I recently read (and started re-reading) Marc Brackett’s book Permission to Feel. Brackett is a professor of psychology at the Yale Child Study Center and the director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.  In this book, he gives a road map to understanding, expressing, and regulating our emotions so that we can achieve our potential as individuals and as a society.

He tells us that the first steps on this road are to recognize, understand, and label our emotions. I have a lot of them. Here goes.

I am deeply sad and troubled.  Lives are being lost. Families and communities are grieving. Our city and nation have been shattered by Coronavirus.  In February, a young Black man, Ahmaud Arbery, out for a run, was killed in Georgia. Until video of his killing was released on social media in April, the white men who killed him were not arrested.  In March, a first responder was sleeping at home. The police burst in with a no-knock warrant and Breonna Taylor, a young Black woman who had dreams of becoming a nurse died. On Memorial Day, George Floyd was killed by the police in Minneapolis.  Also on Memorial Day, Chris Cooper, an African American man who was birding in Central Park, was threatened by a white woman when he asked her to leash her dog.  And then the protests began — largely peaceful but erupting in violence causing curfews.

I am grieving and concerned for the Black community which is bearing a disproportionate percentage of the deaths from Coronavirus and who, decades after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, continue to suffer the effects of racist policies and ingrained racist behaviors. And I am angry about that as well. I am angry about the continuing injustice and our collective lack of ability to create positive change.

I am frightened for the people of color in my personal life (including my school people — teachers, students, parents) and for the people of color who I don’t know personally who live with the shadow of fear and anxiety over much of their lives.

I am worried about our children and the anxiety they feel when they watch the news and youtube videos and listen to the sounds of sirens and breaking glass.

I am discouraged and, honestly, disgusted by the responses of our elected officials at all levels of government. I am frustrated by the lack of political and moral will that they tap in order to help our nation live up to its ideals of equality, liberty, justice, and opportunity for all.

At the same time, I am appreciative of our school community for their determination to engage in the difficult work of acknowledging inequities in our system, in our school, and in our lives.

I am inspired by our students who want to engage in the difficult conversations around race and justice and who work for a more just and equitable society. And I am inspired by our staff who remain committed to our students’ emotional and physical well-being, who are dedicated to educating children in thoughtful, empowering ways that help them become critical consumers of information and citizens who will use their voices, skills, and values to make our world better. As our mission statement says,  Our students are lifelong learners prepared to engage in the work of creating new paradigms for an increasingly inclusive and sustainable world.

I am determined to continue to learn more about the history of racism in our country and world, to engage in work that empowers our young people to be their best selves, and to advocate for greater equity and justice in our world.

When we are in school, we have conversations about racist actions and tragedies. Kids bring them up during meetings and during play, we have clubs that have equity and anti-racism as a focus, our teachers talk about these racist incidents with each other, and we have a parent/teacher committee that is engaging in anti-racist work.  Right now, teachers are navigating the remote learning environment in order to provide safe spaces for students to process their own feelings and to learn from and with each other.  Our Diversity and Inclusion Committee steering group is meeting to discuss how we can support our students and families process the news and all the feelings that go along with it.  We will be sharing a curated list of resources with families shortly.

This work starts with me. It starts with you.  We start with being aware of our emotions and feelings and understand them and then express them in ways that are productive and honest and respectful. I began to do this work publicly today. We start by being open and listening and then acknowledging our own positions and privileges in society and our lack of knowledge about the lives of others. And then we commit to experiencing the discomfort and anger and concern as we work together to help our country achieve our ideal of liberty and justice for all.