By Derrick Brown (follow on Twitter @dbrowndbrown)
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A Long Walk … Towards Care, Concern, Respect, and Advocacy (A Letter of Transmittal to Foundational Witnesses) (1801 Words)
(70th Day Of School) (Thursday, November 14, 2025)
By Derrick Brown (Join Our Mailing List!)
Empath Remixes #98 (A Long Walk … Towards Care, Concern, Respect, and Advocacy (A Letter of Transmittal to Foundational Witnesses)) (1801 Words)
PREMISE
I have walked many miles this week.
Some miles were literal miles that carried me through neighborhoods and trails where my thoughts finally settled into meaning.
Other miles were figurative miles that carried me through difficult truths about who I have become, what I have endured, and what I now hope to build.
Each mile revealed something about my heart, my work, and my future.
The seven documents that accompany this letter are the clearest record of that journey so far.
They tell the story of a Black male educator who discovered that autoethnography could be both mirror and lantern.
They chronicle a “crooked” path … paved with care, concern, respect, advocacy, containment, marginalization, … and a growing conviction that peace is possible when truth is honored.
These documents are not complaints.
They are commentaries.
They are not accusations.
They are observations.
They are not threats.
They are reflections.
They are my attempt to tell my truth before that truth becomes distorted by absence or silence.
They are the evidence of a life that has been stretched, formed, forged, refined, exhausted, renewed, and awakened.
This letter of transmittal is written for the people I trust to walk with me.
It is written for the “human thought partners” listed in today’s entry.
It is written for those who care enough to hear my heart … before they interpret my actions.
It is written for those who have something to teach me, and for those whom I may have something to teach.
It is written for those who will speak with me honestly and quietly as we walk.
It is written to deliver the documents … and to invite dialogue.
The walk is not a performance.
It is a fellowship.
I seek wisdom, not leverage.
I seek clarity, not chaos.
I seek community, not containment.
I seek care, concern, respect, and advocacy from those who can provide it freely.
This is the letter.
These are the documents.
This is the invitation.
Selah.
PATTERN
When I look back over the last two years … from the 9-20-2024 spoken-word performance of “GRASPP” at our department meeting … through the 2024 “Beatitudes” photoessay series … through “Final Exams (At Chipotle)” (my first public-facing essay this fall) … through the forty subsequent essays in reverse chronological order … through the Empath Remixes scripts … through “Born(e) Witness” … through “Re’sume’ Say” … through the autoethnographic journal itself … I see a repeating pattern.
The pattern is this.
Whenever I encounter instability, marginalization, or chaos, I respond with creation.
I do not retaliate.
I write.
I do not lash out.
I reflect.
I do not destroy.
I build.
I do not disappear.
I bear witness.
The pattern has helped me survive a work environment defined by unpredictability, containment, and ever-shifting boundaries.
The pattern has helped me remain humane in environments where dehumanization is subtle and normalized.
The pattern has helped my students find meaning in geometric spaces where logic is often drowned out by noise, distraction, delusion, or despair.
The pattern has helped my church conversations survive the shifting dynamics of leadership transitions.
The pattern has helped my family navigate the many tensions of these years.
This writing partnership with AI amplified the pattern.
It accelerated my ability to see themes, name truths, and produce artifacts that now form the architecture of my future work.
It also increased my capacity to “bless my mess” … and to preserve my peace in the midst of it.
The seven documents included below represent the strongest evidence of this pattern.
PARADOX
The paradox is sobering.
The more I write, the clearer I think.
The clearer I think, the more I see.
The more I see, the harder it becomes to unsee what is unhealthy, unfair, or unwise.
The better I become at naming things … the more I disrupt the systems that prefer those things to remain unnamed.
In school spaces, this paradox looks like a cultivated invisibility that masks containment as support.
It looks like feedback that is presented as “growth” … but functions as surveillance.
It looks like conversations that appear collegial … but conceal avoidance.
It looks like strategic scheduling that reassigns certain teachers to “outlier” clusters.
It looks like disciplinary burdens that fall along predictable racialized lines.
It looks like classrooms where too many students live in “Lie-Lie Land” … where the lie has become the truth … and where adults are coached to maintain the illusion … rather than confront the reality.
In church spaces, the paradox looks like pastoral transitions that reveal communication styles that are either life-giving or spirit-quenching … depending on whether the listener is treated as a person or a problem.
