“Like
all of you, I’ve seen my feed become a flood of anxiety and faux expertise [on Facebook].
You’ll get no presumption of expertise here… Of note, when I started working on
this piece [July 10] at 12:19 PM, the COVID death tally in the United States
stood at 133,420.
“My kids want to go back to school.”
“I challenge that position. I believe what the kids
desire is more abstract. I believe what they want is a return to normalcy. They
want their idea of yesterday. And yesterday isn’t on the menu.
“I want my child in
school so they can socialize.”
“…As I think more on it though, what do we think
‘social’ will look like? There aren’t going to be any lunch table groups, any
lockers, any recess games, any study halls, any sitting next to friends, any
talking to people in the hallway, any dances. All of that is off the menu. So,
when we say that we want the kids to benefit from the social experience, what
are we deluding ourselves into thinking in-building socialization will actually
look like in the Fall?
“My kid is going to
be left behind.”
“Left behind who? The entire country is grappling
with the same issue, leaving all children in the same quagmire. Who exactly
would they be behind? I believe the rhetorical answer to that is ‘They’ll be
behind where they should be,’ to which I’ll counter that ‘where they should be’
is a fictional goal post that we as a society have taken as gospel because it
maps to standardized tests which are used to grade schools and counties as they
chase funding.
“Classrooms are
safe.”
“At the current distancing guidelines from Fairfax County Public Schools middle and high schools would have no more than 12 people (teachers + students)
in a classroom (I acknowledge this number may change as FCPS considers the
Commonwealth’s 3 ft with a mask vs. 6 ft position, noting that FCPS is all mask
regardless of the distance). For the purpose of this discussion we’ll say
classes run 45 minutes.
“I posed the following question to 40 people today,
representing professional and management roles in corporations, government
agencies, and military commands: ‘Would your company or command have a 12-person,
45-minute meeting in a conference room?’ 100% of them said 'No' they would not…
“We do not even consider putting our office
employees into the same situation we are contemplating putting our children
into. And let’s drive this point home: there are instances here when commanding
officers will not put soldiers, ACTUAL SOLDIERS, into the kind of indoor
environment we’re contemplating for our children. For me, this is as close to a
‘kill shot’ argument as there is in this entire debate. How do we work from home
because buildings with recycled air are not safe, because we don’t trust other
people to not spread the virus, and then with the same breath send our children
into buildings?
“Children only die
.0016 of the time.”
“First, conceding we’re an increasingly morally
bankrupt society, but when did we start talking about children’s lives, or
anyone’s lives, like this? This how the villain in movies talks about
mortality, usually 10-15 minutes before the good guy kills him.
“If you’re in this camp, and I acknowledge that
many, many people are, I’m asking you to consider that number from a slightly
different angle.
“FCPS has 189,000 children. .0016 of that is 302.
302 dead children are the Calvary Hill you’re erecting your argument on. So,
let’s agree to do this: stop presenting this as a data point. If this is your
argument, I challenge you to have courage equal to your conviction. Go ahead,
plant a flag on the internet and say, ‘Only 302 children will die.’ No one
will. That’s the kind action on social media that gets you fired from your job.
And I trust our social media enclave isn’t so careless and irresponsible with
life that it would even, for even a millisecond, enter any of your minds to
make such an argument.
“Considered another way: You’re presented with a bag
with 189,000 $1 bills. You’re told that in the bag are 302 random bills, they
look and feel just like all the others, but each one of those bills will kill
you. Do you take the money out of the bag?
“Same argument, applied to the 12,487 teachers in
FCPS (per Wikipedia), using the ‘children’s multiplier’ of .0016 (all of us
understanding the adult mortality rate is higher). That’s 20 teachers. That’s
the number you’re talking about. It’s very easy to sit behind a keyboard and
diminish and dismiss the risk you’re advocating other people assume. Take a
breath and think about that.
“If you want to advocate for 2 days a week, look,
I’m looking for someone to convince me. But please, for the love of God, drop
things like this from your argument. Because the people I know who’ve said
things like this, I know they’re better people than this. They’re good people
under incredible stress who let things slip out as their frustration boils
over. So, please do the right thing and move on from this, because one
potential outcome is that one day, you’re going to have to stand in front of
St. Peter and answer for this, and that’s not going to be conversation you
enjoy.
“Hardly any kids get
COVID.”
