Day 157

 August 15, 2020 The weekend is here. It actually does not feel like a real weekend yet. After our first week of remote training for the 2020-21 school year and students arriving virtually on Tuesday we still have some preparing to do. So it will be a working weekend. 

The novel coronavirus from May, when it ripped through the United States at a torrid pace, is making a comeback?! I say that realizing the United States has never really controlled the virus and in fact July was the worst month of all in regards to infections.  So there is that. 

It is apparent that many Americans have no idea what is going on or how dire it is.

And just in case you didn't know, "The United States reported at least 1,470 deaths from the coronavirus on Wednesday, the highest single-day total yet in August."- The Washington Post

Apparently we are not the only ones as this map shows...red means a lot of infections.

 

In Europe, cruise ships are setting sail again.  Does not seem like a good idea to have a floating petri dish of non-mask wearers, but the economy must be revived at all costs. That is a joke (in poor taste)

The market has made a turnaround, but that only helps in recovering the wealthy, but not the working class.  In the work force, most higher paying jobs have been re-employed, but only half of the lower paying jobs ($20 and under) have comeback.  The separation of classes continues to increase, even in a pandemic, because the upper class are back to work and major chains are seeing the stock prices rise again while small business owners catering to the middle and lower class are struggling to survive. 

In local news...

This year continues to deliver bad news as weeks of dry, hot weather have caused drought conditions and spawned wild fires in the Colorado mountains. 

A stretch of Interstate 70 was shut down near Glenwood Springs due to one fire and the once clear beautiful "purple mountains majesty" has turned smoky gray.

 Over 1,000 brave men and women are charged with fighting these wildfires. This blurb from Colorado Public Radio, gives the locations of the wildfires and a quote from Governor Polis:

"Grizzly Creek Fire: 19,440 acres, 0 percent containment (Aug 15 @ 7:30 a.m.)
Pine Gulch Fire: 73,381 acres, 7 percent containment (Aug 14 @ 2:45 p.m.)
Cameron Peak Fire: 5,424 acres, no containment (Aug 15 @ 7:30 a.m.)

“It’s no question that this is a difficult time for Coloradans, especially those in the vicinity of the fires, and we appreciate our emergency first responders and public safety workers now more than ever,” Polis said"

 In other news, Joe Biden has named Kamala Harris as his running mate. Which brings me to The Post Office, which recently communicated with "detailed letters to 46 states and D.C. warning that it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted — adding another layer of uncertainty ahead of the high-stakes presidential contest."- The Washington Post

With both the Democratic and Republican conventions coming up the nation begins its big push towards November's presidential election.  The two candidates seems to be opposites on many issues and that only makes everything that is said and seen from convention days forth all the more juicy.  The world being in the midst of a pandemic makes it that more...anticipatory (something new to watch, right?) 

Day 156

 Today is Friday August 14, 2020 In recent coronavirus news. According to the Washington Post, "On Wednesday: The United States recorded the most covid-19 deaths in a single day since mid-May, nearly 1,500 fatalities. "

This seems nearly unfathomable to me. How can people, six months into a pandemic, read this and continue to venture out without masks and refuse to social distance.  Do these imbeciles not realize that they are perpetuating the virus spread? Today I heard a story about a restaurant in Kankakee, Illinois where every patron and employer were unmasked and the place was completely full. Un-fuken-believable. Where is the common sense? The concern for self and others. 

I recall, years a go, seeing a bumper that read Slap the stupid people. 

 

So it goes. On and on. It is increasingly frustrating for me to read these increasing numbers then hear/read stories like the restaurant in Kankakee and have faith in human kind.  

So I would like to talk about Marcus Aurelius and his writings. Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161-180 and the last emperor of Pax Romana, a long period in Roman history known for peace and stability. He was a philosopher of stoicism, a belief system based on personal ethics and driven by logic and natural laws. The philosopher wrote, “The longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose.” This is included in his writings under the title Meditations, a source of writings on Stoicism still praised centuries after his death.

The stoics, with their radical view of ethics, had a goal and that was to live their best life.

They strove for self-discipline and an acceptance of all things present.  They were mindful before it was cool. Virtuous and fair they were read by many great minds of history such as George Washington, Walt Whitman, Frederick the Great, Immanuel Kant and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Kant, a German philosopher, seeking to define enlightenment often referred to the latin phrase Sapere aude which can be loosely translated as "Dare to be wise"

If only some of us dared more often.

Day 155

 August 13, 2020 

We are on our fourth day of remote professional development and my head aches, my eyes burn and my brain is fried. 

The district is front loading our cerebral cortex with massive amounts of information. The information is worthwhile and will be immediately applicable to our remote teaching term.

The part of it that is most difficult is staring into a computer screen for hours and having little time to process the data before the next training.  And we begin direct online instruction next week. 

When I was choosing a major for college I knew I did not want to be in a cubicle or desk job. And certainly not chained to a computer. It is utterly depressing. I do not know how people do it.

I chose physical education because I wanted to move and be on my feet. Which I have been joyfully doing for 25 years.  Although last spring the pandemic slowed everything to a grinding halt.  The Cure sing a song called Grinding Halt. You can listen to it here:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8el7sMurPYw

The numbers in the pandemic are rising every day and nothing appears to be able to slow its progress (or we are just not trying hard enough) The current number of daily cases in Colorado appears to be on the decline since a mask ordinance was put in place in late July. Here a map and some numbers for Denver County, the largest county, and where we currently reside.

   

We shall see what the numbers look like in October as our school quarter comes to a close and once again the board of education will decide which model to proceed with.  The models are remote, hybrid, cohort and in-person.  I just heard recently that the entire state of New York is going to reopen in September with a unique plan that falls in line with safety considerations as well as district discretion. WKBW in Buffalo reported recently saying, 

"New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced schools in New York State will reopen in September but with some stipulations.

