Living into Lent (Part 4)
Civic action under the Orange Curtain
Two weeks later, I had the privilege of attending another rally at Cypress High School. This one had something Oxford’s didn’t: critical mass.
A giant line of red stretched through Valley View’s sidewalk, even reaching the strip mall of overpriced restaurants at the intersection with Orange. And when the teachers had to report ten minutes early for work, the students reformed the line for the rest of the protest.
(It didn’t hurt that a handful of teachers passed around a clipboard, tracking their students’ attendance so that nobody got in trouble.)
About a week later, the kids led their own demonstration, walking out of class into the quad. It was loud, it was agitated…and it didn’t get any pushback from teachers.
If anything, ASTA amplified their pictures and videos in an Instagram post, thanking them for their “continued show of support.”
That picture of the Asian guy yelling is iconic. You never see this, especially from the suburbs, especially from the model minority. Yet here we are.
And watching that footage almost brought me to tears.
“What do we want?” the organizers shout. “JUSTICE!” their peers shout back.
“When do we want it?” “NOW!”
Six years ago, there would’ve been nothing like this on the western, wealthier, and whiter side of the district. The Savanna mascot incident only prompted a news article at Cypress (from a Black student) and an op-ed at Oxford (you know who wrote that one). Likewise, the Parkland shooting got a town hall that only one student showed up to…and a sermonizing lecture on OATV where the principal quoted TobyMac lyrics (“choose life”) to deflect from the conversation about gun control. So as you can imagine, seeing this felt like inhaling a fresh breath of air.
But why do we fight for our teachers? Because they’ve fought for us. That should be intuitive.
I can imagine that Jesus would have a very similar response: “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:48, NRSVUE)
If anything, Jesus asks us to do the unthinkable: love your enemies (Matthew 5:43). Unlike teachers, enemies don’t do anything for us. If anything, they strip us of what little we have.
I have a question: The Palestinians aren’t our teachers, but they aren’t our enemies either (regardless of whatever AIPAC would have us believe). Would the kids of Cypress High walk out of class for Palestine?
I don’t think I want to know the answer to that one.
Two realities can be true at the same time. The RIF protests of April 2024 awakened so many young advocates for truth and justice. And there is so much more inner work to be done within Anaheim Union’s wealthier west side.
The third rally I went to was at Orangeview Junior High School, where I would’ve gone had I not attended Oxford. This rally was also notable, but in a very different way.
One kid stuck out like a sore thumb, waving his signs erratically and screaming at the cars. He looked like an idiot. He also said one thing that made sense.
Why don’t we have a protest chant?
Fair enough. Even the student-led protest at Cypress had a chant.
Instead, we got some very interesting signs:
“Cap Class Size, Not Student Opportunity”
“How Can We Put Students First If We Put Teachers Last?”
“AUHSD = Unlimited Class Size”
Very catchy.
In a twisted throwback to the Hilary Clinton campaign, ASTA tried way too hard to be clever, but gave us a mouthful that didn’t roll off the tongue super well. If anything, their best slogan was actually written by a STUDENT: “AUHSD: Don’t Limit Us!”
But what if they weren’t trying to be catchy? What if they were actively trying not to avoid the image of a protest movement?
ASTA’s social media manager would agree. Check out this quote from one of their Instagram posts:
Our goal is to have our rallies be about our students and teachers and not disrupt opportunities to learn. All students and teachers will leave the rally line in time for them to be ready for their morning classes. We will follow all applicable laws to peaceably assemble for our rallies to insure a safe environment.
Acting as vanilla as possible was probably the right move: ASTA succeeded at rallying a broad base of support in an otherwise conservative district. I didn’t see a single accusation that the teachers were trying to indoctrinate their students.
But taken to an extreme, this insistence on respectability can be a double-edged sword. When we teach kids that being dignified is the only way to be heard, we risk silencing voices that don’t fit into a narrow speech code, one that often benefits the people in power.
This is the state of civic action under the Orange Curtain, for better and for worse.
We’ve got a lot of complexities going on here:
Teacher layoffs only scratch the surface of the issues that public schools face. They can also be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Teachers can’t win the Oppression Olympics. But they still deserve justice.
Respectability was the right tactic for this situation. Its costs and benefits differ from situation to situation.
As if those complexities weren’t enough, I’m going to throw a monkey wrench into the works with another one: teachers are just one piece of a student’s educational experience.
My work as an academic and college coach is built on this principle, and that’s guided how I’ve coached the hundred or so students I’ve worked with over the last two years. “Is there anything you can change about your study habits?” I often ask. “Your teacher might be unfair, but only you are responsible for what you get out of the class.”
But this season, I began to ask my students how their favorite teachers have impacted them. Their responses tell me a very different story:
One kid told me they could listen to their religion teacher talk forever. Although they weren’t quite religious, this teacher’s class became a highlight to look forward to.
One kid raved about their psych teacher's funny stories about having her car blown up while working for the FBI. “She lived 10 lives,” they told me.
One kid mentioned their English teacher, who shared the same ethnicity as them. Knowing that the student was part of a Korean volunteering organization, the teacher often asked them about how it shaped their cultural experiences and formation.
Of course, teachers aren’t directly responsible for their students’ performance inside or outside the classroom. But given the teenage epidemic of anxiety and depression, I appreciate their efforts to make school just a little bit more tolerable for my students. And the relationships they build with students can elevate them toward their next steps, whether it’s a rec letter for a Top 30 university or even a recommendation of which state school to go to.
The teacher layoff threatened a lot of these relationships - yet another reason to go protest and tell the trustees what I thought of their tomfoolery!
Meanwhile, one of my high school classmates decided to take it one step further. Digging out the old Facebook group we used to trade AP World History memes, they wrote a post announcing that five teachers (not just Hodgepodge and Mrs. G) were on the chopping block. They nudged us to write the trustees directly, including a photo with QR codes linking to pre-written emails.
Pre-written emails tend to be long-winded and trigger spam filters, so I spent a few minutes tightening up the script, adding some personal experiences, and warning my peers. Then I blasted this to all the trustees, including Brian O’Neal, who represents my geographic area:
In May, the AUHSD trustees belatedly “did the right thing” and rescinded all the RIFs.
In November, I ended up voting for Henry Charoen over Brian O’Neal anyway. O’Neal’s complicity in the RIF affair, as well as his demeanor during the Savanna town hall, had put an unshakably bad taste in my mouth.
But that didn’t matter. As the incumbent, Brian O’Neal won in a landslide.
I shrugged my shoulders and moved on.
About a month after the protests, I met again with the same Oxford student who told me about the layoffs. Unsurprisingly, the protests were at the front of their mind.
“Counselor Joseph?”
“Hmm?”
“I saw the Oxford protests on Instagram… Was that you?”
“Yup.”
“Good.”
Then we went back to figuring out ideas for passion projects.
Do you have any observations or questions that you’d like to add? If so, let’s chat. Email me and we can get the conversation going.
As always: fight proud 📢, fight strong ✊, and fight on! 🗡️