Day #189 Writing Through COVID-19: Back to Scrubs

The 14-day positivity average in Cass County was up to 5.4% this morning, so I again donned the scrubs. 

When I wore my first dress last week, I told students I'd be their COVID baramoter: If I'm wearing scrubs, our numbers are over 5%. Mask up. Distance. 
----------------

My first-period broadcasting class was angry today. They're COVID fatigued. "We have to live our lives," one student said. "We can't just live in fear," said another. 

These are kind and respectful kids. They came to school the first days wearing masks and honoring the district's social-distancing recommendations. 

But after five months of high-alert for this virus, and after four weeks of haphazard safety enforcement in school, and after the confusing, ever-changing guidelines from the CDC, everyone--especially our teenagers, for whom a week feels like a year and a month feels like a lifetime--wants to throw in the towel.

Who can blame kids for gravitating to the "no big deal" message. "Invincibility" is already hardwired into their adolescent minds. Plus the "big deal" message from the scientists is such a bummer. 
------------------

What got them going today was word that we won't be having a Homecoming parade. 
Or a Homecoming assembly.
Or a Homecoming dance.

No wonder they just want to declare COVID a hoax, or a live-with-it inconvenience, and just get back to their (very big, larger than life) teenage world.
-------------------

I spend far more time with teenagers than most people do. So I empathized with what they expressed today. I was a big-hearted listener. But I also tried to gently remind them that although their own return to normal was not, likely, a risk to them (which they kept asserting), it does constitute a risk to their parents, grandparents, teachers, and community members.

No, they admitted, they didn't want those people to die. 

But couldn't we have a Homecoming parade? Outside? Wearing masks? Distanced?

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison