Back to elementary education during to COVID-19

How, when, and where to go ‘back to school’ got complicated. That’s not surprising. Nobody seems to trust anybody these days. However, few things are as important as our kid’s education. For their sake and for our future, let’s talk about things with a little less emotion.

Put a pause on unproductive assumptions (even if some of them are true):

1. The President wants kids in the classrooms right now, no matter what. [1] There are national, state, and local politicians who will support the President’s agenda regardless of the risk to kids, parents, and teachers. However, there are politicians who are decent, competent, effective, and who will support reasonable solutions.
2. A lot of school administrators are caught between the interests of their political masters and the needs of everybody else. However, not every school administrator is an idiot or a burned-out teacher who gave up ‘real teaching’ to get behind a desk. Most education administrators will listen to the concerns of teachers, students, and parents.  
3. Most teachers are not looking for an excuse to stay at home so that they can save on daycare and other costs. Very few teachers are burned-out versions of his/her former self, looking for an excuse to give up on making a difference. [2] It’s reasonable to assume that your teacher is eager to educate your / our children as their top priority (until proven otherwise).

Stay in your lane. Think about everybody. Do the right thing. [3]

Elementary school teachers

I understand that you might be deeply hurt about being chronically underfunded, under-compensated, and underappreciated. On top of that, once again, you’re being called on to bear even more burden. It’s not fair. It’s even shameful. But, this is your time to shine. This is your once in a career opportunity to invent new ways to educate under the worst of circumstances. When will you ever get another chance to serve your calling in a more unselfish, pure, and real way?  We need you, our kids need you now, more than ever.

Your job is more than a profession, it’s a calling. It is not just stewardship over America’s young minds. You are the mentors of America’s heart and soul. Your expertise concerns solving the exact problem that we are discussing; how to best educate our young children. Education is literally our future. This family doctor, this American, trusts our teachers. I trust you. Trust yourself.

Of course, get input from stakeholders. Explore opinions and resources of all kinds. Accept help from wherever it might come (as long as it’s appropriate).  Give your administrators a chance to come up with a good plan and hold them responsible for implementing it.  But don’t compromise your best professional judgment. Your mandate may not be obvious, but the mission is clear. Give us your best opinion of how best to educate our children right now.  As long as you make sure that your first priority is the kids and that you’re not using the moment to redress past grievances, you will, somehow, someway, get what you need. Then, do your job. Teach our children.

And don’t forget, if you abandon our kids at this moment, for any reason, morally, intellectually, financially, or otherwise, kids will pay the price.  That failure on your part would be the same as your pediatrician walking out on your sick kid.

Administrators

Although classroom teachers won’t usually admit it, you have a really tough job. Based on the depth, power, and depravity of national, state, and sometimes local political leadership, many people assume that you are compromised by evil and selfish intent. Get ahead of this, dialogue. Listen harder than you ever have before. Build consensus. Be transparent about what you are thinking and planning. Be honest about who is pushing you and in what direction they want you to go. Remind yourself frequently that the kids have always and will always come first. Then, with a clear conscience, and with moral, professional, and personal authority, do your job with excellence. Since it will be hard to get a ‘thank you’ later, you get it from me now. I appreciate you.

Politicians

Your role should be to lead us in the right direction. Your colleagues (and maybe even you) are already standing over the graves of 135,000 [4] Americans. The government has our nation on life support.

Be advised, things are different now. If a single American kid dies because you were too concerned about your re-election to do the right thing, losing an election or going to jail will be the least of your concerns. No matter what master your serve, national, state, or local, a grieving parent’s anger crosses political lines and the nation will have its reckoning on you. You are much better off beginning the long, arduous process of rebuilding trust. The first step in doing that is to do, and say, what the doctors, teachers, and parents tell you. Lead us, lead us now, and do it right now.

Physicians

Doctors who treat children are usually vociferous advocates for kid’s health.  When giving advice, we like to pretend that the best intentions and perfect compliance will be universal. In that zeal, my colleagues and I are sometimes naïve. My fellow healthcare professionals, let’s accept that not everybody, not even parents, can carry out our best advice all the time. Factor in that many parents can’t or won’t be able to act in their ideal self-interest.  Give your patient’s parents tools that they can use. Get more involved than you ever planned. Head on over to the school and see if you can help in any way.

Parents of young kids

Last, but not least, for the people under the most pressure; don’t panic. There isn’t going to be a perfect answer. You’re going to have to make imperfect choices in a rotten situation. Do what you can do; listen to the right guidance. There are a few groups that know better than anybody else what to do. Here are a couple of suggestions about where to get general information. [5] [6] 

On the local level, seek out your pediatrician’s and public health official’s best advice. Give your kid’s teacher a call. Listen carefully to what his/her union thinks about reopening. Ask hard questions. Who cares the most? Who knows best? Who has the most common-sense plan? If your best opinion leads to one decision, but your school is doing another, pause and pay attention!

In the next segments, we will talk more about specific strategies and principles. We’ll also discuss other educational phases like middle school, high-school, college, etc.

Let’s get to work.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/trump-schools-cdc-pence/2020/07/08/8a52d400-c14b-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html

[2] https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/state_2004_19.asp

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/politics/cdc-guidelines-school-reopenings/index.html

[4] As of July 12, 2020. Source: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

[5] https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/COVID-19/Pages/Return-to-School-During-COVID-19.aspx

[6] https://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/what-will-return-school-during-covid-19-pandemic-look