In the houses where I grew up, there were battles which volleyed from the wilted grass in the parched backyard of a grey house; onto the faded, brown sofa in a double-wide with a tiny den; and through countless other nondescript spaces I try not to remember. The fights between my mother and stepfather would die out when the cops showed up, then flare up again in yellowing bruises and rosy welts that matched the flowers on the Sunday dresses my mother wore every week to church. When I displeased my mother, I wore bruises purpling like hydrangeas across my upper arms where her furious fingers had shaken me. Fear would swallow my voice and hives would bloom like rust colored peonies across my freckled skin. At home, life was pummeled into submission with my mom’s favorite belt as she wielded it across my back and legs.
In contrast, Grace Elementary in Hattiesburg, Mississippi was picturesque. It wasn’t like so many schools where nearly every classroom was on the interior with a few, narrow windows that didn’t open. It must have been built before America feared gunmen would shoot our children and before some misinformed superintendent decided children shouldn’t be able to gaze out of windows in case anyone dared to daydream. The school housed first through fifth grade in two long, narrow brick buildings, one behind the other facing the parking lot with rows of windows overlooking the playground out back. Instead of echoing hallways, a crisp breezeway ran the length of each building, giving a nod to the Mississippi tendency for front porches. I have never seen another school like it, and it stands with more clarity in my mind than any of the other many schools I attended.
We moved every year. I can only assume it was because of all the shouting: maybe too many people asked questions. But it was the eighties in rural Mississippi, and I would have been only one of hundreds of poor children in less than ideal circumstances. Unfortunately, poverty in this country was and still is ignored. Things didn’t get better in middle or high school as I withdrew into a ghost haunting the backs of classrooms. I became a vessel of broiling shadows dog paddling through every school on a crest of ambivalence. I was a foundling overlooked by the system, escaping a brutal home only to drown in the back row. Most teachers looked past me, blind to the bruises, labeling me ‘not college bound.’
You see, I didn’t have a sanctuary: not at home and not at school. Unlike some of my peers, I didn’t even have that provincial steely flame of resolve to give me purpose. I knew nothing about the world outside the walls of my childhood. All I knew was that I wanted to walk out of the door and slam it behind me.
When I bolted at seventeen, I fled without any direction except that everyone said “you gotta go to college to get a good job.” I let my counselor and peers push me blindly into Communication and English majors because they said “I could do anything with that.” Teaching didn’t call me until five years later when I was still rudderless, and, finding myself floundering, reluctantly looked inside. Dark memories littered my mind, but there were bright spots from school: I had learned things there and no one had slapped me when I didn’t.
Because I had no other options, and I loved reading above all else, I became a middle and then a high school English teacher. Although I wish I had known more about my options, I have found purpose in trying to be that teacher who notices students struggling in the back row. Unfortunately, twenty-five years later, it has only become exponentially harder to weave empathy and critical thinking into the lessons. I am bone-weary. Nothing, except an abusive family, can suck the marrow from your soul more than today’s political climate surrounding American education: a nearly three decades long tidal wave of misinformation and abuse that hurts our children the most.
Here’s the dream that I have. Schools should be the center of every community because the more people who are invested in its success, the more successful our schools will be. When possible, schools should be surrounded by gardens that grow vegetables and fruit tended and eaten by students and community members. Outdoor classrooms could be nestled among the garden paths sheltered by greenhouses or spread at the feet of green spun pergolas. Members of the community could rent spaces on weekends and holidays: schools should never be empty of learners. Even public libraries and recreation centers could share school plots. No room should be without outdoor light. In many cases, this might be skylights or windows high up on walls that face corridors: anything that is cost effective. Cafeterias should have restaurant quality food and service which is free to every student and teacher. Table manners and politeness should be expected with staff and students eating together. Spaces should be repurposed, opened and expanded when possible. Let students fill the spaces with their own artwork. Students who are excelling and finish curriculum requirements early should have grade relevant spaces where they can go: woodworking shops, tech labs, art rooms, theater and dance spaces, weight rooms, a snack shop with fresh food, recording studios, botany and animal husbandry labs. Schools should be such positive and beautiful places that most people would never think of causing damage. We don’t even need more funds or different staff to start making these changes. Yes, we would have to rethink curriculum and discipline, and schools need more funding in the future, but we start small and we start today. Other countries do these things: nothing here is without precedence.
Do not misunderstand me: we have come far from the days when schools were barren and school marms treated children like empty vessels. But like Hansel and Gretel, we have lost our way. Except now, the witch with the candy house is a government suggesting privatization and charter schools won’t get our children’s futures eaten.
When the article “The Sanctuary of School” by Lynda Barry was published, I was a junior in college. A few years later, I would enter the educational system as a teacher and things would go downhill from there in regard to this country’s treatment of the public educational system and its teachers. When I started, teachers seemed to be respected: schools had equity problems, but this was right before standardized testing would surge from a buzz to a chainsaw, wages would stagnate, and swaths of American citizens would be taught to treat the profession of teaching like a dirty word.
We could have easily made our public educational system the envy of the world. We could have leveled the playing field by allocating equal funds to all schools: professionals were screaming about doing just that. We could have upped the educational budget every year instead of taking money away and throwing it down the throat of a never satiated military. We could have helped make each generation stronger with a better education and more opportunities for a bright future instead of graduating seniors who barely read at a 6th grade level, treating our poorest students as if they are criminals, and selling our graduates college diplomas with steroid induced prices all of which has left the majority of two generations without tangible futures.
We could have created sanctuaries out of every single school thirty years ago, but we didn’t. Even now, with public education’s death rattle sounding, it’s not too late. There are enough of us here to resuscitate American public education. If we really wanted to, we could offer sanctuary tomorrow.
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***
Our friends at Corporeal Writing are reinventing the writing workshop one body at a time.
Check out their current online labs, and tell them we sent you!
***
We are looking for readers with an hour or so a week to read non-fiction submissions.
Interested? Let us know!
***
Inaction is not an option,
Silence is not a response
Check out our Resources and Readings
