I’m carefully picking out dry spots or clumps of snow to step on as I walk my dog. The only rule is to avoid the ice. I take off my winterwear, filled with feathers and fake fur, remove the red and gray coat from my dog. The world keeps roaring along. The snow keeps falling.

But politics has shifted. The world this week is the world of Amanda Gorman, the young African-American Harvard graduate, whose inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb” spiraled into viral heights immediately after the new administration began. We should celebrate Amanda’s poem, a poem for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and all of us. We should celebrate the United States of America, which for all its flaws has occasional glorious moments. A few couplets from the poem that resonated with me: .

We have moved into a new U.S. incarnation — and many people are sleeping more peacefully. Lots of concerned citizens came furiously together to make this time happen. Now we have to build and rebuild. We must take the immigrant children out of cages forever. We are long overdue at attempting to provide a living wage and affordable health care for all. We also have to reconnect with our relatives and neighbors. Or at least calm the waters.

But it’s not healthy to just hurtle from crisis to crisis. It’s not healthy to keep going, going, going with our guts churning and our hearts hurting. Our students and children need us to help them frame their worlds right now.

Let’s celebrate free elections. Let’s celebrate an America where little girls may begin growing up believing that they can be President — not because it’s allowed for girls, but because gender, color, and sexual preferences may soon become irrelevant considerations in picking candidates for high office. Let’s celebrate a peaceful transition. Yes, soldiers were sleeping on marble floors in the capitol building, but the swearing-in of our new leaders happened without serious hitches.

Our kids need to hear: It’s a great, new day!

P.S. If you voted for the other candidate and you don’t think it’s a great, new day — can you celebrate democracy? Celebrate the fact that every two-four-six years we get a chance to make our voices heard? Kids need to hear that their voices matter and their thoughts count. That’s what elections are about.

As teachers push back against going live in areas like Chicago, I’d like to try to put a face to these protests. Who are these teachers?

She may be just out of school, nearing retirement or anywhere in-between. In elementary school, the odds are almost 9 out of 10 that she’s female. In middle school and high school, she’s probably also female, but she’s sharing the hallways with many more men. She’s likely to be much less worried about COVID if she’s younger and on her own, but starting teachers sometimes live with their extended family. That starting salary in many locations comes in somewhere in the mid-thirties and Montana’s average starting salary is only $30,036. (Teacher Salaries in America – Niche Blog). Since it’s an average, that means lots of people are starting below $30,000.

The kids who are coughing openly and furiously are not in the classroom this year, But kids are always sick. Let me repeat this: Kids are always sick. And some kids’ noses run like faulty faucets. They leak perpetually. Those kids may not be home.

“It’s just ‘Benjamin,'” mom will say, and the teachers know she’s right.

The rooms are small, even with reduced class sizes. The masks don’t always work well. Watch a mom with little masked kids in the grocery store if you have doubts. And Benjamin cannot deal with his nose without removing his mask. Unless he just covers his mask in snot, which some kids will do, the same kids who cover their sleeves in snot.

Now, let’s say you are Benjamin’s teacher. If you are especially unlucky, Benjamin had a fever last week. Was it caught on the first day? The second day? Maybe Benjamin’s not the talkative or complaining type. I got insanely sick a couple of years ago, and I’m, pretty sure the source was a nonverbal specIal education student I helped one morning. I didn’t catch the problem until he took my hand on the way to the bathroom before lunch. That hand was HOT.

Now let’s say you are that older teacher or young teacher living in a multigenerational home. You wake up with a slight sore throat. A very slight sore throat. You know your school is short of subs, like so many other schools. They are using paraprofessionals to cover classes — not legal, but they have to put some adult into those rooms — because they have no one else to cover classes. Unfortunately two of the school’s paraprofessionals just quit. There’s no one to cover for you. And you are probably fine.

Will you go into school? Maybe you will. Let’s say you are older and suffer from acid reflux, which causes occasional mild sore throats. You may say, “I’m sure it’s just reflux.” Because it’s really too damn scary to consider the alternative.

Except you are scared. You get to school and Benjamin’s absent. Now you are walking on psychic eggshells. He didn’t look right yesterday — maybe a little too flushed. Was he unusually quiet?

“He’s got a fever,” his mom says. But no one has tested him. The lines are crazy long still in a few places, and testing is a nuisance regardless. He is not coughing and the doctor told mom testing could wait since he does not yet seem that sick. What now? You are going to have to wait to find out what is happening. Should you go home?

