Living in this pandemic of 2020, we have been catapulted into a crisis shared by the world. We have found ourselves at the mercy of nature’s indifference toward the human condition revealing truths about our culture, our humanity, and how we as individuals, and as a community respond to a crisis. Realizing that this virus is not temporary but also not permanent has created a type of chaos that scatters our thinking and decision-making. As our resolve wanes, people grasp for the normal routines they once knew and lived...routines like freely socializing and sharing mutual experiences with family and friends...sharing a meal at a restaurant, going to school, attending a sporting event, a concert, a worship service….people just want to get back to normal.
And so at some point...too soon or not too soon...the American people began trying desperately to cling to past routines and get back to normal. For many, fortunately, the virus had not yet intersected their path or even the path of a close family member or friend and so impatience, desire, or perhaps even need took over the safer-at-home mentality. Some burst into protest when states were slow to reopen businesses. Many searched to find normal in the only way they knew how...some went to the lake or the beach…some crowded nearby parks and trailheads...some gathered with family and friends over a meal or at a pool party...some went back to church or attended a wedding or a funeral. It seems many people are planning and hoping for a future by focusing on the past and ignoring the present. And who can blame them? Who can blame us? Whether accepting or denying that the virus will be lingering for months or even years, people just want to find a way of coping and living in their communities with COVID-19…people just want to get back to normal.
But another reflection is deeper and perhaps darker. This reflection centers around the stories that illustrate how out of balance “normal” has become in the United States. A normal that reflects deep layers of division, violence, systemic injustice and bias, and calloused indifference to a suffering planet. A culture filled with normal realities of violent acts, the excessive greed of capitalism, the manipulative control and influence of corporations and social media, and living in uncooperative communities with polarized and politicized policies and leaders.
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Early in the pandemic, a family we met some years back hiking shared that when finding out school would not meet the remainder of the 2019-20 school year, their daughter’s response was, “At least there will not be anymore school shootings this year.” To think that one of our stories our children express in the United States revolves around school shootings is truly disheartening. This is not the normal I want to get back to...this is not the normal I want for my grandchildren. As a former educator and school administrator, I am haunted by school shootings and often think about the administrators, teachers, and students that have lived through these harrowing events.
On December 14, 2012, I received a text message from a friend that read, “There has been another school shooting.” Staring at a television in the principal’s office of the K-8 school where I was the leader at the time, I watched in horror as the news reported that a shooter, later identified as Adam Lanza, shot and killed elementary aged children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In all, Lanza killed 26 people that day including 20 children between the ages of six and seven years old and six adults including Principal Dawn Hochsprung. I remember leaving my office and walking to each of the kindergarten and first grade classrooms and sitting in the small chairs just to be with the children. I will never understand how we as Americans have allowed this to become an all too frequent and familiar occurrence. I remember thinking that “normal” for me as a school administrator had ended...had shifted to something sinister and ugly.
From this deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, all schools, including elementary schools, began a regimen of adding school intruder drills to the other “normal” routine drills. Teachers were trained and drills were conducted. I recall the first intruder drill we conducted at our elementary school. An overly zealous security guard jiggled the handles on classroom doors to confirm that each teacher had followed proper protocol to lock the classroom doors. That night, one imaginative five year old went home and spun an intruder tale to his mother...telling how an intruder began turning the door handle to get into the classroom, and that the super hero teacher quickly opened the window and lowered each student out the window onto the school grounds to safety. These are our children’s stories. Stories of intruders coming into classrooms or drills to keep intruders, or worse a shooter out. (At least the kindergartener saw the teacher as a super hero.)
A few years later as intruder drills had become embedded into the school calendar, I moved to a position as a principal of an urban high school and watched in horror as more and more high school principals lived through mass murders by guns at school. October 24, 2014, five students including the shooter were killed at Marysville Pilchuck High School in Marysville, Washington…February 14, 2018, seventeen students were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida…May 18, 2018, eight students and two teachers killed in Santa Fe High School In Santa Fe, Texas.
