NYC Educator: What Do Large Schools Need to Reopen?

NYC Educator: What Do Large Schools Need to Reopen?

What Do Large Schools Need to Reopen?

UFT President Michael Mulgrew has a column in the NY Daily News laying out a program for reopening. Mulgrew correctly points to the safeguards we insisted on as a reason schools were relatively safe this year. He asks that schools reach out to parents and enact a remote option for those who still aren't comfortable. These are all good ideas, and I think they apply to most city schools.

My school, however, is a little different. We routinely operate at somewhere around 240% capacity and the city doesn't give a hoot how uncomfortable or unhealthy that is. One of the first things I did as chapter leader was to get our school in the media, and we've been covered in not only all three major newspapers, but also on TV. We even had Bloomberg and Klein make cheery, misleading statements about us, because what were they gonna do? Fix the problem?

Surprisingly, though, their DOE did take a shot at it. UFT arranged a meeting at Tweed in which our then principal gave up a group of selected students, and for that they agreed to give us smaller incoming cohorts. They also agreed to more carefully screen incoming students, so that they couldn't simply say they lived where they did not. I personally had students who officially lived in Fresh Meadows who could never make it in on time, because their actual journey from the Bronx took them so long. 

Uncharacteristically, the Bloomberg people kept their word. Somehow when de Blasio came in, every aspect of our deal was left swirling the bowl. The selected students came back, and so did the veritable swarms of incoming CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: What Do Large Schools Need to Reopen?

NYC Educator: Does It Pay to Do Nothing?

NYC Educator: Does It Pay to Do Nothing?

Does It Pay to Do Nothing?

I was in a meeting the other day in which we were discussing NX grades. That's what we have in lieu of failure these days. A lot of teachers are upset about this, for various reasons. 

I understand that it's better to err on the side of not hurting kids for things that aren't their fault, so I can't complain about it that much. I have one student, for example, who was excellent in my class. Once we went remote, he tuned out completely. Without human contact, forget it. In fact, the NX won't help him, but I'd be happy if it did. 

One teacher said the NX grades were advantageous to students who do nothing. When students hand in things late, we grade them. Maybe we take off something for lateness, but we look at them. In fact, they have an advantage over students who did work poorly and got bad grades. (I don't know about you, but I haven't got the time or inclination to look at work over and over until every students gets 100 on everything.)

So this teacher was arguing a kid would be smart to just do nothing all semester, wait until the end, and then do everything. I wasn't persuaded. For one thing, people who are inclined to do little or nothing are highly unlikely, at the last minute, to find the energy to do five months worth of homework in a day, a week, a month, or perhaps ever. Of course, there are exceptions. 

I myself once spent a year in a biology class, failed everything, learned nothing, but spent the last week with my nose in a red Barron's review book. Back then, if you passed the Regents exam, you passed the CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Does It Pay to Do Nothing?

NYC Educator: The School Calendar and Losing 15 Minutes of Fame

NYC Educator: The School Calendar and Losing 15 Minutes of Fame

The School Calendar and Losing 15 Minutes of Fame

During the apocalypse I've gotten repeated calls to appear on the news and give opinions about various situations. It was easy to talk about the botched and delayed school openings, as well as the tone-deaf responses of de Blasio and the Mariachi Chancellor. Lick their fingers, place them in the air, and hope their responses would prove popular. Given their actions were more or less the opposite of leadership, that tended not to work out very well. 

Mostly I've been interviewed speaking of the ridiculous nature of these decisions, along with the fact that they tended not to make sense. I'd been an early admirer of Chancellor Carranza. His calls to end the racism inherent and obvious in the SHSAT were long overdue. He seemed to stand with teachers, coming to meet and speak with us, and literally marching with us during a Puerto Rican Day Parade.

Then, of course, blithering de Blasio demanded all hands on deck for his meandering and inconsistent school plans, and Carranza rejected a petition signed by over 100,000 of us demanding buildings be closed during a raging pandemic. Carranza said we needed 100,000 epidemilogists' signatures in order to receive his consideration. 

Ridiculous. 

Yesterday I got a call from a journalist to interview me for television. We had a Zoom meeting. The school CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The School Calendar and Losing 15 Minutes of Fame

NYC Educator: Support Small Class Sizes (and Hire Regents Who Make a Difference)

NYC Educator: Support Small Class Sizes (and Hire Regents Who Make a Difference)

Support Small Class Sizes (and Hire Regents Who Make a Difference)

I'm glad to see Regent Kathleen Cashin advocating for smaller class sizes. I've got decades of experience teaching in both high school and college settings, and it's obvious to me that class size is a crucial factor in how effective my teaching is. In fact, it's even more important than the Danielson checklist my supervisor is forced to use when she observes my practice. I wouldn't expect a Regent to know that, because that's not what they do.

