It’s about time we listen to teachers, and remote learning isn’t harmful.
As we enter 2022, another COVID surge has hit us, and it is relentless. The omicron variant is highly contagious, and has led to an overwhelmingly high testing demand, and the emergency closures of businesses and schools who are unable to keep their operations running given staff shortages. Atlanta Public Schools and Newark Public Schools opted to start the school year remote amidst the uncontrollable COVID surge to protect the health of students, and staff. Unlike 2020, we are seeing a completely different response to COVID-19, some state political leaders and school leadership have been resistant to moving to remote operations, even while most schools are ill-equipped to handle the COVID surge, and teachers are forced to teach in deplorable conditions. A group of New York City teachers have petitioned for all classes to be online due to the lack of COVID-19 testing availability, the dilapidated buildings and sub-par ventilation.
Unlike 2020, there is no coordinated state-wide response to close schools — many people citing that with the availability of vaccines and the harm done by remote learning — we must keep schools open at all costs, even if that means putting the most important personnel at risk — teachers. Let’s be honest — due to the lack of investment in higher education — teachers are not only poorly compensated, and many schools can’t even keep up with the staff shortages that COVID-19 will create. Now we are seeing teachers calling out sick, little to no substitutes who can backfill, so who is exactly going to run and sustain these schools if all the teachers and staff are ill? I guess the only thing worse than a remote school is an empty one.
As someone who has been a longtime student and educator, I understand the incredible role we play in shaping and molding the young minds of students. School is merely bricks and two-by-fours with no essence or meaning without teachers. Teachers are the sustenance. Teachers are the heartbeat and the vibration of America — everyday they take on a multitude of roles from second-mom, nurse, counselor, and advocate — working countless never-ending hours, paying for classroom supplies out of their own pocket, and being forced to operate in a system that ranks them at the bottom of the totem pole. Unlike a lot of other professions, educators are forced to love students above and beyond everything — we selflessly and readily have always been forced to put our own needs aside for the sake of our students. The idea that teachers are supposed to be self-sacrificing is why so many people believe that teachers should have little to no say in this remote school debate because student needs matter above and beyond everything. But times are different, teachers are fighting back, being vocal and I, as an educator and as a longtime student support them 100%.
For so long we have ignored teachers — we have failed to provide them adequate training, classrooms, supplies, and professional development to do their job — they have been absent from the table when it comes to major administrative decisions that impact their district. They are forced to do more with less — and with state mandated testing, teachers have only become mere robots. Teachers have lost the ability to be authentic and versatile in their teaching pedagogy to rigorous state standards. We blame them when our students fail — without examining the systemic inequalities that continue to breed a culture of student failure and lack of achievement. Teachers have been a scapegoat for America’s failings and misfortunes far too long, and it’s got to stop.
I am listening to teachers who are adamant about remote learning being in the best interest of our students right now, and I am generally someone who is pro-remote learning sans a global health pandemic. Being pro remote learning during a pandemic doesn’t make you anti in-person learning or anti-student. It simply makes you someone who understands that health and wellness is above all most important and teaching in above adequate conditions is what our teachers deserve. Critics of remote learning continue to tout how it is especially harmful to student’s social and mental health — but I think things are much more nuanced. Remote learning during a global pandemic is extremely harmful to a student’s social and mental health. I have yet to see a think piece that examines how any modality of learning in the midst of complete world chaos and upheaval only exacerbates mental health problems. Students are not learning under normal conditions, of course, they are stressed out and depressed. Well, duh! Remote learning inherently is not harmful. I don’t believe it’s for everyone — and not everyone can do it well, but I certainly don’t believe it’s harmful.
What we tend to forget is that teachers were forced to institute remote learning in 2020 very abruptly with little training and development, and minimal administration support. Remote learning looks very differently and is inherently more successful with adequate technology, professional training, and institutional wide support. These recent think pieces that have denounced remote learning as a poor practice is indictive of poor journalism. You can’t simply say that remote learning is harmful without examining the prevailing and longstanding conditions that have plagued our education system and created longstanding systemic inequalities. It is these inequalities that do not set the stage for successful remote learning. From the lack of access to technology in low-income schools, generational poverty, the lack of broadband access in rural communities, the lack of support for IEP students, the lack of mental health counselors in schools…the list goes on. Can you imagine how impactful and different remote learning would be if these things were in place? Can you imagine if every student had the technology to be able to learn in a remote environment? Can you imagine how successful remote learning would be if parents weren’t forced to work longer hours or simply be a means to an end in businesses’ capitalistic endeavors?
What we need is a much more nuanced perspective to discussions on remote learning but what our teachers need from you right now is to listen.
