PANDEMIC TEACHING

by Ruth A. Sheets

I am a teacher and have been for more than a quarter of a century.  The 2020-2021 school year has been the most difficult for me since I started teaching.  Of course, it is primarily due to the pandemic. 

We teachers have been meeting with our students by zoom for nearly a year.  That in itself is not the problem, it is that we and our supervisors are trying to pretend that this year is no different from all other years.  It is.  Nothing like this pandemic has happened to us in a bit over a century.  We were not prepared for it either as individuals or as school communities, and that is definitely evident. 

We should be using the issues of the pandemic and the challenges as teachable moments and base our reading, math, science, and social studies instruction on that.  We should take this opportunity to focus on problem-solving what the country should look like when the pandemic has been tamed.  There will be a new normal.  Having students read and respond to materials relevant to that potential new normal would help them feel as though they have a part in creating what is to come.  

We should have been using the technology available to us to help students connect with others in very positive ways and let them help each other explore the challenges of COVID-19, systemic racism, global warming, poverty, and the other issues that have been brought into full relief since the start of the pandemic.  The internet is working, so students can explore and report back.  Even young children can participate – C is for COVID, V is for virus.  I bet there is a whole alphabet for the words of this special time.  

In addition, we need to stop calling this a lost year and complaining that students have gained nothing since March 2020.  By trying to pretend teaching and learning are just the same but online is doing a great disservice to our teachers and students as well as our families.  Our children are not failures.  They are amazing young people who are learning to face some adversity and figuring out how to deal with it.  That is astonishing and we should be acknowledging them for it rather than beating them down with ridiculous expectations of learning the usual curriculum at the same pace as pre-pandemic times.  That makes no sense and can be a factor in sending our precious kids into depression and other emotional pain.  I have even heard educators state that we should not refer to the pandemic at all.  Talk about burying one’s head in the sand!

With the stress of learning to survive and eventually, perhaps to thrive in this weird world of Zoom, hybrid, whatever, educators are still expected to administer the weeks-long batteries of standardized tests, if not this spring, than definitely in the fall.  For what purpose will this be done, so the corporations that make the tests won’t lose money, so we can prove our kids didn’t master all the stuff in the curriculum while also trying to manage life in COVID Land?

This should be a time of experimentation.  We should be looking at ways to catch our students’ attention, deeply involve them in what is happening and help them develop the social-emotional intelligence that will give them the ability to function as active informed citizens.  Perhaps the books and online resources we go to should show young people (or animal characters) dealing with tough situations and making it through.  They could be encouraged to write about their experiences of this year.  I suspect their descriptions will look quite different from those of adults during this time.

Colleagues are giving out “F’s” like candy to accentuate that our kids really are failures if they don’t come to Zoom every day and don’t hand in activities they know don’t relate in any way to and ignore what they are experiencing.  This is just one more way our society demonstrates its lack of true care for and appreciation of our precious children. 

One thing I know for certain, we can do better. 

THE INFANTILIZATION OF REPUBLICANS

by Ruth A. Sheets

The impeachment trial of Donald Trump began this week and it is clear Republicans have decided to take on the shield of young childhood.  In our culture, children under a certain age (depending on the child’s race), are not responsible for their actions.  In some cases parents are responsible and in others, we put offending children out of our way so they may suffer for their acts, but do not learn to take responsibility for them.

The Republican Party and conservatives in general do not have any kind of plan to support the American people beyond grabbing power and helping themselves to the support of the American people.  Pretty childish wouldn’t you say?

- Republicans have no serious plan to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 (or any other health problem in our country).  In fact, many of them declare it their right to spread the virus as much as they want to because they don’t have to wear a mask and no one can make them do it. 

Doesn’t that sound like the petulant bullies you saw on the elementary school playground when you were a kid?  You can’t make me do that.  I have my rights!

- Republicans elected and have nearly universally supported a president they allowed to break the laws of our nation with impunity because, well . . . .  They don’t have an honest reason because it means they would have to be held accountable for his actions and their hearty support of them.  If you want to see which crimes lately, just watch or listen to the impeachment trial.

Doesn’t this remind you of the bratty kids at school who said, “You can’t touch me or my dad will come and beat you up.”  A lot of teachers knew this was often no idle boast.  We saw Trump’s “daddys” show up at our nation’s Capitol and storm it, threatening our elected lawmakers, some of whom were OK with the invasion, perhaps hoping the child-men and women would get the other guys, not them.

- Republicans have no plan to bring the economy back from disaster except to push the stock market even higher which makes the richest among them and their corporate supporters even richer.  Who cares that  28 million families are desperate often without food and that many will be evicted from their homes as soon as landlords can arrange it?  They are quibbling with Biden and Democrats whether to give a $1400 assistance check to those earning $75,000 a year or $50,000 a year.  

Doesn’t that seem a lot like the kid who is willing to lend you a quarter for a treat while stealing stuff from your lunch box?  Kids learn how to distract and focus attention on the things that are not what is important.  The truth is that a $1400 check is not too helpful for anyone.  Take the air out of the room with a nonsense argument so people will forget what real suffering in this country has been this past year.  That is so Republican and conservative these days, quibble and whine while getting richer than anyone deserves.

-  Republicans have decided to “deny” science, or rather, to dismiss the parts of science they don’t like.  These are mostly educated men and women, so they know what science is and that if scientists have come to a consensus on something like climate change, it is true.  But they set that knowledge aside to get desperate followers to believe science can’t help them and that only this politician can. Following science means they might actually have to act.

Doesn’t that remind you of the kids at school who got an answer wrong on the test but kept complaining that their answer was really right and they can prove it if they had the right information?

- Many Republicans and conservatives are loving the Q-anon conspiracy theory.  It is one of the most ridiculous of the many conspiracy theories out there right now.  Who can honestly think Donald Trump would be secretly fighting a bunch of Democrats and Hollywood folk who are cannibalistic pedophiles or that such a group even exists?  If any critical thinking were involved, no one, but thinking critically requires people to question their judgment about a lot of things and many children never learn to do that and carry that lack of critical thinking into adulthood.  If anything, Mr. Trumps past history with possible sex traffickers would indicate he might be supporting those people not fighting them if they actually existed.

Doesn’t this remind you of the kids who just LOVE having a secret no one else knows?  They would sing “nah nah nah nah nah, I know something that you don’t.”  The problem now is that everyone knows their ridiculous secret, so they cling to it more tightly and add to the crimes these cannibalistic pedophiles are doing and have done.  None of it is true, of course, but it is after all, a BIG SECRET!! 

- From the time Donald Trump took office in 2017 to the day he left office in 2021, he has lied in public and public media more than 30,000 times and was not really held accountable for any of it.

Doesn’t that sound a lot like the kid who despite groundings and phone removals just keeps on lying and making up stuff?  At least those kids were told that what they said was wrong and had consequences.  Donald Trump has had none.  Republicans/conservatives often assisted Mr. Trump with his lies and amplified them for him, knowing perfectly well they were lies, the posse supporting the schoolyard bully.

What is behind this infantilization is power.  Spoiled children have a lot of power, particularly at home and often at school and in their other spheres of influence.  It seems a lot of the Republicans/conservatives in power now had their childish skills honed as children and decided they liked the feeling they had when ruling the roost, so would not have to abandon them for adulthood.   That would mean taking responsibility for their actions and for the actions of those with whom they associate.  Can’t do that!