This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
The United States is a war state of the strangest sort. Your taxes go to war in this century, losing wars in ever more extravagant amounts. There's simply no end to it. In fact, it's safe to say that investing yet greater sums in the military-industrial complex is about the only subject on which congressional Republicans and Democrats seem capable of agreement (though even there, the Republicans are demanding more, much more!).
Meanwhile, as TomDispatch has recorded over all these years, this is a country that seems to be coming apart at okay, I'm an editor, but I still can't resist using the same-sounding word twice in this sentence yes, the seams. If you don't believe me, ask Trump appointee Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, the Florida District Court "judge" (and I put that word in quotes because she's hardly more of a judge than I am) who lifted the national travel mask mandate, once again splitting this country in fervent disagreement and, it being in the Trump tradition, undoubtedly killing some of us in the process.
So here we are, more than two years into a pandemic estimated to have done in up to 15 million people globally, with cases and hospitalizations once again on the rise in the United States. In response, the country's letting down its guard. What else is new? I have the feeling that what this society needs is attention from someone like the husband of today's author and TomDispatch regular Frida Berrigan. He's a "wellness interventionist" a term I had never heard before in our public schools, which, as she tells us (and she's not alone at TomDispatch in that), are an increasing mess. Who could be surprised in a country that would never invest in public education, as she makes all too clear, the way it does in its military. Of course, given this country's record at war in this century, perhaps that's a good thing. Who knows anymore? Not me! Tom
A School System Goes to Hell and Back Again
A Pandemic Year of Hope, Trauma, and Tragedy, Up Close and Personal
A kid spit on my husband Patrick yesterday. That sentence just keeps running through my head. The student was up on a windowsill at school and, when instructed to come down, he spit.
It's part of Patrick's job not to take that the most personal of insults and an almost universal expression of disrespect personally. He knew enough about that boy and his sad story to see the truth of the maxim "hurt people hurt." In this case, it was also a matter of "disrespected kids disrespect." So, he handled it and his emotional response to the grossness of being spit on, too. He got that kid down and back into class. Then he cleaned himself up and went on with his day.
This is not the first time he's been spit on this year and it probably won't be the last. It isn't even the worst. Once, he was so covered in spittle he had to go home in the middle of the day to shower and change clothes. And mind you, this is all happening during the coronavirus pandemic and the mandatory mask wearing that is supposed to keep his school safe (at least from the virus).
Taking the Time
My husband's official job title and I'll bet you didn't even know such a job existed is Wellness Interventionist. (Another school calls his position the Feelings Teacher.) He works at one of our Connecticut town's four public elementary schools, trying to keep things from getting overheated. He attempts to intervene in conflicts between kids before they come to a head. He leads class-circle discussions about emotional health, and helps students find more complex and nuanced ways than just anger or derision to express their feelings. They are supposed to seek him out for help navigating conflicts and repairing relationships.
There's a jargonistic term for what he does: "restorative practices and social-emotional learning." Because he works in a bureaucracy, you won't be surprised to know that these terms have been reduced to the acronyms RP and SEL. However fast those may be to say, though, the work itself takes time, lots and lots of time, and time is the one thing my husband seldom has in his fast-moving school days with almost 500 kids needing attention.
He'll sit down with two kids at odds with each another and just as they get to the crux of the matter, a call comes in over his walkie talkie that a student has "eloped" (the term of art for escaping the building) and is running towards the road. He'll be about to connect with a youngster struggling with too many grown-up-sized problems at home, when a teacher urgently calls him to a classroom to help manage a fourth grader's water-bottle-throwing tantrum.
What choice does he have? In that case, he promised the student with the home problems that he'd continue their conversation at lunch and sprinted for the classroom. Patrick entered the room with a smile on his face. In a calm voice he said, "Okay, friends, we are going to give X some space now, so please go with your teacher to the library." He helped her usher the boy's fearful, dumbstruck classmates out of the room. "See you in a little bit," he said in his most reassuring voice, before turning to that flailing, furious youngster.
With the rest of the students gone, the temper tantrum was no longer a performance and so the two of them ended up working for almost an hour cleaning up the mess. As they set tables upright, wiped up spilled water, and taped torn posters back on walls, Patrick got the kid talking about the problems that had all too literally exploded out of his small body. No, my husband couldn't fix them, but he offered a little perspective and some tools for managing anger more constructively. He then reached out to the school's psychiatrist and social worker, while offering support to the family.
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