Below is a letter sent out by Principal Kimberly Martin on October 30 about how she felt about spirit week.
For most members of the Wilson community; staff, parents and students, I’m sure it comes as no surprise to learn that I struggle mightily with Spirit Week. While I love revelry and celebration as much as anyone one, I also know the challenge of planning, executing and delivering events to and for a very large group of young people, who are still developing their identity, their consciousness and their ability to make good decisions independent of the actions of their peers. I also know that learning is a complex and varied exercise, it occurs at diverse rates and fluctuates across different subject matters. I know too that teaching is very, very hard work, and to intentionally plan a week of “controlled chaos” layered upon an expectation that teachers continue to offer dynamic and engaging lessons, while continuing to receive feedback on their practice that they are expected to implement almost immediately, and to ask that student behavior, student interest and student engagement all remain at high levels before and after a talent show, a Powder Puff Football game, while wearing pajamas, or with any of the other distractions and deviations that we can create, it isn’t just unfair to teachers, it actually sounds hilarious, if only it weren’t true.
Activities like Spirit Week also present a philosophical challenge for me because I am not only aware, but am a bit pathological about the responsibility that we have, administrators and teachers, to ensure that we are maximizing our time with students and ensuring that we create learning experiences from most, if not all, of our interactions with young people. I remember when I first learned about the “Unconscious Curriculum” in graduate school (The Milgram Obedience Study), and I became intensely conscious of the number of decisions that I made in a class- how I refered to students, the order and frequency in which I called on students, the decisions I made about my seating chart (who are the students that are in the front? The back? Why?), etc. Simply put, the idea is that students are receiving (learning) information from their teachers all the time and the unconscious curriculum is just as impactful and long-lasting as the learned curriculum and the taught curriculum; and because teachers are authority figures, their actions, decisions and behavior in class does impact what and how students learn and behave. My teaching practice was effectively and dramatically altered by my understanding of the weight and gravity of the work of teaching. The students are watching. It struck me that each time I interact with a student, the other students are receiving information about how to treat others, they are gauging my intention, my philosophy, my commitment. “They are learning what is addressed and what is ignored in my classroom. I must learn to be conscious and to Stay Woke when I am leading my classroom,” I ruminated. I was relentless in my desire to get that right.
My final reason for my discomfort about Spirit Week is related to my serious fear and concern about the future of our students and the future of our educational system. As the price of college goes higher and higher still, our college-going young people do not have the luxury to go to college to”find themselves” in the same way as Baby Boomers and other generations before them were given. College is far too expensive, for most families, to have explorations or to take risks, as it may prove to be very costly. As a result, it is incumbent upon secondary educators to give students every tool they can use to be successful while attending and after leaving Wilson. Our students are entering an adult world that proclaims that women must work another hundred years or more before earning equal pay, our political discourse is fueled by rhetoric and fear, and the violence perpetrated against young men of color is so frequent it has almost become normalized. This is the world our young people are inheriting. Creating spaces like Spirit Week where the rules are not enforced, where we suspend our regulations of behavior and expectation, where we permit what we would not typically permit; in the larger world outside of Wilson, those circumstances could land any one of our students in grave danger. We must prepare students for a world that can be less forgiving, that does have unequal and impossibly high standards that will not be flexed by a strongly worded email, by the passionate or caring word of a teacher, or by the loose regulations of a week of anarchy.
To truly claim the title of being the premier public school in North America, we must ensure that students are provided the academic fortitude, the social and cultural capital, and the decision making prowess to navigate the world after Wilson. Permitting “controlled chaos” in our school, in the name of school pride no less, can be a departure from the laser-like focus that we need to become a nationally recognized, high-performing high school. The students are watching, and they are learning an unconscious curriculum, and it is our heavy responsibility to ensure that the curriculum they are learning is nuanced, sophisticated and thoughtful. When SGA asked me last year to don the school mascot for our pep rally, there was a great deal of hand wringing and reflective meditation on my part. You see, I am a school leader, an academic, a writer, a reflective practitioner. I am not an entertainer, a performer or a troubadour. I have worked tirelessly, my entire life, to shake the bonds of oppression facing women and people of color. I have battled the insecurity of Imposter Syndrome that similarly affects many professional women who have come from disenfranchised circumstances. So, it was far outside my comfort zone last year to strip away my hard-earned descriptors (mother, academic, leader…) and to parade in a costume in front of my students. This year too, in a football uniform, I danced and co-led the pep rally, all in the name of School Spirit. I’m quickly realizing that in my current role, charisma and showmanship are very highly valued, more so than other job descriptions, perhaps.
