We Need to Do Better

I’m not sure about you, but for days I have been sick to my stomach. Sick over what I’m seeing and hearing in the news. Sick to think of experiences that my students have had that are so drastically different from my own. Sick to think of the uneasiness my students are currently feeling and not being able to talk about it at school. Normally this would be a time that we could pull up a chair with our students and just talk. However, covid-19 has transformed education in the last few months. I can’t hug my students, I can’t hear about what they did over the weekend, I can’t see them in person, and the list could go on.

I’ll just say it. This sucks. All of it.

Breonna Taylor shouldn’t have died. George Floyd shouldn’t have died.

I look at them and see my students from my first year teaching. They’re almost 18 and it makes me fearful for them. I don’t want them to be the next person on the news.

It’s up to us as white parents and educators to do better. To love more. To teach. To educate. To reform. To be an ally for others.

Because our students deserve it. Their families deserve it. My friends deserve it. And my neighbors deserve it.

It is very simple, Black Lives Matter. I know I will continue to make mistakes as I learn more. But I promise to do better, and our kids are counting on it.

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If you’re looking for resources to help you in your journey, please look more into the following. I’m constantly looking for new resources for myself and this is just a small portion of ones that I have found so far. I look forward to finding more.

Anti-Racism for Kids 101: Starting to Talk About Race

A White Families’ Guide to Talking About Racism by Naomi O’Brien and LaNesha Tabb

You’re Kids Aren’t Too Young to Talk about Race: Resource Roundup

#BlackLivesMatter by Michelle Weiss

31 Children’s Books to Support Conversations on Race, Racism, and Resistance