I Would Prefer Face-to-Face Classrooms
To me, it makes sense, and the hysteria surrounding it seems misguided.
Teachers and students got out of school two months early, ostensibly to have students work remotely and finish out their year, but realistically for an extended summer break. Many American students struggled to get motivated to do any work, while others simply had no access to the online tools to do them. The equity gap alone was enough to make virtual learning a disaster, but the fact is that the country was in chaos and there was simply no getting students to take the work seriously.
It also didn’t help that you had multiple districts across the country saying “Well, make them do work, but you can’t grade it. It’s not fair.”
I have found over the last several years that students are, in fact, eager to learn. They want to succeed. Many of them like to play it cool, but deep down there is a level of success they want to achieve. When you strip every bit of the teenage ego away, you find a child who still has dreams and ambitions that require education from which to build.
What is seriously concerning to me is that there are so many teachers out there who see the numbers and the headlines and have firmly decided that they do not want to return to their classrooms in the fall, and they do not want to do the work necessary to lead students to success.
On the face of it, I totally get it. This is new. It’s hard. It’s scary. It’s something we haven’t dealt with before and it’s something we have no experience with. The last crisis like this was in 1918, and the only people who are around today who might have experienced that were definitely not teachers back then. This is new, and it induces a lot of anxiety — even in me.
But our job as teachers is to prepare students for adulthood. We are supposed to not only be instructors but role models. We want them to succeed not just in content areas but in life. We as teachers, then, do have an obligation to provide the very best education to our students that we can, and to as many of our students as possible.
It infuriates me that many teachers in one breath will talk about their kids being home too much and with the next breath demand that school buildings stay closed. They want to teach virtually, but at the same time many of them will resist and resent having to be trained to do so.
The actual data that we are seeing on COVID-19, though, does not match the hysteria the likes of which you see in op-eds like this one at the New York Times.
It isn’t fair to ask teachers to buy school supplies; we aren’t the government. But we do it anyway. It isn’t fair to ask us to stop a bullet; we aren’t soldiers. But we go to work every day knowing that if there’s a school shooting, we’ll die protecting our students.
But this is where I draw the line: It isn’t fair to ask me to be part of a massive, unnecessary science experiment. I am not a human research subject. I will not do it.
What bothers me here is that there are multiple people in multiple career fields whose jobs are often deemed “less important” than teaching, but who have been out there interacting with people safely, doing the work they have been hired to do. People who work in supermarkets, stores, restaurants, and tons of other businesses have made the decision to work, and do so using precautions to stay safe and healthy. The vast majority of these businesses are not the cause of the spikes we see around the country. They were open despite the spread, and they are still open because they have taken the measures necessary.
We should be returning to our schools, where we will be interacting with far fewer potential COVID-19 patients than others in the workforce. More importantly, though, it’s in the best interest of our students.
There is no reason not to let students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade attend school daily. There are virtually no cases among that age group and multiple studies have shown that children in that age range simply cannot pass the infection along even if they did get it. Iceland, France, and several other nations have seen no signs of transmission from children to adults. The places that have seen it see it so rarely that it’s a statistical anomaly.
Countries like Thailand have re-opened their schools, following strict health guidelines that Americans should be adopting with gusto. Thailand has gotten its act together and the virus has been largely stamped out due to the measures they took.
You know what is not healthy for our students, though? The social and emotional isolation that goes into being kept away from schools. All humans need to be engaged on a social and emotional level, but in the developmental years of our lives — when we’re in school — it is so important that they make these human connections and learn how to properly interact with the people around them. They need to have these connections in their daily lives and cannot survive on screen time with their peers alone.
I want to return to my classroom. I want to teach my students, virus be damned. I want to ensure that they not only get the best education I can provide them, but also make sure that they are growing in the ways they need to be. That is not something we can ensure in a virtual environment, and there is plenty of evidence out there to suggest that they literally may not survive without the social interactions they get at school.
Whether it’s full face-to-face learning with every student present or a hybrid model where I will see students every other day, I am fully on board with returning to my school and helping them succeed. That should be the goal of every teacher, and there is no reason to keep us from doing that in person.
On Tucker Carlson vs. The New York Times
On Monday evening, Tucker Carlson closed out his show with a monologue on the New York Times.
The paper, it appears, has been working on a story about Carlson’s house in Washington D.C. being targeted by activists and vandalized. Things got so intense during that time that he and his family had to move. The Times, it seems, has found out where he moved to and is working on a story about his new home and the drama that led him there.
In this story, Carlson alleges, they are planning to publish his home address. Here’s the monologue.
The premise of the story is flimsy enough. Carlson’s private life is no one’s business, and his home — where his family is supposed to be safe from the nastiness of the current political climate — should be out of bounds to anyone with even a drop of ethical sense in their brains. But the reporter, photographer, and even the editors at the Times appear to have none of that. They are simply interested in exposing Carlson’s home to those same activists who harassed his family and vandalized his property not too long ago.
The “Paper of Record” has responded to the allegation, giving a statement to Mediaite on the matter.
