Today we revisit a conversation between Shamari Reid and Brett. They dive into the essential work of humanizing education and educators, and discuss why true connection requires us to face the challenging parts of our humanity. Together they unpack how understanding our own identities, imperfections, and histories helps educators to better see students and meet them with love, empathy, and care. If you're a teacher navigating burnout, self-doubt or the need for a more sustainable, joyful teaching practice, this episode and Shamari's essential message will resonate deeply.
Transcript
Shamari Reid:
I have heard the word human and humanity and humanizing my whole life, but especially in the last five or six years in education. In the field people are talking about a humanizing pedagogy, humanizing curriculum, but I feel like we miss the sticky parts. We miss the complicated parts, and we focus on the good and the beautiful, and I think that's important. But what about the complicated stuff? Because being human for me is very layered. And if we continue to miss the sticky parts or the complicated parts, then we don't address some of the things that keep us from the most beautiful parts about ourselves like love. If we're not addressing the source, if you will, then we start to teach and we live from a place that is frustrated, from a place that we are annoyed, we are angry, et cetera, as humans. And I just think there's another way to be.
I think that source could be joy. I think it can be love and peace, only when we have attended to those sticky parts and those things that are uncomfortable and really hard to talk about. Like oppression and marginalization and isolation and exclusion and all the other things we know too about the world and not just the things that are joyful and that beautiful, but our history is layered as humans. And I think it's important for us to always engage with the fullness of our humanity.
Brett:
Well, and you go on to say that being a teacher is very layered. The identities that we bring to being a teacher is layered. When we go through that discovery process of our identities, how we then need to bring those identities to the classroom so that we can see our students better, see their realities better.
Shamari:
That's right.
Brett:
I wonder if you could talk through a little bit of that process.
Shamari:
Sure. I really think at its core, it is an exercise in self-compassion. It is an exercise in self-empathy. And once you have begun to understand yourself as a complicated human with identities and imperfections, it becomes impossible to not see that at anybody else, including young people. Once I understand that I have learned things about myself as a Black person, as a queer person, as a person who grew up in this kind of household with a single mother, once I understand how complicated I am, it then becomes really hard to look at a young person and not see their stories too, and not practice empathy and compassion for them. And so we must, I say, start that with ourselves. Start thinking about what it means to understand who you are and extending grace to yourself to say, "Oh, I did make a mistake. I did hold a view or an opinion that I don't necessarily find helpful, but I'm human. And now that I've identified it, I can unlearn it and be kinder to myself and everybody else around me."
And I think so often with teachers, I think society sort of talks about us as if we don't have these parts of ourselves, these sticky parts we talked about earlier. And we're supposed to go into schools and help young people navigate these things. However, many of us have never been invited to navigate them for ourselves. And so we are not robots. I am not AI. I'm not AI. I'm not ChatGPT. I am a human with my own history and my own social lessons. And if I don't attend to those, they are going to filter everything I do and make it really, really hard to understand how complicated young people are.
Brett:
Yeah. And not just their own identities, but then the identities of the communities that they come from as well.
Shamari:
That's right. And I think that's maybe even a harder thing for some folks because when we talk about sort of socialization, the question then becomes, well, who socializes us and who socialized you? And for many of us, it's someone maybe close to us, a parent, a guardian, a teacher, our family doctor, or someone who works in, maybe if you're a part of some kind of religious or spiritual group, it's the leader of that group or leaders of that group. And it's hard to say, oh, I learned this thing I no longer want to hold onto. And I learned it from this person who I cherish and I love and I admire. And I say, you should still do those things and understand that just as you have these sorts of complicated things, so do they. And so, it just allows us, I think, to be more compassionate.
Brett:
You write specifically about how this impacted your teaching, where you had a student that came in one morning that was just exhausted, just absolutely tied. I wonder if you could talk about that story and how it changed your approach to teaching.
Shamari:
Sure. Yeah, that's Eli. I remember very well how it felt because the first feeling, just to give people context with the story is I had this student, Eli. I was teaching middle school Spanish at this time. And when I think about my early teaching days, I was an over everythinger. Forget overachievement, I over did everything. I had vocabulary quizzes every Monday. I had pop quizzes all the time. I gave homework every day. I was constantly pushing stuff and pushing stuff and pushing stuff. And the grades were fine.
