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. 

COVID-19 A POWERFUL TEACHER

by Ruth A. Sheets

I am a teacher who appreciates the gifts of other teachers.  I am usually pleased to learn something new from a colleague that gives me a new skill, shows me a new technique, and makes me a better teacher and learner.  Well I have met a truly amazing teacher this year, COVID-19. 

I can’t exactly call COVID-19 a colleague, but this teacher has presented us with a lot of powerful learning opportunities.  It has actually taught its students, us, some of the most important lessons of our lifetime if we are willing to pay attention and take in the valuable information.  I can’t help but wonder, though, what kind of students we are. 

I suspect that as in any classroom, there is a range of learners, those who thirst for knowledge and will do whatever it takes to obtain that knowledge.  There are those who go along at their own pace and take in what they can use at the moment.  There are others who defy the entire process of learning, often because of a hidden disability or other factors that hamper their progress.  COVID-19 stands in our midst whether we want to be in its classroom or not, whether we wish to or are able to learn or not. 

So, what is COVID-19 teaching us:

- All airborne viruses are not the flu and some are worse than flu. 

- Problems that were present before COVID-19 entered our lives will be magnified by its presence.

- The people treated most badly before will suffer most under COVID-19 and those treated best.

- Its corollary is the communities treated most badly before will suffer most under COVID-19 and those treated best.

- Problems simmering beneath the surface, like racism and disenfranchisement will surface, sometimes in loud protests, sometimes in the push to blame and/or limit people’s rights.

- Unscrupulous leaders and their sycophants will use COVID-19 as the distractor they need to take away people’s rights and do a variety of harms to people, the land, water, and air.

- Those same unscrupulous leaders will claim they are the ones who know COVID-19 best and have learned the right lessons, have the plans.  They of course, are wrong, but people are distracted and may tend to believe them.

- covid-19 appreciates ignorance because it allows for the widest spread.

- As with other pandemics, the best way to function in current times is to wear a mask, keep your distance, and wash your hands.

- COVID-19 passes on its lessons whether leaders pay attention or not.

- Cheating and lying grow with the fear that not listening to COVID-19’s lessons brings.  Those who would cheat and lie without the presence of COVID-19 will do it even more in its presence.

- COVID-19 continues to teach no matter who is listening.  (This is the bad teaching approach that I will do my best to never follow)

- Online connections are really valuable for getting busy people, people with children involved beyond their own family.

- Zoom meetings can be appreciated by people other than those required to attend for business meetings.

- Education can go on even when COVID-19 is making life difficult.

- Voting is a participatory activity and there are  several ways to do it even when COVID-19 and its partners are trying to sabotage the process.

- Science is real and as Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, “Science doesn’t care if you believe in it or not.” 

- Viruses are so tiny they know nothing of human existence beyond that humans provide one of the ways they can replicate and disseminate.  

I suspect everyone in COVID-19’s class is learning all sorts of lessons.  Unfortunately only a few of the lessons will be allowed to lead to positive outcomes.  There are always those among us who would use any tragedy for their own purposes to further their own nearly always selfish aims.

It does not have to be that way.  If enough of us pay attention to the upsides of COVID-19’s presence, we can move our society into a new place where we can honestly and seriously deal with the challenges we face.

- We can acknowledge and address the shortcomings of the “free market” which of course is not free and continues to benefit the haves over everyone else. 

- We can look at racism and how so many of us actively and passively participate in maintaining it at high levels while confidently stating “I’m not a racist.” 

- We can look at misogyny and all the ways both men and women perpetuate it, then put measures in place to stop people from benefiting from it. 

- We can look at global warming with the urgency it demands.  Calling it “climate change” only made people feel less  worried and motivated to act.  It is global warming through deforestation and encroachment that have released deadly viruses like COVID-19 and other pathogens among us.

- We can examine the ways we must actively prepare for natural and human made disasters and provide necessary plans and demands.

This election will show us a lot about what COVID-19 has taught us and how much we have chosen to learn from this unfeeling, but powerful teacher.  

EVERYBODY OPEN THE SCHOOLS! WHAT?

by Ruth A. Sheets

So, the command has come down from on high.  All schools will open this fall.  And, if they don’t, funds will be CUT from the districts that don’t follow this command (who dare to care about the safety of their students, teachers, and staff)

There are a couple of things to note about that pronouncement.  First, Donald Trump has no right to interfere with the schools’ funding.  His ignorance and arrogance know no bounds. Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, knows nothing about education, medicine, or anything else besides money, so her demands are irrelevant and should be dismissed as the hogwash they are.

Once past that nonsense, the problem remains.  What must happen when it is time for students to begin classes this fall? 

