There's a story about starfish that you've already read, maybe in a chain email your aunt sent you or on the back of a church pamphlet. The story goes something like this: our narrator is walking down a sandy beach covered in starfish that have been washed up on shore. A child is throwing starfish back into the ocean, saving lives one at a time. The narrator asks the child “The beach is covered in starfish, how can you possibly believe what you're doing matters?" and the kid throws another starfish and says “Well, it matters to that one."
The story about the starfish is not about a grassroots campaign or the power of community. It's not about grit, or pluck, or a positive attitude. It's not even about childhood innosense beating the overwhelming odds. No matter how hard the child in the story works to save the starfish, the landscape of death will persist, relatively unchanged despite their efforts. It is a story about one person looking at multitudinous suffering and doing what only one person can do, make a difference to a few.
The story feels like teaching.
I used this story the other day when a friend of mine, running her own summer theater program for teens, found the recruitment part disheartening. “Keep throwing starfish," I said, knowing that the program matters, even if it only matters to one kid at a time. I know this because I used to run the same program. I know this because of the emails and conversations with alumni. I know this because of the way they cry on the last day. I know this deeply. It matters, it matters, it matters.
I handed the program off to her because I'm leaving. I'd like to be brief about why, but the explanation isn't brief. I'd like to say I feel old and cranky, or I feel very very tired, or the last remnants of covid shutdown depression just refuse to unwrap their tentacles from my mind. But I've always gone through cycles of hope and despair, belief in my abilities and utter distain for art, the energy to fight and the need to recoup. This time it feels different.
NPR did a pretty great brief but spectacular take on teacher burnout; the further away we get from March of 20220 the more concise we are with our words. The woman in the interview, Micaela DeSimone, uses the word “demoralizing" three times in four minutes. I made an attempt to become a public school teacher and I failed quite thoroughly at it. I felt like I stepped onto a beach of starfish. If the beach was made of lava. And the water was on fire.
The story about the starfish is not about a grassroots campaign or the power of community. It's not about grit, or pluck, or a positive attitude. It's not even about childhood innosense beating the overwhelming odds. No matter how hard the child in the story works to save the starfish, the landscape of death will persist, relatively unchanged despite their efforts. It is a story about one person looking at multitudinous suffering and doing what only one person can do, make a difference to a few.
The story feels like teaching.
I used this story the other day when a friend of mine, running her own summer theater program for teens, found the recruitment part disheartening. “Keep throwing starfish," I said, knowing that the program matters, even if it only matters to one kid at a time. I know this because I used to run the same program. I know this because of the emails and conversations with alumni. I know this because of the way they cry on the last day. I know this deeply. It matters, it matters, it matters.
I handed the program off to her because I'm leaving. I'd like to be brief about why, but the explanation isn't brief. I'd like to say I feel old and cranky, or I feel very very tired, or the last remnants of covid shutdown depression just refuse to unwrap their tentacles from my mind. But I've always gone through cycles of hope and despair, belief in my abilities and utter distain for art, the energy to fight and the need to recoup. This time it feels different.
NPR did a pretty great brief but spectacular take on teacher burnout; the further away we get from March of 20220 the more concise we are with our words. The woman in the interview, Micaela DeSimone, uses the word “demoralizing" three times in four minutes. I made an attempt to become a public school teacher and I failed quite thoroughly at it. I felt like I stepped onto a beach of starfish. If the beach was made of lava. And the water was on fire.
Here are some things I think we need to do around here:
- Use a nonpartisan committee, or a bunch of math robots, to redistrict our gerrymandered maps. Wisconsin is barely a democracy. Decisions made about Milwaukee are made by people who do not live in it. Decisions made about our public schools are made by people who do not send their children to them.
- Decouple our public schools from property taxes.
- Keep charter/choice/private schools out of state and federal funds if they're not going to adhere to DPI standards or retain their students with IEPs after third fridays.
- Fix our healthcare system so the poorest among us don't go into unfathomable debt due to life-saving procedures or medicines.
- Subsidize more art.
- Put time limits on campaigns.
- Abolish the electoral college.
- Defund the police as it is right now - a direct descendant of Slave Patrols - and replace it with multiple departments of civil service. (None of which would necessitate armored vehicles.)
