I think it's time to go on record to expand on my last post in order to stand against the vitriol against teachers I have read in the local and national media. While I intend this with love and respect for those who disagree, I will not apologize for being frustrated and angry about the ignorance and bias displayed. If explaining would change people's beliefs-it doesn't-we would all be in agreement. I am explaining mine only, based on my experience as an educator and as a student of human behavior. Keep in mind that everyone's silence, especially online, is all that is needed to allow injustice to occur. If you have been paying attention at all to the BLM movement that will be obvious. And it will be hard because the things that matter are difficult.
Virtual schooling is the right thing to do despite what is said by the more vocal, hateful, incorrect members of the public (including elected officials at every level and many in the media). The recent reports from Israel, where the increase in COVID cases was directly linked to opening schools, and those from IN and MS showing the need to have students quarantine after attending school for just one day are evidence of what educators have been saying aloud for months-opening schools is dangerous. We have actively spoken out about this but have been "policy-wonk-splained" about this for months by everyone from the local to mainstream media to the CDC. Now it seems that the evidence is contrary to guidance about the effects on children, and they are silent on the consequences of their previous guidance.
The one thing that is missing from every guideline provided by the WHO, CDC, and state and county health authorities in this pandemic is solid student behavioral and developmental science as well as organizational psychological science. The guidance thus far is direct medical science, which is important, but shows an appalling lack of expertise in managing school environments and student and adult behavioral expectations. Add in the tirades and personal attacks we have had to suffer from community members (i.e. that we are trying to get out of work and don't care about our students--that's more evidence of the implicit and explicit bias leveled at educators from the beginning of the profession) and it has been a terrible time.
I have had to witness and experience like everyone else the twisted horror show that has been this pandemic, and specifically the lack of resources for schools and the chaotic decision-making process on whether or not to reopen them. I am thankful that our governor has been strong about getting ahead of this in the face of unethical federal leadership. He is not perfect, however, like all of us. The appalling inequities amongst schools have been revealed in this crisis, but not laid bare. This is due to bias, and more overtly prejudice, plain and simple. And once again students are the pawns.
No one gets (or wants to accept) that their biases and voting habits combined with not advocating equally for schools have made them directly responsible as aiders and abetters of those conditions. Superintendents in LA, SF, and SD bucked the state guidance--they decided to go virtual before the Governor, the state superintendent, and CDE decided that we should be virtual. I am not a fan of any of them, I'm not advocating for them. They had to because the cost to student and community health is appalling and simply too high.
No teacher wants to teach virtually. We all want to go back to our rooms. We love our kids and love them enough to not put them in harm's way. The problem is that this disease is not excluding kids like previous medical reports said. The decision to go virtual, hybrid, or live has not being made solely for medical reasons, it's being made out of fear, and quite honestly explicit and implicit bias in everyone against teachers with students as leverage.
Bias is hard to swallow for most everyone because everyone says they support teachers so "how could we possibly be biased?" Ask any BIPOC and LGBTQA+ person, they get it better than I do. Educator bias goes all the way back to the little red schoolhouse when they told us we weren't moral if we got married and taught, amongst the many other draconian behavioral expectations. Through the 1960s, they expected high heels and hose worn amongst other things to prove professionalism. When teachers showed up in civil rights actions that scared the hell out of the entrenched bigots. Now the biases from history are so silently wired into societal systems and interactions that even teachers don't get how they undermine themselves at times. It all boils down to what is deemed appropriate and what is not, and it has always been a standard that it's inappropriate for teachers to use their intellects and voices to bring the wrongs into the light. Now the pandemic has opened up the festering wound of bias, inequality, and inequity, and our voices are being locked down with shelter in orders while the mainstream media and factions of the public and their elected officials try to shame us for speaking up.
Unfortunately for the narrow-minded, fearful, one-lane-only believers (bc they stick to their beliefs no matter the evidence --Bayesian Inference error) that means quite literally that we should be quiet because we don't know enough, should not disturb their peace or inconvenience them. Many of them think that it is our duty as citizens to die for the economy. All of these things have been said out loud and in the media in the past month, whether from members of the public or elected officials. All of it is bias and wrong beliefs.
In this case, the bias will harm kids and adults, possibly permanently, if not kill them. When South Korea finished its aggregate data, 5.3% of 0-9 year-olds and 11.3% of 10-19 year-olds contracted and spread COVID. In a single school of 300 students, that's 8 kids K-5. 3 is considered an outbreak. County-wide the number would be in 4 digits. What about much larger schools like high schools with 2,200 students? (Data mining this will take more time because they don't break down the age ranges the same way from study to study, nor is the information easily available, and the knowledge base for this disease is changing rapidly every week).
The problem with this is three-fold: First, they really do not know the ongoing effects this has on kids. Health authorities have said they are bracing for an onslaught of issues in school-age children. Second, each of the kids in the 5.3% will infect at least 2 others in their household alone, tripling the case count. Third, only the soulless would say that percentage is acceptable or talk like it represents inanimate objects instead of living, breathing children. The parents of every one of those kids would tell you how unacceptable the statistical probability is for their families.
Yes, this is horrible, it is the worst situation we have seen in our lifetimes. The people who circle back around to "Yeah, but people need to work so they need their kids at school" are not offering an actual solution, they are either clinging to immutable beliefs or abdicating intellectual, ethical, and civic responsibility by complaining without making an honest attempt at doing. From a behavioral viewpoint, the goal of that is to obtain attention for themselves. That is not about a wider-scale solution, especially since the argument is just air and no action. What do you have to offer on the point of child care so that people can work? Or did you not think about that when the Uber Eats delivery person brought dinner while their kids were without child care?
So let me remind everyone, the inequities in schools include the industrial-looking campuses and 30-40 year-old desks, the lack of school nurses and mental health professionals at every site, the lack of enough custodians to properly clean every day, or classified personnel to effectively screen for temperatures and symptoms. Schools and classrooms are not all the same size so fitting students in them safely, even without the plexiglass shields and masks is near impossible without providing more classrooms because there is no money for it. If kids matter as much as elected officials and the public claim they do, then why is it okay that some schools have good technology and wifi/infrastructure and others don't? Why is it okay that your neighborhood is doing well and hopes and prayer are sent to others? Why are schools continually raising money for basic supplies? Why are companies not paying their fair share of taxes when small businesses who support their local schools are going out of business? Why do most working people pay more in taxes than the top 1%, including owners of those companies? Equity would mean that your child's school has all the same technology and resources available as any Fortune 500 company has.
On this last point, this is the heart of the matter. Children and schools have been treated as commodities for hundreds of years, and it is painful for people to think they have been party to that. Most yell and insult out of defensiveness when called on it. But it doesn't change the fact that the bias is lived into everyone, and everyone carries responsibility.
I think it's interesting that we educators are mandated to report any hint of abuse, but when elected officials and members of the public push to open schools, the potential harm that that can cause to the kids, families, and communities is not considered abusive. I think it is an abuse of power through the lens of income privilege and disparity coming from the same people.
The way out of it is to start calling it what it is to the CDC, all federal, state, county, local health authorities, all elected officials and the general people we encounter every day--bias, that goes back hundreds of years, and says children are a commodity and educators are only allowed to be silent servants. So are you advocating for proper school funding? If you say you respect teachers, are you also advocating that all of us get the training and time and space to teach in? Are you also saying we are professionals whose graduate degrees should be compensated like other professions, possibly like yours? Are you advocating for entire districts to begin and continue to examine institutional racism and biases? What about holding accountable the politicians who hold leverage in making all of this happen? Or are the values you want to be lived into your children really showing that they are better than others? Because that is definitively bias in action. And we need you to advocate for your kids and us.
So please speak up. Tell the truth, not a version of it. Be clear. Be courageous enough to ask yourself what you can do better. Then do this with your politicians and your votes.
Virtual schooling is the right thing to do despite what is said by the more vocal, hateful, incorrect members of the public (including elected officials at every level and many in the media). The recent reports from Israel, where the increase in COVID cases was directly linked to opening schools, and those from IN and MS showing the need to have students quarantine after attending school for just one day are evidence of what educators have been saying aloud for months-opening schools is dangerous. We have actively spoken out about this but have been "policy-wonk-splained" about this for months by everyone from the local to mainstream media to the CDC. Now it seems that the evidence is contrary to guidance about the effects on children, and they are silent on the consequences of their previous guidance.
The one thing that is missing from every guideline provided by the WHO, CDC, and state and county health authorities in this pandemic is solid student behavioral and developmental science as well as organizational psychological science. The guidance thus far is direct medical science, which is important, but shows an appalling lack of expertise in managing school environments and student and adult behavioral expectations. Add in the tirades and personal attacks we have had to suffer from community members (i.e. that we are trying to get out of work and don't care about our students--that's more evidence of the implicit and explicit bias leveled at educators from the beginning of the profession) and it has been a terrible time.
I have had to witness and experience like everyone else the twisted horror show that has been this pandemic, and specifically the lack of resources for schools and the chaotic decision-making process on whether or not to reopen them. I am thankful that our governor has been strong about getting ahead of this in the face of unethical federal leadership. He is not perfect, however, like all of us. The appalling inequities amongst schools have been revealed in this crisis, but not laid bare. This is due to bias, and more overtly prejudice, plain and simple. And once again students are the pawns.
No one gets (or wants to accept) that their biases and voting habits combined with not advocating equally for schools have made them directly responsible as aiders and abetters of those conditions. Superintendents in LA, SF, and SD bucked the state guidance--they decided to go virtual before the Governor, the state superintendent, and CDE decided that we should be virtual. I am not a fan of any of them, I'm not advocating for them. They had to because the cost to student and community health is appalling and simply too high.
No teacher wants to teach virtually. We all want to go back to our rooms. We love our kids and love them enough to not put them in harm's way. The problem is that this disease is not excluding kids like previous medical reports said. The decision to go virtual, hybrid, or live has not being made solely for medical reasons, it's being made out of fear, and quite honestly explicit and implicit bias in everyone against teachers with students as leverage.
