Teacher v. Parent
I wish we hadn’t been pitted against one another in the school reopening debate.
Full disclosure: I’m an educator. I’m roughly 5 years removed from classroom teaching. I have no children of my own. I’ve been in the education sector for about 15 years. I care about teachers and education, I care about kids and education, I recognize that being a caregiver and educator is not the same thing as being a parent. I acknowledge my experience and position to ground this article and my perspective — I’m not truly on the inside, nor am I truly on the outside.
As I scrolled through my feed, sat and watched news segment after news segment, got alerts on the latest rendition of school happenings, I came to the realization that we had lost — we had lost the greatest opportunity for public education.
There is no one answer to the question of opening schools because every school is its own. Every school and school community has a culture, an etiquette, a feel, a vibe — created by its leadership, its surroundings, and its people. That being said, our current discussion, and I use that word loosely, felt like a modern-day version of Lord of the Flies.
Last year, when schools first shut down, there was a collective rush to work together and an immediate acknowledgment of the tremendous role, respite…
