Category: community

Here’s the thing(s)…

Featured ~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

*A quick note, sources and resources are linked in the text.

I’ve been kind of quiet in this space lately. It’s May, and I’ve only posted six times so far this year. For a girl who posted almost daily when this blog began, six times in four months is virtually silent.

But here’s the thing….

Just kidding…there isn’t one thing that is keeping me from putting words on the page (or rather the screen)…it’s more like a steady stream of things that seem to keep coming at me (at you?) in such a way that I can’t really focus. I can’t keep my eyes on one thing for long enough to form a thought, let alone an opinion.

At work, I’m down to just a few weeks with my seniors, and their excitement/ambivalence/annoyance would be a lot to process and respond to on its own, but we’ve also had Family Conferences and Decision Day. Each of these events takes a team effort to prepare for and execute. (You know the drill — communications, set up, station assignments, and the running of the actual event, and although neither is my responsibility, I am a member of the team.) I also have had the responsibility this year to recognize students of the month (one for each teacher in the building) and honor roll recipients. This entails identifying honorees, pulling them from class for a photo, and sending those photos to someone — preferably not myself — to have them loaded into a Canva document before they are printed out and posted in the hallways. In addition to all of this “normal” school activity, the authorizer of our school charter is visiting us this week for an educational program review that we learned about just several weeks ago. Such a visit, like school accreditation, requires the submission of countless artifacts such as lesson plans, IEPs, coaching trackers, professional development documents, etc. I was part of a team that pulled all those together and submitted them electronically. This past week leadership and staff met to prepare for the visit that will be spread over three days — all while school is in session, you know, the actual teaching and learning part. Spring is always busy at school, but this year is exceptionally so.

At home, things are a bit more relaxed –we have no major repairs pending, and we’re happily in the midst of installing our garden — but if home life includes extended family, then I have to disclose that my mother and stepfather have had some pretty difficult challenges for all of 2025 that just right now seem to be stabilizing if you don’t mention the fact that at least one of them is recently ready to start exploring assisted living facilities, which takes the coordination of six adult children to do lots of fact finding. I would also be remiss if I did not mention that my dear Aunt Margaret, after many years of relative health, has taken a sudden and recent decline.

All of this is, of course within the realm of “normal” adult life. You have also had busy seasons at work and at home — they come and they go — and although they are at times taxing to navigate, we somehow make it through to the other side in time for the next wave of whatever it is that is coming.

But these are not the things that are blurring my focus. No, they take time, of course, and energy, but they are manageable. I think what has me off balance may have many of us off balance — the continuous stream of government actions that may or may not impact us directly, but nevertheless are jarring to the brain and that lead us, at least me, to at times retreat, to dissociate, to not want to process or deal with any of it.

In 2018, presidential strategist Stephen K. Bannon bragged about that administration’s strategy to “flood the zone” with initiatives. The idea was to roll out a constant flow of orders and directives to throw “the opposition” (you know, other Americans) off balance so that they could not respond (Source). Since that administration regained the presidential office this past January, this strategy is being used again, only to the nth degree.

In the first 100 days of this administration (in just under four months) we have been overwhelmed by actions such as: the pardoning of those who invaded the US capitol on January 6, 2020; the freezing of funds for cancer research, Meals on Wheels, and disaster relief; the implementation of tariffs on every country in the world, the pause in tariffs, the subsequent roll-back of said tariffs, and currently, the exponentially high tariffs on China (which will certainly impact most of us); the firing of countless federal employees followed by the attempt to rehire some of them; the withholding of funds to public universities who refuse to comply with the administration’s agenda; the deportation of countless immigrants, some whom are legal residents, with some being sent to foreign prisons; the continuing and hard to follow involvement in the ongoing conflicts in Israel/Gaza and Russia/Ukraine; the president’s attendance at the funeral of the Pope followed by his posting of an image of himself dressed as the pope on social media; and this is just scratching the surface (Source). You might be shouting at me right now, “what about the…[fill in the blank].”

Frankly, I’ve got to look at what is happening on the national scene through a peep hole with one eye covered. I can’t look at it in full — and that’s exactly the idea. This administration is using the everything, everywhere, all at once strategy to keep us all in this state of slack-jawed disbelief.

And that is where I find myself, only I’ve moved from stunned to numb. I feel detached from reality, not wanting to engage because I can’t keep up. But that is what this administration has said it wants — to “flood the zone” so that we become overwhelmed.

But here’s the thing — the actual thing — we can’t do that.

We can walk away. We can take breaks. We can sit for two hours after a long day and work on a 1000-piece puzzle depicting van Gogh’s “Irises”, or take a walk through the park plucking lilac sprigs, inhaling their beauty on a glorious spring day, or lose track of time choosing the latest fiction from the library shelves, or binge-watch “The Four Seasons” on Netflix, but then we’ve got to re-engage.

We’ve got to notice the actions that are being proposed — such as cuts to education, to PBS, to NPR!! — we’ve got to let our voices be heard — through letter writing, phone calling, boycotting or participating in peaceful protests. What we tolerate, what we look away from, what we allow — these are the things we accept.

And, overwhelmed though I might be, I cannot accept funding cuts to public education — not when I see the inequities that already exist. I cannot accept the devaluing of other humans — not immigrants, not members of the LGBTQ+ community, not minorities, not women, not anyone. I cannot accept that as the profits of billionaires increase their taxes are not commensurate, especially not at the expense of the poor. I cannot accept a disregard for the fragility of the environment — when we know better we have to do better.

We are indeed looking at a flood of issues, and each of us also has our own life to manage. None of us can stop a flood alone, but we can each do our part — we can warn the others, we can grab a bucket and start bailing, we can plug a hole, we can help those who are drowning.

Together we can weather a flood.

Beloved, let us love one another. 1 John 4:7

Why boycott?

Featured ~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

Note: If you are listening to this blog post, several links are embedded in the print if you are interested in reading further.

Many years ago, not long after I met my husband, we began discussing a topic I’d never really considered before — boycotting. As I’ve mentioned here before, I grew up in a family that rarely, if ever, discussed politics. I remember when the Watergate hearings were on TV, but I have no shred of memory of how my parents felt about Nixon or the scandal. I have no idea, even, how they voted..

So when I met my husband, it was a little surprising to hear open political discussions — in the back yard, over dinner, on a car ride — about elections, of course, but much more specific issues such as unions, public assistance, and even (gasp!) abortion.

When I learned that in my husband’s family everyone drove American made cars or were required to park across the street when visiting, it made sense to me. My father-in-law was a retiree of General Motors and brand loyalty mattered. However, when my husband said he didn’t want to shop at Walmart, I had to ask why. He explained that Walmart was anti-union, and as a child of an autoworker, he had learned the power of the union to protect and support workers. He preferred not to support a company that wouldn’t allow its employees to organize. I didn’t feel passionately about it at the time, but I could get behind it.

