Bystanders

Today was a very, very hard day. It doesn't help that I had a dream about losing my wife to cancer in an instant, and that same dream jolted me from a dead sleep at 12:30 AM. Any time a teacher's sleep cycles are thrown for a loop, that teacher knows they're in for a doozy. My rule proves to be true today.

Our training was called Training Active Bystanders. Basically, this training meant to make staff more aware and empowered around rooting out harmdoing in our schools, by working to encourage everyone to be 'active bystanders': people who feel an obligation to look out for others and help to maintain a sense of decency in the behavior of the school's population. I should note that means not JUST the students. This training wasn't focused on student behavior; it was focused on the entire school, from student to school culture. This was good, and I was pleased to see that our school was employing a whole-school strategy to inform how we diffuse conflict and harm every day.

But, my skepticism of it all remained really high.

Throughout the training, I couldn't help but think or notice that our schools are still full of adults and students who are bystanders: people who do not have (or feel they have) the power or the courage to address these sorts of conflicts when they involve others, and often, students AND teachers get caught in the crossfire of these conflicts, with others simply watching, or disavowing the existence of any harm.

Mind you, I can tell the difference between simple, playful jokes and something truly hurtful. I think we all can, and if that doesn't happen, I think teachers and students with decent social awareness can diffuse those situations with time and conversation (and a good support system: adults and peers they can trust). But, I have heard hateful things escape the mouths of every student, of every teacher (including me) and every administrator (and outside of school, many people). I have received those hateful gestures, and I have let them go on several occasions. And when I am on the receiving end (called a 'target' in this training), I remember feeling like bystanders in those situations were no better than those who meant to do me harm on purpose.

I am leaving the details out of the training, and therefore not doing it justice, I know. The training really was good, and I learned a lot from it. But, I think the most telling thing about me was what I noticed about how I view the people I work with. After the training, I found myself looking at a person and deciding: active bystander (someone standing up against harm)... passive bystander (complacent or complicit to harm)... harmdoer... target...

I know this isn't fair. I know it deep in my heart. I want to assume that every person in the school is a force for good for our kids, really, but my gut told me something else. The training gave me labels and I was using them shamelessly, applying them everywhere I saw potential. And if I was doing that, had the training really helped me? Did I trust in its purpose, or in the fact that the decision to bring it was an acknowledgment of a negative culture in our school that needed to end? Was I going to leave school doing this to others, seeing a friend or a loved one and, because of one harm they had done, say in my own mind, 'harmdoer'?

I was scared, because I know me: I don't let these things go. I think if I am going to be an active bystander in life, let alone my own community of learners, I have to forgive those I am labeling as 'harmdoer', make a commitment to those I have labeled as 'target' to look out for their well-being, no matter who they are, and empower the 'bystanders' by believing in them.

Where do I start? The 'harmdoers' I pointed out are mostly administrators: P and E, and others who I have felt silenced by. How can I have that conversation when they have the conversation about my employment? What's the good way to tell them that I felt like they had really done me harm for no reason at all, without sounding vindictive or accusatory? Could I trust that they could mend bridges with me? With others? Could I trust them after we had?

I don't know. Last year, by the end of the year, I had lost my trust in just about everyone, save for two 'active bystanders' that happen to be my department chairs...let's call them 'C' and 'L'. C and L have been wonderful to me, and I feel like they are two of my only allies now. They were my active bystanders. Other than them and a few others, I still have a distrust of, well, just about everyone. Do targets maintain this distrust for a year? Two years? Forever? How do we heal when we are targets of harm?

I feel like the lesson for me is that in order to make headway in our schools, to truly help our kids grow, we in schools (not teachers, mind you, but administrators, parents, teachers, and students, and anyone else there to fulfill the school's mission) need to be committed to one another, regardless of our job title or who we are in the school. We all need to be worried about the well-being of ourselves and all others first, and when we are reckoning with wrongdoing, we must forgive. And I can't give my school a second chance, I can't give this profession a second chance, if I can't forgive.

Forgive...it's hard, when I still think of those people and a small, scared voice says, 'Harmdoer. Go back to your classroom; it's safe there.'

It's no accident that, when asked, students identify classrooms as the one safe place in a school. Shouldn't you be safe anywhere in a school? In the presence of anyone? No matter who you are?