Over the past two years, they have shown up, they have given of themselves, and they have tried. I can count the number of times I've had to remind students to pull their masks up other than their noses on the one hand. They have protested and complained as they developmental are supposed to, but rarely have they complained about the pandemic and what we ask of them.
One reason that my students are making things work is that they are younger. I teach grades 4th through 7th. The stage of life moves quickly when you are that young, and they don't know what they are missing. Unlike high school students, they have much fewer expectations of what life is supposed to be. So when the pandemic hit, the bubble that popped wasn't as big and wasn't as meaningful.
Children develop a sense of "normal" much faster than adults. Now, wearing masks and not doing things in big groups no longer feel extraordinary for most. There is some solace in this, knowing that they do not come into school feeling annoyed at having to put on a mask, but it's also very sad.
From the first moment of this pandemic, the children in our country were not a priority. As the pandemic spread through assisted living homes and a disproportionate amount of older adults were dying of COVID-19, our focus was not on children. This made sense. Not having children in school for fear they would spread it in school and bring it home to elderly family members was a logical concern.
As we got ready for the fall of 2020, it was terrifying. But many of us took risks, and many schools did open in-person. With masks on, students podded up with desks spread out, and we got to work. And for most of the schools that were in-person in the Fall of 2020, it did work. It will take further research to know how well it worked. But, in my observations, in-person in the 2020-2021 school year was far superior to remote school and was worth the risks.
I am frustrated and disappointed in our country and many leaders that we didn't give everything we could to make in-person school happen in the 2020-2021 school year. Buildings were empty throughout cities that could have been as teaching spaces, funds could have poured in to hire and train teachers, and we could have rallied, but we didn't.
Now more than halfway through the 2021-2022 school year, many schools continue to struggle to make things work. While research is scant that mask-wearing in schools is effective and neccsary, our littlest ones are wearing masks all day long and eating lunch silently at their desks. It made sense to have many mitigation factors with children to protect adults, but at this point, adults have access to vaccinations. We continue to ask our children to do more for those unvaccinated who choose to do less.
I don't begrudge what we did last fall to make in-person school work. However, I do question what we are doing now. I'm not going to go to a school board meeting and scream that making children wear masks is child abuse. But I am looking more closely at scientific research around mitigations, and thinking critically about what we are asking out of our children.
People will soon celebrate the biggest unofficial holidays, Super Bowl Sunday, with fewer mitigations (besides vaccinations) since the beginning of the pandemic. At the same time, students are being asked to do much of the same mitigations they have been doing for more than a year.
I teach my students to be critical thinkers, ask hard questions, and be active citizens. When they are older, I hope they look back to these years and wonder if we did right by them. I want them to wonder if what they lost as children did lead to better outcomes for us as a country. I want them to mourn the childhood they didn't have. And I want them to make sure that their children are a priority in the best of times and the worst of times.
My students' generation needs to know that they have been extraordinary. They have acted with kindness, done for others, and in doing may prove to be the greatest generation. However, there is only so much they can take, and there is only so much more we can ask of them.
I hope that we see our students' bright smiles soon, say thank you for all they have done as this pandemic comes to a close, and we can finally let them fully be children again.
No comments:
Post a Comment