Should I say something?
Or just keep my mouth shut and stay in my lane?
This is the dilemma for some of us teacher types. Or those of us with justice issues.
For most of my life, it’s been one of my challenges, sometimes, much to the dismay of my family and friends.
In fifth grade, I felt like our teacher had been far too crabby and mean to us, so I instigated a Queen for the Day celebration for her. We decorated her chair at the front of the classroom, and someone made a sash for her to wear. We wrote on the board in her honor.
But lest you think that this was a sweet gesture, I should correct you: it wasn’t. The whole celebration was meant to show her, in a childish, round-about way, that she was not being as kind and supportive as we kids thought she should be. Did she know she needed to be cheered up? We hoped our efforts would help open her eyes.
Today, I know that there could’ve been dozens of reasons that she was a crab. But at age 10, I didn’t have that capacity. I just knew it wasn’t right for a teacher to be so short-tempered.
As a young mom, I was the one at the park who corrected the seemingly parent-less kids who were behaving dangerously or unkindly toward others. Much to my own kids’ humiliation, I must add. I never hesitated to slow down a spinning merry-go-round when unattended toddlers were shrieking or in danger of becoming living examples of centrifugal force. I felt it was only right that I stop the mayhem. It was my calling.
I’m afraid that wasn’t an isolated incident.
As I went through old photos a couple of weeks ago, I remembered the time my sister and I took my three kids on a “pirate ship” cruise in Panama City. The boys delighted in having mustaches drawn on their faces and being equipped with squirt guns and mops to swab the deck. But when a random, unsupervised kid came over to me and squirted me square in the face, I promptly snatched the gun out of my youngest’s hands and took aim at the little blighter. If the parents weren’t minding their kids, I guess it would take the whole ship, with me at the helm.
It happened so fast, I’d like to think my reaction was a reflex. But then, I’m not sure if that reflects on me any better.
As a high school English teacher for twenty-five years, I took great pains to demonstrate both sides of any controversial topic a piece of literature might touch on. It was only right. During Socratic Seminars, I adjusted my questions to elicit another idea or interpretation. Then I followed up, asking for evidence, not merely opinions from my students. Sometimes, I also limited the number of times every student could contribute to the discussion. It wasn’t my aim– or job– to shape the attitudes or beliefs of my students, but it was my aim to promote all voices with evidence, not just the loudest voices. Now, I fear that position is becoming anacronistic.
The good news is that in recent years, it seems that my justice issues have gotten better. Where I used to see injustice wherever I looked and call it out, much to the distress of my family and colleagues, now I’m more likely to stop, swallow, and take a breath and a moment before I act on my gut. Even if I am not less reserved in my judgment.
With age comes wisdom?
More likely, it comes with a better circle of friends who flash subtle warning signals my way.
As I ponder this change, I wonder if I got my justice issues honestly.
My three-times great aunt, Mary Jane Edwards, seems to have had the same struggle.
In 1866, when she was 34 years old, she went with her sister from tiny Raysville, Indiana, to Jackson, Mississippi, to teach the newly freed slaves, then called freedmen. Like me, she was a teacher and a birthright member of the Society of Friends, Quakers.
Unlike me, her mother was a recorded minister, and Mary Jane attended meeting for worship services a few times each week. Her life truly was enveloped by her community of Friends, those who espoused the traditional Quaker testimonies, what are today referred to as SPICES. Simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship.
Even so–or maybe because of her upbringing– she was one to spot injustices in a twinkling.
It was the integrity and equality testimonies that tripped her up most.
For me, too.
Her diary entry from January 2, 1866 shows her passion for equality and concerns about injustice as she began her adventure teaching freedmen:
“Education has been withheld for this [sic] people as faithfully as if it was poison, by those presumed to rule over them, but the days of their cruel reign are past and the oppressed, now free, may go forth, in the enjoyment of privileges hitherto denied them.
Acting on those injustices, however, wasn’t always easy. A few weeks later, the cumulative realities of teaching up to 80 students of all ages each day, while living in a shared house in an unfamiliar climate with a cohort of teachers of varying philosophies and training hit her. And hard. She wrote the following on February 21, 1866:
Today I had 51 pupils. After I heard the small classes this afternoon I sent them home. I do not like to be teased with them after they have finished their lessons. [Our supervisor] was in my school after recess this evening. I did not relish his visit very much as my school was quite disorderly during the time and his presence prevent[ed] my closing as I wished to … I think with the harmony that exists in our ill assorted family it makes us all unhappy, none more than myself.
Mary Jane objects to her students’ behavior, but also to the disruption the unannounced administrator visit causes. She only graciously hints at the challenges of the disparate staff by writing how unhappy their situation makes her. We have to read her other entries and between the lines to piece together the extent of the stressors she faced while attempting to live her ideals about justice in education.
Happily, sometimes Mary Jane felt she lived up to her ideals. On March 5, she wrote, “I had 44 pupils today, they were restless & noisy but I think I did a pretty faithful part by them.”
On other days, though, she doubted that her contributions had any value. After noting her birthday in her diary, Mary Jane wrote, “…I sometimes feel that I have lived in vain, that I have through weakness and incompetence fallen far below the mark at which I have aimed.”
How many of us today ask that same question? Our ideals are far beyond our ability to achieve them. Or worse, we fail to give ourselves credit for the contributions we do make.
Maybe we attempt to live up to our ideals but encounter challenging situations that add another layer to our stress. Or we don’t acknowledge the stressors, but wave them off, or we take responsibility for someone else’s mess? It must be my fault, we berate ourselves.
Well, maybe not. Maybe it IS someone else’s fault.
Within a week of returning to Indiana, Mary Jane received a letter asking her to return South to continue teaching the freedmen in a new location. She was reluctant. She spent the summer opening recruiting letters from administrators and dodging their visits pushing her to return.
I wonder, when is enough, enough? And what is ours to do?
Why do we forget that all we can do is our best? Whatever that is in that moment.
And our best is very likely better than if we hadn’t done anything. Isn’t it?
In her year’s worth of diary entries, Mary Jane struggled with how to be true to herself and her calling, how to live up to her beliefs, and how to love herself when she fell short. Sometimes, she succeeded, and sometimes she struggled. She often found strength and resilience through her faith.
Her experiences in an 1866 Reconstruction landscape filled with injustices reflect one common human quandary: should I speak up about injustice, do something, or hold my peace?
Those are questions that still resonate with me today.
It’s been my joy to fictionalize the struggles and issues my ancestor Mary Jane Edwards wrote about during her year of teaching freedmen and ponder their meaning for us today. I’ve come to the conclusion that she has much to teach us.
The Reconstruction of Mary Jane Edwards, a novel based on an 1866 diary written by a Quaker teacher of Freedmen, will be released in July 2024.
Leave a comment