Educators are truly at a breaking point right now.
We have long been asked to deal not just with education and social-emotional development, but with many of society's woes including poverty, hunger, child abuse, and emotional illness. More recently we’ve had to deal with mass shootings, then moving to distance learning in a matter of days. Some of us were sick, some had family members battling COVID-19, and some of us knew people who died. Now we’re being told to put ourselves in harm's way during a pandemic, and yet be calm and attend to the social-emotional needs of our students.
But we are breaking.
Without testing to identify the asymptomatic carriers and isolate them, schools will likely close within two to three weeks, as a number of students and staff develop symptoms and test results are returned. At the junior high and high school levels, with kids potentially exposed to contaminated surfaces and aerosols of hundreds of other kids and several teachers and staff, quarantines will involve a good portion of the school population. And some people will become sick or very sick, and perhaps die.
We are writing wills and taking out life insurance.
The CDC has suggested that anyone who is able to do their job remotely should be allowed to do so. Many workers, including some who entered professions they knew would expose them to infectious disease, such as doctors, are doing just that. Why should those who can work from home not be allowed to do so?
Teachers can work remotely. We know parents need a safe and caring place for their children while they’re at work, and we know all too well that some students truly need us in person. And I believe if we focus on what we need to achieve, we can find more effective, and logistically feasible, ways of doing it. Insisting on school as usual, or close to it, is not the best solution because we can’t return to school as it was.
There is no school as it was.
Staying six feet apart at all times with masks on in hot classrooms in which we have been advised not to run the A/C, and not being able to do any of the things that make being at school meaningful and worthwhile is not going to help our kids. Leaving school periodically for quarantines at a moment's notice and hearing about sick friends and teachers are not going to offer stability or shelter our kids from psychological harm. And if teachers are preoccupied with worry, they won’t be fully present for their students.
I’m so tired of arguments between teachers and parents. School boards seem to have framed us as adversaries in a tug of war. We shouldn’t be. We should be working together.
I’m also tired of hearing arguments about what cannot be done. I want to talk about what CAN be done.
We CAN offer kids stability and routine, as well as social connection online.
We CAN offer kids a rigorous education online. Teachers were told not to do this last spring.
We CAN find ways to care for kids while parents are at work. We have lots of classrooms, gyms, and multipurpose rooms around this town and lots of people on the school payroll. If kids need a place to be, we can do that. It doesn’t have to be in the classroom.
We CAN find ways to allow kids to socialize safely outside for some sports and other activities.
We CAN make sure our high-risk staff, and their high-risk families, are safe and still deliver quality instruction and be there for our students. We won’t be preoccupied with worry, so we’ll be able to relax and help our students relax.
We CAN meet this moment and beat this thing, so that we can return safely to the classroom.
But we can only do it together.
And right now, instead of doing what we CAN together, we are breaking. All of us. Breaking. And none of us wins.
