I'm sitting here waiting for our schools to decide to go remote, which I think they will, with hardly any warning (very safe Democratic seats, and a school board that thinks it will experience no political consequences, and probably are right in our city). Like Laura I have the damage sitting in the basement right now. He's a ninth grader with 7th grade reading skills: in 7th grade he had 9th grade reading skills. The school district is overwhelmed because it genuinely seems to have been surprised that after 15 months of no learning and stunted socio-emotional growth, kids are far behind, and it made no provisions for that at all. I never imagined I would even consider sending a kid to a private school (this is my third kid, the other two are mercifully through), but for his mental health and, frankly, to reduce the burden on the public schools (he's a danger to other kids), that's exactly what I'm doing. My dad sent me to the worst public school in the district where he was superintendent, so committed was he to public schooling. When I described my son's experience (and behavior) even he thought not going private would be wrong. What Laura is describing is massive failure of the state.
As someone who taught (college) in-person throughout 2020-2021 year, in a context where hardly any colleagues did (about 3-5% of our credits were in-person), I have found that I am writing about twice as many letters of recommendation for undergraduates this year as normal (normal, 25-30, this year 42 so far). I wonder why. By the way, that is not a complaint: my department went to some lengths to ensure I could teach entirely in person, and one colleague took on a class I would usually teach, which had to be online (too large for in-person), in order to facilitate my preferences.
It's been great watching people who have been telling everyone to follow the science (ie do what the CDC advises) suddenly become epidemiologists who are better scientists than the CDC now that they disagree with its advice.
This is harry b by the way, not sure if that will show up.
I'm sitting here waiting for our schools to decide to go remote, which I think they will, with hardly any warning (very safe Democratic seats, and a school board that thinks it will experience no political consequences, and probably are right in our city). Like Laura I have the damage sitting in the basement right now. He's a ninth grader with 7th grade reading skills: in 7th grade he had 9th grade reading skills. The school district is overwhelmed because it genuinely seems to have been surprised that after 15 months of no learning and stunted socio-emotional growth, kids are far behind, and it made no provisions for that at all. I never imagined I would even consider sending a kid to a private school (this is my third kid, the other two are mercifully through), but for his mental health and, frankly, to reduce the burden on the public schools (he's a danger to other kids), that's exactly what I'm doing. My dad sent me to the worst public school in the district where he was superintendent, so committed was he to public schooling. When I described my son's experience (and behavior) even he thought not going private would be wrong. What Laura is describing is massive failure of the state.
As someone who taught (college) in-person throughout 2020-2021 year, in a context where hardly any colleagues did (about 3-5% of our credits were in-person), I have found that I am writing about twice as many letters of recommendation for undergraduates this year as normal (normal, 25-30, this year 42 so far). I wonder why. By the way, that is not a complaint: my department went to some lengths to ensure I could teach entirely in person, and one colleague took on a class I would usually teach, which had to be online (too large for in-person), in order to facilitate my preferences.
It's been great watching people who have been telling everyone to follow the science (ie do what the CDC advises) suddenly become epidemiologists who are better scientists than the CDC now that they disagree with its advice.
This is harry b by the way, not sure if that will show up.