Speaker 1: Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about things
Speaker 1: going badly and falling apart. And today we are back
Speaker 1: with part two for interview with Lucy about how the
Speaker 1: Chicago Public school system is falling apart under the relentless
Speaker 1: assault of cruelty and malice and incompetence by the Chicago
Speaker 1: Public Schools and by the Mayor, LORDE. Lightfoot. Enjoy there's
Speaker 1: everything I want to talk about a bit, which is
Speaker 1: when you've been back, when you've been sort of teaching
Speaker 1: in these really like sort of what what is it
Speaker 1: actually like to teach in these classrooms? And like you know,
Speaker 1: how how safe actually is it? So, I mean I've
Speaker 1: been in a lot of different environments. When I was
Speaker 1: teaching middle schoolers, I did not feel super COVID safe.
Speaker 1: Um they aren't. I don't know if people know this
Speaker 1: about middle school age kids. They love to touch each other,
Speaker 1: especially boys. They love to like wrestle. There was putting
Speaker 1: each other in headlocks. I am constantly having to just
Speaker 1: be like six feet six ft apart or three ft
Speaker 1: or whatever CDC has said we are now. Um, they
Speaker 1: don't put their masks on, They put their masks in
Speaker 1: their mouths. All the time, like in their mouths. Um.
Speaker 1: There's they're constantly finding like weird little excuses to have
Speaker 1: their mask off. Like they'll just sit there with like
Speaker 1: like there are a lot to have water bottles because
Speaker 1: they can't use the water countains. They'll just sit there
Speaker 1: with like a straw in their mouth for like extended
Speaker 1: amounts of time. And I'm like, I need you to
Speaker 1: put your mask up, take quicksips and put your mask up.
Speaker 1: And they're like I'm drinking, Like I'm going to be
Speaker 1: drinking at the end of this day, but like, I know,
Speaker 1: take a quick sip, put your mask back up. It's
Speaker 1: really really important for your safety. Um. And then I
Speaker 1: have other kids who are absolutely straight up like terrified
Speaker 1: of this because like they've lost parents, they've lost grandparents. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's really scary. UM. At the high school level,
Speaker 1: it's been a little better. High school kids are a
Speaker 1: little more rational. UM, but I still have a few
Speaker 1: who are just like their masks are down around their
Speaker 1: chins all the time and we're under their nose and
Speaker 1: I'm I'll like several times of class fear like okay,
Speaker 1: time for everybody to do a mass check. Make sure
Speaker 1: your mask is covering your nose, your mouth, your chin. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll remind them like I have a spouse at home
Speaker 1: who has an underlying condition and like, please don't have
Speaker 1: me bring home a deadly disease to him, because that
Speaker 1: would really not be great. Um, most of them are
Speaker 1: pretty good, but still they're getting sick. Like I think
Speaker 1: we had like forty kids out of my building one Monday,
Speaker 1: and like twenty eight staff members or something like that.
Speaker 1: We're out and we had one sub which is the
Speaker 1: other That's the other issue is this isn't really a
Speaker 1: question of, um, if we should go remote. It's a
Speaker 1: question of when will we be forced to go remote.
Speaker 1: And we can either do that now before everybody has
Speaker 1: gotten sick and wait for this to subside and get
Speaker 1: some better mitigation strategies in place, or we can do
Speaker 1: it after everybody is sick, and then we're going to
Speaker 1: be scrambling to figure it out and also be sick
Speaker 1: at the same time. I don't really see how that
Speaker 1: makes any sense. Yeah, that's the part of this. And
Speaker 1: I've just been like I just like I don't get it,
Speaker 1: Like I just like, fundamentally, there's there's like a mental
Speaker 1: break where it's like I don't understand why, like Lightfoot
Speaker 1: and CPS so insistance about not going remote, Like I
Speaker 1: get that, like yeah, it's it's hard on kids, but
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's you know, it is the years two,
Speaker 1: Like no matter what you do, it's it's hard on
Speaker 1: the kids, And it's like, yeah, I also I wonder
Speaker 1: how much of it is the remote learning that's hard
Speaker 1: on them, and how much of it is just the
Speaker 1: um everything around them is crashing and following and burning
Speaker 1: around their ears because um, the messaging that they've been
Speaker 1: getting is that they don't matter. They're not important, their
Speaker 1: safety isn't important, their families aren't important, and um, some
Speaker 1: of them like want to be remote. A lot of them,
Speaker 1: a lot of their parents want them to be remote.
