and that’s okay with me. Nevertheless I will take the time to write it.
Yesterday completed 5 weeks since I last was in school with my students (March 13). That is 6 “school days” of Spring Break, 3 days of break for Easter (as a Catholic school, off for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Monday), and now 16 days of virtual school where we cannot require them to be online at any particular time. Most of my students (almost all seniors) are keeping up with the work I assign them, but some are totally tuned out, and there is little I can do to motivate them. That is somewhat offset by several students who are FINALLY doing their work, because they want to be able to “graduate” (whatever that may mean in the context of schools being closed, at least through May 15 in Maryland where I teach, and likely until the Fall).
I have finally been able to sit down and truly reflect — and not just on the impact on our lives of COVID-19, but also on the kinds of issues about which I used to opine so often in the space of this electronic community.
So consider this as one of what I used to regularly offer on Saturday mornings — a reflection by one whose self-identification is as a teacher.
On Thursday we (staff) received an email from the religious who is the President of our school about our financial situation. We are relatively low-tuition compared to most of our regional Catholic high school compatriots, and we offer generous financial aid to our families, some of whom could otherwise not afford to send their sons to us. Prior to the impact of shutdowns, we were looking forward to a modest increase in number of students, and as a result the school was planning to offer some salary increases. My base salary is about 30% less than my last public school job, but the commute is shorter and the academic freedom I have as a teacher is much greater. We went out the last week of 3rd quarter. We have families that now cannot pay their 4th quarter tuition. We are also seeing uncertainty in enrollments in the Fall, both of returning students and new freshman. In the interim, as of now we may lose the income we normally get both from summer school and from camps. I have been told they want me back, and that they hope I will want to return. We also have enough successful alumni that there is not a serious question of the school’s continued viability. But normally we would in the period from mid-April through the 1st week of May be offered contracts for the next year (contractually they must be offered by June 5). We will not see them before May, so there is some uncertainty. As a result I have passed on several great offers to get a new car to replace one with >130,000 miles. It is still functional, and right now with both of us working from home we are saving on over 400 miles per week between the two of us and our two cars. After all, I really do not want to take on additional financial commitments without a guarantee of my income from teaching.
But there is more. My wife is a Congressional employee, which means Trump cannot order her to report to her work place rather than work from home, as he can do with Executive branch employees. But at some point her agency will tell people they must return to work. That could well be before there is a vaccine. She has a compromised immune system. She cannot risk being in an environment where she has a high degree of exposure to people who may be infectious and yet asymptomatic. Wearing a mask will be insufficient protection. IF not allowed to continue to work from home, she would probably be forced to retire for medical reasons. It is not clear if she could get full Social Security as disabled, but even if she did and with her pension for which she is already eligible, it would be a significant drop in income, and we might have to give up the house and move to a relatively small apartment.
Compounding that issue is considering what we might face were I supposed to be back in the classroom before there is an effective vaccine. I would be regularly exposed to the possibility of infection. Would it be sufficient to be wearing an N95 mask (if I could get them) and to totally strip, wipe down, put clothes in washer and shower/shampoo upon entry to the house? Or might I be putting her in jeopardy? If I go out now for food, or to take the elderly cat to the vet, I mask and glove up, and do all those other things now, but my exposure is minimal as compared to what I might encounter in returning to the classroom.
There are other issues. She has a sister who is a Physician’s Assistant working in a hospital ER, who is therefore at risk. Her father is approaching 90, and living in a very good academic retirement community, which by its very nature increases his risks, and he is a cancer survivor.
As one approaching 74, I am already in an increased risk category. Further, I have both high BP and high cholesterol, to say nothing of the additional risk as a result of both a stent in my aorta (heart disease) and the stroke I went through last November.
All of this increases stress for both of us. Plus our dear kitty is now 19 and having some health issues of her own,
We are more fortunate than many folks. We still, for now, have both incomes. We are able, for now, to work from home. If necessary we can get people in the community to do shopping/errands for us. But we worry about our individual futures.
