By Tim Middleton
George Floyd (Minnesota 2020), Bryon Williams (Las Vegas 2019), Marshall Miles (Sacramento 2018), Fermin Vincent Valenzuela (California 2016), Calvon Reid (Florida. 2015), Balantine Mbegbu (Arizona 2014), Eric Garner (New York 2014), along with 63 others during the same decade (according to a New York Times study) died while in police custody saying the same words: “I can’t breathe!” The George Floyd incident which was recorded on film by a passer-by, when the police officer kept him in deadly restraint for over eight minutes, even as Floyd cried out those three words, initiated the Black Lives Matter movement and led eventually to the policeman being sentenced to 22 years and six months in prison.
The words “I can’t breathe” also have a powerful echo in the whole Covid-19 pandemic where sufferers cry out in desperation the same three words in their deep distress as the virus holds them in a deadly restraint, pinning them down and taking their life away. In this situation, though, there is no person to charge, no person to be accused, no movement to be formed. The effect, however, is just as traumatic; the cause is similarly symptomatic.
The very simple truth is that for us to have life we must have breath; As long as we have breath, then we have hope. When we are under pressure, we are told: “breathe!” When we are tired and weary, we are reminded to breathe, deep and slow. When we are nervous we are encouraged to breathe. When we are emotional, sad, excited, angry, whatever, what are we advised? Breathe! If we want to live, we must breathe. We must breathe life in.
The sad reality is that there is another group of people who are in their own way crying out, “I can’t breathe!” These are today’s children who have the deadly restraint of being held in custody and not enjoying the freedom of a proper education. The education that is being offered to many only serves to put them face down on the ground begging for breath and life and hope.
Much of education sucks life out of children through the boredom, tedium and repetitiveness. We suffocate them with endless tests and exercises. We choke them with chunks of indigestible knowledge that block up all alleys of life. We strangle them with strong vice-like grips on their careers and futures. We gag them by not allowing them to express or even have their own individual thoughts and views. We drown them in a sea of facts. We take the life out of them.
Much of education today lacks inspiration, lacks life and breath. We need to breathe into children fresh thinking. We do not need to teach youngsters to breathe; we must let them enjoy breathing, in and out. The police arguments throughout all cases has been that, “If you can talk, you can breathe” but that is to miss the reverse point, that if we can breathe, then we can talk — and we must be allowed to talk.
Children are quite simply not being inspired, in other words, quite literally, are not having healthy education breathed into them. It may not be deadly police restraint but deadly political restraint in the handcuffs of education that is sucking the life out of children. Breathing helps mental clarity; so must education. We must inspire them with passion, principles and purpose.
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How many more names may be added to the list of those who have cried out in vain: “I can’t breathe”? Much of the blame regarding the racism behind the Black Lives Matter movement centres on the ignorance of people who do not understand the prejudice being inflicted. It is again a striking echo of what is happening at this present time in education. We are ignorant; we lack inspiration.
There is a well-known picture, in the book of Ezekiel in the Bible, of the Valley of Dry Bones where the prophet is asked, “Can these bones live?” We are told that “The bones dried up and our hope is gone”. New life had to be breathed into them and hope was restored. In a similar way, there is a well-known saying in Latin, “Dum Spiro Spero” which translates as “While I breathe, I hope” — while there is breath (life), there is hope. Let us hope that we allow and enable our children to breathe through the education we offer; education must be inspirational. That matters a lot, too.
- Tim Middleton is the executive director of the Association of Trust Schools [ATS]. The views expressed in this article, however, are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of the ATS.