“(Deep sigh) Yes, that is statistically true as of
this writing. But it is a cherry-picked argument because you’re leaving out an
important piece. One can reasonably argue that, due to the school closures in
March, children have had the least EXPOSURE to COVID. In other words, closing schools
was the one pandemic mitigation action we took that worked. There can be no
discussion of the rate of diagnosis within children without also acknowledging
they were among our fastest and most quarantined people. Put another way, you
cannot cite the effect without acknowledging the cause.
“The flu kills more people every year.”
“(Deep sigh). First of all, no, it doesn’t. Per the
CDC, United States flu deaths average 20,000 annually. COVID, when I start
writing here today, has killed 133,420 in six months. And when you mention the
flu, do you mean the disease that, if you’re suspected of having it, everyone,
literally everyone in the country tells you stay the f- away from other people?
You mean the one where parents are pretty sure their kids have it but send them
to school anyway because they have a meeting that day, the one that every year
causes massive f-ing outbreaks in schools because schools are petri dishes and
it causes kids to miss weeks of school and leaves them out of sports and band
for a month? That one? Because you’re right – the flu kills people every year.
It does, but you’re ignoring the why. It’s because there are people who are a–holes
who don’t care about infecting other people. In that regard it’s a perfect
comparison to COVID.
“Almost everyone recovers.”
“You’re confusing ‘release from the hospital’ and ‘no
longer infected’ with ‘recovered.’ I’m fortunate to only know two people who
have had COVID. One my age and one my dad’s age. The one my age described it as
‘absolute hell’ and although no longer infected cannot breathe right. The one
my dad’s age was in the hospital for 13 weeks, had to have a trach ring put in
because she could no longer be on a ventilator, and upon finally getting home
and being faced with incalculable time in rehab told my mother, ‘I wish I had
died.’
“While
I’m making every effort to reach objectivity, on this particular point, you
don’t know what the f- you’re talking about.
“If people get sick, they get sick.”
First, you mis-typed. What you intended to say was “If
OTHER people get sick, they get sick.” And shame on you.
“I’m not going to
live my life in fear.”
“You already live your life in fear. For your
health, your family’s health, your job, your retirement, terrorists,
extremists, one political party or the other being in power, the new neighbors,
an unexpected home repair, the next sunrise. What you meant to say was, ‘I’m
not prepared to add ANOTHER fear,’ and I’ve got news for you: that ship has
sailed. It’s too late. There are two kinds of people, and only two: those that
admit they’re afraid, and those that are lying to themselves about it.
“As to the fear argument, fear is the reason you
wait up when your kids stay out late, it’s the reason you tell your kids not to
dive in the shallow water, to look both ways before crossing the road. Fear is
the respect for the wide world that we teach our children. Except in this
instance, for reasons no one has been able to explain to me yet.
“FCPS leadership sucks” [Now think about your School Board and Administration!]
“I will summarize my view of the School Board: if the 12 of you aren’t getting into a room together because it
represents a risk, don’t tell me it’s OK for our kids. I understand your
arguments, that we need the 2 days option for parents who can’t work from home,
kids who don’t have internet or computer access, kids who needs meals from the
school system, kids who need extra support to learn, and most tragically for
kids who are at greater risk of abuse by being home. All very serious, all very
real issues, all heartbreaking. No argument.
“But you must first lead by example. Because you’re
failing when it comes to optics. All your meetings are online. What our
children see is all of you on a Zoom telling them it’s OK for them to be
exactly where you aren’t. I understand you’re not PR people, but you really
should think about hiring some.
“I talked it over
with my kids.”
“Let’s put aside for a moment the concept of adults
effectively deferring this decision to children, the same children who will
continue to stuff things into a full trash can rather than change it out. Yes,
those hygienic children.
“Listen, my 15-year-old daughter wants a sport car,
which she’s not getting next year because it would be dangerous to her and to
others. Those kinds of decisions are our job. We step in and decide as parents,
we don’t let them expose themselves to risks because they’re still developing
and screen addicted brains narrow their understanding of cause and effect.
“We as parents and adults serve to make difficult
decisions. Sometimes those are in the form of lessons, where we try to steer
kids towards the right answer and are willing to let them make a mistake in the
hopes of teaching better decision making the next time around. This is not one
of those moments. The stakes are too high for that. This is a ‘the adults are
talking’ moment. Kids are not mature enough for this moment. That is not an
attack on your child. It is a broad statement about all children. It is true of
your children and it was true when we were children. We need to be doing that
thinking here, and ‘Johnny wants to see Bobby at school’ cannot be the
prevailing element in the equation.
