Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Teachers ‘scared’ as they ponder return to classroom

"Happy birthday, Miss Jones," by Norman Rockwell
     Printing letters has gone the way of pounding out copy on a manual typewriter. Just as well, it was mostly a summertime strategy for work-averse columnists to dispatch their duties without much effort. 
     However. My column Monday discussing the wisdom of the Archdiocese of Chicago holding in-person classes during an epidemic drew insights from a number of school personnel.So I picked three, condensing for space and scrubbing their messages of any track-’em-down-and-fire-’em details that vindictive school administrators — are there any other kind? — could use to go after them.
     “I have been a teacher in the Archdiocese of Chicago since [an important sporting event in the 1980s]. I have loved being a teacher for the past 25 years, with a break to raise my own children. My passion as [an elementary school] teacher is to prepare my students for the sacraments. What a gift I have been given!     “As we prepare for the reopening of our Catholic schools, I am scared... All of the public schools in the surrounding suburbs are doing remote learning. We are the only school system reopening in person. This puts faculty, staff and our children in danger.
     “My expectations of keeping my students safe involves taking temperatures before the students even leave their cars. I am not a nurse. I am a teacher. I daily 
put myself in harm’s way if a shooter enters my classroom. Now I am being expected to put myself in harm’s way with a known assailant, COVID 19.
     “Without a union, I feel voices of Catholic school teachers are unheard. Many of us are 
scared. I am scared for myself, my coworkers and the children and families I love. I pray the Archdiocese changes their in person plan before we see sick teachers and children, or lives lost.“
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4 comments:

  1. So, if I worked in a factory with a couple of hundred coworkers and refused to go back to work when ordered by my boss would that be acceptable? I'd assume that I would be replaced.

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  2. My niece is an elementary school teacher near Atlanta. She started having symptoms two days after class started. She tested positive. She's home for at least fourteen days as are her students. Her husband is a band teacher. He's now home for at least fourteen days. Test results not in yet. Their three year old must stay home from childcare. He's not been tested.
    One infection has triggered a domino effect where who knows how many lives are changed. That's just one teacher.
    Good decision CPS.

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  3. 75% of our teachers in the U.S. are women, so opening the schools would put three times as many women in danger as men. We already knew that our idiot leader hates women and this fits his pattern.

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  4. "To prepare my students for the sacraments..." Hmm, better include Extreme Unction.

    ReplyDelete

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