A video from March 10 detailing the pandemic in Iran and officials' refusal to take it seriously:
A video from March 24 detailing the pandemic in Mexico and officials' refusal to learn from Iran:
COVID-19 quarantine
Day 9: Conferencing
Our admin staff held the first video conferencing session today at 9:30 on Google Meet. We'd had an informal one earlier in the week, but with everyone talking, it was far too chaotic for me. I thought I'd lose it. Very hard to follow. It seems everyone learned from the experience: the principal was unmuted, everyone else was asked to mute themselves. Questions went in through the chat box option.
E's class had their first video conferencing session on Zoom today. At 12:30 everyone logged on and the chaotic chatter began. The teacher had a clever idea: use classroom management techniques for quieting everyone. "If you can hear me, touch your nose." Everyone got a chance to chat and tell everyone what they were up to. The Boy seemed awfully quiet. When his turn came, he simply passed.
I held my first online conferencing session with students just after the Boy's. I used Google Meet. It stinks. After participating in a Meet and leading one, I've determined that it is useful for chaotic nonsense only unless everyone is muted but one or two. Next time, Zoom.
Still, it was a relief to see the kids again. It's only been a little over a week, but it feels like so much longer. "It's so much different than, say, spring break," I told them. "During a break, you know that in a week or two, you'll see your students again. Here -- who knows when we'll meet in person again?"
Afterward, once it finally stopped raining, I suggested to the kids that we take the dog for a walk. They jumped on it enthusiastically. The simple pleasures are becoming pleasures for them again. If there's one bright side to this whole pandemic, it's that.
On the walk, the Boy and I got to talking about favorite books and authors. "I think my favorite author is Roald Dahl," he said, then asked me about my favorite books.
"I think Absalom, Absaom! is the best book ever written," I said, wondering how he'd respond.
"Is that a book a kid could read?"
"No, most definitely not." I wouldn't even suggest to my best readers in honors classes to tackle that book. It's beyond challenging the first time through. Perhaps not as bad as Finnegan's Wake or even Ulysses, but quite a challenge.
"What other books do you like?" he asked when I'd finished explaining all that.
"I'm partial to Charles Dickens," I said.
"Didn't he write Moby Dick?" asked L.
"No, that was Herman Melville. But now that I think about it, I believe I see a little similarity between Dahl and Dickens."
E raised his eyebrows as he does when he's excited.
"They both tend to give characters names that somehow reflect their character." I explained how "Trunchbull" from Matilda seems to be a portmanteau of "truncheon" and "bull."
When we got back, I introduced E to "Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems." "Do you know how he is?" I asked.
"Yeah, he wrote the pigeon books and pig and elephant."
Then, at a little past three, I get this statement from the governor:
At this time, students, parents, and families should plan for South Carolina’s schools to remain closed through the month of April. Our dedicated teachers and school administrators have done a tremendous job in making it possible for our students to learn at home. We understand that the prospect of schools remaining closed for an extended period of time places stress and strain on parents and children. Rest assured, if there is any way to safely open our schools earlier, we will do that, but schools must remain closed to protect the health and safety of South Carolinians.
So it seems our adventure is just beginning. The worries will build, I'm sure, as the cases rise in our little state, and as our president begins to make noises that indicate he thinks money is more important than lives, I wonder if a crisis in government might accompany the crisis in our national well-being.
But as long as everyone ends up safely tucked in their beds at night, my primary anxiety is assuaged.
Day 8: Rain
It was supposed to rain all day today. It was also supposed to be a day off school today, which would have made the rain seem particularly dreary as we would probably have gone out and done something on this early spring day. Since this is the sixth day without school, it just felt like the new normal.
In the morning, while K was reading with E, I spent some time working on a couple of web sites I’m creating, one for a friend’s about-to-be-launched home organization company and the other an online guide for the church we usually attend (the parish built a new church just a few years ago). The virus, though, has put a damper on both projects: no one would start a business right now, and the church is closed.
Once I completed what I wanted to do, it was nearing lunch. And it was also about time that I help hang L’s pegboard that she got from Ikea two months ago. I don’t like to rush into anything. And I didn’t have the appropriate drywall anchors. And I kept forgetting to get them in Home Depot.
