Stressors

 

Out here in the smoke and flames, the California State University system has announced they will be online for the spring 2021 semester.  Now the wait begins to see what the University of California system and the private colleges decide to do.  There is Covid-19, the raging fires, the civil unrest, the increasingly armed and dangerous conflicts between citizen groups, and the abject, duplicitous administration in Washington.  All this and the switch to remote learning:  is it any wonder students and teachers are stressed?

Across the country, parents, students, and teachers are trying to figure all of this out.  Parents are trying to balance their new roles as teachers’ aides while continuing to work from home.  Teachers are dealing with their children at home while attempting to teach others.  Older siblings, at the expense of their own learning and course work, take care of younger brothers and sisters so parents can work at home or in person at a job site.  This means that Zoom sessions often have chaotic backgrounds and noise, with several people in the household logged on to remote classrooms.  Bandwidth is precious and often limited, knocking students off in the middle of a lesson or exam.  Students continually struggle for equipment, textbooks, resources, and a stable internet connection.  Reported absenteeism is high while some college students are withdrawing and taking a leave of absence.  In many cases, teachers must revise methods and curricula on the fly, leading to even more confusion.

The long-term consequences of all of this are clear.  There will be lasting damage as Covid-19 continues to interrupt the focused, intensive, sequential education of students.  Will these students return in a safer time?  Will they have the financial resources to wait out the virus and continue their education?  For students in their formative years of elementary education, we are looking at the possibility of a generation of disenfranchised, under-educated students who will go on to drain federal and state resources as under-performing working adults, leading to unemployment, discontent, and anger.  There is a psychological impact in addition to the physical impact on a student due to the virus and the existential threats like fire and civil unrest.  And when does civil unrest become a civil war?  We may need an answer to that question very soon.

We are especially vulnerable to high unemployment for graduating college students, even with a paradigm shift from traditional majors like English and philosophy to job-ready majors like social work, nursing, and criminology.  They will attempt to enter the workforce during a tighter economy and job market.  Will graduates be able to find employment with pay equal to their qualifications and college degrees?  Will they be financially secure enough to begin repaying their student loans?  Recovery from the impact of this disease may not happen quickly, even with a vaccine and people returning to some sense of a normal life.  Normal may be a relative term in the post-Covid-19 world.

There are far too many unanswered questions regarding what will happen between now and November, or now and January.  The problems Americans face will not be resolved immediately with a new president or a different party in control of the House or Senate.  To get out of this mess, we will need new, strong, consistent leadership and planning.  It will take a herculean effort of ordinary people pulling together in a united front for the good of the nation.  We have been able to pull that off only on very rare occasions in the past.  Does America have what it takes to pull itself out of such a deep hole this time?

What we are in now is survival mode.  We are trying to keep the ship afloat, but the water is rising.  In the last few days, it feels as if our survival mode is slipping slowly toward anarchy.

With all of this, and trying to educate and be educated, I ask again:  is it any wonder teachers and students are stressed?