Category: Health

School Bells Will Soon Be Ringing

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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Going back to school was always an exciting time for me. School was a shelter that kept me going even when times were tough. After my father died school gave me a sense of normalcy when my world felt so upside down. When my mother had mental breakdowns school provided me with a sense of purpose and control in a life that felt as though it was skidding off the rails.

Every July I would plan and anticipate the coming of the new adventure in the classroom. I bought clothes, shoes, supplies. When I was still a student I wondered who my teacher would be. When I became a teacher I wondered who my students would be. I thought of being together with my friends again. Everything about the time felt shiny and new. It was like starting with a blank slate, an opportunity to learn and change for the better.

Even after I retired from more than forty years in education I still went out in July to buy new pens and pencils and to freshen my supply of paper. I enjoyed back to school sales and somehow felt the same joy of anticipation that I had known since I was five years old. I eagerly read the posts from teachers with whom I had worked and I lived vicariously through their preparations. Eventually I had to admit that I missed working with students too much to just enjoy my new found freedom. I found tutoring jobs and taught mathematics to young people who were being homeschooled. I was still part of the educational world if only in a small way.

This year is so different. The usual teacher and student anticipation has become trepidation. The joy factor is absent as teachers consider the need for a new kind of supply closet, one filled with disinfectants, soap, hand sanitizers and extra masks. Their planning centers on how to keep students sufficiently distant from one another in a room so small that such a feat seems impossible. Teachers understand that the usual sights and sounds and smells will be very different from anything that they and their students have ever experienced. Understanding this fills them with a sense of gloom which late at night sometimes becomes a feeling of doom.

The world of school as we have come to know it will not include knots of friends playing together at recess. There will be no relaxing over lunch or trading of chips for a bag of cookies. Gatherings in the hallway will be prohibited. Teachers who have always been all things for all of the people they serve will have added responsibilities that will be exhausting both for the labor involved and the sense of responsibility incurred. They will be the ones continuously cleaning the desks and supplies. They will be the ones enforcing the safety rules. They will be the ones watching for signs of physical or mental trouble in their all too tiny classrooms where the virus has the potential to lurk in every corner.

Teachers understand better than anyone how different things will feel and be. Children will only see their friends from afar. The smiles and facial expressions that enliven relationships will be covered with masks. Only the eyes will tell a story and many of them will have difficulty focusing on learning when everything feels so wrong. No matter whether classes resume in person or remotely a deep sadness and sense of fear will hover over everything. School will not be a haven of routine but a haven of uncertainty. Being there or not being there will be equally difficult.

Teachers and their students are now part of a grand experiment and nobody can say with any assurance what exactly will happen. I can only predict that teachers will put every ounce of their dedication into to trying to make the most of an horrific situation. It is what they do. It would be nice if we would support and appreciate them as they grid themselves like soldiers going off to battle. They are quite naturally frightened because they know of the dangers they may face as they care for the most important treasures that our nation has.

Schools are getting threats of loss of funding if they don’t do things a certain way even as educators understand that one size fits all theories never work. People who have never ventured into a classroom to actually care for children all day long are creating policies that hinder the kind of flexibility that is a necessary part of teaching. There is much talk about what parents need and what students need but very little about what teachers need. There is even renewed criticism of the entire educational system because in truth it is impossible to structure learning in a way to please everyone. The outcry is leaving teachers wondering if anyone even cares about the incredible duties and dangers they are being asked to embrace without question.

The school bells will be ringing in a month or so. Many of them will be virtual. Others will be in person. It will not be the same. The routines will be different. The challenges will be many. We can only hope and pray that we are making the right choices. What we do matters greatly. We should hear what our teachers have to say. It is something we don’t tend to do very well. Perhaps now is the time we start. 

