Tag Archives: COVID

Yoda, the Dark Path, and the High Ground of Education

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It is hard not to like Yoda quotes. The reversal of sentence order captures your attention as much as the pinched voice of the pointy-eared, green-toned little Jedi.  More importantly, the wisdom of Yoda cuts through much of the blather of oblong thinking. 

Yoda said, “If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.  Consume you, it will…”.  And, with those words, the threat the pandemic and pandemic politics poses for the future of public education is called out for what it is – a dark path.

While Yoda struggled against a dark path that led to an evil galactic empire, we struggle against a dark path that erodes our optimism and belief in a better future.  There is a narcissism down our threatening  dark path.  Its use of manipulation, distortion of information, and denial of criticism is anathema to public education.

The dark side is doom-sided thinking of negativity characterized by the following statements.

  • The future is bleak and will not be as good as the past.
  • Some people get all the breaks and some people get none.
  • Anger trumps all emotions and arguments.
  • Leaders at all levels fail to understand and meet the needs of the public.
  • All data but my data is suspect.
  • Self-interest is the only interest that matters.
  • Rules only are important when you want them to be.

As educators, our schools are at ground zero of much of the angst.  School boards are under attack for closing or opening schools for in-person learning, providing a remote learning that appeals to some children and is rejected by others, and masking or unmasking of students and staff in school.  On each of these three topics, boards face angry parents and community no matter what the board decides.  Adding to the difficulty of having any kind of school day, student achievement across all grades and subjects displays pandemic gapping.  Academic achievement has fallen.  Fine arts programs that require personal, in-person teaching are stymied by remote education, quarantining, and masking.  Theater and concerts are performed to empty houses and shared virtually.  Athletics are constantly interrupted by quarantines, positive tests of players and coaches, and cancelled contests.  Two years of pandemic and counting and the difficulty faced by teachers and school leaders only grows. 

The high ground of school that keeps the dark path at bay was, is, and will continue to be built upon the aggregate of these statements. 

  • Education is a human necessity.
  • Public education is a community’s obligation to its children.
  • Education opens opportunities and reveals future options.
  • Content knowledge, academic skills, critical thinking, collaboration, socialization, and intellectual curiosity are the six enduring outcomes of public education.
  • Teaching changes lives.
  • Public schools require the trust of parents and conversely parents require the stability of public schools.
  • Public education is the pillar of our society that stands the test of time.  When it fails, our society will fail.

The brightest image of our high ground is the face of a child.  Innately, children want to learn.  Every child has a curiosity to understand the sounds and sights of their world.  A brain never stops processing what a child experiences and school learning provides tools for understanding.  I once cringed at the person in a school meeting years ago who would throw down the conversation-ending line, “Well, I am here for the children.”  As if to say, no one else stood on the side of children.  Today, “I am here for the children, and we provide each and every child with an education for their future” are words we need to say over and over again.  These words do not end conversation.  They open discussion of new possibilities and future options.  I am here for the education of children is a high ground that defeats the adult-centered dark path. 

School Children In the Time of Polio

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In 1955 my classmates and I marched single file from our classroom to the school nurse’s office for an injection of the Salk polio vaccine.  For weeks we had known the vaccination day was coming.  That morning, we stood next to our desks in our classroom and marched out in that order.  I remember young girls in their dresses, white socks, and leather shoes and boys in plaid shirts and blue jeans and PF Flyers quietly walking out of the room and down the stairs to the first floor.  We were lined up along the wall on the left side of the main corridor with another classroom of kids in front of us and another classroom behind.  Teachers hushed the talk and in the quiet we could hear some children up ahead crying.  A poke with a needle was a scary thing, yet looking at the long line in front and behind me meant that every one of my friends was going to get a shot.  Scared, yep, but we knew why we were in a long line that day.  When it was my turn, I watched Carol, my friend in front of me, rub her arm as she got back into line outside the office, felt the prick of the needle, and was told to “Hurry on”.  I was vaccinated against polio.

