This is A Teachable Moment: Using the Pandemic as a Learning Situation

This is A Teachable Moment

By Jill Jenkins

            With the media blasting statistics on the death toll from COVID 19, parents protesting face mask mandates and social distancing and schools struggling to create a safe way to reopen schools, educators have an unprecedented teachable moment to teach curious students about how the human immune system works, the history of pandemics and medicine, and how they can protect themselves today and in the future from viruses. The fruit for learning is ripe for the picking.

Luckily there are some great sources out there. National Geographic just published a great article entitled Stopping Pandemics: What We’ve Learned from History’s Deadliest Outbreaks” by Richard Conniff in the August, 2020 edition. The article includes descriptions of how the small pox outbreak could have been prevented or eradicated in 1721.  It describes how even earlier the European devastated the native population with small pox, measles and other diseases that had native population had no immunity.  Throughout the history of the world, new diseases and virus have decimated the world’s population.  Knowing that the world has faced pandemics in the past could help students cope with the current pandemic.  The article included this list of pandemics throughout history and the number of deaths: 

·         The Plague of Justinian 541-48 in Byzantine Empire 50 million deaths

·         Antionine Plague 165-180 Roman Empire 5 million deaths

·         Black Death 1347-1351 Global 50 million deaths

·         Cocoliztil 1 1545-48 Mexico 15 million deaths

·         Small Pox 1519-1520 Mexico 8 million deaths

·         Cocoliztil 1576-78 Mexico 25 million deaths

·         Russian Flu 1889-1890 global 1 million deaths

·         1918 Flu (Spanish Flu) 1918-1919 Global 80 million deaths

·         3^rd Plague Pandemic 1894-1922 Global 10 million deaths

·         Cholera 6 1899-1923 Global 13 million deaths

·         Asian Flu 1957-1958 Global 13 million

·         Hong Kong Flu 1968 Global 1 million

·         HIV/AIDS 1981-present Global 32 million

 

Furthermore, the article gives detailed descriptions of medical advances beyond those in the small pox developments of 1721. During the Chorea outbreak of 1842 Edwin Chadwick’ revolutionary idea that the cause of the disease was raw sewage in the drinking water was revealed in his publication of The Sanitary Report. Chadwick led people into the home of an impoverished citizen where three feet of human waste had backed up. He described that the filth from the jailhouse holding 65 prisoners ran down the street. Making the connection between sewage and drinking water revolutionized sanitation through out the civilized world. Learning about his accomplishments could help students understand how pandemics advances medical development

Another example of how pandemics promotes solutions to medical problems is the story of John Pringle described in this article. The article describes how 75% of Napoleon’s solders died of Typhus in 1812 and more soldiers in every army died from disease than war wounds, until John Pringle an army physician suggested sanitation changes in his book Observation on the Diseases of the Army.

            In my lifetime Polio afflicted 15,000 people in the United States every year according to the article.  Most of my generation knew a friend or a family member who was afflicted.  Now the disease has been virtually eradicated from earth.  The article discusses the development of the vaccine by Dr. Salk, who began human trials in 1955, but it wasn’t until 1957-58 that communities were given sugar cubes soaked in the vaccine in local schools.  Students will gain a greater understanding of the difficulties in developing a vaccine for COVID 19 and how important community support is to eliminate a disease, but it can and has happened with other diseases. Giving students hope is paramount.

     Understanding past pandemics means understand the history of medicine. For years people believed disease was caused by bad humors or filth and refused to believe a germ too small to see could cause disease.  Germ Theory developed by Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur’s research significantly changed the approach to infectious disease.  The article describes their work and even describes the Ebola disease in Africa. Inspiring students who might want to pursue a career in medicine or medical research is possible.

     The article describes the development of penicillin by Howard Florey.  This was particularly interesting to me because during World War II significant amounts of penicillin was manufactured (2.3 million doses for D-Day).  My father was serving in the Philippines when he fell ill from bacteria spinal meningitis.  He was the second sailor to be given this new medicine, which had never been given for that malady. He was the second sailor whose life was saved by a disease that until then was a death sentence. Students believe that history is far removed from them.  Helping them understand the medical developments have happened in their parents, their grandparents and even their lives will give them hope. 