Following the Parkland school shooting, our district and many others across the country began unannounced shooter drills. During my time as an administrator the training for school shooter scenarios flip-flopped from instructions to lock doors, hide, and barricade to procedures that included running to safety with students or even “throwing items” at the shooter. And while districts across the country invested in countless trainings and held repeated meetings over procedures and protocols and discussions on intruders and shooters…what we did not discuss is the statistical fact that the vast majority of mass school shootings are devised by and carried out by white males. What we did not discuss is that the increase of police officers in schools has not decreased the rates of school shootings. What we did not discuss was any reform of gun control. What we did not discuss were the efforts of the Sandy Hook parents in giving out free information and teaching tools to assist students, teachers, and parents around speaking out if they have knowledge of a possible potential violent act or concern for a student’s wellbeing. What we did not discuss is that adding a bullet proof backpack to a kindergarten supply list (yes…that was a real thing.) is not the answer. Instead, after each tragedy the focus centered on how to “get through” the shooting, and how to recover or “return to normal” as if shootings were potentially an expected and inevitable event. Rarely was the focus on how to END school shootings.
But now as we try to navigate our way through this pandemic, the return to school has been a major push in our desire to get back to normal. Returning to school where between 2009 and 2019 there were more than 175 shootings and more than 350 victims…but people just want to get back to normal.
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On Tuesday June 2, 2020 a social media event #blackoutTuesday occurred. Those participating blacked out their social media screens as a non-violent protest. The intent of the blackout was for each individual person to listen, read, and educate themselves about systemic racism in our country, and to encourage others to do the same. This was precipitated by what was arguably the latest in a series of racially unjust acts of violence. In this instance it was the case of a white police officer killing an African American, George Floyd, in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 when the officer knelt on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes until Floyd became unresponsive after telling the officer he could not breath. Across the United States, public protests were held, and in some cities these events escalated to riots and even looting. In frustration, some suggested that COVID-19 had distracted people into forgetting about the extent of racism in our country…but our awareness should not stray from the fact that Americans tend to often have a problem with forgetting…forgetting about everything from the plight of homelessness to the struggles of our military veterans. It should be no surprise that forgetting the daily biases that entire populations of our culture endure would surface…after all, forgetting our history of racism is something we have embarrassingly repeated for over a century.
We forget that our stories are part of our history. In my own meditations on this subject I recalled when my assistant principal, an African American male, on one occasion described to me a common story of his anguish around giving fatherly advice to his two sons as they learned to drive. His message to his sons revolved around the increased chances of being pulled over by a police officer and how to behave so “things would go well”. This is not a conversation my husband ever had have with my white stepson. Yes, our stories are part of our history, even the stories a father tells his sons. This small story and all too many like it embody how our stories reveal the bias and inequity that persists in our culture.
There are few professions that reveal the history of systemic racial disparities and implicit biases in our culture more than education. Working in a leadership role in an Alabama school district going through a desegregation order (which it has yet to complete) in the 21st Century… almost 60 years after the state’s governor stood at the door of its university in an effort to maintain segregation, is a damning and embarrassing indictment and more than enough evidence that our country is still in a severe state of discord surrounding issues of social injustice and the need for reform. Identifying, naming, and making changes to policies and procedures that were not benefiting all students and employees in a school district is like watching a hamster spin on a wheel…the documents, the people involved in writing the documents, submitting and providing evidence for the documents, meetings around the documents, and the trainings and checklists around the documents… spin, spin, spin. In fairness, some of the new polices or procedures may have made positive changes depending on the school and the leadership. But at the same time, many of the positive changes become defunct after financial cuts and supports to programs benefiting all students are frequently erased or exponentially decreased. Additionally, programs meant to integrate students within the district were allowed to be duplicated in other less diverse, predominantly white and more affluent schools, undermining the entire effort. No one, not even the federal judges, stood up to the privileged to tell them NO to duplicating programs meant to integrate students in public schools to benefit ALL students.
Instead the actions on social reform in education are viewed as an expensive distraction and many school districts and city leaders have become focused on not genuinely changing the culture, but rather simply “checking off the boxes” so they can…you guessed it!… get back to normal. The normal where the checklists, documents, trainings, and meetings go away. Go away because the checklist on paper can be labeled “complete” - NOT because real reform stood in its place. Real reform that embraces diversity. Real reform that gives each student what they need to be successful. Real reform that addresses the biases and inequity of privilege that exist in the classroom. Real reform where students are not segregated even within their own school walls by academic classes and test scores. Real reform where schools are not solely judged by standardized tests with their own implicit biases. As districts continue to “battle” desegregation orders throughout the United States, I wonder when the leaders will begin to think deeply about the REAL daily battles of the students and employees in public schools. And where and when there will be REAL reform - not paper reform that inks invisible as soon as signatures are printed…but people just want to get back to normal.