As the years have passed, I’ve learned more about how Walmart underpays its employees while the owners become billionaires, I’ve grown my own distaste for the company and have shopped elsewhere. (This Time article chronicles some of Walmart’s journey including attempts they have made — under pressure from boycotting! — to improve.)

Of course, Amazon is similar in its practices. While it has made moves to reform, well-documented accounts cite drivers not being able to stop on their routes to use the bathroom and how they adapt to this expectation by carrying urine receptacles in their vehicles or by wearing disposable undergarments. Other accounts cite unpaid overtime, unsafe working conditions, and low wages, all while corporate profits rose to $88 Billion in the first quarter of 2025.

Amazon, Walmart, and other large companies are known for using employees — many of whom are low income and/or people of color — working them just up to the number of hours that don’t require them to pay benefits like insurance and sick leave and hiring for “provisional” employment and firing before the employee qualifies for permanent status. As a result, many employees of these companies remain on state and federal assistance while their CEOs pay a lower tax rate than the average American.

I have seen many of my students lured into jobs at Walmart, Amazon, and McDonald’s, promised pay raises, promotions, and an actual future, only to realize just weeks or months later that they had been misled.

So, what’s a middle-aged, middle-income woman like me supposed to do? How can I show that I don’t stand for this kind of corruption, that I don’t agree with these unfair practices? I vote with my purse. I’ve been doing this for years — avoiding companies that I don’t want to support and purchasing from those that I do. For many years this has been an isolated act that helps me feel like I have integrity. I doubt that I’ve made much impact, but I’ve slept better at night.

But this year, in 2025, anything can happen! All kinds of everyday people, using the engine of social media, can rise up and say, “You’re not getting our money!” If you take away your DEI programs, “you’re not getting our money.” If you won’t pay your employees a fair wage, “you’re not getting our money.” If you stand behind causes that harm our fellow Americans, “you are not getting our money.”

In 2025, I am not standing alone! People across the country are cancelling their Prime memberships and refusing to shop at Target, Amazon, Walmart, and other retailers. Last weekend, many refused to spend any money at all for 24 hours. This week, thousands are abstaining from Amazon purchases, and this is just the beginning!

Organizations like the People’s Union have coordinated efforts to systematically send a message to corporations that will hurt their bottom line without jeopardizing the jobs of those who currently work for these entities.

And the beauty of this protest is that it doesn’t cost anything, you don’t have to go anywhere, no one gets hurt, and if you don’t like it, you get to make your own choices. That’s what is great about living in the United States — we still have the freedom to say what we want, to spend what we want, and to support what we want.

For me, that means speaking up about inequity wherever I see it — in education, in health care, in commerce.

Now, I’m sure I still spend money, unwittingly, at businesses that have practices that don’t jive with my guiding principles, and if I learn about them, I will shift. It’s as easy as that.

What do I hope to accomplish? I truly hope the combined efforts of all those who are shifting their buying habits (some sources say 24% of Americans so far in 2025) will get the attention of these corporate giants and they will begin to change some of their policies. I think this could happen, because although the pen is mightier than the sword, money is what really talks.

If this movement can sustain itself long enough for these large corporations to notice changes in their quarterly earnings, we just might get their attention. And if we get their attention, they may hear our message — you can’t abuse people and still get our business.

It’s a small action of many that stands up for those whose voices are not being listened to; it’s an expectation that in a country that professes that all are created equal, that all would be given equal opportunity. Period

That’s reason enough for me to boycott.

uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed; rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Psalm 82:3-4

I told you so.

Featured ~ Kristin ~ 2 Comments

See? I told you so! Anything can happen in 2025!

You can have your whole week planned — your students will do a peer review on Friday, you’ll sleep in on Saturday, and then you’ll pack a bag and head south to your grand girls to play for the weekend.

But instead, since it’s 2025, your mother will fall down and break her leg on Thursday, you’ll put some sub plans together, pack a different kind of bag to head north. You’ll sit in a hospital room, watching the second hand click so that your mother’s turn for surgery will come at 5:00…no 6:30. Really, it’ll be at 7…we just got pushed to 8, but it’s still gonna happen…no sorry, an emergency brain surgery just bumped her place. We’re moved to 9am tomorrow.

You’re watching her writhe in pain even though they’ve given her NORCO and morphine, then you see her finally settle when they administer dilaudid.

You drive 45 minutes, picking up a chocolate shake on the way, then deliver it to your stepfather who has probably not left his recliner today. You tell him to take his meds, then put on your pajamas, crawl into bed, and set the alarm. You don’t ask if the cat has gone outside. You don’t remind him to put on his oxygen.

Meanwhile, your husband is following through on the initial plan, packing a bag and preparing to drive south.

The alarm blares and you jump up, do a little yoga, gather the items your mother asked for, tell your stepfather that no, you won’t be running to get a coffee, but he should take his meds, take his inhaler, and get himself some breakfast. The last you knew he was still driving, still running to get his own coffee, telling you he can manage on his own, but his wife of 48 years, his primary caregiver, just fell and broke her leg two days ago, he has memory issues, COPD, and a urostomy, and he is quite confused.

He takes his night meds instead of his morning meds. He doesn’t use his inhaler. He doesn’t go get coffee or something to eat. No.

So, while you are waiting through your mother’s surgery, chatting with your younger brother, reading a book, completing a crossword, your stepfather is home struggling.

You call to tell him that his wife is out of surgery, and he says great, but he’s having trouble breathing.

Part of you is worried, but part of you thinks he just wants some of the attention for himself. All of you just wants one moment that isn’t a crisis.

“Do you have your oxygen on?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Ok, put it on. Keith is headed your way soon.”

You and your brother grab a lunch then head to your mother’s room to see her post op. As she’s wheeled in, sound asleep, your brother’s phone rings. Your other brother is with your stepfather, trying to get his oxygen on him, administering an inhaler, making him something to eat.

You stay at the hospital. Your brother goes to the other crisis.

And it’s just Saturday afternoon.

Your husband will watch one grand girl play basketball. He’ll watch the other one play in a school hallway then throw up in the middle of the night. Then, he’ll watch their parents leave on vacation. He’ll go to procure gatorade, make toast, cuddle on the couch, and play games.

You’ll advocate for your mom over the next two days and slowly come to terms with the fact that your stepfather indeed cannot remember which meds to take, which inhaler to use when. He spends 23 hours a day in a recliner because that’s what he has the strength and capacity for, not simply because he’s a selfish asshole.

Although your fatigue is growing, so is your compassion. Your words get softer. You start putting the meds right in his hand. You refill his juice for the 17th time today, and you pick him up one more chocolate milkshake.