Knowing how important these medical advances have been, I think it is important to grasp this moment and teach children about them.  Having students read this article and select a disease or medical breakthrough to research on their own and write a research paper could help them understand the situation we are now facing. 

Other important materials that a teacher might use might include either of the two books:

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John Barry.

 

  Or even more fascinating is Pale Rider: The Spanish Flue of 1918 and How It Changed the World by Laura Spinney

Since students learn more from a variety of mediums, an appropriate film for students to view to gain greater understanding is the CDC movie, The Influenza of 1918.

 

     The teachers could create a variety of writing assignments from researching one of the many pioneers of medicine and writing about how their work and dedication is an honorable pursuit.  The teacher could coordinate with a history, a science and/or a health teacher and write about how individuals contributed to modern medicine. More importantly by studying the past, students who might be fearful about COVID 19 may learn how people in the past protected themselves and the mistake that were made and develop a personal plan to move through the current pandemic.   

According to National Geographic Magazine November 2020 Volume. 5 “The Science We Must Trust by Robin Marantz Henig LIn Andrews, director of teacher support at the National Center for Science Education have created a five-part lesson plan with ten of her colleagues. The unit focuses on epidemiology and the scientific process. By exploring milestones in epidemiology like when the British scientist, John Snow traced the outbreak of cholera to the drinking water even before germ theory. Check out the article if it could be useful in creating a teachable moment from an educational dark age.

 

Black Lives Matter: Make Education More Inclusive

Black Lives Matter: Make Education More Inclusive

By Jill Jenkins

The NAACP proclaimed in a public service announcement,  “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” This is still true today.  Education is the key to improving the quality of life and upward mobility to all people and with the growing gap between those who have and those who have not, quality education is even more important for the success of any individual.  More Black and Brown people have been provided fewer financial and educational opportunities for decades, but making education more inclusive could make a tremendous difference in the quality of education they receive.  How do we make education more inclusive are: first, invite unrepresented minorities to join extra curricular activities; second, provide academic and emotional support; and third, help families solve problems with flexible and personal solutions.          

Invite Students to Join Extra Curriculum Activities

In many schools Black and Brown students often do not participate in any extra curriculum activities beyond sports like track, basketball and football.  Although these sports often help elevate these students by offering scholarship opportunities, they do little to help the student who is not athletically inclined.  Even though participation in drama, debate, journalism, creative writing, student government or even chess club also help students earn scholarships, many of these activities are dominated by White students.  Students may avoid participating because they are working to help their financially strapped families.  Others may not join because they don’t see any of their peers participating.  Adolescence is a very social period.  To alleviate this problem, one school where I taught personally invited groups of friends to join.  It worked, they joined and they did well.

Problems

As the debate coach and drama teacher, I experienced some difficulties.  For examples, when I took a group of debaters to an predominately White school, two of my debate team members were cornered by a group of White students who were jeering and yelling derogatory racial slurs.  Luckily, another team member retrieved me and I was able to intervene and ended the incident.  However, at another school a similar incident happened to a student with less self control who retorted to their ugly comments with some vehement of his own.  The principal of that school asked me to give him bus fare and send him back to school.  When I consulted my principal, he agreed with the solution; however, today, I would have taken my entire team back and ended the competition.  When I sponsored an after school debate meet at my school, one little girl from a local parochial high school was so frightened that she locked her knees when she stood up to speak and fainted. 

