Recently, there was an Opinion piece in the New York Times in which a former employee talked about how the creation of a “family” culture in her job at Google made her feel like it was unsafe and unwise to report issues of harassment. This got me thinking a lot about the number of times that so many teachers this year have been exhorted to think of their schools like their family and to “do it for the kids.” Y’all, we’ve got to talk about why this metaphor is dysfunctional in schools and why continuing to use it leads to lots of terrible behaviors, including shaming, intimidation, and the creation of a culture of toxic positivity.
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