The students seemed fine. I was like, okay, they're keeping up. And so I would just keep going on and on and on. And so then Eli walks in and he's just exhausted and he sort of plops his head down and I'm like, okay, just having a bad day. And he does it for five days straight. And I'm like, okay, now what's going on here? Not thinking it's my class. I'm thinking, oh, some new sport he's doing, some new activity. He should really get more sleep. He really should think about what it means to take care of himself, but it's not going to be my class. And so I ask him and he tells me it's the class.
It is too much. And in order to keep up and impress you, which is what he was saying, because I respect you so much, I have to spend hours every single night studying for the pop quiz we know you're going to have, the vocabulary quiz we know you're going to have, the homework you've given us, the activities that have about two weeks in between and so there's a huge assignment, but we're going to do it. And so my first feeling to answer your question was pride. I felt like, yes, I'm the teacher that they respect. They're working really hard for me. Wow, look at this. That was the ego. That was the ego telling me, my ego lives in a constant state of never enough.
It's always too much, too little. And I was just like, this is really, really good. I want to do more of this. And then the humanity part kicked in, and I thought about it and I was like, wait a minute here. If I'm looking at Eli as a human with needs, with very real physical needs, I have just heard him say he is not able to get sleep because of my class. I was embarrassed a little bit at first. I felt disappointed in myself and then I said, "Let's check in with yourself and everybody else." And so I took that conversation back to the whole class, didn't name him, of course. And I just said, "Is anyone feeling like this is too much? Is anyone feeling like they're foregoing sleep or what have you?" Everybody said, "Yes." The whole class said, "We're all tired. We all feel overworked, and we respect and love you so much and we want to impress you. That's why we do it."
And so I said, "That's not okay. I appreciate the respect and the admiration, but I don't think it's healthy for me to invite you to neglect your humanity and neglect your physical needs for my class. I can make changes in which we can still learn stuff, we can still develop skills, we can become better at speaking Spanish or element Spanish class, and we can make sure we're taking care of our physical bodies."
Brett:
Yeah. We hear a lot both in the communities that we work with all the time about teacher burnout and the incredible need for self-care. And it's very easy to fall into that as another trope of some kind. But this book really truly is looking to give tangible work, tangible help to teachers who are suffering through that. You write specifically, start with this book. I wonder if you could tell me why we need to start with this book.
Shamari:
That's a great question. Why start with this book? Because I believe in the world we all deserve. I know it's possible. People that I look up to from my own mother to my older sister, to Toni Morrison, have talked about having hopes and dreams for this world that ought to be. This world that one day we'll be able to experience. But rarely do we talk about how to get there. And so this book for me is a bridge and it moves us beyond just having a hope and a dream. And it moves us into acting, to say that, "Yes, I know a better world is possible."
We know a more loving world is possible. And I say start with this book so that we can understand how we actually get there. And we get there by starting with ourselves. This book is an invitation to think about our own humanity, the most beautiful parts of that, the most challenging parts of that, so that we can show up in more loving ways for ourselves, for our students, and for other people. And I believe that once we are all doing that, not only humans who teach but just humans, that is how we get to this world we deserve. That world that's more just, more loving, there's more kindness, there's more nurture, there's more growth, all those things. But we have to begin doing those things for ourselves and doing that work within ourselves.
Edie:
Thanks for tuning in today. You can read a full transcript of this episode @blog.heinemann.com.
Shamari is the author of the new book Humans Who Teach: A Guide for Centering Love, Justice, and Liberation in Schools
Shamari Reid (he/him/his) is an assistant professor of justice and belonging in education at New York University. He has taught Spanish, English as a new language, and ELA at the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary levels in Oklahoma, New York, Uruguay, and Spain. He is the creator and host of the podcast Water for Teachers. Shamari is also the author of the upcoming book Humans Who Teach: A Guide for Centering Love, Justice, and Liberation in Schools. As a scholar–educator, Shamari’s work centers love as a moral imperative in social justice education, and as a path toward culturally sustaining school communities. Shamari is an active member of the National Council of Teachers of English where he was awarded the Cultivating New Voices research fellowship. He is also active in the American Education Research Association (AERA) as the chair of AERA’s Queer special interest group. Shamari completed his doctoral work in Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. In addition, he holds an M.A. in Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language and TESOL from New York University, and a B.A. in Spanish and Education from Oklahoma City University. His scholarly publications on race, gender, and sexuality in schools have appeared in various peer-reviewed journals such as Teachers College Record, Urban Education, and Curriculum Inquiry.
