The Kids Are Alright, Right?

A month into the pandemic I moved back in with my Mom. At 24 going on 25, this didn’t thrill me. I love my Mother, and I’m grateful that I can be near her at a time when many people are separated from their families, but still, it felt like a failure. Compounding this was my seeming inability to get anything done. Pre-pandemic I was a champion multi-tasker, juggling multiple projects and jobs, now I barely get through one item on my to-do list. Partly it’s my mental and physical health problems, both exacerbated by stress; but my lack of energy and motivation is being mirrored back to me by everyone I know. 

I’ve read plenty of articles and posts by psychologists assuring me this is a normal reaction to the ongoing crisis. Somehow, it doesn’t ease my mind. I grew up in a culture that prizes productivity, and if you’re not, well you must be lazy, or worse. Quarantine allowed time to re-examine the metrics I’ve been enculturated to measure myself against. As I sit in my room brooding, I often hear my downstairs neighbors three children chasing each other around the apartment, occasionally bursting into tears. I feel the urge to join them. If I, a 24-year-old “child” am struggling, I wonder how actual children and their parents are doing as we enter month 7 of the pandemic? 

I began writing this article with a theory: Let’s stop grading kids for the rest of the pandemic. A topic that is in the air, and on the social medias, since the start of the pandemic is that many of us are suffering from the effects of internalized capitalism. In many areas of my life I have been trying to shift my priorities way from being productive and towards being healthy. If children’s physical and mental health is our priority in this time, shouldn’t we take the pressure of academic achievement off them? Surely families are under enough strain without having to worry about their child’s academic future. Having no children or connection to public education, I decided to talk to my downstairs neighbor. Aside from being a mother of 3, she is an occupational therapist specializing in children. She connected me with a daycare worker who’s been working through the pandemic. Friends put me in touch with their teacher friends, and so on. 

What started out as an attempt to prove my theory, quickly turned into a listening campaign. I’ve talked to teachers in several states working with a range of different age groups. My theory quickly went out the window as these conversations drew me into their world. I would gladly continue talking to educators for another month, time permitting. After accumulating notes from multiple interviews I was left wondering, what is this article meant to be now? How can I do these educators justice in a thousand words? Their stories are unique, though many of their challenges are the same. 

Here’s what I’ve gathered: Teachers are true badasses. Teaching is more than a job, it’s a calling, but we should pay them like it’s a job. Their dedication to our country’s children regardless of salary isn’t an excuse to under pay them. A common denominator almost all across the board is that their workloads have doubled, but their pay and their budgets have not. I reached out to a teacher in Oakland who is so overwhelmed she didn’t even have time for a half hour phone call but did manage to send a few written replies. A lot of teachers are feeling voiceless right now. Directives come down from higher up the chain of command, sometimes contradictory directives within a matter of days.

The quality and quantity of resources available to schools should be standardized, as should their response to the pandemic. The disparity between school districts is shocking. Many special needs student have been left without their physical or behavioral therapies, and unless their families can afford to supplement these services, and must continue to go without them indefinitely. A special needs teacher I spoke to commented that his autistic students would’ve benefited incredibly by now from seeing a behavioralist, and that it wasn’t the lack of available behavioralists, but a lack of funding or the complexity of hoops that a family must jump through to qualify for this service. Another blatant disparity mentioned is the how much children benefit from access to outdoor space, and safe access to the outdoors is sadly a privileged benefit.

Children are resilient. They are adapting to this new and uncertain world, in some ways better than their parents. When asked what her takeaway from her experiences was, one teacher answered; “I think kids are a lot more resilient than people care to admit. Cause I will say, I’ve just seen my kids do such incredible things with all the given circumstances. Even when we’re remote… they can do this.”

As with many aspects of our culture, from the justice system to climate change, the pandemic has cast a spotlight on the disparity between the privileged and the marginalized. The gap is more a gaping chasm into which the most vulnerable fall to their death, and the rest of us just hang on, hoping we don’t fall because there is no net to catch us. The same is true of education. I came into this article hoping to make a grand suggestion, to give a new perspective. But what I’ve learned is something that I think most of us already knew. Our education system is in dire need of support. Teachers need to be paid better; resources need to be standardized. Children should be given equal access to the same opportunities regardless of background. Most kids are resilient and adaptive, just as most teachers are dedicated and hard-working, but that doesn’t mean they should be neglected. If we give children and educators the resources they need to succeed now, that will help all of us as the next generation steps into adulthood. If we truly want to dismantle systemic racism and end systemic poverty, we need to start at the very beginning.