The year before children in an elementary school on the other side of town participated in the national Salk vaccine field test.  Our Iowa school district had been selected to be part of a field test in which 50% of children would get the Salk vaccine and 50% would get a placebo.  Parents were provided with consent forms to sign for the field test and every parent consented.  The success of the national field study showed that infection with the polio virus, the pandemic of the early 1950s, could be prevented with a vaccination of Salk vaccine.  Within the year a nationwide campaign to vaccinate all school children was underway.

My friends and I knew that polio was real.  Beyond the headlines and stories in the daily newspaper reporting the growing number of children infected with polio, we knew.  One our classmates, Steve, lived in an iron lung in the living room of his home.  His head stuck out from the barrel-like breathing machine that used vacuum cleaner motors to raise and lower air pressure in the barrel to help him breathe.  When the time came, we would all choose a shot in the arm to prevent being in an iron lung.

Class reunions are communal strolls down memory lane.  Yearbooks and dog-eared photos are passed around and stories are told and retold.  Most tales are of our high school days with a few from junior high.  The Class of 1966 represented a pathway from two junior highs and fifteen elementary schools.  We had many memories along the path to graduation.  The one common story from our elementary school memories, however, is always the day we got the Salk shot.  The story goes like this. 

“The hallway was filled with kids inching their way along the wall toward a needle.  It was so quiet.  I cannot remember any classmate saying ‘No, not me’.  I cannot recall my parents even raising a ‘Should we…’.  Everyone was afraid of getting polio and if a vaccination put an end to polio, we were going to get vaccinated.  It’s funny now, but of all the shots in the arm (and other places) I have received, that is the shot I remember most clearly.  Remember when John said, ‘That didn’t hurt.  I’ll take another.’  Hey, we stopped polio, didn’t’ we.”  And they always add, “I remember when we were given the Sabin vaccine in 1960?  It was on a sugar cube!”

Many of my classmates now sleep in death.  Life is what it is.  I look at my elementary class photo of Mrs. Meyer’s home room and see each of their childhood faces and recall every name.  On those vaccination days in 1955 we did what we were supposed to do.  Steve’s face is not in that photo.  He was a polio victim.

Our Children’s Eyes Are On Us

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A fellow school board member reminds us frequently, “Our children are watching us”.  These words alone cut to the quick of every discussion and issue before a school board.  The board’s actions must reflect decisions that are in the best interest of the children attending our schools.  Noble words?  Yes.  Mission-based words?  Yes.  Easy words to enact?  Not always. 

In the politics of school government each constituency except children has leverage.  Parents hold the choice card.  If they disagree with board decisions, they can choose a different school.  Teachers and staff hold the employment card.  There is a statewide shortage in every category of school personnel and a school board knows it.  Decisions that cause an unexpected resignation or retirement may create an opening that cannot be filled or, if filled, with a less experienced and qualified person.  Community residents hold the voter card to be played at board elections and more importantly in the constant flow of district referenda.  A failed referendum denies school needs.  And, recall elections of school board members are at an all-time high in 2021.

What about the children?  Children do not choose their school.  Children do not provide a necessary employment to the school.  Children do not vote.  Yet, children loom constantly in every board action as their education and nurturing are the only things that really matter in public education. 

Two questions should haunt every board member’s mind in their discussion and voting on board motions.  How will this decision affect children?  What lesson of responsible adult behavior are we teaching our children?

Today, it may be that the second is the more important question.  Are adults, board members and constituents speaking and acting like role models for children?  If children said and did the things they are seeing and hearing in our behaviors, would we discipline them for their inappropriateness? 

I was always whipsawed as a child between adults who said “Do as I do” and “Do as I say”.  The lesson of growing up right was to take the best of what you are shown and the best of what you are told to create a model for your adult behavior. 

