Give grace

Bloodwort in bloom

In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher.
WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.
We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.
Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.
Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this virus. It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what countries should do. 

World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the COVID-19 media briefing on March 11

Content warning: coronavirus pandemic, death, trauma


There was the 36 year old New York City principal, who worked with overage and undercredited students.
There was the six-week-old baby in Connecticut.
There was the mother of six in Atlanta whose eldest at 24 will now assume custody of his younger siblings.
There are the inequities of long term health consequences and death of this, as so much else.
There are the daily updates on the Faces of Covid.

There are children in 188 countries out of school, representing an estimated 91% of students worldwide.
There are the inequities of what this means for different students, and the ways in which schooling now can compound inequity.
There is the immediate and consequential loss of school feeding programs with no school in session.
There is the lack, as yet, to fill the gap this and other losses leave for children's nutrition.
There are the consequences this has on the rest of families.

There is the increase in domestic violence, and of children, during times of upheaval, even more so as people spend more time at home.
There are the children left on their own due to their families' need to work.
There is the loss of mandated reporting that the closure of schools cause.
There are the mental health consequences a pandemic has on children.

There is the loss of more jobs in the past three weeks than there were during the two years of the previous recession.
There are the long term consequences of economic downturn and trauma over children's lives.

No one, least of all children, who so often act as barometers of their surroundings, is escaping what this pandemic is doing.

We are not going to recreate normalcy during a a time of modified quarantine.
We are not going to recreate K-12 education in every student's home.

The expectation that young students should spend hours engaged in specific assignments--
The expectation that hours of new math problems should be completed each day--
The expectation that students should be practicing in five or eight or twelve apps to download--
The expectation that seat time and time on task should be monitored and measured--
The expectation that teachers should be assigning more and more and more--
The expectation that children should do this on their own, or older siblings should monitor, or adult family members should be teaching--

This is wrong. This is bad. This is actively doing more harm to children and their families.

This is a time for grace.


The arm of the government that is closest to families with children right now is the public schools.
They are practiced with talking to and hearing from families.
There is much that families need right now.
If there is a space for understanding of the trials of the time, a space for offers of support, a space for time and for sparks of joy and for connection, a space for grace, that is a space for the schools to be in.

Any of us who are in education right now, in whatever our capacity, have the ability to make this time better or worse for the children that we serve and their families.
We have a responsibility, as I've seen it put, for choosing perhaps not the best, but the least bad option.

Let's give grace.