Speaker 1: They're like, you know, it's not as good, but at
Speaker 1: least I feel safe. Some of them even thrived in
Speaker 1: remote like actually did pretty well. And I really wish
Speaker 1: that it was just an option for those students who
Speaker 1: actually did well with it, that they could just like
Speaker 1: if we even ended up with like a third of
Speaker 1: our students choosing it, it would mitigate this so much,
Speaker 1: because that's a third of the people not they're to
Speaker 1: spread it around. UM. So how how big? How big
Speaker 1: your class sizes are? Um? Right now the building I'm
Speaker 1: in now, I have like thirty in some my it
Speaker 1: was kind of similar at the last building. Like they're
Speaker 1: in that range. I have like always have like one
Speaker 1: or two that are like the twenty or below that
Speaker 1: are usually um special education like inclusion classes where I
Speaker 1: have co teacher. Um. But yeah, it's you know, some
Speaker 1: of them are pretty crowded, and it really varies by school.
Speaker 1: Like there's definitely schools that have over thirty kids in
Speaker 1: a room, um and don't have the staff because it's
Speaker 1: just that's the other thing is like they keep talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, I keep seeing people be like fire all
Speaker 1: the teachers, and I'm like, good luck, Like, yes, is
Speaker 1: chronically understaffed. What are you gonna do this? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think again, like this job is really hard, Like it's
Speaker 1: being a teacher. Yeah, it's hard. It's exhausting, and it's
Speaker 1: very very rewarding. Like when it's good, it's great. When
Speaker 1: it's bad it is miserable. Um. So yeah, and like
Speaker 1: what it looks like and I mean that's you know,
Speaker 1: it depends, it really depends on what school you're in. Um,
Speaker 1: I think everybody can agree that it is difficult right now. Um,
Speaker 1: so we we have like air purifiers going and masks on,
Speaker 1: and I cannot understand what my kids are saying a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, Like I do not know, and
Speaker 1: they speak so quietly. Yeah, like I need you to
Speaker 1: shout it, say it like you mean whatever it is.
Speaker 1: So but you know, that's been challenging and frustrating and exhausting.
Speaker 1: But um, the worst thing ever is finding out that
Speaker 1: one of my students is sick. Like I hate when
Speaker 1: they're I hate it when they hurt, Like whenever that
Speaker 1: one of them is hurting, I feel bad. And knowing
Speaker 1: that their home sick is it's it's really upsetting and
Speaker 1: just it's you know, it's distressing for teachers to know
Speaker 1: that their kids are struggling in a way like that.
Speaker 1: So that's you know, we want them to be safe,
Speaker 1: you know, like like these kids, it's like and this
Speaker 1: is this is true of the staff too. When you
Speaker 1: when you're getting sick, it's like, yeah, like some of
Speaker 1: these people will be okay, but enormous numbers of people
Speaker 1: are like so, man, these people are gonna die something.
Speaker 1: People a lot of these people are going to get disabled.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I mean the long term long terfects really bad.
Speaker 1: And you know, one off, if people remember we we
Speaker 1: did an episode with when our Friends us a nurse
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, like he he had long COVID. His
Speaker 1: long COVID was like he he couldn't do more than
Speaker 1: like like getting out of bed or like like walking
Speaker 1: across the room, which just put him in bed all day.
Speaker 1: Because there's you know, there there's an enormous range of
Speaker 1: sort of like of of long COVID side effects. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's it's like CPS is just child
Speaker 1: cope of schools. It's just like they're getting people killed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's and it's you know, that's like the question
Speaker 1: like they keep talking about percentages and I'm like, these
Speaker 1: are human beings. Every one of the numbers is a human.
Speaker 1: So when you say like only you know, point whatever
Speaker 1: percent are going to be long term affected, like, okay,
Speaker 1: those are people. Can we stop like dehumanizing them with
Speaker 1: these like data points and um as for like the
Speaker 1: issue with like how like kids are less affected by
Speaker 1: or whatever, Like the fact is like the more we
Speaker 1: allow this to spread around the more variants we're going
Speaker 1: to see, and we don't know that the next variant
Speaker 1: isn't going to be the one that is really significantly
Speaker 1: harmful to children. And we are basically turning our schools
Speaker 1: into these peatree dishes where this thing can mutate and
Speaker 1: become stronger. And now we have vaccinated people who are
Speaker 1: in that mix, and it's becoming resistant to the vaccine.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm a social studie teacher, not a
Speaker 1: science teacher, but this seems like a bad move to me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I don't know, it's it's just sort of heartbreaking
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. I mean, it's just like they've
Speaker 1: just decided that, you know, and again, like I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know why Lightfoot's doing this, Like maybe just
Speaker 1: like she wants to share up her base thing because
Speaker 1: she's trying to build a base among like the just
Speaker 1: like rich, Weirddorsiders or something. But like it's she's a
Speaker 1: small business person. That's always when people are the small
Speaker 1: business owners who don't want to close schools because then
Speaker 1: you know, their workers won't come in, and you know,
Speaker 1: I want to feel sorry for them, but I know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I was like fuck you, because
Speaker 1: there's also a lot of small business owners who have
Speaker 1: been very supportive of us. We had uh there's like
Speaker 1: a taco place offering free burritos to us, Like I
Speaker 1: really appreciate that. Like there's a community who understand that,
Speaker 1: like the lives of our children are so much more
Speaker 1: important than you missing two weeks of profit, Like you
Speaker 1: will figure that out. And if you want to bail
Speaker 1: out businesses, um, we can figure that out. But right now.
