If the American public has become keenly aware of anything during this unprecedented pandemic, it's the stark and uncomfortable truth about public education. With school slated to open in a few weeks, our leaders, both political and educational, have begun to issue nebulous guidelines, if any. Jaw-dropping suggestions like, "Oh, just let them go back to school. They'll be all right" leave many of us dismayed if not full of anxiety. Comments from our president like "99% of coronavirus cases are harmless" may be the artifice that the most powerful and influential man in the world is using to reopen the economy, his major trump card for winning the November election.
This behavior, dear friends, is the epitome of subterfuge. This man is the same anti-child president responsible for keeping children in cages, doing absolutely nothing to prevent gun violence in schools, and now sacrificing school children on the altar of expediency.
What is mind-boggling is that the use of subterfuge is normally clandestine, yet the current White House does little to hide the pretense in their motives. Does our government--local, state, and federal, have no qualms about children, their teachers and other school workers, including bus drivers, being exposed to Covid contagion head on. This is where the truth becomes fuzzy. Is the coronavirus on its way out as Trump says, or are all the medical professionals and scientists making up the outrageous spike in cases and the rapid spread of the virus?
Why is facing the truth so difficult that the act of subterfuge has become the method of choice to get what we want, with no negative consequences, or even in some cases with little or no public awareness?
Ah, but subterfuge isn't new.
In The Republic Plato tells the story of a shepherd named Gyges who finds a ring. As he sits among his fellow shepherds one evening, he discovers when he turns the collet of this ring to the inside of his hand, he becomes invisible. Gleeful about this new trick, he volunteers to go to the palace and give the king the report on his sheep. Gyges uses the ring's invisibility to seduce the queen, kill the king and take over the kingdom. At the end of the story Plato turns to his student and says,
"Having given both to the just and unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see
whither desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the very act the just and unjust man to
be proceeding along the same road...and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force
of law."
In other words, the just and the unjust will go down the same road of injustice if
1. they think no one is watching, or
2.they are forced by a law they cannot evade.
Plato came from an Athenian family prominent in politics. Disgusted and sickened by the execution of his friend Socrates in 399 as well as the corruption and violence in Athenian politics, Plato followed the path of philosophy as he sought to cure the ills of society.
As to the question of subterfuge, I worry about the conundrum of accepting and abiding by truth. Why is facing the truth so hard? Perhaps the root of the problem is fear, especially fear of the loss or damage to one's ego. Breaking the illusion of perceived perfection has a domino effect that could topple the empire of everything one has said or done, independently or in collusion. Unfortunately, the threat of the toppling of truth for the last three and a half years has left the country in a state in which it really doesn't know where it stands.
As for educating children in the height of the Covid pandemic, the truth is people will get sick and maybe even die as they gather in small and large groups. Even hybrid school plans are at great risk. Teachers, who are well acquainted with the behavior of children Pre-K through high school, have known for years how kids--all kids, not just the little guys, spread germs. It's a no-brainer. Masks will come off, children will talk, laugh, yell, cough, sneeze, touch each other. They aren't robots that will sit quietly facing the teacher, who by the way, won't be parked for eight hours at the front of the classroom. Of course, Betsy DeVos wouldn't know this because our Secretary of Education isn't an educator. And just because a person went to school doesn't make him or her an expert on how schools should be run.
As a teacher and an advocate of children for many years, I am frustrated and angry. Isn't it time to side with the children--to protect them from violence, injustice, and sickness so they can grow up to be healthy and happy adults? Don't our precious resources, the ones who will carry on our legacy, deserve this much at the very least? And could we please stop acting like this "new normal" is permanent? The virus may be here to stay, but scientists are working tirelessly for a vaccine for 2021. There will come a time when life will return to some semblance of the "old normal."
When I was fourteen I fell in love with Anne Frank's story and I'm going to return to her words of comfort now. Despite Plato's somewhat melancholy philosophy, despite the hell Anne and her family endured during the Holocaust, she wrote in her diary, "In spite of everything I believe people are really good at heart." Let's prove her right. Let's do the right thing for our children and the teachers and ancillary staff who care for them.
Subterfuge: Latin subterfugere, to flee secretly
Pronounced (sub' ter fyudj)
No human being is expendable. The possibility of spreading and infecting a student or adult involved in the education process is much greater than if we take another semester, or possibly year off. In the scheme of life that time out of school will be nothing compared to the loss of life/lives of those who have to be there. Truthfully, the only ones who can make an informed decision about the starting of school are those who are directly involved in the educational process on a day-by-day basis.
ReplyDelete