Of course, there had to be some playtime. The Boy and I worked with Legos: he built a car; I built a suspension bridge. When she saw it, K laughed that I should have been an architect. (Forget for a moment that it’s actually civil engineers who design bridges — I knew what she meant.)
“Actually, I did. For several years.” I took drafting in high school to that end. “But then I realized I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life. And besides, if I’d gone that route, who knows if I would have ended up in Lipnica?” Which is to say, who knows if we would have met? A change in career choice determined who I married? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s impossible to say.
It’s that kind of dumb luck — or lack thereof — that has me worried now. Our family is largely isolating itself, but someone has to go to the store occasionally, as I did this morning. (Only one dozen eggs per customer, I learned at checkout.) How many asymptomatic people are walking around? We take precautions, but in the end, it’s just a crapshoot in a sense. Just like so many other things in life that seem inevitable, I suppose.
Finally, in the afternoon, it stopped raining for a while. The kids and I went out to walk the dog. In the evening, it seemed like it had stopped again, but by the time we’d gotten ready and headed outside, it had started misting again. And then stopped. And in crawled L, rollerblades still on, to tell us, “Come on! It’s stopped! Let’s go!”
Day 7: Sunday
With the diocese of Charleston making the decision to close all churches in the current emergency, today had a different feel from most Sundays and a somewhat different feel from the previous six days.
Previous six days? Has this only been going on a week? It was indeed a week ago that we learned the governor of South Carolina was closing all schools for the rest of the month, but I swear it feels like that was weeks ago. I know it's been going on for several months now with the original outbreak in China, and while I'm tempted to go on a rant here about how much time we wasted between that initial outbreak in China and even a week ago when everything started shutting down all because our narcissistic shallow president views everything as if it's about him and went so far as to call the pandemic a hoax at one of his rallies and still behaves as if this will all blow over because he's now taking it seriously and pretending to put some resources into it -- no, I'll resist that urge and simply point out that it feels like it's been longer than a week.
First, there was no church -- no Mass at a church, that is. Second, there was church -- something like it, a series of readings and a recorded homily that Kinga, the kids, and Papa did while I was out taking the dog for a walk. It just didn't feel like a Sunday.
Is it possible that someone could look at this and understand how much exponentially worse it could get with a different virus with, say, a 60% death rate and understand that something like that could very well lurking in our future and still, understanding that a belief in God would necessitate an acceptance that God would have also created such a virus, it would have been in his plan, part of his mysterious ways -- could someone hold all this in their head and still believe in a benevolent god? Thinking how relatively mild this is compared to what could be or even has been makes it all but impossible for me.
Another change: we got a new hot water heater installed today. We've been wanting to do it for some time, and I've had a feeling that our old heater was going to malfunction any day. The guys who did the installation for us -- the guys who did the renovation of the carport, turning it into Papa's room -- were going to come next week, but with so much uncertainty, they decided to come today. We're expecting a significant drop in our power bill as this was our last power-hungry appliance/system in our house. Changing the HVAC system cut our power bill by 30-50% (depending on the usage); this change should result in additional significant savings considering the heater dates from 1992 -- the year after I graduated from high school.
Why am I so negative about all this? Why do I see only gray to any silver lining? It's my eternal battle.
In the afternoon, the kids and I went out in the backyard to -- guess -- shoot. The dog does not like when we shoot as she gets stuck up on the deck for her own good...
E and I have figured out that if we fire toward something a little bit darker than the surrounding area, we can actually follow the flight of the bb, so we've taken to firing into the forest behind our neighbor's house on occasion. We've also been trying to shoot from various positions in the yard, all of them significantly farther away from where we normally shoot. And we still take shots at the dog's fetch ball because, well, why not?
After shooting, the Girl decided to bake a cake. The aesthetics were something like I would produce, but that comes with time. The taste is all that matters, and I think we all agreed: it was delicious.
Random day, random thoughts.
Day 6: A Realization
While working in the yard today, I got to thinking about the rumor I heard from a neighbor that the rest of the school year was going to be canceled, moved to online learning. I’d thought this myself, but hearing another person say it made it seem like less like one of the silly thoughts that sometimes rumble around my brain and more like a possible outcome.