Speaker 1: And also like is is saying like we have we
Speaker 1: aren't we refused to do anything that might be inconvenient
Speaker 1: for business owners, Like what is that? Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: like it's like yeah, so you know. And also yeah,
Speaker 1: but like business owners did get bailed out, like they
Speaker 1: got they got they got zero presented loans. Most of
Speaker 1: those loans got written off. And meanwhile, yeah, it's like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: what did life to do with the COVID buddy? She
Speaker 1: she gave it to the cops. And oh, hey, guess
Speaker 1: guess who's also just a ramperants better of COVID? Oh
Speaker 1: yeah it's the cops. Yeah, resisted vaccines the most, the cops.
Speaker 1: I mean, actually, there there there, there is one funny
Speaker 1: thing which I'm actually very excited about, which is that
Speaker 1: the cops are doing they're having their first so that
Speaker 1: they have a new class graduating. But for the police academies,
Speaker 1: which is really bad, and there's a whole well, one
Speaker 1: of one of the like life Foot's things was that
Speaker 1: there there was a huge campaign against building more police
Speaker 1: academies because you know, everyone hates told a police apartment.
Speaker 1: They're awful. And if you have a hundred billion dollars
Speaker 1: for a new police academy, why or a hundred million
Speaker 1: or whatever it was, why can't you put some better
Speaker 1: ventilation in the schools? Yeah, well it's gonna yeah because
Speaker 1: because because like the CPD are like basically feudal lords.
Speaker 1: They have nights, they go out, they can shoot you,
Speaker 1: like they rob you. They just like any any any
Speaker 1: large number of like black kids on the streets, Like
Speaker 1: if you just have like fifteen kids walking around, like
Speaker 1: eight quad cars will show up. And you know that
Speaker 1: there was in Lightfoot was like no, no, no, her
Speaker 1: like one of her campaign things, big and pain things
Speaker 1: like no, no no, We're gonna make sure we build these academies.
Speaker 1: And but so they're they're having their first like rounded.
Speaker 1: They they've been having trouble recruiting because good yeah, and
Speaker 1: and they're they're about to have their first police Academy
Speaker 1: exam and it's gonna be in person, and I am
Speaker 1: this is the only what are the few? Is this?
Speaker 1: And jaire Bosonaro where it's like I am rooting for
Speaker 1: the virus here, like please God save us from these cops.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's but they're just at home and
Speaker 1: spread it around. Yeah, yeah, that's a sad thing. It's
Speaker 1: it's just it's grotesque. And yeah, yeah, it's been this
Speaker 1: thing where I'm like watching, like the school system is
Speaker 1: just throwing their hands up, been saying we don't care,
Speaker 1: We're done. The health system, the health care system is
Speaker 1: like crashing and burning all around us. Nurses are quitting,
Speaker 1: hospitals are like we don't have room for more patients,
Speaker 1: Like did you have a cancer treatment schedule? Sorry? Did
Speaker 1: you have a surgery scheduled? Sorry? I just saw somebody
Speaker 1: on Twitter saying she um has a brain tumor and
Speaker 1: she's supposed to have a surgery for it and she
Speaker 1: can't now because of COVID. Because they have no beds,
Speaker 1: there aren't any and you're telling me that the right
Speaker 1: move right now is to keep the schools open, which
Speaker 1: has always been in every every pandemic that we've ever had.
Speaker 1: Schools and hospitals and prisons are like the place where
Speaker 1: the whatever diseases spreads. And I know we've been claiming
Speaker 1: that like there's not been spread in schools, but we've
Speaker 1: now seen the data that there, in fact is a
Speaker 1: huge amount. Which I've been like screaming about this since
Speaker 1: we started that their contact tracing models are they're absurd.
