Our Best Stuff on Biden’s First Year, Ukraine, and the March for Life

Plus: Some thoughts on schooling in the time of Omicron.

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Happy Saturday! I hope yours is going as well as mine. The sun is out, the birds would be chirping if they hadn’t flown south for the winter, and my Wordle streak is perfect. I’m going to try to keep this quick because, like many Americans, I’m getting ready to eat some chicken wings and watch the NFL playoffs.

Maybe I’m feeling chipper because we busted out of COVID jail this week. On January 12, two of our three kids tested positive. (Yes, we’re all vaccinated. It hit before we had a chance to get them boosters.) It was annoying, but they were fine and didn’t even miss that much school. We were off for Martin Luther King Day, and our district preemptively called a “calamity day” for Tuesday to deal with staff shortages. And then they were out of quarantine and back to school. 

I’ve written more than once about how lucky we’ve been on the schooling front. We had in-person school throughout the 2020-21 school year (with brief and targeted forays into remote learning when absolutely necessary). This year was as close as you could get to normal, at least until Omicron hit. Our schools send out emails alerting parents of any positive cases, and in the fall we’d go days, sometimes even a week, with no notifications. On January 10, though, we got this note from the high school: “We are writing to let you know that seven 12th-grade students, seven 11th-grade students, fourteen 10th-grade students, nine 9th-grade students, and three staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.” Oof.

The pandemic has left its imprint on every aspect of our lives, obviously, but I don’t know if anything illustrates the sheer frustration of having no great options for how to deal with it two years in than education.

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  1. Avatar photo
    CynthiaW

    This is the second go-round for the picture of the mother ship descending to take the Ancient One, Great Zog, back to his home planet. I admit it's a hysterical picture. I would be proud to have taken it.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Mmmm I did substitute teaching for almost two years, so I remember what it’s like to have to cover for everyone. Must have been crazy during the Pandemic.

    Thank you for the round up!

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    Carl M

    Yay Bengals!!

    My son, a high school junior, finally got covid and missed the week leading up to MLK day. Mild symptoms but it took a week for him to test negative. Meanwhile, I was cooped up with him in our small apartment and ... I didn't catch it.

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    Phil H

    "And go Bengals. Who Dey! "

    "Dey" just beat Tennessee 19-16 with a last-second field goal, to get the Bengals to the AFC title game for the first time since 1988!

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      Pat Riot

      Can David French ban commenters? We may be about to find out.

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        Phil H

        🤣

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    EricRemcon@gmail

    Thank you for pointing out the existence of hard working (really over worked with simultaneous virtual and in person duties) teachers. I am not a teacher, but I know several that are in a terrible situation. It’s really hard to smile when you are being called lazy while working harder than ever. Unfortunately, the behavior/rhetoric of union leaders often overshadows the plight of the teachers that care about the students mental heath and continued learning.

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    1. Brilliantly Oblivious

      My son is a teacher who has worked extremely hard before and during the Plague. Good teachers are like precious jewels (especially when one of them is your kid!)

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    Teaching at a Catholic University, the administration int he past has asked us to accommodate students who want to go to March for Life (missing Th-F classes). I've done so.

    Trump on campus is fascinating. Our students really aren't Trumpists, but they didn't find Brandon to be a better alternative. The faculty are mostly to the left of centrists like Bernie and Liz, but the non academic staff has more than a few MAGA hats in the closet. Officially no one can display campaign material on campus, although the administration has been slow to remove liberal candidate materials. So some evil, diabolical students began papering MAGA over some of the signs so they'd get taken down very quickly. Some faculty wanted the students punished for vandalism, but since the signs were against policy, the university hasn't wanted to punish the students either.

    As far as HS goes, every day I get a Covid notice. And they put the form letter in a word document so i have to download it and then open it. Just cut and paste it into the email already!

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      CynthiaW

      "The faculty are mostly to the left of centrists like Bernie and Liz, ..."

      That's hard to picture, actually, but it makes me feel better about the "Get a lousy job!" plan for higher education.

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        Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

        We have faculty who think non-profit means virtuous, and for-profit means greedy.

        Non-profit, BTW is a tax definition. it simply means the residual claims (aka profits) don't get taxed as long as they are retained inside the organization. Pay them out (as salary or dividend), and they get taxed.

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          CynthiaW

          "Have you considered the Marine Corps, son?"

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            Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

            All joking aside, I think for some HS students, college is a good idea. But for many, not so much.
            I think students should major in something practical (a, it pays better, and b, the faculty are more sane). And parents should force their kids to research job placement in that field. I can't tell you how many lawyers I met who didn't realize about half of law students don't get a good position.

            If a kid didn't work hard in HS, have them work a year before going to college, maybe two. It should wise them up a bit.

            And in today's environment, if you have a son, have "the talk" with him about what affirmative consent means....

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      Phil H

      Your students are smart, Jay.

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    Patrick

    My Wordle distribution looks eerily similar. I’m confident that I’ll never lose. I assume nobody has said that before and then lost.

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    BikerChick

    Please don't boost your kids, they don't need it and WHO recommends against it.

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      Phil H

      My family and I are boosted.

      I don't know the specifics about the WHO recommendation, but I bet they want the vaccines to be used for initial vaccinations in the Third World rather than "boost" already vaccinated Americans.

      Given that undervaccinated Third World countries are breeding grounds for COVID variants, they aren't wrong to want that. But that's different from saying that the boosters are not medically advisable. In the meantime, vaccine doses already waiting in American pharmacies are not going to be shipped overseas. They will either be used here, or thrown out.

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      Pat Riot

      ^^^ Disinformation.

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        BikerChick

        Trust in the Biker Chick….she’s not been wrong. 😜

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      Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

      What a coincidence, Aaron Rodgers appears to agree with the WHO! :-)
      Good luck in tonight's game. Before we got the Colts (I used to live in Indy) we were Packer fans.

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        Pat Riot

        Anybody betting on the spread in that game knew they were going lose/won by halftime. What a crazy game.

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          Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

          When the packers missed that end of first half field goal, I got worried the 49ers might hang around.

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        BikerChick

        NOOOOOOoooooooo. Can't say it was Aaron's fault.

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        Pat Riot

        The WHO never lied to Americans about being vaccinated nor is it a raging anti-vaxxer like Kaaron Rogers.

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          BikerChick

          The WHO does not recommend boosting kids.

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            Pat Riot

            They don't *disrecommend* it, they merely point out that for countries that have to prioritize, it's not a priority to stop deaths.

            If you want your child to experience intense sickness for a week, by all means withhold their vax and tell them that they are owning the libs when they moan in pain from the body aches.

            While you're at it, don't feed them very much because after all they will survive even if they are half starving all of the time. They've got to learn.

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