Zealotry vs. Science in the Time of Corona by Tom Stroh

The phrase "I trust the science" is wielded with the same fierce zealotry as any religious fundamentalist slogan these days.

"I trust the science" should be amended to "I trust the science that has been manipulated by others to prove a point with which I agree."

Forgive me for my skepticism (or not, I couldn't care less), but every time I hear someone say "I trust the science" lately, they're speaking in favor of an agenda. People say science, like numbers, doesn't lie. And this may be true. But presentation is manipulable.

Take the pro-schools argument. Parents are (quite reasonably) frustrated and they fear that their children are "falling behind." The notion of "falling behind" is yet another scare tactic of propagandistic manipulation, but let's set that aside for a moment. This frustration and fear are leading to a lemming-like movement of parents willing to rally together (in a pandemic, mind you) to demand their children return to school. As per usual, the critical mass of all of this hue and cry is being directed to the path of least resistance, the big bad villains: the teachers' unions. "Those damn teachers just don't wanna go back to work!" (as if we're not working our collective asses off making meaningful and enriching content in a new virtual environment). Nobody seems to be asking why teachers are worried...

"But the science says schools are the safest place..." -- The cognitive dissonance is dizzying. On the one hand, we're hearing that congregation of any type is an extreme risk; on the other hand, the same people are telling us that it's quite alright for teachers and students to congregate in school buildings because "children pose a lesser risk." Okay. Fine. But what about all the adults? Schools are not run and administrated by children (yet).

Furthermore, most arguments omit the rest of the sentence -- the very important caveat that schools are safe IF COMMUNITIES ARE FOLLOWING STRICT MITIGATION GUIDELINES. That is a big IF. Think of the irony of people declaring they "trust the science" in a smug tone that implies others don't, pushing people to put themselves in an environment that is undermined by all the people beneath them intellectually. Again, cognitive dissonance leads to whiplash. You prove the argument against your own damn point. We can't depend on our fellow citizens to wear a damn mask. We can't depend on families social distancing on their own. Does "trusting the science" mean we trust people implicitly to adhere to safety guidelines? Think of the impulse that compels you to say, "I trust the science." The big bad teachers' unions' point of view makes a little more sense now, doesn't it?

Teachers want to go back to classrooms. It's why we do what we do. We're not in this for the prestige or the money. Who would join this profession if they didn't truly love the work? Let's face it, we're paid less than most "professions" and we're constantly dumped upon by people who know nothing of what we do or how we do it. We endure this because we love our students, we love our craft. So the thought that we would rather be home than in our classrooms is laughably offensive. We're making the best we can out of a bad situation, out of the love for our vocation. Forgive us for not trusting the agendas I outlined above. We want to do our jobs and we care about the welfare of our kids. We also know that it is hard to serve our students if we ourselves are knocked out by COVID.

Many of us who don't teach in the over-privileged suburbs also work in facilities that have been left to rot for years. We've been literally begging society to prioritize us, to fund us, to give our children a better learning environment. Many schools were unsafe BEFORE coronavirus. Nobody listened then. Suddenly the world is super interested. So they're proposing mitigations that are nearly impossible to enact under the best of circumstances, let alone in the titanic school buildings that have been imperiled by the iceberg of institutional neglect and shoe-string budgets.

I don't profess to have all the answers. "Trusting the science" has replaced religious zealotry for a lot of people. Those who have an agenda take advantage of the implicit trust of SCIENCE by cherry-picking and misrepresenting data.

So, before you rally for the children in some super-spreader event to open schools, before you vilify the teachers' unions for protecting their membership, ask. . . is it worth it? Is there more going on here? Am I getting swept away in an agenda? WE ARE IN A PANDEMIC. Your children are not "falling behind." Falling behind what, exactly? Falling behind contrived metrics that serve a whole other agenda? Now is a time to explore other avenues where our children may be gaining. Measures that aren't easily quantifiable by Pearson or the College Board. Just a thought.

"Trusting the science" means using the data at hand and being open to constantly examining and re-examining said data. It means being open to the fact that the data in front of you isn't the be-all-end-all. As soon as you settle on one narrow outcome that supports your own agenda and declare that "science," you have become just as fundamentally zealous as those you smugly condemn.

Thank you,

A Teacher