I have been asked to provide a critical analysis of my own paper and have a conversation with myself on what I find interesting in the writing and why? Please see my paper below and provide some analysis.

The events of this year regarding Covid-19 have really put a lot of things in perspective both professionally and personal in our lives. One thing that has been recently used in a political battle is whether schools should reopen and begin face to face teachings despite increasing cases of Covid-19 cases across the country. I believe that schools should not reopen due to safety reasons since it all it takes is for one person to be infected with the virus to put everyone in danger. To argue my case, I have interviewed a teacher in my local elementary school to give her perspective on the situation and describe her worries if schools due open this fall.

While I was conducting my interview, I noticed how stressed this teacher was; after all she and her colleagues are awaiting the decision of the district of what is going to happen this fall. In fact, it has been gut wrenching since this teacher does not want to risk her family with a possible viral infection since she has a newborn at home. Considering how rapidly this virus has spread, its not hard to realize that all it takes is for one person to be sick to possible infect a whole entire classroom or even a school. The district in the other hand, must navigate through politics to decide whether to reopen in the fall or continue eLearning. At this point it almost seems that they would rather put politics ahead of safety. Off the record, this teacher informed me that the district came up with three different scenarios, two of them included being in the classroom while the last option was eLearning. She also mentioned that her colleagues are also faced with worries and stress since they too fear the worse if schools reopen.

One of the big concerns mentioned by the teacher I interviewed, were the unrealistic safety measures needed for the school to operate in the safest way possible. At her school, the staff must use a shared bathroom which will probably need to be disinfected after every use and considering that there are only two janitors in the entire school, it is close to impossible. Another reason is the congested hallways during passing period, with large crowds moving about in close proximity it pretty much increases the risk of exposure if someone was actually sick. This only gets worse since you will have students talking or shouting at each other which again increases the odds of infection. Keeping in mind that all it takes is for one individual to be infected, these scenarios can be become a dark reality to both the teachers and the student. Let us also not forget that it does not stop at the school, both teachers and students can infect their families at home causing even more hardship.

Another way that reopening schools can be detrimental emotionally to both the student and the teacher, strict enforcement of social distancing will prevent normal school and teaching habits. As the teacher in the interview mentioned, group projects and just working collaboratively will not be possible while enforcing social distancing rules which will make teaching harder on the teachers. This also includes teachers helping student to do simple task such as using shared supplies and even small things like sharpening a pencil using a classroom sharpener. According to my local school teacher, there are some schools that are exploring options such as installing plexi glass on the teachers desk to prevent students infecting the teachers or vice versa. All these small changes just make learning and teach far more difficult than eLearning since these restrictions just hampers a students ability to learn, it's almost like navigating all these things just to learn one lesson pretty much eliminates the advantage of face to face learning. Overall, once you take away all these little things that makes learning fun at school, it becomes more of a disadvantage since you eliminate learning from one another and working closely as a team.

Finally, there is the issue regarding how prepare the district was when students were force to stay at home once the state shut down. According to the local school teacher, the district was very unprepared to handle eLearning, all it can do was rely on teachers to provide packets of school work for two weeks while it figured out how to proceed. Once they did have a plan of action for eLearning, it had to train teachers on how to use the software and pretty much teach teachers how to teach from home. This in turn weighed heavily on teachers since now they were forced to work much longer hours just to learn the software and even record videos for the student. To make matters worse, some parents were forced in situations unfamiliar to them such helping their kids do their homework despite being only Spanish speaking parents and even using the eLearning software to help their children access the materials to learn. These situations just increased the stress put on teachers since the district failed to prepare for emergency situations. Even now, they are holding zoom meetings to decide whether the school should reopen in the fall. According to the interviewed teacher, the district did not ask the teachers for input or even feedback on what would be the best way to proceed. The fact that the district is willing to put the lives of students and educators in danger is simply astonishing. One thing is for adults and the elderly to be put in dangerous situations but children? You have to be really be cold hearted to put kids in danger just to fulfill some political message or prevent a public relations disaster. I understand that the school is going to make teachers and students wear mask, but even that is unrealistic since masks get uncomfortable after 20 minutes of using them.

Overall, I described how reopening schools in the fall will be detrimental to learning for the students and added stress to the teachers. Even while conducting this interview, this teacher looked exhausted and stressed, I could not blame her with all the information she gave me in the interview. It shocked and surprised me a few times since I didn't know how badly unprepared her school was to deal with this disaster situation.

pur-new-sol

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