Some of those sound like non-sequiturs, but I promise that these changes would all contribute to healthier, safer, happier children, better learning environments, and a more engaged society. These are the things that would support public education, directly or indirectly, and start to bring teachers back to the profession. To stretch the metaphor, these are the things that would keep so many starfish from getting beached in the first place.
To paraphrase a 6th grade teacher I just learned about through NPR, the education landscape as it stands is demoralizing, demoralizing, demoralizing: as frightening as a beach that has more dying starfish than sand. I can no longer find purchase to stand in order to throw any starfish back. This is an incredibly personal perspective. It doesn't mean I don't have hope, or I've given up thinking the work is important, or I'm committed to my own failure. I'm just tired.
Nobody asks why I'm leaving. Nobody tries to convince me the problems I want to fix aren't bigger than me. Nobody needs an explanation. They know I'm tired. They know I'm frustrated. They know I'm 35 years old. They know I've been throwing starfish. They know I've seen the beach.
Despite all of the odds, my friends are still going. As a friend of mine used to say, “I already know all the best people." I have direct connections to grassroots efforts that are dedicated to what I've started to call “building a machine that kills fascists." Here are a few:
Pink Umbrella Theater Company
Milwaukee Trans and Queer Depot: @MKEtranshealth
Black Arts MKE
Seven Roots
HIPPY
Running Rebels
True Skool
And if you want to start something like this, you can always ask
RBJ Consulting
or
WWBIC
Anyway, I've been accepted into the MFA of Theatre Studies graduate program at Guelph University in Ontario. So that's where I'm headed next. Maybe I'll learn how to build my own machine. Maybe I'll recoup in a big way. Maybe I'll come out the other side a better, stronger person. Or maybe it'll be a big waste of time, but at least it'll be a big waste of time in Canada.
- Use a nonpartisan committee, or a bunch of math robots, to redistrict our gerrymandered maps. Wisconsin is barely a democracy. Decisions made about Milwaukee are made by people who do not live in it. Decisions made about our public schools are made by people who do not send their children to them.
- Decouple our public schools from property taxes.
- Keep charter/choice/private schools out of state and federal funds if they're not going to adhere to DPI standards or retain their students with IEPs after third fridays.
- Fix our healthcare system so the poorest among us don't go into unfathomable debt due to life-saving procedures or medicines.
- Subsidize more art.
- Put time limits on campaigns.
- Abolish the electoral college.
- Defund the police as it is right now - a direct descendant of Slave Patrols - and replace it with multiple departments of civil service. (None of which would necessitate armored vehicles.)
Some of those sound like non-sequiturs, but I promise that these changes would all contribute to healthier, safer, happier children, better learning environments, and a more engaged society. These are the things that would support public education, directly or indirectly, and start to bring teachers back to the profession. To stretch the metaphor, these are the things that would keep so many starfish from getting beached in the first place.
To paraphrase a 6th grade teacher I just learned about through NPR, the education landscape as it stands is demoralizing, demoralizing, demoralizing: as frightening as a beach that has more dying starfish than sand. I can no longer find purchase to stand in order to throw any starfish back. This is an incredibly personal perspective. It doesn't mean I don't have hope, or I've given up thinking the work is important, or I'm committed to my own failure. I'm just tired.
Nobody asks why I'm leaving. Nobody tries to convince me the problems I want to fix aren't bigger than me. Nobody needs an explanation. They know I'm tired. They know I'm frustrated. They know I'm 35 years old. They know I've been throwing starfish. They know I've seen the beach.
Despite all of the odds, my friends are still going. As a friend of mine used to say, “I already know all the best people." I have direct connections to grassroots efforts that are dedicated to what I've started to call “building a machine that kills fascists." Here are a few:
Pink Umbrella Theater Company
Milwaukee Trans and Queer Depot: @MKEtranshealth
Black Arts MKE
Seven Roots
HIPPY
Running Rebels
True Skool
And if you want to start something like this, you can always ask
RBJ Consulting
or
WWBIC
Anyway, I've been accepted into the MFA of Theatre Studies graduate program at Guelph University in Ontario. So that's where I'm headed next. Maybe I'll learn how to build my own machine. Maybe I'll recoup in a big way. Maybe I'll come out the other side a better, stronger person. Or maybe it'll be a big waste of time, but at least it'll be a big waste of time in Canada.