Education Week - April 14, 2021 - 24

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20

Ed. Leaders: Discuss Race,
Call Out White Supremacy

We Need a Better School
Accountability Metric
Than Absenteeism

Letters to the Editor

Vanessa Solis/Education Week & Getty

18

The Year of Scourges: How I Survived
Illness and Racism to Find My 'Tribe'

I

A Black school leader reflects on the hardest year of her professional life

n 2020, I often asked myself: At
what cost am I carrying on?
I am amazed sometimes that
I am still at my job as a school
administrator. I have wondered
how I even survived the year-a
Black woman in a politically
volatile country twisted by racism, a school
leader during a pandemic that for months
shuttered my school and so many across the
nation.
Just 14 months ago, I was planning a
formal party for my birthday. Then I got
sick-sicker than I ever remember being
before. After doctor visits and when I felt
a little better, I returned to my job as the
assistant principal of Van Duyn Elementary
in Syracuse, N.Y.-only to suffer a setback.
Nonetheless, I held the birthday
celebration. I didn't want to disappoint the
family, friends, and colleagues, some up
from New York City, who had been looking
forward to it. Eventually, I was diagnosed
with walking pneumonia. Looking back, I'm
pretty sure I had COVID-19.
A few weeks after that, school buildings
closed. Teachers and students began
to teach and learn remotely because of
the pandemic. At the same time, Black
Americans were struggling through an
epidemic of violence inflicted by state

By Reba Y. Hodge
HODGE is the vice principal of Van Duyn
Elementary School in Syracuse, N.Y.
A former classroom teacher in the
Bronx in New York City, she prioritizes
in her leadership practices cultivating
the teachers that students deserve.

authorities. The epidemic was hardly new
to us, but it was highlighted and amplified
by the slayings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna
Taylor, and George Floyd in February,
March, and May, respectively.
The isolation and stillness caused by the
COVID-19 stay-at-home orders allowed
folks who were never really concerned with
the racist history of this country to reckon
with the fact that from their silence came
complicity. Privileged people who are able
to enter and exit conversations pertaining to
race at will, who never had to grapple with
the harsh reality of racism, were paying
attention. For me, the toll from the brutal
instances of racialized violence-the weight
of trauma heaped on my mind, body, and
spirit-was heavy.
Many of us Black women leaders persisted
in our duties while navigating our own
tensions and hurt. We are afraid and we ache
because we understand this reality: The
world will use the intellect and effort of Black
women even as our people are murdered
taking a walk, going to the park, sleeping
in their beds at home, even as colleagues
amongst us keep silent about the racism.
There were times this past spring when
the identities I hold most dear crashed into
one another. I drove around handing out
teacher-appreciation signs or as part of a
car parade for students and their families,
tears in my eyes. But at each destination, I
smiled. Smiled, because that is what my staff
needed. I did not feel like smiling. I felt like
screaming.
Then, on May 28, came a districtwide
workshop on trauma-informed education.
The Zoom meeting began with one
" mindful " minute-an exercise for

24 | EDUCATION WEEK | April 14, 2021 | www.edweek.org/opinion

participants to clear their minds of anything
they may have been feeling or holding so
that they could be present in the moment.
That was my undoing. Sixty seconds could
not erase all the anger, rage, and sadness I
had been carrying. The tears began to fall,
and they kept falling.
I reached out to my principal and texted,
" This was all just too much " and removed
myself from the Zoom call. She understood.
Then my teachers began pinging me, their
own anger and frustration evident in their
calls and texts.
Many of my teachers were experiencing
compounded trauma as they recalled
months of carnage, death, wrenching
changes, and enough violence against Black
bodies to last a lifetime. Some were dealing
with isolation and feelings of despair.
Uncertainty about the future was taking a
toll. And then there was the complicit silence
from white colleagues who didn't get that
racism was real. Black teachers, teachers of
color, white teachers were feeling emotions
ranging from disappointment to rage. These
were not feelings that could be " cleared " in
a moment.
I remember saying to them, " You can get
off the call. " But I also contacted the district
person in charge of the Zoom meeting and
expressed my frustration at the lack of
concern that we all were exposed to that
morning. How could they think that a season
of loss and, for some of us, a lifetime of
racism could be put behind us just like that?
There were apologies both vocal and written
as well as concrete promises to do better.
Now more than a year from that birthday,
I want to believe that I am no longer
staggering. For the most part, I feel solid

on my feet, and that has a lot to do with my
professional " tribe. "
Finding your " tribe " in your professional
setting is just as critical as it is in your
personal life. I am quite selective about that
group. The teachers are Black, of color, and
white. The commonality among them is that
they are committed to improving their own
teaching practices as they work to create
conditions where Black and brown students
can thrive. My only essential is that these
folks prioritize the health and overall wellbeing of our young people.
I trust these teachers and am encouraged
by their willingness to become more
responsive and effective educators. Our
shared work has been key to renewing my
sense of purpose and urgency.
I do not take for granted that I am here in
all of these spaces that I belong-as a mom,
educator, leader, sister, aunt, friend. I know
that I am fortunate to have the opportunity
to continue to heal. I am still here to locate
all those instances of joy necessary to live
a thriving life. I am still here to show up for
my students and teachers even during those
times when it seems the battles never stop.
This is part of my healing-cultivating
teacher leaders who work to condemn
and disrupt the ways racism operates in
classrooms, schools, and districts. For them
and for our students and their families, I
will continue to unapologetically confront
silence and call out inequity.
When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
told us in 1963 that there is such a thing as
being too late, he could have been talking
about today. " This is no time for apathy or
complacency, " he declared. " This is a time
for vigorous and positive action. "
http://www.edweek.org/opinion
Education Week - April 14, 2021

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