‘I want to be back in the classroom.’ But soaring COVID-19 rates put everyone at risk.
As a teacher who spent months teaching through an online capacity, it was strange to head back into my classroom and see my students. To be honest, it was scary. Presently in America we have over 200,000 deaths resulting from a worldwide pandemic that we have never seen in our lifetimes. This is of course compounded by those who insist that COVID-19 is nothing more than a flu and even worse by those who are still calling it a Democratic hoax.
Then to add insult to injury, I find it shocking what so many seem to be saying about teachers on various social media platforms. I had no idea that I was lazy, entitled, uneducated, or pathetic. I was also unaware that my job was easy and that I was nothing more than an overpaid babysitter. I naively thought that when we ousted the former governor who shan’t be named that the days of bad mouthing teachers would be over. My mistake. Apparently the four years of strikes and sickouts were merely a prequel to what the universe had in store for us in education.
As a teacher, I want to be back in the classroom. I want to be with my students. I want to be able to have face-to-face interaction with them and help them learn. I don’t know a single teacher who doesn’t want this. I did twice the work when I was teaching online as compared to when we are meeting in person. With this being said, I don’t think we should be in our classrooms yet. Pandemic numbers are soaring. People are getting sick and dying. I have witnessed adults refusing to wear masks for the twenty minutes they are in Walmart so trying to get children to do so for eight hours a day seems ridiculous. Social distancing is also virtually impossible within a school. Children touch everything and everyone. There just aren’t enough of me to handle the constant sanitizing, repetitive mask lectures, and still make some form of attempt to teach a core content to high school students. Multiple sports teams are presently quarantined, including the football team in my district.
What happens when asymptomatic students begin spreading this plague to their teachers and other adults working within the school building? How many will become sick? How many will possibly suffer long-term health issues or even die? How many people will we spread it to when we take it home to our friends and families? How many lawsuits are going to occur because a student or staff member contracts COVID-19 from their school? Until there is a viable vaccine, we shouldn’t be opening schools. By continuing education in an online variety, we will be able to keep our students, our school staff, and our families safe. Putting people in jeopardy unnecessarily is reckless.
Sarah Asalon is a Lexington native, a mother, and has been teaching for eight years.