Although the experts point out the obvious — your parents need assisted living — and although you and your siblings are trying to make that happen, you also hear their desire to stay at home. Can’t they get chair lift for the stairs? Can’t they get in-home care?

So, you text in the group chat with your five siblings, each of whom are contributing in one way or another. You create a Google doc to keep track of everything that is happening and share it with the group. You assure your mom you won’t make decisions without their input. You’ll try to help them keep their cat. You know this is hard. You know it’s been hard.

Because she voted for the incoming president, you sit beside her and watch the inauguration. Because she’s frail you shut your mouth. You don’t react to the audacity, to the misrepresentations, to the falsehoods. Instead you watch her fall in and out of sleep while the crowd boos former presidents and then applauds the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. You don’t so much as cuss under your breath or facepalm. You just quietly take it in.

And as you’re driving home, you don’t listen to news. No. You listen to the sermon you missed on Sunday. You sing along with worship music. You’re so exhausted you miss your exit and have to turn around. You pick up dinner, meet your husband — who has picked up groceries — at home, unpack, put on pajamas, eat dinner, and try to stay awake for a movie.

You’re not surprised when you wake up to see that a newly appointed government official used what looks like a Nazi salute. You’re not surprised by the immediate executive orders that have been made. No. We’ve seen this coming.

And, it’s 2025. Literally anything is possible.

A girl could grow compassion for her step-father. Six siblings who have spent little time as a group for the past 40 years could come together to care for their parents. An arctic blast could close school for a couple of days and give a girl a chance to do some laundry, to binge-watch a period drama, to put together a puzzle, to catch her breath.

…with God, all things are possible. Matthew 19:26

What a Village!

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

About a month ago I wrote a post (linked here) about what a challenge 2024 has been — how personal and national events have left me feeling dumbfounded and scrambling to find glimmers of hope amidst the ordinary. Then, a little over a week ago, rather unintentionally, I invited you to tangibly produce evidence of that hope — and you did!

Facing the pronounced need of some of my students at the small Detroit charter school where I teach, I, with a few other colleagues, selected what ended up being twelve families and determined to furnish them with some kind of Christmas miracle. I knew our staff alone would not be able to supply what was needed, so I asked you to be a village for my students, and you circled up!

I posted my blog on a Friday, and by Sunday, Amazon packages from a high school classmate were sitting on my porch and a friend had sent me some funds to get the gift card fund started. And the packages kept coming! As I opened each box, I saw the faces of the villagers — a woman who was my camp counselor when I was a teen, a former co-worker, a few dear friends, the parents of a former student I taught in St. Louis, and a sister- and brother-in-law. I saw them coming together to encircle my students, and the image buoyed my spirits.

Any teacher will tell you that every day of teaching in December feels like a solid week. The students are tired of being in school, yet lessons still have to be taught and programs still need to run.

This past week was cram packed, and by the end, I had lost my sense of humor. It’s probably because I expect the same level of rigor on a Friday in December as I do on a Tuesday in October. After all, that rough draft won’t write itself and it’s due on Tuesday so that we have time for feedback and editing before the final drafts are dropped on Thursday.

I get myself so wound up that I forget — still, after decades in this game — that kids are kids are kids and the fact that the calendar says Friday just does something inside the brain. Make that a Friday in December and that “something” is x10.

Anyway, I made it through last week — preparing for and co-leading a two-hour professional development session, observing and coaching three teachers, and teaching two sections of senior English each day, and only lost my sense of humor on Friday.

When the final bell rang, I settled in to finish the grading for the week, to prepare for Monday’s class, and to straighten my room before leaving for the weekend. I’d been a little amped all day, almost resembling the butt-kicking, name-taking self of yesteryear, but as I moved through my tasks, my emotions started to right themselves, and then I noticed the total in my CashApp account. In addition to my blog post ask, I’d invited our teachers to pitch in to the fund for our kids, too. These particular villagers are boots on the ground day in and day out. They are weary, of course, but I watch them hug students, hold students accountable, feed students snacks that they paid for themselves, talk students down from their own high emotions, and even give them rides home, half of their own lunch, or even the literal coats off their own backs.

Still, I asked them to give more. And they did!

Several of our teachers adopted our homeless expectant mother, purchasing everything off her wish list — items such as a blanket, a towel, shoes, and underwear. Others sent the first few dollars of their paychecks straight to my CashApp so that our students will receive what they need.

Combining the gifts from the virtual village and the on-the-ground village along with some gift cards provided by our organization, twelve (yes, 12!) families would receive gift cards that they can use at their discretion to purchase food, gas, gifts, or necessities! Additionally our pantry is restocked with essentials (seen below) for students to use now or when needed.

My principal and I texted Saturday morning, finalizing plans for purchasing gift cards and other needed items for the fun week we have planned before the break, and then we both headed out shopping. When I arrived home on Saturday evening, I was very content with what we had accomplished, and then came Sunday.

Never underestimate the power of a Sunday morning.

My husband and I had arranged to meet friends for both breakfast and lunch — it’s the cram-packed holiday season after all — and at BOTH meals, members of my village pressed into my hands gift bags stuffed with MORE gift cards to distribute to my students.

I became overwhelmed.

The needs of my students on any given day can seem staggering, and in the bitter cold of December, they can seem impossible to meet — our students need coats and food and clothes and phone chargers and rides and deodorant and feminine supplies. They need patience and hugs and accountability and grace and correction and encouragement and attention.

One middle-aged teacher can feel all alone in the face of such need, but she is not alone.

She has a whole village — on the ground, of course, but also at a distance. She can see them showing up, and cheering, and bringing water bottles and blankets and snacks.

Just knowing they are there gives her what she needs to show up for another day. On a Monday. In December.

It may look like I’m surrounded, but I’m surrounded by you.” — Michael W. Smith, “Surrounded”

The Giving Season

Featured ~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

Since seven (yes, 7!) of our immediate family members have December birthdays, our “season” starts a little earlier than most. We have said for years that we start partying on Thanksgiving and finish on New Year’s Day. This year is no different. The birthday gifts are all but purchased, at least one package has been shipped, and our our living room is staged with “gifts in process” for both birthdays and Christmas so that we don’t miss anyone.

And each morning, I leave my comfortable home that is well-stocked with food, clothing, and this somewhat moderate collection of gifts, cross 28 miles of metro Detroit, pull into a disintegrating parking lot, enter the building, and prepare to meet the reality of the students that I serve.

Today’s reality came in the form of Kaden*, one of my seniors. I was in the gym when he entered from the bus, scowling.

“Good morning, Kaden. Everything ok?”

“I don’t know why we had school today. I almost froze to death.”

