If Not Now

I started four different posts tonight, trying to find the right angle on the thoughts that have run through my mind the last few days, the last few weeks, perhaps even all summer.  But I realized as I wrote each post and promptly deleted that my mind was too tired to eloquently process what it is that is running through it.  So rather than wrap it in a story,  rather than wrap it up in whatever example I could conjure, I figured just to write it out instead.

We may think that our voices are nothing special.  That what we do only matters on a small scale.  That we can never be as great as (insert amazing thinker here).  That we have no business speaking, that we have no business speaking up.  That we have no business proclaiming anything as truly ours.  That our ideas have little worth and that surely someone else is much more deserving.  That surely somebody else must be better than us.

And we can believe it.  We can live it.  We can make ourselves feel like the biggest imposters, sure that someone will call us out.  But for what?  Because at the end of the day a change will only come if we all speak up.  If we see our worth.  If we see the worth of the truths that our students share with us and then share it louder for them.  When we say that we need a change, then we need to make that change.  When we see the injustice of our school systems.  When we see the disengagement.  When we see the wrong.  Then we must speak up.

So while I am not sure how I got to be someone others sometimes listened to, I do know this; my voice matters, but just as much as yours.  So as someone once said, “If not now, then when?  If not you, then who?”

When was the last time you spoke up for change?
Filed under: being a teacher