It's been a month.
If you know what I mean.
It's also been more than a month since the last edition of the Corona Chronicles and I've returned to look back on how we've fared in September. I'm not even sure where to begin. The president's contracting COVID has done nothing to change our national stance on the virus. And so what we have is a very static situation in the United States. A steady stream of cases and deaths that might spike in one part of the nation and wane in another part, but overall add up to not much improvement (and things not getting a whole lot worse either).
For us the past month has also developed it's own steady rhythm. Barbara is teaching in person again at her school, after initially starting remotely. Her school is doing hybrid instruction, where some kids are at home all the time, and some come in on alternating days twice a week for instruction. My school began remotely on September 8th and will continue that way at least until the Christmas holidays. So the boys and I are at home everyday. We're still working on getting them to bed at a halfway decent time, but most mornings they manage to drag themselves out of bed in time for the hot breakfast I make them and get to their 9 o' clock Zoom sessions on time. I have a staff worship Zoom at 8:15 AM and then open my Zoom session at 8:45 with some upbeat morning music, while my 8th grade homeroom wanders in. Worship starts at 9 and we are off and running for the day. My teaching is a mix of fairly brief direct instruction, pretty generous use of the Zoom breakout rooms so the students can work together in small groups, and some time for them to work independently. Lunch is at 12:15 and I spend that time getting my boys their lunches and grabbing a bite for myself. Classes continue at 1 and school officially ends at 4 PM, though I will often wrap up Zoom sessions by about 3, leaving the students time to work independently for the rest of the day.
The view from my "office/classroom window"
On Tuesday, Friday and Sunday afternoons about a dozen or so students come over to my house after school to train for our annual 10K Run. We are doing the Autumn Squatch 10K Trail Run again this year, which is being held as a virtual event (we just send in our times and distance). We run around our neighborhood for thirty minutes on the weekdays and increasing distances on the weekends. I cook four days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sabbath) and so most evenings I'm busy making supper, spending time with the boys, attending various meetings via Zoom, trying to get some grading and planning done (Planning is especially laborious now, since everything has to be put on Google Classroom). I usually go to bed later than I want to. Making time to write is a challenge (which is why this blog is a week late).
There are things I like about this "new normal" at least, professionally. I'd always thought I'd be comfortable working from home and I am. I like that the students complete all their assignments digitally. Even when we go back to in person, I think I'd like to keep my assignments mostly digital. I like that when the students work independently, I can get some work done unlike in person, where I am still providing supervision and monitoring them to make sure they are on task even when I'm not engaged in direct instruction. I like that classroom management is now so much less of a burden. The mute button is a wonderful thing. But even without that, I find that many of the students who would normally be discipline problems are quiet and say little. They just don't seem motivated to "cut up" in the virtual space where they don't have a live audience.
There are also things I don't like. For one, a job that usually had me on my feet all day, now has me in a chair virtually all day. I miss interacting with the students and I feel sad for them that they are not able to be with their friends. There are a few students that seem to be doing more poorly than they would if they were in person. But in general, the kids who excelled in person, are excelling at home. And those that didn't do much in person, still aren't doing much learning from home. In fact, even those with consistent internet connection problems tend to be the same ones that seemed to have problems staying on task and getting their homework when at in-person school in the Before Times. It makes me think that the lack of equity of the students learning from home was affecting them even when they came to school. It is also hard to teach while both of my boys are learning online at the same time, though it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Ezra is surprisingly independent for a second grader and doesn't need my help as much as I thought he would. He does, however, come into my home office/classroom several times a day to ask when lunch will be or to announce it's snack time with no regard for whether I might be in the middle of a lesson at the moment. Beyond my work life, there's not much I like about the New Normal. I still pine for things like movies, in-person church services, concerts, and other gatherings. It seems many people have just gone back to living regular life--having gatherings, going out to eat, taking vacations, and visiting family. I feel keen to get back to those things too.
Let's take a look at the numbers. As of yesterday, October 10, we had 7,725, 717 total cases of the coronavirus in the United States. This is about 500,000 fewer cases than I predicted, a total of 1,466,628 new cases in the past month and a 23% increase. There have been 213,876 deaths from the virus. This is just over 12,000 fewer deaths than I forecast; that's a 14% increase and 25,475 new deaths in the past month. The charts below tell the story. Though there has been an uptick since the start of September, at least so far the increase does not seem to be dramatic and may be leveling out. And our deaths are virtually flat: a steady 5,000 people or so each week succumbing to the virus.
