I feel like maybe there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m usually cautious in publicizing my thoughts, taking my time to write and rewrite and edit and revise until the timeliness of what I was going to say has passed and no longer applies or someone else has gone and done the dirty work for me. I avoid confrontation like the plague, the thought of it turning the pit of my stomach into knots of panic. There’s a reason I chose education as my profession, preferring to relate to students in the 5-14 year old age group where my humor is usually met with chuckles, blank stares, or eye rolls. I pride myself on being able to deflect controversial topics and turn them from arguments into learning experiences which value different points of view.
Since August, students in our community, from preschool thru high school, have been fully remote learning on computers at home. No matter where your views on this matter fall, teachers, educational experts, parents, and students will all agree this isn’t the best way to learn. However, given the restrictions of the pandemic, the laws and guidelines mandated by local and state authorities, the specific constraints within the design of our buildings, the numbers of school buses we own, and our “we don’t budget for this” funding, remote learning is how our area districts begin the year.
This week my son’s K-8 school district enters its hybrid learning model, offering students the option of half-day in-person learning or continuing to learn remotely from home. Finally, kids in Kindergarten, 2nd grade and 5th grade are able to see their teachers in the real world and not just on a computer screen. Our high school district breaks the student body into quarters, each with one full day in person, and the surrounding feeder districts move in step together. Two days ago, they donned water wings and waded into the shallow end of the pool, just in time, it seems, for the county health department to blow the whistle and call for a time out.
Not more than 30 minutes ago, an email informed us of a 10 day pause to the in-person hybrid plans. Parents whose children have suffered greatly from being stuck in front of a computer for the past 8 weeks are devastated, frustrated, and annoyed. The routine, painstakingly developed since August, was upended and changed to accommodate this am/pm model and it meant that all students, regardless of physical location, would be on this new schedule. For those who chose to keep their students home due to high risks within their family, the forced schedule change is regarded as a step backward in the quality of their child’s education, a sacrifice that has apparently been performed for nothing as our schools once again close their doors because our local COVID numbers are climbing.
I made a choice to post a comment on our school community page to remind our parents to be kind, and positive, and patient. I admit I was rushed, and should have taken the time to better edit my thoughts and mark them more clearly. So, now that I have allowed myself the time, please let me say the following.
School, community, and parent Facebook group pages are like the office water cooler or the teacher's lounge. It’s where all the finest gossip happens. Sometimes I need to vent about how my son is too lazy to put on deodorant or apologize to the school nurse about the kid who clearly didn’t understand that the pom-pom was to be glued on the reindeer’s nose and not be shoved up his. We, as parents, are entitled to bitch about our kids, their friends, their friends parents, their teachers, our taxes, politics, our educational system, social justice, and the neighbor who keeps letting his dog poop in the yard without picking it up. Social media is what you make of it, whether you are complaining about your kid, celebrating your parent's anniversary, asking for a recommendation for a pet groomer, or putting on the fake façade of Instagram perfect photos when we all know what your laundry room really looks like, Real life involves the ups as well as the downs.
I am not one to throw stones or ever judge someone else for what they post on social media. If you choose to go back through my blog, you’ll get an inside look into the wonders of my life with a middle schooler who is too lazy to change his underwear on a consistent basis and a high schooler who succumbs to the depression and anxiety brought on by the isolation of this pandemic. My daughter tried to kill herself three months ago. Every day I live with fear as we slowly build back trust. Every day I live with the guilt of abandoning her brother to fend for himself. And now, in the four weeks that I’ve been home and able to concentrate on his schedule and schooling and my own mile long to-do list, I find myself texting her from the other room simply to check in with her needs. Believe me when I say I know exactly how painful this shit-storm has been on our children and on parents and families.
When I posted my message on our parent page, I by no means intended to imply that we are not entitled to complain, nor did I wish to call out anyone for sharing those complaints. My point was merely to be aware of when, where, and how those complaints are voiced and take shape, of whom they are directed toward, and which little ears may hear them. Even beyond the act of voicing concerns, the attitude, anxiety, stress, and general mood we display and put out into the world is observed and internalized by those around us, especially the ones sitting at the kitchen table learning more than just math or social studies.
Simply because we are in the midst of a global pandemic, the Earth is on fire, murder hornets are an actual thing, and hurricanes have had to move into the Greek alphabet for name choices doesn’t mean we need to throw in the towel when it comes to educating our kids. I by no means meant to imply that showing support for our schools and our teachers during this time of change and transition should be equated to bowing down and letting our rights as parents be steamrolled. I have family from Alaska to New York, I know teachers who work in districts which cater to multi-millionaires and I know others who work in towns with more cows than students. The pandemic may be global, but its effects on education varies drastically from place to place, so expressing my thankfulness for what we have as compared to what other continue to go without is nothing more than humble gratitude.
