Courtney Farrell

If we agree that what we teach in the classroom must have relevance in the lives of our students outside of our four walls, when we teach kids to analyze characters in the books we read, without acknowledging and naming the work we’re doing as that of creating assumptions, are we essentially weaponizing children with … Read more

The youth of our nation cry out. Are we hearing them, all of them? Are we truly centering their collective cry in our hearts and in our actions? No. Tragically, we are not. We can, though, especially in emancipatory spaces, those critical spaces where the voices of youth are centered as they unpack thinking around … Read more

“Mom, you just don’t understand me,” he said to me with every molecule of impatience his adolescent self could muster on a Friday night after a long week of school, the first week in fact, of this new school year. Two things about these six simple words I’d humbly like to communicate to you. First, … Read more

I’ve been trying to figure out how to save my child for 365 days. I’m going to say that aloud to myself, so my soul can hear what I just wrote: I’ve been trying to figure out how to save my child for 365 days. That sounds weird to say, perhaps even a bit arrogant … Read more

A question for you tonight: When you were a kid, what did you dream of being when you grew up? Consider this question and hold the answer in your heart. Yep, I said heart. You’ll know why in a minute, I promise, when you’ve had a chance to read further. Perhaps you changed your mind … Read more

Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have, and you come to us endangered. -Ta-Nehisi Coates from Between the World and Me I sit with this. Please sit with this, too, for a while. Read and reread it over and over, as I did. Please. I am a … Read more

I felt brave when I was telling my friends about me. I felt brave when I was still friends with a girl after she told almost everyone in my classroom that I was transgender. I felt brave when I stood up for myself and stopped a girl from shacking my shoulders and telling me to … Read more