Speaker 1: They are like kafka esque, Like basically, um, so we
Speaker 1: start from the assumption that everybody is six ft apart
Speaker 1: and wearing the mask at all times, which it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not even it's not even physically possible in a
Speaker 1: lot of classrooms for that to be happening. And then too,
Speaker 1: we start with the assumption that those things work, and
Speaker 1: so you'll get a call from a contact racer that's like, hey,
Speaker 1: um on, you know, like last Tuesday, Tuesday of last week,
Speaker 1: were you within six ft of any of your eighth
Speaker 1: graders for more than fifteen minutes? Funk? If I know,
Speaker 1: Tuesday of last week, was I near an eighth grader
Speaker 1: for fifteen minutes. I don't know. I have no idea
Speaker 1: even if, like, even if I did know, what difference
Speaker 1: does it make. It is an aerosolized virus. It is
Speaker 1: in the air, and the more you sit in classrooms,
Speaker 1: the more it accumulates. Like we have seen like studies
Speaker 1: about um this, We've seen studies about how CEO two
Speaker 1: accumulates in the air when there's crowds. We know that
Speaker 1: stuff accumulates like that in classrooms, very very quickly. And
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell me that as long as I wasn't
Speaker 1: within fifteen or within six ft for more than fifteen
Speaker 1: continuous minutes, not even like um, not even fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: like added up throughout the day, just fifteen minutes continuously,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get a virus. You shipping me
Speaker 1: like that makes no sense. And so then if and
Speaker 1: if and if you're answer to those questions are no,
Speaker 1: because whatever you were following the rules, then they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you got COVID somewhere else. It wasn't at school, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It's nonsense. It's like I go to work
Speaker 1: and I go home. I don't do anything else, so
Speaker 1: I don't know where else it's coming from like yeah,
Speaker 1: like and I also just I want to do do
Speaker 1: a brief digression about like okay, so like like like
Speaker 1: I went to like a like a pretty good like
Speaker 1: like a pretty well like a very well funded like
Speaker 1: a Chicago area school and like, okay, those places, those
Speaker 1: places ventilation sucks. Like again, like again, I went to
Speaker 1: a very well funded school. Like we had a we
Speaker 1: had drowned dead rats falling out of the ceiling like
Speaker 1: it was. It was incredibly my my, my, my great
Speaker 1: high school memories with my principle just like running full
Speaker 1: tilt pushing a trash can because dead drownd friend see
Speaker 1: liked lord. My school was wild. We had how bad
Speaker 1: it was like a kind of a chemistry teacher let
Speaker 1: a kid set off a smoke bomb like that they
Speaker 1: made like in a classroom, but it didn't work, so
Speaker 1: it just like actually blew up. It was a time
Speaker 1: but like like base learning, okay, got to light the
Speaker 1: school on fire. But like like this is a this
Speaker 1: is like yeah, like like these schools are not like
Speaker 1: they're not environments. Yeah. The building I worked in at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the year was a hundred years old.
Speaker 1: It was built in nineteen twenty and there was always
Speaker 1: this like sewage smell around the bathroom as the pipes
Speaker 1: were messed up. It was weird, like and they couldn't
Speaker 1: fix it. I think it was I was the second
Speaker 1: or third time by building lived on fire. Like we
Speaker 1: there was a there was a whole thing in the
Speaker 1: building that was made of asbestos and they just had
Speaker 1: left it because it was like it wasn't exposed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: still have asbestos over Like I get like I went
Speaker 1: to like a good, well funded one of these schools,
Speaker 1: Like it's I think there's there's like there's there's these
Speaker 1: two there's two things. I think it is. Interestingly, there's
Speaker 1: when you like talk to like the people who want
Speaker 1: the schools to open back up, right, they'll they're also
Speaker 1: talking about like oh no, it's fine. Everyone wears mass
Speaker 1: everyone's vaccinated, everyone succeed. It's like no, no, they're not
Speaker 1: like this. This is how it works in this like
Speaker 1: imaginary play world you've like created. Have you ever met
Speaker 1: a child? Like have you met your own children? Like
Speaker 1: oh and that's the best is like, well, I've been
Speaker 1: having my kids wear a mask. You have your full
Speaker 1: of ship, okay, because I hold that kid to put
Speaker 1: their masks on like fifteen times yesterday, and I love
Speaker 1: them beautiful face. I hope they get to show it
Speaker 1: off someday, but right now, covered up, please, I'm begging you.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I'm not like that teacher who's really authoritarian,
Speaker 1: Like I've never been good at like writing kids up
Speaker 1: and getting on them for stuff because it's just like
Speaker 1: I don't know, I hate doing that. I hate being
Speaker 1: that person. So it's been like, really it's like a struggle.