I want students and staff to have pride in Woodrow Wilson High School. I admit, this school is getting into my heart more than any other school where I have worked. I truly love this staff- I’ve never encountered a more thoughtful, committed and engaged group of teachers, who want the very best for our school and our students. Our students are dynamic, creative, smart and funny. I love the ability of our students to self-reflect, to show humility and compassion for one another, and to speak their mind and share their opinions. Our parent community is engaged, demanding and helpful. I appreciate that they keep their eye on the ball and that they challenge all of us to get better. However, I wish that we could collectively decide that School Spirit does not ONLY exist when we yell the loudest, create the biggest poster, or wear our pajamas to school. We can show school pride everyday by showing respect to our teachers, getting to school on time, cleaning up our own trash in the cafeteria and not leaving trash in other places, by helping a peer who is struggling, or by admitting mistakes when confronted. We can elevate our school by taking our PARCC assessments seriously, by doing our best on the SAT and/or ACT, by assuming positive intent when engaging with teachers and administrators, by extending the benefit of the doubt, and by showing kindness and compassion to everyone. To me, those are the hallmarks of a school with pride, and those are the qualifiers for a school to become the premier, highest-achieving public high school in North America.
Kim Martin
This letter was given to us by junior vice president of the Student Government Association (SGA) Georgia Woscoboinik. It is a public statement addressed to principal Martin.
Principal Martin, My name is Georgia Woscoboinik, and I am the student government vice president of the class of 2018. Having read the article in The Washington Post addressing your message in the parent newsletter, I felt it was time that I voice my opinion.
I joined SGA this year after being prompted by my English teacher to make my voice heard by my community and to put myself in a position to change what I dislike about my school, such as the lack of communication with administration and self-segregation among students. When I joined the club, I found a responsible, dedicated group of young leaders who believed their mission to be carrying out the ideas and wishes of their classmates, not appeasing the school’s administration. Your opinion in the newsletter was not only unsolicited and antagonistic, but in line with your actions thus far at the school.
Many of your actions since coming to Wilson have been perceived by the student body as attempts to undermine our identity as a school by going after our proudest traditions. As one of your first actions as principal, you attempted to institute a policy of prior review for The Beacon, triggering backlash from both students and journalists. In addition, many students perceive you to be absent. You have seldom addressed the student body as a whole, making students assume you are uninterested in their lives. Now, without first addressing or consulting the student government, you write a belligerent newsletter to parents going after the most exciting and unifying week of the year.
By not talking to the student government before–as The Washington Post called it–trashing Spirit Week to our parents, you have shown a lack of respect for students and undermined the SGA, whose job it is to facilitate communication between staff and students. You created tension between students and administration and positioned yourself against the student body that you aim to support.
By organizing spirit week, SGA succeeded in fostering a sense of Wilson pride and camaraderie. During the powderpuff game and the pep rally, I met multiple people in my class whom I had never, and probably would never, have met otherwise. To deny the students this week of so-called “controlled chaos” would be to take steps back from our common goal of a more unified Wilson community.
Georgia Woscoboinik
On November 8, after the Washington Post published the article about Principal Martin’s letter, The Beacon held an interview with her. Martin stands by what she published in the letter. “Pretty much everything that I felt about spirit week went in that letter,” Martin said. However, she believes that people misconstrued her intention. “I didn’t think it was really opinionated, it wasn’t like I was trying to say spirit week is bad… I wanted people to know what are the perspectives of a school leader who is still somewhat of an outsider, who observes these kinds of practices that aren’t necessarily bad or necessarily good.”
Martin says she was “shocked” when she saw her letter in the Washington Post. “I did not send it to the Post, I don’t know who did. I did not want it in the Post… I was writing it to parents and to students.” She heard that the article received negative feedback, although she didn’t read the comments herself. Martin was also surprised to see the comment about powderpuff in the article. “That wasn’t even anything that I was thinking about, I was on a powderpuff football team in high school.”
As of November 8, Martin had not spoken to the SGA about the letter or the article. Martin says she expressed concern over wearing a costume to the student government in 2015, but not in 2016. Last year, she expressed to them that “I’m a little more private than that, I’m not really a performer type.” She adds, “But it’s also fun! I don’t mind stretching myself, I ask students to stretch themselves all the time.”
She received positive feedback from dozens of parents and staff, and does not see why anyone would be angered by her letter. “When I re-read it, I didn’t feel like [down with spirit week] is what I was saying…. It doesn’t seem to me that there was that much in there to offend or to anger someone, but I was wrong, so I’ve learned my lesson!”