Joyful Resistance. Gritty Hope.

(A love letter to educators and children about what we protect.)

Hope isn’t fragile. It grows through concrete. Joy isn't soft. It protects what matters most.

This is not my usual kind of post.

Most of the time, I lead with research. I cite developmental science. I point to frameworks and findings.

Today feels more personal.

With Valentine’s Day approaching, I’ve been thinking about love — not the decorative kind, but the durable kind. The kind that shows up early, stays late, and rises again.

Recently, I saw an image, shared by @littlejusticeleaders, that declared:

Joy is resistance.

Art is resistance.

Play is resistance.

Music is resistance.

Love is resistance.

As I reflected on this and began thinking about this post, I was reminded of another post that captured my attention years ago.

“People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider's webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go” (Matthew @CrowsFault).

Between those two images — joy and resistance, hope and grit — is where I find myself right now.

And maybe that is what love looks like in education.

Teaching Is Justice Work

I believe — personally and professionally — that teaching is inherently a social justice endeavor.

Not because it aligns with a party.

Because it aligns with children.

To teach is to insist that:

Every child deserves access to powerful knowledge.

Every child deserves dignity.

Every child deserves belonging.

Every child deserves the opportunity to imagine a future larger than their current reality.

That insistence is an act of love.

Developmental science supports what good teachers have always known: belonging and stable relationships buffer stress and promote resilience. Research on play (e.g., National Institute for Play; The Lab for the Developing Mind at NYU; the Temple Infant and Child Lab; the Child’s Play, Learning, and Development Lab at the University of Delaware just to name a few) consistently shows that agency, movement, and social interaction strengthen executive function and motivation.

When we design classrooms around these truths, we are not being partisan.

We are being developmentally responsible.

We are loving children well.

Joy Is Not Soft. It Is Protective.

When I talk about joy, I do not mean avoidance.

I mean structure infused with possibility.

Joy in classrooms looks like:

Recess protected as regulation and negotiation.

Arts integrated as cognitive tools.

Music used for co-regulation and collective rhythm.

Inquiry structured so children practice agency, not just compliance.

The neuroscience of learning is clear: chronic stress narrows cognition; psychological safety expands it. We have no shortage of evidence from established scholars supporting this stance (e.g., Immordino-Yang, 2016; Kim et al., 2020; McDowell, 2024). We also have no shortage of threats and stressors (e.g., ICE raids, active shooter drills, systemic school stress, and layered childhood adversity and insecurities).

In that context, joy is not decorative.

It is protective.

Protecting children’s joy is not naïve.

It is disciplined love.

Hope Has Dirt on Her Face

Still — I do not experience hope as fragile.

Hope, for teachers, looks like:

Revising a lesson for the third time.

Advocating for a child who has been underestimated.

Expanding whose stories are centered in curriculum.

Refusing deficit narratives.

Protecting recess and play when it is the first thing threatened.

Hope is not whisper-soft.

It is stubborn.

It rises again.

And often, it looks like a teacher who refuses to give up on a child.

Disrupting What Harms, Building What Heals

Yes, I believe we must disrupt systems that marginalize and oppress children.

But disruption does not always look like outrage.

Sometimes it looks like:

Ensuring multilingual learners are viewed as assets.

Designing agentic learning spaces.

Teaching media literacy without indoctrination.

Creating classrooms where disagreement does not equal dehumanization.

It is possible to be steady and still be firm.

It is possible to advocate without becoming performative.

It is possible to love children fiercely and quietly at the same time.

What I Am For

Especially this week, as Valentine’s Day approaches, I find myself returning to a simple question: What are we protecting when we protect children?

I am for

recess as a right.

play as pedagogy.

belonging as non-negotiable.

art as meaning-making.

music as regulation.

agency as preparation for civic life.

joy as a stabilizer.

hope with grit.

I am for love that is patient in staff meetings.

Love that is kind in grading.

Love that keeps no record of wrong when a child tries again.

Love that perseveres when systems do not.

Children are watching how we respond to uncertainty.

They are learning whether strength must equal cruelty — or whether strength can coexist with tenderness.

Whether disagreement must fracture — or whether it can refine.

Whether power must dominate — or whether it can protect.

If teaching is justice work — and I believe it is — then love is not sentimental.

It is active.

It is structured.

It is persistent.

It shows up early.

It stays late.

It rises again.

So may we be educators who are poor in ego and rich in mercy.

May we hunger and thirst for righteousness in ways that are steady, not sensational.

May we be peacemakers in our classrooms without surrendering conviction.

May we protect joy without apology.

May we practice hope with dirt on our hands.

And may the love we cultivate —

in lessons revised,

in joy defended,

in children seen and known —

be strong enough to build what fear cannot.

Joyful resistance.

Gritty hope.

Disciplined love.

For the children.

Always for the children.