“What is your greatest weakness coming into Teach For America” (TFA Interviewer)
“I will never feel like I did enough for these students” – David Metler (2010)
At the time, my response was non-triggering to myself and the interviewer. I was accepted into Teach for America (TFA) and began serving in Detroit when I was twenty-two years old. I would last four months in my twelfth grade English position at Detroit Midtown Academy. If my current self were the interviewer, I would have said to my younger self in the kindest Midwestern way possible, “David, that sounds like a savior mindset and also have you heard of self-care?!”
I hadn’t.
There I was on the first day of TFA, with my tie-dye tie, teaching 12th graders who were just a few years younger than me. My principal forced me to change my desks from a circle to traditional banking education rows leaving Freire, bell hooks, and Dewey shaking their heads. I did everything I could to support twelfth graders who were reading and writing at a 2nd grade level. This included before and after school tutoring and making regular home calls to the majority of my students, many of whom were failing because attendance was so infrequent and there was no attendance policy. When my Principal demanded that I give all the students A’s at the end of the first report card marking so that the school could maintain its funding, I decided to leave on ethical grounds.
It took me some time to peel myself off my parent’s family room floor as I struggled with anxiety and depression. With my mom’s loving support, I was able to begin processing what had happened and started getting back on my feet. I found it therapeutic to talk with those who had similar experiences in TFA Detroit. Moreso, while supporting other educators, I discovered my purpose – to support educator well-being and self-care. I co-facilitated TFA community building events providing support for new educators as I re-built myself.
I am inspired by the everyday moments that illuminate an equitable vision of education that empowers youth and educators – a 4th grade student who had their recess unfairly taken away who thanked me with a hand-written letter for standing up to the Assistant Principal, that fist bump from a 12-year old in a juvenile detention center after their first mindfulness practice, and a Principal I coach joyfully dancing on a zoom call because of the positive impact mindfulness is having on their school-community. I am also proud of the milestone moments for my personal educator well-being journey including that first session for me in therapy, and that first moment of Mindful Self-Compassion training. These moments connect to movements reflecting what systems level transformative work looks like in the everyday.
My own experience of burnout in TFA ignited my purpose and unwavering commitment to self-care and collective-care for educators. Since then, I have found a re-balancing of the playful and the serious on the education leadership path, that for educators is critical to combatting educator burnout and supporting holistic well-being. Through my work leading the Swing Set Institute, I joyfully support education changemakers to tap back into the wisdom of childhood and reconnect with their playful spirit. A reconnection with my own playful spirit grew through resilience over time, turning setbacks like my TFA experience into personal transformation. This resilience was bolstered by facing and transcending antisemitism in education and the workplace and integrating the lessons from family members surviving the Holocaust. I also have been inspired by my parent’s playful spirit that was formed through resilience surviving tough childhoods. I am continually growing to understand as Beverly Tatum highlights ‘the complexity of identity’ – being a white, heterosexual male, as I am learning authentic ways of being an ally.
As Parker Palmer said, “we teach who we are.”
My dad was the hype clown, for my mom, also a clown. End of story. It all makes sense! It is true my parents were both clowns together for a minute and I do dedicate my childhood changemaker path to my parents Debra and Maynard Metler. My changemaker path began being ‘loved up’ by the playful spirit of my family, my partner, my closest friends, my mentors, and all of those playful spirited children who have shared parts of my life from across the globe.
I see the wisdom of a playful spirit comes from resilience to the trauma and oppression that my ancestors persevered through, that my parents somehow inspirationally transmuted their childhood trauma into unconditional love for me and my siblings, creating a loving childhood for us even though they did not experience a loving childhood themselves. That is a miracle. And it took hard work. My parents, although magical, are people, imperfect as all adults are and within a larger society that controls and disempowers children as a norm, did their best to give me a playful childhood with memories of dancing to Raffi music and a large imagination (with my older siblings creating games out of everything like biking around our ‘flying’ driveway 3 times took you to different lands.) But also my childhood came with it striving for perfectionism in school and sports and challenges with anxiety and depression in early adulthood with rooted feelings of not being enough, of not being able to contribute enough to transform the world, and resisting the transition to the rigid non-magical adult world void of the qualities of childhood such as play and the imagination.