“Hey, come here a minute. You only have on a hoodie. Do you need a coat?”

“I mean, I have a coat,” his demeanor was shifting, “we just don’t have a washing machine right now, so I can’t wash it.”

“Ok, but we have coats. I can get you one this morning. Would you be good with that?”

“Yeah, that would be good. I would take a coat.”

Later in the day, I found him, we walked to our clothing closet, and he chose one of several new coats that remained from a large donation we received last year.

We have a fairly decent supply in that closet — coats, shirts, hats, and some miscellaneous toiletries and nonperishable food items — but it goes away quickly because our students are continuously in need of something.

Each day I am asked if I have something to eat — often by students I’ve never even had in class. I try to always say yes and walk students to my stash where they can select a granola bar, some trail mix, or a package of cheese crackers. Most teachers of teenagers probably have a similar routine.

I also get requests for deodorant, for socks, for cough drops, band aids, a toothbrush, or a safety pin — again pretty typical requests for teenagers, and fairly easy to accommodate. These small items solve in-the-moment problems for my students and allow them to get back to learning. I have a pretty healthy stash that many in my village help keep stocked, but when the holiday season comes around, the depth of my students’ need comes into sharp focus.

Before coming to this school, I’d never met families who simply “don’t do Christmas” but here I have met many students for whom December 25 is just another day because their families simply don’t have the financial capacity to purchase anything extra, let alone the privilege many of us have to line their living rooms with gifts, to create an elaborate feast, to deck the halls, and to gather with friends and family.

I have students who are housing insecure — one young woman whose mother died during Covid and who is currently carrying her possessions with her and bouncing between two places to “find a place to sleep”. I have students whose families bounce from apartment to apartment — one young man I spoke to yesterday said “we are definitely moving in a couple of weeks, but I don’t know where yet.” We have families who don’t have reliable transportation — who can’t join the basketball team because they don’t have a ride home after practice and have to take the school bus that leaves at 3:15. I have students who, in addition to coming to school, work to help their parents pay the bills. I have a senior whose very demeanor and aptitude scream “engineer” who is in the manager training program at McDonald’s. He often closes the store and does inventory or other related tasks that keep him up well into the night rendering him incapable of staying awake in school the next day. He’s working this hard, yet he is wearing the same worn clothes and shoes I’ve been seeing him wear since I’ve known him, which is most of high school.

Our students and their families are barely getting by. How in the world can they dream of doing anything for Christmas?

Yet these students keep showing up. They come to school, they log onto their school-issued chromebooks, they complete independent modules to earn their financial literacy credit, they come to my class, bend over their notebooks scrawling out the purpose and audience for their next essay, practice the nuance of Standard Academic English while teaching their middle-aged English teacher the current vernacular. They have big dreams — of being nurses and engineers and game designers and ultrasound technicians — and they need a whole village to rise up around them to give those dreams every chance at reality.

I’m part of their village, and I’m raising my voice to invite you to be part of their village with me.

School leaders have selected nine families who are in dire need of support this holiday season. Because it is already December 6, and we have to get items to our students before they leave for break on December 20, we won’t be filling traditional wish lists. Instead, we have set a goal of giving each of these 9 families one grocery gift card, one department store (Target or Kohl’s) gift card, and one gas gift card. Additionally, I have created an Amazon wish list of items that our students frequently request.

Joining this initiative may be a small part of your holiday giving, but it could make all the difference for a struggling family — it could help them put food in the fridge, buy some new jeans for a child, and put gas in their car so that they can visit a friend. It won’t change their whole world, but it might just change their opinion about the people in it.

All of us have many opportunities to give at Christmas. If caring for my students in Detroit is something you are interested in doing, I invite you to check out that Amazon wish list or to make a donation to our gift card initiative. To do that, you can send a check to Detroit Leadership Academy, 5845 Auburn Street, Detroit, MI 48228 or donate via CashApp.

so in Christ we …form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift … is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously. Romans 12: 5-8, selected portions

Embracing

Featured ~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

I’m not really a hugger.. I wouldn’t say I am anti-hug, I honestly just don’t have the impulse — I never think to myself, You know what I could use right now? A hug!

I wasn’t always this way, of course. I remember being quite affectionate as a child. I would run, yelling, “Dad!” and fling myself into my father’s arms when he arrived home from work or a trip or even if I was broken-hearted about something.

I would also, upon arriving at my grandparents’ house, spring from the car and sprint to their waiting arms to get big bear hugs. I was so sure they would be there to receive my affections, so sure they would reciprocate, so sure they would lavish their love upon me.

But life teaches us, doesn’t it, that not everyone loves like a grandparent. Not everyone consistently beams in your presence, overlooks your quirks, or forgives so effortlessly. So, over time, we lose that abandon — that ability to fling ourselves into the arms of another. We learn, instead, to guard, to protect, to hold back.

This is a useful skill for a high school teacher. You have to simultaneously let students know that you love them and that you don’t need them to love you in return. My love for my students is not dependent on their behavior, their mood-of-the-day, or whether or not they even like me.

I’ve grown into this, too, of course. In the early days of teaching, I really did want students to like me. I was fiercely committed to telling them the truth about life, but I was also quite sensitive to their reactions to me. I even, at times, wanted their approval. But over the years, my tough exterior has developed and I am quite impervious to derogatory comments, rude behavior, or the occasional “I can’t stand you, Mrs. Rathje.”

I mean, I’m not going to win them all.

This persona — the I’m fine; you can’t hurt me persona — is effective most of the time. Most days I motor through pretty well accomplishing my tasks, completing deliverables, and managing life without really thinking about my emotions.

Just writing that sentence made me stop for a minute. Is it true that Kristin Rathje, once voted ‘moodiest’ by her senior class because of her inability to self-regulate is now for the most part functioning from a pretty level emotional state? I think it really is. And that is likely true for you, too. Most of us manage most of life — the ups, the downs — from a pretty stable place. Of course we smile when something pleases us. Our eyebrows crinkle up when something doesn’t make sense,. We get annoyed in traffic, and we feel overwhelmed by our workload, but truly, we tend to manage all of that without even thinking about it.

Certainly there are larger emotions under the surface — ongoing hurts that we unpack with close friends or in therapy — but typically, in our daily lives we function in circles that are oblivious to our personal realities because we have developed strategies for keeping them to ourselves.

And for me, the I’m fine; you can’t hurt me persona has worked as a self-regulation strategy. And this persona is not one who would typically want a hug.

When I taught in St. Louis several years ago, some of my students would come into the building each day and hug one another — I didn’t love it. It seemed excessive. You just saw each other yesterday. What’s with the hug? And typically, if students approached me and asked for a hug, the answer was No. I’m not a hugger. They were not impacted by my resistance to hug them. They just found the next dozen people in the hallway and hugged them instead. I felt no shame.

