School Covid mask rules have sparked parent-teacher violence. We can't ignore it.

[babylonsister]

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/school-covid-mask-rules-have-sparked-parent-teacher-violence-we-ncna1277415

School Covid mask rules have sparked parent-teacher violence. We can't ignore it.
The teacher is now viewed by a small, loud contingent not as a public servant but as a public enemy.
Aug. 23, 2021, 4:31 AM EDT
By Anne Lutz Fernandez, high school English teacher


One of the first pieces of advice a veteran teacher gives a novice is to set the classroom tone in the first few weeks of school: Letting early disruptions slide can mean ongoing misbehavior that hinders learning. This year, it’s the adults who are misbehaving, with few educators prepared for the verbal and physical attacks that have marked the start of another not-normal year.

These protests are taking place at town halls and school parking lots, but they have their genesis elsewhere.

Protestors burning masks, ripping masks off educators’ faces and hurling obscenities have disrupted and derailed education board meetings nationwide this summer as local officials have sought to allow in-person learning despite a new wave of Covid-19 cases powered by the delta variant of the coronavirus.

These protests are taking place at town halls and school parking lots, but they have their genesis elsewhere. They’ve been sparked and fanned by right-wing media personalities with national platforms and by politicians and social media agitators who’ve taken to calling school mask mandates “child abuse” — and the teachers who support them child abusers. Protests have reached a fever pitch as the topic dominates school board agendas alongside and often intermingled with issues like the manufactured panic over critical race theory.

snip//

Public schools are one of the last, most important spaces where we are “we.” They’re where the greatest number of a town’s residents physically gather daily to promote the success of the same project. They’re where community happens, where people from different neighborhoods and backgrounds meet, collaborate and compete and where mutual decision-making takes place. Often, the decisions listed on school board agendas seem small: How much will we pay a coach, or when will we hold graduation? But they are frequently bigger: choosing to fund another counselor who ends up saving a suicidal child’s life. And they are always, essentially enormous: deciding what and how the next generation of Americans should learn about themselves, one another, their country and the world.

Schools have, as Charles Blow explained in a recent column, “always been auxiliary battlegrounds for the country’s larger culture wars.” Now community divisions are not only reflected but also created and deepened there. The teacher in that space is viewed by a small, loud contingent not as a public servant but as a public enemy. The parent becomes to the teacher an object of fear, not respect. Without trust, children won’t be able to learn to identify with something bigger than themselves, to know and care about more than just family. Without trust, the community at the center of the community breaks apart.

What happens when we turn away from schools not because of distractions but because of rage and self-righteousness? We turn away from both community and democracy, of which public schools, as their forefather Horace Mann stated, are “the cornerstone.” Lose this and we become not a nation but a series of towns filled with people who make decisions based solely on self-interest. To preserve it, we need to de-escalate, to remember who we are: neighbors and fellow citizens. And we need to remember what we are arguing about: a piece of cloth designed to keep us individually and collectively safe. It cannot become the flag we wave in surrender.

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Fascist anti-intellectualism

[2naSalit]

2. Teabaggers 3.0

[ZonkerHarris]

3. and yet they don't want the schools closed and their kids home with them either. hahahahaha

[Takket]

4. Homeschooling is always an option if you don't want to wear a mask

If the parents won’t obey the rules, kick their kids out.

[thucythucy]

5. I wish this nation had a functioning child protection network.

Parents who put their children and others at risk, and who resort to violence to get their way, should absolutely be evaluated as to their ability to care for their children. If nothing else their children should be evaluated for other forms of abuse.

But like every other aspect of human infrastructure in this nation, child protection has been starved for funds in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and decades long miltary interventions in nations half a world away.