What exactly do they do? Generally, they seem to sit on their pedestals up in Albany in some building that looks like nothing more than Hogwarts. They sit passively as awful, inexcusable exams are put out in their name. Do they know what's in those exams? I'm gonna go out on a limb and doubt it. No thinking person could look at the English Regents exam and determine it tests anything more than the level of Common Coriness, hardly a skill I'd associate with being "college and career ready."

One of the worst experiences any teacher has is teaching to the test. It's particularly excruciating when you teach English language learners. Granted, Cashin gives valuable lip service to them in this article, and you can imagine how much I must appreciate that. This notwithstanding, I don't recall Regent Cashin (or any of her esteemed colleagues) raising a peep when direct English instruction was reduced for ELLs by a factor of 33-100%. So while it's great that perhaps they'll have smaller classes, what will they be learning?

Well, they could be prepping for the abysmal English Regents exam, which tests neither CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Support Small Class Sizes (and Hire Regents Who Make a Difference)

NYC Educator: Is Remote Learning Here to Stay?

NYC Educator: Is Remote Learning Here to Stay?

Is Remote Learning Here to Stay?

A Daily News article explores that this morning.  It works for some families, evidently:

“When they’re home, they can be one on one with you,” said Livingstone, a single mother of a fourth and eighth-grader who doesn’t work because of a disability.

I can see how it would appeal to people who have no issue staying home and supervising their kids. These days, though, that's likely a relatively small group. I can also imagine how supervised students might function better in online classes. If my kid were in an online class, I wouldn't allow her to place a cat picture up in Zoom and nap through classes. (Alas, a good portion of my students lack that level of supervision.)

And indeed the article covers drawbacks in online education:

“It doesn’t replace the magic that being in a classroom does, either instructionally, or just taking care of kids,” said Nate Stripp, a teacher at Middle School 50 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who’s also completing a masters degree in educational technology.

I don't know who Nate Stripp is, but I agree with him. I am acutely aware that what I've been doing for the last year does not compare with what I've done for most of my career. I'm constrained in many ways. For one, I simply do not trust the notion of giving tests online. I can't imagine why someone, especially someone hiding behind an avatar, wouldn't a. look up the answer on Google, b. text a friend for the answer, c. check classwork for a solution, or d. all of the above. 

More importantly, I don't believe that subject matter is the only thing we provide students. We are role models. On a fundamental level, every student who sees us sees people who get up every morning and come to work. They see people who've gone to CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Is Remote Learning Here to Stay?

NYC Educator: What's With Kids Who Hand Us Nothing?

NYC Educator: What's With Kids Who Hand Us Nothing?

What's With Kids Who Hand Us Nothing?

I honestly don't understand why anyone would take the time to submit a blank page, or nothing whatsoever, on Google Classroom. I have to say, while I (relatively, at least) don't much like teaching online, I have made my classes easier than they have ever been. 

Because I've heard so many complaints about students being overburdened with homework, I've taken to doing it in class every second or third day. All my students have to do is write down the answers we've agreed upon in class, and that's 100%. I'm not sure what's more convenient than that.

I haven't given a test in over a year. I give writing assignments instead. Anyone who actually writes four paragraphs, if that's what I ask for, pretty much passes and usually does better. I've taken ten points off for late work. In the past, I probably wouldn't have accepted it at all. Despite this, students hand me nothing, and expect credit for it. Now this would probably be fine if I didn't, you know, read the stuff students give me. But they pay me to do that, so I do, even on a Sunday afternoon. 

Today I got three blank papers. One is from a student who usually does all the work. This student took the trouble of writing "Exercise One," "Exercise Two," and "Exercise Three" in big green letters. Maybe he thought that would be good enough. After all, I had said to do exercise one, two, and three, and who's really to say that this wasn't it? We all have different interpretations of what exercise means. I might take long walks, and you might go to some CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: What's With Kids Who Hand Us Nothing?

NYC Educator: A Portrait of My Student

NYC Educator: A Portrait of My Student

A Portrait of My Student

This is one of my students. She's lovely, isn't she? Or he? Or them? I don't have the proper pronouns. All I have is this avatar. 

