The Absurd Non Sequitur: School in the Midst of Covid

More than 3,660,300 people in the United States have been infected with coronavirus and at least 139,100 people have died at the time of the writing of this post. The White House says it is safe for children to return to brick and mortar type education. Ask any public school educator and you will hear the cry of an absurd--and I might add insane, example of a non sequitur--the description we use for a statement that does not follow logically from the facts.

This post will be short and to the point. What follows are the recent statements made from the White House Rose Garden:

• Trump says children and parents are dying from the trauma of not going back to school.

False. No one is dying from not being in school. Kids and adults have a greater chance of  getting sick and dying if they go to school, even with masks and social distancing.

• Mrs. Mike Pence says that kids are struggling...they need their friends, teachers, and routine.

 Good alternatives through various media sources are available for the short term, every public school district is supplying laptops and hot spots for students currently  without them. Students can easily interact with friends through ZOOM, Face Time, What's App, texts and emails.

• Mike Pence says many children need mental services that they can receive only at school.

Many public schools have counselors but not psychologists. Their job is so inundated  with scheduling that, although they would prefer it, they rarely have time to see kids with  emotional needs.  Special education students may receive additional help. This has, however, never been a reason for kids to attend school. Public services are available for children and families in crisis.

• Mike Pence also says that schools should open for the academic and intellectual development of our children.

While in-school learning has obvious advantages, it lacks rich opportunities for improving computer skills and thinking outside the box. School at home also teaches students to use the flexibility it offers to their advantage, more time to work on essays or projects or reading assignments. Thanks to technology, teachers can now read and comment on essays at the same time students are writing them from home. ZOOM and email enable teachers to work with individual students who need extra help.

• The White House says there is no substitute for in-class learning.

Public schools are not looking for a substitute for in-class learning. There is no substitute, but that really isn't the point. Educators are planning for an alternative. There is a difference between substitute and alternative, but one is not better than the other; it's just different, and in the current pandemic, different is an excellent choice!

Let's return to the new Lambent Literacy word non sequitur. This word is directly from Latin and it means it does not follow. Its first known use in English was 1540, and it was often used to imply that the inference seems to appear from out of the blue.

And that's the way the White House's demand for sending kids into a burning building feels--out of the blue without any logic. In fact, not protecting our future resources, our legacy, our precious children and the circle of people whom they might infect is seriously irresponsible for the leaders of our nation.

Let's stop underestimating the adaptability and creativity of our children as well as the public education system. Perhaps if we stopped thinking of children as fragile, we might teach them what it takes to be strong, to persevere, to work hard to get what they want instead of having it handed to them.

We can do this! No one is going to fall behind academically if the adults in our kids' lives will get on board and view at-home school as a brilliant learning opportunity that is just as, if not more challenging and rewarding as sitting in a classroom.

         

Subterfuge: Fleecing the Truth about Public Education

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)

The Lugubrious Landscape of Loss

On this July 4th day of good cheer, I am sad. My dear friend of thirty years had to put her dog down this week. Although I am a long-time cat owner, I loved that dog and this unexpected sad news hit me hard. I considered this sweetheart part of my inner circle; we were tight, and yet there aren't enough words to describe the sadness his owner felt, and still feels--these bonds are not broken lightly. Don't get me wrong. I realize that the loss of a beloved pet is not to be, cannot be, measured against the loss of a loved one, but this 2020 Covid quarantine has removed from us a vital sense of perspective.

Since mid-March everyone I know has experienced a level of depression, and it comes and goes in much the same way our expectations of life wax and wane--celebrations of a birthday or an anniversary or a graduation or a holiday too often taken for granted. Thoughts of The Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas with my own family and friends are now shrouded in uncertainty. Will the months ahead allow large family gatherings, or will we still be clinging to the memories of 2019, praying for an end to this nightmare? Be prepared, dear friends. There's a good chance we will not be gathered with the usual crowd around the carving of the turkey this year.

Putting holidays aside for a moment, what about the simple everyday disappointments we're feeling right now? Life hasn't exactly come to a halt, you know, and many of the same challenges we faced before Covid-19 are still hanging around:  the A/C is broken, Bill fell and needed surgery on his leg, the dishwasher finally stopped working, Andy wasn't injured but his car is totaled, and his sister's boyfriend broke up with her. And, oh yeah, my rotator cuff hurts like hell.

Right. Maybe none of those things happened to you, plus--thank God, no one in your family has Covid, but you still can't seem to shake off those quarantine blues.

The Lambent Literacy word of the week must no doubt address our general state of mind in the midst of a pandemic which is still in the first wave and getting worse by the day. So here it is--lugubrious.  It means sad, dismal, mournful, depressed. Its Latin origin is straightforward: lugere, lugubris--to mourn, and the word came into English use in the 17th century. So here we are four centuries later feeling the full effects of the word. How aptly it describes that barren, treeless landscape of loss. And yet maybe a more accurate description might be the altered brain state to which we have succumbed.

In his book Mind to Matter, Dawson Churgh explains the range of healing our brains are capable of, from miraculous physical cures to the ripple effects of the emotional contagion of being around happy people. He believes we can change our thoughts and subsequently our behavior by altering our state of mind. Easier said than done, right? Maybe not, if we start with the most obvious solution. If happiness is increased by being around happy people, what could be easier? Go find yourself a Pollyanna? Okay, but then we must ask, will our desired positive state of mind be totally dependent on constantly seeking out and attaching ourselves to happy people?

Since most of us want to be in charge of our own happiness, I've come up with five depression busters that might be of help:

1. Substitute a negative thought pattern for a positive one.  For example, it's raining and you had plans to go for a walk in the park. Since you've made a list of alternative activities to do during quarantine, you simply go to the next item on your list. Abundance mentality at work.

2. Spend time in green spaces. Decades of research prove it's beneficial to your physical and mental health. Better yet, grow something. Nothing brings more hope than watching a plant grow.

3. Eat healthy food and exercise regularly, even for a few minutes each day. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins that reduce your perception of pain and trigger positive feelings.

4. Spend time thinking about the actual source of your unhappiness. The pain doesn't go away until you address the real cause of it. Either let it go, forgive the one you need to forgive, or fix it.

5. Our reactions to sadness are often the result of how we have been trained to react. We have a choice. And yes, you can choose to be around happy people with a positive outlook.

The lugubrious landscape of loss is often self-induced. Take back the control of the happiness you deserve. Live long and prosper....and thrive in your new state of contentment.