TEACHER-ACTIVISTS INFUSE social justice into their classrooms, and in today’s divisive political times, they are wrongly penalized, criminalized, and sent packing from the classroom. As a lifelong educator, I assure you that teacher-activists empower their students to create a more equitable world. Through my teacher-activism, I centered equity and advocacy in every lesson. For instance, when we learned about food deserts, I empowered my students to write letters to grocery stores pushing to revitalize those communities. When teaching about the founding fathers of our country, I used an iceberg graphic to enlighten students about the history both above and below the surface. While I did my activism hidden in the shadows of character-building within my first-grade classroom scot-free, many teacher-activists today are in danger of losing their jobs or even serving jail time and require real protection. If not, we will lose a generation of teacher-activists and our children will pay the price.
In teacher-activist classrooms, advocacy, integrity, and equity matter just as much as reading, writing, and math. Teacher-activism encourages students to look at the world around them with a holistic view of history and own their power to speak up for equity in every space.
Introducing social justice to children equips them to spot inequity connecting to better decision-making in adulthood. Empowering students to form their own opinions and execute a solution deepens their critical data literacy to read and write the world with data. Unfortunately, civic engagement is a necessary, powerful piece missing from many U.S. classrooms due to the discomfort felt by right-winged communities when exposing societal inequities. Some politicians, parents, and community members have labeled teacher-activists as bad teachers to be feared instead of welcomed. However, the truth is these teachers are valuable and needed more than ever in today’s times.
As the founder and CEO of March on, Kid!, my organization empowers young children to execute activism through organizing and marching for a social issue important in their community. I am also a former educator with more than 15 years of experience in P-16 educational settings, and a doctoral student at American University studying Education Policy and Leadership. My experience has taught me that in an era when teachers are criminalized for embracing equity and inclusion, my activism in the classroom was both the reason I entered teaching and the very reason I left it.
Disrupting inequity
Teacher activism is not acquired from a certification or degree but begins with the choice to face inequity head on and disrupt it. Understanding that teaching is inherently an exercise of activism, my teacher-activism started the first day I entered the classroom.
In 2016, you could find me teaching in my colorful classroom at Nystrom Elementary School in the heart of Richmond, California. This neighborhood school has a 97 percent makeup of Black and Latinx/e students in the center of a notoriously impoverished, underserved community. With the classroom theme of The Busy Bees, we buzzed into all things first grade until a chilly post-election day gave us a powerful sting that I will never forget. My students arrived visibly terrified about what our new president, Donald Trump, would mean for their future. It was the first time I heard big social issues come from the mouths of such little souls, often thought as oblivious to the societal chaos around them. From this moment, I created an event where my students could identify a societal problem, articulate its importance, and practice civil disobedience through the powerful act of marching. I vividly remember a first grader saying, “Marching made me feel good! Why can’t all kids march?” From the home of Rosie the Riveter (Richmond) to the mecca of the Civil Rights Movement (Atlanta), more than a thousand students have marched at my events to illuminate topics such as anti-blackness, school safety, and immigration rights.
Teacher activism is not acquired from a certification or degree but begins with the choice to face inequity head on and disrupt it.
While I had immense support from the families of my little activists, it was only a matter of time before a picture or video could misconstrue the intent of my work in a climate where white fragility and anti-woke agendas permeate our air. Doing this work without penalty is not the experience of many teacher-activists in regions where discussing social justice topics is now illegal. To be clear, even teaching about civil rights figures or climate change can now get a teacher fired in states like Florida and Texas. From a Florida teacher facing termination over hanging a black lives matter flag to Missouri teachers at risk of being labeled as sex offenders if they call a student by their chosen pronouns, teacher-activists pay a hefty price. With 500,000 fewer educators in American public schools post-pandemic, teacher-activists are in even greater danger of leaving the classroom altogether.
The civil rights activist, John Lewis, reminds us that social change requires us to “get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.” To be sure, these teachers are not here to indoctrinate, politicize, or terrorize students, but rather work to enrich, enlighten, and empower students with tools to ignite positive social change. They are not bad teachers, they are simply penalized for getting into “good trouble” by breaking and disrupting our inequitable education system.
However, here’s the good news, it won’t take much to support the teacher-activists in your community. Parents, prioritize talking to your children about the power of their voice and how they can boldly advocate for equity in their community. School administrators, please enact real safeguards in teacher contracts that protect their careers and wellness. Legislators, please fight tooth and nail to dismantle policies harming teachers and forcing them to walk away. Also, prioritize pushing policies that cement the rights, protections, and freedoms of teacher-activists. I urge our nation to support, protect, and reward the teacher-activists who ignite the flame of civic engagement and social responsibility in our future leaders of tomorrow.
About the author
Melanie N. Latson is a Public Voices fellow on Racial Justice in Early Childhood with the OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute. She is Founder and CEO of March on, Kid!, a youth social justice collective. She is also a Doctoral student in Education Policy and Leadership at the American University.