Solutions:

•              1.  Luckily the district decided to cut costs, and required that the three high schools share buses when going to week-end debate meets.  The social interaction between the students from the poorer area of town (my students) with the more affluent areas created a community that looked out for each other.  As a result, there were less incidences of racial conflict.
•             2.  Collaborative work with people from differing race groups and social-economics improves relationships and understanding.  A better approach to help all stud enters interact in a more positive way and learn the argumentative skills for debate might be a workshop where suburb and predominately White schools and urban Black and Hispanic schools take workshops taught by debate coaches from both types of schools.  Activities might include discussions on controversial topics, not necessarily racism, where each student has to paraphrase what the speaker before him says before adding to the discussion.  It teaches listening and the students learn that they have more in common with each other than they believed.  Then, pair the students with a student from the other schools mixing races and economic backgrounds and given the research material and the time, they collaborate to debate together as a team.  The next day, the new teams debate one another. Although winning the debate for the school, would be lose, but learning to work with new people could be an invaluable life skill.

Another Problem
 

            Another problem that I encountered is when I cast an experienced young acting student as Alice in Alice in Wonderland who happened to be Black.  I was called into the principal’s office because a parent had complained that she didn’t understand why I had cast a Black student when her daughter, who had no experience in theater, looked exactly like Alice. When I was the artistic director of Self Inc., an improv psycho-socio drama troupe, I was called into the principal’s office again because another parent had complained that seeing mixed racial families in improvised scenes about communication in the home made her feel uncomfortable.  Be prepared as a teacher to justify doing the right thing and if that doesn’t work, don’t be afraid to call in members of the community, ACLU or NAACP.  They are all friends to education.

Add Emotional and Academic Support Programs

At another urban school where I taught 90% of the students enrolled where minorities and 10% were White, but the enrollment in the honors programs was 90% White and 10% minorities and most of them were Asian.  The administration designed a program called Century Club, similar to AVID developed in San Diego.  Low performing, but bright students were identified and interviewed.  Forty students were selected and enrolled in honors classes, but given a support class where the teachers monitored their grades, made certain they did their assignments, tutored them and taught them study skills. Since many of these students were from parents who worked several jobs to support their families or were single parent households, some lacked the language or academic skills to help their children, the school simply stepped in and helped the student get the support that was usually available in most middle class families.  As a teacher, I also helped students get counseling, social work or drug rehabilitation help when they brought me a problem I couldn’t solve. 

            In other schools I have seen students fall through the cracks because schools failed to provide additional support.  For example, I taught one young man who was a refugee from a village in Africa.  He spoke a language that no one in the district spoke and understood and spoke, no English.  He was enrolled in a class with 35 other 9^th grade Language Arts students and expected to do the curriculum.  When I complained to the administration, I was told to buy a few programs for your IPad for him and just pass him.  I tried my best to help him, but feel it was less than adequate. Many students fall behind for reasons that aren’t in their control. I had another student whose mother was so afraid of ICE she would pull her children out of school and take them to sit in the hospital whenever her husband went into the hospital for dialysis. As a result, all of these students were years behind their classmates.

Flexible Rules that Solve Human Problems with a Flexible Approach

            Schools are designed to accommodate the “Leave It To Beaver” families of the 1950’s and few families, especially families in Black neighborhoods are that family. In most working class families are financially unstable as a result both parents work and older children either work or are burdened with caring for younger siblings.  If one or both parents are incarcerated, the high school student is often attending school, raising younger siblings and supporting the family financially.  Families in stress often need a little wiggle room in the rules to survive.  Often it is a small alteration, like one of my students who watched her younger siblings when her mother left for work.  When her father arrived home, he took her directly to school, but she was usually five or ten minutes late.  Excusing such a tardy seems trivial, but it can help a family immeasurably.  I had two students who were failing their first period because they were terminally tardy, when I called their mothers, I learned that both students were single parents and woke their children before leaving for work, but the two lollygagged about and were tardy.  I suggested a solution.  I would call the two everyday before I left my apartment and pick them up on my way to work (something because of liability teachers could not do today).  For a week the two were on time, but because teachers are required to be in the building 30 minutes before school started, they decided that they could get to school on time without my help.  They did. 

