10 Affirmations for Educators in 2022

by Sharon Ravitch and Tyler Jennings

 Dr. Ravitch is a SAGE author and regular Methodspace contributor.

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“Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. In the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul." — Max Ehrmann

In this elongating state of flux, educators at all levels continue to navigate the complex and ever-changing landscape of teaching and learning in a pandemic. The lines between healthy and unhealthy have blurred, as have other now-irrelevant binaries like safe and unsafe, productive and unproductive, distance and connection. These are embodied concerns in a time of radical flux—global displacement, racial unrest and social divisiveness, food desserts and budget cuts, juggling work-life responsibilities, personal, public, and mental health. As leaders do and give so much, affirmational inquiry is a lifeline. 

Educational institutions, with all of their limitations and constraints, are locations of immense possibility. Possibility lies precisely in working towards freedom and equality as an opportunity and an obligation. As we contemplate this reality and the directions in which it points us, we share the words of bell hooks, rest her soul, 

[Education] is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom. (1994, p. 207). 

Education as the practice of freedom in a discriminatory, capitalist, and transactional society and schooling milieu is indeed a practice. The work of demanding – from ourselves, our students, colleagues, and communities – “an openness of mind and heart” helps us face the troubling realities of our society as we strive to transcend forces that constrain and divide us. While the work of educational transformation requires considerable focus, courage, and energy, our freedom and humanity is at stake. 

Affirmational inquiry directs efforts for counter-hegemonic wellness and care for each person and in diffusion effect. Setting these kinds of intentions centers leader purpose, care, and wellness, particularly in trying and exhausting times such as these. In this spirit, we offer education leaders affirmations on your way into 2022. We do so with deep appreciation for you––as a leader and a child of the universe.

1.     Identifying, naming, and affirming my emotional and psychological states is vital to my wellbeing. Feeling emotionally, psychologically, and mentally exhausted as I process the constant flux and pain in the world and in my world means I must take good care of myself to be my most present, engaged, and compassionate as a leader. Naming my own struggles is an opening to self-care and healing for me and those around me.  

2.     Teaching in twin pandemics is not a problem I alone can solve. I can only expect to stay engaged in continuous processes of healing, flattening hierarchies, listening for understanding, creating relational accountability, centering marginalized voices in decision-making, and, daily, reinstating my institution as a counter-example to oppression. These are processes, not solutions. 

3.     I am the water not the rock. I adopt a flexible and responsive leadership stance and offer wayfinding for faculty, staff, students, families, and myself. I don't have to "stick with the plan" to help my community feel oriented and grounded. Designing processes and supports to manage the unpredictable is a vital and collaborative process. Relinquishing plans for this year if they no longer feel essential within the evolving contexts of the twin pandemics does not mean I am disorganized or non-visionary. Relinquishing my agenda allows meaningful priorities to emerge. Importantly, I need not, and should not, keep this process of letting go inside and hidden from my community. I hold information within which I cannot be shared widely; over time, the expectation to be a human vault has toxic effects on me. I will share my thought process and invite community members to share with me. 

4.     I humanize my leadership and community. Compassion is my birthright as a child of the universe. I decolonize my logics and mindsets as a process of liberating myself and those I serve. “I rebuke the capitalistic conditioning that drives self-shaming, whenever I prioritize much-needed rest over grind culture and productivity” (Baker, 2020). I speak to myself with compassion and loving kindness, knowing I am doing the best I can. Compassion for everyone ripples out from my own self-compassion. If I’m worried that sharing leadership responsibilities will burden faculty and staff because I know they’re already stretched too thin, this is an example of my humanity, compassion, and thoughtfulness. But it may not be accurate in every case. I question the narrative that leadership development always requires a great deal of time and explore forms for faculty and staff that are nimble and compact. Deploying individualistic, solutions-focused leadership reinforces recognizable traits of White supremacy and male hegemony. Accountability can sometimes take seconds; sometimes it will cause me to rethink everything and start over. Either way, it is a part of my process that should never be skipped. 

