Overview:
This Thanksgiving, teachers are navigating family gatherings while confronting attacks on public education, funding cuts, and misinformation.
This year in education has been anything but peaceful. I needed this one-week break for Thanksgiving.
In August, billions in school funding were abruptly withheld just as the school year began. On top of that, ICE has targeted students and parents on campus, with teachers stepping in to physically protect them and their families. Special education funding has been cut, while many districts across the country face multimillion-dollar deficits due to declining enrollment and voucher programs, and new legislation increasingly pits parents against schools. Meanwhile, the Department of Education, the very agency tasked with ensuring every child receives a free and appropriate education, is being systematically dismantled before our eyes.
And it’s just eleven months into this year and every educator I know is exhausted.
With all of these events happening, I’ve heard people excited to be “off” for Thanksgiving Break, but absolutely stressed at the thought of gathering with families and friends for the break and having to defend their jobs as educators, with family members who see them as the enemy.
As one friend told me recently…” During COVID, I was looked at as a hero, but now I’m looked as someone who’s indoctrinating children, despite all I’ve every wanted was for my 10th graders to turn in their Geometry homework- on time!”
Our reality for Thanksgiving
As I prep the turkey wings, cut the sweet potatoes, clean the greens, and bake some cakes, I have really thought about how I will handle a house full of family and friends who may or may not believe public education is public enemy number one.
Now my situation is not unique; I have colleagues who have disinvited family members or others who’ve disowned their friends and are opting to isolate themselves for some peace before Monday’s bell rings because of their political leanings.
As one of my administrator friends told me, “it’s at the point that they [family and friends]who have openly admitted they agree that ICE should be able to arrest undocumented students in schools. I honestly have nothing to say to them.”
However, as the rhetoric becomes more inflamed and political violence is now the “norm”, it’s critical that we have authentic conversations with people we love, to model what we ask students to do every day.
These conversations are not the “feel good, nod your head in agreement conversations”, but the ones that you have to have when you have to gently tell your neighbor (or Uncle) that kids are NOT identifying as animals and teachers are NOT allowing students to use the bathroom via cat litter*.
The Rules We Live By For Thanksgiving
These conversations have been hard for someone who teaches kids to use evidence to back up their claims and not to believe A.I.-generated images, but if I choose to avoid them today, I will do students a disservice.
But if I don’t set boundaries, mistruths like the ones above spread like wildfire. The rules I have for tomorrow are the same I had when I taught.
1. We love each other.
2. We respect each other.
3. We will never use politics to dehumanize others.
Because Here’s the Truth: Education Is Under Attack
This year’s political headlines, ranging from shifts in civil-rights enforcement to lawsuits targeting federal oversight of education, are not isolated. They are part of a well-organized, well-funded attempt to undermine public education as a public good.
When leaders talk seriously about dismantling the Department of Education, they’re not just discussing bureaucracy. Members of the government are attacking one of the last federal structures committed to ensuring equal access to learning. They are signaling that students in low-income communities, multilingual learners, students with disabilities, and historically marginalized groups should fend for themselves. And a portion of our community are erasing decades of progress toward educational equity and testing whether we’ll notice.
And the reason is clear:
Destroying the value of public education is one of the fastest ways to eliminate the middle and working class.
As teachers, we all know public education is not public, but just as freedom fighters during the Civil Rights movement fought for equity in classrooms, education has always been the greatest equalizer this country has ever created. Strip away its funding, its protections, its accountability, and you widen the gap between those who can afford opportunity and those who cannot.
The chaos we’re seeing is not an accident. It’s a strategy.
Strategy Over Chaos
So even though it is easier to close my door, watch the newest episode of Stranger Things, and other streaming services, and not engage with others, I will not be quiet.
- I will be talking about why strong public schools matter to every single American family.
- I will be reminding relatives that the attacks on curriculum, teachers, school funding, and federal oversight are not about children; they are about control.
- I will be challenging loved ones to consider who benefits when public education is weakened and who suffers when it collapses.
And as the next midterms appear on the horizon, we will be asking the question too many are afraid to say out loud:
Is who you’re voting for an advocate for public education, or do they want to tear it down?
If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that chaos, misinformation, disinformation, and fear thrive when we do not equip ourselves with the tools needed to call out lies about public education.
As Andre Lorde said in 1984, “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you,”
It’s important for the 3.5 million teachers in the United States to show up, even if it’s with family or friends, and get involved in who represents us in Congress and at the local level, so that we can protect our students, whose rights are being stripped away.
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I see you. Thank you for this.