14 min read · Sep 14, 2020
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Leopards Ate My Face is a subreddit that mocks people’s inability to see how a political stance, or choices, actually has negative down stream consequences for them too. As all things on the internet it’s origin is from a meme created by a Twitter post which reads…
“I never thought leopards would eat MY face”, sobbed the woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces party.”
COVID-19 has brought to us each our own daily dilemmas, for many American parents, their child’s educational development makes the top of the list. We know COVID is widening many learning gaps that correlate with income inequality, but parents are also worried about the emotional and social toll quarantine has placed on their kid as well. All of these things are scary enough to weigh them against the risk of the kid getting COVID, despite the fact COVID can be transmitted to children and children are just as likely to transmit it to others as adults are. ( I would argue more-so, just watch a middle school hallway…)
I was a teacher for over 5 years, I get it, and trust me, your dedicated teacher and data driven school district is just as anxiety filled out those outcomes as you are. These concerns all stem from the pressing needs that we have now. If you are privileged enough to work from home, maintaining your work-life-homeschooling balance and not killing your kid can be utterly miserable and you are probably thinking to yourself “HOW is this helping my kid?! I know this isn’t helping me! In fact staying at home is bad for them, not only are they not learning everything they could be at school, but they’re not practicing social skills, my kid is worried all the time! There are kids that should be at school because they don’t have food on the table, their home environment isn’t safe, how is being out of school is better for them?” And if you’re not privilege enough to work from home I would say, I’m sorry your most likely underpaid, undervalued, and childcare for primary aged children and under is a very real issue, and let’s add on top that the affluent frustrations of social emotional growth and the ever growing learning gap.
These are all incredible points and valid concerns, and while I won’t go into details about a proper solution in this article, let’s review the priorities in the perspectives of parents and school districts, and the immediate and long term consequences of opening schools.
And they are. I hate to be callous about it, but this is a very real, and very terrifying situation. In fact this hurt has the potential to last a lifetime. It is estimated that the average K–12 student in the United States could lose $61,000 to $82,000 in lifetime earnings (in constant 2020 dollars), or the equivalent of a year of full-time work, solely as a result of COVID-19–related learning losses. (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-student-learning-in-the-united-states-the-hurt-could-last-a-lifetime).
But here is the thing, so is everybody else’s kid. Now before you accuse me of lowering the bar and setting generations of children up for failure, hear me out. Everybody is in the same boat. Nationally, and globally, we are in the same educational boat. We are concerned about our kids’ education on a long term impact.
This cannot be solved with a short term solution, and it is going to require a massive coordinated effort at a state and federal level. Because nationally, among school districts, we didn’t have the facilities, funding, resources, etc. to pivot to a rigorously appropriate virtual environment for everyone in which parents, students, and teachers already understood how to use the technology, how to access the curriculum, and continue uninterrupted with all expectations that surround that virtual learning environment. The initiative was unsuccessful, now we are all behind. We have to respond to this situation appropriately and thoughtfully. In this case the learning solution is not putting kids back into the school building, labeling that as a solution, and hurriedly attempting to half ass the next COVID issue. The learning loss that is cause by COVID will only have a impactful solution after your school district has properly measured their learning loss, and established in person interventions they can start at school when it is safe to do so. Until then, educators must be maintaining and attempting to further academic skills through safe interactive, online programs, and accommodations.
This is when practical experience and common sense solutions need to outweigh any bullsh*t “from the top” initiative. Let’s have a thought exercise about why opening schools are in fact, not a learning solution, because during COVID schools cannot be a safe and effective learning environment.
For you to decide that schools are a safe environment, several things would have to happen without fail.
We are going to assume your school district, school, and classroom teacher are responsible enough to try to sanitize constantly and correctly, we are going to assume that your kid’s classmates and parents are as competent and ethically responsible as you are, and we are assuming that the school district has the proper procedures in place to respond to the very real and very plausible fact that 1 or more people that your child will come in contact with at school will have COVID. And we’re going to assume that your school district has already properly measured your kids learning loss and has interventions in place to instructionally support them when they come back into school. (After all, we can’t just pick up where we last left off last school year, when there are state standards to achieve during this school year!) :)
If you still think all of that is 100% possible, I want whatever medication your on, and your sense of optimism. But let’s talk about what this actually looks like in action, and why the school is at this time, cannot meet those realistically impossible standards.
Most school districts have been buying cleaning supplies, masks for everyone in the building, doing temperature checks, installing desk shields, and attempting to leave open a virtual environment so they have a chance of meeting CDC guidelines for number of people per square foot. If schools are in a low socioeconomic neighborhood, chances are they simply won’t be able to meet CDC guidelines for people per square footage. In fact, at some schools, they are knocking down walls that separate classrooms, so they can fit more students in there with less adult supervision. That sounds like a great idea to help stop COVID! You can sanitize all you want, you’re still banking that children the ages 5–18 will stay 6 feet away, wear a mask, sanitize consistently, not touch their face, not share items (or food!- what does lunch time even look like during COVID?) etc. Not to mention, some schools are not letting kids move about the building, Specials like ART and PE come to your kids classroom, but they share the same materials as everyone else — I hope they sanitize properly! Can you imagine what PE will do for kids and COVID? It increases their heart rate, breathing increases, and air droplets move around the room. Even at 6 feet apart, molecules will be shared. But could you honestly imagine not letting kids run around for PE or Lunch or have recreational time? Yikes.