And when I started teaching in Detroit, we were in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic. We were wearing masks, social distancing (remember that?) and having anxiety about being in the same room with twenty other people. Certainly no one was interested in hugging.

And for the past four years, the only students I have hugged have been graduates who have come back for a visit. Feeling sincere joy upon seeing them after a year or two or three, I hold out my arms, they walk to me, and we embrace. I look them in the eyes, ask, How are you? What are you doing now? and then I listen. Other than that — no hugs. Lots of fist bumps, a few carefully choreographed hand shakes, but no hugs. Thank you, I’m fine.

But guys. The last few months have been different. I might be converting to some type of huggable person — even when I am at school!

It started in the most unlikely of situations. We have a new policy this year in which students have to turn in their phones when they enter our building. Phones are returned at the end of the day. Because of this policy, two other staff members and I set up each morning in the gym to receive students. They walk through a metal detector, have their bag searched, and then report to our station. They hand us their phones, and we place them in pre-labeled envelopes. It’s all pretty systematic, just as we expected.

What we didn’t expect is the relationship capital this system is supporting. Don’t get me wrong — most students are not happy to hand over their phones, and many are finding ways to sneak them past us and to keep their phones with them throughout the day. But relationship capital is being built by our consistency in the same position in the gym every morning. We greet each student with Good morning and their name, we make eye contact, we encourage students to get a breakfast, and then the magic happens — students tell us what happened last night or on their way to school, they share what is annoying them at the moment, or they come up beside us to get their daily hug.

That’s right — I’m giving out morning hugs. They aren’t theatrical, but a small number of students come to each of us daily to get a little one-armed side hug before moving into their day. Also, I have one senior who stops at my door every day on his way into class to give me a hug before entering. It’s not cheesy; it’s not manipulative; it’s just a hug.

And I’m here for it.

Earlier this month, my mother-in-law passed away on a Tuesday morning after a months-long illness. I helped my husband pack his bag and sent him to be with his father and siblings, then determined I’m fine and went to school. I texted my principal to let her know I would likely need Friday off but that I was good for the day.

And I was good — I participated in a day-long training, I texted with family members who were managing the details of travel, and I interacted with students in the hallways. It wasn’t until the end of the day that reality hit me. My principal saw me, met my eyes, and opened her arms. I walked to her and felt the love in her embrace, and the emotions leaked past my persona and out of my eyes.

I was totally into that hug.

When Friday arrived, so did my adult children, one after the other. Each one of them and their partners greeted me with an embrace that said I love you. I know this hurts. We are here. It’s ok to have feelings.

And I trusted that; I leaned in.

When I arrived at the funeral home, the family had just entered the room to see my mother-in-law for the first time since her passing. I walked in to see my husband stepping up to the casket. I joined him, reached for his hand, and silently told my mother-in-law goodbye. From there, I moved to my father-in-law, hugging him cheek to cheek, whispering, I’m so sorry. I then embraced each of my sisters-in-law and my brothers-in-law.

We each reached for each other, saying with words or without, I love you. I’m sorry. I am so glad you are here.

The hugs kept coming all weekend long — Hello. I’m sorry. So good of you to come. Thank you for being here. I love you. Goodbye.

I treasured each and every one of those hugs. I leaned in. I held on. I breathed deeply. I let go slowly.

I think I’m changing, letting down my guard, beginning to trust the people in my life, and it’s good.

Because apparently underneath my tough exterior is a little girl who could still sometimes really use a hug.

“…whatever is pure, whatever is lovely…think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

More than Voting

Featured ~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a politically charged few weeks — an assassination attempt on a former president followed by the Republican National Convention followed by the withdrawal of the current president from the presidential race followed by the nomination for president of the first women of color ever followed by the Democratic National Convention.

If you missed any of that, you certainly have not been on the Internet.

The country is fully engaged (at least virtually) in the conversation around who will be our next president. I’ve seen mentions on my social media streams supporting Trump, others supporting Harris, others bashing Trump, others bashing Harris. This seems to be the way we do politics in America now. It can leave a girl feeling a little icky, if I’m going to be honest.

I sat down the last two mornings with my journal to do some processing around where I am in this conversation and it turned into a recounting of where I started as a voter, where I am now, and why. When I finished with my journal, I intended to write a post called “Evolution of a Voter”, but before I did, I did a quick search of previous posts to see if I had ever written about voting, and boy was I shocked! Almost everything I had written in my journal yesterday and today I’d already written before the election in 2020, and I’d even called it “Evolution of a Voter”!

I read it through and thought, “wait, has my view expanded at all since that time? Has anything shifted further?”

And I think the main thing that has become more a part of my everyday life since 2020 is a deeper commitment to doing something.

For a long time, I was a citizen who voted. And, full-disclosure, I voted almost exclusively pro-life. Other than that, I carried on with my life not really making the connection between what I do with my time and my money and how those choices impacted those in my community. Politics seemed very removed from my daily reality. I voted in every regular election and typically even primaries, but I was not making intentional moves that aligned with my vote, other than to once a year attend a pro-life march in my community.

It was probably in my graduate studies from 2002-2004 when I began to question some of the choices I was making. I started to dig into my motives and to begin to understand the impact of my actions. For example, our decision to place our children in parochial schools was intended to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4), but an unintended consequence was that they were isolated from children from different backgrounds — not only religious, but socioeconomic, racial, and cultural. We wanted our children to be raised in the Christian faith, but we also wanted them to have a diverse group of friends. We wanted to have a diverse group of friends. Our choice to work for the church and send our children to a Christian school was keeping us in a silo, oblivious to the complexity around us.

Our move to St. Louis in 2004, where our children attended public schools — both in an affluent suburb and in the city of St. Louis itself — and also two parochial schools, and where I taught in the St. Louis Public Schools and then a racially diverse suburban Lutheran high school, exposed us all to more complexity — a broader view of the culture within which we lived. We regularly interacted with Christians, Jews, and people of other faiths or no faith tradition at all. We had friends, classmates, and colleagues who were white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian. We encountered people who were in the top 1% financially and those who struggled to feed themselves from day to day. Our church was attended mostly by white people who drove in from neighboring suburbs to the mostly Black neighborhood in which both our home and the church were situated.

Our ten years in St. Louis were transformative. If we had once been siloed, we no longer were. We regularly witnessed financial and racial disparity and the ways in which those disparities were tied to education, health care, crime, and the general quality of life.

That exposure and my current role teaching in Detroit and residing in Ypsilanti have broadened my view of the sanctity of life. If all life is holy, why are some lives devalued and others elevated? And why are those valuations tied to income, race, education, and gender? I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way I can continue to vote “PRO-life” is to get behind candidates that support ALL life.

