Thoughts on Rosh Hashanah: The Trump Effect and its Impact on School Violence

I did a walking meditation and prayed today around the reservoir in Central Park. My mind kept drifting to education and the lack of opportunities so many of our students experience. How could it not? A day of introspection does not mean I leave my work at the office door.

Then Trump popped into my head. It made me realize that so many of the people we know, break bread with, laugh and cry with, may support him. What is hard to swallow is that who he represents, his avatar, if you will, is ubiquitous and it has thawed the ice enough for spouts of hatred and prejudice to pop up all over this country, like sprinklers.

While society is not stranger to prejudice, it's more out in the open than it has ever been, and regardless of the election, what's been punctured is punctured. And whose task will it be to contain the spouts from forming into tidal waves?

Education is a critical lever for social change. So, what are we going to do post-election? Even if Trump loses the election, the soil has been tilled and we know what is out there... more than ever.

I leave today, as the sun moves into night, the night into the dawn, and the dawn into morning, knowing that the work I do, have to do, can never stop. The fact that it was ever-present today on Rosh Hashanah, tells me that my resolve must deepen even more and that I can be strengthened, we can all be strengthened by the common will to teach instead of hate, to link hands in the midst of unrest, and to unite with unrelenting determination to keep working toward justice for all. If we are truly for equity, then we cannot pick and choose which issues we are for. Equity is indivisible.

Are you with each other?
Who will link arms?
Who will help the tilled soil grow and flourish into a justice-garden?
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