No students or other human beings around, I took off my shield and placed it on the shelf. Then I remembered that Sam, the financial officer, had left peaches in the teacher's workroom! I rushed out the door and found plenty were still in the box.
Two other teachers were present and we chatted amiably.
YIKES!
I realized I was without a mask. I was embarrassed of my forgetfulness, my irresponsibility, and cut the peach load short and hurried back to class hoping everyone else had left the school or was hibernating in class.
Without a mask has reached the same fearful status of walking into a room and realizing I forgot to put on my pants!
Rightfully so.
My grandson was quarantined from school for two weeks because he happened to be two desks away from a student who tested positive for covid.
Yesterday, when Deb met with a group of young women, they complained that students at their school, wear masks in class, but take them off in the halls.
My grandson confirmed.
I am rarely civically excited. I hold back, stay quiet, assume the problem will resolve itself without my interference.
This time I felt different and had no qualms about being that lady.
I called the school and spoke the words I had written. Unsure if my message would get past the secretary's rolling eyes, I sent an email to the principal encouraging him to up the vigilance in the school halls.
For it's not just about my grandson. Thankfully he's the connection that compels me to act.
It's not only my grandson's school. Deb also met with a friend who is in charge of Operation Quarantine at her school. She keeps seating charts and when a student tests positive for covid, she skirts outward from the center radius and via contact tracing, sends the news to the students in the line of fire, "You're being alienated! For two weeks! Good luck. Stay up on your homework!" She hands them a scarlet A to stitch on their polo.
Deb and I worry about the emotional toll. The fear of being picked off by the covid monster. The stigma. The resentment towards student A for having exposed student A-F. For dooming each other to two weeks cloistered at home without friends, without the bike team practices and meets, without hanging out with peers at lunch.
I have this science fiction image in my head: a class of 30 students. Sitting upright in their desks, taking notes, eyes on the teacher,---when an alien arm, slimy, green dotted, reaches through the roof and plucks the student upward. Students, used to the alien rapture, go back to their work, trying to shutter their trembling.
It's The Quiet Place--in high school.
Clarion call to citizens: put your ears to the ground. The students and parents at our school are doing their civic duty. We teachers had everything planned out so well--except--retrieving computers. When it was time, students clumped together. We all noticed and changed protocol, but in the meantime, a concerned parent-student team called us out. Vigilance is a community effort.
My students openly express their fears of being quarantined. "I would die," says one. "I don't know if I could survive what we went through in the spring," says another.
Am I my brother's keeper? In high school?
Without a doubt.
Two other teachers were present and we chatted amiably.
YIKES!
I realized I was without a mask. I was embarrassed of my forgetfulness, my irresponsibility, and cut the peach load short and hurried back to class hoping everyone else had left the school or was hibernating in class.
Without a mask has reached the same fearful status of walking into a room and realizing I forgot to put on my pants!
Rightfully so.
My grandson was quarantined from school for two weeks because he happened to be two desks away from a student who tested positive for covid.
Yesterday, when Deb met with a group of young women, they complained that students at their school, wear masks in class, but take them off in the halls.
My grandson confirmed.
I am rarely civically excited. I hold back, stay quiet, assume the problem will resolve itself without my interference.
This time I felt different and had no qualms about being that lady.
I called the school and spoke the words I had written. Unsure if my message would get past the secretary's rolling eyes, I sent an email to the principal encouraging him to up the vigilance in the school halls.
For it's not just about my grandson. Thankfully he's the connection that compels me to act.
It's not only my grandson's school. Deb also met with a friend who is in charge of Operation Quarantine at her school. She keeps seating charts and when a student tests positive for covid, she skirts outward from the center radius and via contact tracing, sends the news to the students in the line of fire, "You're being alienated! For two weeks! Good luck. Stay up on your homework!" She hands them a scarlet A to stitch on their polo.
Deb and I worry about the emotional toll. The fear of being picked off by the covid monster. The stigma. The resentment towards student A for having exposed student A-F. For dooming each other to two weeks cloistered at home without friends, without the bike team practices and meets, without hanging out with peers at lunch.
I have this science fiction image in my head: a class of 30 students. Sitting upright in their desks, taking notes, eyes on the teacher,---when an alien arm, slimy, green dotted, reaches through the roof and plucks the student upward. Students, used to the alien rapture, go back to their work, trying to shutter their trembling.
It's The Quiet Place--in high school.
Clarion call to citizens: put your ears to the ground. The students and parents at our school are doing their civic duty. We teachers had everything planned out so well--except--retrieving computers. When it was time, students clumped together. We all noticed and changed protocol, but in the meantime, a concerned parent-student team called us out. Vigilance is a community effort.
My students openly express their fears of being quarantined. "I would die," says one. "I don't know if I could survive what we went through in the spring," says another.
Am I my brother's keeper? In high school?
Without a doubt.
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