Now, I hear some of you shouting at me, “What about the lives of the unborn? They can’t speak for themselves! We must speak for them!”

Well…

First, we must speak up for ALL of those whose voices cannot currently be heard — the orphan, the widow, the sojourner (Deuteronomy 14:29) — but also the immigrant, the child in foster care, the homeless, and the felons who are no longer able to vote.

But also, outlawing abortion doesn’t necessarily protect the unborn, in fact, since the Dobbs Decision which overturned Roe v. Wade, abortions in this country have actually increased (source). I suspect a better way to decrease the number of women who obtain abortions, 75% of whom are low income (source) is to do a better job of providing sex education, affordable (or free) mental health care, affordable (or free) child care, and other resources such as paid maternity leave.

If the goal is demonstrating that every life has value, perhaps simply voting pro-life isn’t the best strategy.

Maybe we need to go beyond voting to taking action. Some donate to a local food bank, to women’s shelters, or to pregnancy clinics, and that’s a great start! I wonder what is next. Are any of us committed enough to valuing the lives of others that we might be willing to advocate for policy change, to participate in a demonstration, or to write a member of congress? Even more, are we willing to engage with communities of need, to come alongside those who can’t find affordable housing, who struggle to put food on the table, or who can’t go to work because they can’t afford child care?

I’m wondering if we are willing to go beyond disparaging remarks on social media to actually doing something with our money, our time, and our lives.

I’m just wondering. I’m not doing a great job at the moment. I’m not really going out of my way.

I vote, of course, and we’re making contributions to support our preferred candidates and their initiatives, but I think its time to look for ways to increase my political engagement, my activism, my involvement in the community that might demonstrate my belief that ALL life is valuable.

It’s a little scary. Most things worth doing are.

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
    for the rights of all who are destitute. Proverbs 31:8

Inequitable Education

Featured ~ Kristin ~ 3 Comments

Across the country, students are returning to school. My social media feeds are beginning to fill with first day pics of kids (including my own granddaughters) in new clothes and bright smiles, ready to launch into another year.

And teachers, like me, are putting last touches on their classrooms — arranging desks, putting up posters, checking supplies– and preparing to share the school year with their students.

And what will that experience look like? It varies widely. All American schools are not created equal.

Some students are born into families who have the means to spend any dollar amount on their children’s education. These students might find themself on brick and ivy campuses wearing plaid uniforms with jackets. They might spend their mornings with highly qualified teachers in experiential labs mixing chemicals or gathering eggs from the campus micro-farm. They might dine on one of many selections prepared by the campus chef for lunch, then work in an outdoor creative writing space before moving to the art studio for some time throwing pots. After the final bell, they can choose to dabble in fencing, interpretive dance, Japanese club, or any of dozens of other extracurricular choices. They can certainly count on an air conditioned ride home at the end of the day.

Many students have parents who send their children to public schools in districts with a strong tax base — the kind of areas that realtors refer to while driving their clients around looking at homes, saying “Oh, the schools here are excellent!” In these schools, students stream in by car or bus, walk through clean, well-lit and spacious hallways, and choose from a variety of electives taught by certified teachers — multicultural literature, environmental science, personal fitness, or Chinese. Further, they can enroll in cooperative programs such as cosmetology, auto mechanics, or computer-aided design, and choose from a variety of lunch options — pizza, salad bar, sandwich station, or hot entree. After school, they might participate in any number of pursuits — chess club, soccer, swimming, musical theater, or the model UN, and then catch a bus or ride home with their parents or friends.

This is America, after all, where the children are our future, where we provide the best education possible, where the sky is the limit — unless you are poor, or live in a less than desirable area.

In that case, you might experience school differently. You might wait for a bus that arrives late or not at all. You might then walk a mile or so to get to school or, more likely, walk the few blocks back home and simply crawl back into bed. If you do arrive at school, you will probably walk through a metal detector, have your bags examined, and then wait in a common area. In that space you will have access to a free breakfast, if you call a cold bagel and a packet of cream cheese breakfast. When the bell rings, you will be released into the building to find teachers of varying skill and experience, some trained and certified, some not, who have been assigned to teach the classes required for you to earn a high school diploma — English Language Arts, physical education, financial literacy, and United States History. Your schedule has been pre-built for you, because there isn’t the funding or staffing for enough electives to provide a choice. You get what you get, and you have learned to not throw a fit. You assume this is just the way it is, because you have no idea what students are experiencing just a few miles down the road — it couldn’t be possible that just one zip code over you could be choosing African American literature instead of the standard ELA III that everyone at your school takes. Surely that kid you sometimes run into at the mall doesn’t have a different lunch than the lukewarm burger and fries you were just served in your gym/lunch room.

I mean, how would you feel if you knew that not every school has a parking lot with a huge crater in the middle that has flooded into a lake for the past four school years? What conclusions would you draw if you knew that not every school has inoperable windows in every classroom or that some schools have air conditioning? How would you process the reality that for many students in America, having a fully-staffed building is just…normal?

I know how I feel about it. I feel angry.

Every time I pull into the parking lot, I have to dissociate just a bit so that I don’t go off on a rant about the crumbling asphalt beneath my feet. Each morning, I shake my head when I see the tax-payer provided “meal” such as a Fruity Pebbles bar and a child-sized juice box. Daily, I ignore the window in my classroom with “do not open” written on a piece of notebook paper that’s affixed to it with Scotch tape. I have to look past all these realities because I have to convey to my students that they are valuable, worthy, and full of potential even when their physical space is telling them differently.

I don’t fault my administration or our school network. They are working their asses off to provide instruction that is trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and well-prepared inside of a system that is, at its heart, inequitable.They are doing everything they can to find teachers, but that is difficult when schools like mine are stigmatized as unsafe, failing, or insufficient because they exist inside of contexts that have been historically underfunded, underserved, under-resourced, understaffed, and undervalued.

How can this be in a country that pays lip-service to the credo that “all men are created equal”? How can teenagers growing up in neighboring counties have such vastly different experiences? How do we let this continue? How can we hope for a better future for our children if we allow these inequities to persist?

The way things stand, wealth begets wealth and poverty begets poverty. Those students with the best resources will matriculate to the best post-secondary programs followed by the best job opportunities. Students with a substandard experience will go on to less than stellar programs and be afforded less impressive opportunities.

Nothing will change until something changes.

I know, I know, you’ve heard all this from me before.

And, if you continue to spend time with me or my blog, you’ll hear it again.

I will continue drawing attention to these inequities until those who have the power and means to do something about it — do something.

Many of you partner with me by providing snacks and needed supplies for my students. Please, continue to do that — you are making a tangible difference in the lives of the small group of students that I interact with each day.