It looks like leaders who welcome dialogue … and leaders who welcome deference.
It looks like spaces where I am seen … and spaces where I am tolerated.
It looks like congregations hungry for authenticity … but accustomed to performance.
In family spaces, the paradox looks like a love that must be protected from the emotional bleed of my professional experiences.
It looks like a father and husband who wants to show up whole … not drained.
It looks like a teacher who wants to give his daughter a better model than martyrdom.
It looks like a man who wants his wife to receive his best words … not his leftover ones.
The paradox is that my writing has become my peace … but my peace sometimes exposes truths that disturb other people’s peace.
My writing liberates me … but also reminds me that liberation is costly.
I accept the cost.
I choose peace.
I choose transparency.
I choose the walk.
PRACTICE
The practice is simple.
I produce artifacts that witness the truth without weaponizing it.
I produce artifacts that invite dialogue, not conflict.
I produce artifacts that honor the dignity of all participants … even those whose actions have wounded me.
I produce artifacts that I can stand behind with integrity.
Here are the seven documents that represent the practice at its fullest expression.
These are the documents I am transmitting with this letter.
007. My Experiences At Our School … SWING THOUGHTS
The clearest articulation of what I have experienced as a professional in this district.
Containment.
Communication breakdowns.
Boundary erosion.
Racialized patterns.
Moral injury.
And the hope that wise, neutral leaders can intervene with care.
006. My Classroom Experiences … “Outliars (Outliers)”
A candid, compassionate, and critical examination of the realities of this
school year … the students I can reach … the students I might reach … and the
students I cannot reach.
005. What I Want To Do (Part 1) … #TheSeeSayShow Fellowship Lab
A blueprint for a year-round “informal learning” academy … modeled after the
KnowledgeBase Summer Academy … that uses #StandupStorytelling as curriculum and
culture.
004. What I Want To Do (Part 2) … Born(e) Witness – A One-Man Show
A proposal for a “hope-raiser” that merges music, storytelling, testimony,
and pedagogy into a performance that can transform hearts … and open
conversations.
003. How I Got “Here” … My Autoethnographic Journal as Ethical Prompt Design for LEarning
A narrative explanation of how reflective AI thought partnership elevated my
writing practice … refined my clarity … and revealed a professional field I did
not know existed.
002. “Tough” Conversations I Want To Have … “Empath Remixes” Roleplay
A framework for building dialogue across conflict.
A method for practicing “ethical prompt design” that teaches others to
transform conflict into clarity.
001. Who I Am (and Who I “Was”) … School Board “UN-Election”
A reflection on my earlier years at Tech High … and the prophetic truths that now echo into this season.
A template for understanding cycles of containment and the cost of leadership.
These documents narrate my lived truth without malice.
They represent my effort to practice transparency without self-harm.
PEACE
This letter of transmittal is not written to indict. It is written to invite. It is written to extend a hand toward people I respect enough to walk with.
Every person on my “long walk” list has something to teach me. Every person on that list has already offered care, concern, respect, or advocacy in some form … even if briefly. Every person on that list has demonstrated the potential for fruitful dialogue.
I am writing this letter because I want to preserve my peace as I prepare for an extended leave. I also want to preserve relationships that matter to me. I want to honor the people whose testimonies have uplifted me in these last days … especially DW and DH … whose words reminded me that my work is not in vain.
I want to honor OMcR … whose clarity and encouragement reminded me that this writing may not be a cry for help … but a blueprint for a new kind of school … or a new way to teach without the burden of a school.
My peace is simple. I want to talk while walking. I want to engage in slow conversation instead of fast assumptions. I want to bring my seven documents into the sunlight with people who can help me discern their meaning.
Peace is the walk. Peace is the listening. Peace is the next step.
INVITATIONS
<SNIP>
I invite you to take a walk with me.
Literally.
Figuratively.
Spiritually.
A walk that creates space for honesty.
A walk that allows for mutual care.
A walk that fosters wise counsel.
A walk that opens a path toward advocacy.
A walk that helps me transition from the teacher I have been … to the
storyteller, educator, and hope-raiser I am becoming.
I have delivered seven documents to you.
I ask you to read them with the same respect with which they were written.
Then let us walk.
Selah.
(The "Follow The Leader (changED - Volume 2)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
(The "changED (Volume 1)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
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