What a sad realization then when I thought, “It’s a very real possibility that the last time I saw those kids was that Friday, just over a week ago now.” In some ways, this has been my favorite group of students: a fun mix of varied personalities with relatively few high-maintenance (i.e., poorly behaving) students. Sure, there are some talkers, but that’s nothing compared to issues I’ve faced in the past.
And instead of saying goodbye to them, wishing them well, sending them on their way, it just came to an end.
That’s the fear — because deep down, despite the facade I wear at school, I’m a sentimental schmuck and things like this bother me…
Day 5: Toilet Paper
We had TP from the last time we purchased it -- we tend to buy in bulk from one of the warehouse stores a few times a year. It's amazing how long 48 rolls of TP will last. But all things come to an end, and we were nearing the end of our collection, so this morning, there was only one must-do item on the agenda: get toilet paper.
I headed to the Publix down the street just before seven. "Get there when we open at seven," a cashier had told K a few days earlier, so that's what I did. Only to discover that in the intervening days, they'd changed their hours and were now opening only at eight.
In the meantime, I went to a couple of other stores just in case. Nothing.
It's the second international crisis, a crisis of inconvenience (and incontinence, I suppose).
I returned just before eight to find several people waiting outside. The doors opened and we all headed to the same aisle. There was a fair amount of toilet paper, and everyone could get two packages, but I decided one twelve-roll package would last. "Let's not behave like the other people who caused all this," I thought.
Day 4: A Walk in the Park
We’ve been going on walks with the dog as a family every evening. It’s probably the best thing that’s come out of this pandemic for us. What we’ve noticed, though, is that a lot of other people are doing the same. Going out for a walk used to be an isolating experience: we would walk a mile, a mail and a half together and not meet a single other person. Not one.
When we went for walks at Conestee, our favorite local park, we’d encounter people, but sporadically. A couple here; a jogger there; a family around that corner. Nothing major.
Last night, however, we encountered several people along our 1.5 mile walk. Tonight, while out jogging, I encountered two or three couples out walking. This afternoon, when we were at Conestee, we saw more people there than we probably ever have.
Everyone was out. The turtles were out on the logs,
the snakes were out sunning themselves.
And people were everywhere.
“Perhaps this will bring about a change in people,” K suggested. “Perhaps we’ll all get back to enjoying the simple things in life.”
Perhaps.
Day 3: First Day of School
The day started out foggy and stayed dreary -- it could be a kind of metaphor for everyone's mood, I suppose. But we're fortunate: we have food; we have (a bit of) toilet paper; we have money in the bank; we have a home; we have a family that's together. That's what's most important.
Today was our district's first day of online learning. There's a vast spectrum of what this means. For E, it was a 90-page packet of reading, math, social studies, and science work. He took on the reading first, making it through a fairly long retelling of Goldielocks with relative ease and breezing through the questions.
"We're not seeking to further their education," was the mantra as teachers in my school prepared for our own students earlier this week. "We're just tasked with providing work that will keep them from slipping."
That seems like a fairly succinct description of the work E got.
I helped him with some of it; K helped him with some of it; he did a fair amount of it on his own without direct help. Helping him usually just means giving a nudge when he gets overwhelmed and frustrated -- a kind encouragement, a hint. Sometimes it becomes too much, though, and we need a break. Such was the case today.
Still, we managed to work through all the challenges and completed the work just after lunch.
L had video conferencing with teachers and they went over some new material. Of course, she goes to a charter school, which means there is a bit of a semi-natural selection process involved in the enrollment.
As for my kiddos, I got a few emails, exclusively from honors kids and mostly about outstanding assignments.
"When is that paper due?"
"When can I take my makeup test?"
As for the rest of them? I'm not sure. I didn't hear from them. And I got word today that if kids are not doing the work within two days, I need to be contacting parents. That ought to be fun.
Not as much fun as our little fire this evening, but fun.
Day 2: Mockingbird at a Distance
I spent the morning preparing ten days of at-home work for my English I Honors kids, who were scheduled to begin To Kill a Mockingbird this week. Who knows when we'll be back in the classroom -- but I'm not going to wait until we do to start this book...