Not to mention, how to do you think teachers can actually teach and interact with your kid from 6 feet away? How will they receive feedback? How will kids be redirected? How will assignments be graded? How will work be completed? You can’t pass in a stack of papers, and you certainly can’t sit in a small group and get effective and discreet interventions.
Now, I want you to go back to a time in your learning career as a young scholar. I’m very sure that there is one day you can remember in school where you didn’t get it, for whatever reason the work was too difficult that day, or your mind was wondering and you couldn’t focus. My sincere hope that in that moment a teacher was able to, without causing attention to everyone else, come next to your desk and have a nice quiet conversation with you. In that moment, no one else knew that you felt like an idiot or that you were worried because your mom was sick. That teacher made a connection with you and through a firm but caring way they were able to help make you feel better. And for you, for a moment, or at least the rest of that lesson, you were able to push through.
That moment does not exist in the COVID classroom, period. Unfortunately, your child does not have the luxury of delicate nuances that come from impactful teachers during COVID, the very thing that makes in person learning so valuable and special is gone, and will not return until we have a vaccine, when we can interact without desk shields and 6 feet away guidelines.
Covid-19 spreads mainly through person to person by respiratory droplets produced by the nose and mouth. Maintaining social distancing, limiting the number of people in a confined space, and wearing masks, are all procedures used to help limit the number of COVID cases. When applied, these measures are effective and dramatically reduce the number of hospitalizations, healthcare bills, deaths, and financial hardships from the loss of the family provider from taking off of work because of COVID, or God forbid, generational financial trauma because of COVID (which again dramatically impacts low socioeconomic families). But these measures only work when we work together and we act on the best interests of others.
I don’t know about you, but I, unfortunately, haven’t been observing that everyone is willing to make a decision which is an inconvenience to them for the practical safety of others. In order for the school to remain a relatively safe space everyone has to have that same mindset, even the kindergartners who don’t want to because it’s hot, or the kids who have special needs and don’t understand, or everyone in general because they don’t want to. There is a saying, which needs an upgrade, “boys will be boys”, it gives the notion that the very nature of the boys is to do “boy” things and cannot be changed. Personally, I don’t think boys inherently do any of those things because of their gender, but let’s say “kids will be kids” because by their lack of brain development they will at times do silly, immature, outrageous things that at times deserve praise and at times deserve consequences. This means that there are kids who will not maintain 6 feet apart, who will take off their mask, or not wear it properly, or choose not to because their parents don’t believe in wearing masks. And that only accounts for the CDC guidelines. Children and young adults of all ages will not stop sharing food and items, not keep their body to themselves, and probably the grossest, not wash their damn hands. Good luck with that.
On a note I mentioned above I, like everyone else, work at a place where everyone has the same political opinions and operates on the same moral compass as me. If you reread that sentence, you should have because it’s total bull. Schools are melting pots of people, each parent’s work situation is completely different and almost every parent I know has done the Tylenol School Drop of Shame. “What is that?”, those of you with a no kids lifestyle may ask. It’s when parents know their kid is probably feeling under the weather, but the parents can’t miss anymore work, so they have their kid take a fever reducer and drop them off to school hoping for the best. But always by lunch time after the Tylenol has worn off, those irritating school nurses end up calling them to come pick up their kid because they’re miserable and they’re going to make everyone else miserable too.
When that situation happens, and it will, the whole point of taking your fever at the door in order to make sure everyone else is safe in the building preparation is at best, a false sense of security. Not to mention we know that people that have COVID may wait 2–3 weeks before being becoming symptomatic. That includes you kid’s best friend, Trish, who is an adorable kind angel and shares her fruit roll-up with your kiddo at lunch.
Now let’s assume all the above is actually working, and things are going great at school. But then because people do not stay at school 24/7 your kid’s teacher is tested positive for COVID. What happens now?
Since the safe and sanitized learning environment at school was disrupted for probably, a couple of weeks, it’s safe to assume the entire class was exposed to COVID. If your school is worth a damn and genuinely cares about the safety of everyone else in the building, they will assign you a virtual substitute and ask everyone in class to quarantine for 2 weeks. We’re also assuming there is not a teacher shortage, or a substitute shortage- man, your optimism is really rubbing off on me!
Wow, that situation sucks. You have to again, (best case scenario) take care of the learning at home with your work from home job. Ok, not a big deal, you can pull that off for two weeks. You do that, because you’re a powerhouse and then your child goes back to school for another week.
