I've mentioned before that a vibrant, healthy bus driver in our district died of COVID in December. One of my journalists wrote a lovely profile tribute to the man. We shared the story on our Facebook page yesterday, and the piece has already been viewed more than 400 times. Read it here.
Also yesterday: Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds posted this tone-deaf tweet.
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And ALSO yesterday: I interviewed a woman in Austin, Texas, for an oral history project focusing on teacher-poets across the country during the pandemic. The woman I talked with has been teaching online or in a limited face-to-face capacity since August. The most students she has had in her room is six.
Have any of your faculty contracted the virus? I asked.
Yes, she said: one.
Meanwhile, in my school building, half the size of hers, at least five staff have contracted the virus. One who was hit hard (although never hospitalized) is having heart arrhythmia. This teacher is now on blood thinners and awaiting the electroshock treatment that will hopefully reset her heartbeat. Her cardiologist told her the arrhythmia is most likely fallout from her bout with COVID.
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I don't want this space to be a gloom & doom report. But 330 days ago, I said I would pay attention to what was happening and write about it.
So this is it.
There is a rending disconnect between the caution in Texas (Texas?!) and the devil-may-care attitude in Iowa.
I feel a schism between our governor's cheerful rah-rah and the sorrow I hear in the quotes from students who miss their bus driver, the man who for years greeted them in the morning, wished them well at the end of their day, and bought their spaghetti supper tickets.
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A highlight from the day:
At the beginning of 6th-period newspaper class, Molly, one of the two lead editors, opened our time together assertively.
We (her adviser and classmates) immediately fell into line.
Molly had a list of items demanding attention in our short-Wednesday 33-minute class period:
- She needed me to pull in a student for an interview for her podcast.
- She needed a horizontal photo to match a ready-to-post story.
- She needed other newspaperish stuff...
But #1 on her list was the need for scissors.
Molly was wearing a fluffy masterpiece of a sweater that could not have been more perfect for this -8 degree day. But she was having snagging problems. Several loose loops were poking up and out. She wanted scissors to cut them off.
"WAIT!" our class cried in unison. Cutting off a snag would cause a hole! The class agreed that Molly needed to pull the snag back into the underside of her sweater,.
"Use a bobby-pin!" said our wise soul Camryn. Others chimed in. "Bobby pin! Bobby pin!"
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My classroom is a treasure trove of the unexpected: I have bandaids and nail polish and glue guns and deodorant. I have granola bars and dental floss and lint rollers and suicide hotline numbers. I have ballerina tutus and silly string and envelopes and tiny rubber ducks. I'm betting most English teachers have equally curious catalogs of classroom trinkets.
But I did not have a bobby pin. Instead, I offered my magic fingers. (Yes, I called them that.)
In under two minutes, I'd pulled Molly's six or seven offending snags to the backside of her sweater. Not the best social distancing, but we were both masked.
"Are you going to blog about this?" Molly asked.
Of course.
Enough.
Be well.
Write.
Allison
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| The AHSneedle.com editors. Molly is second from the right in the second row. Camryn is on the far right, second row. Ariel is at the tippy top. |
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