Ruf Starts; Going Back to School

Rally co-drivers and navigators will often see or write the note "Ruf Starts."  This note communicates to the driver that, just as it sounds, the road is about to get rough.  This could mean large rocks, deep holes, washboard surfaces, or all of the above; it's basically a vague term that means if you don't want to break your car maybe you should slow the F down.  

I cannot think of a better analogy for the proposed return to the classroom this fall in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Slow. The. F. down. 

I spent a great deal of time this spring interviewing teachers from across the state of Michigan, and as much time as I could stomach reading my district's return plan and listening to our lovely secretary of education and stable brilliant genius POTUS push for kids to return to the physical classroom.  Much like a "Ruf" rally stage, it all makes my guts heave.

A colleague, friend, (let's call him D...) who is a black male teacher and mentor in a Detroit charter school puts it this way, "education should be treated as life or death; we either get an education or we suffer the consequences of not getting one."

Let's talk about that...life or death??? Really?

Dr. Nikoli Vitti, superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, has been flooding his Twitter account with messages touting the importance of a return to the classroom. His concern that "historical injustice liked to race, socio-economics, and lack of equitable resources" will be even further perpetuated and exacerbated during these times is all too real. We KNOW, as D hinted at above, that for many kids in "rough" neighborhoods, school or school related activities like athletics, the arts, and after school mentoring programs are the ONLY thing that keep them away from drug or gang related activity and out of the hands of law enforcement. This has nothing to do with "bad or good kids." This has to do with eating, safety, security, paying bills. Life or death.

D says that he wants to see kids, including his own, back in the classroom but is also certain that children of all ages will spread the disease to each other, to teachers, and to their families at home.

Source:  timesofisrael.com

So now, we have two conflicting life or death scenarios. Education for a lot of kids is a life or death commodity. Covid-19 is a life or death threat.

Do I buckle my seatbelt, or do I put on my helmet if I know that I cannot do both?

But there is a solution,...Online and Virtual Education! Programs like Google Classroom, Clever, Microsoft Teams, and a slew of others provide teachers a clear path to delivering content to kids via technology. Companies like K12 Inc. have made a sizable profit developing content so that students of all ages can learn online from the safety of their own home. Kids are always on their phones anyway...right?

Source:  hechingerreport.org

For anyone who has tried it, this is like saying 'yeah you can still only have your seatbelt OR your helmet, but here's a bandaid. AND...the size and quality of that bandaid is relative to your socio-economic standing...ok?'

Virtual learning removes from the equation most of the benefits that kids actually get from school; socialization, meals, counseling, home-room, health care, and face to face collaboration and support. It also means that someone has to be home, if for no other reason than to ensure the safety of the child and to try to get them to engage in learning. As T, a veteran elementary teacher from west Michigan stated "direct instruction of young kids via zoom is not a reasonable expectation. The best option might be going to small groups (for the virtual instruction,) but there are so many barriers! Parents may not always be available to help and there are tons of distractions with multiple siblings (learning in one home.)"

She goes on to say that she works in a district where most families have the means to have someone stay home, as well as the resources to keep a clean building and provide adequate PPE and health services. However, she elaborates "funding is going to be a huge problem...districts who have surplus will have a distinct advantage in maintaining safety. Reopening can’t be a blanket decision; some states, districts, etc. have been hit harder than others so not all schools can do the same thing."

September 2020 = Ruf Starts.

Some drivers will hear this and feel totally confident that their very expensive suspension, tires, wheels, and undercar protection can handle some seriously rough road at nearly full throttle. Other teams will know that, despite valiant effort to prep the car well on a limited budget, something will likely fail, and that that failure could end the race or even permanently retire the car.

Except in our racing analogy, all crew inside will likely walk away unscathed. The car breaks but the team is nearly always fine, even in big wrecks.

In schools, however, thousands of teachers across the country are at high risk of contracting coronavirus. Even in younger teachers sickle cell anemia, Type I diabetes, asthma, and autoimmune diseases such as Chron's and celiac are common. Teachers are asked to do so much more than deliver content, and now they're going to be asked to do it wrapped in PPE while trying to mitigate safety measures in addition to the typical everyday chaos that is so much a standard part of spending the day with hundreds of children.

"I don’t even know what I want or what to hope for...nobody knows what this will look like.  Do we pick up the pieces later after 1-2 years of not going to school?" Asks E, a high school teacher from Northern Michigan.

 

"Some kids need school for survival...but I don’t think (returning to the classroom) makes any sense safety-wise...the only thing that will keep people safe is not going back. Efforts at alternating kids will be in vain; the teachers are still in the classroom with both groups of kids - as soon as they leave the classroom and go into the hall it’s impossible to maintain any of the safety protocols"

Another veteran teacher and parent from northern Michigan states "The classroom now, in general, is more collaborative; if we go back to school...it may be a lot of going back to 'sit and get' again.  A lot of learning just doesn’t take place in that way....with my own kids I think I feel like my kids need to go back to school, but there is a new reality; kids need that social interaction piece, but I don’t know if its worth the risk.  It’s going to be dependent on numbers."

A new reality.

In rally when you break a car you can try to patch it, weld it, rebuild it...and you might have some short term success. But eventually, the best option is to build a new car. In education we have been welding and patching and straightening and hammering like mad, and the car is still broken. We knew it was broken before the pandemic, and due to inadequate funding and miserable leadership, we're still trying to win with a broken car.

Or even just finish a race.

D observes;

"our economy is so dependent upon consumerism and we are heading to where we won’t have enough people with jobs that allow us them to consume; we will have to start educating producers; this is a chance to change HOW we are educating kids. We need to start thinking about what producers do; one of those things is that they need to know how to ask questions; a producer does not learn how to create things without first asking questions that lead to the result that you are trying to get to. They also need to be able to plan, investigate...how are you going to answer your question so that you can deliver? How do we teach teachers how to teach and develop producers?"

He goes on to say;

"curricula like the International Baccalaureate (IB) already meet a lot of criteria for kids to have authentic and autonomous learning experiences, including problem and project based learning. Students learn with the purpose to answer questions and develop methods to solve problems. They could do this simultaneously and collaboratively and teachers should also be collaborating so that students are learning and applying concepts at the same time."

Eugene Mason (yellow vest) works with local kids to teach them construction skills.

In other words, it's time to innovate. We cannot strap teachers back into the broken car, put them out onto a more dangerous road than they have ever seen, ask them to choose between the belts and the helmet, and say "go win one for us!" Until we have a new car, and a real plan, and ALL kids and teachers have access to the SAME safety gear, we better stay our butts home and rebuild.