PHYSICAL DISTANCE, SOCIAL COLLECTIVE MOURNING [A PLAGUE ON ALL OUR HOUSES]
There must have been a cumulative gasp from every educator in the city when we found out Dez-Ann Romain passed away. If we don’t know her personally, we know an educator like her. Young, energetic, helpful, a team player. Once we clear this curve, may we remember the moments when we sacrificed the helpers we sought out. Those of us who showed up for the three-day ad-hoc professional development training last week all knew we would put ourselves at risk for the same energy that carried us through any number of disasters. For many of us, if “essential workers” like nurses, doctors, grocery store workers, bus drivers, conductors, police officers, firepeople, and other municipal workers had to show up, educators would count ourselves in the number.
Little did we know that we’d be one to two degrees away from knowing someone who’s been affected by COVID, if not ourselves.
For NYC teachers, disaster is another one of those unwritten stipulations in our contracts. We have big budget movies dedicated to this moment except we don’t have stunt doubles coming to save us. I learned of biblical plagues all through my Catholic education. No locusts have shown up thus far, but apathetic politicians substitute quite nicely. What’s more, we’re so faithful to the work that we reconfigure our entire set of pedagogies mid-year, call parents, and deliver electronic devices to our CONTINUE READING: Physical Distance, Social Collective Mourning [A Plague On All Our Houses] | The Jose Vilson