Bias is hard to swallow for most everyone because everyone says they support teachers so "how could we possibly be biased?" Ask any BIPOC and LGBTQA+ person, they get it better than I do. Educator bias goes all the way back to the little red schoolhouse when they told us we weren't moral if we got married and taught, amongst the many other draconian behavioral expectations. Through the 1960s, they expected high heels and hose worn amongst other things to prove professionalism. When teachers showed up in civil rights actions that scared the hell out of the entrenched bigots. Now the biases from history are so silently wired into societal systems and interactions that even teachers don't get how they undermine themselves at times. It all boils down to what is deemed appropriate and what is not, and it has always been a standard that it's inappropriate for teachers to use their intellects and voices to bring the wrongs into the light. Now the pandemic has opened up the festering wound of bias, inequality, and inequity, and our voices are being locked down with shelter in orders while the mainstream media and factions of the public and their elected officials try to shame us for speaking up.
Unfortunately for the narrow-minded, fearful, one-lane-only believers (bc they stick to their beliefs no matter the evidence --Bayesian Inference error) that means quite literally that we should be quiet because we don't know enough, should not disturb their peace or inconvenience them. Many of them think that it is our duty as citizens to die for the economy. All of these things have been said out loud and in the media in the past month, whether from members of the public or elected officials. All of it is bias and wrong beliefs.
In this case, the bias will harm kids and adults, possibly permanently, if not kill them. When South Korea finished its aggregate data, 5.3% of 0-9 year-olds and 11.3% of 10-19 year-olds contracted and spread COVID. In a single school of 300 students, that's 8 kids K-5. 3 is considered an outbreak. County-wide the number would be in 4 digits. What about much larger schools like high schools with 2,200 students? (Data mining this will take more time because they don't break down the age ranges the same way from study to study, nor is the information easily available, and the knowledge base for this disease is changing rapidly every week).
The problem with this is three-fold: First, they really do not know the ongoing effects this has on kids. Health authorities have said they are bracing for an onslaught of issues in school-age children. Second, each of the kids in the 5.3% will infect at least 2 others in their household alone, tripling the case count. Third, only the soulless would say that percentage is acceptable or talk like it represents inanimate objects instead of living, breathing children. The parents of every one of those kids would tell you how unacceptable the statistical probability is for their families.
Yes, this is horrible, it is the worst situation we have seen in our lifetimes. The people who circle back around to "Yeah, but people need to work so they need their kids at school" are not offering an actual solution, they are either clinging to immutable beliefs or abdicating intellectual, ethical, and civic responsibility by complaining without making an honest attempt at doing. From a behavioral viewpoint, the goal of that is to obtain attention for themselves. That is not about a wider-scale solution, especially since the argument is just air and no action. What do you have to offer on the point of child care so that people can work? Or did you not think about that when the Uber Eats delivery person brought dinner while their kids were without child care?
So let me remind everyone, the inequities in schools include the industrial-looking campuses and 30-40 year-old desks, the lack of school nurses and mental health professionals at every site, the lack of enough custodians to properly clean every day, or classified personnel to effectively screen for temperatures and symptoms. Schools and classrooms are not all the same size so fitting students in them safely, even without the plexiglass shields and masks is near impossible without providing more classrooms because there is no money for it. If kids matter as much as elected officials and the public claim they do, then why is it okay that some schools have good technology and wifi/infrastructure and others don't? Why is it okay that your neighborhood is doing well and hopes and prayer are sent to others? Why are schools continually raising money for basic supplies? Why are companies not paying their fair share of taxes when small businesses who support their local schools are going out of business? Why do most working people pay more in taxes than the top 1%, including owners of those companies? Equity would mean that your child's school has all the same technology and resources available as any Fortune 500 company has.
On this last point, this is the heart of the matter. Children and schools have been treated as commodities for hundreds of years, and it is painful for people to think they have been party to that. Most yell and insult out of defensiveness when called on it. But it doesn't change the fact that the bias is lived into everyone, and everyone carries responsibility.
I think it's interesting that we educators are mandated to report any hint of abuse, but when elected officials and members of the public push to open schools, the potential harm that that can cause to the kids, families, and communities is not considered abusive. I think it is an abuse of power through the lens of income privilege and disparity coming from the same people.
The way out of it is to start calling it what it is to the CDC, all federal, state, county, local health authorities, all elected officials and the general people we encounter every day--bias, that goes back hundreds of years, and says children are a commodity and educators are only allowed to be silent servants. So are you advocating for proper school funding? If you say you respect teachers, are you also advocating that all of us get the training and time and space to teach in? Are you also saying we are professionals whose graduate degrees should be compensated like other professions, possibly like yours? Are you advocating for entire districts to begin and continue to examine institutional racism and biases? What about holding accountable the politicians who hold leverage in making all of this happen? Or are the values you want to be lived into your children really showing that they are better than others? Because that is definitively bias in action. And we need you to advocate for your kids and us.
So please speak up. Tell the truth, not a version of it. Be clear. Be courageous enough to ask yourself what you can do better. Then do this with your politicians and your votes.