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In June 2018, my husband and I sold our home and began following our dream to travel indefinitely to explore, adventure and learn. The beginning of our travel quest took us to Alaska via the Alaskan Highway through Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon and into Alaska. Driving to Alaska is remote…but to be truly remote in nature formed a new and deeper connection than we had ever experienced. We were elated to be immersed in the awe-inspiring drama and beauty of the mountains, glaciers, forests, rivers and streams and to revel in the diversity of wildlife we saw all along the way. At the same time, we were distraught to see the countless turnouts and roads cut through the wilderness to provide access for trucks and heavy equipment for timber, mining, and other industry. While we knew there were valid arguments for the need of providing resources and economic well-being on a local and national level, it remained disturbing to see the blemishes continue to arise in this beautiful and pristine landscape - large plots of naked land exposed to the elements where a mosaic of trees once stood. The questions began to arise as to who is monitoring these operations in such a remote area? My contemplations around our environment continued to grow awakening more emotions and questions around our connections with nature. The more we immersed ourselves in nature the more I saw the beauty and diversity there, while at the same time being awakened to many of the truths around the atrocities being committed against our environment.
With these assaults on our natural world in mind, it is not a huge leap to see the potential connections between the nightmare we find ourselves in now and our repeated and increasing disregard for the balance of nature. It stands to reason that the consistent destruction or breakdown in the natural balance of ecosystems for many species - animals, plants, fungi - can lead to throwing an ecosystem or more than one ecosystem out of balance. Plants, animals, and fungi may mix in a different ways- form new relationships. These relationships can be beneficial or harmful. The harmful relationships may increase the risk of novel diseases harmful to the ecosystem, as well as, potentially harmful or deadly to humans.
It is ironic that in the throws of this pandemic, many people have been turning to our natural environment for relief or comfort…hiking, biking, walking, and meeting with family and friends through the improved safety of social distancing and being outdoors. Yet, while finding refuge and solace in the outdoors, the political maneuvering of our government has pushed and implemented changes that have created the most sweeping negative consequences for our environment since the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Weakening standards for protections of toxin loads in air and water for industries to levels that are virtually non existent, or strengthening industries self monitoring power to the level that in some cases they can simply decide for themselves what is an acceptable level…in other words, no protections at all. In addition while people have been distracted by COVID-19, federal agencies continued to lease even more public lands to oil and gas companies. It is unsettling that we continue to apply the term “ecosystem service” using the word “service” attached to our natural resources. The resources of our planet cannot continue to benefit us when our decisions are so strongly tied to profit. We can no longer preach the word sustainability when we are past the sustainable mark. We cannot continue to defend our current practices and expect to protect our future. And so once again Rachel Carson’s words in her book, Silent Spring, published back in 1962 continue to haunt me “we are moving on a faster trajectory than mankind’s sense of moral responsibility.” The machine is advancing and too many are caught in a careless indifference. Maybe we cannot fathom ideas as immense as climate change, water wars, famine, overpopulation…as now almost a year in and world-wide deaths are approaching1.5 million, many still refuse to even accept the idea of a pandemic. Careless indifference and complicity continue to grow…but people just want to get back to normal.
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Before the 2020 Coronavirus took hold of our thoughts, dreams, and conversations…much of our society was already spiraling out of balance. Our thoughts, speech, and actions increasingly suffocating under a flood of misguided perceptions, incorrect interpretations, and in the worse case scenarios, absurd and inconceivable falsehoods steeped in nationalistic, religious or party platform dogma. Frighteningly addicted to social media, we have allowed ourselves to be force-fed selfishness, greed, jealousy, pride, and fear. We have embraced leaders and groups that intentionally divide and often resort to “choosing sides” based on enflamed biases and a consistent demonizing of one another. People make decisions based on what they are told is right for them and “their team” and NOT out of ethical integrity or compassion and understanding for everyone.
The pandemic that plagues us reaches beyond the health crisis, an affliction that is infecting our conscience and our character. Surely we have the wisdom to realize that to get back to normal we will need to do more than just overcome this health crisis alone. We cannot get back to a normal until we learn the other lessons this trying time can teach us. The lessons that show us that we cannot afford to get back to the normal that existed. Instead, we can be better. We can begin to make changes to benefit our neighbors, our community, our world and our environment. We can change our stories from the normal prior to the pandemic. We need to balance our stories with optimism and find ways to reconcile and forgive, model peacemaking, conflict resolution, and deescalation strategies…Move beyond our fears, attachments, projections, and confusions. We can look for and find opportunities to respect one another, allow for unique differences, and grow to teach the stories that show our children how to live together cooperatively, embrace diversity, and take care of the earth…we do not need to get back to normal, but rather we desperately need to create a new normal.