Author: Angelo Fernando

Alone Together – How teachers deal with virtual school

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

During these days of isolating and distancing ourselves from our colleagues and friends, I have reminded of the title of one of my favorite books, by MIT professor Sherry Turkle. Alone Together.

Granted the book was about technology and robotics, but also on the ‘illusion of intimacy’ as technology was slowly polarizing us. It was a contentious topic whenever I brought it up, having  having once been a cheerleader of social media as encapsulated in my 2013 book, Chat Republic.

Photo by Chris Montgomery, Unsplash.com

But today, we all turn to the very technologies that glue us to screens, to reconnect in very unusual ways. My wife, for one (who usually advocates no screen time or very limited screen time for her young preschool students) took to Zoom. To get a 3 year-old to be in on a ‘conference call’ is a challenge for any teacher, and at odds with Montessori education.  This Monday her learning packets (left outside on Mondays for parents to pick up) included seeds, a bio-degradable pot and and dirt, with instructions they will use in the Zoom class. Montessori involves a lot of sensorial learning and ‘practical life‘ – it was Earth Day yesterday, after all. Yes, we are all learning on the job!

As for me, I have had to come up with creative ways to engage my students – weekly, daily, hourly – to keep them  on track with ongoing projects. We are ‘together’ but by appointment only whether it was via Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Webex. I’ve been using Google Forms embedded into a Google spreadsheet. (The first was about how two of Google’s ‘moonshot’ programs are being revamped as tools to assist during the pandemic.). My students are working on a COVID-19 Report, analyzing data (and thereby understanding spreadsheets) formatting the document in real-time with me during our Wednesday Google Meet calls. This requires me to have to generate PDFs and data sets on the fly, when my online explanations fall flat. Just because we all have mics and cameras don’t solve the problem of not being face-to-face.

Online education is a lonely endeavor. You get to sense it after a few weeks of not hearing voices down the hallway, not being in an unplanned meet-up over a paper-jam in the teacher’s lounge, not being asked to fix a colleagues overhead projector, and thereby seeing something on his wall that gives you an idea for next week’s lesson plan, not being at the daily school assembly and hearing something about the volleyball team that makes your heart soar.  Facebook and Instagram (in my book, Fakebook and Instabrag) can only give you so much.

My school is trying to fill the gaps. We still continue with our Benjamin Franklin Semper Sursum awards. Our weekly conference calls are lively and inspiring. I still visit the school parking lot now and then to meet a colleague and purchase free-range eggs from her farm. My wife and I one day took a long walk and made an unannounced home visit to one of her students, at whose home we dropped off some curry leaves. We both call our students’ parents, and keep fine-tuning our teaching methods to suit the moment.

On a separate note, I am also following an online class at the University of Phoenix. Being a student and a teacher at different times of the day is odd. But everything’s out of whack, and this is, to use a tired phrase, our new normal. We will survive!

Could Maker Spaces help with urgent hospital equipment?

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When Maker Spaces became popular, the idea was to help average people improvise technology with simple material. Where are the Maker Spaces now?

The good news, is they have taken the challenge, as you can see here.  From face shields to cloth masks, and even automated ventilators. These specs are for a face shield using a 3D printed visor. (From Columbia University librarians.) But I would imagine that off-the-shelf plexi-glass would do. The University of Arizona  Dept of Health Science has a similar project.

Could you help? Why not start with making cloth face masks for the family, and neighbors? The patterns are here as PDF downloads. The Center for Disease Control also has a step-by-step tutorial.

Looking ahead, I hope one of the lessons from Covid-19 and the new normal would include the ability to rapidly mobilize citizens to come to the aid of over stressed hospital systems. While we are all isolating, at least we could keep our hands busy.

Meanwhile, mask brokers and fraudulent middlemen have been trying to capitalize on the lack of preparedness.

George Bush vs Donald Trump on pandemics

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Suddenly, we wish we had this republican president who does not doubt science. George Bush.  Turns out Bush read the book, The Great Influenza by John M. Barry.

George Bush in 2005 warned that  “If a pandemic strikes, our country must have a surge capacity in place that will allow us to bring a new vaccine on line quickly and manufacture enough to immunize every American against the pandemic strain,”

Donald Trump  in 2020 on the other hand thought deeply about the subject, and declared coronavirus a “new hoax”.

You can tell what he watches. This classic mashup reveals the group that downplayed this as hyperbole. That’s what you get when no-scientists attempt to weigh in on a topic that’s beyond their intellectual capacity. Or don’t read.

 

The right to lie! What would Springsteen say?

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It’s bizarre how politicians promote alternative realities, expecting us to buy in. I was listening to a podcast by Ezra Klein addressing reality distortion, which he says is a given in the old Soviet Union but is (surprise, surprise!) now quite the norm in two of the biggest anti-communist countries, the UK and the US.

Klein  takes the view that spin doctors and politicians do not control information by throttling it, but by shaping it. (1989 is the anniversary of the victory of freedom of information over censorship, he reminds us – speaking of the collapse of communism and the Wall.)

