Have you recently heard an educator use the phrase "in the trenches"? Maybe you're a principal and you've been told, "Well, those of us down here (in the trenches) think..."
John T. McCrann wrote a piece about this phrase, Can We Stop Saying That Teachers Work in the Trenches?". He wrote, in part:
"While I do recognize the difficulty of the social justice pursuit in which we are engaged, I refuse to speak about the place I teach and learn as "the trenches." To do so would frame this situation as a hardship to endure rather than a problem to be solved."
I enjoyed his piece and want to add "my two cents".
Well, those of us down here in the trenches...
This phrase implies two thoughts. Let's break this down.
"Those of us down here..." That indicates some misunderstanding or even use of a hierarchy. We are down here. You are up there. You can't possibly know what this feels like.
"In the trenches..." That conjures images of a battlefield. Soldiers who fight wars might end up in trenches.
While I don't necessarily like this phrase, when I hear it, what I have taught myself to realize is it means something else. It means the speaker is possibly feeling frustrated, unheard, or even tired. It's in moments like this that we can use the wrong words to express a point.
There are days, in all of our schools, that we juggle more needs than most likely realize. We balance compliance with creativity, compassion with justice, and academic with social. There are no such things as "easy days" and our work is not effortlessly completed by others or by just one individual.
It takes an entire team of professionals working in the same direction and on the same team to keep a school moving ahead. When we use words that negate that work or the work of those we work with, we sabotage the efforts of many. On our roughest days, we still somehow need to remember, we need each other.
John T. McCrann wrote a piece about this phrase, Can We Stop Saying That Teachers Work in the Trenches?". He wrote, in part:
"While I do recognize the difficulty of the social justice pursuit in which we are engaged, I refuse to speak about the place I teach and learn as "the trenches." To do so would frame this situation as a hardship to endure rather than a problem to be solved."
I enjoyed his piece and want to add "my two cents".
Well, those of us down here in the trenches...
This phrase implies two thoughts. Let's break this down.
"Those of us down here..." That indicates some misunderstanding or even use of a hierarchy. We are down here. You are up there. You can't possibly know what this feels like.
"In the trenches..." That conjures images of a battlefield. Soldiers who fight wars might end up in trenches.
While I don't necessarily like this phrase, when I hear it, what I have taught myself to realize is it means something else. It means the speaker is possibly feeling frustrated, unheard, or even tired. It's in moments like this that we can use the wrong words to express a point.
There are days, in all of our schools, that we juggle more needs than most likely realize. We balance compliance with creativity, compassion with justice, and academic with social. There are no such things as "easy days" and our work is not effortlessly completed by others or by just one individual.
It takes an entire team of professionals working in the same direction and on the same team to keep a school moving ahead. When we use words that negate that work or the work of those we work with, we sabotage the efforts of many. On our roughest days, we still somehow need to remember, we need each other.
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