I Don’t Want to Go Back’: Many Teachers Are Fearful and Angry Over Pressure to Return

The New York Times ^ | July 11, 2020 | Dana Goldstein and Eliza Shapiro

[MinorityRepublican]

Many of the nation’s 3.5 million teachers found themselves feeling under siege this week as pressure from the White House, pediatricians and some parents to get back to physical classrooms intensified — even as the coronavirus rages across much of the country.

On Friday, the teachers’ union in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest district, demanded full-time remote learning when the academic year begins on Aug. 18, and called President Trump’s push to reopen schools part of a “dangerous, anti-science agenda that puts the lives of our members, our students and our families at risk.”

[Lurker]

So don’t go back.

L

[poconopundit]

That’s right. Return the money so parents can take their kids to schools that want to open — or pay tutors to come and instruct.

[D Rider]

But they want to get paid...for...?

[WildHighlander57]

Hypo2 wrote:

“Home schooling and reduced teacher numbers is the answer. Less funding.

If we can educate students online, then let’s do it. Cut teacher staff by 80%.”

Question then is, will the school tax be lowered proportionally?

We now know their worth

[D Rider]

Wear a mask. Or maybe a hazmat suit, and get back to work. They still have the opportunity to quit. America is not a socialist paridise yet.

[D Rider]

Catchy. I like it.

[HP8753]

They should quit watching Fake News. Then they wouldn’t be fearful.

[WildHighlander57]

goodnesswins wrote:

“Time to end public education around age 14...after that...home school or work/apprenticeship. ...maybe at mom or dad’s work...get employers involved.”

And get rid of the school tax portion of property tax.

[Shortstop7]

Wah wah wah. Some of us “essentials” have worked the entire time.

[mass55th]

"Not trying to give teachers a pass here. But could you imagine going back to work in this environment where “minors” could erupt and torch a school at any moment?"

LOL!! So the pandemic has caused the little bastards to turn into terrorists?

[Dogbert41]

8-10 hours a day, these guys and gals and kids work the grocery stores so those fat-assed do nothing teachers can draw full pay doing NOTHING.

"NO SOUP FOR YOU!!!!!"

[PA Presbyterian]

Or have to use a small communal restroom in a university library when the student in the stall next to you has just spent the previous weekend partying with a bunch of morons who aren’t wearing masks or social distancing. That student is now presymptomatic with the virus picked up at the party. He or she does a dump and then flushes the high pressure toilet that spews aerosol fecal materials everywhere, including fecal material contaminated with the COVID virus. It spreads in a plume as far as six feet in every direction and lingers in the air for some time.

You inhale it because you’re right next to the stall and your university-issued mask is no block for aerosols—only an n-95 mask offers some protection. The virus-laden aerosols travel deep into your lungs where they lodge in the alveoli. This is the most dangerous place because it leads to the most severe illness. We’re being advised to avoid public restrooms but you can’t because you have to be at work and you have to use the john.

The students you come into contact with every day don’t give a damn about anything—they think they’re invincible and they engage in risky behavior because their friends are doing it. It’s their nature. Don’t interfere with their partying. It’s their right to have fun.

Do you like this scenario? Would you if you have an underlying health condition or are 60+ years old and are being forced to risk getting a serious illness every day? No vaccine, no cure, and no one is really sure yet what the long term effects of “recovering” from COVID pneumonia means for your lungs. Supposedly, they can be permanently damaged and victims suffer from COPD as a result. Some are needing a lung transplant. Others are hospitalized for weeks, put in medically-induced comas, and when they finally are released it may take weeks for them to even be able to climb stairs.

Anyone who thinks this is some kind of overblown hysteria is an idiot. I hope you end up in ICU with the virus, struggling to breathe, isolated from family members, cared for by nurses and doctors in hazmat suits. You would deserve it.

[flaglady47]

“Are you willing to spend an entire day inside a closed room with ~30 children many of whom have little to no concept of personal hygiene?”

As Doc Fauci says, where a mask...forever.