I am a teacher and worry about the decisions our school districts must make as to how school will be conducted this year during a pandemic that is not yet under control.  In the spring, we were caught off guard by the out-of-control COVID19 so were not nearly prepared to operate online classes.  Some teachers managed to get lessons going and there were the online reading and math programs, but many of our students didn’t have computer access until the beginning of June while some are still waiting.  Some have computers or rather one computer for 2 or more children.  

A big challenge was making sure the students could figure out how to take full advantage of the resources available.  Some never caught on.  Some of us teachers didn’t get online either.  All over the country teachers and students are trying to figure out how to get complex concepts down in this new, certainly not mastered format. 

Then, there are the children with special needs.  Computer time often does not work for them.  They need the hands-on connection with teachers to learn the required skills.  What happens when they are at home for months without that trained teacher’s attention?    

Over the years, teachers have been called lazy, useless, a waste of good money, and a host of other pejoratives.  I guess one good thing coming from this lock down is that teachers are a bit more appreciated, at least in some quarters.  We may still be seen as glorified free babysitters, but they now realize they need us. 

That need is what is causing Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos to toss out their demands and threats.  Their economy will not be able to reignite without babysitters (child care) for the workers they need.  A killer virus stalks and they whine that the workers don’t have people to watch their kids. 

Trump and DeVos are not interested in the problems the schools have opening every year with obtaining sufficient supplies, properly maintaining old buildings, etc.  They are OK with attempting to destroy the public school system in favor of publicly funded privately operated charter schools which are generally better funded, not more successful.  They just want their economy’s babysitters and their charges back in school.  They don’t actually care about the quality of education the children get or they wouldn’t push vouchers and more charter schools.  Neither program has proven superior to traditional public schools, they just suck taxpayer money into the pockets of rich folks who “say” they can do it better, or rather, cheaper.  They can’t!  The Trumpers just want babysitters.  Now! 

The Trump DeVos team does not care about what students are truly getting from what the government offers because they don’t expect or even want those kids to compete with the privileged white kids in private schools and the wealthiest public school districts.   They want babysitters, and McDonalds workers, hotel housekeepers, farm laborers.  Those are the jobs they want for American workers and they are hoping the public schools (and charters) will provide them.  That way we don’t need immigrants, right?

Now we come to COVID19.  The current president can’t even wear a mask without practically having a heart attack.  He can’t even repeat what scientists know, that masks do help keep the virus from spreading.  He still hangs with the line said once or twice back in February before people knew much about how the virus works.   That was five months ago and Americans have watched family members, friends, front-line workers and others die, 140,000 of us so far.  We have seen stories of people on ventilators.  about 30% die even with ventilator assistance.  No one really knows yet how many children get the virus and whether or not they pass it.  We do know that people over 60 and people of color are at significant risk for becoming infected.  We also know that at this point there are few places in the U.S. where cases of COVID19 are not on the rise.

This does not seem to me and to most Americans, (particularly parents) as a good time to reopen in-person school sessions.  But it looks great to the Trump-DeVos team.  They are so anxious to get parents back to work, they would sacrifice teachers, staff, students, and families, and for what, so Trump can claim a thriving economy?  That sounds pretty messed up to me.         

I love my students and want to be with them more than anything, but I work in a school district where most of our students live in poverty or near poverty.  Many have serious health problems and their families are also at risk.  How will opening in-person schools serve the people here? 

A challenge for me is that as a blind person it has been hard for me to gain access to the online services other teachers are able to bring to their students.  Disabled teachers, like disabled students are generally not considered when schedule changes happen.  Being back in school with my kids would be better for me, but not for everyone else.  So, I use the US Post Office to get materials and books to my students, 7 mailings since March.  How long will that form of connection to my students last if Donald Trump gets his way and takes down the US Post Office?  Who knows? 

So, let’s see, The Trump crew wants schools reopened so he can get the parents back to work and they’ll have their free babysitters.  His team cares nothing for the safety of the school communities.  He wants to put everyone at risk so he can claim a great jobs report and strong economy, IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC THAT IS NOT UNDER CONTROL!  Then, there’s the Post Office . . . .    

I am not totally sure what the answer is.   I suspect it will vary from district to district, from state to state and may involve a number of different models.  What I do know is that teachers need to be in the discussions from the beginning as do families and other members of the community like doctors, nurses, and other health care persons.  COVID19 is no joke as some like to believe.  People are dying or have permanent physical impairments due to the virus.  Unless a whole range of safety measures are put in place, I don't see how schools can open  no matter how much I and the other teachers would like to be back physically with our kids.  I also don't see the money flowing from Congress toward districts to help us with those safety measures. 