While we don’t yet know personally anyone who has succumbed to COVID-19, we both know people who have been infected and had to deal with it.
I have some students suffering greatly from being cut off from school, friends, jobs, teams, musical and theater groups. My seniors have lost a lot, and will be losing more.
As one who has been politically involved I cannot look at what is happening in our national government without horror and disgust.
I have not written much here recently, in part because I have been in an extended and profound depressive state. I felt that there was little I could offer of value to others.
Were I to lose my current teaching position I recognize that I would have grave difficulty getting another, and even then would confront the issues of risk to my wife that I face now.
I realize that there is nothing about our situation that is unique. I know people facing much more difficult situations than I do,
The only things that bring me out of my depression are my concerns for others, and that often occurs through the lens of white-hot anger and rage.
For most of my career I have taught Government. Now I see our government being destroyed before my eyes.
I lived through a time where the media held government officials and business to account. Now I see media being co-opted and manipulated until it is too late.
During Watergate the articles of impeachment against Nixon were written by three Republican Congressmen — Cohen, Hogan, and Butler. Now almost no Republican electeds at any level are willing to call this atrocity at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW to account.
Our judicial branch has been distorted, up to and including the Supreme Court, with at least two of its members (Thomas and Kavanaugh) with a history of abusive behavior towards women and almost certainly perjury in their confirmation hearings.
Perhaps what most dispirits me is that we delude ourselves in thinking the US is the greatest country in the world. We have not been for some time.
- We are an increasingly unequal society economically, politically, and in opportunity
- we do not guarantee health care as a basic right
- we do not guarantee education as a basic right
- we allow the proliferation of weapons of war throughout our civilian population, with a concomitant toll in deaths, psychological injuries, and physical damage
- we have allowed too much wealth and political power into too few hands
- we continue to destroy the natural world that is not only part of our common heritage, but which is essential for human well-being, and do so because of the greed of some and the manipulation of others
- we have allowed our people to be turned against one another for political, financial, and personal aggrandizement
- we have moved away from the ideal of being a nation of laws with equality of all before the law to a nation of some men and occasionally women who by race, religion, sexual orientation, and/or wealth are more equal than others
There is so much more.
I could write here on many aspects of this, but others already do so and probably with more cogency than I can offer.
I find I want to withdraw. I want to comfort and assist my wife, whose cancer is not curable as of yet.
I want to spend time with our cat, whose time with us may be running out.
I somewhat engage on Twitter — it takes less energy than engaging in more extensive exchanges.
I listen to music, not in any consistent fashion (shuffle is my friend) but as a way of decompressing, of stopping my conscious mind….
I had planned to come to Netroots this year, for the first time since 2012, when I tried retiring. It would have been a way of reconnecting with people, with things important to me,
Now? I try to get through a few things each day, Perhaps I can begin to work my way through the stack of books to which I never got.
I occasionally walk around our neighborhood, seeing some things in detail for the first time — they are very different when perceived on foot as only through the windows of a moving vehicle.
I keep our bird and squirrel feeders full and can spend a lot of time just watching the critters come and go.
Like many, I worry about the future. My depression comes from the feeling that there is nothing I can do to make a difference, that I may have lost any real purpose or meaning to my life.
And I know if I wrestle with these kinds of thoughts, for others it is much worse,
I had considered sharing various thoughts about data, drug trials, and all that. But I am not an epidemiologist, a virologist, a statistician, a doctor. I have little authority in politics or morality. I am but a flawed human being.
These are the rambling thoughts of that flawed human being.
I hold on to these truths. My wife loves me more than I deserve. And for some reason our elderly cat, the 9th domestic animal to allow us to share this house, does as well.
These are undeniable truths, whose existence provides me a pathway out of depression and/or insanity.
Be well.
Peace, if it is still possible.