While I do not think of myself as a history teacher, I have taught history for the last 17 years. During the 20-21 year, when the majority of my kids were remote, we took a springboard approach to class. We started with the 1918 pandemic, and then jumped around based on what questions the kids had about the causes or effects of said topic. This helped them care a *tiny* bit more because the links were obvious: for me, however, it helped calm my fears about the state of our country.
I never understood why everyone was so happy to get out during the Roaring Twenties-- I guess I just though the kids from the farms were happy to get to the city. After spending my 50th birthday and 25th wedding anniversary in lockdown, I viscerally understood. WW1 overlapped by a pandemic? Damn right I'm gonna party like it's 1920! But, it didn't take long for me to see that this party phase is a significant cause to the Great Depression and fascism... and here we are, today, in a country that is banning books to 'protect' children, hindering the rights of women to 'protect' unborn babies without ensuring that all babies are loved and cared for*, and blindly following a leader who has made it clear that he is trying only to 'protect' white men who have money. It doesn't take a student of history to see the pattern that is emerging.
I feel a bit like Nemo, trying to convince the fish to SWIM DOWN and break the net. It's not a natural response for us, this fighting against the system. We're trained to follow the rules, listen to authority, and not make a scene. IMHO, the only way we're going to stop the anti-democracy-couched-as-pro-democracy movement is by saying No. We're done with hate, and elitism, and sacrificing the good of the many for the benefit of the few.
This will take all of us to pull off. It won't be pretty, or necessarily fun. But history tells me it's really our only option.
Until then, I'll be hitting the bar with Frank. Feel free to join me.
*For the record, I am not pro abortion. But I am pro democracy, and pregnancy is not like anything else. I love the months I was pregnant, and am truly sad I wasn't able to do it again. But your body is truly no longer your own. For both first trimesters, I had to take medicine that made ME sick to protect the baby. I vomited for months, no matter what I did (or didn't) eat. I couldn't have caffeine, or Advil, or too much fish, or, or, or...
I was thrilled to be doing it, especially since we faced the possibility of not being able to conceive. I was 26, married, with a home and stable income, and more than ready to be a mom. I don't know what it's like to be 19 and desperately trying to get through college so I can get out of poverty. Or dating a violent person. Or pregnant with my rapist's child. Or being told if I conceive again I will die. Those decisions are not mine to make, nor are they that of the government.
I would love to see access to birth control increase, more funding for social supports to help women keep their baby if they want, or give it to a family with fertility issues. I would love our culture to stop shaming women who get pregnant, or make it easier to become foster and adoptive parents, regardless of marital and housing status. But even then, pregnancy does not compare to any other thing, because there is nothing else a human being does that requires the complete sacrifice of her own body to support the growth of another.
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