What to do? Put it all online...
Day 1
Read the opening pages of To Kill a Mockingbird. The first time through, read it to yourself. You'll notice there are a lot of allusions you don't understand. Make sure you look them up. Add comments in the document that explain the allusions.
Days 2 and 3
As you read the opening pages of the novel, you likely noticed that your inner voice gradually took on a Southern accent as you read. This passages simply sounds Southern. Today and tomorrow, we're going to figure out why.
Step 1
Re-read the passage from yesterday. As you read, listen along with the SoundCloud audio recording attached.
Step 2
Look for one example of each of the following (as noted in yesterday's document):
- Long sentences
- Diversions
- Dated language
- Folksy-sounding language
- Exaggeration/embellishment
- Understatement/deprecation
You might not understand all these ideas. Google them and figure them out the best you can. Then go back through the opening pages and try to find at least 1 example of each in the passage. Mark and identify them by highlighting the passage and creating a comment "Long sentence" or "Diversion" or whatever you might be identifying. (I've attached another copy of the opening for you to do this on.)
Step 3
Try to write a short paragraph using these techniques. Try to sound Southern in your writing. You can write about whatever you choose, but you must do your best to sound Southern. Write this at the bottom of the opening pages doc (see above).
Day 4
Finish reading chapter 1 and read through chapter 4.
Day 5
The story is told from Scout's viewpoint. It is written in the first person. This means that Scout uses the pronouns I, me and the possessives my, mine to refer to herself. She does not confine the narrative to things that she has directly experienced - for example she recounts stories from the history of Simon Finch and repeats what other people tell her.
Later in the novel, she will make comments about how reliable other people's accounts are.
How reliable is she as a narrator? With your learning partner, discuss how reliable she is as a narrator. Is she believable? Justify your response with a good explanation about why she is or is not reliable.
You'll discuss this on Moodle. Make sure you respond to at least 3 other people as well, and make sure at least one of them is not in your period.
Days 6 and 7
Atticus says that you never really understand a person “until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Summarize the events in the novel that lead to this quote. In a separate paragraph, explain why you think climbing inside someone else’s skin may be a difficult task for Scout.
- Summarize the Radley history. What can you infer about their standing in the town. What's so spooky about them.
- What does scout's first day at school reveal about her personality?
- How might scout have seen things differently if she'd walled around in others' shoes? Whose shoes should she walked in?
- What do you see in the interactions with the Radley house/family that the kids might not see?
Answer one question per day in a well-written paragraph, then respond to 3 other students' ideas.
Days 8 and 9
Read through chapter 8 (i.e., finish chapter 8).
Day 10
Small towns thrive on gossip. A sensational trial like Tom Robinson’s will only add to the talk. Several of the older women in the novel categorize other citizens by social standing, heritage, etiquette, and manners, yet they rarely mention true moral or ethical values as the criteria for judging someone’s character. As a way to evaluate your own feelings about these characters, place them in rank order from the most moral to the least moral. Then write a paragraph explanation of why you placed him/her in the two extreme positions.
- Mr. Dolphus Raymond
- Miss Maudie
- Aunt Alexandra
- Reverend Sykes
- Judge Taylor
- Bob Ewell
- Mayella Ewell
- Heck Tate
Discuss your ratings with 3 others by responding to their ratings.
In the evening -- something altogether different...
Day 1: Achievement Gap
There was one overriding concern at today’s faculty meeting: we have to do everything we can to make sure that this national emergency does not expand the achievement gap any more than is inevitable. We spent the morning talking about how to prepare materials for students to work at home with one underlying assumption: vast numbers of kids won’t do anything during this time. The “high flyers” will do everything we give them; the middle-of-the-roaders will do some of it; the ones who need the most help will do the least.
“They don’t even do much work when we’re hovering over them” was the common refrain.
So as we embarked on our planning this afternoon, working to create ten days of material for students to work on while we’re closed, we kept that in mind — a frustrating project, planning materials that we know will most likely not be used by kids who really do need to use it.
And the common refrain during that planning process: “We need to go ahead and plan for the next ten days because there’s no way we’re coming back at the beginning of April.”
We’ll cross that Rubicon when we arrive at its banks…