That’s Wednesday. What about Thursday and Friday? And the next week? Unless, of course, Benjamin sends his family and maybe his whole class into quarantine. Speaking of scary…

Eduhonesty: Vaccinate the teachers. Those states who have not prioritized teachers have their heads so far down into the sand they have clearly buried their brains. But, in the meantime, I’d like to ask all the parents and noneducators, the people who have never worked in schools, to visualize those classrooms. Remember what those rooms were like. Remember the smells? Those rooms where the smells lingered and lingered for hour after hour? Yes, districts have been working to improve air circulation. But in older buildings, that task is monstrously huge and expensive. Do you trust those efforts? Understandably, many teachers do not. Imagine daily life in those rooms in the winter of 2021.

Kids are always sick in elementary school, and often sick for most or all of the winter in middle school. High schools are a little better; diseases don’t work through high school classrooms with the same ferocity. Still, I guarantee some of our “Felicias” and “Benjamins” are perfectly capable of ignoring a low-grade fever to go to school so they can spend the day near their latest romantic interest.

This will be a short post. The Front page of the Chicago Tribune says it all today.

I do not personally know anyone yet who has received the first vaccination shot here in Illinois. I am certain those many thousands of healthcare workers are out there. But the elderly and the teachers? They are 1B — and we are hoping to start 1B next week in Cook County. Caveats are being issued all over the place — never mind the ongoing discussions of lack of overall vaccine, but I believe those vaccinations will be taking place over the next few months.

Those Chicago teachers? We are nearly on the cusp of vaccinating. Why are we forcing anyone into the classroom right now?

A few weeks or even months will not significantly change our students overall educational status. They might make all the difference in teacher health, however. This blog has been following long haulers from the earliest intimations that COVID-19 lingers in some people. Here is one last sobering article on this theme: Almost a third of recovered Covid patients return to hospital in five months and one in eight die (telegraph.co.uk)

This disease does not always come and go. The above article has the following subtitle: “Research has found a devastating long-term toll on survivors, with people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic conditions.” Those chronic conditions are proving to be many, with long-term extreme fatigue toward the top of that list.

Eduhonesty: In viral hotspots — almost everywhere right now, it seems — schools should remain closed until vaccinations begin to rein in this monster. Opening those classrooms under these conditions is criminal.

From the John Hopkins coronavirus map for Cook County, Illinois:

Cases: 435,888
Deaths: 9,065

Reader, I would like to ask you to focus on the cases, rather than the deaths. What is almost one-third of 435,888? Let’s use the 29.4 percent in the linked article above to get a rough number. That’s 128,151 people who may no longer be actively sick with COVID, but who are still unwell, if the research from Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in Great Britain is correct. A number remain extremely unwell.

P.S. Things I have learned from social media. They ran out of shots in New York. And in some states, teachers are not even 1B but are in the general pool.

I embrace lengthy discussions about today’s election craziness with high school students and mature younger brothers and sisters in middle school. Young adults are mostly following events anyway. There’s little choice.

Politics has stolen the front pages. In a sobering recap of how badly things are going, a new record was set yesterday: 4,400 people died from COVID-19, as the virus runs almost unchecked, ravaging our nation’s economy and psyche; yet you have to scroll down to the 21st story on the Washington Post website to find it that latest COVID information. Current events have pushed a full-blown plague off the front page.

A better time to flesh out the civics curriculum has hardly been seen in my lifetime. The only event of comparable magnitude that comes to mind is the resignation of Richard Milhous Nixon. I was a teen-age girl in Mexico at that time and I remember people asking me, “But why did he resign?” I would explain Watergate while they continued to stare blankly at me, before saying, “They all do that!” But in my country at that time, people thought more highly of their nation’s leaders. We did not believe they all did that.

Bill Clinton’s little hallway romp with the cute, young Monica hardly hits the meter today. Instead we look at pictures of National Guard members sleeping on the marble floors of the capitol building as we prepare for an inauguration like no other. I have personally tweeted that I’d like the inauguration to be conducted remotely. One advantage to a Zoom inauguration: The President-elect could be in Uruguay or on Mars for all any angry mob would know.

But this post is about our little kids — our incredibly confused little kids on some cases. I’d like to suggest we back away from sharing too much information with elementary school age children. In middle school, a conservative approach should be taken with this topic. I know from my teaching years that the emotional maturity of a thirteen-year-old can be utterly unpredictable. Some are wise far beyond their years. Others go home to watch SpongeBob SquarePants while clinging to toy trucks and well-worn dolls.