Becoming the Helpers, Healers and Caretakers

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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We are meant to be social. We form communities. We join groups. We have friends. It is the way of being human. Suddenly we have been forced into a state of isolation by a virus that is not even visible to the eye but which may lurk in any corner through which we pass. This fact changes our plans, cancels traditions, upends our lives. We watch as our world appears to be descending into chaos and confusion. We just want to go back to normal but it feels as though our efforts to do so are thwarted again and again. We are disappointed, confused, sad, maybe even angry. We want to blame someone. Surely we should be able to rise above all of this. Who is at fault? When will we feel safe again?

The times are like no other even when we desperately attempt to make them so by ignoring or even doubting the evidence before us. We think that if we just stay positive and talk about something else we may find a semblance of the world as we wish it to be. We wonder why people cannot just focus on prayer and happy thoughts. We want to be calm. We want serenity now. We cannot understand why some among us insist on stirring up trouble. We want lazy summer days and laughter. We are tired and scared even though our bravado attempts to tell a different story.

We have people using this moment to demonstrate the magnificence of humanity. They are helpers, caretakers, healers. They are compassionate, selfless souls. They use this time to do the heavy lifting that keeps our society working as much as possible. They faithfully carry on even as they know that there is danger in doing so. They cure and nurse and teach and cook and clean and deliver and complete the payrolls. They make things, build things, repair things. They wear masks and wash their hands and follow uncomfortable guidelines out of the love that is apparent in their work. They face the problems that they encounter not to glorify themselves but to celebrate the value of every human being.

We also have people who are sadly using this moment in selfish ways. They stir up hate and divisions to cement their own power. They sow seeds of discontent. They appear to be unconcerned by the needs of others. They engage in false dichotomies and blame. Instead of taking positive steps to be part of the solution, they spend their time accusing others of bringing a scourge on our land. They point to the worst aspects of every situation rather than focusing on what is working and what is good. They seem to be tone deaf, insensitive, uncaring.

We know that our present state of fear and unrest is unsustainable. We will eventually have to face down the demons that plague our society whether they be microbes or beliefs. We might learn from the helpers, caretakers and healers. No problem is ever solved by being ignored and some difficulties require much patience, hard work and even pain to overcome. We might begin by agreeing to be guided by goodness rather than self centered motivations. We may need to make uncomfortable changes to set things right. We will need to look ahead to the future while learning from the past. We will do well to rely on the kind of experts and knowledge that have moved humankind forward in the past. We must be willing to open our minds rather than clinging to outmoded and ineffective ways of doing things. A brighter future is possible but only if we set aside ignorance and hate.

I am an optimist but that does not mean that I only allow happy thoughts to enter my mind. Sometimes I have to walk through darkness before I see the pinpoint of light ahead. I am religious but I also believe that our institutions devoted to the praise and glory of God are sometimes too rule driven and not centered enough on the preciousness of people. Just as I do not think that it is right to take the life of even the unborn, so too do I see it as our duty to fight for justice for anyone on earth who is being abused by word or deed. In our own country we have too long found excuses for the deplorable treatment of an entire race of people who were brought here in chains. We may not be guilty of racism of our own but we have certainly been guilty of allowing the continued glorification of those who fought to keep slavery alive. We must be as willing to admit to that wrong as we are willing to confess our personal sins. It is our duty as believers in the words of Jesus to finally embrace our Black brothers and sisters with the unconditional love that they deserve.

The truth is that we are now engaged in a battle for lives being attack by Covid-19 and lives being attacked by continued “isms.” If we are to become a greater nation of the kind imagined by Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. we must stop fighting with one another. We need to proudly don our masks out of love. We need to value the life of every person on this earth out of love.  When we see or hear hurtful behavior we must decry it out of love. We must become the helpers, healers and caretakers out of love. 

I Have Watched and Learned

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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My mother used to urge me to watch and learn. She would take me into the bathroom and show me that cleaning the toilet was way more than just swishing the most visible areas with some cleaning solution. She demonstrated how to iron a shirt and make a straight seam with a sewing machine. She showed me how to cook without a recipe. All the while my duty was to only observe what she was doing. There were no written instructions. I simply increased my knowledge by witnessing her at work. Before long I found myself watching and learning everywhere I went. I suppose that it was a good trait to have because I realized along the way that there is much information to be gathered by being a “fly on the wall.”