5.     I speak the hidden curriculum out loud. As a representative of a system that imposes racialized and identity-based stress on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) students and communities, I take an active stand against inequitable school cultures and policies and I speak the hidden curriculum. This means I examine not just the formal or espoused curriculum, but also the structural and organizational influences on what is learned and taught. I help those around me to understand that this hidden aspect of schooling reflects the inequitable realities of the U.S. I help bridge understanding for people to see that these biases, and the privilege framework from which they emerge, shape curricula and schooling in ways that constrain possibilities for students and teachers.

6.     I enact an emergent design approach. Now more than ever, the curriculum, culture, and structure of schooling itself is the most meaningful content for cultivating equity and dismantling inequitable school cultures and processes. When I experience anxiety as I "take my eyes off of" set academic content learning, this affirms my deep care for students. I can keep the content objectives and support teachers in adjusting their pedagogy to allow student concerns and inquiries to flood them with relevance, meaning, and an urgency for justice. This is precisely what I’ve always needed to do; the twin pandemics have forced attention towards the system in which I work, illuminating foundational bias. This moment is a portal to remake the project of schooling with social and racial justice at the center by foregrounding students’ experiences, stories, critiques, and ideas. This is most effective as an emergent curriculum whereby students' concerns and inquiries drive learning. 

7.     Affirmational Inquiry grounds my leadership praxis. I enact and model a reflexive learning stance on power, identities, mindsets, practices, and the contexts that shape them. I engage in intentional, societally contextualized self-reflection that questions what I know and how I know it. This opens up possibilities for authentic growth. I inquire into my leadership with constructive criticality, which helps me model the kind of affirmation needed in schooling. Capitalist conditioning may tell me that self-affirmation is a luxury or indulgence, but in fact, it must be the starting place for all of my work. I practice radical self-care rather than the superficial self-care churned out for profit. My commitment to affirmational inquiry invites members of my community to enact their own radical self-care and radical compassion which are tools with transformative potential.

8.     I support growth opportunities and consider opportunity costs. Faculty and staff are expressing a sense of overwhelm as many schools are under-staffed and the logistics of the school day bring additional stress due to necessary health protocols. One understandable response is to cancel workshops and meetings. While faculty and staff may be grateful for the time, it may not always address what they need, and it could contribute to isolation. Educators need new types of gathering spaces shaped by principles of radical compassion, healing-centered engagement, brave space and critical andragogy, inquiry stance, and racial literacy. I allow myself to design spaces that ultimately I will not own–I design and release them.

9.     I embrace stillness as a site of change. I resist the consumer-driven model of education in which change is associated with velocity, and in which I am expected–and expect myself–to be pace-setter. This expectation suggests that I must propel change at a velocity just shy of particular breaking points, exist in a constant state of vigilance about those breaking points, and always keep one eye on that pace, adjusting responsively, sometimes apologetically, throughout the school year. This aspect of leadership is typically held in solitude rather than distributed across members of the community, which is exhausting for me. I allow myself, and my community, to embrace stillness as a site of change. Our conditioning tells us that stillness is not productive, that it is irresponsible. But when enacted with intentionality as a community and paired with strategic reflection, acute (self)awareness, and criticality, stillness can be transformational. 

10.  I cultivate a space between stimulus and response. As social psychologist Viktor Frankl offers, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom” (Frankl, 1946). Being calm, curious, and compassionate, including in moments of intense stress, is a daily commitment. I can create this space to choose my response to all incoming stimuli. Creating this space awakens my understanding that I control my emotions rather than them controlling me. I cultivate this internal space of calm as a portable inner-resource I can count on in moments when calm feels inaccessible. In this space, I notice, consider, and challenge my assumptions, socialized knowledge, cognitive distortions, and implicit biases—to see how these shape my values, expectations, and leadership approach. 

As New Year 2022 arrives, with the world in such profound pain and disarray, our wish for you is that you are gentle with yourself, that you keep peace in your soul as you work to foment educational humanization and equitable school change. Take care of yourself, you are a child of the universe just like those you work with and serve.

References 

Baker, A. (2020). An Activist-Therapist's 15 Affirmations for Hope Amidst COVID-19. Medium.

 Frankl, V. E. (1946). Ein psycholog erlebt das konzentrationslager. Verlag für Jugend und Volk.

 hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Routledge.