A Rock and A Hard Place

(Not my meme, but SO accurate!)

If there’s a theme for 2020, and there seems to be a few, feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place has to be a big one. Schools, economy, health care, virus prevention, everything seems stuck between that proverbial rock and hard place. 

As I write this, there’s still no word on plans with school, but you can do remote if you want to. I’m not sure about all kids, but mine don’t want to do remote learning. Teachers don’t either! Kids will be coming in with far more than the “summer slump” of forgetting things. Teachers want to be able to evaluate in person the individual needs for each child. That’s best done in small groups, which are advised against right now. In person should mean connection, but that’s not easy with just visible eyes. Speaking of masks, we are teaching our kids to be conscientious of others by wearing one correctly in our short outings, but we all know it’s not fun. Kids will struggle. Teachers will once again rise to the ever increasing demand on them to do *everything*. Our whole economy rests on kids going to school, really. That’s a startling realization and it’s an unfair truth. It really means public education should be our number one focus always, but that’s another soap box for another time. 

What do we do when people get sick (they will) and we repeatedly send the whole school home for 14 days? That surely doesn’t help the economy, but it’ll be mandatory. Covid cannot be allowed to fester and spread like lice. (Is anyone else itchy now?) 

Kids learning remotely aren’t doing well, either. We’ve tried that already. We made it work somehow between March and June, but that was survival. Now we have to figure out how to thrive and it’s a different hardship. Parents who work are in a bind. Students are struggling with the virtual learning environment, sometimes home alone. 

So do we send our kids to school to get sick or keep them home to struggle? Will they thrive in the new environments or be better off at home entirely? I don’t know. Most parents don’t know. Most teachers I’ve talked to are stressed and concerned. Most administrative people are at a loss as well. We know what we want, but that doesn’t exist right now. So once again, the children and educators are in the toughest spots. Once again, they will all find a way to collectively bloom where they are planted. I hope you all know that teachers need raises, right? Make it happen.