Inside the Launch Window

I have a confession to make. It’s after 6pm on a Sunday, and I’m still in my pajamas. 

In my defense… we’re more than halfway through a cold and sloppy holiday weekend. I don’t have any plans, and even if I did, I’d be concocting some kind of excuse to break them. So maybe I should extend myself a little bit of grace for my sloth-like behavior today. 

After spending a few hours playing mindless video games, I did attempt to motivate myself to do some cleaning in the bedroom. That didn’t last long… a book I’d started and had yet to finish was sitting at the bottom of a small pile of “reading nows” on my nightstand. Any semblance of motivation to clean quickly fled, so I sat Indian style on my unmade bed and finished Being Jazz, My Life as a (Transgender) Teen.

And here we are. Though I don’t talk about its contents in explicit detail, this book is the impetus of this post, and what you’re reading is the product of many stops and starts… crap paragraphs replaced by lesser-crap paragraphs. What I’m saying here is messy, but it’s important, and I need to get it out of my head in into some kind of public discourse.

Here goes:

For weeks I’ve been doom-scrolling through my Newsday app and social media sites reading stories and first-person perspectives of what’s going on in Smithtown. The school district where I had enjoyed twelve years of teaching High School English has become Long Island’s epicenter of the anti Diversity, Equity and Inclusion movement.

I can and have shared my thoughts on this in private company, but will do no such thing on a blog or through social media. I have seen what happens to some educators who share their opinions on the Internet, and that’s not a tree that I wish to bark up. Further, I’m neither employed by nor a resident of the school district, so there are obvious limits to my understanding of the full story. But from what I’ve observed through print media and social media, it’s pretty ugly right now.

Also, this ugliness is not unique to this one community… it’s happening all over the country. Do a Google News Search using boolean-style terms “Critical Race Theory” and “Education.” You’ll get caught up and quick.

So let’s keep it moving, shall we?

I have a running mental list of texts, TED talks, conversations with others and learning experiences that shape my educator’s philosophy. One of these is an essay called Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors written over 30 years ago by Rudine Sims Bishop of The Ohio State University. Despite its age, the text is so very relevant today. Painfully relevant. In fact, if you’re not familiar with this essay, please stop here and go read it now. You’ll understand it even if you’re not an educator, and what it says provides some important context for my argument. 

Here are two of the most powerful paragraphs:

I’ve been on a memoir kick lately. It’s not a purposeful reading goal, but instead something that happened somewhat organically. I love nonfiction, and I love hearing stories about people whose life experiences are different than mine. Hillbilly Elegy was not a “mirror” for me, but it helped me to rationalize why, though we share the same roots, I was raised differently than my first and second cousins who grew up in the podunk coal-mining towns of northeastern Pennsylvania. Between The World and Me was more of a window. I had an opportunity to peer into the mind of Ta-Nehisi Coates and see, maybe not understand, but see… the reason for his anger. Earlier this year I read the memoir of an ex-CIA operative. It helped me, in a small way, learn what it feels like to live in THAT world. It was part window and part sliding glass door.

Being Jazz was also part window and part sliding glass door. I think most children have experienced intense feelings of loneliness or abandonment, especially if they were ever the butt of a bully’s cruel joke. However, reading through the first person perspective of fifteen-year-old Jazz, I experienced the pain of bullying on a whole different level. It was an important read for me, not just as a cisgender woman, but as an educator who has worked with and will continue to work with children who are nonconforming in some manner.

These are kids in crisis. I don’t need to tell you that… I’m sure there are grim statistics that will show how LGBTQ+ kids are far more likely to do harm to themselves.

Yet there are politicians and pundits and parents who argue that these topics should not be addressed in schools. At all. Some laws have been passed that actually hurt nonconforming children. These laws are passed under the guise of “protecting” others from being exposed to this kind of information. As if this “exposure” was to a noxious gas.

