All teachers will need to embrace technology to continue educating our students beginning almost immediately, if not before. This is the same technology with which our students, teens especially, have had an unhealthy relationship for which we were always chiding them. “Look in someone’s eyes, have a conversation, be present, get off your phone for two minutes.” Now, we are here and telling them to tune in for their next lesson. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?
In a large sense, I’ve been thinking about the need to embrace technology for the immediate future, but to still be able to embrace the human aspect of teaching, the personal connection and the feeling of class community we had in the physical classroom. And then, you have to consider that the other kind of embracing is totally on the outs in our society. Unless of course, you are embracing fear. Then, it’s game on!
My beloved and I were in the grocery store yesterday. (Not the dream Spring Break destination, but, hey, we were together.) There was a lady who had been in the grocery store for 3 hours before I got there because the store told her they were receiving a shipment between 3 pm and 5 pm, and it would likely have paper towels and toilet paper. The cashier later confirmed her presence at the store had indeed been for that length of time. During the duration of our time together in line, at a discreet social distance, of course, she received a call from a daughter who had been arrested for shoplifting. She chided the daughter with many expletives, but the basic communication was, “I raised you better than that”. All the while her son is standing in the separate line to scam the limits set by the store. If you don’t know, people have gone Corona crazy. (And if you don’t know, what is your secret? Please share!) People are hoarding things that don’t make sense, like toilet paper, for a virus that is said to be flu like. People are buying things they can not afford “just in case”. Watching the cleaning supplies clear from the shelves makes me wonder what kind of slobby housekeepers live in my area. Don’t you already disinfect when you clean? I know, they are stocking up in case they need it, but in my mind, I’m wondering how much do you need, and how much is a fear of the unknown. Honestly, fear is this weird thing that makes seemingly regular, normal people inexplicably irrational, and if it weren’t fouling up the economy and the lives of my neighbors, I would find humor in it all.
Amid the fear, we are having to embrace a fair amount of foreign behaviors – social distancing, carry out purchases, and living with less options. None of these things are guaranteed to be effective deterrents against COVID 19, but we are all trying because we hope that we can love our neighbor as ourselves through limiting their exposure to any potential germs. We have to be socially distant, anit-embrace if you will, if we hope to win freedom from the disease and its accompanying restrictions and fear.
I attended a funeral this week where the attendance was 10, which includes the minister, the cemetery representative, the funeral director, 3 family members, 3 guests, and me. It was sad to see so few people honoring this lady’s memory. At the time, the group count for CDC was still 50 people. However, I know that beyond any other factor (time of day, day of the week, age of the decedent), the fear of getting ill precluded others joining in the service. She was such a socially correct person, and I know for her, were she still living, that having so few people in attendance would be akin to a high school kid having only 10 followers on their medium of choice. The mercy is that she doesn’t know how few attended her funeral. Her husband openly wept and thanked me for coming, reaching for a hug, unaware of social distancing. He had been consumed with hospice and being the sole caretaker for the last several months. He sought an embrace for comfort.
As we move forward on this journey of digital education, I want to embrace each student with comfort, virtually. I will be starting each video with the same rituals that we use in each class period. I will work to inject humor and silliness (which is my usual style) in each lesson. With each student logging on, I will work to embrace them with kindness, concern and love. I will embrace normalcy at each session because students need to be free from fear. The fearmongering has been unreal. False claims of the military shutting down the nation that a friend of a soldier related, which of course was debunked, can cripple someone. I want to provide a haven for my students that is Corona free and fear free. I want them to embrace joy, hope and Geometry. Okay, maybe embracing Geometry is unrealistic, but a girl can hope, right?
First published March 22, 2020
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