Mercedes Schneider is back to work teaching high school English in Louisiana. She is doing her best to keep her students socially distanced, though she hasn’t figured out how that will be possible when her class size reaches 24.
But the silver lining is that her students are wearing masks! They are not acting stupid and refusing to protect themselves and others! That’s good news for them and for her.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I take this as GOOD NEWS in a day when Treasonous Trump and his pod people are all over the news . . . again. CBK
Under the best of circumstances, teaching is a very challenging profession (mainly because of all the glop dumped on teachers by the school reform crowd, NCLB, RTTT, ESSA, Gates, Kochs, Waltons, DeVos, Arne) but with the plague added in, teachers like Mercedes are true heroes. I have the utmost admiration for Mercedes and her co-workers teaching and managing a classroom with the virus lurking about in every possible nook and cranny.
Mercedes Snider is a brilliant researcher and educator. She is doing her best under extremely difficult conditions. I admire her courage and resolve, and I hope Mercedes, her students, and her colleagues stay safe. The mask order is great, but it can only do so much to stop the spread of Covid. The district should be reducing class size as well. Teachers and students should not have to operate at full capacity. “Some of my colleagues are nervous. We are in limbo, but we see the writing on the overcrowded wall.”
cx: Schneider
Are not our students always the ones who give us hope? They are.
Army daughter reports that most of her fellow class,ages are wearing. My students do not wear masks. So far I am unscathed. Lord help me get it right.
I have to,start reading closer. That should read My daughter, not Armay….
Doesn’t even read “Armay,” RT. It says “Army.” Yes, “Army” daughters & sons would be well-disciplined, & wear masks! (Snicker.)
Seriously, you’re stressed, so all typos forgiven–& the same to every other commenter here!
(Especially those teaching in schools & parents.)
I was going to ask, “Where is she stationed?” 😂 Seriously, though, it’s not right that the school allows your students not to wear masks. Incredible.
I assure you that asking for masking would be revolutionary in my area.
A refusal to wear a mask during a pandemic is a declaration of civic irresponsibility. It’s “un-American.”
Asking for Masking
Asking for masking
Impossible tasking
When folks are aghast
At prospect of mask
Army daughter
Army daughter
Wears the mask
Training taught her
For the task
I am teaching at the post secondary level, but my students and I are all masked in class as well. The majority chose to do the first class remote via Zoom, but I have heard that some more are deciding to come to the physical class.
My son goes to a private HS. They started the year hybrid 25%. The boys are wearing masks in the buildings/classrooms. They don’t like it, but they are doing it. Many use outdoors to change classes and take “a breather” while social distancing. The school is doing everything right….we’ll see how long it can last? The numbers in our state are also below 4% (with a small jump recently b/c of college campuses having Covid issues).
USPS was going to send 5 masks to every household until…
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/usps-plan-5-face-masks-to-every-american-white-house_n_5f6389cbc5b6ba9eb6eb1214
Says it all. The cult is brain dead. He would walk over their dead bodies and complain of the stink. It comes down to they think the virus attacks mostly minorities and they wont be affected.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/06/28/hitlers-rise-it-can-happen-here/
Initially the virus was limited to blue states and minorities. Why should Trump care?
Blue Statistics
We’d have some low statistics
Without Blue
We’d have no coronavirus
Without Blue
Statistics of red from my own CDC
Won’t be the same, without Blues here with me
And when those Blue snowflakes start falling
That’s when those Blue states start to bawling
We’ll be doin’ all right with the end in our sight
And we’ll have a dead, dead, dead virus
We’ll be doin’ all right with the end in our sight
And we’ll have a dead, dead, dead virus
The kids are MUCH smarter than the adults. The district in which I teach has decided to go off hybrid to full time, just as cases in the state are spiking to levels never before seen. Many of the kids are FURIOUS at this. They realize the danger. They want to be “normal,” but realize that these kinds of decisions will make that harder.
They get it. And they’re 14. WHY won’t the “leaders” get it?
I was too tired to write anything on here last night. This ‘distance learning, throw everything online, gotta get ready for the 22nd century thing’ just SUCKS UP TIME. I was still doing computerish school work past my usual bedtime.
I thought of this question, though, when I woke up this morning:
If McDonald’s has all its employees and customers wearing masks when they are inside those restaurants, why aren’t all public schools doing that, too?
The McDonald’s in my town has everyone wearing masks. Their corporate website says that’s the rule nationwide -though who knows if that’s followed everywhere.
(Health sidenote: I go into McDonald’s these days mainly to get my wonderful wife her much loved vanilla iced coffee. I’ve already had enough French fries to last a lifetime. I imagine there might be a French fry from 1972 still lodged in one of my arteries, ha, ha. Ah….remember when junk food was really junky and tasted so, so good? If only we knew then what we know now….)
My local McDonald’s also has these great hand sanitizers that you just hold your fingers under and it gives you a gentle spritz of, I guess, Grade A safety.
Folks, what happens to our republic if corporate America starts protecting citizens better than our government? Or, rather, I should say, if corporate America is perceived as doing more to protect us? (Because we know what the reality is.)
Of course, that’s been one of Trump’s objectives all along, right? To destroy most of our government.
I will say that my right arm is getting a real workout washing desks after every class. Anyone want to arm wrestle me?
My students have been wonderful. They seem to really appreciate our efforts.
To Mercedes and Roy and all the other teachers out there, take care.
It’s Friday. Have a great weekend!
Johnny,
My college in Mass. has opened as a full residential institution. Every student coming from a state with a high infection rate was required to quarantine for two weeks. Every student and member of the staff was tested. Now everyone takes a weekly test. The classes are socially distanced and everyone wears masks. Zero infections.
Same with my daughter’s college which has been able to keep the lid on COVID.
A colleague said to me this morning, well, we’re not a McDonald’s. Sure. Absolutely! Of course.
But like you write, look at colleges that have been making reopening work -at least as of this writing. Testing. Distancing. Masks.
Someone else said, hey, I can’t wear a mask all day…I can’t speak. I can’t teach.
Maybe some people have an actual problem and can’t. I get that.
But LOTS of workers have been wearing masks for 8+ hours shifts and certainly NOT because they like it.
My university is not testing everyone, but is testing symptomatic students and a large enough random sample to know if infections are growing in the community. The thought is that testing every student and staff member will pull needed testing supplies away from where they are needed most.
My alma mater tests every one once a week and there are zero infections. There should not be a limited availability of tests.
Dr. Ravitch,
Part of the issue is scale. At almost 50,000 students, faculty, and staff at my university, testing every week for our 15 week semester would require a little under 750,000 tests. We know from our random sample that very few of those tests that only a very small percentage will be positive and those tests will displace other, more important activities. The epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists from our schools of medicine and public health have concluded that there is not much to be gained from testing everyone vs testing a random sample of asymptomatic students.
There is also the issue of compliance. If one half on one percent of our students, faculty, and staff refuses (or forgets) to take the test, we must consider disciplinary action against 250 people every week, each week of the semester.
Somehow I feel less and less like taking care. This experience has moved me in the direction of living a more risky attitude toward life, a sort of devil-may-carism that I used to feel when I worked in the street on city sewers. This has made me think of the way those who have less than I do are behaving. Poverty seems to breed the same lack of care for one’s health. I sort of felt that way when I had that job working around city sewers.
Very interesting point. Yeah, I feel that way, too, sometimes.