Donald Trump stood beneath Mount Rushmore on July 3 and called our teachers fascists. Kristi Noem applauded.
South Dakota’s actual teachers appear to care about our students and the risk of their getting coronavirus far more than Trump and Noem do. Take, for instance, this statement from USD political science professor Timothy Schorn, who is agonizing over the challenges he faces in teaching while keeping our students and faculty safe this fall:
“I really want to see the students again, and I want to see them face to face,” said Timothy Schorn, a political science professor at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. “But I’m very concerned that what we’re doing on college campuses is creating the new round of COVID hot spots.”
…Schorn said he supports a hybrid teaching format in which most lectures are held remotely by computer but some hands-on discussions or project work is done in person, a concept that he said would likely require more work, effort and planning by instructors than solely teaching in classrooms.
Schorn said it is important for administrators and the public to know that faculty and staff are raising concerns about returning to in-person classroom teaching and pushing for more online options solely due to fears of contracting or spreading the coronavirus.
“We’re not pushing for this to step on people’s toes, to take away their rights or freedoms or to get out of work,” Schorn said. “We’re not doing it out of selfishness or laziness; we’re doing it out of concern for ourselves, our students and our families” [Bart Pfankuch, “University Faculty in S.D. Fear That Return to Campus May Lead to Covid-19 Outbreaks,” South Dakota News Watch, 2020.07.24].
As always, our professors are conscientiously carrying out their duty to keep our students safe and our schools strong. Yet those are exactly the smart leaders and public servants whom the White House and our Governor and Legislature demean, disempower, and defund.
Opening schools is wanton disregard for public safety. Have you met young people?
““Distancing”… Have You Met Young People?
On-campus protocols proposed by universities include testing, distancing, class shifts, regular disinfection of classrooms, reconfiguration of campus housing, and even quaranteams. Except our on-campus guidelines are only as effective as those adhered to off campus.
Off Campus
My 4th year at UCLA I was Interfraternity Council President (not on my LinkedIn profile). As king of the jarheads, I was privy to the tragedy that unfurled each week from the collision of youth, alcohol, and newfound freedom. In the same year, a Lambda Chi passed out from drinking on the roof of his fraternity, rolled off into the driveway, and was found the next morning in a coma. Our IFC VP (a Phi Kap) got shi**y drunk at a party in Malibu, decided to take a jetski out at 2 am, and washed up 5 days later. Our treasurer (Sigma Chi) hanged himself after his girlfriend rejected his marriage proposal. Yep, but today’s youth will definitely wear masks and keep 6 feet from each other off campus.
Gen Z is by far the age group most likely to be asymptomatic. They are also most likely to feel immortal and defy healthcare guidance. So, both physically and psychologically, young people are most inclined to be superspreaders.
Letting students congregate in rooms permanently sealed for temperature control, regardless of masks and distancing protocols, plays like the opening scene of Contagion 2. We don’t have technology yet to sanitize sealed air, or air circulated through a building. Air purifiers aren’t up to the task.”
https://www.profgalloway.com/higher-ed-enough-already
https://www.profgalloway.com/uss-university
drumpf demands his kid go to school, but the school basically told drumpf to stick it. This is a wingnut conspiracy to kill off all born fetii so the koch bro won’t have to pay any taxes at all.
balance this, teach….
Coronavirus Cases:
4,306,223
Deaths:
149,271
drumpf body count reached 2 new milestones today. drumpf is a criminal failure of a bogus potus and needs to be held accountable for hoaxing this once easily stifled pandemic into a runaway freight train of death.
I’ll believe faculty lecturing for 50 minute classroom periods while wearing a mask when I see it. As far as online learning, it will always have BOTH pros AND cons–just as does lecturing, which latter has been increasingly demonized among educators as students have somehow devolved to have shorter attention spans and developed an inability to take notes.
College teachers are usually a bit higher on the SILT scale. I’d listen to this fellow if I were you.
Educating this year just isn’t going to measure up to previous years. That’s unavoidable. I think schools below college level need to accept that and do the best they can in the situation they have. Once there is a vaccine, some years of adjustment will be required to get back on a uniform system.
No child left behind…: I think a lot of them in our area are barley making the grade. Parents can’t handle home schooling and kids are out in 4 wheelers instead. Teachers aren’t responsible for education parents are. Teachers are only guidance, which most are dam good at, but the buck stops at home. Our kids were taught school isn’t ’t out at 3:15, now learn what the public schools systems wont or don’t teach you. Complain about homework? Learn another language, learn other governments, learn today’s news now you have homework. Sad to say I see a lot of “left behinds” is the answer sending everyone back to school? I don’t believe putting teachers at risk is in their job description, but a lot of kids need them right now.
DaveFN, I have a hard time imagining myself conducting class by my normal methods en masque. Professor Schorn says the safety protocols will affect his teaching:
I do wonder how generations before us learned when university classes were nothing but lecture and note-taking. Did we delay scientific progress by hobbling previous generations with lecture? Would we have invented the Internet 100 years sooner if Harvard had implemented shorter lectures and more group learning in 1636?
