Laura Sexton Art

This series uses the life cycle and migration patterns of the Monarch butterfly as a metaphor for the goals of nurturing or youth to flourish and how those goals are under attack. Therefore each caterpillar, cocoon, and butterfly is created with papers from my classroom and from my children’s classrooms. Teachers may recognize memos, tests, worksheets, and handbooks in the wings; students may recognize their own handwriting and doodles. All of these papers make up the current education system, including our efforts as educators to reach and uplift our students, as well as bureaucratic requirements that shape our practice, for better or for worse.

Monarch butterflies aren’t officially on the endangered species list yet, but unscrupulous “improvement” programs are robbing them of their sustenance and homes. Likewise, unscrupulous policies at the state and national levels are draining public education and threatening its survival. As milkweed and other sources of the Monarch’s sustenance are smothered with pesticides, so public schools’ funding is being gradually eradicated with the refusal to invest in our youth and the greater good of our citizenry. The landscape is increasingly inhospitable to the butterfly that generation after generation migrates south for warmth and back again, much as our youth are trained up to graduate and return to pour back into our communities as educators and leaders. But with budget cuts, vouchers, and tightening strangleholds on curriculum and inclusive education, the U.S is dooming its schools to extinction. Yet while no one actively seeks the death of butterfly populations, they do actively seek to destroy their nourishment with pesticides and development. And while no politician would campaign on hurting children explicitly, too many make no bones about aiming to eradicate public education.

Ultimately, we can contribute to the success and growth of both populations at a local level, keeping them afloat with concerted efforts to plant pollinator gardens and participate actively in our public schools.