What do I know about this student? Well, I know he, she or they likes cute kittens. Or perhaps Pokemon monsters, or whatever this thing is. I know that this student is likely a fan of bubble tea, which is what appears to be in the cup. 

That's enough for any teacher to build a productive relationship, I guess. Or I'm supposed to guess. I'm told I'm not allowed to demand that students show their faces online. It's a privacy issue. 

That's hard for me to understand. I do understand I ought not to be able to see my students' homes if they choose to keep them private. However, there's an easy fix for that. On Zoom, you can be in PeeWee's Playhouse, or the Batcave, or on the moon, or anywhere. If I can set up a background, every student can set up a better one. 

In fact, I have a bunch of students who only show their foreheads. Maybe they're shy. I don't give them a hard CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: A Portrait of My Student

NYC Educator: Putting Children First, Always, by Selling them Vapes and Third-Rate Education

NYC Educator: Putting Children First, Always, by Selling them Vapes and Third-Rate Education

Putting Children First, Always, by Selling them Vapes and Third-Rate Education

Our friend Joel Klein has a new gig. He's working for Juul, selling marshmallow flavored vapes to our children,  This is, at the very least, ironic, I spent years listening to him rail about how evil we were, and how dare we ask for tenure and seniority? Were we righteous, we'd do whatever he decided, and happily be fired by arbitrary and capricious measures. Alas, we failed to jump at this opportunity, as we didn't trust the beneficent intentions of our chancellor. 

On the positive side, Klein has paid valuable lip service to the ridiculous notion that he doesn't want to give our kids cancer:

"I believe the company must continue to play a critical role in reducing the devastating harm caused by smoking," Klein said in a statement emailed to Insider. "To accomplish that paramount goal, Juul Labs must, first and foremost, continue preventing underage use of its products."

So if you take him at his word (I do not), he's merely interested in poisoning adults. There's a role model for us all. I will give no one cancer until they're 18 years of age. What a prince. The problem with this line of thinking is consistent with the rest of reformy thinking. What actually happens to kids if we take good care of them and have a modicum of reasonable luck? Give up? Well, they become adults, and thus subject to people like Joel Klein, who are in the business of selling them cancer. 

I don't smoke, and I don't vape. However, I've had cancer. I can tell you it's not precisely a walk in the park, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, even Joel Klein. However, given his birdlike features, I'm not entirely sure he's CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Putting Children First, Always, by Selling them Vapes and Third-Rate Education

NYC Educator: The Myth of Learning Loss

NYC Educator: The Myth of Learning Loss

The Myth of Learning Loss

Life is simple for people like Bill Gates. Everything has a formula. You and I are no different from computer programs. But Bill's brain is also similar to a computer program. You know, garbage in, garbage out.

That's why we keep reading about this "learning loss." The assumption is, when school is stopped, or changed, students lose something. Whatever this is, it's so precious that it must be restored by any means necessary. So maybe we need to send kids to summer school and prepare them for the only important thing in this lifetime--the Big Standardized Test. After all, Bill Gates thinks it's important, and he has All That Money, so he must know.

The thing is, though, that learning is something a lot broader than cramming with that Barron's review book to pass the Living Environment Regents exam. I think Jack Nicholson said, "If you aren't learning, you're dead." I'd broaden that to say if you aren't learning, you're either dead, wearing a MAGA hat, or governor of Texas.

We're all learning from the pandemic. I don't know anyone alive who's been through anything like this, While it's true this won't help me pass the Geometry Regents exam, it's entirely possible I've learned something more valuable. Maybe I've learned that we need to protect ourselves and stay safe, and maybe that's more important than the Big Test.

Nicholas Tampio has a great piece in the Washington Post, suggesting students need a chance to catch up on socialization this summer, as opposed to test prep or homework. I couldn't agree more. I'm a teacher of teenagers, and they're potentially the most social beings on earth.  What exactly are our kids missing while in-person school is on hiatus, or while they're sitting masked, CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The Myth of Learning Loss

NYC Educator: Farewell from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: Farewell from the Chancellor

Farewell from the Chancellor

Dear Colleagues, 
 
Today is my last day serving as New York City’s Schools Chancellor, and I write to you to both say goodbye and to express my gratitude for each one of you. 
 
During the last three years, I have made about a million bucks, and haven’t paid a dime in rent. And honestly, my expense account has covered just about everything—travel, meals, donuts, unnatural acts—you name it. Your generosity and fortitude have surpassed my expectations.
 
