It’s Time To Make the Call: All Schools Should Be Remote This Fall

Here are my top 5 arguments. Trust me, there are more.

OK, I’m just going to go ahead and say it: We can’t reopen schools safely this fall.

Trust me, I want to. I’m a teacher and a parent, and I hate remote learning. I’m even a risk-taker most of the time. I’ll eat food off the floor and drive my car way past the time when the inspection is due.

Even so, I’ve slowly concluded that anyone who wants to send kids and teachers back to the classroom this fall is C-R-A-Z-Y.

I know not everyone agrees. But whether you’re with me or not, at least read the following arguments so you can either agree with me more fully or argue against my points more vehemently.

I dare you to try to change my mind!

Argument 1: Student Trauma

Over the last several years, schools have started to prioritize social and emotional well-being, in addition to academic success. This means that teachers have been trained in suicide prevention, cultivating trauma-sensitive classrooms, and engaging students in discussions about safety and mental health.

Gone are the ‘suck-it-up’ attitudes of the past, where schools are just a place to receive content and eat lunch.

So naturally, a lot of schools have been working with students and families to make sure that everyone is doing ‘ok’ during this trying time. For some schools, it’s Zoom calls and for others its emails or text messages. I have been sending postcards to my students, just so they can still feel a little bit connected to me and to their school.

There’s been a lot of discussion about how traumatic this period is for students and how it will affect them for decades.

I’m not arguing against this point, but consider this: If we send students back to school this fall, there will be students who transmit Covid-19 to their teachers or other students. And some of them will die.

Consider getting this phone call: “Hello, Mr. Jones. I’m calling from West Main Elementary School. Your child’s teacher is dead. We believe she contracted Covid-19 from your daughter.”

Talk about trauma!

The trauma of spending a few months at home, away from school, isn’t easy to deal with. But it’s one that a whole generation of kids will work through together. Therapists, counselors, and parents will be there to help kids find their way.

I have to think the collective, low-level trauma of a whole bunch of kids is easier to swallow than the severe trauma that some kids will experience when they are responsible for a Covid-19 cluster that sickens a whole school community.

Argument 2: Natural Consequences

Schools are designed as ‘practice arenas’ for real life. The most progressive schools use natural consequences to drive student behavior. This means that when a student does something wrong, the consequence is to ‘right the wrong.’

For example, a student who destroys a library book might have to earn money to buy a replacement. A student whose behavior disrupts the class might be removed from the classroom so the rest of the students can learn.

This practice supports student learning, and it recognizes the fact that children and adolescents make mistakes and need guidance and correction to learn not to make mistakes.

Returning to school places adult-level consequences on children who are still practicing smart decision making.

My friend is a first-grade teacher, and one of the students in her class stole a lip gloss from her desk. She addressed it in a way that left the little girl crying and begging for forgiveness. The little girl did not face an arrest or jail time.

Sending kids to school and expecting them to maintain social distance, not touch each other, not share crayons, and to keep a mask on is not fair. The consequences of not following the guidelines aren’t cute or gentle. They are sickness and death.

Betting the health of our nation on a seven-year-old’s ability to follow a 60 page set of guidelines that I don’t fully understand seems pretty stupid. So why not wait a few months longer and find a better gamble?

Argument 3: Permanent solutions to a temporary problem

Pandemics are temporary. There’s an infographic I’ve shared with my students many times that shows how human populations have been affected by many pandemics over time. Some last one year and some last two or three. But none last forever.

If you’re a total pessimist, maybe you believe the human population will go extinct due to Covid-19. If that happens — well, the pandemic will be over and it won’t matter if the third-graders learned about fractions or not.

But if you’re an optimist, like me, you have to believe that the pandemic will end at some point. We won’t always be terrified to talk to a stranger or sit next to a classmate who lets out a little cough. It’s just not how humans have lived over the last 6 million years.

Gross as it may be, culture relies on shared fluids. We kiss, we share sandwiches, we wipe our boogers under the seat on the subway. It’s how we connect with each other.

