Visitor Post
Today’s first post was written by guest stylist Nick Caraway
Have Mask, Will Travel
Kids don’t get the virus. That is until they do. Well, they don’t spread the virus. That is until they do. I’m one of those poor schleps that works as a teacher. Except, I don’t have my own classroom. I’m a support teacher that goes into other teacher’s rooms and share an eight by twelve office with seven other people. It’s perfectly safe. That is until it isn’t. In order to prepare for these conditions, we were given two masks, a gaiter, and a face shield. I think we were given a bar of soap too.
The common refrain is that kids don’t get the virus and when they do, they don’t suffer. Some within the administration have even argued that kids aren’t spreaders. Sure, that’s why I get sick every September. I get sick because they aren’t spreaders. Sure. Makes perfect sense. Our district is one of those that went back to face to face instruction almost immediately. So, half of our students are at home. Half of them are there. We teach them at the same time. We do this even though many of us are also sick ourselves.
Here’s the issue. Our governor really doesn’t want to make the call on what we should do. He believes in shucking leadership to the local level. So, they stepped up and made some decisions. Except those decisions were wrong. At least that’s true if you ask him. So, we are doing a proverbial Texas two-step with the virus. We have already gotten multiple letters about students testing positive. They can’t name them. They can’t tell you if they were in your class. They certainly won’t tell someone like me because I’m not the official classroom teacher.
Two years ago, my doctors gave me the worst news of my life. I am a diabetic. Fortunately, I don’t need insulin, but I still have to watch my diet, take a cocktail of pills every day, and have all the assorted side effects you’d expect. It also means I’m immunocompromised. I realize that’s an awfully big word for the president and the governor, but it describes any number of adults working in schools and more than a few of the children.
So, we do the dance that only we can do. We go from classroom to classroom and travel the halls, so that we expose ourselves to hundreds of students a day. We have had multiple positive tests, but no one really knows how many is too many? Some districts say ten percent. Others say we’ll know when we get there. Unfortunately, I work in one of those. So, all of us are waiting for the virus to come tap our shoulder.
Those of you with children and grandchildren might be tempted to criticize teachers. All we are doing is teaching some students in class and some students on computer at the same time. We have to plan lessons that can be completed both virtually and in person. We do all this while given very little PPE and putting our own health on the line. So, consider that when the next parent/teacher conference comes up.
Nick, God bless you and keep you safe! May your case of COVID never develop to higher status and leave you quickly. I recall that when i began teaching over half a century ago that I came down in serial fashion with all the childhood illnesses that I had previously avoided by some miracle. That first year was so bad. The second year at another school was just as bad. I had a hospitalization. Then I changed careers. You are a saint!
1No, I don’t have COVID. I have underlying health conditions that would make getting COVID very bad for me. Thank you for your concern though.
2Teachers should be among the highest paid professionals. (Disclaimer: I taught at a community college, so it was adults that made me sick in the Fall).
That said, we have 3 small grandchildren we love to high Heavens even though almost every time we see them we come home with head colds or (as my mom would say) the whoopsies.
3I taught in several places as a first grade teacher. In Tegusagalpa Honduras, In Trier Germany in Fort Bend Texas, and
Huntsville and in Austin. Most of my teaching was in Austin for first graders. In the summer I taught English as a second language.
First Graders are the most wonderful kids to teach…they think the teacher knows everything. The watch everything you do.
However, school teaching has changed so much, even before the pandemic, that I would find it hard to teach. So Parents, thank your children’s teachers. They are building back our country.
4@Nick Caraway
Nice piece, thanks.
Btw How’s Jay Gatsby?
5lazrgrl: “Teachers should be among the highest paid professionals.”
In the 70s a member of the Texas legislature explained this to me. Teachers are supposed to be dedicated, which means they don’t need to be paid much. If they ask for more pay, they aren’t dedicated and should not be teachers.