But then cases go up again ( schools are open after all ) and the Mayor makes all schools shut down once more, but only until cases go down again! Finally, after about 3 weeks in lock down, school open up again….yay? Unfortunately, this cycle will continue. The interventions placed by the school will NOT be helpful, because the learning loss will be in constant fluctuation. Going back and forth is so much more emotionally draining because it is inconsistent. You have to constantly change your family schedule, and loop in your nice, humane, totally understanding boss. Not to mention, how frustrating and emotionally draining will it be to go back and forth the entire school year for your kid? Everyone will be in a constant state of reaction and catch up because they are planning and operating on a bi-weekly basis.
And that’s the best case scenario.
If you have to physically go into work, can you imagine the scheduling nightmare that would ensue? Let’s imagine for a quick moment the stress your constantly changing schedule places on a manager? Should they accommodate the fact that dropping your kid off at school took twice as long and your late to work because the school has to take everyone’s temperature, and the batteries in two of the thermometers died? Absolutely. Will they remember that if they have to make a decision to make the team leaner? I hope not. At least if you know you’re going to be in a virtual environment, you can put in place a schedule and find a creative solution that will last for a lengthy period of time. Your boss will more likely not make it an issue- why? Because virtual learning was assigned to all parents, and because it’s consistent, it is one change that requires one solution, not an ever changing back and forth transition. The very inconsistency of going in and out of the school setting will make things confusing and frustrating for everyone. Even or your kid, and probably your boss.
Now, this is the time when we reenact the very real consequences of COVID. In this thought exercise, no matter what is chosen (virtual or in school classes) there are consequences. In making this big of a decision, you should make sure that you can live with the downstream consequences that will affect your family.
The absolute worse case scenario for you, is that schools open, and your child (or immediate family member) gets COVID and dies, or at the very least, gets hospitalized. You can expect to pay an average of 1,300, but bills some have reached up to 20,000. Could you afford that? Could you live with that? Think about the long term financial hardship and emotional trauma that comes from your family, specifically your child, dying.
Now think about others. The next worse case scenario is you kid’s teacher, or friend dying from COVID. For those of you worried about your kid’s levels of depression, check please. How would they be able to operate the rest of the year? For him or her, how is going to school not going to be traumatic- not just now, it’s possible it could last for years.
Which brings us to our third worst case scenario. As we discussed earlier, schools are a melting pot of people, they have different scenarios and variables. It is reasonable to assume that one or more kids in your kid’s class lives with a single parent, or grandparent(s), or in a family where only one person is the financial provider for the family. One kid gets COVID and brings it home, the kid might be fine, but transmits it to the caregiver(s), and they die. Let’s empathize with the hardship that is incurred on that family. That kid may have to be placed in foster care. The family could end up homeless. They may have financial hardship that lasts generations. The young adult might have to quit school and get a job to help provide for their family. They might have emotional trauma for the rest of their life- who will they blame? themselves? the school? Our nation’s complete lack of preventative measures and united plan to combat COVID-19 which lead them going to school and being exposed in the first place?
What do we think this will do to the economy when an entire generation has disproportionate numbers of homelessness, foster care, more income inequality, and trauma? Do you think that once COVID is done, things will go back to normal? We will have created an entire generational storm of problems to clean up, all because we chose a short term non solution, instead of a long term one. Not to be too political, but what happens when an entire generation beneath us is even more disparaged? Will we have the hutzpah as Americans to focus on global issues, when we are struggling to take care of ourselves? I hope we do not have to make that choice. Let’s make the decisions now that will set us up for optimal success in the future.
This situation sucks, and as far as I am concerned, 2020 can go die in a dumpster fire. I am wondering if as a Nation we have ever quite face a perfect crap storm like this. If we have, then we can do it again. If we haven’t, will we make it out alive? We absolutely can.
COVID-19 has placed an undue burden on everyone. Parents have the additional joy of entertaining and supporting the learning of their kid(s) at home. Awesome. As a teacher, I completely understand why you would want to believe that school is a safe learning environment. I empathize with you wanting to provide some sense of normalcy to them. It’s not fair that this happened to you, or to them. They are after all, still growing up, and there is still so much to learn and do and see.
But COVID is not done. We’re not not done doing what we need to do. Opening schools seems like this magic bullet that will provide all those things to you, and for a very, very small lucky few, it just might. Statistically speaking, you’re not lucky enough. We are not lucky enough. The COVID situation is immediate and we know what we have to do to beat it. As a previous educator in the COVID world I, shamefully, hit my breaking point when we continued to equate schools (at this time) with safety. They are not safe, they are not safe for you, your family, your teachers, their family, our community, or our economy. The only things that will keep us safe, let us beat COVID, and get us the place where we can focus on your kid’s learning gap and restore our sense of normalcy, are practicing scientifically proven methods of prevention and making decisions based on proven COVID data. Do you really think letting all kids go back to school can and is going to keep your family safe?
Don’t come crying when the leopards eat your face.