It is truly a tragedy that Trump & Co. had no clue and could not get a handle on what was needed for dealing with COVID19.  We will all be paying for that lack of vision for years to come.  I just don’t want our children, families, teachers, and staff to pay for it unnecessarily with our lives.

CRUELTY AND BEYOND

by Ruth A. Sheets

May 21, 2020



I just finished reading an article that made me say “enough!”  It seems ICE is making an appalling  choice available to immigrant mothers in detention, a kind of Sophy’s choice.  This time if a mother gives up her children to ICE, they can be taken from the detention/internment camp.  If she does not agree, the child or children will remain in detention and potentially suffer with her the ravages of COVID19.  There is simply no language to describe the cruelty of this and the inhumanity of anyone who would offer it. 



The families being given this choice are innocent of anything but wanting to escape violence and poverty in their home countries.  They came here for refuge and safety and get cruelty beyond belief.



What is going on here?  Who is it that gave ICE either permission or the order to commit these acts of inhumanity, and in our name?  This unnecessary agency is under the Department of Homeland Security and is the knee-jerk response to 9/11.  How the agency morphed from protecting us from terrorists to destroying families is a long troubled trail of agony and injustice.



ICE was clearly active during the Bush and Obama administrations, but it became virulent, malignant under the current administration.  Mr. Trump has made no secret of his hatred for anyone who is not rich, white, straight, and male.  For most of us who don’t fit that category, it has meant cuts in funding for necessary services and infrastructure maintenance.  It has meant obstruction to voting, increased pollution in areas where we live, dismissal of the needs of front-line workers and more.  For immigrants, asylum-seekers, refugees, and undocumented persons it has meant criminalization, imprisonment, concentration camps, separation of children from their parents with no paper trail, unwarranted deportations, and more.  It  has meant that anyone seeking our help is condemned to Mexico’s Northern border where those already suffering and stressed people are preyed on by actual criminals.  They face rape, murder, enslavement, and other agonies for no apparent benefit to this country. 



So, what is going on?  Here is my theory.  Immigrants are coming to fill the place African-Americans, Jews, Irish, and other hated groups once held.  African-Americans and Latinx persons still are in the ranks of the hated.  But, there is now more attention placed on the brutalities they have faced and continue to face, so white straight men wanted a new target, one a little less prominent and present in our society.  They needed a target they could readily convince a lot of privileged white people to hate and blame for all their ills. 



Dumping folks into concentration camps with no reporters allowed to know what conditions are like inside has emboldened the current administration to approve atrocities that would most likely not be permitted to occur if the victims were white.  It has been easy to call these mothers and children criminals.  This makes whatever is done to them OK with the rich and wannabe rich white people who are far removed from the suffering and are encouraged to believe these folks are the cause of all their woes.



Of course, the immigrants, asylum-seekers, refugees, and undocumented persons are not the cause of white problems, but are often conveniently, the vehicle for easing their worries.  These people often work the fields, living in conditions none of the privileged would allow their pets to live in.  The white privileged eat the food they pick, though.  These immigrants et al work the meat processing plants under outrageous conditions that allowed COVID19 to spread unchecked.  The privileged eat the meat and cheer on Mr. Trump’s order that the plants start up again no matter the risk to the workers. 



Perhaps this treatment is the new lynching.  It is not as brutal as was done to African-Americans nor as public, but it does produce fear, intimidation, pain, and often, death.  In addition, a lot of Republican politicians benefit from the hate they spew and the pain they cause.  They get elected by the people they have injected with anger toward and hatred and fear of the “foreigner.” 



How has the United States permitted this cruelty?  Why are so many Americans willing to stand by while the cruelty sprouts up around us and grows with the sunshine and water of hatred and fear.  Are we really so frightened?  Are these mothers and children truly a threat to us?  Are those farm and processing plant workers so threatening that we have to force them to work under whatever conditions the bosses decide are right for them?



When do we as a nation say “enough?”  When do we declare that we are better than that and work to change it?  When do we start living the words of the “Declaration of Independence” that all men (people) are created equal?  Is it so hard to believe that other people are of as much value as we are and we are of as much value as all others?  Clearly it is. 



We can’t change Mr. Trump and his gang.  I suspect they have been cultivating their belief in their own superiority for so long they won’t/can’t change.  The only way to  deal with them is to vote them out of office and ditch their fearmongering as the garbage it is. 



We also need to work on ourselves to be sure we are not dismissing others because they don’t look or act like us.  Do we respond when we hear of inhumane treatment of others?  Do we call people out when they make comments that are not only inappropriate, but hurtful to others?  Do we promote peace?  If we do not, perhaps, we need to make some changes in our own lives so we don’t keep moving down the slippery slope toward accepting things as they are, cruelty and all. 



