Why Am I Frazzled, Anyway?

Who I am, who I've been, and why the heck I do this.

Sometimes you don’t get to know when it’s the last “something.” And on March 13, 2020, there was no way to know that my life was never going to be the same.

When the world shut down, I know your life changed too. In fact, all of our lives changed together - just in the most isolated way possible. Me, I was teaching kindergarten. On Zoom. And I was seizing control wherever I could.

One way was by building an obscenely elaborate Bitmoji classroom (which was completely unusable thanks to its gargantuan size and the shitty “hot spot” wifi my students were using). Another was turning the tiny balcony into my classroom oasis. And a third: unfettered internet access.

You see, I am a people person. I love to yap. I’ll call my girlfriends and have five versions of the same conversation if something is on my mind. Sit in my living room and rot with me - I love parallel play. Everything is less boring together, so let’s hit up the grocery store.

Obviously, in 2020 that was absolutely not an option. Zoom and FaceTime sessions became all-day affairs. And then one day, I saw a few too many cool looking dances that were linked to this website called TikTok. Musical.ly reborn. I thought, “What the hey, I’ll give ‘er a download.” And, as if by algorithmic magic, I was instantly served teacher videos. Let the brain rot commence.

In a time I was locked in my apartment, starved for a community of people who understood the madness of teaching during a global pandemic, I was thrown into the strange and addictive world of TikTok.

It was different than other social media apps. You could make a video from your bed, you could speak off the cuff, you didn’t have to curate your feed, you could be silly.

I swear to you, I was posting up to thirteen times a day. I had joined a group of other “teacher-tokkers,” was enjoying happy hour game nights with fellow creators, and I was amassing a mental catalogue of audio clips that transport me back to that unprecedented spring - even five years later.

It was the choice to download that stinkin’ app that led me to where I am today. Granted, a lot of other stuff has changed, too. I married my boyfriend. We moved. We had some kids. And I left teaching.

I always enjoyed the privilege of working in schools that were extremely tuned into social justice. The year before I started teaching, my first school had groups of parents and staff who took kids to the Women’s March (in pussy hats, to boot) and they held matching faux protests at the school.

A kindergartener at that school is the one who taught me that the “OK” finger symbol is actually a white supremacist gesture.

There was a class party for a child who socially transitioned.

The second school where I worked held a three day Critical Race Theory training in August and there were monthly professional development sessions centered around social justice issues and history.

When I started my online career as a “teacher creator,” a natural extension of that was sharing the things I had learned along the way. I could not fathom a world in which teaching could be separated from politics, advocacy, and activism.

For me, teaching has always been political.

And not just because of the schools where I taught.

In the fall of 2016, I was working in East Los Angeles as an after-school theatre teacher, and I was debating going to school to get my teaching credential. (That’s how we do it in Southern California - you get a four year degree in whatever, and then if you want your credential to teach, your teaching classes are taken together as a postgraduate program.)

At that time, Donald Trump was running for president and immigration was front and center of his race. I saw first-hand how his hateful rhetoric sent shockwaves of fear throughout our school community, and I was angry.

That anger came to a boiling point the night of the 2016 election. When it became apparent that Trump was going to be the 45th President of the United States (despite all his ignorance and hatred) I slammed my bedroom door and said, “That’s it. I’m going back to school.”

I applied for teaching programs, and the rest is history.

I truly love teaching.

I used to wake up every single morning, sleepy and warm, and instead of dreading the work day from my cozy bed, I’d think, “You’re tired now, but you’ll feel better when you get to work.” And I did. Even on the really, really hard days, I knew I was where I was meant to be.

But the thing about creating political content online as a teacher is: people don’t like it. In a lot of ways, people are still here:

And the thing about teaching in the United States is: teachers are always thinking about school shootings. Your safety and your students’ safety are always in the back of your mind. So the last thing I ever wanted was to bring unnecessary attention to my school.

The first time I was ever doxxed, it was in Meena Harris’ comment section.