So some ten weeks ago there was nothing.
Then news of an outbreak in Wuhan, China. It spread to South Korea and Japan. Then to Iran and Italy.
A ripple traveling across the globe and arriving everywhere sooner or later.
Including the United States.
Yesterday the nearby Cal State Channel Islands campus closed down to try to halt the spread of the “Coronavirus” (COVID-19), following the lead of other universities elsewhere in California.
Then today Ventura College closed.
I could see plainly the writing on the wall: my school district would be closing imminently. Ten minutes ago I got the email. I am done until April 16, 2020. Four weeks off, three weeks of school cancelled.
Wow.
Is this a major overreaction? I saw people tonight in the grocery store stocking up on hand soap, toilet paper, and other necessaries. There had been a run on the aisle of pasta and mac and cheese and nothing was left. The shelves were ominously empty. There is real fear out there. Is it misplaced?
I suspect it might be.
But I have no idea.
I have seen nothing like this in my lifetime. And I am surely no infectious disease or public health expert, and most likely neither are you, esteemed reader. How are we best to proceed? What should we do? What will happen?
We seem to be in uncharted territory. I am not sure anybody knows for sure.
We shall have to see.
Signs of leadership?
I am not exactly full of confidence in President Trump or his team. They are amateurs. Donald Trump has never previously been in charge of a large organization entrusted to serve the public good or anything similar during a genuine crisis which would call for wizened maturity, solid good judgement, and the ability to lead. I have never noticed any Churchillian granite in Trump. He never served in the military nor saw combat. When has the crucible of crisis ever truly tested Donald Trump? Is he up to the challenge? I have my doubts. Might I be pleasantly surprised by President Trump over the next few weeks and months? I will hope so, but I fear not.
How about Anthony Fauci, current head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)? Or California Governor Gavin Newsom? Other leaders at the more local level?
We shall see.
Maybe it will be incredibly ugly and we will struggle with this virus and its effects for months and years. Maybe millions might die. Untold wealth disappear? Maybe my loved ones might acquire the virus? Might I get sick? Maybe. Maybe not.
But I do know that the worse things get in a crisis situation, the better one is served by remaining calm and retaining the ability to think clearly. Fear can build on itself independent of any external stimuli worthy of the fear, and that fear can turn to hysteria and take flight and fly away with itself. I have always thought you don’t really see a person until a crisis arrives. Then you see.
At any rate, it would be best to wait until we know more before jumping to conclusions. “Wars and rumors of war.”
All I know is this: I will take my high school classes online and the learning therein will lose as little effectiveness as possible. I have taught plenty of online classes. I know what I am doing; I am ready. “Adapt, innovate, and overcome.” I cannot control much in this Coronavirus-outbreak business, but I can control what I can control. I have my own role to play in this. I will be ready.
They say a grave crisis is a great opportunity which is far too valuable to be wasted, and I intend to take full advantage. I am going to use that different muscle involved in online learning and hone my skills in that realm. My webcam is warmed-up; my online portal is ready. I have the home contact info for my students; I have been preparing furiously for the past few days. I am good-to-go. Any students who don’t have access to the Internet at home for online learning can come park in my driveway and jump on my home Wi-Fi network. I will walk out there and type in my password on their digital device. We will use our time, not waste it.
Moreover, I am going to have some intense homeschooling with Julia and Elizabeth, and maybe even some of their friends who might be willing. Literature circles? Middle school book clubs? Hours curled up with classic literature? There will be intense literature study and rich family time. I plan to read To Kill a Mockingbird with Julia and teach it just as I do with my high school students, with discussion questions and writing prompts, etc. I will finish the seemingly interminable Little Women with Elizabeth and watch the Greta Gerwig movie version. We will go to the club and exercise, and maybe even drive somewhere far away and have an adventure. I can conduct my online classes almost anywhere.
We shall see.
I intend to be rock-solid as a teacher and as a father. That is my part to play.
So it begins. Tomorrow. The “Coronavirus” Covid-19 outbreak of 2020. It just got real.
I will end these few paragraphs written to myself with these words ringing in my ears:
“IF”
By Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Postscript: The very next day, I was informed by my school district that for “complex legal reasons” we teachers were prohibited in giving any instruction at all to students online or otherwise. What they were saying is in the name of “equity,” nobody could do anything. A few teachers were ready to teach online, others weren’t; some schools could do it, others couldn’t. There might be a few students without even a cell phone or any Internet access at all. (I asked and all my students had at least a smartphone and access to the Internet for online learning.) The Special Education students will need the exact same access as everyone else, or else lawsuit. So if everybody was not ready, nobody could move forward.
In this case, the school district moved down to the lowest common denominator and set a uniform policy there. In practice, equal access for all meant shared misery for everyone. It was a disaster.
This was one of my lowest moments ever as a public school teacher. Maybe Americans who care about their children’s education SHOULD put them in private schools. The nearby private schools ARE doing online education during this time.
I have a friend who attended Servite High School, an elite all-boys Catholic school in Anaheim, CA. He looked down his nose at the “public school puke” who he claimed received inferior educations in public school.
Never have I come closer to agreeing with him as I do today.
Well, I have essentially been given a three-week, unlooked-for vacation. I should not complain. Shut everything down and see you on the other side.
Home school is in session! Other kids might not be learning anything, but mine will.
