I wouldn’t trust the U.S. secretary of percussion to tell me how to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” if they had never sat behind a drum set, so why should any teacher trust Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to tell them how to teach, without her ever having sat at the head of a class? (Maybe she should switch to the drums.) Until you have spent countless days in a classroom devoting your time and energy to becoming that lifelong mentor to generations of otherwise disengaged students, you must listen to those who have. Teachers want to teach, not die, and we should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are. For without them, where would we be?
May we show these tireless altruists a little altruism in return. I would for my favorite teacher. Wouldn’t you?
Grohl could add Bill de Blasio, Andrew Cuomo, Joel Klein, Dennis Walcott, Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, and so many others to a long list of education decionmakers who wouldn't know what to do in a classroom but tell teachers what to do.
Having a musician I admire on our side is satisfying to this blogger. South Bronx School and Reality Based Educator are two other NY ed bloggers who I seem to recall, without looking back, mentioned rockers in their posts. I think for SBS there were Rush pieces and RBE I believe used Ian Hunter in blog posts. I like it when the education and rock world intersect.
Last year, when my family took a road trip to Chicago to visit relatives, I lobbied to stop off in Cleveland on the drive home at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I had such a great time. Kids loved the garage where they got to play so they put up with me attempting to explain some of the memorabilia in the exhibits.
When Grohl writes about his own children in the Atlantic essay, I feel a sort of parental bond along with being grateful for his support for teachers. He explains the limitations of virtual education and includes references to his kids:
Remote learning comes with more than a few of its own complications, especially for working-class and single parents who are dealing with the logistical problem of balancing jobs with children at home. Uneven availability of teaching materials and online access, technical snafus, and a lack of socialization all make for a less-than-ideal learning experience. But most important, remote setups overseen by caretakers, with a teacher on the other end doing their best to educate distracted kids who prefer screens used for games, not math, make it perfectly clear that not everyone with a laptop and a dry-erase board is cut out to be a teacher. That specialized skill is the X factor. I know this because I have three children of my own, and my remote classroom was more Welcome Back, Kotter than Dead Poets Society. Like I tell my children, “You don’t really want daddy helping, unless you want to get an F!” Remote learning is an inconvenient and hopefully temporary solution. But as much as Donald Trump’s conductor-less orchestra would love to see the country prematurely open schools in the name of rosy optics (ask a science teacher what they think about White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s comment that “science should not stand in the way”), it would be foolish to do so at the expense of our children, teachers, and schools.
I can so identify with the "distracted kids who prefer screens for games, not math" line.
11 comments:
Breathe out
So I can breathe you in
Hold you in
Those lyrics seem funny in the age of COVID
With only a couple hundred students to protect, under the strictest and most controlled circumstances students were infected and exposed. Teachers and students in NYC will die, they will die across the country! Put the blood on the hands of Trump and Devos, but that's little consolation to the dead.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/25/us/act-coronavirus-students-oklahoma-edmond-trnd/index.html
I cannot wear masks. It makes me hypoxic and dystonic because it increases my lung drive and CO2,and reduces oxygen. A mask CANNOT stop the virus. It is meant for bacteria. A virus is exponentially smaller than the pores in a mask. I am confused why educators do not understand basic science.
They keep saying that kids only get mildly affected by Covid but a boy in Florida was on life support when he developed multi inflammatory disease as a complication from having the virus. He developed it months after he had it.
See, if you control the virus outbreak, get the infection rate very low, contact trace new outbreaks, etc., then you can reopen schools, have a functioning economy, etc.
The US can't do any of this.
To manage the corona virus from spreading, you need a competently managed organization at all levels That is definitely not the DOE
And if you don't succeed within a system, it's easy to blame the system. Anecdotal success or failure does not dictate whether a system is good or bad.
I just read the CSA’s 141 questions that must be asked before schools open. Mulgrew seems to defer everything to the CSA including out of control principals and admins, as well as wait for them to complain first and hide behind them. What’s Mulgrew’s plan? What is he waiting for, Labor Day? What are all of you waiting for, Labor Day? Make a sign, put on your mask and go down to Gracie mansion and protest for 100% Remote Learning. I’m retired and this isn’t my fight, but I’ll be more than happy to join you. Mulgrew and his UFT are not going to do a damn thing except watch you shuffle into schools, like those on a conga line to the guillotine.
The ultimate goal of this plandemic is to destroy public education. Don't you think it's succeeding???
7:06 PM
Our political leaders are failing to meet the challenge of the pandemic.
Several other nations have political leaders who have met the challenge.
The ultimate goal of the corona virus (pandemic) is to survive by finding hosts.
Preventing the survival of the virus requires testing , timely results from the tests, contact tracing, quarantines, social distancing and wearing masks. It could in theory be completely eradicated. In practice, that is very unlikely in the near future.
Read Isaiah 28: 15-18. The mask is part of the mark.
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