Just like Klein, another ‘philosopher’ by the name of Bruce Springsteen (!) made a similar observation, back in 1984. I made me want to revisit that interview of  Springsteen by Rolling Stone magazine.  To the question about the Boss’ response to president Ronald Reagan invoking his name when visiting New Jersey, Springsteen had this to say:

“I think what’s happening now is people want to forget. There was Vietnam, there was Watergate, there was Iran – we were beaten, we were hustled, and then we were humiliated. And I think people got a need to feel good about the country they live in. But what’s happening, I think, is that that need – which is a good thing – is gettin’ manipulated and exploited. And you see the Reagan reelection ads on TV – you know: “It’s morning in America.” And you say, well, it’s not morning in Pittsburgh. It’s not morning above 125th Street in New York. It’s midnight, and, like, there’s a bad moon risin’. And that’s why when Reagan mentioned my name in New Jersey, I felt it was another manipulation, and I had to disassociate myself from the president’s kind words.

In hindsight, the beautifully crafted campaign ad, “It’s morning in America“ seems like the kind of place we want to go back to. Except it was a distorted mirror. I wonder what the boss would say about the present batch of ads and sound bytes.

Ignoring the warnings while believing in conspiracies

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Why is it so easy for people –governments, even– to believe in conspiracy theories, but ignore science? We will have to figure this one out as we deal with Covid-19.

As recently as 2018, Jonathan Quick in the Guardian wrote a detailed explanation of how we must prepare for a ‘looming pandemic,’ so I’m aghast how governments –meaning people in decision-making roles in governments, ignored this.  Here’s an enlightening paragraph, with eerie predictions at that time.

“Somewhere out there a dangerous virus is boiling up in the bloodstream of a bird, bat, monkey or pig, preparing to jump to a human being. It’s hard to comprehend the scope of such a threat, for it has the potential to wipe out millions of us, including my family and yours, over a matter of weeks or months.”

Some would have dismissed these and other Cassandra-like statements as overblown. The prediction at that time was that a mismanaged pandemic could cost the world 3.5 trillion dollars.

Jonathan Quick (of Harvard Medical School, and Chair of the Global Health Council) used this infographic that puts outbreaks and a pandemic in context. I urge you to read his article, though.

If only our leaders listen to experts rather than attempt to be the experts and geniuses themselves. We didn’t elect them to spread unfounded theories, but to lead.

 

Bend the Curve

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Do the math,
Bend the Curve,
Keep your distance,
Don’t lose your nerve.

Read a book,
Cover your noses,
Write a letter,
Smell the roses.

Follow your heart,
Not the herd,
Help a stranger,
Spread the word.

Enjoy the pause
It’s not so bad,
Don’t complain,
Or instabrag.

The curve will flatten
Trust in prayer.
Precious times
Like this are rare.

What’s the definition of a pandemic?

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To understand pandemics, the one that puts matters in context is the Spanish flu of 1918. It was caused by the H1N1 virus which had an avian origin.

A pandemic is obviously a global outbreak.  It is due to a virus that is “easily and spread from person to person in an efficient and sustained way,” according to The Center for Disease Control. How easily spread? During the Spanish flu, nearly one-third of the world population between 1918 and 1919 was infected by H1N1. (An epidemic, by contrast is not global, but also spreads fast. The 2013 Ebola epidemic in Western Africa which killed about 11,000 people.)

The panic caused by a pandemic is the result of a lack of information, leadership, and a slow response. In the 2009 pandemic (the H1N1 ‘flu), it took 26 weeks for a vaccine to become available. Not too long ago, Bill Gates warned about our need for preparedness for a pandemic. As we get to grips with the gravity of COVID-19 and pandemic we are living in, it’s worth watching his TED Talk on this.

Wanted: Healthy skepticism as virus conspiracy “goes viral”

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Before the term ‘going viral’ became part of people’s conversations –being randomly applied to any nugget of information  from tweet or some silly meme that skimmed across the Web- we had another term for it: Buzz. PR companies did not create viral campaigns, they created Buzz (or ‘buzzy’) campaigns.

Emmanuel Rosen, one of my favorite authors, addressed this well in The Anatomy of Buzz. This was pre-Twitter, and Pre-Facebook, remember. (I interviewed him for my book, Chat Republic.) He foresaw that some people could hijack your buzz. Information and disinformation make reservations on the same train.

Fast-forward to today. The Coronavirus is a serious topic because we are in uncharted territory. But like a stone skipping across multiple bodies of water, important news, gossip, and vital information races across our landscape blended with conspiracy theories about the virus. Unfortunately these conspiratory theories are going viral, so to speak. I won’t even bother to name what the major conspiracy is, but (it has already been debunked by scientists) only say this: It is poorly concealed character assassination by conspiracy theorists with political exes to grind. The kind who complain about fake news, while spreading more of the same.

In the age of information overload, and disinformation,  our brains are being rewired to disbelieve everything at face value. It’s healthy to be skeptical, sure. But at this time let’s be skeptical about all things that ‘go viral.”