Instead of using a "one size fits all" plan, the Governor said reopening plans are being approved on an individual basis by the NYS Department of Health.

"Remote education, a blend, half-day, quarter-day, a third day . . . that is all up to their discretion," said Cuomo."

This is of interest to me since my sister and two nieces are all in the education field and my nephew is in middle school.  The stress all educators and probably many children and parents are feeling right now is paramount.  Over the last few days, as I have planned for the upcoming remote quarter of teaching, this pandemic-pain-in-the-ass has really hit a nerve.  It is not that I forgot it or was in denial, but being in a pandemic over the summer was just a big fun-sucker.

And yes we were remote in the spring, but it was mostly access based instruction and it was more about helping children and families cope while we ourselves dealt with the sudden reality of online instruction.  This new year comes with rigor and accountability and evaluation and new learning. Tons of new learning.  Of course, all us educators are in this together.  We are all sailing the ship called COVID-19 into uncharted waters, but dang if it sometimes doesn't feel like you were stranded on a deserted island and all you have is computer! 

Day 154

 August 12, 2020 

Yesterday was another day of remote learning and collaboration with peers in preparation for the upcoming school year. We will be teaching remotely for the first quarter.  The district has provided many resources and asynchronous training opportunities around such things as creating a positive class culture to behavior management to communicating with families all designed around the digital education model.  There has also been online courses for the four digital platforms we will be using this year (Kami, Screencastify, Flipgrid and Pear Deck).

We are exactly one week away from virtually being in front of students.    

The situation in the world remains the same. We are in the midst of a global pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus which has spread its way around the world and has infected over 20 million people resulting in 737,000 + fatalities.  Because testing remains limited in parts of the world, experts say we do not even know the true numbers of infected or dead. The virus has changed the way the world operates as travel bans and other restrictions have crippled the economy. The unemployment rate is at a rate not seen since the great depression and many businesses have been forced to close.  People have lost jobs, housing and loved ones as COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc upon the earth.  Every country has been effected either directly with large numbers of infected people (U.S., India and Brazil are the top three) or indirectly by travel or trade bans limiting their ability to maintain a sustainable income.  The top scientists in all the world are working to create an effective and safe vaccine. But because of the mysterious qualities of the virus the results may be unpredictable.  The current coronavirus is one which can infect people, but show no symptoms, it may infect and show minor symptoms which go away in a 3-7 days and it may infect people and take their lives within 7-10 days.  Underlying medical issues can play a part and the elderly seem to be particularly vulnerable.   However, there have been cases of perfectly healthy young people contracting the virus and succumbing to it.  Originally it was though children were immune, but that is no longer the case and although they are less likely to be infected and transmit the virus it is still a possibility.  A school, which had opened to in-person learning last week was quickly shut down after persons were infected and over 800 students and 40 staff members were quarantined after only being open for six days.

If you want to know how fast the virus has spread recently here is a quote from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, secretary-general of the World Health Organization, who said in June. “It took more than two months for the first 100,000 cases to be reported, ...For the past two weeks, more than 100,000 new cases have been reported almost every single day.”

Even after learning much about the transmission of the virus and witnessing major failures in prevention of infection across the world we are all still not performing the simple measures it takes for us to slow the spread.  A real enigma, especially after how easy it is to get the correct information and how simple the measures truly are (keep six feet distance, wear a mask and wash your hands often), yet the puzzlement continues. I suppose it says a lot about our humanism and egotism and ignorance. Our hope is for a safe and effective vaccine for the rational folks and let the ignoramus around us continue to do what they do. 

  

Day 153

Tuesday August 11, 2020

Yesterday was an all day virtual training for professional development. I was on the computer from 8:00-5:00 with a few sporadic breaks here and there. It was exhausting.  We are preparing for the upcoming first quarter of teaching remotely.  Today was information on Neurosequential Model of Education. It is helpful information, but quite overwhelming today. Three modules each one hour long.  Then content guides and specific work with peers.  Lesson planning and collaboration.  When your career changes this drastically it really brings home the reality of the pandemic.  The other restrictions do not really effect me that much, but the training today was eye-opening.  It will surely be the an interesting first quarter of teaching.  Go slow to go fast is the current motto.  In order to create community, trust and a sense of belonging in your classroom, relationship building with students is a must and it begins with a slow pace of learning and practicing expectations while installing consistent and predictable routines. 

Gathering steam as you move into the content and building up both resilience and tolerance in children. 

In case you are wondering why the virus is called novel, here is an explanation from the NY Times, "It's called the novel coronavirus because we believed it was new to human experience, a brand-new pathogen totally alien to our immune systems, totally invulnerable to the defenses our bodies had built up against other diseases."

There is some mystery around this virus, most notably why around 40% of infected persons show no symptoms at all.  The theory (with very promising research) says some people are partially immune to the virus.  Although they are not sure why there is suggestion that old vaccines may be the reason.  This is good news, but in the bad news category, Americans continue to spread the virus profusely.  Our total has reached 5 million and a very unsettling 100,000 infections in children since late July.  All this with many school districts a mere weeks or even days away from classes starting.  Many are going the remote route, but others are in a hybrid or cohort model where kids and staff will be in the building.  New research has shown how children are affected in vastly different ways (depending on age)  than adults.  Much is still unknown about the transmission by children, but either way it will be both a most interesting and precarious fall semester.  In business news, the pandemic continues to crush certain companies.  Two such ride share companies Lyft and Uber are reporting a loss of 75% of their market due to COVID-19.