Educational expectations, standards, programs, and delivery models run the gamut right now in terms of their quality and effectiveness. The three children of a single mother working two jobs are just as entitled to a quality education during this time as the children of an NFL football player. Parents of children with special needs need to hold teachers and administrators and districts accountable to work to find solutions to meet those needs. I am the parent of a son who once needed an IEP and a daughter who has had a 504 since 5th grade. Supporting our schools, displaying kindness and understanding that some circumstances are beyond their control, and having compassion for the job they are doing is nothing more than common courtesy.
My main point was that parents should seek counsel and communication from their child’s teacher or principal first. It can be frustrating to email and not get the immediate response which the “tribe” can give you in the Facebook group, but remember that the email you send is one of hundreds which schools are getting slammed with right now. It is hard to wait for an answer, but it is my belief that we should confirm our information before we post something.
It also stands to reason that our schools and our teachers are doing the best they can with what they have in conditions they were never intended to operate under while spending money they are never going to get reimbursed for. When I read stories and observe parents, in general, state that teachers aren’t challenging their children (two days into a new school year), aren’t giving them enough work to do (on day three of a revised schedule), aren’t on zoom calls enough with them, or the district isn’t providing enough structure in a full remote or hybrid model to keep their child fully engaged for 6 hours a day, I often have to stop my twitching fingers from replying.
Again, I am not calling out anyone in my community or on my friend list. I’m merely making an observation based on what I’ve read in a variety of forums from a wide range of sources in general. So hear me when I say, as a teacher, it’s worth noting what takes one child 20 minutes to finish will take another child 2 hours. It’s worth mentioning that while some kids have got this remote stuff locked and loaded, others are in tears daily. While one child has the support at home to learn to read just fine, another struggles, and the impact of that struggle will affect that child not just this year, but for the next several years. It should be stated that if your idea of hybrid means having the teacher in front of the science class with half of the kids in the socially distanced desks and the other half zooming in on a live feed from home, you can’t simply hook up a camera at the back of the room and expect your child's teacher to magically create an episode of MythBusters. And while school districts had all summer to plan for the likelihood of shifting in and out of remote learning vs. in-person learning on their campuses, none of them won the MegaMillions to hire a second full time staff of teachers to assist with the logistics making that happen.
My point? While we all have the right to demand that our children receive a quality education from our administrators and teachers, we also need to temper those expectations to match reality. No solution right now is an acceptable one, because no plan puts our kids in the classroom full time without masks on a daily basis like this whole year was nothing but a bad dream. So until that day, this is our reality, as shitty as it is, and while we have every right to vent and complain and commiserate, we need to be careful about how much we let negativity overwhelm us.
When I said that we should stay positive, I didn’t mean we should always paint a pretty picture when reality looks like the mugshot of a Florida man with face tattoos who was arrested in a Wendy’s parking lot while high on meth after trying to rob it with an alligator. Our kids deserve to know the truth. This whole pandemic thing sucks ass and 2020 can, in the immortal words of Bart Simpson, “Eat my shorts.” I myself am ready to turn over parenting duties to Pennywise, grab the frozen margarita maker someone tagged me with on Amazon, and find a private island where I can escape until I no longer have to picture a political ad ever again.
But knowing this reality, and living this never ending nightmare of lost milestones doesn’t mean we have to portray that negativity all the time, just as we don’t need to project positivity from sun up to sun down. It’s okay to be sad and upset and disappointed about how we recently started something and it was awesome and it lasted one week and now it looks like it will be taken away. It’s okay to be frustrated about how we had to change everything around only to be right back where we started.
We are stuck on a rollercoaster which none of us volunteered to be on. The worst part is the ride isn’t over and it’s still being built while we're on it, the dips and turns constantly shifting. We have, yet again, climbed to the top of a precipice, and we are hanging for just a moment at the edge. The tracks next to us are filled with cars of the identical riders, all of us having a general feeling of what’s about to happen next. So to deal with this challenge, we can choose among the following: Brace ourselves and get the builders to install seatbelts and airbags to cushion the blow, view this ride as an opportunity to change, explore, and design new rides, throw our hands up and go with it, or stay miserable and demand to see the manager. But no matter what option we choose as parents, the kids are seated next to us, watching, so we need to choose wisely.
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