We have been through unimaginably turbulent times together, and yet have achieved so much for our children. I don’t think anyone wants a laundry list, and honestly, I haven’t put a quarter in a laundry machine in years. Whether it’s shirts, underwear, suits, socks, ties, or whatever, they just appear cleaned and pressed. I don’t even know who does them. But yeah, you know, the children.
 
And, of course, together we took on the COVID-19 pandemic, completely reinventing what it meant to teach and learn in New York City’s public schools. I remember when you brought me 108,000 signatures asking that we close buildings. I said, hey, bring me 108,00 signatures of epidemiologists, because hey, my job was on the line and screw you all if that’s what it takes.
 
Every one of you, no matter the role you play, makes a difference in the lives of the City’s public school students. Please never forget that helping our school system reach its full potential and lifting up our children is not the job of one person. Unless you, of course, because that’s your job. Tomorrow I won’t have a job. I’ll take my million bucks CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Farewell from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: My New Job

NYC Educator: My New Job

My New Job

My first year as a teacher was my worst. I did a lot of on-the-job learning. One thing I learned was that my supervisor was out of her freaking mind. I had no experience. She promised to help me with grading, failed to do so, and then managed to hate me and everything I stood for when I didn't get grades in on time. This resulted in things like not getting enough books when I needed them and having a kid named Frankie steal them out of the bookroom for me. 

I had students who made me crazy, but some who were helpful. One, after I told him I was going crazy keeping up with all the mail in my box, kindly arrived every morning before I did and tossed it all into the trash. While I missed meetings and such as a result, I could always say I was never notified, and no one was able to prove otherwise. During my second year, I was in a new school with a new supervisor who was actually supportive, and I started to grow into the job a little.

Every year was a little better, until this one. I'm doing the best I can, and I'm not getting into any particular trouble beyond that of being chapter leader. That's perpetual, and I've grown used to it. I'll go so far as to say helping people is very rewarding and despite my complaints, I ultimately love doing it.

But man, this year is my second worst.  Online learning thing is just not what I signed up for. I would never have lasted in a job that entailed sitting at a desk, and that's the job I have now. While we may open wider next year, I don't think we're going back to doing what we actually do. 

In our school, we had until March 8th to negotiate with students to resolve NX grades. I had a few on the borderline, pushed them a little, and managed to get them to pass CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: My New Job

NYC Educator: To Open or Not to Open? Depends What "Open" Means

NYC Educator: To Open or Not to Open? Depends What "Open" Means

To Open or Not to Open? Depends What "Open" Means

Every day, and everywhere, you read and hear about opening the schools. Biden made it a priority, and to his credit, has managed to push out a whole lot of vaccine. He now envisions having a sufficient supply for all adult Americans by May. I spend many fun hours trying to get the vaccine, refreshing and revisiting various sites, and still feel it's a minor miracle I managed to do so. 

So Biden wants to open the schools in 100 days, and he's got 60 or 70 left. I think he can do it, actually. After all, NYC buildings are "open." Well, elementary, D75 and middle schools are, anyway. It appears that, within a matter of weeks, high schools will be "open" as well. Of course, that does not mean that we teachers are out there doing what we do. 

The NY Times is all excited about school openings, and seems to have been on a campaign for them, and against teacher union, for months. Just open the window, they say. They then give an example in which one window is open, and show what will happen. Who knows what happens if you choose a different window, or what happens when the temperature is freezing, stifling, or perhaps both, given the caprices of school temperature regulation? And hey, look at how that COVID sweeps around the teacher standing like a statue in front of the class. (The Times seems not to notice that.)

Of course, the class is socially distanced. You have only a handful of students there. So the Times, if you ignore CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: To Open or Not to Open? Depends What "Open" Means

NYC Educator: Hail and Farewell from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: Hail and Farewell from the Chancellor

Hail and Farewell from the Chancellor

Dear Colleagues,
 
I hope you and your families are keeping safe and healthy, not that it would have anything to do with me or my actions. I’m writing today with some important news.
 
After three years leading the DOE, I will be stepping down as Chancellor at the end of March. Why wait until the new person comes in and get fired?
 
I am full of mixed emotions to leave the DOE family, because this is one heck of a gig. I mean, it beats working for sure. I am in awe of the huge salary. The work we have done together has given me a free house for years, and it truly sucks that I’ll soon be back to paying rent.  But hey, I’ve picked up a million bucks over the last three years, and expensed every cent that went out, so I’ll be cool.
 