As an elementary school-age child, I spent years living in fear after viewing a rather innocuous Outer Limits episode, “The Man with the Power.” During the day, I was fine, but in the dark as I lay waiting for sleep, I kept waiting for that lightening to pop up in the corner of the room. What if the room was destroyed? If I was killed by the falling ceiling? Or if I just disappeared, never to be found?

Children truly do believe in Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. They may reach the realization that Santa is just dad or mom when they are five or when they are seven. Perhaps a few will hang on past seven years simply because Santa is such a great idea and their family keeps backing up the Santa story. Why was the Tim Allen movie The Santa Clause such a success? I suspect part of that movie’s longevity is the fact that many of us would like to live in a universe with a real Santa.

But kids truly believe. They believe in heroes and, unfortunately, they also believe in monsters. They can be scared of the lightening in the corner for years. I read a post last year about how to teach 9/11 in first grade. My gut response was NOBODY should teach 9/11 in first grade. It’s too soon. Some ideas should not be taught until children can put them in an at least semi-realistic context that will make sense to them.

Timing is everything. I had to be at least eight when I saw “The Man with the Power,” an episode filled with adult themes that all flew right over my head. But I was an imaginative child and that lightening remained after all the mysterious conversation faded away. Our kids right now can’t understand this talk of insurrection and the “end of democracy” or “end of our country.” But they get the word “END.” And they can tell something scary must be happening, especially in those homes that have been watching news they never watched before. They understand what “five people were KILLED,” means, if hazily, and they understand that “DARK, PANDEMIC WINTER” is a bad, bad thing. I hope not too many have been watching the TV from the stairs as that policeman stuck in the doorway screams.

PANDEMIC has already upended our children’s lives. Some have lost family members. More commonly, children have been running in fear of endangering family members, listening to explanations of why they can’t go to play with friends or visit grandma and grandpa.

“We can’t go this year. We have to protect grandma and grandpa.”

Protect them from what? Depending on their ages, the answer to that question will be more or less complete — but on some level, all our children understand that their grandparents are in danger. A scary new kind of death walks the world.

I don’t know what we will call this generation when it comes of age. I know that these kids will be a new generation like no other in memory. They will be the kids who grew up in the times of masks and the drive-thru. Some will be kids who knew dad’s job clerking at Walmart or driving a city bus just might get him killed. Others will be kids trying to recover from holes in their educations, despite best efforts by educators and families.

But we can rescue our elementary school children and their more-sensitive older brothers and sisters by NOT teaching them topics that are too scary for them to process. No one who believes in Santa Claus should be trying to understand what is happening right now to our democracy and the United States of America. Young children know America is where they live. DESTROYING America then becomes an absolutely terrifying idea. Donald Trump can become a terrifying idea — either TRUMP the EVIL MASTERMIND WHO IS DESTROYING AMERICA or TRUMP the HOPE FOR AMERICA WHO IS BEING DESTROYED by the EVIL SOCIALISTS. Kids know what DESTROY means, or its synonyms like wreck and trash. But Santa fans don’t know that lightening can’t come out of nowhere and destroy their bedroom or take their parents away. They don’t know that America will not simply disappear out from under them, sweeping their lives away somehow, probably with dead grandparents thrown into the bargain.

I keep seeing articles on how to teach what is happening. For adolescents, that teaching is wholly appropriate and I’d say vital right now. This is unfortunately the civics opportunity of a lifetime — a chance to help young people understand our government, contracts and law.

But I’d like to plead with teachers, parents and other adults watching this mess — to the extent possible, let’s keep the wee ones out of this mess. Let’s turn off the news. Don’t share the harsher, nitty gritty details. Let’s offer reassurance when complex topics arise.

“Everything in Washington, D.C. will be fine. Things don’t always happen the way we want them to happen, but this country is a great country and we will make things work out right. People are working right now to get it to come out right.”

That’s what our little kids need to hear. The adults have it in control. The adults will keep them safe. They live in a great country. Sometimes people have to work to get that country right, but when they do the work, they can fix the problems.

Hugs to my readers from the blue room!

Cell phones. Small, flat rectangles that easily fit into our hands, whether nested in Otter cases or cute pink, plastic unicorns made in China; these devices are thieves of time like no other. They are simply the laptop or desktop dwarf that holds… what? Messages, Zoom, YouTube, videos, books, movies, social media, photo apps, games, ride-sharing and dinner-delivery options, restaurant rewards apps, music, weather, news, email, and random bits and pieces of cyber detritus, like this app that finds stars and identifies planets.