A first step might be to ask ourselves if we would be OK with someone offering us the choice the imprisoned immigrant mothers have been given.  Would we give up our infants to strangers so those in power could do to us whatever their corrupt minds could manufacture?  If our answer is “no,” the answer should be “no” for everyone else too.  If we can’t get to that place, we need to do some heavy lifting to rework our values and re-examine our beliefs about humanity and our place in it.  An election is coming up in November.  Let’s pledge to take the necessary steps to end the cruelty. 

COVID19 AND A POSSIBLE LEGACY

by Ruth A. Sheets

Sitting at home nearly all day gives one time to listen, read, and think.  A deadly virus has struck every part of the world, yet warmongering governments and other militarized groups had to be begged to stop fighting, and as one might expect, many have chosen to keep up the fight.  I suppose the hope is they can make some ground while the virus is causing harm and distracting folks.  Alas, they might be right.

Perhaps, at this moment, we all should use this pause in normality to begin to take a good look at war and conflict in general.  Disagreement among people is probably endemic, so the chance that interpersonal conflict will end any time soon is not great.  But that does not mean we can’t use the time out during this pandemic to rethink what we are doing related to war and why.

First of all, war is a stupid, wasteful, disgusting, hateful, expensive practice.  One can’t help but notice that it is clearly a male activity.  Of course some women participate, usually as the victims, but we all can name women who have served in some capacity, usually honorably, but war is predominantly male and males often shape their lives by war.  Why do so many men depend on, even crave war?

Let’s face it, a lot of males need to prove their manhood.  It does not seem enough that male voices deepen, they develop facial hair and have other physical changes as they enter adulthood.  They must prove they are bigger, stronger, smarter, more clever than other men, and of course they must be better than women in all categories.  It is indeed a reminder that human beings are mammals and experience the impulses that other animals have.  On the other hand, we humans can do things other mammals can’t do, like thinking through things, making personal decisions, and more.

It seems in this time of COVID19, when we are in a kind of pause, we can come up with ways to cut the need for men to prove their manhood by destroying others.  We can dial down the ridiculous nationalism that also promotes male quest for manhood, while dragging whole societies down with them.

The whole concept of having to prove one's manhood is outrageous and sad.  Can't being human be enough, whether male or female or whatever one chooses to identify oneself as?  Parents, both mothers AND fathers need to raise their boys and girls to believe in gender equality rather than that boys are superior to girls and that being male is the highest achievement of humanity.  It isn't, but our cultures drip with testosterone.  Most major sports are male.  Most people in authority are male, even in professions like teaching where more women than men are employed.  Male voices are louder, so are seen as having more weight.  Most first responders in the field are men.  The military  has respect in communities far beyond other professions and the military (as mentioned above) is seen as male.  Men run the banks, the corporations, the economy at all levels.  Men run most religious institutions which of course, proclaim male as God and female as inferior, in need of male guidance at every level.

The COVID19 is raging and it is women who are on the front lines this time.  They are the nurses and doctors in the hospitals.  They are the family members who now minister to the entire family while everyone is shut in.  They are the outspoken politicians who are working hard to alleviate the suffering and develop plans of action.  It is the male leaders who are often incompetent, fearmongering, and unworthy of the positions they hold.

My concern is that when the virus has run its course, men will jump right back into war as though there had never been a break.  This should not be acceptable to anyone.

We need a plan to move quickly away from war, all over the world.  To begin, we all must elect more peace-loving women and men at every level of government.  Corporations that promote maleness as a prime virtue need to be either eliminated or made smaller and less powerful.  The military industrial complex (as Dwight Eisenhower called it) should be dismantled, redirecting weapons manufacturers into other production.  For example, we need no more tanks, no more battleships, no more bombs.   We have plenty of these.

Movement here will take a lot of effort, but with the COVID19 stalking, we could make some major changes immediately.

Such change will be especially hard with so many authoritarian governments led by men who just keep needing to prove how wonderful they are and how much better and stronger they are than anyone else.  We as a society need to stop trading with them, selling weapons to them, and start communicating peace with them and the need to work together on halting global warming, ending poverty, managing population growth, providing meaningful work for everyone, using as much creativity and commitment as we can muster.

Women and men who want something different need to stop encouraging manhood proving and participation in the war machine, the machine that manufactures weapons and hate, sends our children to fight and possibly die, allows our tax dollars to be siphoned off to rich warmongering manhood provers.

COVID19 is horrific and has taken many people around the world as its victims.  We could make a legacy of this pandemic, a worldwide commitment to ending war and learning to grow peace.