When I started at the DOE in April of 2018, it was with a mission and a purpose: to help our system reach its full potential, so it could lift up as many children as possible in the way that only public education can.  Of course, once Blaz decided the schools had to stay open even after Broadway closed, I let them stay on in COVID-infested schools, along with you guys, while I sat in my office and played with the free paper clips.
 
Throughout my career, my guiding light has been the belief that public education is the most powerful equalizer for our young people. Public education anchors communities, and I left the buildings filthy enough that they felt like anchors to one and all. Public education makes it possible for a child who is poor, or who lives in temporary housing, or—in my own case—who doesn’t speak English when they enter the public school system, to catch COVID, and bring it home to his or her family. Truly, it is public education that expresses equity for all, except for those who, like me, can afford to send our kids to private schools that aren’t crumbling and CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Hail and Farewell from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: The Teacher as Living Martyr

NYC Educator: The Teacher as Living Martyr

The Teacher as Living Martyr

That's the idealized version of what we do, and this is a great piece going into chapter and verse as to why. Who hasn't seen Stand and Deliver and decided, wow, that's what a real teacher does. Of course, if you get into the story a little deeper, you learn that not everything was quite as the film portrayed. This program didn't, in fact, materialize out of thin air with a bunch of kids who didn't know arithmetic. And it didn't last once Jaime Escalante left the picture either.

It's true, I guess, that there have been children who sat and composed symphonies before they were ten years old. This notwithstanding, the fact that you haven't doesn't precisely suggest your life is a failure. I'm sure Escalante was exceptional. I'm not sure he was as exceptional as that film portrayed. What I'm absolutely sure of is that he's not someone I'd use as a role model.

You're not a criminal because you want a life. You're not a criminal because you want a family. Sure, you may love teaching, but that doesn't mean you need to neglect absolutely every other aspect of your life and do it 24/7. Now there are people who want to be like that, or who at least want to appear like that. 

Maybe you have a colleague who gets up in front of the PTA and tells them what awful jobs the teachers in your school do. Maybe this person is the principal's favorite. Finally someone who will get up there and say exactly how much the staff sucks, and tell what a great visionary the principal is. This is a valuable employee, so naturally there has to be some comp-time job doing who knows what, because how could you let a talent like that go to waste teaching?

Of course, people who walk around tossing their brothers and sisters under the bus are hardly role models. I wouldn't want them teaching my kids, or yours. Of course, they won't be for long. Folks like that are on the administrative CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The Teacher as Living Martyr

NYC Educator: Big Lie on Testing from Biden

NYC Educator: Big Lie on Testing from Biden

Big Lie on Testing from Biden

The Biden administration is insisting on standardized testing for traumatized students this year. This is a huge disappointment. I remember the awful education policies of the Obama administration, and I remember Diane Ravitch writing that Obama gave Bush a third term on education. Don't get me wrong--I certainly don't miss Big Orange at all.

I was wary of Biden because of Obama's awful policies. I remember Arne Duncan making us all Race to the Top. I remember the insistence on evaluation teachers based at least somewhat on test scores. Despite the fact that it mitigates the judgment of insane supervisors, it was and is junk science.  It's not best policy to judge working teachers by junk science.

But Joe Biden came to Pittsburgh to speak to educators, and painted us a very different portrait of himself. Biden was low on my list of Democratic candidates. He wasn't the worst of the bunch. I would not have voted for anti-public education candidates Corey Booker or Mike Bloomberg under any circumstance. Biden got my vote, but I was very concerned he'd enable the sort of reforminess that Obama did.

The forum in Pittsburgh was really interesting, but when I got there I found no way to ask a question. I tried really CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Big Lie on Testing from Biden

NYC Educator: Reflections on Apocalypse Teaching

NYC Educator: Reflections on Apocalypse Teaching

Reflections on Apocalypse Teaching

I have an accommodation this year, so this picture describes me well. My classroom, since March, has been our dining room. We don't use it much, generally. Our little family can eat in the kitchen.

So our dining room table becomes a storage area, except on the rare occasions when we have company. Since COVID hit, we haven't had more than one outside visitor at a time.

When my students see me, they see a clean area with a painting hanging on the wall. What I see is a mountain of papers, books, and a few violins for good measure. I frequently have to hustle to find the materials on which we're working, as I misplace them religiously. 