But winter has fallen and the White Walkers of the Northlands are out there. In the North, children are sitting in houses. Many of them will not go back to school when winter break ends. They will not go anywhere. Maybe they will visit a friend or two in their bubble or pod, but how many children did not see grandma and grandpa this break?

For years now, education and child-rearing articles have warned about the dangers of too much screen time. Too much screen time is bad for kids? One might as well say water is definitely wet. We know that staring into screens creates trouble — short tempers, unfinished projects, and disconcerting zombie-like stares for starters.

But I want to flag those phones today. Cyber burn-out is the enemy for online teaching and learning. Phones eat into children’s limited attention spans, sometimes aggressively. And those limits are real, even if they vary greatly from child to child.

Parents, have you relaxed on the issue of phone time? A lot of us are stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues right now — or wish we were, because Mobile and Memphis at least sound warm. In January in the Northlands, it’s natural to pick up the phone to play a game or work on music lists. It’s also natural to look at our kids and decide not to interrupt their games or forays into social media. We don’t want the kids watching endless Hulu and Netflix. We intuitively sense how sick some are of hour after hour on their laptops, no matter how good their teacher may be. Even when the cobbled-together curriculum for remote learning seems relevant and useful, kids and adults have secret off-switches for electronics — that place where the zombie stare kicks in and a simple question nets a snarl rather than a helpful answer. Minecraft may engage the brain, but too much Minecraft can make Jayden a snarly kid.

Ironically, as electronic minutes accumulate, it’s easy to let the phones go right now. Who want to fight? Kids deprived of phone time push back in the best of times, as parents struggle to find the app or strategy that can rein in the monster. By a certain age, apps to restrain phone time often seem futile.

Eduhonesty: Stuck in the house? Kids and everyone else going stir crazy? Or at work and worrying about what’s happening at home as grandma or the sitter supervises — or does not supervise? Worried about your kids’ mental health, whether you are home or out in the world? When the schoolwork is out of the way, one strategy that will help children maintain balance is to get those kids off the phone.

Here is a starter site: 40 of the Best Art Projects for Kids – Left Brain Craft Brain

A search on craft projects will yield many sites. I’d ask my children what they wanted to do. Learn the guitar? This can be done in online classes, although you should consider masking up and venturing out early to buy the guitar. Purchasing first-time musical instruments requires a fitting process unlikely to work without making comparisons and holding the instrument.

I get together with a group of friends to sketch and paint throughout the week. We look through a series of pictures and decide on a favorite. Then everyone tries to create their own version of the octopus, door, tree, of whatever whim strikes at that moment.

If crafts are not catching on at home as you hope, I recommend exploring online learning. Online options abound. Some will stimulate conversation instead of inducing the zombie stare. Here’s a useful link:

Free online courses you can finish in a day | Coursera

The Coursera courses in this link might fascinate a high school student or academically-strong younger sister or brother. Yes, Coursera takes a student back online but “Feminism and Social Justice,” “Psychological First Aid” and “An Introduction to Consumer Neuroscience and Neuromarketing” might prove perfect for the right kid. These courses are guaranteed to engage the brain productively.

(Teachers, if you don’t know Coursera, please check this link out!)

Fight back, reader. Yes, the snows are falling. The children (and many adults) are sinking into lethargy as ice covers the sidewalks, and onscreen minutes proliferate.

Maybe your child needs a guitar or ukulele. Or you both do. Or a set of 24 watercolors and a starter pad of watercolor paper. You might melt some crayons to make the tried-and-true stained glass window. The whole family could participate in cooking lessons with the kids helping to plan the week’s menus. (I believe Coursera has a course on child nutrition 😋.)

Reader, start looking for those phones. They fade into the background, almost becoming invisible. The world mostly goes quiet when the phones come out and right now, with the stress of COVID, politics, and work, quiet may seem desirable. But life with children, whether parenting or teaching — that life was never meant to be quiet. Children should not be staring. They should be dancing. Or mixing flour with sugar. Or massacring chords over and over on their musical instrument of choice.

Hugs and Good Luck to All in the New Year.

P.S. Watch out for violins. They make amazingly awful sounds at the beginning of musical instruction. If you don’t have a basement or attic for practice, I recommend keyboards or guitars instead.