Sunday, March 29, 2020

NYC Educator: I Won't Walk the Line

NYC Educator: I Won't Walk the Line

I Won't Walk the Line


I'm not sure exactly what prompted me to go back for that last week with my colleagues. I think it had a lot to do with my being chapter leader. I felt I had to. Looking back, I don't think I was very smart. Anyone could have taken off, no questions asked, and all if would have cost was a day from the bank.

A lot of people did, and in retrospect they'd thought things out better than I had. I still find the news so upsetting that I won't watch it on TV very long. After five minutes it's just more and more of the same thing.

Nonetheless, it's remarkable to read that Donald Trump thinks we should just go back to work by Easter. Even more remarkable is to read Bill de Blasio sputtering out much the same nonsense. I'm not sure what I was thinking two weeks ago, but given everything I see and read, that's nothing short of insane. It was surely not a good idea to go back for those last three days, but the school was pretty quiet, and social distancing was at least a possibility.

The school in which I work, though, is over 200% capacity. That's just fine with Mayor de Blasio, because he works from a spacious office somewhere and doesn't actually have to walk the halls with double the number of people who belong there. That, of course, is the exclusive privilege of the 4500 kids and 500 staff about whom Bill de Blasio does not give a fiddler's fart.

The thing I keep going back to is Broadway. If it's too dangerous for well-heeled theatergoers to sit through an $800 performance of Hamilton, how is it okay for 5,000 people to push their way through Francis Lewis High School? And let's not forget there are over a million other students wandering through the halls of the buildings Bill de Blasio has neglected these CONTINUE READING: 
NYC Educator: I Won't Walk the Line