One Year Ago – Grumpy Old TeacherOne Year Ago
One year ago, Grumpy Old Teacher’s (GOT) school district went home for Spring Break. We never returned. Like all other districts, we made a hurried change over a weekend to switch to online learning. Unlike many school districts, GOT’s district opened their campuses in August under the order and threats of Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, who only reluctantly agreed to closure orders when forced by the crisis to do so, and Florida’s Education Commissioner, Richard Corcoran.
It’s been quite a year–the last 12 months. Waves of viral peaks in July, October, and post-Christmas followed by crescendos of deaths. Quarantine-disrupted learning being the fall norm; then having little impact in winter. Florida educators denied vaccination by their governor, who only recently agreed to add them to those eligible for a shot and then only at federally-run vaccination sites.
With retail pharmacies and FEMA deciding to follow federal guidelines, not state orders, teachers of any age may now receive vaccination from them. State-run sites still turn teachers away. Still, hope arises.
GOT took a look back at what he wrote a year ago to trace the journey.
March 6: Coronavirus. What is striking in the post is how we were becoming CONTINUE READING: One Year Ago – Grumpy Old Teacher
Open a Window100+by grumpyoldteacher / 6d
Gurmpy Old Teacher (GOT) has been writing about classroom ventilation for a few weeks now: Update: Dispatch from the Covid Trenches (February 12, 2021), Veni, Vidi, Vici (February 19, 2021), and C’est La Vie (February 20, 2021) complete with pictures. Not surprisingly, for those who can do so, opening a window will improve ventilation in the sense of mixing outdoor air with the indoor air. Perhap
Say It Ain’t So, JoeShoeless Joe Jackson or Clueless Joe Biden? It’s a part of American sports lore, the 1919 Black Sox scandal in which the Chicago baseball team deliberately lost the World Series as eight key players, the renowned Shoeless Joe Jackson among them, took money from professional gamblers to throw the games. According to legend and later movie re-ennactments, a boy confronted Shoeless Joe as he left th
C’est La Vieby grumpyoldteacher / 13d
Such is life. Maybe GOT should have gone with a fiddler on the roof. Comme ci, comme ca. In the second of three-related pieces, Grumpy Old Teacher (GOT) continues to think about the classroom that is full of students and what practices actually work to mitigate the risk of Covid-19 transmission. The first one Veni, Vidi, Vici may be found here. In the 6th installment of her famous series, J.K. Ro
Veni, Vidi, Viciby grumpyoldteacher / 14d
Who said it–Caesar or Covid? It wouldn’t be education if Covid didn’t bring a new front in the wars of reform and conquest, namely whether the reopening of school buildings and campuses are safe for children and employees or whether that should even be a consideration as employers look to schools as taxpayer-funded childcare, whether remote learning is detrimental to student mental health such th
Update: Dispatch from the Covid Trenches100+by grumpyoldteacher / 21d
Dateline: February 12, 2021 It had to happen. The first case of the B.1.1.7 variant, also known as the UK variant, has been confirmed in the city . It turns out that every test is not being checked because that requires a genetic sequencing of the sample. According to the story, 825,000 cases were detected last week meaning 825,000 test results; of that, 6,000 tests were selected for the genetic
Problem of the Dayby grumpyoldteacher / 27d
As we pass into the second season of the school year … no, in our era that the reason children go to school is not to learn, not to become knowledgeable citizens, or to pass through the development stages of childhood as they grow into adults with support from trained personnel, we don’t have the four seasons of summer, fall, winter, and spring … the second season of the school year is test prepa
Dispatch from the Covid Trenchesby grumpyoldteacher / 27d
A/K/A Your local Florida public school. The flying dog is carrying messages for headquarters. Masks : Most students and staff continue to comply with mask requirements. Grumpy Old Teacher (GOT) stopped Friday afternoon to talk to a group of boys congregated in the courtyard because most had pulled their
