your classroom work. By all means, march, donate, and advocate for undocumented youth and families when and where it makes sense. Whenever and however we can, we should stand with the oppressed.
The Most Powerful Thing Educators Can Do
But, in addition, there is something else educators — specifically of undocumented youth — can do for them that will make all the difference: continue to teach them well with every fiber of your brain and being.
Teaching grammar, fractions, or climate to grade school students might not feel like playing your part in the resistance. But it is.
As was the case during the first Trump Administration, young people are feeling the stress and strain of racist policies during Trump 2.0. We may think of young people who’ve experienced violence from law enforcement or those unlawfully taken into custody or made to appear before a judge. Equally egregious are young people made to interpret complex documents, become caretakers for younger siblings, or make serious decisions they don’t have the wherewithal to make.
Literacy and Critical Thinking Can Be Protective
For educators, in addition to marching or protesting, teaching young people how to read, compute, articulate their thoughts, and think critically may be the best thing you can do for young people in danger of coming into contact with ICE or any agent of the state.
Because if young people are put in an unfair position to stand before authorities, speak up on behalf of someone else, or look after someone else when the adults have been taken, it is better that they can read and think critically than not at all.
Their lives may very well depend on their ability to read and think critically. Teaching doesn’t change laws or change who’s in political office, but it will help a student more than it’ll hurt them, especially when their life or the lives of their loved ones depend on the skills they should learn in the classroom.
Teachers Are Already the Superheroes
We live in a time when it feels like we need a superhero to save us from the dangers that abound. But we already have them: teachers. Not because teachers have X-ray vision, can fly, or have superhuman strength. But because teachers are patient and kind, they can bring a smile to children’s faces with a science lesson that has liquids explode when mixed, or get kids excited when they join them in a game during gym.
Teachers are the people who can inspire children to be who they never thought they could be and explain to kids that they are not the sum of their mistakes or failures. Teachers have the unique ability to motivate, encourage, and enlighten young people, not simply to get good grades, but to change the world for the better.
This Is a Long Tradition of Liberation Work
Right now, we need young people to learn the skills to change the world for the better, and it may seem a lifetime away for our youngest to have an impact. But historically, young people have often been at the forefront of movements on behalf of the people.
And teachers during Reconstruction, the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements were often working for liberation through literacy, numeracy, critical thinking, and strategy.
You’re Teaching a Future Leader
You may teach the leader of a movement to combat the injustice we’re witnessing. You may teach the graphic designer of marketing or promotional materials for a movement against injustice. Maybe he, she, or they will write speeches for a political candidate, manage a nonprofit’s budget, or teach the next generation of leaders.
The possibilities for your students are endless, and when you teach your content, you are exposing them to new experiences that inspire new ideas, new thoughts, new solutions to old problems, and potential ones.
Your Classroom Can Be the Difference
We are the catalyst that can change the course of a child’s trajectory… for better or for worse. Of course, we must be for the better, but it means more now more than ever.
It may seem that young people need someone to swoop in and save the day. But what they really need is structure, rigor, consistency, and someone who believes in them. Teachers occupy a unique position in being able to provide young people with all those things, especially those who lack them due to public policy.
We don’t have to do things outside of our norm.
We simply need to be effective at our jobs and show compassion, care, and concern while doing it. If we do, I believe our work will be the difference between the world becoming better than the one we are witnessing and remaining the scary, dark place that frightens the young people we teach.
The only way to cure the darkness is with light. So, use your vocation to make bright young minds shine brighter so they can defend themselves and others with those minds. This is our calling. More than ever before, this is our time to answer.
Sharif El-Mekki is the founder and chief executive officer of the Center for Black Educator Development. The Center’s mission is to build the Black Teacher Pipeline to achieve educational equity and racial justice. El-Mekki is a nationally-recognized principal and U.S. Department of Education Principal Ambassador Fellow. He’s also a blogger on Phillys7thWard, a member of the 8 Black Hands podcast, and serves on several boards and committees focused on educational and racial justice.