Children, Classrooms, and Coronavirus
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President Joe Biden has recently drawn ire from GOP lawmakers for lagging behind his stated goal of getting K-12 children back into the classroom for in-person instruction. Liesl Hickey, a partner at Ascent Media and co-founder of N2 America, joins the show to chat with Sarah and Steve about teachers unions, remote learning’s effect on student well-being, and whether the NRSC will play a bigger role in GOP primaries during the next election cycle.
Show Notes:
-“Remote learning failed my third-grader miserably. I pulled her out of public school.” by Liesl Hickey in USA Today.
-“Surge of Student Suicides Pushes Las Vegas Schools to Reopen” by Erica L. Green in The New York Times.
I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the Dispatch and the thoughtfulness of its voices.
But this podcast had me yelling in frustration at my phone more than once.
I wasn't frustrated at the message - I believe schools should be open as much as possible. I've been in my classroom since August, teaching in hybrid mode. In a matter of weeks my district plans to bring all students back to my HS, in part because we are fortunate enough to have access to vaccination - my arm is sore from my first shot which happened this morning. I've had a front row seat to watch my students try to navigate this past several months and all that has happened. I'm also trying to figure out how the heck I will fit full-size classes into my 600 sq ft classroom. I can't get them to 6 feet now, and I have colleagues with slightly larger rooms who are scratching their heads about classes of 37. We are doing the best we can with what we have, and we will continue to do so. TELL THOSE STORIES ALSO, to help us get the narrative out there that schools can reopen.
I have taught since 1992 and never once been a union member - my husband also. I can't be a member because I've seen them protect people who richly deserved to lose their jobs, and I've seen way too little of them holding their own accountable. But would you like to know one reason why teachers gravitate to unions? When there are conversations about education in media, you know who sits at the table? Journalists, PhD's, writers, sometimes parents. Teacher union reps are the only ones who get asked to speak for teachers. Even though we're on the ground, doing the work. I imagine nurses feel the same. I was yelling at my phone because you posed some questions to your guest that she can't answer - BUT WE CAN.
Example - you brought up the fact that in some places, public schools are remote while private schools are open. The private Christian schools in my town have been open all year also. The reason why is simple - they can either cap their enrollment at a level where they can maintain social distancing, or decide to take their chances with ignoring mandates that public schools can't. We don't get to say no when we're full. When the state guidelines came out in the fall, it became readily apparent that we could only have about half our kids onsite and have any hope of meeting the requirements. We can't just say we won't do it as a publicly funded entity. In addition, public high schools can't do cohorts as kids in younger grades have. Note - our elementaries have been full in-person all year with cohorts, except when quarantined/ill staff forced them to remote learning. That also happened at my HS twice in the fall until our governor and state health authorities loosened the quarantine restrictions.
My other issue that is driving me crazy is that I am hearing the word "normal" thrown around quite a bit. I want to shout from the rooftops - no one should be craving "normal". It was not a healthy status quo. You talked about mental health concerns among children and teens, and those are real - I see them daily. BUT HERE'S THE THING - I've been worried about kids and mental health since well before COVID. Closing schools made us look at an ugly truth we were hiding behind busyness, grades, sports, rituals and such - that kids struggle and we don't help them work through that very well. As a result, they exhibit anxiety, depression, and apathy. Opening schools by itself won't fix that, because closing schools was a trigger but not necessarily the primary cause. I want parents to use their voices and influence to demand we actually deal with some of the things that have made schools lose their way. We have a chance to fix some things, to reinvent. Your guest asked for creativity, but that shouldn't be just to open the doors. It should be to change paradigms. It will be hard because we're all tired, but if not now, when?
I am a huge fan of the Dispatch and I completely agreed with directionally with the guest on this podcast but frankly her arguments were very political and not well argued or supported. Someone off the street could have said what she said. The fact that she’s a political operative and her arguments against the unions seemed more like a cudgel to argue for GOP Congressional candidates further undermined her arguments. Shout to Steve for trying to inject some substance into the discussion but overall the weakest Dispatch content I’ve experienced.