I have been quiet, a friend noted on one of my socials, and they said they hadn’t seen much of me in their feed in a while; they missed me. They weren’t wrong. I said I’d been quiet, not elaborating on why; I missed them too.

I have been quiet. I have spent a long time, many months, in introspection trying to figure out who I am again. Find my voice.

There’s a huge learning curve to beginning again. Everything you thought you knew goes out the window, and the skills you learn by doing take a long time to become second nature while you second-guess every move you make, every word you say, every step you take.

I’ve been afraid to say much the last several months, if I’m honest. The vagueness with which I’ve typically written was purposeful, in part because specifics didn’t matter–giftedness and the issues that go along with it aren’t specific to the people I serve or even the experiences that I have as a gifted adult. Many gifted people have similar enough experiences that it resonates regardless.

My life over the last nearly twenty years has revolved around my work in the gifted education space. I set that part of myself aside for a bit in order to address the lack of knowledge I felt I had as a school leader. When I went home at night, I replayed the day, much as I imagine a coach does after a game, looking at every play for where things went wrong and opportunities that were missed–where had I missed a signal, a subtle movement that would have alerted me to what was to come next. Some stood out like bright pink doors in a sea of earth-toned HOA-controlled homes. Others were sleight-of-hand movements, coins disappearing between knuckles while flutters of fingers distract the eye.

Negativity bias is easy–it’s so easy to see the things that go wrong, especially after the fact. And it’s easy to hear the complaints–they’re loud and the cacophony is impossible to ignore. After a while, they blend together, a common chorus of words from ghosts from the past insinuating that I’m in water above my head.

The water has been exactly at my head. And it recedes like the tide after a while.

And so I have been quiet. The fear of judgment is greater than the need to be heard or ask for help sometimes.

And there is fear, not only that I will be judged or targeted. And that using my voice will impact the kids, families, and other people I serve adversely.

The voice of my father about “those damn rabble-rousers” getting what they deserve is loud. They were seeking social change that would allow equality where it hadn’t existed before and he struggled with that…he knew it was needed, agreed it should happen, but wanted it to be less…loud and forced. He taught me to stay quiet… Quiet lets you keep your job, your home, your family. Quiet fixes it so no one knows who you are.

But I can’t stay quiet.

We were gifted a five-day weekend by the Universe the day after the election. I wasn’t mad about it. I had a lot to process and more to figure out about how to best support the people I serve and handle what I knew would be coming. Regardless of which direction the election had gone, there was going to be fallout. There were glimpses of what it might look like over the last several years, and some had been directed at me by people who don’t know me…we’ve never met beyond the walls of where I work and some have never met me at all.

But I can’t stay quiet. Everything I do and say as a school leader is scrutinized, from what topics came up in the course of a lesson on optics to why the hand-holds on the climbing wall are the colors they are to what company makes the crayons students are provided and who the parent company of that company is and how it’s connected to a tiny country somewhere in the far reaches of the ocean someone doesn’t like because they don’t agree with something the leader did or said ten years ago… But I have concerns…and they impact my school life very much.

I have concerns about how things will play out. I worry about what will happen with gifted education over the course of the next four years and beyond–the impacts of this election to all of education are concerning. “It’ll be wonderful, wait and see!” isn’t something that I am comfortable doing. Someone today told me I should “educate myself.” I did a fair bit of that before I voted, thanks…and that’s exactly why I’m worried.

I’m concerned that teachers just starting out or thinking about it will leave… The changes proposed by some local governments about what is allowed to be taught in schools eliminates important information and skills that teachers know is accurate and necessary that kids should know before they go off into the world. And changes to higher education may complicate the path to going to school to be a teacher even more.

I worry that likely changes to education funding will eliminate teaching positions and even whole departments designed to support populations of students in need of specialized instruction and the students they’re designed to serve will suffer. Training for teachers is needed, and it’s not free. Support for kids takes people…and they aren’t free either.

I worry most about our kids–gifted kids see and experience the world differently, and I’m concerned that those differences will be forced underground by those who demand blind compliance. Thinking outside the box, advocating for their needs and the needs of others, seeking justice…all things we’ve worked so hard to teach them are important parts of who they are and are valuable skills…might be lost. Is some of this thinking catastrophic? Maybe… but I’ve already lived with the “everyone must be doing the same thing at the same time” and “there’s no room for differentiation up” kind of required teaching. The damage that does is catastrophic to kids (and adults) who need the space to scratch both sides of their brains…

Knowing what I can and cannot say, what topics are verboten and which are allowed in this role, even in my own personal spaces is difficult…once something is out in the world, it’s out there. Education in our country is impacted by politics, like it or not.

To live an authentic life is to take risks and live with integrity… I can’t do that if I’m quiet.