Modeling what I ask of students
The high school students in my American Literature class spend the year reading the works of Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry and many others, yet my favorite lesson comes in the spring. Each year I frame the reading of President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural speech and Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” around the idea of using voice and united action to effect change.
To culminate the reading of these two powerful pieces, I have students select their own perceived injustice and use King’s four steps of a nonviolent protest — the “collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action” — to develop their own solution for their chosen injustice. However, I had no idea in August, while putting together my master calendar for the year, that this lesson would arrive in the middle of a realworld example for my students: the current teacher walkout.
Modeling is a teaching strategy I use heavily in my classroom. Upon reflection, my desire to model expectations for them has led me to this moment where, as one of my students put it, I have been given an opportunity to not just talk about it or teach about it, but to be about it. This movement at the Capitol has been and continues to be just that— a chance to model for my students the very thing that I asked them to learn through my lesson: that voices banded together can inspire hope and can effect change.
To say that standing amid a sea of educators in front of the Capitol on April 2 was inspiring is an understatement. To express how much this movement has defined me as an educator and will impact the philosophy I have about teaching from this day forward is not enough. Yet one of the most inspiring things has been the daily increase of youth to get involved. On day one, the smattering of students sprinkled in among the adults was relatively small, but each day their number grows. I’ve even been lucky enough to take a few of my students to the Capitol this week, including my son who will graduate and go to college next year.
Our students deserve better. They deserve better teachers, better supplies, better buildings, and a chance at a better future. The sooner our lawmakers can view educational funding not through the lens of a bill they have to pay, but as an investment in future Oklahomans, the easier I think it will be for them to do what’s right.
I will continue to be at the Capitol until this is solved or until my body gives out because my students are worth it. And seeing students of all ages up there with us has been the lifeblood that keeps me going; I know that my fellow educators feel the same way. It’s one thing for us to say that this fight is about them, but it’s another thing for them to see it in themselves.
Hanna teaches at MacArthur High School in Lawton.