There’s been a lot of talk in my world about kids returning to school.
Everyone has an opinion, and it seems as if you’re forced to be on one side or the other. I’ve been approached by people wondering when I “stopped supporting the teachers,” and I have responded that I will forever choose my kids and will make decisions based on what I feel is best for them.
Being a parent and an organizer sometimes causes conflict, but I’m telling you, I will choose my kiddos every time. And I will choose the kiddos over there … and the kiddos over there … you get the picture.
Because I organize poor folks, food insecurity, addiction, and poverty don’t take the summers off. And I’m telling ya, I sit and wonder how it is that systems use the kiddos as their champions one minute and then forget about their basic needs the next.
That’s been one of my biggest points of interest during the school or no school debate. Back in March, when COVID-19 shut the state down, we heard a lot about how the education system was worried about kids being at home because they knew they were hungry. They knew they were in abusive and neglectful homes. They knew they lived with grandparents who were struggling, but when the talk began about reopening schools, there was far more attention being brought to adult’s personal concerns rather than the kiddos they’ve been known to say they love.
And before you even start with me, I know that teachers are people, too, and the point of this is not to say that they should be the sacrificial lamb, which is a very untrue phrase that’s been lobbed at me countless times on my social media posts; the sacrificial lambs are the essential workers who were made to work in physical contact with the general public for weeks on end for low wages with no PPE and no paid sick days, followed closely behind by childcare workers, in my opinion. But that’s neither here nor there.
My point is this: We’ve had months to start working on a plan for public schools. I’m reading an awful lot of pleas from teachers who want to work with the parents. Well, why have we all sat around since March and not done anything? We knew it would come to this. Eventually, whether we agree or not, we will have to reopen the entire country, and getting kids back to school is a huge part of that. Parents have needs. Children have needs. Teachers have needs. So why are we so upset by decisions – or lack of them, in my opinion – at the eleventh hour?
We have to rethink what public education looks like from this point on. People have been screaming about it for years as public education continues to be defunded. So, what’s been stopping us from redesigning this system? If teachers can use their unionized power to walkout two years in a row, then why not focus on redesigning public education? Especially in a state where public education is failing.
I tell my teenagers not to come to me with a problem unless they have a solution. Why? Because complaining without a solution is whining, and I have little patience for whining. And I especially have little patience for it when it comes to professional adults. I have said it on my social media posts: Start naming solutions rather than drawing a line in the sand.
The problem with the education system is the same problem within all of our systems – one is designed to rely on the other. And the problem with the design of our systems is that this virus has uncovered every vulnerability. Not one part of our country was prepared to deal with a pandemic, and Americans, especially in higher socioeconomic classes, aren’t used to being so uncomfortable. This pandemic is unnerving to a majority of Americans, which plays out as fear, anxiety, and conspiracy theories.
We can’t sit here and pretend that we didn’t know school was due to start. We can’t continue to work in silos when it comes to opening up. Talk to childcare workers who have done this for months already. Now is not the time for this Us vs. Them crap. Post ideas and not arguments. If this pandemic has shown us one thing, it’s how difficult it is for a majority of us to see past the end of our own noses. It is time for us to collaborate and figure out what’s best for the kids. My kids, your kids, and those kids over there.
We cannot continue to wait until the last minute to expect centuries-old systems to change. Complaining is not change.
Onward,
Amy Jo