“The teachers need
to do their job.”
“How is it that the same society which abruptly
shifted to virtual students only three months ago, and offered glowing
endorsements of teachers stating, ‘we finally understand how difficult your job
is,’ has now shifted to ‘screw you, do your job.’ There are myriad problems
with that position but for the purposes of this piece let’s simply go with, ‘You’re
not looking for a teacher. You’re looking for the babysitter you feel your
property tax payment entitles you to.’
“Teachers have a
greater chance to being killed by a car than they do of dying from COVID.”
“(Eye roll) Per the Insurance Institute for Highway
Safety (IIHS), the U.S. see approximately 36,000 auto fatalities a year. Again,
there have been 133,420 COVID deaths in the United States through 12:09 July
10, 2020. So no, they do not have a great chance of being killed in a car
accident.
“And, if you want to take the actual environment
into consideration, the odds of a teacher being killed in a car accident in
their classroom, you know, the environment we’re actually talking about, that’s
right around 0%.
“If the grocery
store workers can be onsite what are the teachers afraid of?”
“(Deep breath) A grocery store worker, who
absolutely risks exposure, has either six feet of space or a plexi-glass shield
between them and individual adult customers who can grasp their own mortality
whose transactions can be completed in moments, in a 40,000 SF space.
“A teacher is with 11 ‘customers’ who have not an
inkling what mortality is, for 45 minutes, in a 675 SF space, six times a day.
“Just stop.
“Teachers are
choosing remote because they don’t want to work.”
“(Deep breaths) Many teachers are opting to be
remote. That is not a vacation. They’re requesting to do their job at a safer
site. Just like many, many people who work in buildings with recycled air have
done. And likely the building you’re not going into has a newer and better
serviced air system than our schools.
“Of greater interest to me is the number of teachers
choosing the 100% virtual option for their children. The people who spend the
most time in the buildings are the same ones electing not to send their
children into those buildings. That’s something I pay attention to.
“I wasn’t prepared
to be a parent 24/7” and “I just need a break.”
“I truly, deeply respect that honesty. Truth be
told, both arguments have crossed my mind. Pre COVID, I routinely worked from
home 1 – 2 days a week. The solace was nice. When I was in the office, I had an
actual office, a room with a door I could close, where I could focus. During
the quarantine that hasn’t always been the case. I’ve been frustrated; I’ve
been short; I’ve gone to just take a drive and get the hell away for a moment
and been disgusted when one of the kids sees me and asks me to come for a ride,
robbing me of those minutes of silence. You want to hear silence. I get it. I
really, really do.
“Here’s another version of that, admittedly extreme.
What if one of our kids becomes one of the 302? What’s that silence going to
sound like? What if you have one of those matted frames where you add the kid’s
school picture every year? What if you don’t get to finish the pictures?
“What does your gut
tell you to do?”
Shawn and I have talked ad infinitum about all of
these and other points. Two days ago, at mid-discussion I said, ‘Stop, right
now, gut answer, what is it,’ and we both said, ‘virtual.’
“A lot of the arguments I hear people making for the
2 days sound like we’re trying to talk ourselves into ignoring our instincts,
they are almost exclusively, ‘We’re doing 2 days, but…’ There’s a fantastic
book by Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear, which I’ll minimize for you:
your gut instinct is a hardwired part of your brain, and you should listen to
it. In the introduction, he talks about elevators, and how, of all living
things, humans are the only ones that would voluntarily get into a soundproof
steel box with a potential predator just so they could skip a flight of stairs.
“I keep thinking that the 2-day option is the
soundproof steel box. I welcome, damn, beg, anyone to convince me otherwise.
“At the time I started writing at 12:09 PM, 133,420
Americans had died from COVID. Upon completing this draft at 7:04 PM, that
number rose to 133,940. 520 Americans died of COVID while I was working on
this. In seven hours. The length of a school day.”
USA Cases: 4,385,890
ReplyDeleteUSA Deaths: 149,963
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Is it unreasonable to wait for no new coronavirus cases for at least 10 - 14 days before sending our children, grandchildren, teachers and staff to schools and daycare centers? If not, why not?
ReplyDeleteI don't know which of these reasons is more compelling, but together, they are a mandate.
ReplyDeleteWell-said, MK, & agree.
DeleteThis should be read by every person in America.