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Six years ago my daughters’ elementary school burned to the ground. I went to this school too, after my parents divorced, and we moved into town. This broke us in pieces. But all of us. Every single child and teacher and community member who went there or loved this school.
In the short days that followed, the town scrambled to help. We donated books from our classroom to teachers who lost everything. We gave bookbags filled with supplies to every student. The nation raised money and sent gifts to help. We were truly all “in this together”.
But here’s the thing, we all lost the building and we lost the items in the building at the same time. They put the kids in trailers at the community college nearby. Classes resumed within days and although it felt weird, those kids were experiencing the same environment.
When I hear folx suggest that this virus is the “great equalizer”or the force that will bond these kids together, I’m baffled by how anyone thinks these kids are experiencing the same thing. They are in their own homes. Homes that vary from 1 room apartments to 5 bed mansions
Some have endless access to tech, workspaces, supplies and support. Their transition has been rocky but not because they don’t have what they need. But then we have students who not only don’t have what they need, we haven’t even heard from them.
As of a week ago, 40% of the students in our state capital city had not logged on to their virtual classrooms. Forty percent. We are not all experiencing this virus the same. We will not all return to school and tell stories of no toilet paper or the malls being closed.
Some of us will tell stories of family members passing. Of parents who had to work through an entire pandemic because they were “essential” or simply couldn’t afford not to. I wonder whose stories you’ll hear.
Whenever this is over,if “over” is even possible, we will return to a building where some students lost everything while others were merely inconvenienced. So tread lightly with the notion that anyone of us are in the “same boat” here. Some of us aren’t even in the fucking water.