Since the first of March I have been busily noting the unfolding of events during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most interesting of all have been people’s reactions to the various things that have happened in response to the virus. With the killing of George Floyd in May occurrences and the perceptions of them became curiouser and curiouser. From my birds eye view gathered from the comfort of my home here are my random observations:

  • It was much nicer and more comforting when we were all concerned with one another and working together much as we did in the first couple of weeks of the novel coronavirus coming to our country.
  • Conspiracy theories of all kinds are rapidly attempting to overtake the truth.
  • Along those lines it must be noted that the pandemic is not a hoax and it will not miraculously go away in November once the presidential election has been held.
  • Not all persons participating in the Black Lives Matter marches and protests are rioters, looters and destroyers. In fact, of the millions who have marched across the globe all but a very small percentage are peaceful. Portraying them all as thugs who want to pillage and destroy our country is no substantive foundation.
  • Not all of our police and law enforcement officers are corrupt and racist. In fact most of them are good men and women who strive to protect us with fairness. Portraying all of them as evil is yet another ridiculous idea.
  • Defunding police departments is not a means of ridding ourselves of law enforcement.
  • Information from scientists and medical persons is far more reliable than anything one might hear from politicians, neighbors or some guy who has a thing for conspiracy theories. Being scientific in a time of pandemic is advisable.
  • Wearing masks will not make us sick from carbon dioxide build up. If that were true doctors and nurses would be long dead by now.
  • It is a great American right to have different opinions. It is not more patriotic to be a member of a particular party. True profiles in courage usually rock the status quo causing us to think.
  • Those who note and comment on problems within the systems of the United States do not hate the country. In fact, it may be said that they care so much about the country that they want to help repair the aspects that are broken.
  • History is often far more complex that a single point of view.
  • Those of us who are not Black will never be able to completely understand what the lives of Black Americans are like. To ridicule or ignore them when they attempt to describe the inequities that they experience is insensitive and inhumane.
  • Just because someone does not have Covid-19 and does not know anyone with the virus does not mean that it is not a serious illness. 
  • We take precautions for the safety of everyone. Proclaiming that we have a right to be reckless is the ultimate in selfishness.
  • Many, many people are hurting and this is causing great stresses and anxieties that we should not ignore.
  • It would behoove us to find out who among us needs help whether it be financial, assistance finding employment, or dealing with psychological issues. This is not a time to horde our good fortune while ignoring the hurt of others.
  • We should not even be thinking of repealing the Affordable Care Act in the middle of a pandemic. Too many people are relying on this healthcare safety net. They need to know that it will be there for them if they need it.
  • We should find a way to keep people in their homes rather than evicting them. To make people homeless right now is the ultimate in cruelty.
  • This is not a time to threaten dreamers that we will finding a way to stop DACA that is Supreme Court proof and eventually send them back to the places where they were born but may not even remember.
  • No piece of cloth, stone, metal icon, or song should ever be more important than any single human life. 
  • We must address the measures we will need to safely open our schools so that both students and teachers will feel comfortable upon returning. We must also be ready to be flexible in the event that Covid-19 begins a second wave.
  • Beware of anyone who tries to focus on our divisions or who revels in the pain and suffering of certain groups. Watch for trigger words and phrases that constantly lay the blame or poke fun. 
  • Covid-19 is an acronym for coronavirus disease of 2019. It is not the Chinese flu.
  • Covid-19 is not political and we should not try to make it so.
  • We should all make a point of being kind. There is enough uncertainty, privation, and sorrow without turning on one another.
  • If we do not work together again, we may fall together. We will all need to sacrifice and understand that going to the beach or a bar or a ballgame or out to eat or on a trip or to a concert is far less important that saving even one life.
  • We demonstrate how much we care by our behavior and by the expectations we have for our leaders. When they seem to be more interested in themselves than in the people it is our duty to call them out, not model their selfish behavior.
  • Remember above all else God loves every one of us and he wants us to love each other.

