Most children’s first encounter with health or unhealthy power dynamics between institutions and people will occur in schools. For better or worse, students internalize a culture of either accountability and engagement, or abuse and neglect. Our pedagogy has the power to encourage them to fight for the former and stand up against the latter.I still take the position that educators have a responsibility to spark students’ curiosity in how to make a world a better place, and that schools offer that starting point. However, after reflecting on Baldwin’s words recently, I’d expound upon that point—adding that students must know that they can become engaged advocates and citizens not just by assimilating into society’s current cultural, social and political institutions, but also by dreaming up new ones. It’s up to us to empower them with this message.
Araya Baker is a counselor, suicidologist, and policy analyst. Baker has published commentary and public scholarship in The New York Times, The Washington Post's The Lily, Huffington Post, Education Post, Vice, Buzzfeed, The Mighty, The Tennessean, and other platforms. Araya earned a master's in professional counseling from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and a master's in human development and psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
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