The statement is somewhat lacking in conviction and does little to reassure us of the intent behind the story. Sure, any news outlet covering what they think is a story worth covering naturally won’t reveal what it’s working on (unless the story is big enough to warrant a tease), but I find it difficult to believe that even revisiting the story of the Carlson family’s harassment at the hands of thugs is something the NYT should be covering. It makes no sense.
Unless you are reading some of the signs out there, that is.
It is clear looking at the ratings and the discussion that Carlson is the main driver behind a lot of Fox News’ growth since his show began. He consistently outshines the network’s (former?) star attraction, Sean Hannity, and there are more people on a consistent basis talking about what Carlson said the night before than anyone else on the network. Where the other talking heads spew talking points and interviews with friendly faces, Carlson chases down ideas and, whether you agree with him or not, he does make you think about those issues.
His populist appeal, coupled with his intellectual takes on populist issues, puts him squarely in the crosshairs of progressive activists who don’t want those ideas gaining popularity.
A few weeks back, I was having a discussion with a friend in the radio business who used to work at a major network before coming back home to Louisiana. We discussed Rush Limbaugh and the fact that, cancer or not, there will come a time when he has to step down, and the three hours he fills every day across the country go up for grabs.
We both came to the same conclusion. The ratings at Fox News show that Carlson is a big hit with their audience. You could very easily put him on the air for three hours a day in the middle of the day and he’d still be able to offer original content on his evening show. At that point, he’d be an unstoppable media powerhouse. He’s the perfect replacement for Limbaugh whenever that comes to be.
And I think that folks in the progressive/mainstream media who actively hate Carlson know that. They want to see him either destroyed or forced to back down. That’s why they don’t care if his home is exposed for the world to see and activists to target. They are content to let his family be harassed because it could hurt his career.
But it’s a very poor move on their part, because they clearly don’t know their enemy yet. Carlson seems more the type to fight back. If they do run with this story, even if they water it down enough, it can definitely backfire.
He gave them a warning. Let’s see if they take the hint.
Homestyle: QuaranSTREAM
On this week’s episode of Homestyle, my co-host Leigh Guidry and I talk about what we’re watching while we are sheltering in. Leigh and her family have their favorites, and my family and I have ours. There are some overlaps, though.
The biggest challenge in all this, though, is not becoming a slave to what you’re binging, as well as not letting your kids become slaves to it, either. We’re trying not to let the shows babysit the kids (or us for that matter), but admittedly that is sometimes hard.
If you want to hear more, you can always go back and listen to previous episodes, and we’d love to hear your feedback. Subscribe, rate, and review the podcast here, and if you have cooking, crafting, or family activity ideas, you can find us on Facebook and on Instagram (@Homestylepod).
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The Homestyle Podcast is a joint venture between myself and one of my best friends, education reporter Leigh Guidry. Throughout each episode, we discuss cooking, crafting, and other hobbies as well as how we make sure to spend time with our families despite how insanely busy life can be. The goal of the podcast has always been to take a moment to focus on what’s really important because, at the end of the day, family and life is more important than whatever distractions are going on in the world around us.
Recipe Of The Week: That’s A-Spicy Meatball!
My oldest, Elizabeth, was visiting her grandparents for over a week. The night before she came back, she called me and told me she wanted me to make meatballs and rice and gravy for her. It’s probably her favorite meal that I make.
None of it is really that hard. The most difficult part is making sure your dry ingredients are well mixed and that they mix evenly into the meat. The worst thing you can do is have little bombs of pepper in one meatball and little bombs of salt in another.
Below is the recipe for the meatballs.
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. ground pork
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
1 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. black pepper
1 tsp. red pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
2 large eggs
Measure the breadcrumbs and spices, adding them to a bowl. Mix the spices into the breadcrumbs until evenly distributed.
Add the meat and eggs, then use your hands to mix everything together thoroughly.
Roll meat into meatballs of whatever size you prefer and set onto a plate.
Set your stovetop to medium heat and add a bit of oil when the pan is hot. I tend to use olive oil.
Evenly distribute meatballs in pan. Cook in batches so you don’t overcrowd them. The less space there is for the rendered fat and hot oil to get to, the more likely you’ll end up with something closer to boiled meat rather than seared.
Get a good sear on the meatballs (two minutes each “side”) and then cover the pan for 6-8 minutes, or until meatballs are cooked through.
Repeat step 6 for the remaining batches. Do not drain the pan in between.
Remove meatballs to plate and let them drain.
Keep the stovetop on and grab a wooden spoon. Slowly add about a 1/2 cup flour to the hot oil and rendered fat, stirring quickly to incorporate. You’re basically making a roux here.
Keep stirring for several minutes, until the roux reaches your desired color, then remove from heat.
Switch from a wooden spoon to a whisk, and add room temperature water a little bit at a time and continue stirring to thin out the gravy. If it suddenly gets super thick and mushy, keep adding water and stirring until it thins itself again.
Add salt, pepper, and other spices to taste.
Serve meatballs and gravy over rice or mashed potatoes.
Final Thoughts
In just a few weeks’ time, students will be returning to school in some form or another. Pray for them, and pray for their teachers. No one knows what this is going to look like, and no one knows how it will play out.