A Grand Experiment

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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We are almost at the end of June which means that we have to begin thinking about sending the children back to school in six to eight weeks. I often used July to plan lessons for the coming academic year. I am a freak when it comes to preparing ahead of time. I have never been able to do anything at the last minute. When I look at the possibilities of chaos in the coming school year I feel for teachers everywhere. Never has there been so much uncertainty about what will happen once children return to the classrooms.

The governor of Texas has declared with great confidence that all schools will reopen and that masks and other forms of protection from the virus will be optional. The reaction from the public has been mixed with many insisting it’s time to get back to normal and others worrying about the dangers of turning classrooms into germ farms. I have heard of parents investigating home schooling for at least the next year and teachers resigning or retiring because of health issues. We are wading into unknown waters and the fear is that those waters may be infested with sharks.

I teach eight home schooled students and we have not yet decided whether I will resume in person lessons or continue teaching them remotely. I am not as self assured as our governor is. I am still in the mode of wanting to wait to see what happens in the coming weeks. I can’t afford to bring illness into my home so I am a bit more circumspect.

Knowing what to do is a major dilemma for so many people. I agree that the best case scenario is for the nation’s students to return to a sense of normalcy but there is still a little voice whispering concerns to me. My forty plus years of teaching taught me that classrooms are like petri dishes for growing germs. I’ve seen more than my share of outbreaks of disease that closed down campuses. My hope is that this does not happen when we attempt to get back to the books.

The planning in many school districts appears to be far too nebulous for my taste. I’m of the mind that every teacher and parent needs a clear outline of Plans A through Z that will take into account any eventualities. All the shareholders need to know exactly what to expect when they return. How many students will be in each classroom? Will masks be a requirement? How will the school day change from the norm. Everyone must be told what will happen if there is an outbreak of the virus in a particular classroom or if the virus runs rampant through an entire campus. There should be plans for doing a better job with remote learning if that becomes a necessity again. Just using canned programs did not appear to be particularly effective so there should already be discussions about to how teachers might make those lessons more meaningful to their students?

There should already be concrete learning alternatives for those students with illnesses that might make them more vulnerable to the effects of the virus. Parents need to know what to expect if they choose to keep their children home. Teachers who have compromised immune systems should be provided with opportunities to become remote instructors for the children who need to avoid classrooms. There needs to be consideration for all individuals, not just a statement that if they can’t handle things they should just stay home.

July should be dedicated to using the creativity and talents of teachers to help in the design of each possible scenario. Schools need to be willing to try new ways of providing instruction that focus on the health and safety of all parties and provide the needed materials to institute each idea as needed.

I know of parents who are trying to find masks, hand sanitizer, and disinfecting wipes for their children to take to school. Each campus should be well supplied with such items and even have a larger than usual janitorial force to maintain bathrooms and general cleanliness throughout the school day. I have so often see restrooms without soap. This is something that should not ever happen and its occurrence must be reduced with a firm plan for continually monitoring the building throughout the school day.

So many schools have eliminated nurses from their faculty. I can think of no better time to bring them back onto every campus. Schools will need their expertise in attempting to insure that the virus does not overwhelm the efforts to provide education. They can also vanguard the daily monitoring for signs of potential illness and help to determine when and if there are particular dangers.

I know that many school districts are working diligently to be prepared. I hope that they are willing to allow teachers, parents and even students to both ask questions and provide input. I would also request that the governor please quit changing his mind about how things should work. His latest remarks undid a great deal of work that had already been done. If you are going to make the teachers and students return at least allow them to create the plans that work best. This is going to be a grand experiment and our halls of education need to be ready for anything. 