Relying on remote learning this fall, even with its flaws, is a temporary solution to a temporary problem. And it’s the right thing to do.

Investing tens of thousands of dollars to install plexiglass desk shields, expensive thermometer cameras, additional school space, and PPE that creates more of a barrier to learning than a solution to any problem is a waste.

I guarantee that the acrylic shields, Tyvek suits and unused masks that schools are rushing to purchase right now will end up in dumpsters five years from now.

As a tax-payer, parent, and teacher, I’d prefer to see schools investing in teacher training to learn how to connect virtually with students and families. I’d like to see schools using this time to make long-term facility improvements that aren’t related to Covid-19.

The pandemic isn’t here to stay, but hopefully, public education is.

Argument 4: Stability and Predictability

One thing I’ve learned over a decade in teaching is that kids thrive in stable, predictable environments. They like to know when there’s going to be a quiz or if they’re going to have a substitute teacher tomorrow.

For some kids, school is the most stable environment they’ve ever experienced. They like knowing when there’s going to be pizza, what day they can expect a quiz in English class, and where they can hang their backpack when they arrive in the morning.

Surprises might be great under the Christmas tree or on birthdays, but they don’t work well in a school setting.

So sending kids back to school as an experiment, only to ‘surprise’ them with an indefinite shift to hybrid or remote learning?

Not great.

The only way to provide kids with a predictable opening to the school year is to do what’s right for everyone, and do a good job planning for remote learning. Not knowing what school will look like in the fall is stressful. Wondering how many times a school will switch between remote and in-person learning is stressful.

There’s one way to avoid this stress, and it’s to commit to remote learning, and set metrics and make a plan for how and when students will safely transition to in-person learning.

Argument 5: Punctuated Equilibrium

Since I’m a science teacher, this is my favorite argument.

Many scientists believe that the evolution of life on earth has happened in short, dynamic bursts that are separated by long periods of inactivity.

So basically, things were the same for a long long time — millions and millions of years. And then — BOOM — a whole bunch of evolutionary changes happened all at once and we ended up with a bunch of crazy mammals, insects, flowers, trees, and bacteria.

I know they say life imitates art, but more often, life imitates life.

Schools have been pretty much the same for a long time. Learn the ABCs, do a report on animal habitats, eat terrible cafeteria lunches, play some dodgeball in PE class, write a paper about To Kill a Mockingbird, and then you graduate.

What if right now is the beginning of a period of change? What if Covid-19 is the impetus we need to make schools better?

What if this period in time teaches us how to educate everyone with equity and excitement?

What if we learn how to design responsive, student-centered schools where everyone’s voice is heard and nobody gets left behind?

What if the next six months are difficult, but they result in parents, politicians, lobbyists, corporations and, billionaires coming together to adequately fund education?

And what if the traditional model of schools, where success is measured in seat-time and traditional grades ceases to exist in favor of a robust, competency-based system that allows all students to find their purpose in life?

Change isn’t easy. But it can also be great. Schools can’t look the same this fall as they did last fall, but it doesn’t mean they have to be terrible.

Do the right thing and support remote learning this fall. If you’re an employer, give your employees a flexible schedule so they can keep working for you and be there for their kids. If you’re a parent, dig a little deeper and find the resolve to support your kids for a little bit longer. If you’re an administrator, don’t be a coward and force everyone into a dangerous situation because you are too scared to make a tough decision. If you’re a teacher, don’t just set foot back in your classroom because your district ‘thinks’ it will be safe.

We’re in new territory, folks. And that means we all have to step up and be flexible. So put on your mask, sharpen your pencils, and giddyup for the ride.

From six feet apart and only if you haven’t traveled or had a fever, that is.

What do you think? Am I the crazy one? Are you sending your kids to school this fall? Are you a teacher who’s ready to assume the risk of transmitting or getting Covid-19 so your students can learn about the American Revolution?