             Another situation arose where a young Black student began submitting papers that were illegible and illogical.  I showed his papers to the counselor who decided to call his parents in for a meeting.  From the meeting, we learned that the student’s mother had recently passed away and he was living with his father and paternal grandfather.  Since his father was an elementary teacher two blocks from the high school, we decided that during his last period of the day, we would walk to his father’s school and tutor his father’s students.  The extra time and the helping other students, brought out of his depression and his academic skills returned.  Thinking outside the box often helps student who are suffering some personal loss.

In Conclusion

            In conclusion, schools need to become more inclusive if students of color are to succeed.  We need to invite students to participate in extra-curricular activities and advocate for them when they meet obstacles.  We need to provide emotional and academic support for students to perform in a rigorous academic curriculum.  We need to communicate with families and in a personal and flexible manner help them resolve problems they might be facing.  “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Lets not waste any.

Following CDC Guidelines When Returning to the Classroom

            When I taught in middle school and high school, classes were crowded with 35-40 students and hallways during class change were like a cattle stampede with 1500-1600 students in the middle school running to their next classes while crowds of 9^th grade students milled in large groups to socialize.  In the high school it was worse.  Three to five thousand students trudged like a large organism shoulder to shoulder.  They were packed so close together that it would have been possible to crowd surf over their downturned heads while the din of half muffled of yells and altercation when someone accidently stepped on a toe or the back of heal filled the hallways and the rustle of students weighted down by cumbersome backpacks filled with heavy textbooks slowly lumbered to their next class.  In both the middle school and the high school the smell of perspiration rose like a dark cloud over the hallway.  So, how do school even begin to imagine schools can keep students six feet apart? How do you keep students safe from Covid 19 when the air they breath is recirculated through the windowless classrooms all day long?

            One idea is to only require students to attend classrooms one day a week.  Teachers would work in teams: one English language arts teacher, one social studies teacher, one science teacher and one math teacher all teaching the same grade level. Each classroom would house ten to twelve students arranged in desks six feet apart where each teacher would teach his/her academic discipline for 40 to 45 minutes before the teacher, not the students would rotate classrooms; thereby, reducing the close contact found in class change times. There would be four rotations making it possible for each student to be instructed in English, social studies, science and math before lunch.

            For lunch each teacher could escort his/her students to the cafeteria to retrieve lunch and either eat in the cafeteria, spread out or return to the classroom to eat.  The food could be delivered to the classroom, but the problem of disinfecting the classroom before and after eating food could be a problem.  During the H1N1 Virus, teachers in my school disinfected the students’ desks and chairs after each class and met the students at the door with hand sanitizer before the class began.  The teachers’ not the district paid for these supplies, but today finding disinfectant wipes, let alone hand sanitizer is almost impossible.  Furthermore, my classroom had carpeting on the floor and walls making it difficult to sanitize.  So, extra supplies and manpower would be needed if needed.  

            The other problem with the plan is the poor teachers haven’t had a break from the students to use the rest rooms or eat lunch.  Team teaching with another teacher in the same discipline might rectify this problem; however, with teacher required to organize and teach classes and provide on-line assignments and zoom classes for all students at least four days a week, more teachers are going to be needed and many states are suffering from teacher shortages.

            What about electives?  Whiles these 40-48 students are taking their solid classes: English, social studies, science and math, 40-48 other students are taking elective classes: computers, art, dance, physical education, drama and any other elective.  Now, the two groups rotate.  The next day another 80-96 students repeat the process.  

            Are there problems?  Yes, this solution would require a lot of teamwork and planning.  While one set of teachers is in the classroom, other teachers are planning on-line assignments and teaching zoom classes.  Despite the teacher shortage in most states, more educators would be needed all who are well versed in their discipline, but also in technical skills.  Organizing students’ schedules might be challenging because not all students who are in advanced classes in one discipline are in advanced classes in another.  Furthermore, parents who had students in different grade levels or different schools, might want them to attend school on the same day which might be difficult if not impossible.  Teaching two or three sets of academic classes simultaneous on differing levels might make integrating students into the groups possible, but it would take detailed scheduling. 