Yet, when I watch YouTube clips of adult behaviors in some school board and local government meetings this year, I wonder where the adults went.  What I see in too many stories are not the role models we want children to emulate.

Three concepts from ages past pertain.  Respect, civility, and common good.  Almost every school mission statement or list of student goals contains words about respect.  On an everyday demonstration, we want children to show a considerate regard for the feelings, wishes and wants, rights, and traditions of others.  Children tend toward outbursts of the moment, brashness, and acting and saying without a second thought. 

It is the second thought of consideration that reigns in disrespect. These are learned and practiced behaviors that help children over time to achieve the second word – civility.  Civil behavior, somewhat of an archaic term, is courteous, restrained,  responsible, and accountable.  Civility follows the Gold Rule of treating others as you wish to be treated.  Accountability is an essential part of civility.  An adult does not get to say whatever comes to mind without consequence.  Respect and civil behavior combine to shape discussions for the common good. 

Teaching children to consider what is best for others not just self advances their progress toward maturity.  The common good is not ethereal, it is tangible.  School boards face decisions in which special interests are apparent.  Any decision that gives advantage to some at the disadvantage of the many is not in the common good.  On the other hand, a decision that improves the condition or status of a small group and equally shares that improvement with all is in the common good.  The pandemic is providing school boards with a constant arena for considering their decisions in terms of the common good.  This is a test; are we up to this test.

The children are watching us, their school board, to observe and learn from us.  While they may not have material leverage, children have the moral leverage.  We adults know we are supposed to be adult-like in our interactions with each other in our board meetings.  Very often I would like to use instant replay mechanisms from televised sports.  “Time out!  We are going to review what these people said and how they acted toward each other.  We will break down this clip to identify respect, civil behavior, and working for the common good.  Let’s see what we can learn.”

At the end of the day, children will grade us using the same rubrics we use on them everyday in school.  They have been watching and they know us for what and who we are.

In the Time of COVID, If We Value an Equitable and Equal Education for All Children, No Option is No Option

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Almost every question regarding how schools should operate in the Time of COVID leads to this problem – no matter how well intended and accommodating, plans for re-opening schools do not allow all children to receive an equitable and equal education.  A second outcome of almost every plan is that a segment of teachers, staff, children, parents and community are unhappy with its outcomes.  Our educational systems have worked hard to create accommodating options in every area where the education of children is not equitable and equal.  And, educators have worked to create parent, family and community partnerships in school programming and services to assure equity and equality.  COVID is leaving educators without options to provide the kind of options that make education equitable and equal for children and amiable with parents.  No options is not an option.

I posit this as a given. There is a real difference between in-school and at-home learning for students, regardless of how diligent schools are in providing remote instruction.  At-home just is not the same as being in-school and this this builds conditions of inequity and inequality.

The first divisor of COVID is the reality of health conditions.  Children and their families and teachers and their families who have health conditions that are imperiled by COVID have no option.  Their baseline consideration is “I cannot participate in any schooling that presents my exposure to any person who is infected or contagious or has been exposed to such.”  Because the infected and contagious may be present in any social situation, this immediately eliminates in-person teaching and learning for these students and teachers.  Their parameter must be safety first.  Students and teachers with health conditions have no options for in-school attendance.

The second divisor is perception – perceived danger or perceived safety.  Whether a person perceives danger or perceives safety, their perception is right.  Prevalent COVID data yields this “glass half full or glass half empty” proposition.  Our county is rated by our Department of Health Services as being “high in COVID activity” – community spread.  Our county has a suffered few COVID-related deaths and a low number of hospitalizations.  The “high” rating of community spread builds the perception of present danger.  The “low” number of deaths builds the perception of relative safety.  No argument can convince either perceiver that their perception is erroneous.  Perception is reality and the reality is that some children and teachers believe they should be in-school and some children and teachers believe they must be at-home.  Students and teachers who perceive the dangers of in-school attendance are separated into at-home students and teachers. No options to be in-person.