Speaker 1: It's like am I going to be the person who
Speaker 1: nags them every five seconds? Or am I gonna be
Speaker 1: um the teacher that they like and want to learn from?
Speaker 1: Like you know, this isn't sustainable. So but you're asking
Speaker 1: like the attitudes of people who want to open schools
Speaker 1: back up, and I it's it's hard because I have
Speaker 1: talked to parents who are worried, but they are also
Speaker 1: very upset because they see that their kids are struggling.
Speaker 1: And I really do feel for them on that, like
Speaker 1: I really really do. It is hard to see a
Speaker 1: kids struggle, but it is harder, I think to see
Speaker 1: a kid sick. That is really hard. And it's just
Speaker 1: this like there are ways that we can overcome the
Speaker 1: difficulties of remote learning, Like we we can find ways
Speaker 1: to give them the emotional support, Um, we can find
Speaker 1: better socializing outlets. But I don't know how we fix
Speaker 1: like you've become very ill and your body isn't going
Speaker 1: to recover in the way that you thought it would, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't. I can't fix that. So it's something I've
Speaker 1: heard from other teachers that like that preparable about learning
Speaker 1: stuff like is harder and takes more work than Yeah
Speaker 1: it does. It's it's really off. I don't like doing it.
Speaker 1: I want to be in the classroom, but yah, and
Speaker 1: I just I just want to like once again, yell
Speaker 1: at all of the people who are like the teachers
Speaker 1: are lazy and it's like no, people like they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you're you are advocating to do more work because
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing that will keep the kids safe,
Speaker 1: and it's Yeah. I think a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: understand like the behind the scenes how the sausage gets
Speaker 1: made of a classroom. But I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people have this idea that like we are given curriculum
Speaker 1: and plans and materials pre made, and sometimes that's true,
Speaker 1: it depends on your subject. Mine is social size is
Speaker 1: not a subject where that happens very much, which is
Speaker 1: part of why I like it, because I like to
Speaker 1: be creative. Um, So like my week looks like, UM,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of hours after school where I
Speaker 1: am sitting down, I'm looking at the standards that I
Speaker 1: need to teach, the topics that I need to teach,
Speaker 1: and I'm researching it and learning it and finding a
Speaker 1: way to teach that to kids who don't have the
Speaker 1: same like baseline knowledge that I have. UM, And then
Speaker 1: I'm creating like an activity for them. I'm creating, um,
Speaker 1: you're I'm finding like material sources and videos and stuff
Speaker 1: that they can watch that are going to help them,
Speaker 1: or things to read. I'm modifying those things for the
Speaker 1: kids who have, um, you know, learning differences. I'm translating
Speaker 1: some of those things into Spanish for kids who don't
Speaker 1: really read very well in English yet. So, like that's
Speaker 1: a ton of work on its own. And then when
Speaker 1: we switch to remote, we have to figure out how
Speaker 1: to do all of that on Google Classroom, where now
Speaker 1: it has to all be typed like or you know,
Speaker 1: like how do I figure like how do I do
Speaker 1: a group project online. How do I let them do
Speaker 1: something creative that isn't just sitting here answering questions on
Speaker 1: a worksheet. That's hard and we've been really good at it,
Speaker 1: and I've found all kinds of really cool tools to
Speaker 1: do that with. But it's so much work. And it's
Speaker 1: work that I'm willing to do because I care about
Speaker 1: my job. I enjoy my work. I love my students,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, and I want them to be safe,
Speaker 1: but like, you know, it is a ton of work.
