42. Georgia

FORTY-TWO

Georgia

“WHEN I SAY CLIMATE, YOU SAY JUSTICE!” Max and I scream. “CLIMATE!”

“JUSTICE!” Twenty-eight little voices scream after us.

“CLIMATE!”

“JUSTICE!”

Maybe three or four weeks later ( who am I kidding? It’s been exactly twenty-three days since I last saw Oliver ), we’ve finished up our climate justice unit, and our class decided we should end with a climate march around Fort Greene. Twenty-nine little ones hold posters the size of their bodies. Posters with messages created by my students themselves, messages like:

CLIMATE JUSTICE = HUMAN JUSTICE

I SPEAK FOR THE TREES

No more coal, no more oil

Keep that carbon in the soil!

Kids these days are so fucking clever.

I was proud of this final project. I made it with Oliver. For this one, we made a list of possible projects, and then students could choose which one they wanted to do. Individually, or in groups. Look at this fucking list.

Create a photomontage of natural resources across the global community (eg: compare and contrast human access to resources locally or globally)

Advocate to advertisers, business owners, and/or politicians for support with climate justice initiatives (eg: urban farming options, farmers markets in ALL communities, etc.)

Write and Record a podcast or audiovisual presentation to inform the overall community of the BIPOC perspective

Create a PSA for climate justice initiatives (TikTok, YouTube, posters, etc)

Role-play an in-class or whole-school debate on the effects of inequality on the global climate crisis (eg: racial disparity, gender inequality made worse by climate change, ageism: rights of children vs. adults)

Create a 3D model of a climate justice community to show others what is possible right now in terms of taking action

I made the rubric to grade the projects all by myself. He would be so proud of me. I sure as hell was proud of the work my students produced. Letters to local elected officials, commercials, debates.

A huge photomontage focusing on New York City, hung on the wall on butcher paper and stretched down the third grade hallway, photos of the West Village and the Upper East Side and Park Slope compared to East Harlem and Brownsville and East New York. Photos of the insides of their grocery stores. Graphs on the number of trees in each neighborhood.

Max and Nevaeh had an incredibly productive debate about racial disparity in climate justice. Nevaeh won, but Max was a gracious loser. More importantly, he asked Neveah a lot of questions, learned a lot, and made a new friend.

Kyrie was the only one who made the 3D model of a climate justice community. He made one entirely out of Legos, and took thirty minutes explaining every section and detail to the class, until I cut him off and encouraged him to record a Youtube video instead. He narrated it. It was an hour long. I watched the entire thing. Five out of five on the rubric.

“CLIMATE CHANGE IS NOT A LIE!” Max and I scream.

“DO NOT LET OUR PLANET DIE!” Twenty-eight little voices scream after us.

I’m so proud of us.

We eventually stop to take a break in front of Rajesh’s bodega, when I see Superintendent Daniels walk by.

I blink, momentarily frozen. Then, “Mr. Daniels!”

He looks around, confused. His eyes glance over at me, then the moment of recognition hits. After he looks down at my chest. “Oh, hello.”

“It’s Ms. Baker,” I remind him.

“Of course,” he nods. “Hi, Ms. Baker.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you lately.” I gesture off to the side, where he joins me. “I heard the charges against me were dropped.”

“Oh, right,” he says nonchalantly, and not as if this may have been the scariest thing to ever happen to me in my entire career. “Well, Mr. Jones had nothing to stand on, really. Especially after I removed your last letter to file, and I retracted all your letters from the case.”

I look at him, not comprehending. “What?”

He looks down at his watch impatiently. “I took back all your letters. I told the detective it was a breach of DOE employee privacy.”

“That third letter to file is gone? You retracted—Why?”

He sighs. “Oliver told me what really happened that day, at the Fall Festival. He also told me about all the garbage Mr. Jones had been up to after that. He told me about some of his beliefs. He told me that you consistently pushed back on them.” His eyes narrow. “My son is gay. And when Mr. Jones came to my office one day to meet me, he saw I was a Black man, and he no longer wanted to speak to me. He literally said that to my secretary. I pulled your letter from your file and contacted the detective assigned to your case that same day.”

I am speechless.

He thinks for a moment. “I suppose people are allowed to believe what they want, and they’re allowed to enroll their kids in schools whenever they want, and their beliefs are unfortunately as protected as anyone’s under free speech in public education.” He pauses, his expression tightening, his tone more deliberate. “But those people forget that there are real people running those public institutions. People with feelings. People who are often the very targets of the racism and homophobia they spew. They act like their words exist in a vacuum, like they don’t land on the ears of a Black superintendent or a gay teacher—or the kids trying to figure out who they are. It’s not just ‘free speech.’ It’s harm. And no matter how ‘protected’ those beliefs are, they always seem to come at the expense of someone else’s dignity or safety. Those people don’t see us as human, just obstacles to their twisted idea of what the world should be. And those people, like Mr. Jones, can get fucked.”

I blink. My mouth is gaping open like a fish at this unexpected show of introspection and emotional intelligence from a normally frivolous superintendent. “Uh… Yes, Mr. Daniels. I completely agree? I always have? But…”

He shakes his head, remembering himself. “Anyway, thank you, Ms. Baker. It was a real shame that Oliver didn’t come to work for me. He’d do very well in the District office.”

I blink, still reeling over the power of Daniels’s surprising monologue. “He… he didn’t even have the chance though. You didn’t give him that promotion.”

He frowns. “You don’t know? I’m confused. Aren’t you two… a thing?”

I just look at him.

He shakes his head. “Well, I gave him the promotion.”

“ What? ”

“Yes, Ms. Baker. I didn’t move him to PS 333. He asked me to be moved. Said it was what was best for the two of you. He didn’t want to be your boss anymore. Something about an imbalance of power.”

His phone dings with a text. “I’m sorry, Ms. Baker, I really have to go. It was nice to see you. Thanks again.” He dips his chin and walks away.

I stare after him, wheels turning in my head.

It’s time to make a plan.