ABBE LARGE: Continued Teaching and Learning Are Needed

Abbe Large is a member of The Representative Town Meeting and its Education Committee. Views expressed are my own as a taxpayer and parent of a Greenwich Public School 6th grader and two recent Greenwich High School graduates.

As I sit to write this, I am stunningly and acutely aware of the “new” world we are facing as the United States has surpassed China with the amount of COVID-19 cases. This phenomenon is due in part to the very same reason we choose to live in the USA – we are a democracy. And with democracy comes many freedoms.

However, those freedoms are being tested every day, every hour, and every minute. The speed at which our government and State have come to terms with the spread of this virus and its deadly path is eye-opening and accommodations are being made regardless of protocols or obstacles – because we have to in order to keep peace, morale high, and above all, people safe.

Federal reserves are being deployed, medicines and vaccination protocols are being omitted for speedier delivery. The world needs to act – NOW. We are witnessing history in the making as this unprecedented time is tempting our stresses, anxiety, and worst fears. As a community, we need to respect and support those that are doing their best in the very worst of times.

We need to have leaders who can work around reasons why something CAN’T be done and figure out how things CAN be done.

I will take distance learning for example: According to the NYC Department of Education “All NYC Public schools have launched remote learning for all students Monday, March 23, 2020. Remote learning both creates an opportunity for students and teachers to interact online and allows students to continue learning subjects and material that are a key part of their curriculum.”

You can go directly to www.schools.nyc.gov and see for yourself what a wonderful example this sets for Greenwich.

Their leaders have overlooked or have figured out ways to make this work with 1.1 million students who are taught in more than 1,700 public schools. While Greenwich Public Schools was ahead of the curve by being one of the first districts in Connecticut to implement “distance learning,” we have steadfastly fallen behind our neighbors because they were prepared for the rapid changes.

See March 27 article on Good Morning Wilton.

Our children, teachers, and administration have been thrust into a situation that requires everyone to keep morale high. Isolation is upon us and we must figure out a way to connect. The district made the very important, and may I remind you, very costly decision years ago to make sure every child in our district was armed with a device.

Prior to this pandemic, human interaction was being challenged with our devices in hand all the time. We are now keenly aware of just how important human interaction is. No matter what. Human interaction comes in many forms. By telephone, video or face-to-face. Face-to-face has been stripped from us. We need to go above and beyond the reasons why we can’t have video classrooms – babysitting, kids in PJ’s, names exposed, bandwidth – all reasons that may be true, but can be worked around. The technology is there. An easy way to begin right now is to have the teachers post a video of their lesson for the day (using Zoom or another Webinar technology). The students never interact or see each other. As the teachers get comfortable and we progress together over time, they could have true Zoom meetings where they can see each other and interact. This is not a race. It’s going to be a marathon!

There will always be challenges, it’s how we work around them that matters and makes a difference. The impact of how we respond will be lifelong. Let’s figure out a way to make it happen; surveys, privacy settings, WiFi assistance, hotspots, etc. All it takes is just some good creative thinking, execution and leadership.

This is not a time to sit back and “see what went wrong and then address it when the dust settles.” We may never get a second chance. This is a time to act now for what is right for ALL students in our district – no matter what.

Abbe Large is a member of The Representative Town Meeting and its Education Committee. Views expressed are my own as a taxpayer and parent of a Greenwich Public School 6th grader and two recent Greenwich High School graduates.