Updates...
And I am too tired to format this with much thoughtfulness, welcome to my brain on school.
Somehow I thought this year would be different in terms of how I can take care of myself. I thought that, because I had seen and felt seen about the ways teaching in person can be so inaccessible, that my state of health would be different than it has been in pre-pandemic times.
But nothing has changed. Nothing has changed that impacts my health, and nothing has changed about class size, building ventilation, or any other good/scientifically backed ways of keeping our kids safe (except the illusion that everyone will wear masks 100% of the time, over their nose.)
In mid October, We had our first reported case of COVID in the school (I know...first…?) and “close contacts” (how this is being determined is not information we have access to, especially as it’s not CLOSE CONTACT with asymptomatic people that is spreading COVID, it’s the aerosols floating around to be breathed in) who are unvaccinated are quarantining now. Those kids are now missing out on the day in which the senior class all spends the morning supporting each other in big community in getting CUNY applications out.
School is already cold as fuck. As I walked through the building on the second cold day of the year, it looked like half of the classrooms had their windows closed. Literally the only thing we have control over (at least a little bit) is air flow, and people have sacrificed that in the name of kids not complaining about the cold. It's going to get worse --but who can take the time or space to think about harm reduction--harm reduction about the immediate feelings of being cold (cold-er?) vs. the eventual added up impact of long COVID on all our children, and largely the unvaccinated children.
So, like the child of science that I am, I’m collecting data! I’m seeing how this one month of teaching has affected my 3-month average of blood sugar (the HB1AC test), so then I can see how 2 months and then 3 months affect it as well.
But long story short, already, it is A LOT WORSE -- and it’s only been one month’s affect on my 3 month average… and I can’t really grieve that because there’s no space for that. Only thing I can do is swallow it, stay calm (since a stress response causes release of glucose in my body), and encourage my body to tell me yes to days off, because what even is a sick day when you are sick all the time?
Ready for the details? Read on.
How my diabetes and my ADHD intersect in the school setting -- these days in particular:
LOSING A MILLION THINGS A DAY: My mind is blown that I had ever been able to work in multiple spaces with one million kinds of paper/documents, each with its own purposes and destinations -- but first those papers get put down -- and then forgotten -- as I pause to do something else. I’m constantly looking for my keys and my water bottle1. People are handing me a water bottle I didn’t know I had lost yet… yesterday 3 different people (including 2 students) handed me my phone.
NO TIME TO TAKE CARE OF MYSELF: I can’t follow through on continuing to take care of a particular health problem because when I’m focused in school mode, there are constantly things to attend to that rob my attention that are and feel important.
Fully taking care of myself *which is a process that takes multiple check-in points and intentionality over long term chunks of time* feels actually impossible in the school setting…some step or check-in is always forgotten and then I’m potentially fucked over for the entire day dealing with the life draining effects of the rollercoaster I can’t keep up with, affecting the hours of respite I get before I have to go back to the building again.
In a particular week, I have a total of 4 hours of "prep" time (which is the time I'm supposed to use to be prepared for 25 class periods, meetings, LARGE AMOUNTS of special education duties that don't have a place and time but that there is no compensation for, as well as giving myself a fucking break to take care of myself. Yes, this schedule may have been a reality that existed before this pandemic as well, but we are in a DIFFERENT situation and this amount of free time is not tenable. And I don't know what there even is to do about that.
And I am privileged here! For many teachers, the vaccine mandate means that because of the exodus of unvaccinated teachers and lack of substitute availability, they aren't getting any time off (including lunch!!!!)
THERE’S SO MANY WAYS FOR IT TO GO WRONG:
Example 1: I have been minimizing eating carbs while I’m at school, except for when medicating (aka blood sugar is low). Most of the time I’m not eating much food at all, since I only eat outside, and it takes a long time for me to get from where I teach to the exit of the building. The other day, I decided after much deliberation to say “YES!” to an offer of sushi and because of that ONE ROLL (in combination with my blood sugar sensing technology being HIGHLY INACCURATE as it is much of the time and feeding the wrong information into the algorithm that decides how much insulin is flowing in through my port), I end up dealing with this very high and incapacitating (not to mention immunocompromising) blood sugar situation until 11 pm. And now here I am awake and dreading going back, feeling overwhelmed about the lack of control we have over our and others’ safety.
