It's Not Parents vs. Teachers; It's Life vs. Death by Dr. Michael Flanagan

Original art by Pamela Michaels

There has been a growing push by the Trump administration and the Coronavirus deniers to reopen schools, and it is about to get ugly. Politicians are trying to convince parents that the reason they will not be able to return to work is because of lazy, selfish teachers.

Let us understand from the beginning here—it is not parents versus teachers. We are all in this together. Teachers are parents. Parents are teachers. My own daughter attends the school where I teach. We are not two different groups; we are one. We all care about our children.

Teachers understand fully the burden that parents have been facing. We know how difficult it has been for parents to assist their kids during the remote learning period that began in March. We know, and we regret, that the burden has fallen so heavily on parents. As professional educators, we immediately sought to create and improve our online teaching strategies. We sought feedback from parents and our administrators, and continue to refine our craft.

Parents know how difficult it has been for teachers. The vast majority have resoundingly supported and encouraged teachers as we’ve navigated the new remote learning platforms. Even the criticism received has been understood and appreciated.

Everything was new, to all of us. Both parents and teachers have felt like we are all in this together, because we are. We all truly want to help our children, our students, learn. We want them to feel safe and connected in the midst of worldwide turmoil.

So what has happened this summer? Why, all of a sudden, are teachers now being presented as self-serving because they are concerned for their safety when returning to school buildings? Why are some parents characterized as uncaring for the welfare of teachers and our concerns about reopening?

Did things really change that quickly, or are politicians, pundits and those on social media especially, trying to create tension and sow division between teachers and parents?

Here’s one consistent argument: “Doctors and nurses are essential workers, and have been risking their lives throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Teachers should stand ready to do the same thing, or be fired.”

Of course, our medical workers are heroes. They have been risking their lives to save others throughout this catastrophe. And, they have been treated terribly by the Government, highlighted by the severe lack of personal protective equipment. They have been endangered by the people who insist that the threat of COVID-19 is a hoax and refuse to wear masks. These social media “experts” are the reason our healthcare workers are at such risk. Why would their treatment of educators be any different?

Politicians want the pressure on. They want to force schools to open before it is safe in order to get the economy moving. They want this, despite the fact that scientific data does not support the notion that reopening schools is safe. If we were to open schools now, we would literally be sacrificing children, teachers, and the health of families, to the wishes of these politicians who clearly have no regard for our lives.

To accomplish this, they are seeking to create discord among us—it is a divide-and- conquer strategy at its most obvious. Scapegoat teachers and their unions as lazy and greedy, as unconcerned about the stress parents are under. Portray parents as having no concern for the professionals who educate their children.

Plain and simple: it is wrong to reopen schools at this time. If schools are open now, there will be no safety. Social distancing in a school, even in a blended hybrid model, will never work. Air conditioning re-circulates the infected air. Schools cannot fund the constant cleaning, testing, and infrastructure maintenance necessary to make things sanitary. And it would be virtually impossible to enforce the mask mandates, especially among the children of COVID-19 hoax-mongers.

It is wrong to force people back to work so they won’t have to risk eviction, food insecurity, and poverty—those who cannot afford to stay home. This will disproportionately affect communities of color, as COVID-19 has throughout the crisis. This, I would argue, is by design, a fringe benefit for the white nationalist base of far too many of these politicians.

The government is seeking to penalize workers who do not return to jobs to work under dangerous conditions by taking their unemployment benefits. The government threatens to penalize schools that do not fully reopen by eliminating funding.

The real tragedy here is that none of this is actually about students, parents, or teachers. Trump does not care about education, nor does he care about the social and emotional needs of children. It’s all about money for the wealthy. The wealthy: the elites who can afford to keep their own children home, while the rest of us risk our lives and the lives of our children, for their own benefit.

Teachers are essential workers, on that we can all agree. And we will continue to teach our best throughout the crisis. But we must be essential while continuing to work remotely. To place children and teachers in the same building simply because it forwards the agenda of Trump and some politicians is foolhardy at best, mass murder at worst.

Children will recover from the difficulties of remote learning. They will recover from not being face-to-face with their teachers as they learn the Pythagorean Theorem, cell meiosis, or how to write a business letter. What they won’t be able to recover from is death. Death, or the fact that they have carried home a disease that killed their family members. They will never get over the emotional burden of losing a classmate, of losing a teacher.

Teachers want to help families struggling during remote learning. We love our students and our profession, and we want to support parents during this once-in-a- lifetime crisis.

We need to work together, and not against each other.