A Christmas Gift?

We have staff meetings about once a month and always on Wednesday afternoons. This week, my principal sent an ominous sounding email alerting us to the fact that at or around 11:30 a.m. the district office was sending a public message to both staff and parents. I can't speak for the rest of my colleagues, but my stomach was in knots. What more could be done to make the workday even more stressful?

The message arrived, but it said nothing that we didn't already know: cases of the Coronavirus in California are on the rise so all staff should endeavor to keep themselves isolated in an effort to avoid contracting the disease. I won't go into my personal beliefs about this whole mess, but suffice it to say I am sick and tired of being told not to get sick and tired.

Bunny is alive and well. Speedy was trying to nibble up her rice bran dinner.

At 2:45, I joined our regular Zoom meeting. On laptop number two - I have four assigned to me, I opened the agenda. I scanned the list of topics and saw the regular items that we always discuss. A whole section was devoted to frequent hand washing and social distancing. But then at the bottom, something caught my eye. Questions? Oh, yeah, I have plenty.

So there you have it; I am once again working from home, and I could not be happier about it. I love teaching, I truly do, but what my district, and probably others, is proposing once we do return, is just untenable. Our students would have less than three hours a day of live instruction. They would be masked and barricaded behind a three-sided plexiglass containment system while sitting six feet apart. They would have no recess, no meals consumed on campus, and for the half day that they weren't with me, they would be at home working independently without teacher help. They can barely do fifth grade work with my help. To all of this I just shake my head.

My view yesterday afternoon.

Working from home helps alleviate (to some degree) my frustration with waning daylight, so for that I am grateful. My dogs are also thankful. I think my students prefer the personal freedom that learning from home enables them to have. They can hear and see me for one. They can bounce around in their seats, walk from room to room - RB does it all day every day, and most importantly they get to have live instruction from morning through the afternoon.

In a nut shell, here's what I want to see happen for our students: we either go back to school normally without all of the barricades, social distancing, and daily temperature checks, or we all stay home. I can't stand the fact that our kiddos, who aren't sick, have to be treated as though they are or will be.

What a mess.