We have to accept, as Debbo says, that education just won’t be the same this year. We have to stop pretending that coronavirus is just going to go away and that we can all have our packed (i.e., optimally efficient and lower-cost) classrooms, our college basketball games, and our full revenues from students in the dorms paying for meal plans.
T notes the vital role we parents play in supporting kids’ learning when the normal public school model isn’t viable. Do parents have any similar role in college students’ learning during a pandemic? College freshmen face a challenge in normal times making the transition to independence at college. When their access to support from professors, counselors, residence hall programming, new friends in the dorms, and other on-campus support is limited by necessary pandemic safety protocols, where do they turn for support?
The pandemic calls on all of us to recognize our interdependence… but it also calls on students of all ages to discover and develop a lot of personal initiative, to take charge of their own learning. I may need to think more about that paradox….
CH full force on your comment! Not only is it education on the pandemic and what this means for eye opening safety, but in general on Mach education. Ethnicity, health, wellness, societal issues while collaborating style when Educating. Education is power, the one given free gift we can give to our little beings goes by the wayside. It’s easier to crack a beer in our area with the drumpf toting lawn flags and be proud the youth are like “we” are. I don’t want our kids to be like “we” are, that’s not a good thing in our evolved society. Change is needed, they need to be prepared and more “fairer” individuals and above all educated. Successful parenting is teaching, educating to assist in tomorrow’s world not the world we grew up in, same logic isn’t healthy.
Has anyone heard anything about parochial schools and their protective measures? Clearly, they have the money to pretty much do as they want to do with classroom size and with home on line schooling.
Going back to school is such a waste of humanity, but what can you expect from republicans but more death and long term health issues for the survivors.
Reflect on these issues as one reads the New Yorker article.
1) What was all the ballyhoo about Janklow ‘wiring the schools’? What means and ends came from that effort & expense? How did the state education department or the schools ignore the opportunity?
2) Consider how far behind are SD’s 3d/4th tier colleges and high schools from adapting to the information education and economy. Consider whether and how these institutions have any hope of catching up or preparing students for the 21st Century.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/how-harvards-star-computer-science-professor-built-a-distance-learning-empire
“The public schools are the single most important integrative institution in most countries. Scandinavian countries understand that, and have developed a ‘whole person’ approach to education that has strengthened their societies.
“In the U.S., we are still trying to repel the unrelenting attacks of religious fundamentalists, racists and market ideologues on the very concept of public education, let alone education that emphasizes circles of belonging.”
BOOM!
Sheila Kennedy nails what ails our system of education, in addition to Covid-19. The entire essay, chunks of which are openly cribbed from David Brooks, is right here:
is.gd/UHtYn8
Debbo for some reason I cannot open your link, ? Tried on iPhone and iPad ?
Can you double check please and thank u?
Try this T… https://www.sheilakennedy.net/2020/07/circles-of-belonging/
Utah wingnut led group decided to advance the causes of for profit companies ahead of school children because….
https://www.salon.com/2020/07/25/politicians-and-business-interests-ignored-health-officials-to-control-reopening-cases-exploded_partner/
Thanks mike f I got it!!
Covid raging among Florida school children.
“(CNN)Just weeks before schools must open across Florida, the numbers of new cases and hospitalizations due to Covid-19 have surged.
On July 16, the state had a total of 23,170 children ages 17 and under who had tested positive since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Florida Department of Health. By July 24, that number jumped to 31,150.
That’s a 34% increase in new cases among children in eight days.” https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/27/health/florida-covid-children-hospitalizations/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_source=twCNN&utm_content=2020-07-27T15%3A30%3A08&utm_medium=social
Of course, these infected children cannot possibly infect their parents or grandparents or anyone else for that matter. Know how I know, the governor’s tell me not to worry about it. There has to be a special place in hell for GNOem and those who are infecting our children.
Major League Baseball’s Covid19 plan lasted 4 days.
Does anyone in their f_ing mind think that college and high school sports, much less dorms, and 7-hours of classes, will last much longer than 4 days?!
Google, which is on the forefront monitoring social issues – was about the first corporation directing work-from-home. Google now says it plans on WFH until mid-2021.
Get a clue. Learn from the history of the Spanish Flu – which ran for 14-24 months.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/07/27/every-sport-has-coronavirus-plan-mlbs-lasted-four-days/
NWSL has succeeded in their plan. They had a few things in their favor.
1. Adult women. Better at making mature decisions and clear on how precious it is to have pro soccer so treating it with great care.
2. Their bubble is in Utah.
3. They held a 6 week tournament with zero infections.
So far in week 3 of the WNBA season there have been zero infections. See #1 above. Their bubble is in Florida. Ugh.
I can’t imagine how baseball or football could possibly succeed and interscholastic and intercollegiate sports and various competitions don’t have a chance.
I have read that many parents are creating pods or mini schools with neighbors and hiring a teacher. Of course that’s fine – if you have the money. Some pods are trying to provide scholarships to meet needs. That’s really decent.
Overall? It’s a disaster with no real organization or leadership. We know the failure comes from the top.