Teachers, Students, Parents: We Are Not Unsinkable
Returning to school in the fall will not leave us unscathed — in any way.
Today I was asked the question: “What’s the difference between going back to school in the fall and the sinking of the Titanic?
I wish I had a wittier answer, but all I could think of was… the Titanic sank faster.
They struck an iceberg at 11:40PM on April 14, and the ship was on the way to a watery grave by 2:20AM. In fact, the 1997 film portrayal was created to have approximately the same running time as the actual demise of the ship — just over three hours.
In contrast, this pandemic has barely begun.
Many seem to think that we are in the second wave, but we are still very much in the first, because in most places in the United States, we never reached a stable point.
Yes, we flattened the curve.
Yes, many people are angry that we had to stay inside for the better part of two months to do so. It worked. However, we can’t just say that we did it for a little bit, and now it’s time to re-open.
Educators are magicians: give them next to nothing, and we’ll create something extraordinary.
I taught in the spring with thousands of other educators who had little to no notice. We jumped online, eager to help our students, but not sure what to do. The promise of summer brought some relief, because we knew it would give us all a buffer to figure out what we’d need to do in the fall — but it has been far from a break.
Over the summer, we are planning, doing professional development, and trying to do all of the things we didn’t have time for during the school year.
We are trying to get our physical and mental health in check so that we can be there when the kids need us to help them cope with what’s happening in the world.
To anyone who believes that educators are truly “on break” during the summertime — I ask that you talk to one.
We are often given a bad reputation for being ungrateful for summer:
We chose this career, but we also hoped for the best. We chose this because we truly love learning, and we want the next generations to be the best they can be.
We know that we only get paid for 9–10 months out of the year, but it is spread out over 12. We know that we physically report for those months as well, August — May in most places.
However, we are working from the early morning until late at night, taking papers home, attending after-school activities, sponsoring clubs, and meeting with parents and students.
When students have questions, it is my responsibility to help them find an answer.
It is my duty to help them find an answer — and it is an honor.
However, I now have a question:
Why are educators across the nation being asked to teach with even less funding than ever, with fewer human resources, and being treated no better than sacrificial babysitters?
We have asked for more funding so we can stop spending our own paychecks on pencils, crayons, paper, staplers, etc.
We have asked for more mental health resources so that students can learn to healthily cope with adolescence rather than turning to violence or other unhealthy mechanisms.
We have asked for basic human respect for years — and we have been denied.
Teachers are empaths by nature — we feel the weight of the world, and we do our part to fix it.
We are often guilted into not asking for what we need, or feeling like we will lose our jobs if we speak up too much.
Again, we’re told that we chose this.
We did, and we choose it every single day.
Be a company man, as it were — or get out. Quietly.
Preserve the buzzwords. Read the articles we give you.
Preserve the mentality that public education is going strong — and it is, because of the teachers that work tirelessly to create engaging lessons each day — not because of the system itself.
Every teacher I know past the three-year mark has a master’s degree so that they can make enough to live — sort of.
I personally live at home in my late twenties — because I have student loan debt from putting myself through 6+ years of school:
- A bachelor’s degree
- A teaching license separate from my bachelor’s degree after I went out into the world and then came back to education.
Those who can’t are not those who teach.
We choose it every step of the way — and it chooses us.
We’ve tried other careers — and many who should be teaching are not, because of the current state of affairs.
- A master’s degree
- Several years of professional development classes ranging from $15–1200 in order to maintain my license and move up the salary ladder
It may be a laughing matter to some that I still live at home — feel free to chuckle if you’d like, but I’m proud of the hard work that I’ve put in, and the education that I have personally paid for.
Yes, I could go out and get a different job with all of this education and be paid much more highly for it — but should I have to?
Teachers should not have to choose between survival and a career — especially in 2020:
We’ve hit the iceberg.
We are going down unless we do something to patch it up, and the solutions given right now include:
- Asking families to take student temperatures at home before coming to school
This is a worthy ask. However, many families do not own a thermometer and are trying to put food on the table, let alone purchase a very in-demand health supply right now.
Many parents will not do this on purpose in order to be able to send their children to school regardless.