It's symbolic, though, of the times we're facing. Everything is fine, we tell or show the kids. But as they know, and as we all know, everything is a perpetual shitstorm. Were that not the case, we'd be in school seeing and talking to one another, as opposed to viewing one another over Zoom, or whatever platform we happen to be using. 

I was extremely lucky this year, in that I was assigned to teach a level up from where I taught last year. This left me with a lot of students I already know well. I have gotten to know some of my new students well, particularly those who are extroverted, but they represent a distinct minority. Those who are shy, and a whole lot of newcomers are shy, take a long time to cross my radar.

There are a lot of people out there advocating for student privacy, and for them that includes the right to no CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Reflections on Apocalypse Teaching

NYC Educator: Geniuses in Albany Strike Again

NYC Educator: Geniuses in Albany Strike Again

Geniuses in Albany Strike Again

It looks like the folks in Albany, the ones who control education, have too much time on their hands. After all, there's a pandemic, a national crisis, and people are running around arguing about whether and how to open school buildings. In fact, people are hysterical over how the schools should be opened, and it's open season on teacher unions, even by media figures who generally appear not to be insane.

Albany missed the memo.

This is evident because one or more of the Albany geniuses has decided that willingness be tested for Covid cannot be a prerequisite for attending schools in person. For better or worse, NYC is frequently trotted out as an example of best practices as far as school openings. If Albany gets its way, that's finished. Once we allow people in who are exempt from testing, there will be no way to guarantee safety for anyone in school buildings.

In fact, the only way we've been able to open systems in the limited fashion we do is because we test, test more, and trace cases. If we have people who can't be tested, we will never know whether or not they have COVID. Despite all the nonsense trotted out by gung ho NY Times reporters, children can and do transmit the virus. European schools are closing for that very reason, but I guess they don't get that kind of story up in Albany. 

I'm not sure what it is that makes them make decisions like these. Maybe it's something in the water. Maybe it's waking up every morning to the smell of fresh cement. It's hard to CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Geniuses in Albany Strike Again

NYC Educator: If We Can't Learn from Crisis, School Doesn't Matter

NYC Educator: If We Can't Learn from Crisis, School Doesn't Matter

If We Can't Learn from Crisis, School Doesn't Matter

Well, according to the NY Times, most pediatricians, all of whom had access to the vaccination well before we did, don't think we need it in order to return to work. I'm not surprised. Ever since the plague hit, I've been reading in the Times about how awful it is that schools were closed. The fact that schools are, in fact, not closed, and that they have not been closed is neither here nor there. And hey, why err on the side of caution when we can just hope things like this don't happen?

It's vital that we get those buildings open, and that we get those kids in there to study algebra, or whatever it is on their programs. Otherwise, how will Western Civilization continue its great march ahead? Obviously, living through a pandemic is not an educational experience. There is absolutely nothing to be learned from it.

One thing, for example, that cannot be learned is preserving the environment. Who cares if we've destroyed a whole lot of rain forest, and that animals out of their element bring us diseases that come from theirs? Who cares if we keep interacting with bats, and that they carry resistance to a whole lot of deadly diseases that we don't? As long as we have someone solving for X, let's forget about the earth, our home, altogether. That algebra cannot be allowed to simply go by the wayside.

Another thing we can't be bothered learning is it is not, in fact, a good idea to elect a self-serving, self-important, solipsistic serial liar to the Presidency of the United States. Why should kids bother learning things like that? That's cancel culture. We have an absolute right to select politicians who don't give a golly gosh darn about the environment (not to mention working people). If politicians choose not to take precautions in public, and if they get COVID and infect others with it, well, that's their right as Americans. Every time they breathe virus into one of our faces they're doing their sacred duty of owning the libs. 

So let's get those kids into physical classrooms, for goodness sake, and never mind if, in fact, it's only a distinct minority of children who actually attend. Never mind if the people themselves, by a margin of two or three to one, don't trust the NY Times or the pediatricians in the survey. Never mind a consistent history of medical mistreatment that leaves minorities (majorities in our area) wary of doctors and even the NY Times reporters who preach to us.

Who cares if the few students who make it into buildings are kept separated and masked? The important thing is to keep them doing that algebra, or whatever it is we happen to be offering them that day. It doesn't matter if we invite them into rooms and preclude social interaction. It's good for kids to sit masked and far apart from one another, and it's healthy that most of them don't come in, evidently. But NY Times reporter have yet other brilliant insights to share with us:

Yeah, it's an absolute disgrace we keep closing down schools so that CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: If We Can't Learn from Crisis, School Doesn't Matter