270 Days
A Continent Burns
This ecological event began in late 2019, but who knew it would foreshadow the year to come? Wildfires began to encompass Australia in November of 2019. The worst of the fires blazed throughout February of 2020. When Australia was seen over a radar it looked as if the entire country was one large furnace raging at the night. Firefighters throughout the globe worked tirelessly to quell the raging flames, while pictures and stories of dead wildlife were flashed on television screens and spoken about over the airways. For two hundred and seventy days the world wondered what would become of Oceana.
Perhaps it was not two hundred and seventy days of wondering for the world because the world had moved onto new stories and new threats. The collective consciousness of the world, moreover America, suffers greatly from ADHD, and the story of the Australian wildfires quickly faded into the background around late January. By late January, America was feeling a quite different "Bern".
Primary Season
"Feel the Bern" "Ridin' with Biden"
Every four years America is tasked with electing a new president, although it seems like the
presidential election season starts as soon as a new president takes office. In January of 2020, the podcasts, television reports, and radio airwaves were quickly attempting to analyze the once diverse Democratic field. This diverse field, which was composed of women, one Black woman, a Black male, a Hispanic male, an out White gay male, and two old White men was quickly winnowed down to the two old White men: Senator Bernie Sanders and Former Vice-President Joe Biden.
(I must confess that I was staunchly behind Mayor Pete, who was the out gay White Male.)
It seemed as if "Uncle Joe" was about to cede to the Sanders Coalition at the beginning of the primary season, but on March 3, 2020, the voters in South Carolina turned the tide in favor of Biden. Shortly after the South Carolina primary, Biden started to have several other victories, but let us not forget that 2020 will not allow business to continue as usual.
Elections almost ground to a halt due to a new, silent, elusive, and unseen enemy. Coronavirus had caused people to shutter themselves in their homes. This enemy, which would not be encumbered by any wall, crossed into the American borders and disrupted the electoral process. With a majority of the votes in hand, it would seem that Joe Biden would be the presumptive nominee for the Democrats.
January 2020 (Revisited)
World War III
This ALMOST happened
In late 2019, Iran had been accused of a drone strike within Saudi Arabi. Albeit not stated as retaliatory the US killed Major General Qasem Soleimani, who was more prominently known as "The Shadow Commander", on January 3, 2020. This drone strike led to several days of tension between the US and Iran and almost ignited World War III. Let it be noted the Soleimani was the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and this organization had been labeled a terrorist organization in 2011. Cutting the head off of this state-funded military was viewed as a direct attack on a sovereign nation.
On January 7, Iran retaliated by sending a barrage of missiles at a US base in the Middle East; there were no casualties, but for a few days, which seemed like years to most of us, tensions were high and the forty-fifth president of the United States was sitting with a twitchy finger on the football that could irrevocably change the landscape of the world and create another generation of people poisoned by the hellish atoms it unleashes.
Fortunately, news in 2020 at an ever-escalating pace, while the idea of World War III had already become an internet meme, and an enemy that could not be bombed was sweeping the globe at a break-neck pace causing countries to come to a grinding halt.
March, Again
(The Educator's View)
March 18, 2020: Supplemental Learning
Between March 16 and 17 Chromebooks were feverously distributed to students across Charlotte-
Mecklenburg Schools. The school board determined that the first two weeks of Remote Learning would be deemed as "Supplemental". This meant that no new concepts could be introduced during this time. The reason behind this initiative was that students had yet to finish the third quarter and the school board needed to devise a plan when it came to grades during this interrupted time.
On March 18, I sat at my kitchen table calling each student in my homeroom making sure that each of them had access to a Chromebook and wireless internet. I even walked students through the log-in process so that they would be able to access their Chromebook and CMS accounts remotely. These were not easy conversations and truly showed why there is no substitute for being face-to-face in the classroom when giving directions. These phone calls were the first of hundreds I would make during Remote Learning.
March 22, 2020: The Virtual End of the Third Quarter
On the evening of Sunday, March 22, we all received an email from our perspective facilitators signaling how we would enter grades for the third quarter. It was relayed that during the Supplemental Learning phase that students could make up missed work during the third quarter regardless of how past-due the assignment might have been. This posed another issue because many of the assignments were done while in school and not virtually, which meant some teachers were offering new, virtual work for students so that they might be able to raise their third quarter grade. We were truly beginning to see that the idea of Remote Learning would be guided by the Hippocratic Oath: do no harm. It was beginning to become painstakingly clear that the idea of equity in education during this time would be a dream was lost and burned in the eddies of Hades like so many other well-intentioned initiatives.
On March 22, we also received word that supplemental learning end on April 3 and Remote Learning would begin on April 13, which was the day we would have returned to the classroom after Spring Break.