Also, please, please, look around you. Where do you see similar inequities in your community? How can your voice, your vote, your labor, your dollars make a broader impact?

It is very easy to look past inequity, but we must begin to turn our eyes directly at it. We must see how devastating it is to the people it impacts, and those of us who are able must act. Period.

I don’t see an easy solution to the systemic inequities in our country, but I do know there will be no solution until we are willing to admit that we could do much better. We can, and we must.

do justice, love mercy, walk humbly (Micah 6:8)

Attending

Featured ~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

At my small charter school in Detroit, attendance is always an issue. I very rarely have 100% of my students present in class, and when I say very rarely, I mean that in the last four years in this position, I have probably had perfect attendance in any one period fewer than five times.

As a school, we are doing well when we have more than 80% of the students in the building.

There are reasons for this, of course.

We have students with housing insecurity — they may not be in school because they are in the middle of a move, because they are “in between homes”, or because they have some other housing related issue such as the power or the water has been cut off. I know students who have moved every year (or multiple times per year) for much of their lives.

We have students with transportation issues — they might not have a ride to school because they live outside of our school’s bus route and maybe their family doesn’t have a vehicle at all, or the one vehicle they have broke down and they don’t have the money to get it repaired, or maybe the one vehicle that they have was needed to get someone to work or to an important medical appointment, or maybe they just didn’t have money for gas.

We have students who have to carry adult weight within the household — they might not be in school because their parents had to be at work and there was no one to watch a younger sibling, or they had to care for an ailing parent, or they had to drive a parent or sibling to an appointment, or they had to appear in court. I have one seventeen year old student who lives in a house alone — I’m not sure why, because he hasn’t been in school enough for me to build that kind of relationship.

Myriad reasons keep my students away from school, so it is remarkable that this past week, after finals were finished and students really did NOT have to come to school, many still did.

I arrived at school on Thursday morning, went for my daily mile-long walk around the building with a coworker, then took my station at the door of the gym. I stand in this position every morning, “holding” students in the gym from the time they enter the building until the designated release time after teachers have had time to arrive, prepare, and position themselves at their classroom doors to receive their students.

The gym was far from full, but students trickled in. Some found basketballs and started shooting like they do every day. Others sat or stood on the periphery of the gym, watching the activity on the court, or chatting, or scrolling on their phones. By the time I released them, I would have guessed we had about thirty of our two hundred or so underclassmen. (The seniors finished two weeks ago.)

But, Thursday was field day — a day where students had been promised burgers and dogs on the grill, popcorn, nachos, cotton candy, and, more importantly, a water fight — so the trickle continued, even after the morning bell signaling the start of class.

And when I say “class”, you need to broaden your definition a bit. Since our finals are finished, and we are introducing no new curriculum, the day is spent quite a bit differently than a normal day. The teacher across the hall, a conscientious and well-prepared science educator, who normally is engaging her students in goal-related content, had a video game projecting on her classroom screen, and a huddle of students sitting close together around the ones who held controllers.

A few students sat at the end of the hall at the table where the vice principal sits throughout the day. They weren’t in trouble, they were chatting, ready to receive and follow through on instructions such as, “Please help the custodian take that trash to the bin,” or “Would you help take down that bulletin board?”

Two of my second period students entered my room and saw that I was playing the video of the song from High School Musical, “What Time Is It?” where the final school bell rings on the last day of school and the students throw their papers in the air and start dancing, and one of them asked, “Can’t we switch this to ‘The Cupid Shuffle’?” and so began a whole period of watching videos and dancing along.

Later in the day, I had one student show up to class, and she and I sat quietly at a table working on sewing projects for forty minutes. I had brought my sewing machine to school to show students how it works, and she had determined to make a headband.

After a long day of such playful pursuits, the whole building emptied into the parking lot and the field behind the school. Music was pumping through a speaker as students lined up to grab snacks and then check out the activities. Some opted for games such as Uno under a tent, others raced through a blow up obstacle course. One teacher and one student spent a large chunk of time flinging a frisbee back and forth. Everyone ate, and many broke into momentary dance when “their song” came on.

The highlight for everyone, was, of course, the water fight. A staff member enlisted students to fill water balloons from a hose at the back of the school. Students and teachers wrapped up their hair, slipped out of sneakers, and secured their valuables. They knew what was coming — first water balloons, but when those were exhausted, people turned to the hose, grabbing any kind of container that would hold water, and then lugging buckets, Rubbermaid totes, and such in pursuit of their targets. Few were left un-doused. Shrieks and laughter and “you betta not”‘s filled the air.

And then the clean up, the arrival of the busses, and a couple attempts at end of the year scuffles over year-long beefs. The staff, hot, damp, and exhausted, found another gear to contain the potential for violence, to guide students onto busses, and to ensure that everyone had a way home.

And still, we had one more day of school. Surely after all of that, certainly after the big hurrah, students would not come to school on Friday. It was only a half-day after all, and — again — no intention to touch curriculum, but yet, they came. A very weak stream of students it was, but they came.

I again took my post in the gym, and saw a few bouncing basketballs, some grabbing the packaged breakfast that is provided each day, and a couple wandering over to me to tell me who they were mad at, what they were hoping to do today, and what they were worried about in the coming weeks — a cross country move, a conflict with a friend, and the like.

I released a couple dozen students into the school — that was it, just a couple dozen. They hung out in classrooms, shot baskets in the gym, and then, near the end of the day, we had an impromptu dance party in the hallway.

I try to pay attention on these days — to see who is here? why did they choose to come? what are they looking for? what do we have for them.

And what I see — every single time — is caring adults.

I see one of our custodians sitting next to a junior. He looks very serious when he says, “I am about to be a senior; I need to start acting my age.” The realization of his reality is sobering up this goof-ball.

I see a school leader ask a group of students to tear down a hallway full of bulletin boards. They eagerly comply — first demolishing a hallway and then cleaning it up and disposing of all the trash. A little later, I see the leader quietly slipping each of the students a five dollar bill to thank them for their efforts.

I see teachers hugging students. I see the whole staff walk the students to the door, out of the building, and onto the busses. I see the staff waving goodbye as the busses pull away, and I see high school students from inside the busses — not rolling their eyes, not looking away, not sneering, but smiling and waving back.

All year long we focus on instructional standards, and students being in class, completing their exit tickets, and turning in their assignments, but on these last few days, we loosen our hold on the shoulds and we lean into the opportunity to love on a small group of students who would rather be in our building than at home, who are soaking up a little bit more time with friends, leaning into a little more guidance from adults that they trust, and savoring the last few moments of what — stability? safety? belongingness? connectedness? — before two and a half months away from us.

