Following the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary Of Education, german teacher Shari Fox said she feels appalled.

Fox said she worries about the public school system under DeVos.

“It feels like the death of the public school system because she has pretty much made it clear that she wants to crush it and doesn’t believe in it,” Fox said. “I have to say it almost feels like a small death for democracy when somebody like her gets into office who has no idea what they’re doing whatsoever basically because they bought people off. That’s no longer democracy, that’s banana republic corruption.”

Following DeVos’ confirmation, Fox wore black clothing to school to express her feelings of loss and distress.

“Black is the color of mourning in this country and I’m mourning more than anything. My protest came in the form of writing and calling. This (the confirmation) is after the fact, we can no longer change this. Now I’m mourning,” Fox said.

Fox said she was inspired to wear black in protest by an online organization of teachers which functions similarly to the women’s movement.

“It’s a group of teachers called Badass Teachers and they are basically a group that’s mobilizing now to fight a lot of the anti-school measures that are being taken,” Fox said.

After DeVos’ confirmation, the organization promoted teachers nationwide to wear black as a form of protest against DeVos and her proposed actions.

“There are a lot of proposals being made and bills being introduced in different states that totally go against public education and basically only want to support federal money going to private schools; another thing which is not a democracy. The whole country doesn’t pay taxes just so wealthy kids can get an education, that’s ridiculous,” Fox said.

Fox said she thinks DeVos bought her way into the position, something she correlates with the downfall of democracy.

“When democracy becomes a matter of you buying a position of leadership in the country in the White House, that’s a death that needs to be mourned. That’s just not right,” Fox said. “This a nonpartisan issue, this is a Constitutional crisis. When we let people buy their way into leading positions in the White House.” 

Fox said some of her attentive students noticed her clothing choice and feel similarly about DeVos.

“There are a lot of kids who are paying very close attention to what is going on, and I think there are still a lot of people though, adults and students, who are not really aware and would prefer not to be aware of what is happening right now,” Fox said.

Fox said being able to have a dialogue with her students about politics is crucial to overcome problems relating to politics.

“If we can’t in America learn how to talk about issues that concern everyone in this country, we will never fix any of our problems. It should be totally OK for teachers to express the fact that they don’t like seeing democracy being attacked,” Fox said.

In order to impact change, Fox said students need to be educated and exposed to current events.

“(Students) are the future if we keep you all shattered and in a bubble and you have no idea what’s going on how are you going to affect your future when you walk into a completely prepared situation which you cannot influence anymore, I mean that’s kind of dangerous,” Fox said.

Being a foreign language teacher and having lived in Germany for 10 years, Fox identified that this inability to speak about politics without involving emotion is a very cultural issue.

“Other countries talk about politics with students and teach them how to think critically about politics. We’ve always had an issue with discussing openly political viewpoints and that’s because we’ve never actually learned how to discuss politics without it becoming emotional,” Fox said.