With a historic wave of teacher strikes, impending school closures and falling enrollment for eight consecutive years, it’s hard not to catastrophize the state of public education in California.
One ongoing crisis regarding political culture wars is the subject of a forthcoming book by Sue Granzella, a Bay Area teacher who taught in San Lorenzo for nearly 30 years.
In an interview, Granzella described a “steadily increasing pressure” in the teaching profession over the decades, culminating in the grueling shift to online learning during the Covid pandemic. As public opinion began to sour, teachers who were once hailed as heroes were suddenly “getting blamed really heavily on the heels of the hardest thing we had ever done,” Granzella said.
This tension reached a breaking point in 2022 when a right-wing extremist group interrupted “Drag Story Hour” at the San Lorenzo Library. The men allegedly menaced children, librarians and parents with slurs and aggressive behavior before being escorted out by police officers. The incident “catapulted” the former teacher to interview educators across the state, recording their experiences with vitriolic culture clashes.
“People are doing the best they can to make everyone feel welcome and appreciated as part of society,” Granzella said. “To have such a blatant disregard for that, a blatant desire to shut it down… I was just outraged.”
The resulting book, Pushed to the Edge: Teachers’ Stories from the Culture Wars, collects the experiences of educators who responded to her requests for interviews, alongside Granzella’s own stories from decades of teaching low-income students at a Title I school.
Set against the backdrop of wildfires, the pandemic and tense contract negotiations, the text captures a state of heightened fear, stress and impending disaster for teachers. While some might argue that framing the situation as a “war” risks caricaturing an enemy and adding fuel to an already inflamed climate, Granzella embraces an ethos of compassion and admiration for her students and colleagues.
To her, education should equip children to coexist with people who are different. “We’re tilling the soil with our kids to prepare them—just like you prepare soil—to learn about the bigness of the world,” she said.
Granzella recalled a “piercing and important moment” when a young boy came out to his mother as transgender and remarked: “I always thought that everybody felt bad getting dressed for the day.” Without spaces for open conversation and acceptance, Granzella reflected, “How would a child not know that?…Kids need to know it’s ok to be who they are.”
The process of researching the book also expanded Granzella’s world in unexpected ways. After shelving an earlier project of compiling light-hearted personal essays from her career, Granzella embarked on this multi-year effort. It would sometimes take an hour of research to write a single sentence for the book, she said.
“I felt such a responsibility to the people I had connected with. A number of them were very vulnerable. They were willing to talk with me,” Granzella said. “I really felt a responsibility to do everything in my power to make it happen because they had trusted me.”
Throughout the difficult journey of querying publishers and marketing her book, the debut author persevered by reminding herself: “This is not about you. This is about your commitment to get stories out there to help teachers and kids.”
Ultimately, Pushed to the Edge serves as a reminder of the power and energy that arises from stepping beyond the limits of one’s own experience. As she kicks off her book tour, Granzella describes publication as an unexpected milestone.
“I would be stunned if I wrote another book. I cannot believe how hard this was…It was a great life-enriching experience.”
‘Pushed to the Edge’ Book Event
Sunday, Apr. 12
2pm
Books on B
1014 B St., Hayward
suegranzella.com
