Who is caring for the teachers who spend their time caring for students and families?

How can our systems support students and families if we don’t support the professionals who work within them?

What does it look like to use this moment as an opportunity to create more caring and humanizing educational spaces?

Image description: an empty classroom with a row of tables and a chalkboard. A voice reads: “If people are not in education, I don’t tell them the details. You know aside from the occasional newspaper article, it’s not shared, it’s not revealed. Teachers already are not exactly revered in this country or culture. Although I guess we’re revered as kind of martyrs. I don’t actually want to hear that.”

This exhibit, Teaching, Learning, and Care, explores these central questions through clips from Oral History Summer School’s Education Narratives Project, a collection documenting the experiences of educators in the age of COVID-19 and beyond.

Through this exhibit, you are invited to listen to three audio collages of the voices of 10 educators, drawing from interviews recorded over the span of 10 months. These professionals work in a variety of settings and roles, but are united in their deep concern for young learners and their families.

While the act of caring for children and families was the central theme across all interviews, these conversations also revealed how educators experienced care (or the absence of care) amid collective trauma.

As you listen, you are encouraged to imagine educational spaces and systems grounded in reciprocity, where educators both give and receive support.

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