Teaching in a Pandemic

 I don't usually write these posts so close together, but I have to vent today. There are big fights about vaccines and masks and the pandemic in general still. We've been doing this for more than 18 months and we're still arguing about mitigation and how to rid our communities of this virus -- seriously! Half the country remains unvaccinated. The Delta variant of the virus is spreading quickly. Doctors -- real doctors not the tv doctors on cable news -- are reporting that 99 percent of people admitted to the hospital are unvaccinated. Kids are getting sick now and, really, who couldn't see that coming. When all the elderly and vulnerable are vaccinated, where did they think the virus would look for a host? Now, communities are reinstitution their mask mandates. And why, because no masks was for vaccinated people. You don't want mandates, but you don't want to do the right thing either. You have proven again and again you can't be trusted. So, when governors...

I've been thinking a lot about how we handle race and race relations in this country. Last year the entire nation watched in horror and disgust as a police officer kneeled on the neck of a black man for approximately nine minutes.  We watched someone die. The collective shock and trauma and grief we felt at that moment was a moment of unification. People, on lockdown due to a pandemic, took to the streets to protest police brutality.  Black people and Brown people and White people - American people took to the streets by the thousands and protested the murder of yet another unarmed black man, but this time there was no denying, no excusing. Young people, old people, moms, and teachers took to the street. City and suburban people took to the street and to social media in the biggest public outcry since . . . ever. I don't think there has ever been this much support for something. Black Lives Matter became the heroes of the protest as the organization felt vindicated by the murd...

 It's pretty fucking unbelievable but not unexpected. They brought the kids back to school to take the fucking state test - I kid you not. Kids who are in school have to take the state test while kids who chose to remain home get "asynchronous" work. So, the kids who came back to school for in-person instruction are getting tested and kids who stayed home are watching Netflix. Nice. “Open schools!” they yelled. “Kids need in-person instruction,” they protested. “Kids need to interact with their peers,” they professed. “We’re ruining a whole generation of students,” they warned. Okay. Now we are opening schools. All over the country schools are implementing their reopening plans in an attempt to have students in classrooms during this pandemic. While for many the warning of 1918 came to mind -- when H1N1 suddenly attacked young people and children started dying. Right now, about 21 percent of new COVID cases are children, although they are not dying. My own grandson’s clas...

 Back in the building but it's not what people think.  The preK to second grade teachers have students, but no other teachers do.  We're just sitting in our classrooms while our kids sit at home and we're all still on Zoom.  Not only that, but we're prisoners in our classrooms.  No visiting other teachers.  No lunch together.  No in-person meetings.  It's just me and my computer all alone all day in my classroom (that's not even my classroom).  Kind of ironic that the meeting to discuss the plan for in-person learning was virtual.  You just can't make this stuff up. Today, I was home sick with stomach trouble.  I would have been fine teaching but for the issue with the bathroom.  So, I asked should I call out sick or teach from home.  Had to call out and then I check my google classroom for work and my kids didn't even have a substitute!  What a cluster fuck.

 Spring Break!  Finally.  This week was rough but great on some levels.  Last week CY had a special program to let kids vent about virtual learning and after the session I had the best levels of participation ever.  I wish we'd stated this sooner and did it once a month or so.  Thursday we had Fun Day -- you'd think that wouldn't be a thing in a virtual environment but I made it work.  First I showed a mildly inappropriate film (The Frighteners) then we played some games.  It really was fun -- well, I had fun and I think most of the kids did, too. Lots of chatter on the internet about opening schools.  Funny thing is -- schools are opening and many were already opened.  I go back to the building on April 12 (one year and one month since I've been in the building) and I'm sure there is some plan that we are not yet privy to to bring back students.  Right now it's just preK to 2, two days a week per cohort, and Wednesday set aside for...

 America has a chance to show the world what a kind, inclusive society looks like and we refuse to rise to the occasion.  This country was founded on the ideas of a period named The Enlightenment.  People were "enlightened" about science and economics and government and literature and religion.  They had ideas about governments for the governed not the monarch.  They had ideas about education for all.  Chaucer writes in English instead of French so the masses could read literature.  Thomas Hobbs talks about the consent of the governed and the rights of individuals.  It was radical.  It was fresh.  It was liberal.  It was the kindling for this inclusive American society.  A place where people from many different backgrounds and philosophies commune to "create a more perfect union."   Instead what we have created is tribalism.  A government that is deadlocked, broken.  This isn't what it looks like -- not what Lock...