He made this claim with an exasperated air, as if it was so obvious even a grubby steelworker should understand it without it being explained.
6Jay was the ultimate victim of the one percenters Micr. Sadly, they just couldn’t accept him as one of their own…
My parents were both teachers that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. The funny thing about that time is that people around the community recognized that teachers were paid little. So, local merchants would give teachers discounts from things like movies and other common consumer goods.
Those discounts are fewer and further between. A lot of focus has been put on starting pay. First year teachers make very good money. I am 23 years in with a masters degree and I don’t make that much more. Imagine any other job where someone 23 years in makes only a little more than they did in year one.
7Every word in your post is true. A good friend of mine was able to retire from the classroom this fall and thank goodness because he’s on immunosuppressants.
We had a foster child for 4 years and I remember Mom saying, “You wouldn’t be sick so often if you didn’t keep your house so cold” (67 degrees). My reply was, “I wouldn’t be sick so often if I didn’t have a 5-year-old in Kindergarten who brings home every communicable disease on the planet.” And I just had one….teachers have 35 of them at a time!
8Nick, I would say “Stay safe!” but that would be a bad joke. I don’t know how you do it, but I’m grateful that you do. How can you work in a place where you know that some of the people you see have tested positive for COVID-19, but no one will tell you who they are? That’s insane. Teachers should not be sacrificial lambs.
9As far as in-person group instruction is concerned, I think risking the health and lives of students, families, teachers, and staff members is stupid and unethical.
10As parents and grandparents, teachers have always been our heroes, but even more so in these times. I’m no medical expert or epidemiologist, but it’s pretty obvious that part of the surge in coronavirus is tied to school openings in person. And as you pointed out, kids do get it, do spread it, and on and on. While I understand some parents think the best thing for their kids is to be back to school in person, and in some areas a lack of precautions, they are risking all teachers and staff as well as their families. The lack of leadership starting in the White House and statehouses should be criminal. And it just continues.
11We’ve always thought educators were underpaid considering our kids are the future. But unfortunately, people will say kids are the future until they’re asked to put their money where their mouth is. Time and time again, school funding increases are voted down. It’s sad.
Please take care of yourself, Nick.
I have a younger relative who attends middle school in a NE Texas district. He caught COVID at football practice and very nearly infected his grandparents. HIS PARENTS STILL WANT HIM PLAYING FOOTBALL!!!
12My oldest teaches at an Early College here in NC. One of my dearest friends teaches in VA. Every day, every damn day, they risk their lives because the Orange Covidiot is TOTALLY clueless about how real life works.
There aren’t adequate words in the Webster’s Unabridged or the Oxford English to describe my feelings for that thing that passes himself off as a president.
13My heart goes out to you, Nick. Will hold you in the Light, as Quakers say. My mother was a speech pathologist, covering 3 different elementary and middle schools, and as she said, she spent her whole professional life looking in children’s mouths. Unsurprisingly, she also got whatever colds and flu they brought to the speech therapy sessions. Anyone who thinks kids don’t spread respiratory diseases has obviously never spent time with actual kids.
14Nick, bless you. Granddaughter, daughter and mother of a teacher here, (yes I taught too, this sort of things runs in families), and this makes me so angry. Anyone who has ever raised a small child knows they are delightful walking Petri dishes. The Journal of American Medicine has studied the impact closing schools had on slowing down the pandemic:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2769033 to the surprise of no one reading this, closing in person instruction has a major impact on decreasing the incidence of COVID19.
The key takeaway:
“Extrapolating these results to the US population, the authors estimate that school closure may have been associated with 1.37 million fewer cases of COVID-19 over a 26-day period and 40 600 fewer deaths over a 16-day period during the spring of 2020.”
I know having someone tell you that you are right doesn’t keep you safe but hopefully having JAMA to back you up will give you some ammunition if you need to throw down.
Bless you Nick, you, my son, and teachers are in my prayers every night.
15Nick.
16Thank you for your service.