The third and fourth divisors are real time factors.  Some schools have the physical capacity for all children and teachers to be socially distanced in-school.  A combination of lower enrollment and available in-school classrooms spaces allow for a socially distanced instruction of all children.  At the same time, some schools do not have this capacity.  At best, these schools can offer a combination of either in-school and at-home instructional days for all children or in-school all week instruction for some children and at-home all week instruction for other children.    Social distancing requirements are dividing children into full-time or part-time in-school and/or at-home students.

Internet access is the fourth and highly significant real time divisor. Synchronous  screen time between teachers and students has become a strong tool for delivering in-school teaching to at-home students.  Some homes have high speed connectivity and some have little to no connectivity at all.  And, of those homes with connectivity, some Internet is not strong enough to support streaming and Zooming.  Additionally, the amount of school time required for at-home learning can be very expensive given a family’s Internet plan.  Internet connectivity has divided students at home in the “haves” and “have nots”.  Access to the Internet is a very real creator of inequality and inequity.

A fifth divisor is the presence or lack of parental supervision and support for at-home learning.  This is a true have and have not division.  The economics of some homes require that adults work full time.  Their need is inarguable.  Children in these homes do not have adult supervision and daily support of their at-home learning.  The economics of other homes allows an adult to be at home.  Children in these homes have adult supervision and support.  However, not all adults are suited for supervising and supporting at-home education.  The lack of an adult at home or an adult who is suited for at-home education leaves at-home students without needed options for their learning supervision and support.

The final divisor lies in the community. Local economies work best in the school year when children are in school and adults are available for work. When COVID forced schools to shift to at-home student learning last fall, local economies suffered. Reopening the economy pushes schools to provide in-school teaching and in-school learning. When educational leaders attend to health data’s indicating the need for at-home student learning, an immediate adversarial relationship erupts between economic and educational interests with small to no options for compromise.

To reclaim needed options for educators, students and parents, we need:

  • Community commitment to following medical guidance that drives the local infection rate to one (1) case per one hundred thousand citizens (100,000) and hold that rate over time.  In our count of less than 100,000 in population, the rate is no more than one (1) new, positive COVID test per day. This requires enforced masking and social distancing mandates.
  • Suspension of school until the above local infection rate is achieved.  The 180 days of school year for all schools, teachers and students will slide back in the chronological calendar until this rate is achieved.  Education will be achieved, just not now and not with the current examples of inequity and inequality.
  • Governmental financing of ubiquitous high speed Internet for every community regardless of population density and commercial subscription. Every aspect of life in a community needs this.
  • State and local financing to employ enough essential school employees to achieve social distancing in all school operations – classroom, transportation, food service. If essential personnel are not available, schools cannot provide in-school teaching and learning.
  • State and local financing to ensure that all areas of a school can be sanitized quickly and effectively is machine and not hand labor. Cleaning builds both the reality and perception of safe school environments.
  • PPP coverage for an adult to be an at-home supervisor and learning supporter for 4K through grade 6 age children.

It is absurd that a nation of such resources should not ensure an equitable and equal education for all children, even in the Time of COVID.  Or, to restate this, it is absurd that a nation of such resources is willing to squander the educated future of a generation of children.

Reopening School: The Need for Day Care

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The critical attribute of school in a global pandemic is not education; it is day care and lunch.  In the face of COVID, these two functions top the list of “what the pandemic taught us about schools and our national health and economic crises” and “what does your community and state need its schools to do”.

Simultaneously, unforeseen consequences of COVID are carving the nation with demonic swaths.  The national box score this morning showed nearly 100,000 deaths and more than 1,500,000 positive cases of the virus.  These numbers dominate the news.  Pandemic not only makes people sick, it sickens all of life’s activities.  People shut down.  Businesses shutdown.  Community activities shut down.  Employees become unemployed.  Unemployment data shoots upward from less than 5% towards 20% and governments focus on how to pay massive unemployment benefits and keep businesses afloat.