We can’t be sure what the summer holds for each of our students, but as we smile and wave goodbye, we lift silent prayers for their safety, we ask that they would be provided for, we place them in the hands of One who knows every bit of their reality and who has loved them much longer than we have.

May He bless them and keep them — and us — until we meet again.

For a pair of shoes

~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

I’d been watching the girls’ basketball team all season — from the first game of their first season ever, where very few showed any evidence of having played the game before, where one girl received a “traveling” call for carrying the ball football-style while running down the court, where our players froze in place as the other team stole the ball, where the referees pulled our girls aside to teach them the rules in the middle of the game. From that game forward, I had been encouraging the girls, both on the court and in the hallways, letting them know I was seeing their progress. They were not only learning the game –the skills, the rules, and the strategies — they were also building confidence, stamina, and resiliency.

Many on the team were girls I had had the previous year in my reading intervention class. They had been freshmen– freshmen who had spent most of middle school on Covid lock-down, freshmen who had missed some social development experiences, freshmen who had very little capacity to manage challenge, difficulty, or conflict. So when I saw them during that first game, barely hitting double digits on the score board, I wondered if they would make it the whole season. Could they take the losses they would certainly face? Could they [and their coach] see this for what it was — a building year. Could these young women show up every day, practice the basic skills of basketball, and arrive at the end of the season better for it?

Only time would tell.

But here I stood at the end of the season, watching this same group of girls prepare for one of the last games. As the other team was rolling into the building, our girls were practicing an inbounding strategy while the coach called cues from the sideline. The girl with the ball slapped it loudly, and the four on the floor quickly shifted to their new positions to receive the thrown in ball. I stood on the sidelines, recording the scene on my phone, grinning with pride.

I was there to sell concessions, so I was in a little room at the corner of the gym with one eye on the game and one eye on my concession window, when I noticed that one of the players, the center, was shuffle-jogging down the court. I had noticed that she wasn’t a very fast runner earlier in the season, but I had assumed it was as fast as she could move given that she was about 5’10” and probably close to 200 pounds or that she simply didn’t have the stamina to run up and down the court for an entire game. Being the first season, the team only had about ten team members total, and typically only six or seven of them were eligible to play on any given day. Whoever showed up typically played all four quarters — that’s a lot of running for anyone, even those who are are in top physical shape.

But for some reason on this day when I noticed her shuffle jogging, my eyes moved toward the floor and I noticed that her shoes appeared to be untied. When I looked a little closer, it appeared that they were not actually untied, but in a permanently knotted state of floppiness. She could neither tie nor untie them., so the laces flopped as she ran, and the shoes, a pair of high tops that appeared to have seen some days on and off the court, seemed to be of little support in her efforts to improve her pace.

Is this the pair of shoes she’s been wearing all season? Why didn’t I notice this before?

Now look, every day at my school I see need. I see students who need food, who need new clothing, who need a haircut, personal hygiene supplies, pens, pencils, or even a water bottle, but this pair of shoes got to me.

This girl, who against all odds shows up for school every day, goes to basketball practice every day, has a C average, and dares to put herself in front of an audience of classmates, teachers, and parents, has been doing so inside sneaker head culture where the shoes on your feet can be linked to your status, your belongingness, or your ridicule. (It would take another whole post to examine the complexity of sneaker head culture within the context of high poverty neighborhoods, so let me just say that yes, a student may have brand new Jordans and still experience housing insecurity or food insecurity. It is what it is.)

This girl, despite her classmates’ comments and/or ridicule, has enough grit and determination to continue to show up on the court in these beat up kicks for the entirety of the season. That should tell you something about her.

So, I’m standing, watching the game from the concession stand, a game in which an adult in the stands got in an insult contest with one of our sophomores that escalated into a fist fight that DID NOT disrupt the game play — nope, our girls kept right on playing as security officers wrangled a punching mass of bodies out of the gym–a game in which they were down by double digits, came back to tie and go into overtime, a game where they lost by two points at the buzzer, and I’m taking in the wonder of these young ladies who could barely bounce a ball at the beginning of the season, who were making eye contact and passing, who were boxing out under the boards, and I’m understanding the impact of it all on their development — their ability to overcome difficulty, their ability to stay the course, their ability to trust themselves in difficult times.

I was overwhelmed.

A couple weeks later, after the season had ended and track season was getting started, the same group of girls was walking down the hallway, headed to practice.

“Ya’all on the track team?” I asked.

“Yes, of course!” they replied.

“Excellent!” I said.

“Are you going to come to our meets?”

“Definitely!”

And during this quick exchange, I noticed that all of the girls had on the same shoes they had worn to run up and down the basketball court all season — including that beat up pair of high tops.

And something inside me snapped.

A few minutes later I saw the track coach, “Hey,” I said discreetly, ‘I notice that K’s shoes are not really appropriate for track. I’d be happy to anonymously fund a new pair for her. Is there a way to make that happen?”

“I’ll figure out a way,” she said.

A few days later, I mentioned the situation to our athletic director. “I don’t know how many students you have that could use running shoes or spikes for track, but if I gathered a few hundred dollars, could you put it to use?”

“I would love that,” she replied. “Let me take a little inventory and see how many pair of shoes we need.”

So here I am telling this story, friends, because this is what I know how to do. I know how to tell you that having athletics is transformational for all kids — but for my students, who have experienced poverty and trauma beyond what I can imagine, who have every reason to give up hope for a brighter future for themselves, sports can offer an opportunity to practice navigating low stakes wins and losses and build the muscle they need to weather bigger wins and losses outside of sports. For my students, the power of athletics is essential.

My school is doing what it can to build programs. Two years ago, the only sports we offered were boys’ basketball, football, and cheerleading. Last year we added track. This year we added girls’ volleyball and basketball. In the fall, we hope to have a cross country team.

Teachers show up to coach, to run a clock, and to sell concessions because we see the impact of these programs on the educational engagement and morale of our students. If they aren’t passing classes, they don’t get to play, so they get more invested in their classes. When they are invested in their classes, they learn more, their grades improve, and they have more opportunity for their future.

It’s not hard to connect the dots between athletic programs and successful adulthood. We’ve known this for decades. All students should have access to programs that lead to a hopeful future, and they should have everything they need to participate in such programs.

So I’m asking, friends. I’m asking you for help — again. If you love sports, if you love kids, if you have an insufferable belief in transformation, please consider joining me in building an Athletic Shoes Fund for my students. Funds will be used to provide athletic shoes for students like K who cannot otherwise purchase their own.

Email me at krathje66@gmail.com for details on how to give or simply send a check with “DLA Athletic Shoes Fund” in the memo line to Detroit Leadership Academy 5845 Auburn Street, Detroit, MI 48228.

And if this isn’t your project to give to, I hope you’ll keep cheering us on as I keep on sharing our stories.