Credit: Reema Saleh/Block Club Chicago
At a time when public life—and public schools—feel especially strained, teachers carry deep, hard-earned knowledge drawn from their everyday work with young people and the communities they serve.
Teachers Holding the Line is a listening project that centers teachers’ voices at a time when their work—and their communities—are under increasing political pressure. Through qualitative and historical inquiry, the project documents how educators are experiencing their daily work amid a growing climate of anti-immigration rhetoric and democratic strain.
At its heart, this project is about care and preservation: creating an archive of teachers’ voices so this moment is not lost or flattened with time. It is also a civic project, recognizing teachers as moral and civic actors who, every day, help sustain belonging, democratic values, and public life in their classrooms and communities.
This project begins with listening to and learning from educators.
Teachers Holding the Line is just getting started, and we believe educators’ voices are essential to understanding this moment. We’re inviting teachers to share short, anonymous reflections about what feels urgent, difficult, or sustaining in your work right now—especially as schools and communities face increasing pressure and uncertainty.
What you share will help shape this project as it grows. Your reflections will guide the questions we ask, the conversations we convene, and the stories we help bring into public view.
We’ll use what you share to:
Shape future interviews and collective conversations
Share anonymous excerpts on this site to surface teachers’ experiences and spark connection and solidarity
Your safety and privacy matter. We do not collect identifying information, and nothing you submit will be traced back to you, your school, or your community. This project is about honoring teachers’ lived experiences—not exposing individuals to risk.
Thank you for adding your voice, your care, and your clarity to this collective effort. Your reflections help make visible the everyday work teachers do to hold their communities—and our democracy—together.
About
Me
I come to this work as an education researcher, a longtime K–12 educator, and the daughter of immigrants. I care deeply about teachers and about the realities of their everyday work. I’ve seen, up close, the care, creativity, and compassion educators bring to their classrooms—and I also know how often the civic, intellectual, and emotional labor of teaching goes unnoticed.
This project grew out of a simple belief: teachers’ experiences matter, and their voices deserve to be heard and remembered. I’m inviting educators to work with me in documenting and reflecting on what it means to teach in this moment. This is a partnership—one rooted in respect, care, and learning alongside one another. By sharing your story, you’re helping build a record of teachers’ knowledge and insight that can deepen public understanding now and in the future, for those who will follow in our footsteps.
If this resonates with you, I hope you’ll consider joining the conversation and sharing your story—on your own terms, in your own words. The world needs them more than ever.
-Erika Kitzmiller
P.S. To learn more about me and what I do, feel free to explore my personal website, www.erikakitzmiller.com