Dr. Shamari Reid: Teachers are Humans First

What if the real superpower in education isn’t self-sacrifice, but self-regard?

In the intimate and urgent conversation that took place during our June Community Meeting, educator and author Dr. Shamari Reid invited the Greater Good Education community to drop the superhero cape and step into our full humanity. Drawing from his own experience as an overextended teacher chasing worth through exhaustion, Reid challenged the culture of martyrdom that defines so much of the profession. Instead, he offered participants something radical: permission to rest, to feel, to heal, and to love ourselves as much as we love our students.

Here are some of his reflections from the meeting.

Recognize your own complexity, needs, and humanity before trying to serve others.

The first thing I think we have to recognize as we become and remain human is that even advocates, activists, public servants, teachers, organizers, and philanthropists, and all these people that we often put on these pedestals, even they’re human, everyone. And I say that because I don’t know if we often get that space to be human because we’re so good, and we’re so giving, and we’re so generous. It’s almost as if our humanity is robbed from us, and then I just become “teacher,” but we are human. And a part of being human and belonging to a society means we have been socialized to accept things about ourselves and about other people, despite our best intentions.

Prioritize your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being to be an effective educator. As Dr. Reid quoted Toni Morrison, “Love is never any better than the lover.”

Before we can love anybody else, well we’ve gotta make sure the lover is okay. So if you are tired, and you’re going into school tired, then you are loving tiredly. If you are unhealthy or unwell, you are loving unhealthily. And I know we don’t want to do that, especially with young folks, because we do care for them deeply, but before we can think about how to show up for them, we have got to return to our own humanity, because love is never any better than the lover. To think that you can be unwell and you can be unhealthy and you can be tired, but somehow produce this vibrant, energizing love. I mean, I agree with Toni Morrison. I think it’s a farce. I think it’s false. I don’t think it’s possible. I think you’ve got to be okay. You’ve got to be well.

Reject the idea that teachers must sacrifice everything and work endlessly. It’s okay to have limits and take care of yourself.

I must take care of my best thing as I cannot be replaced, because all the love that I give to students is going to come from this human right here. And so if he’s tired, and exhausted, and fatigued, and he’s angry, and frustrated, and unhealthy, guess what kind of love I’m going to pour into my classroom y’all, even with my great intentions? Unhealthy, exhausted, fatigued, bitter, frustrated, love. I don’t want to do that, and so I had to heal. But I didn’t know I could heal until I realized I was a human and not a superhero, because superheroes don’t have to heal. They just magically get it right. But I had to heal.

Create spaces where educators can be honest about their struggles, challenges, and humanity without judgment.

I think the greatest asset and resource any of us have, are other humans who teach. I love my friends. I love my friends deeply. They don’t get it. When I talk about my teaching day, they don’t get why I’m so tired. They’re like, ‘you just teach.’ I don’t know. ‘You sit at a desk all day and you call out orders. Why are you tired?’ And I’m like, you don’t get it. It is good to be in rooms like this, where I know all of you who get me. You understand what it’s really like for our day to day. And so the most powerful thing we really do have is each other. Seriously, we can. We can get each other through it if we decide to start being honest and stop pretending like we have it all figured out, because many of us don’t.

Instead of focusing solely on oppression, learn from students’ communities and understand how they create love, care, and support for each other.

Become curious about someone for a change and begin asking questions. Why do you go over here? What do you get from this place? What does she do for you? What does she provide for you? How do you care for each other? And that, to me, I’ve learned much more than asking questions about ‘why people are oppressed’ and ‘how does oppression feel.’ It hurts. I mean, I don’t know how many times people can say that. It sucks. Nobody likes it. We don’t like it. We can talk about, ‘oh my gosh, they’re all being murdered.’ Yes, they are. And there is more to their story than that. There’s more to that. There’s more than that, but we gotta ask different questions. We gotta become curious about people.