Teaching in a Pandemic

 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...

 I'm reading an article in Mother Jones (yes, it's very far left) in which David Corn argues that the GOP is the Party of White Grievance.  I agree with this and this is exactly what Trumpism is about.  Donald Trump validated White Grievance and, even more, he fueled a fire that made the extreme Right into the Hard Right.  Hard turn to the most extreme vision of conservatism.  Hard policy when dealing with the other whether on immigration or on trade.  Hard consequences for anyone who disagreed.  I don't agree with everything Corn writes.   I disagree, for example, with saying McConnell said he would vote for Trump even though he also blames him for the insurrection at the Capitol.  McConnell actually said he would vote for the nominee.  That he would, in effect, support who the Republican voters elected.  If Democrats supported their nominee, Hillary Clinton would be the president and we'd be having a different conversation -- not ...