[mulligan]

Fear of what? Or who? Teaching? Kids? Job? Rather be a slave the rest of your life. Better to die now. You would be free. Or die daily for the rest of your life and die as a slave each day.

[MinorityRepublican]

60+ years old and are being forced to risk getting a serious illness every day

President Trump said that if you're that old maybe you should consider sitting this one out just until we get the vaccine. We can get substitutes for teachers who are too old to return to the classroom.

[EinNYC]

LOL!! So the pandemic has caused the little bastards to turn into terrorists?

The little b______s were ALREADY terrorists, at least in NYC. Under DumblASSio, it became nearly impossible to give students detentions and especially to suspend them for disruptive behavior, assault on other students or teachers, threats of physical harm, and any one of a number of way-over-the-line behaviors. And with DumblASSio, students of "color" were singled out for special protection from any punishment, because black wannabe DumblASSio felt that they were being punished unfairly. Novel thought: What if they were actually committing the disruptions, assaults, thefts, etc. in greater numbers than white or Asian students? Because that is exactly the reality. So now they know they had the protection of their complexion to go and do anything they darn well pleased, no consequences for THEM.

After no classroom discipline from being home for months, they are not likely to want to go back into harness. They will not be able to sit and listen and take notes or do whatever the teacher wants them to do in order to have an orderly atmosphere for learning.

Many teens (and younger children) don't have the best personal hygiene or hygienic habits. I'm sure they will not wear their masks properly---I see how people in stores walk around with their masks only over their mouth, or hanging from their neck, rendering them utterly useless. I can't imagine teachers being coughed on, sneezed on, touched by students all day, in a closed environment, and not having an increased risk of catching COVID. Keep in mind that a lot of teachers are ove 60 and/or have underlying health issues such as diabetes, making them more susceptible.

I know that a couple of my former teaching colleagues who have a few years to go before retirement put in many hours preparing lessons for the long distance learning. They were not at home sitting on their duffs. They also put in many hours grading submissions of students. Long distance learning does not begin to replace in-person learning; the teacher cannot gauge from body language where the students are at in understanding. You cannot count on them raising their hand to ask a question, because they rarely do. They'd much rather sit there without a clue than reveal to their classmates that they don't understand something. Unfortunately, their subsequent grades then reflect that---they fail. But being socially "cool" is so much more important than understanding the subject being taught.

I really don't know a practical solution to this problem. But I know that a lot of the comments here condemning teachers as being lazy, on vacation, etc. are way off base and unfair. Teachers want to get back to personal teaching, but they also don't want to contract COVID or bring it home to their own families.

[gas_dr]

The head of the NEA once famously opined that when students pay union dues he will represent them. It was an eye popping statement.

[MinorityRepublican]

Teachers want to get back to personal teaching, but they also don't want to contract COVID or bring it home to their own families.

For centuries we had to deal with yellow fever, smallpox, polio just to name a few diseases. Now we can't handle COVID-19?

[mass55th]

Your remarks are right-on. Having worked behind bars with murderers, drug dealers, and rapists, there were two jobs I would never take. One was as a grade school/high school teacher. At least in the prison you could put a convict in the box when they got out of hand, and they were subject to disciplinary action. The inmates in NY State prisons, and most of them are from the NY City area, are a reflection of the failed government/school system there. At least in the prison system, you had the right to use whatever physical force was necessary to get an inmate to comply with your order. That doesn't exist in the schools. I never would have lasted as a teacher because I would have been too quick to put my hands on the little buggers to get them to do what I wanted.

The second job I never would have taken was police officer. Even though inmates made weapons, they rarely used them on staff, and were used more as protection for themselves. I always felt safer behind the walls. The cops today have a target on their back, put there by Democrat politicians and the media.

I could have taught. All I would have needed was my teaching certificate, but I was more interested in doing historical research than anything else. Working in Corrections gave me the time, and the money I needed to do that. I was 33 when I took the job, and too old to be a police officer anyway.

[Unam Sanctam]

Are they wimps or political hacks?