March 26, 2020: Four Decades on Earth
A plan had been in place to celebrate my fortieth time around the sun, but it was initially disrupted due to the death of my Grandmother, which was a sad, yet joyful occurrence. Sad because she would no longer be on Earth with all of us; joyful because it would bring the family together to celebrate her wonderful life. Unfortunately, the world had shut down and celebrations of life and birth were a passing memory.
I will state that my wonderful wife made the best of a bad situation. I reached out over Facebook Video Messenger to friends and she planned a Zoom game night with my brother, sister-in-law, and one of our closest friends who is an amazing administrator and lives in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.
April 2020
Canvas, Zoom, and Spin
April is a blur of posting lessons and announcements to Canvas and having virtual PLC meetings via Zoom, an online video conference platform. I was able to hold one allotted Zoom meeting a week with students. I had a few students who were regulars, and there was one student who truly shined during the Remote Learning period.
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| Cody Rigsby aka Boo |
April blew by, but it ushered in a new way to handle the new stress of Remote Learning, the silent anxiety brought on by COVID-19, and the constant wonder that nagged at the back of the mind of "when will this end", the Peloton and Cody Rigsby entered our life. Our new mantra became, "if Britney can get through 2007, you can do Remote Learning" thanks to the vivacious Peloton instructor Cody Rigsby, or Boo as he is more affectionately known in the Facebook Group "The Boo Crew". The Peloton also helped to bring my wife, my cousin in Virginia, and myself even closer. She served as our Peloton Yoda as we ventured into the new fitness family.
April lurched and spun by. While there many events that occurred throughout the globe, we remained tied to our computer, enjoying moments of solace on the run, on the bike, or on the mat, and anxiously waiting for the next email that might include a new directive about Remote Learning.
However, we did notice that some people in America and more specifically North Carolina yearned for a hair cut that they felt they had been forcefully denied due to the "Stay at Home" order. A group named ReOpen NC held protests throughout April. They claimed to be the voice of small business owners who were suffering under the "Stay at Home" order. Indeed, many businesses that had been shuttered during this time did not reopen, and I am truly sad that has occurred, but the signs that were being waved during these protests outside the Governor's Mansion proclaimed a person's right to "Get a hair cut". They also proclaimed that the "Stay at Home" order was tyrannical and that COVID-19 was a simple flu that one would easily recover from, while stories from hospital wards and data from leading scientists contrasted this false narrative. The message the ReOpen NC people were touting was and continues to be quite ironic when these are the same people who lead the charge when it comes to an issue surrounding a woman's right to choose, but that is for another day.
While groups rallied illegally in Raleigh, we teachers were anxiously waiting to hear about the fate of the 2019-2020 school year. We were told that Remote Learning might end on May 18, 2020. Each time we met on Zoom, emailed and texted each other. The question of whether we would return to the classroom always loomed in the background of these interactions. On April 24, 2020, Governor Roy Cooper announced that all public schools will remain closed for the duration of the 2019-2020 school year.
May 2020
Phase One and Phase Two
"I can't breathe..."
On May 9, 2020, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper declared that Phase One of opening the state would begin. Residents were still encouraged to "stay at home", but some restrictions would be lifted. One of the restrictions was that retail businesses could operate at fifty percent capacity.
I have a second job working at Charlotte Running Company, a boutique run specialty store. I remember my first day back. We only allowed five people in the shop at a time, and we wore masks and gloves throughout the day. Some clients came in wearing masks, while others did not. I was excited to be back fitting people and conversing about running, but I was also anxious each time I worked with a client who chose not to wear a mask. It was an interesting feeling to return to some sort of normalcy.
On May 22, 2020, Governor Cooper announced that North Carolina would move into Phase Two of re-opening the state. This meant that groups of twenty could gather and restaurants and breweries could open at fifty percent capacity. It was exciting news for all of us who had been cooped up in our house for the past month and a half, but this exciting news was halted by a murderous eight minutes and forty-six seconds.
Call back to March 13, 2020. Breonna Taylor was shot in her sleep by police who forcefully entered her apartment. As mentioned in a prior post this was "not a moment" but the beginning of "a movement". On May 25, 2020, just two days after states had begun to enter a version of their own Phase Two, two police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota pinned down the forty-six-year-old African American George Floyd and held their knee to his neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds as he desperately proclaimed "I can't breathe" and his last words being a cry for his mother. These eight minutes and forty-six seconds shook this nation to its very core. It is true police violence had been ever prevalent throughout history, but this moment and Breonna's moment coupled with the fact Americans her been shuttered in their homes allowed a cry that has echoed throughout the centuries to erupt and take to the streets. A righteous cry that a mere few words in this post cannot do justice.
A cry for another post...
***Footnote: The remains of my grandmother still remain in a box in Florida thanks to the enemy that silently travels through droplets in the air.