So let’s stick to the basics, right? Let’s cram the traditional literary canon into the gullets of teens. Even if they don’t actually read the actual literature, they’ll learn from scanning Sparknotes that Tom Robinson’s outcome was hopeless because he was black. They’ll learn that Lennie had to die because he was mentally retarded.

These classic texts offer examples of what happens when humans are victimized by intolerance. Contemporary and YA texts do that, too. And this omnibus anti-DEI sentiment that’s out there, this rhetoric manifesting through social media posts in Facebook mommies groups or in red state legislature banning any discussions about potentially divisive current events in schools, it’s intolerance.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is not a movement to be feared. I suspect that those who fear it do not understand it, or they’re not in a place where they possess the empathy TO understand it, even if they can decode the words and gain the most surface-level comprehension of what it means.

Having discussions about current events in schools NEEDS to happen. Kids need a place where they can engage in discourse outside of the echo chamber of their home. They benefit from learning about what makes us different. They benefit from learning about and discussing history and science, and the evolution of these topics through research and innovation. Any parents who are triggered by these ideas should look deep within themselves and ask themselves why. We cannot send kids away to college bubble-wrapped in the myopia of their own experience.

Books like Being Jazz and its adapted children’s book should be available to kids, not banned. I can see how this book can be a much needed mirror for kids in crisis. They will see in Jazz a reflection of themselves, they will see that they are not alone, that their feelings are valid, no matter how rare or unusual those feelings might be in the eyes of the entire population.

More importantly, books like Being Jazz can help cisgender readers of all ages “window” into the experience of a trans peer. How wonderful would it be if more discussion of these real-world issues could mitigate some of the harm that comes from ignorance and lack of understanding?

Will Being Jazz make a typical boy decide, out of the blue, that he’s actually girl? Nahhh.

While we’re on the topic… books, fiction or nonfiction, that offer windows into the lived experiences of black lives treated unjustly by an inherently racist system should not be dismissed as fabrications of truth. The increased focus and attention on instances of black lives lost at the hands of police officers is not intended as or actually “indoctrination.” If this is the case, reading Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and watching all three films should be considered “anti-Sicilian rhetoric.” That’s just ridiculous.

I argue that the best thing we can do for kids is to help them develop rich literary lives where they learn how to be critical readers and think for themselves. We can do that by embracing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as a vehicle to bring more diverse texts into classrooms. We can do that by creating opportunities for kids to ask questions, to engage in discourse with others, and to make thoughtful connections between literature and the world at large.

The books need to be interesting and engaging. Kids should want to read them and discuss them. Also, we owe it to our black youth to have them see themselves in literature as someone other than Tom Robinson or Crooks or Bigger Thomas. We owe it to our neurodiverse youth to see themselves in literature as someone other than Boo Radley or Lennie. We owe it to our LGBTQ+ youth to see themselves at all.

So let’s discourse. If DEI is on your mind, or if you’re not sure how it intersects with Critical Race Theory, or if you’re not sure what Critical Race Theory is… please don’t turn to the pundits on the cable news station. Please don’t rely on the posts in the mommies groups.

Read. Learn. Think.

And then decide how you feel.

For New York State Residents, here is the NYS Board of Regents press release and framework on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is a primary source document: http://www.nysed.gov/news/2021/new-york-state-board-regents-launches-initiative-advance-diversity-equity-and-inclusion

Here’s a few chapters from a book on Critical Race theory. I found this by conducting a Google search and I’m not sure if this text is in the public domain or not, but it’s a good starting place.

Of course you can read news reports from left or right-leaning media outlets or news organizations, and there are plenty. However, if this ends up being your only source, you’ve reached the end of this post and missed my whole point.

One last recommendation… this is another of those galvanizing philosophical texts that I recommend to anyone who teaches or feeds/clothes/houses children: https://www.thecoddling.com . If you don’t have time to read or if you don’t consider yourself a reader, do yourself a favor and get the audiobook.