Usually on the first day back to work after summer break, there’s this buzzing, buoyant energy in the air. My school is a small school-within-a-school designated to serve gifted children, so there are only 16 teachers and staff members. We typically meet in a colleague’s tidy classroom, filled with natural light and the earthy smell of coffee.
We hug, remark on one another’s new haircuts. Sure, there’s an element of sadness about not being able to sleep in or pee on our own schedules anymore, but for the most part, we’re eager to get back to doing work that we believe is the most important work in the world.
Coming back this year was different.
It was Thursday, Aug. 6, the same day that the Houston area reported its new single-day high for deaths from Covid-19. Instead of gathering, we all tuned in to a Zoom meeting from our separate classrooms.
There was no buzz in the air, and we weren’t hugging and chatting. We were talking about how long we had: a few weeks of virtual teaching before students returned to our classrooms on Sept. 8. Or maybe sooner. We’ve been told our start date is subject to change at any time.
We asked about short- vs. long-term disability plans on our insurance. We silently worried about a colleague who has an autoimmune disease. We listened as our counselor, who, along with her daughters, tested positive for the coronavirus the week before, shared how they were doing. We tried not to react from inside each of our little Zoom squares as we began to realize there was no way of maintaining true social distancing when school reopened.
“We’re a family,” one of our administrators kept saying while talking about the measures we would need to take to reduce our and our students’ exposure. “We’re a family.”
I know what he meant — that our tight-knit community would get through this year together — but I kept wondering, “Wouldn’t it be safer for our family to stay home?”
I invite you to recall your worst teacher. Mine was my seventh-grade science teacher, whose pedagogical approach consisted of our reading silently from our textbooks. Once, when I asked if I could do a project on Pompeii, she frowned and said: “This is science class. Your project has to be on a real thing.”
She sent a message loud and clear: “I really, really don’t want to be here.”
We are about to see schools in America filled with these kinds of teachers.
Even before Covid-19, teachers were leaving the profession in droves. According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, the national teacher shortage is looking dire. Every year, fewer and fewer people want to become teachers.
You would think states would panic upon hearing this. You would think they’d take steps to retain quality teachers and create a competitive system that attracts the best, brightest and most passionate to the profession.
That’s not what they do.
They slash the education budget, which forces districts to cut jobs (increasing class size), put off teacher raises and roll back the quality of teachers’ health care. They ignore teachers’ pleas for buildings without black mold creeping out of ceiling tiles, for sensible gun legislation, and for salaries we can live on without having to pick up two to three additional part-time jobs.
So, a lot of good and talented teachers leave. When state leaders realized they couldn’t actually replace these teachers, they started passing legislation lowering the qualifications, ushering underqualified people into classrooms.
This has been happening for years. We’re about to see it get a lot worse.
by Kelly Treleaven, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Olivia Fields
We hug, remark on one another’s new haircuts. Sure, there’s an element of sadness about not being able to sleep in or pee on our own schedules anymore, but for the most part, we’re eager to get back to doing work that we believe is the most important work in the world.
Coming back this year was different.
It was Thursday, Aug. 6, the same day that the Houston area reported its new single-day high for deaths from Covid-19. Instead of gathering, we all tuned in to a Zoom meeting from our separate classrooms.There was no buzz in the air, and we weren’t hugging and chatting. We were talking about how long we had: a few weeks of virtual teaching before students returned to our classrooms on Sept. 8. Or maybe sooner. We’ve been told our start date is subject to change at any time.
We asked about short- vs. long-term disability plans on our insurance. We silently worried about a colleague who has an autoimmune disease. We listened as our counselor, who, along with her daughters, tested positive for the coronavirus the week before, shared how they were doing. We tried not to react from inside each of our little Zoom squares as we began to realize there was no way of maintaining true social distancing when school reopened.
“We’re a family,” one of our administrators kept saying while talking about the measures we would need to take to reduce our and our students’ exposure. “We’re a family.”
I know what he meant — that our tight-knit community would get through this year together — but I kept wondering, “Wouldn’t it be safer for our family to stay home?”
I invite you to recall your worst teacher. Mine was my seventh-grade science teacher, whose pedagogical approach consisted of our reading silently from our textbooks. Once, when I asked if I could do a project on Pompeii, she frowned and said: “This is science class. Your project has to be on a real thing.”
She sent a message loud and clear: “I really, really don’t want to be here.”
We are about to see schools in America filled with these kinds of teachers.
Even before Covid-19, teachers were leaving the profession in droves. According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, the national teacher shortage is looking dire. Every year, fewer and fewer people want to become teachers.
You would think states would panic upon hearing this. You would think they’d take steps to retain quality teachers and create a competitive system that attracts the best, brightest and most passionate to the profession.
That’s not what they do.
They slash the education budget, which forces districts to cut jobs (increasing class size), put off teacher raises and roll back the quality of teachers’ health care. They ignore teachers’ pleas for buildings without black mold creeping out of ceiling tiles, for sensible gun legislation, and for salaries we can live on without having to pick up two to three additional part-time jobs.
So, a lot of good and talented teachers leave. When state leaders realized they couldn’t actually replace these teachers, they started passing legislation lowering the qualifications, ushering underqualified people into classrooms.
This has been happening for years. We’re about to see it get a lot worse.
by Kelly Treleaven, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Olivia Fields
