Hugs to my fellow teachers who are sometime reeling from reading silly comments. One especially aggravating comment criticizes teachers, claiming that they have had six months off already and should get back to work. That comment is absurd. So is the comment that suggests teachers should not get paid unless they are inside a classroom teaching live students. Is the idea that America should stop paying people for working remotely? Well, I guess that’s one possible plan — a spectacularly bad one at the moment.
Those posted and tweeted complaints may be contributing to demands that teachers go into empty schools to teach online classes. Big Brother has to watch us all, I guess. But couldn’t we just leave it up to parents to tell Big Brother if “Ms. Jones” has been watching Steve Wilkos instead of teaching? I think that would work fine, while saving teachers gas, time and aggravation.
A little more faith in teachers would help teachers right now. Non-teacher readers? You have no idea how many teachers are crying every day — either because they have to go into a live classroom and they are scared, or because they don’t have that live classroom and miss their students and the starting rituals of the year.
Many people outside teaching have no idea how much work has gone into remote learning. How many times did friends of mine call their missing students in the spring? Some nights, middle school and high school teachers called their entire classes. Those nightly calls went on repeatedly while those same teachers kept trying, trying, trying to create lessons that would get students to log in. Especially bad above the elementary level, noncompliance with school expectations has been rampant. I suspect parents put at least some of these kids on the honor system, and, ummm… not all kids behaved honorably.*
Yes, remote learning may be a tremendous pain to implement. But it’s still the best of bad options in certain geographic locations. Some areas remain unsafe — and more unsafe for parents, grandparents and older siblings than kids.
Parents, do you have a few free moments? Why not email your children’s teachers to say thanks? Due to some pretty nasty online presences, combined with a seismic shift in teaching strategies and expectations, those teachers may need all the virtual hugs and words of encouragement that they can get right now.
And if you know anyone posting those inflammatory tweets and posts? Let them know how underinformed, self-entitled and simply ugly their words and sentiments appear.
See: https://www.eduhonesty.com/when-avas-teacher-passes-away/ and https://www.eduhonesty.com/better-to-be-too-scared-of-those-classrooms-than-not-scared-enough/
*I’m sympathetic to parents who thought their children were doing their work because I’ve been there. My youngest just quit doing homework one middle-school semester and it took us awhile to dig out of that hole. Parent-reader, my spouse and I learned that year that asking, “Have you done your homework?” is not always enough. I recommend asking to see the actual work, too. Email teachers when you have questions.