Speaker 1: I'm not just sitting here eating bond bonds all day
Speaker 1: or drinking cocktails. Yeah. And I think there's there's like
Speaker 1: a larger sort of like like Americans have this like
Speaker 1: the sexist sort of like hatred of like or in
Speaker 1: disrespect to people who do both care work and a
Speaker 1: lot of creative work both. And then simultaneously there's this
Speaker 1: sort of like you know, the there's there's there's a
Speaker 1: resentment to people who get to actually do something that
Speaker 1: helps people. And you know, I think right now we're
Speaker 1: seeing just the most toxic fusion of that, which is
Speaker 1: that like, yeah, I know, like these like you know,
Speaker 1: instead of like you know, recognizing the enormous amount of
Speaker 1: work that that's going into all like this going into
Speaker 1: into teaching, like the amount of sort of like the
Speaker 1: care and love that's going into the creativity. It's going
Speaker 1: into it. And just like the people people's willing to,
Speaker 1: like you're willing listen to make like enormous sacrifices to
Speaker 1: try to keep these kids safe, they're just like no,
Speaker 1: Like the teachers are lazy, they don't want to work,
Speaker 1: they're going on strike, like and it's you know, and
Speaker 1: and it's like they're doing this and it's like yeah,
Speaker 1: like you you were like they're killing their own kids.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's it's this weird fusion of like
Speaker 1: we we I've had. The spaces is like a combination
Speaker 1: of like feminized care labor, emotional labor, and UM that's
Speaker 1: sort of like like intelligence, yeah, like professional white collar
Speaker 1: intellectual kind of thing. And then also we're teaching a
Speaker 1: UM more introductory level of our subjects, so we're seeing
Speaker 1: as like discount intellectuals who are also women who do
Speaker 1: care work. So it's it's very frustrating, and I don't
Speaker 1: think a lot of people understand the amount of UM
Speaker 1: skill and expertise it takes to be a teacher and
Speaker 1: be effective at it. Like, it's not just I need
Speaker 1: to know social studies to the level that a twelfth
Speaker 1: grader would know it. It's I need to know social
Speaker 1: studies beyond that level and know how to communicate it
Speaker 1: to a high school student. And also I need to
Speaker 1: know a lot of stuff about like child development. It's
Speaker 1: it's really it's something and um, I you know, I
Speaker 1: find that to be fun and challenging, but I wish
Speaker 1: it was respected and you know, and then you're talking
Speaker 1: about like people are sacrificing their own kids. I want
Speaker 1: to point out a lot like I think there's a
Speaker 1: racial component to this. Um, the people who are in
Speaker 1: wealthier schools and who are mostly white know that their
Speaker 1: kids are gonna be fine, Like they are in schools
Speaker 1: that actually do have the resources to distance, that have
Speaker 1: air filters, that have good ventilation. Um, they're vaccinated, their
Speaker 1: kids are probably going to be fine. The kids that
Speaker 1: aren't going to be fine are low income students of color.
Speaker 1: And it has always been this way. It's always been
Speaker 1: this way with schools. Like when schools were desegregated, we
Speaker 1: started with private school vouchers and we started with all
Speaker 1: of these like uh, state testing requirements and withholding funding
Speaker 1: from schools that don't meet those you know, test standards
Speaker 1: and all of these like um, this extra oversight owned
Speaker 1: teachers like that stuff all comes back to white people
Speaker 1: don't want to have to worry about black people's kids.
Speaker 1: That's it. And you know they will move their kids
Speaker 1: out to the north side or the suburbs or whatever.
Speaker 1: Notice that all of those suburbs schools have flipped. Noticed
Speaker 1: that Lory Lightfoot's kids are in a charter school that
Speaker 1: is not remote well and more than Lightfoot. Light Lightfoot
Speaker 1: realm not put herself in a room with the with
Speaker 1: the same number of people like to go to every day.
Speaker 1: She won't. And she was telling people at the press
Speaker 1: conferences they had to wear their masks, and then she
Speaker 1: wasn't wearing hers, which is very charrange to me. Like
Speaker 1: that's what they like when when you when you get
Speaker 1: to the politician level, they know it's dangerous, Like they
Speaker 1: know they they you can tell right, yeah, like they
Speaker 1: won't do it, but like no, no, they're they're perfectly
Speaker 1: willing to just send to send you off the die,
Speaker 1: to send all these kids off to die. And it's just, Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel I get kind of dumer and I
Speaker 1: wonder if, like, if that's not the plan, Like is
Speaker 1: it that? I mean, I don't really believe that. I
Speaker 1: think what it really is is this just like malicious neglect.
Speaker 1: Like if you're somebody who's a policymaker and someone comes
Speaker 1: to you and it's like, I need you to care
Speaker 1: about this population here that doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: money and needs a lot of things, and you, the policymaker,
Speaker 1: are going to be like, oh, that sounds like so
Speaker 1: much work. And then somebody else is going to come
Speaker 1: to you and be like, I need these things over here,
Speaker 1: and I do have a lot of money, and I
Speaker 1: do have a lot of influence, and I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: your life difficult if you don't do what I want.
Speaker 1: They're gonna do with that other side once. And what
Speaker 1: the other side once right now is for kids to
Speaker 1: get back into school so they can have free daycares,
Speaker 1: parents can go to work, and that's and that's it.
Speaker 1: And teachers are standing here being like, I didn't get
Speaker 1: a master's degree, and do you know countless hours of
Speaker 1: professional development to be a babysitter? You know, and no,
Speaker 1: not to knock babysitters. I was in nanny for a
Speaker 1: long time. That is hard work. But um, I didn't
Speaker 1: get a master's degree to be a babysitter. I got
Speaker 1: a master's degree to be a teacher. And I'm in
Speaker 1: an environment right now where I can't really teach effectively
Speaker 1: and all I'm doing is babysitting. They want to wear
Speaker 1: house kids. That is what we're doing with the schools.
