S.S., 60, a high school teacher in San Marcos, CA

I am a public high school English teacher in Murrieta, California (Riverside County). I have been teaching online since March 13, when our county closed all public schools. I live in San Diego County. I mention the counties because it is relevant to my experience of this pandemic.

Teaching 12th grade English online is not optimal. Many students do not manage online learning very well. The state of California decided that no grades can go lower than the March 13th grade, but that grades can go higher. So, most seniors who had satisfactory grades in March had no incentive to participate in online learning. Frankly, I don’t blame them. Their lives and plans have been upended. They all have to figure out a new way to transition to adulthood, with the usual coming of age ceremonies eliminated or modified beyond recognition. In their journal responses to me, many students have expressed deep sadness for that loss. They miss their normal lives, and the future is anxious, dangerous, and uncertain.

I created online lessons that continued the face-to-face lessons that were in progress as much as possible. I have sent daily messages to my students, with silly and upbeat photos and messages, such as the daily weather report from my backyard garden, links to stories in the news (CoronaNews of the Day), songs (CoronaTune of the Day) and journal prompts (CoronaJournal Prompts). Several students let me know that they enjoy these little messages. But that time is coming to an end. In just two weeks, school will be over, and I won’t ever see these students again. I struggle with whether to record a goodbye video or not. I don’t know what I can say, or how I can say it without getting emotional.

My personal life has not changed much as far as daily routine goes. I do not work during the summer months, so this time at home has felt familiar. My husband still goes to his job at Sumitomo Electric every day. He was just furloughed one day a week, which will reduce his pay by 20%, but we think we can weather that storm with our savings. I have been building our garden since March, planting, placing decorative rock and mulch. This has been a wonderful activity for these times. I also check in with my 84-year-old mother who lives nearby, making sure she has what she needs and is not feeling alone. Our family has a Friday Happy Hour via Zoom. I chat with my daughter and her family in Liverpool, UK about once a week, and I keep in touch with both daughters via text messages daily. My oldest daughter lives in San Francisco, and we don’t FaceTime or talk on the phone as much; she is a newlywed and very busy, but we send each other messages often. So far, we are all OK financially and healthy.

I have been feeling very anxious, some days more than others. I also feel angry at our national leadership, and their supporters. I am happy with my state and county leadership; they have made good decisions so far. I have been a bit frightened too, and that feeling is increasing as discussions begin about whether and when to reopen schools. I do not trust my school district to make decisions based on health; instead, I am fearful that they will base their decisions on politics and magical thinking. Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted last week to not require masks or social distancing (6ft.) anywhere in the county. The Board went against the recommendation of the county health officer and did not allow the health officer to speak on the second day of debate about the rescinding the masking and social distancing rules. This means that if my school opens, I will be in front of students who will have not been practicing social distancing outside of school. Even if the district requires masks and distancing on campus, every day is a new opportunity for the disease to spread. If they manage to test each and every individual who arrives on campus each morning, that would help, but I don’t see how the logistics of testing 2500 humans before they arrive on campus would work. Will I be required to conduct the tests myself? I am absolutely horrified and frightened at this prospect. In the county where I live, masks and social distancing are mandatory. Citations can be issued for those not complying. And just one commute away, I will be risking my life each and every day at my workplace. I will be a front-line worker, without the personal protective equipment afforded to medical workers, facing students who do not have to follow safety or cleanliness rules for most of the 24 hours in a day. Many of the families in my community believe in magical thinking, believe that God will protect them, and believe in the propaganda spouted every day from President Trump and his corrupted supporters in government and the media. I could not be more disgusted at this willful ignorance. It’s like a death cult.

I am only one year away from retirement. My only hope at this point is that my teachers’ union will be able to negotiate safe working conditions for teachers. But just this morning, the state of California decided to allow each local school district to make its own safety decisions. As I said, my district does not have a history of caring about the health and safety of teachers. If I am offered early retirement without loss of income, I will take it.

[submitted on 5/15/2020]

Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.

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