What will education look like in August?

Currently, one of the most asked questions and concerns on social media is about school starting in August. It seems like every time I turn on the news I hear how Covid -19 is spiking in the United States. Many school districts don't have any specific details about how education is going to look in August. Just today, I read a tweet that the governor of Texas announced that school districts will not be required to mandate students to wear masks or test them for Covid-19 symptoms.





Parents in this state are not happy and feel like the governor is crazy for opening schools considering that Texas just had a huge spike. There were a lot of angry posts from citizens and parents. One Gif post in particular caught my eye. This particular person wanted to make it clear that they would not be sending their student or students to school. This Gif is an example of the determine element in the table in chapter 6 of the book. According to Turner and Hicks (2017) one of the actions listed in the table is "DETERMINE the framework and the mindset" (p. 110).



This person and other people that are posting on this twitter feed, are displaying their framework and mindset just by the language of the posts. It seems that parents and the general public are nervous about even hearing the possibility of schools reopening. A journal written about children and adolescence during Covid -19, doesn't share the same mindset. 

For children, this should be possible without excessive restrictions, such as clustering into very

small groups, implementation of barrier precautions, maintaining appropriate distance from others

or wearing masks. A factor more decisive than individual group size is the issue of sustaining the

constancy of respective group members and the avoidance of intermixing. (Walger, P. et al, 2020)

                                                                                                              

  Turner and Hicks(2017) details that facts are an important element to "Being a MINDFUL Reader and Writer of Social Media Arguments" (p. 110). This story can easily be fact checked by just clicking on the link within the tweet. Its important to teach our students to be good digital citizens. One way 
they can do that is to verify and fact check things so that  they are not contributing to the distribution of misinformation . Another way, is for teachers to make sure the students understand our objectives "We want them to consider what it means to reshare a post and, more specifically, what kind of argument they are creating or promoting by doing so" (Turner and Hicks, 2017, p. 108).     
So how will education look like in the fall? According to an article written by Valerie Strauss ( 2020, June18) for the Washington Post "94 percent of K-12 superintendents nationwide indicated that they are not ready to announce when schools will reopen and exactly how they will do it"             


References


Strauss, Valerie (2020, June 18). It’s mid-June and schools still aren’t sure how they will open for 2020-21. Here’s why and what’s likely to happen.Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/06/18/its-mid-june-schools-still-arent-sure-how-they-will-open-2020-21-heres-why-whats-likely-happen/

Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: Teaching adolescents to read and write 
        digital texts.Heinemann Pub.

Walger, P., Heininger, U., Knuf, M., Exner, M., Popp, W., Fischbach, T., Trapp, S., Hübner, J., Herr, C., Simon, 
        A., German Society for Hospital Hygiene (DGKH), German Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases  
       (DGPI), German Academy for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (DAKJ), Society of Hygiene, E. and P. H. 
       S. (GHUP), & Professional Association of Pediatricians in Germany (bvkj e.V.). (2020). Children and 
       adolescents in the CoVid-19 pandemic: Schools and daycare centers are to be opened again without 
       restrictions. The protection of teachers, educators, carers and parents and the general hygiene rules 
       do not conflict with this. GMS Hygiene and Infection Control, 15, 11. https://doi
       org.ezproxy.montevallo.edu/10.3205/dgkh000346



Comments

  1. Phillips' Fabulous FindsJune 22, 2020 at 9:35 PM

    I enjoyed reading your blog. I have to agree with the fact that I am bombarded by friends and family on social media about what to expect when school opens back up in the fall. I have nothing to tell them as of yet. I agree and disagree with what the governor of Texas tweeted about not mandating masks and not checking for symptoms. On one hand, I think that it is a violation of privacy when you take their temperature before they can enter the school, but on the other hand, this virus is dangerous. I am high-risk and if I go back into the classroom this fall and taking the student's temperature is not an option, then I don't know what I will do. It definitely will make me think long and hard about going back into the classroom.
    If I do go back to the classroom, I most assuredly will bring social media into the classroom because had I done that before COVID-19, the transition would have been so much easier. It goes along with what Turner & Hicks, (2017) said, "If we fail to bring social media - and the ways in which it invites and allows for robust, intellectual arguments that move beyond petty chatter - into a conversation with our student, we are doing them a disservice" (p.112).

    References:
    Turner, K.H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Teaching Adolescents to Read and Write Digital Texts: Argument in the Real World. Heineman Publications.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 23, 2020 at 6:55 PM

    I just finished reading a post about the Governor's announcement on Friday. The way people are anticipating this is similar to what we see when James Spann forecasts snow, waiting for that announcement of a school closure. It makes me wonder how different this year would have been so far without social media.

    I think that this observation calls out the need for mindfulness from the parents as well as students when using social media. There will be people upset by the Governor's decision either, but it will be interesting to see how many parents can follow this guideline, specifically the F (facts) and the U (understand) components (Turner & Hicks, 2017). Teaching our students to fact check is imperative now more than ever, and hopefully they can pass on this information to those who live with them.

    Turner, K.H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Teaching adolescents to read and write digital texts: Argument in the real world. Heineman.

    ReplyDelete

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