            Physical contact with students will require faculty, staff and students to be screened and tested daily and requiring everyone to wear gloves and facemasks will make communicating difficult.  Students with autism and learning disabilities might find the situation unbearable.

        The advantages include buses would only transport 20% of the students daily which would make social distancing possible. Hallways would be virtually empty between classes. Although students would only have one day per week of face to face time with teachers , that time could increase learning and provide an emotional connection students’s need.  In the end districts might decide that on-line classes are more practical and economical.  All we can do is hope for a vaccine soon and that all faculty, staff and students are willing to get it.  

            

Covid 19 Who Is Responsible

It’s All On You

When I began my teaching career in the mid ‘70’s, the philosophy was schools provided an educational opportunity. Whether a child decided to partake of this opportunity or not was his/her choice. As a result a higher percentage of students from lower-socioeconomic groups or those with learning disabilities did not complete high school. Some families encouraged their children to drop-out to seek employment and enhance the family’s economic situation and those with learning disabilities or language acquisition left public schools frustrated that their needs weren’t being met.

Pass if Possible 

In the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s, the philosophy changed. The student became less responsible for his/her education and the teacher became responsible for students’ academic success. Students were expected to succeed at his/her personal best. To guarantee this, administrators looked at the teachers’ failure rates, not the students’ mastery of learning. The administration monitored grades and confronted teachers whose failure rates were too high. Instead of evaluating a teacher’s instruction methods and student learning, teachers were encouraged to pass if possible. Teachers called parents  to increase a student’s attendance and completion of assigned work As a result grade inflation occurred. This continued into the ‘90’s when grades, not learning, became more visible for parents who could access teacher’s grades on on-line roll books.  During this time, parents would wait outside my classroom to inquire why their son’s assignment handed-in five minutes before didn’t appear in the on-line grade book. Worse yet, was the parent who e-mailed me about her son’s research paper that I hadn’t yet graded while I sat in intensive care beside my husband who was in a coma recovering from a near death heart attack. The responsibility had shifted completely away from the child to the teacher.

Mastery For All

When end of the year assessment began in the 2000’s, the philosophy changed again: the teacher was now not only responsible for every students academic grade, and learned the material to his or her potential, but that every student successfully mastered the learning objectives developed by the state and federal office of education for his/her grade level. Data on students’ test scored were aggregated by subgroup and displayed on state websites so the pressure was not only on the teacher, but the entire education system to improve education for all students. This meant the teacher had to make certain every child completed every assignment and test successfully, but provide scaffolding activities for students’ with learning disabilities, language acquisition issues and behavior problems. Teaching had become more complicated with fully integrated classrooms after mainstreaming became more prevalent. English language learners, students with autism, learning disabilities and behavioral disabilities were housed in the same class with 40+ other students on every learning level. While teachers were held to an even higher level of responsibility, students were encouraged to resubmit assignments that they performed poorly on and retake tests. Even students who plagiarized papers were encouraged to rewrite them without penalty,  Achieving learning goals became the goal rather than accepting responsibility. Still, new instructional techniques and the integration of technology improved instruction.

Working Together At Home

Then came the Corona Virus and the student were sent home to learn on-line. Surprisingly, despite a plethora of high level interactive websites, conferencing with teachers on Zoom,and virtual tours of museums, zoos,and aquariums, some students have never even logged on. After 40’s years of giving the entire responsibility for education to teachers, parents and children must assume some portion of responsibility for their child’s education. Returning to the days when students were responsible for either accepting or rejecting their education seems untenable because 50% chose to fail. We should not be surprised that some parents and children are having difficulties? Teachers need to call these families. If the child has no internet connection Comcast offers low or no cost internet to low income families or parents can call 844.488-8398 and Spectum also offers free internet. If the child or the parent needs encouragement to sit together and work on the assignments, the teacher should offer it. Analyzing and improving techniques to reach the reluctant learners will improve outcomes. The education of the child is not just the child’s responsibility, not just the teacher’s responsibility, but a collaboration of the child, the parent and the teacher. Responsibility for a child’s education  truly belongs to the entire community.