I am not allowed to take the temperatures of my students every morning as this might cause an issue with “perception” as our administration called it.
- Students must maintain a 3 foot distance.
We have been told for months that it should be six — at grocery stores, at healthcare facilities, or any time you leave your home. At schools, this is being limited to three in order to fit as many students in as possible.
Students will be somewhat separate — but they will still be on the bus together, they will be in electives that have class sizes of 80 on average, they will be eating lunch, at recess together, and most likely spending time outside of school together.
We can try to keep the cohorts separate, but they will inevitably mix, especially with siblings at different grades or at different schools.
- Students will bring masks with them, but will not be required to wear them, in fact — it will be discouraged.
Mouths dropped in a staff meeting where we were told it is more detrimental to wear masks. When asked for a scientific explanation, we were told we’d be sent an article about it later.
This may be a common belief among some, but as a person who is regularly coughed on, sneezed on, and has felt someone else’s saliva in their eye on more than on occasion during non-pandemic times — I’d appreciate a mask mandate as uncomfortable as they may be.
These ideas aren’t perfect, and neither are we:
We don’t have the answer. We didn’t love teaching online, and we miss our kids. We miss our co-workers. We do not want to have to choose between being safe, or taking a step back from our jobs — which many with high-risk spouses, parents, children, etc., will have to.
However, we cannot go back to school without answers:
- What will happen if a staff member or student gets sick?
- What will happen if we need substitute coverage for our classes because we get sick? In the past, we have had to just combine classes and have upward of 60 in each classroom. This leads to teachers coming to school sick because they don’t want their teammates to have to take on more work if they are out.
- Will we have to take our 6 given sick days per year if we get infected? We asked this question and said we’d have to test positive before we’d get any help with this — which I understand — but testing sites are already overwhelmed and are capping it at a certain number per day.
- Parents send sick kids to school all the time, and teachers come sick. We have to — but what will happen to us if we are overwhelmed by positive cases — confirmed or unconfirmed?
All of these questions and more continue to go unanswered, even within multiple district plans in our metro area.
I want to teach — please help me do it safely.
Pay has been mentioned quite a bit in this article — not to complain, but to demonstrate that teachers and schools are underfunded, but we are here anyway. We are often ignored when we ask for things — we are told we are ungrateful and that we chose this path. Someone has to.
We do.
We ask for safety and careful considerations of projected trends if restrictions are lifted.
Current trends do not predict what will happen when schools open:
Schools are a massive vector and trends will change if they open — as we are looking at what the trends are currently while they are closed.
If we have to have Zoom meetings to discuss going back — going back in person may not be the safest idea.
Safety isn’t one-size fits all:
I have a large classroom compared to some who have one half the size of mine. I have desks while others have tables so I can separate my students more easily.
I will be asked to teach online and in-person simultaneously, and I will do so if necessary.
I will do what it takes to help my students — but I do not want to have to pay the price for what it might do if I give it to my high-risk mother.
I do not want my students to have to pay the price for what will happen if they give it to their parents or grandparents, as many have multigenerational households.
Even if we get it and recover — we do not yet know enough about this disease and what it can mean long-term for any age group.
There will be a price:
I do not want students to have to pay the price of coming back — only to be sent home again when our school becomes the epicenter of an outbreak. Would that take more of a toll on their mental health than staying online for a couple more months?
I don’t have the answers.
What I do know is that we have a clock running, but we haven’t sent out a distress signal yet — and teachers are worried. They are far more worried than they will let on, because they want to keep their jobs.
I urge you to do research on past pandemics.
I urge you to look at the numbers, look at varying sources, and make your own decisions.
I urge you to look at data that gives information about social distancing, mask use, and how it has helped in the past — we must understand the past in order to change course and protect our future.
We cannot avoid the iceberg — we’ve already hit it.
Do we protect our precious reputation as unsinkable?
…The best in the world?
Do we continue playing music to keep morale up as we sink to the bottom of the ocean despite claims that we will all be okay — we simply can’t sink.
The question remains: if we do choose to patch up the iceberg and keep ourselves afloat — how?