The adulthood part of my global adventure began when, as a volunteer through the Pangea World Service Team, my heart got connected to a lovely, vibrant, and resilient Nicaraguan community on the outskirts of Managua. I taught music education and became ‘Papaya’ because the kids said my face looked like the shape of a Papaya. They lit up my heart with their music, poetry, ridiculousness, and the realities of growing up quickly in extreme poverty. I came back from this trip feeling overwhelmed of how to make a difference, and was compelled to take action in any way I could in what I now know as traditional activism – I was a facilitator with Occupy Detroit, I marched in the streets any chance I got, joined Teach for America, and aspired to be like MLK and Mandela. This path always left me feeling angry ‘fighting for social justice’, feeling like I could never do enough with what I learned was a savior mindset, and feeling like I was living what I call ‘the changemaker paradox’.
The changemaker paradox hit in the contradiction of coming back from this trip with an insatiable need for making a difference for our global community while feeling disconnected from my home community, not being able to transform any of the brokenness in my own family, and finding myself personally struggling with anxiety and depression without awareness yet of the self-care/love I needed to be there for myself in a kind and loving way that mirrored how I aspired to be there for others around the world.
My process of empowerment began with training in the art of facilitating diversity dialogues by the Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR) at the University of Michigan to integrate the best tools of traditional activism with what is called ‘relational activism’. IGR gave me practice in a deeper critical awareness of what social change looks like in everyday moments, (in relationship, in conversations, and across power divides) and empowered me with tools to make wise daily choices that align with my values with perspective on identity, power, privilege, and oppression.
I then had the honor of meeting and working with Teresa Graham Brett, the author of Parenting for Social Change, on a follow up to her ‘mind blowing’ book. As I saw Teresa ‘walk the talk’ of her book while living with her family and writing with her, I was truly blown away. I am in awe of her integrity to inspire social justice education students in her public life and live these values in her personal life. Teresa showed me what it looked like to create social change in everyday moments within our closest relationships. Teresa was the first changemaker I had met who had integrated her work for social change through her personal life with integrity to her public life. Teresa’s wisdom illuminated how our greatest social issues have their roots in the way adults treat children and transforming the world requires adults heal from their own childhood. Teresa showed me how empowerment is a skill and a process and we must begin with facing the reality of the universal common human experiences of disempowerment and powerlessness in childhood to re-empower ourselves.
My path since then has embodied Teresa’s wisdom of a relational approach to change that centers well-being and self-care for educators. Over 18 years of transformative experiences (across PK-20 education, parenting, social entrepreneurship, youth mental health, children’s hospital’s, foster care, and juvenile detention centers) have prepared me from the inside-out to now be co-creating a whimsical education changemaker community with the Swing Set Institute.
This is the ‘fresh wisdom’ I am learning on the childhood changemaker path(s);
- Our greatest social issues have their roots in how adults treat children as the common elements of oppression (power over dynamics, disempowerment) have their roots in childhood and transforming the world requires adults healing from their own childhoods. We can authentically heal with inspiration from the wisdom of childhood with realness and ridiculousness integrating our disempowering experiences, what I call our ‘anti-resume’, transforming our powerless, disempowering, setbacks, and failures into our superpower to connect authentically and lead from wholeness and love. As adults heal, this can liberate not only adults but also children to be empowered from the beginning.
- As adults whimsically heal, we can reintegrate the wise qualities of childhood – play, creativity, humor, curiosity, risk-taking, resilience, and collaboration – the qualities of transformative changemakers, educators, parents, social entrepreneurs and all those who are intentionally a part of the village of childhood changemakers transforming the world with a playful spirit.
- We can see education change from a new perspective – one that honors the transformation of childhood as the foundation of education transformation from the inside-out. We can imagine a world where children and adults are thriving because adults are whimsically healing from their own childhood and children are empowered from the beginning.
I have founded the Swing Set Institute to co-create a loving village of changemakers inspired by the wisdom of childhood. I hope you will join the realness, humor, and heart-led community of childhood changemakers!
Sincerely,
David Charles Metler
David Charles Metler
Founder, Swing Set Institute