Take the Politics Out of Covid-19

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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Just when I thought I it might be safe to get out and about once again the numbers of Covid-19 cases in my part of Texas are continuing to rise. Our hospitals are filling at a frightening pace so quickly that our renowned Texas Children’s Hospital has agreed to provide medical services for adults. It is a disturbing situation that I saw coming but, I hoped against hope that I was wrong. Sadly the fight against the virus became political almost from the onset when it should have been a collective community and national effort to do whatever was needed to get things under control. While the doctors and nurses in my family and circle of friends were warning me to stay the course of precaution I saw the process devolve all around me. Now the predictions of the medical experts regarding the dangers of ignoring this deadly illness are coming true.

Many weeks ago the Harris County Judge, Lina Hidalgo and the Houston mayor, Sylvester Turner, mandated that all citizens wear masks in public places. They also created an overflow medical facility at the Reliant Center in the event that the local hospitals became overwhelmed. At the same time the Lieutenant Governor of our the state of Texas, Dan Patrick, was insisting that businesses needed to open up and that anyone who was afraid should just stay home. All the while President Trump refused to wear a mask to any of his briefings or appearances, boasting that he was not afraid. Never mind that he is quite possibly the most protected individual in the entire country considering that everyone who comes near him gets regularly tested. He continually bragged that he had lead the best response to the virus in the entire world and insisted that the growing numbers of cases were there only because of all the testing that was taking place for everyone else. Before long he had managed to turn the pandemic into an election issue rather than a national emergency, resulting in his followers ignoring much of the advice coming from medical experts.

Along the way Trump supporters in Houston launched a lawsuit against the mandate to wear masks. Before long wearing one had become more of a choice than a rule. The governor ignored the guidelines for reopening businesses that had been created by the CDC and the Covid 19 task force. Here in the Houston area people were hurling insults at Lina Hidalgo, calling her an “Hispanic Nazi” for daring to require citizens to wear masks. They criticized both her and the mayor for wasting taxpayer funds on an overflow hospital that they believed would likely never be used. They rushed back to normal as quickly as possible, crowding beaches and bars and tubing along the rivers in the Texas hill country. They were determined to get on with living and they spoke of their belief that all of us had been duped by a hoax designed to make our president and our state leaders look bad. They insisted that after the November elections were over the virus would miraculously disappear. They turned all of the efforts to control the virus into a political battle and created an unnecessary division between those who wanted to move more cautiously and those who laughed at the very idea that Covid 19 was any worse than the ordinary flu.

None of this ever needed to happen. The efforts to contain the spread of Covid 19 should have been a united goal devoid of even a taint of politics. We should have been working together as a nation, supporting any city, town or state that needed help. Our guidance should have erred on the side of caution. We should have been willing to see ourselves as one people with a common goal. Each individual should have been eager to make sacrifices and help in the effort. We should have listened to the medical experts and allowed them to guide all of our decisions. We should have been patient and willing to proceed forward with great care.

There will be those who will blame the resurgence on the protestors who have filled the streets night after night. There will be others who will say that it came from Memorial Day partying. There are claims that the increases are coming from migrant workers and people in meat packing plants. Others will point to political rallies in enclosed spaces. Some will simply hurl racist accusations at China, insulting our Asian Americans with taunts of “kung flu.” Sadly each of those explanations point to how broken we have become during all of this when we might have demonstrated more strength of character just as our parents and grandparents did during World War II. Somehow instead we are talking over one another and ignoring the realities of what we should be doing. This should always have been a medical issue rather than a political one. 

We will probably never know exactly why Covid 19 has refused to release the grip it has on our country. I don’t think that blaming it on any specific group serves to make things better. What I do believe is that every effort should be focused on what is good for the people of this country. It is not too late to focus on those who are sick and dying. We still have time to move beyond our differences and agree to do what is best for the protection of the many. If we continue to refuse to do this I fear for the toll that Covid 19 will take on all of us. If our leaders won’t lead us we need to take the reins and do the right thing without them. We must take the politics out of Covid-19.