Speaker 1: That's why they want them open. And it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard not to feel like they just are
Speaker 1: doing it because they hate us, even though I know
Speaker 1: it's not. It's just mean, it does feel that way.
Speaker 1: I will like, I will say that, like you're so
Speaker 1: if you become elected as the mayor of Chicago, like
Speaker 1: your job is to break the teachers union, Like that's
Speaker 1: that's like, that's that's that's that's like the role you're
Speaker 1: auditioning for. And they have been they have been trying
Speaker 1: to do this for literally my entire lifetime. They've been
Speaker 1: trying to do this, like since before I was born.
Speaker 1: Like that's and honestly, like, wouldn't surprise me if this
Speaker 1: was another part of this was just them once again
Speaker 1: trying to break the teachers union. Oh absolutely, like and
Speaker 1: if and not even just that, like yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like not just on the sort of political level, like
Speaker 1: on the incredible cynical level of we'll just kill them. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's a labor thing. Like, it's not just a
Speaker 1: Chicago teachers union or even a teacher's union thing. It
Speaker 1: is a labor movement across the board thing that. Um,
Speaker 1: the largest, I think the largest unionized workforce in the
Speaker 1: country is teachers, and we on top of that are
Speaker 1: a union of workers who have the power to absolutely
Speaker 1: bring our economy to a grinding hole if we want to.
Speaker 1: We could all go on straight right now, and nobody's
Speaker 1: going to do ship until we go back to work.
Speaker 1: Um they could if they, you know, they could try
Speaker 1: to replace us with like people who are basically like
Speaker 1: hall monitors and give kids like canned curriculums. But they
Speaker 1: wouldn't really be learning very well, and parents wouldn't be
Speaker 1: happy with it, and they wouldn't be entering the workforce
Speaker 1: with the skills they need to make money for the economy,
Speaker 1: to you know, make money for the almighty Tao. So um.
Speaker 1: The it has been a project for decades in this
Speaker 1: country to try to break teachers unions because teacher unions
Speaker 1: occupy this space where they allow other unions to happen. Um,
Speaker 1: we have, you know, enough influence on politicians that they
Speaker 1: can't just disband the labor board and make unions illegal,
Speaker 1: which they would absolutely fucking love to do. And if
Speaker 1: they could just get rid of these damn teachers unions,
Speaker 1: maybe they could do it. Um. So, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's what you see with the edge cation reform movement,
Speaker 1: where you have all these people advocating for bouchers and
Speaker 1: charter schools and it's you know, they want to break labor.
Speaker 1: And I see a lot of I mean, now I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna scold some of my comrades, but I
Speaker 1: see a lot of leftists who are really skeptical of
Speaker 1: teachers and don't want to support the teachers union. And
Speaker 1: I get it, like, there are a lot of teachers
Speaker 1: who really suck, and there's a lot of teachers who
Speaker 1: are not radical, like most teachers are not radical, a
Speaker 1: lot of them are pretty conservative. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: if you were to abolish schools immediately right now and
Speaker 1: break up the teachers unions, and all that you're gonna
Speaker 1: get end up with. Rich people go to school, poor
Speaker 1: people don't. If your poor, your kid goes to work,
Speaker 1: probably won't be in a coal mine, but you know
Speaker 1: they'll probably be like soldering my computer chips or coded
Speaker 1: or something for like pennies an hour. And I don't
Speaker 1: want that world. And if you actually care about labor,
Speaker 1: then you need to support teachers unions because um, the
Speaker 1: public schools are central to all these communities that we
Speaker 1: want to be reaching, and the unions are the only
Speaker 1: thing making sure that they stay public. Yeah. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: like I almost like again like to to to to
Speaker 1: anarchist comrades were anti school. It's like yeah, like okay,
Speaker 1: I hate school. I'm for a d D. Schooling is great,
Speaker 1: but we need to do other things first. Yeah you
Speaker 1: have to And like again like that you need to
Speaker 1: like like support the workers, not the institution. Like it's
Speaker 1: like it's like saying I'm a vegan, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to go after McDonald's in place, like just like like
Speaker 1: so like I I my high school was like all
Speaker 1: the th much like incredibly conservative, but everyone was still
Speaker 1: in the union. That was like the one that was
Speaker 1: the one thing that was like, well, okay, there there
Speaker 1: there were two counter failing forces. One was that I
Speaker 1: the Christians didn't seem to understand what liberation theology was,
Speaker 1: so occasionally they'd accidentally hire leftist because they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a Christian, You're fine, you're from America. We're not
Speaker 1: going to question you further. The second thing was that
Speaker 1: even everyone, everyone was in the Union, and that was like,
Speaker 1: that was that was literally the only those are the
Speaker 1: only two left wing. Like I've gotten into so many
Speaker 1: teaching spaces by talking about how I like critical pedagogy
Speaker 1: and I didn't understand Fry was a conference, yeah, or
Speaker 1: being like, oh, I'm really really really into Chicago history.