The crisis has quickly grown geometrically in two daily graphs – cases and deaths, and, unemployment numbers and economic failure.  These represent the status of public health and the status of economic health.  The urgency to deal with the pandemic has taken two dimensions – how to restore the health of the nation’s people and how to restore the health of the national economy.  After two-plus months of crises, the need to restore the economy is overtaking the restoration of public health.

We remember from our history lessons that President Coolidge unabashedly said in the 1920s “… the business of America is business” and not even a pandemic has altered his truth.

COVID quickly exposed the critical attribute of public school.  Schools are by far the nation’s largest day care provider.  When children are not in school for an extended period, the urgency of day care becomes a state and national crisis.  In order to return to normalcy, schools must resume day care operations.  It is not the loss of reading, writing, and arithmetic or the cancellation of winter and spring activities and athletics that our governments and communities lament.  It is day care. 

I believe that schools will never return to what they were like in March 2020 and before COVID. 

The fall 2020 school term will begin with all children in a school setting.  Repeat – in September, all children will be in school and parents will be available to return to work.  The need for a working nation trumps the need for general public health.  But, schools will be different.  Even as businesses race toward normalcy, day care/school will be held to CDC guidance on phased practices.

  • Overarching public health advisories will require social distancing in school, in classrooms, in hallways, and every area of the school.  Guidance abandoned by business will be upheld for schools. 
  • Children will have their temperature taken at the school entry each morning and will not congregate with their friends.
  • In order to space children safely with a six foot radius between, class sizes in a standard classroom will max at 16 children per class, four rows by four rows, outer rows next to walls.
  • Schools will need more classrooms, almost twice the current number.  All spaces in the school will be considered for conversion to classrooms. 
  • School boards will rent “big box” buildings in the community for temporary classrooms that will then become semi-permanent in the next five years. 
  • More classrooms will require more staff.  Boards will hire more support staff to supervise children in classrooms. 
  • Teachers who mastered remote instruction will use their new pedagogical skills to stream grade level and subject area lessons to children in school and Big Box classrooms.  A new category of teacher will emerge – remote instruction designers.
  • Speaking of teachers, there will be a shortage of classroom teachers.  COVID and remote education will have been more than many current teachers can handle and they will leave the profession.  The current shortage of prepared teachers will be magnified.
  • Children who became acclimatized to screen time during the remote education will continue to learn through their screens.  Restrictions on in-school movement will keep children at their desks and screens.
  • Physical education and music instruction will be personally contracted between teacher and student, because large group instruction in gyms and rehearsal halls will be not be safe.  Children will video their PE and music practice time and submit these to their teachers.  Some gyms will be repurposed as classrooms.
  • School athletic programs will narrow to individual, non-contact sports with limited spectators.  Outdoor programs will be safer than indoor programs.  Major team and contact sports will not be safe.  Locker rooms and shower rooms will be converted for other purposes.
  • School lunch will be distributed to children at their desks.  Massed feeding programs in cafeterias and lines of children moving from classrooms to the cafeteria will be unsafe.  Cafeterias will be repurposed as food prep areas or classrooms.
  • School auditoriums will be repurposed as classrooms.
  • The most significant problem will be school transportation.  A 72-passenger school bus normally carrying three children per seat will carry 12 – one child per alternating seat row.  School buses will make multiple runs every morning and afternoon to transport children from home to school and home again.  More routes and each route will be shorter in time duration.  Activity and athletic transportation will require multiple buses per trip, if they are allowed.

Across the board, the cost of school will increase at a time when state revenues have been deeply diminished by the pandemic.  This will be a conundrum for state legislators.  In order for business to return to normalcy, children need to be in school.  In order for schools to follow prevailing pandemic safety guidance, each of the bullets above needs to be in daily practice.  This will cause legislators to find the money or return children to school without CDC guidance. 

Watch the box scores.  The critical attribute of public school will be on display.