By Mercedes V. Avila

I sit in my second Google classroom session and frantically vacillate between the “camera off” and “camera on” display, trying to elicit a response. Unable to manifest my quarantine state for all participants, I throw in the towel and vow to up my chat game in the absence of my visual presence. This is probably my 20th or 30th Zoom call to date and although I don’t consider myself the most technologically savvy individual, I have at least been equipped with hours of virtual classroom training. Each session varies between 30-45 minutes— standard—for a single period in a brick-and-mortar institution. In the first session, one student shows up.

Though she is generally excitable, high energy and eager to learn, she seems disconnected and frustrated with present circumstances. Within the half hour call, we hear babies crying…a dog barking…and finally listen to her prelude to heartbreak as she explains her painting—carefully selected for competition—will not show in this year’s Fiesta San Antonio, potentially seen by thousands of onlookers. In any capacity, rejection is not easy on a young artist. 

In the second session, none of our students sign in and my stomach sinks, remembering the energy present in the physical classroom during that period. One of the few classes not tracked as “Pre-AP’, the students were accustomed to being overlooked academically. When prompted about media representation, they had a symphony of personal stories, instagram posts and youtube videos coursing through their dialogue, illuminating who is called a terrorist and who is loved by all. Who was the troubled youth and who was the grown man, not yet eligible to vote and in this carceral system, never will be. 

Sentiments echoed through the hallways about feeling safe in a school where you may rarely glimpse sunlight, but at least you can count all the white kids on one hand. There’s no talk of brown on brown crime here. They may throw chingasos or catch a fade but there’s comfort in raza. When prompted about district inequities, they named every food desert and ventured a guess about the taste of produce fifteen minutes away. Somewhere without a direct bus line. To demand reverence, they shared their experience as experts, wearing their realities as a defiant intervention.  

Miss, I’m not going to read out loud. Miss, I am not gonna respect her, because she disrespects me. Miss, you know why we like you? It’s because you’re like us. You don’t act like you’re more important. Miss, we don’t like that teacher, she’s fake. Miss, are you proud of me? I did what you asked me to, I tried to focus even when people were talking to me. Miss, what kind of shoes are those? We need to get you some J’s.

The classroom terrifies me. It is an incredibly powerful tool, often wielded to turn students into statistics or erode their resilience so critical thought accompanies only an uncertain tongue. 

Tell me your thoughts. What are your experiences? Are you sure? What evidence do you have? Let’s not make these statements until we’re sure we have proof to “back it up”—to substantiate our claim. 

Is it ego preventing the words “You’re right. How can we point others to the truth? How can we validate your experience?” from being spoken? When a classroom is wielded lovingly, earnestly, strategically, it might look like rage. Like students knowing this place was not built for them. Like commiting to themselves, their communities and their futures anyway. Like tapping into intergenerational knowledge and commanding a well of incontestable lessons to drown out clinical fabrications in textbooks. In canon. Sometimes, the classroom looks like safety and tranquility in navigating uncharted waters, an intermission from the familiar.

When a student and educator fail to connect, it often manifests as distrust. Many times, it’s not who the teacher is as a person. Maybe they do genuinely care, but in that whole interest convergence capacity White Supremacy gifted us. They want to see their students learn, so long as learning looks like better grades and revelational content. Not like social growth. Not like learning when to walk out of the classroom and not cause a scene: learning what words are hurtful to people and why expressing our frustration through fists on inanimate surfaces is not a genuinely cathartic release. Sometimes our knuckles bleed and we feel numb, but the energy traps itself. 

What does it look like when you let a teacher who you think is after only your test scores into your homespace? Who hasn’t shown you they believe in you. Who finds you annoying when you take up space, prefers you asleep, head pressed to the desk. Who looks the other way when you aren’t producing content. Producing ideas. Producing work. Harnessing potential.

We were three quarters into the year when the pandemic hit. Students were on Spring Break and gearing up for their final push, knowing the last hurdle they needed to clear was that pinche standardized test. The requirements were waived and I thought finally. Finally, a tool cultivated in the Eugenics Movement would be nationally recognized as obsolete and teaching to a test would no longer create fractured student/teacher dynamics. Unrelenting power struggles. 

Then the announcement came. Students are required to repeat the year, after completing more than 75% of the socioemotional and academic challenges. In the case of my students, sitting in an exceedingly humid classroom without windows daily. The smell of tar filling the hallways, creating knots in their stomachs, their heads splitting from the constant tremble of the jackhammer, and the student water fountain cloudy with toxins. All that adversity, then the announcement: the privatization of standardized tests and how they drive the present education system, is genuinely the only reason students spend 8+ hours a day in complacency. The frustration students must feel—when their sole concern should be the safety of themselves and their family—is palpable.

Through this pain and uncertainty, we have determined we cannot go back. There has been a rupturing of the status quo. Of the static, the white noise. With the virtual classroom space comes incredible inequity and vexation on the part of both the educator and the student. However, it also presents a unique opportunity to shift the narrative. The potential to prioritize emotional well-being and a sense of consistency within a crisis. The virtual classroom can serve as a space that facilitates genuine conversations and learning, void of the metrics and marginalization faced in the physical classroom. For educators to instill within students their authentic care, radical love, and critical hope.

Inspired by bell hooks and Audre Lorde and Kimberlé Crenshaw and Gloria Ladson-Billings and Geneva Gay and Beverly Daniel Tatum and Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon and Dolores Delgado-Bernal and Gloria Anzaldúa and Laura Rendón and Angela Valenzuela and Ruth Trinidad Galván and Mari Luci Jaramillo and Myrriah Gómez and Irene Vasquez and Leila Flores-Dueñas and Jessica Helen Lopez and Gina Díaz and Adriana Ramirez de Arellano and Maria López and Patricia Perea and Jennifer Denetdale and Chela Sandoval and Laura Gómez and Mia Sosa-Provencio and Nancy López and Sarah Ahmed and Sonia Nieto and Kim Tallbear and many, many of the other amazing Womanist, feminista, critical, and decolonial educators and visionaries who have molded me, encouraged me, dreamed with me, and created with me as I continue to grow in this praxis. Mil gracias. <3