Speaker 1: I especially love the history of like labor in Chicago
Speaker 1: because it's it's huge people here about it and they
Speaker 1: don't get that like I'm an anarchist, you know, And
Speaker 1: and a lot of the like um sort of like
Speaker 1: education reform language. I think it's very funny. It is
Speaker 1: just lifted from radical like sociologists and anthropologists and educators
Speaker 1: who are trying to find ways to um dismantle like
Speaker 1: authoritarian structures in schools, and so they'll come up with
Speaker 1: these like Um, you know, like restorative practices and all
Speaker 1: this stuff, and then they kind of get they make
Speaker 1: their way up to the Ivory Tower and then get
Speaker 1: repackaged in this It's it's like, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: like a machine or something that like sucks up radical ideas,
Speaker 1: brings them up to the academy, repackages them to make
Speaker 1: them nice for politicians, and then spits them back out
Speaker 1: And it is exhausting and I hate it. It makes
Speaker 1: me so mad. I'll never forgive people for what they
Speaker 1: did to the term restorative justice. Yeah, do you have
Speaker 1: anything else that you want to make sure that people
Speaker 1: like understand about what's happening in the schools right now? Um,
Speaker 1: I guess just the biggest thing is I want people
Speaker 1: to understand that like it. This is a question of
Speaker 1: when and under what conditions are we going to be
Speaker 1: forced into a remote learning situation. This isn't like we
Speaker 1: want remote learning because we like it because it's fun.
Speaker 1: It's because it's going to happen if you like it
Speaker 1: or not. The schools are going to close if you
Speaker 1: like it or not, because the unless you're okay with
Speaker 1: just like people are going to get sick and die
Speaker 1: and or going to work sick, which I think most
Speaker 1: of us agree that's insane. Um it is there are
Speaker 1: you We're going to be in a situation where we
Speaker 1: don't have enough staff to keep buildings open. So either
Speaker 1: we can try and mitigate that now and keep that
Speaker 1: from happening, or we can just start our hands up
Speaker 1: and say, fine, let's let the schools collapse. I don't
Speaker 1: want the schools to collapse, So, um, if we could
Speaker 1: just go remote for two weeks and get some good
Speaker 1: testing in and have a vaccine requirement, And personally, I
Speaker 1: would like to advocate for remote as an option for
Speaker 1: parents who want it. I don't think that's on the
Speaker 1: table right now, but um, I think more parents out
Speaker 1: there should be demanding it. And I also would like
Speaker 1: to say to parents, you have a lot of power
Speaker 1: that you don't understand. Um. The school districts listen to
Speaker 1: the parents so much more than the teachers. One parents
Speaker 1: voice is worth like ten teacher voices. So if you
Speaker 1: see something going on in your schools that you're not
Speaker 1: comfortable with, if you have questions, contact your principles, contact
Speaker 1: the district, talk to people, talk to the other parents
Speaker 1: that you know, organize yourselves. Um, if we had you know,
Speaker 1: strong parent organizations on our side, we would be absolutely
Speaker 1: unstoppable and we could have the school system that we
Speaker 1: want and that our kids deserve. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: I like the right figured this out a long time
Speaker 1: ago that you absolutely, Yeah, look at what they're doing
Speaker 1: to the school board meetings with CRT. We could have
Speaker 1: that for people who are actually good people who care,
Speaker 1: like there's no there's no reason that all the other
Speaker 1: parents couldn't be going and saying I want my kids
Speaker 1: to learn about race, and I want them to be
Speaker 1: wearing masks, and I want everybody to be vaccinated. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think I think I think that's a good
Speaker 1: note to end on. We you know, we can make
Speaker 1: this better. We just have to, you know, work together. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you have anything that you want to plug, Like,
Speaker 1: do you have a way to support the teachers who Um,
Speaker 1: I think I'll send you a flyer that we have.
Speaker 1: It has some information for contacting Alderman, getting COVID tests
Speaker 1: and our petition to sign um. If you could post that,
Speaker 1: I would really appreciate it. I definitely can definitely do that. Awesome,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks coming on. Yeah, good talking to you.
Speaker 1: It could Happen Here as a production of cool zone
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