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José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.

@TheJLV

16 Apr 20

Let me take a moment to discuss death.

Death is an important discussion right now given how, even as I type this, another siren blares past my window, another hearse double parks near the funeral home, another set of birds rest in front of the shuttered church.

Teachers who believed in me never heard me complain about the nightly shots ringing through my project buildings. They rarely inquired whether the shots missed their targets or when the murals and candles would find an empty wall.

They believed in me academically. Cool.

They have varying levels of pedagogy, practice, and assessments. My elders would pass from any number of diseases and after-effects from addictions.

When my aunt passed away from leukemia, my counselor had little to say but I’m sure she was glad I attended a prestigious school.

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José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.

@TheJLV

15 Mar 20

The more I’m reading this, the angrier I’m getting, not just because of the mess we’ve been out in, but because cleaning and screening are things our schools could have been doing long before a pandemic hit.

That’s a systemic problem, not an individual problem.

How do you blame folks who feel their last stable social service is their local public school?

How do you blame those in underresourced schools who often have to use their own money to buy sanitizer and wipes for trying to cope?

Y’all should have cared before the pandemic.

I worked during the transit strike.

I worked during multiple snow storms.

I’m one of the first people into school and one of the last folks out.

We’re not martyrs. We’re doing the job that the unwritten social contract asked us to do in schools like ours.

Please.

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José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.

@TheJLV

21 May 19

@DOEChancellor

Those who know my work over the last decade and change know I’ve had my share of critiques of superintendents and chancellors.

What’s been different about @DOEChancellor is how he asks the hard systemic questions about racism and the actual status quo in NYC.

@DOEChancellor

@DOEChancellor I don’t need the chancellor of the largest school district in the nation to be perfect, either.

I need someone who, when confronted with the most difficult questions of our time, actually wants to respond thoughtfully and with the fullest powers invested in them.

@DOEChancellor

@DOEChancellor I get that, as a Black Dominican educator in Washington Heights, I have a purview that other visible educators and policymakers don’t.

But how else do we uproot inequity if not by looking at it directly, asking the questions, and having solid answers?

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José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.

@TheJLV

12 Sep 18

A gentle reminder to my fellow educators that, for many of our students, just showing up is “grit” enough. Their “bad” behaviors aren’t innate, but manifestations of the environments handed to them. Grace and patience with them matter in this work.

Instead of constantly looking up classroom management strategies, we ought to consider self-management and relationship-management strategies, too. The classrooms that look most pristine might actually be the classes with students most stripped of agency. Don’t conflate.

We need to keep asking ourselves whether we want students to have developed their own voices or voices that sound like bourgeoisie versions of themselves, which is not themselves at all. Our society keeps mandating acculturation and asking teachers to do that work. Let’s not.

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José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.

@TheJLV

4 Jun 18

Non-sequitur: I think some of us on Edutwitter respond with sarcasm and derision not only as a form of disagreement of the content, but the disagreement of the underlying norms and parlance of “professionalism” we’re often asked to represent. On our time, we change norms some.

We shouldn’t confuse professionalism with respect and courtesy. Professionalism is too often code for conforming “others” into the hegemony. To wit, respect and courtesy would outdo professionalism insofar as our individual and collective humanity is concerned.

The power dynamics created on Twitter are such that those with 50K-plus followers (usually achieves through purchase, automation, or “targeted content”) can feel attacked by thoughtful (current!) educators with half that number. That’s wild to me.

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José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.

@TheJLV

9 Apr 18

Now that Wakanda fever has dissipated some, and now that I’ve watched the movie, I got one thing to say: I can see how the fervor for a mythical land of prosperity entices so many of us.

What I witness too often is that we want to create these lands with no redistribution.

That’s why, for example, too many celebrities want to build up their own schools instead of upending the current school systems and the laws that keep them inequitable. Or why “school choice” boils down to how much a parent can customize their child’s education.

There’s this weird paradox where we’re tussling with the idea of creating a space where we can just be and a way to bring that to more people than just the talented, exceptional few. That goes for too many spaces, but I’ll stick to education for now.

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More from @TheJLV

José Vilson knows our kids have *been* gifted.

José Vilson knows our kids have *been* gifted.

José Vilson knows our kids have *been* gifted.

José Vilson knows our kids have *been* gifted.

José Vilson knows our kids have *been* gifted.

José Vilson knows our kids have *been* gifted.

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José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.

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José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.

José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.

José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.

José Vilson knows our kids have been gifted.