No Rush
The desire to “return to normalcy” is palpable. It swirled through the Democratic Convention. While much of the programming was deeply moving and surprisingly fresh, the theme of returning to predictable, certain times was woven throughout the events. The New York Times summed up the desire, noting, “The party has offered Mr. Biden, 77, less as a traditional partisan standard-bearer than as a comforting national healer, capable of restoring normalcy and calm to the United States and returning its federal government to working order.”
The desire for normalcy is undergirding much of the debate around opening of schools. Outside of the political posturing of the Trump administration and its efforts to bully states into in-person teaching, many parents and teachers long for life to return as it was last fall, when children went off to school, every day, as they have for generations across this land.
This desire for predictable lives is a part of our human experience. Patterns protect us, and free us. But in moments of extraordinary change, this desire is also a trap, limiting our sense of the possible, shrinking our capacity to embrace change and create anew.
This is why we should welcome the efforts of teachers to slow us down as states and cities rush toward returning to normal.
In a recent thoughtful essay on reopening schools, Belle Chesler, a public school teacher said:
Let’s just call the situation what it is: a misguided attempt to prop up an economy failing at near Great Depression levels because federal, state, and local governments have been remarkably unwilling to make public policy grounded in evidence-based science. In other words, we’re living in a nation struggling to come to terms with the deadly repercussions of a social safety net gutted even before the virus reached our shores and decisions guided by the most self-interested kind of politics rather than the public good.
This attempt is already failing, as communities with in person classes are experiencing increases in the spread of the virus, forcing closures and renewed chaos.
And it is obvious to everyone that whiter, wealthier districts are in much better positions to open school buildings than those of us in urban areas, where historic neglect by state and federal governments have resulted in crumbling classrooms, lack of basic sanitation, heating and cooling. The idea that our children will be safe in these building is exactly the kind of normal most of us have been fighting against decades.
In many places some parents and teachers have begun to see that the closing of schools is offering us ways to open new possibilities for learning and teaching one another. Old notions of “deschooling” are surfacing in new ways, emphasizing intergenerational connection, creativity, and care for one another and our world.
As the pandemic continues to threaten us, we are facing the need to ask fundamental questions. What is education for? How do people learn? What is the difference between education and school? What do we need to know? What is essential? What do we want to create? How do we care for our children?
These questions are being asked with a new sense of urgency, but also with the sense that we can take the time to explore them together more fully.
Our teachers are right. We cannot and should not rush to reopen schools. But we should open ourselves to the possibilities of what we can create together to protect our children and develop our communities based on values that protect life.