Z, a student whose name I’ve withheld for privacy, was one of those kids who everybody liked. Even as a dean pulled him for repeated uniform violations, he still managed to make everyone in the hall smile.
On a Tuesday last spring, the in-house substitute teacher at the school where I teach happened to be walking by as Z was getting reprimanded for the second time that week; instead of chastising him, she took him for a walk and found out that Z’s family couldn’t afford to buy a sweater that complied with the school’s guidelines.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed just how ineffective federal and state governments are at caring for us in any consistent or meaningful way.
The next day during breakfast, the substitute handed Z a plain black sweatshirt, and his face lit up. He wore it every day that school year, making sure all his peers knew that she was his “Teedy,” or auntie, and that his classmates had better respect her.
The approach taken by this substitute teacher is an example of mutual aid, a concept that has seen a surge of interest since the COVID-19 pandemic exposed just how ineffective federal and state governments are at caring for us in any consistent or meaningful way.
As a high school English teacher and administrator in Louisiana, I have witnessed and participated in mutual aid in every teacher’s lounge I have ever spent time in.
Journalist Amanda Arnold describes mutual aid as systems where “people work cooperatively to meet the needs of everyone in the community.” Mutual aid teaches us that there’s no need to wait for help to arrive because we are our own best solutions.
Unlike charity, which is one directional and often a single occurrence, mutual aid is reciprocal between community members and seeks to address the root causes of an issue as much as possible.
And unlike government aid, mutual aid is not hierarchical and originates with the people closest to the problem, enabling it to be much quicker, more targeted, and accountable to the needs of a community. It is often crowd-sourced, arising from the reality that we all need help from our communities to survive.
Unlike charity, which is one directional and often a single occurrence, mutual aid is reciprocal between community members.
If you’ve ever spent time around a school, it’s likely you’ve already seen mutual aid in action.
When a teacher’s car breaks down and they have no way to get to work, our grade-level group texts organize rides to and from school. When one of our students is expecting and doesn’t have the means to give their future child everything they deserve, our teachers and staff throw a surprise baby shower during lunch or after school. When a school’s absence policy does not effectively support teachers and staff who need extensive medical care or who are caregivers for their loved ones, our coworkers donate their paid time off to us.
When I could no longer balance the demands of my chronic illness and the physical stress of working in schools, it was my current and former coworkers who cash-apped me money, sent me affirmations, and found me a place to stay.
Beyond providing our children with an education, teachers are pillars of our communities. They literally keep the roof over many of our heads; and they’re often some of the strongest examples we have of what it means to uphold our community values.
As we begin to enter a vaccinated world, I hope we will pause to reflect on the ways we could not have made it through the last year without the ingenuity, generosity, and aid of our teachers. If we want to figure out how to build more equitable systems and better support our communities, it behooves us to listen to those who have been doing so for their entire careers: our educators.
A better world is possible. Thanks to many teachers, we can catch glimpses of it in our hallways and teachers lounges.