A teachers view on public schools opening here in WI....
Dear everyone,
I just need to get on my soapbox for a moment. I never do this, so you can tolerate it. And if you don’t want to...keep scrolling. ***here is your chance to move on in your feed****
Last week, the state released its guidelines for school in the fall, and people lost their minds. As a teacher and a person who researches things heavily, here are some things you need to know:
1. The guidelines are just that. GUIDELINES. They are not mandates. The media got ahold of the 85 pages of material released by the DPI and reported some extreme scenarios. Before you flip, please take a moment to breathe. No district has to follow all 85 pages of suggestions. Some districts legitimately cannot. There are multiple plans in those pages. Some might work for one district, but not another. No district is taking those guidelines lightly. They are trying every possible way to make a plan that makes sense. They are being challenged to do what is best for ALL students. Not what simply happens to be convenient for your child. That doesn’t mean we don’t value you or your opinion. It needs to be remembered that public schools have to provide a free and a SAFE environment for ALL. While your child may be low risk, and your family may be low risk, not every child and family lives that reality. And sadly, we have to go for safe, not convenient. We have kids with health issues, or that live with elderly grandparents, or infants in the home that they can carry germs to. How would you feel if you spread something to them?
2. Your teachers want to go back to school like normal just as much as you do. I have met exactly 0 teachers that want to go back to online teaching. We weren’t sitting at home in our pajamas doing nothing from March-June. We were sitting at home in our pajamas literally inventing a whole new thing, answering emails all night, staring at a computer nonstop and getting headaches and driving papers to houses and trying everything short of messenger pigeons to keep in contact with our students. We were worried sick about our kids getting enough food, or not being with safe parents. Most of us spent more hours working at home than we did in normal school. If we can’t go back to school normal, it isn’t because we don’t want to.
3. Today our country officially “unflattened” the curve. This virus is not gone. This virus is now heavily effecting MY age group. “But that is because 20-39 year olds are going to packed bars.” Perhaps... but if we go back to school like normal, I’ll be in a small windowless room with 30 other people. Given the square footage of my classroom, it would have to be similar to a bar as far as exposure levels. Hmmm...Now consider one child gets sick in my classroom, and perhaps we choose a model where teachers rotate to different classrooms to lessen the amount of students in the hallway. Now 4 teachers have rotated through that one room with the sick kid. If the school follows the health department protocol which says 5 minutes of exposure to a sick person means you should enter self quarantine...that means that one class plus all four teachers should be sent home for two weeks. Now what is the plan? Find four subs? Good luck. And can we trust the subs to know that Bobby is a nose picker and we need to monitor extra where he touches, and Johnny chews on things so we need to watch him, and will the sub sanitize the hand sanitizer like I do? Will the sub know to watch Susie because she has anxiety and Covid makes her extra tense? And if I’m sick myself with covid, will I be able to write lesson plans?!!! And do I now do double because I need to create online work for my fellow quarantined kids? Keep in mind, this is just one scenario where I am pointing out the flaws. I am a low risk, healthy woman with 0+ blood. What about my high-risk co-workers? All over the state, people are sitting on committees seeing all these dead ends. It is mind boggling.
So you want normal? Again, so do I. However, the reality is, no matter what, it won’t be normal. Maybe we will be trying to figure out how to make things less risky. Students will be kept apart. We will be sanitizing. We will be encouraging masks. Or maybe we will start online. Or maybe we will try normal and then need to go online. Just please, please, please be ready to adapt like your teachers. And stop worrying so much about your kids! (I know that sounds heartless, but hear me out.) I may not have children of my own, but I have been a teacher for 8 years, and worked in a classroom or childcare for 5 years before that, and the resilience of children is INCREDIBLE. We could learn a thing or two about how they go with the flow and adapt to change. And remember, kids take on the attitude of the adults in their life. If you are positive, they will be too. As a teacher, we leave our feelings at the door every day to try to keep things normal for our students. We might be going through a personal crisis, but for some kids, school is their only safe place, and we are trying to keep it that way. Parents can practice this at home too when it comes to the school situation. And if we do have to go online, not matter how much we hate it, we aren’t going to tell the kids that!!! It’s called professionalism.
***Do you want to have a better chance of going back to normal, or back to normal faster?***
WEAR A MASK. (Unless you have a health or sensory reason that makes this impossible.) It is annoying. I hate it. It muffles my voice. My students won’t see my smile. It makes my makeup melt off. But I can’t ignore the studies showing how many particles a typical human emits talking loudly for 10 minutes. My job is to talk loudly for a whole day. It is also my job to keep your kids safe. Just like I have a plan for protecting your child from a shooter, I am now making plans for how to protect them from a virus, even if it will annoy me. I realize that I can pass the virus without showing symptoms. Start having your kids practice wearing a mask for small periods of time at home or during trips in public. Even young kids can handle wearing one in small time intervals, and I’ll take even that if it means keeping others healthy a few minutes longer. Pick out some cute fabric. Make it fun. And if somehow we find out a mask was useless (which it isn’t. There are many, many studies about this.) the worst that will happen is that you will have been slightly inconvenienced for a few months. Guess what? Lots of kids hate wearing pants, but we get them to! Treat a mask like pants! History shows us that during the Spanish Flu epidemic there were “anti-mask leagues” too. Guess what? There was a second wave of Spanish flu that killed more than the first wave. Ever heard that phrase, “History repeats itself?”
STOP GOING TO BUSY PLACES! I’m bored too. We want to get out. There are safe places to go. Be creative. You have the internet at your fingertips! As a history teacher I am compelled to remind you that past generations have made sacrifices without complaint. People have respected nighttime curfews and rationing during wars. Ask your grandparents about the awesome small sacrifices they have made for the country. They were probably much bigger deals than skipping a trip to Noah’s ark or wearing a mask. Covid-19 is our war. We are making history right now. (And fun fact; our current death tolls are higher than several of the wars we have fought.) Maybe, just maybe, if we wear our masks and stay home we can knock this out and have a better chance at school in fall and your teachers will happily disregard all the planning we have started for being ready for 16 different scenarios. (There are several countries that went on total lockdown, kicked out covid, and are now back to business as usual. This is fact.)
Start preparing your child. Let them know there could be many ways this could go. Help them get used to a mask. Use this time as a nice reminder that “the world does not revolve around you.” Isn’t that a trait we want our kids to have? Those arrows on the floor at Walmart? Practice the ancient art form of following directions. Not only is this a helpful life skill during Covid...but also life! Teach them to think of risky places to touch like door knobs and light switches. Practice not touching your face. I love being a teacher, but I LOVE when I don’t need to see your kid picking their nose while I make eye contact with them. These things are helpful in any germ scenario. Everyone hates feeling crummy. It doesn’t have to just be Covid we are avoiding. Colds, flu, whatever!
And finally, do not say that kids need to go back to school to save the economy. This is a masked way of calling a teacher a babysitter. I did not go to college and work on other certifications and get active shooter training and learn how to pack gunshot wounds to be your free babysitter. Yes, we are very lucky that we continued to receive a pay check (because we were, you know, doing our job) during the quarantine period. However, many of us were unable to work our second jobs and are now missing out on our summer jobs that we need because our first job doesn’t pay so great. And believe it or not, teachers also care about the economy. Guess what happens when the economy sucks? $$$ FOR SCHOOLS GET CUT. Did I mention we already got budget cuts for the upcoming school year when we will need to put in extra safety protocols? SERIOUSLY, we get it.
So in conclusion...we really all want the same thing. We need a little bit of compromise to get there. Be kind. Wash your hands. Thank you.
*Currently circulating on Facebook
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