Example 2: Often when someone has diabetes, we are told that we need to “bolus” 15 minutes before a meal so the insulin action curve lines up with the breakdown of food into glucose -- this means we’re supposed to give a certain amount of insulin before eating to get ready for the specific food that’s about to come in that can drive up blood glucose. BUT if my blood sugar is low at the time I have to eat lunch at school,, I can’t give myself insulin right away for what I am about to eat -- if I did, the food wouldn’t yet be digested by the time the insulin is helping transport the sugar in my blood into my cells and I will go even lower. So, when my blood sugar is low at the start of a meal, I have to wait to give the insulin… I’m outside eating my lunch for 15 to 20 min before I have to go back inside and teach, so it is COMMON for me to not do the second half of taking care of low + lunch…aka GIVING INSULIN. The result is finding out much later that my blood sugar has been surging up for the last hour and any insulin I can give is behind that dump of carbohydrates that has already hit my system, and it is a shitty physical feeling of unwellness - I mean literally I feel sick when my blood sugar goes high -- and that physical feeling has some associated and historical feelings of shame that turns up the color as well...
Let’s do a lil deep dive on the topic of MASKs:
There is no system for mandating mask use. I have spent the year so far talking about aerosols in an urgent attempt to have EVERYONE understand that this is a respiratory virus that is largely passed through aerosols2, which renders the 6 foot rule (or 3 foot if you’re in schools (or no feet if you are ACTUALLY in schools and have 30 kids in the room)) meaningless.
The kids who did not know each other because they started last year during remote learning have been quite excellent at using masks, while the kids who DID know each other have been really trusting of each other and for many the norm is masks off (mostly chin diaper, as drawn in the diagram below of common styles). I still ask kids to put on their mask (“protect yourself protect the people around you!”) all the time but at this point it feels really hard to feel like we are accomplishing anything by asking them to lift their masks up in those moments.
So many kids3 are getting so comfortable not wearing their masks. Kids pull down masks to have a conversation. They feel safe at school… I do not feel safe at school… and I don’t feel safe for them. The juxtaposition feels real shitty, because no one should feel safe with the default being that their mask behaviors are not functionally protecting anyone.
Kids aren't wearing masks in the bathroom. They walk through the hallways and take off their mask, even though the hallways don't have windows or airflow. Packed with bodies, and groups of kids having close conversations creating bottlenecks. There are 5 schools in my building and when I look into classrooms of other schools I see like 20% of kids not even wearing a chin diaper style mask, just straight up no mask at all. The kids are eating lunch in the cafeteria in the basement shared by all the schools. Otherwise they don’t eat.
I wore a KN95 every day all day for the first month, after which I did some research about effective cloth masks that fit well, after some conversations with a child about how unsafe he felt in the mask he was using because it was the only thing he could find that fit his face. Masks are not a one size fits all situation, especially in a situation where people are packed this closely and size/fit is even more essential.
Let's not even talk about hallways, but you look around a classroom and see maybe 25% of kids wearing their masks in a way that looks pretty close to gapless, a huge chunk who either want to have their nose fully out, and even if they put their nose in there's nothing sealing themselves off in that direction. Kids take off their masks to talk to each other and to talk to us...they lose track of when they are not wearing one…
Ok, actually, let’s talk about hallways. On the first fire drill that interrupted my teaching: We spend what feels like hours walking down one flight of stairs and into the outside world, packed like sardines, kids from all five schools in the building, kids I don't know and I can't ask to wear a mask, feeling like asking anyone to adjust/wear their mask is just a drop in the bucket.
*Kid in hall with no mask whatsoever*: "Hi Carmona!!"
Carmona: "[NAME], think about how many people are breathing out aerosols in these halls all day!! Can I get you a mask?"
Kid: "Oh no it's not that I don't have a mask, I just forgot to put it back on since I was just at lunch" (which is 2 floors down from our school)
Carmona: mind blown, brain broken, don't know even how to approach the complexity of this statement
And there goes the drop in the bucket feelings again…
And honestly, None of this has been surprising.
I still feel like I’m yelling into a void -- so I’ve been more focused and individual about it, and I think it’s been a more effective approach. Now instead of communicating about public health stuff in my school whatsapp, I created a splinter group called “[Name of School] Situation Room” and people actually respond LOL! Ok well, there’s 3 of us in it but at least I’m not alone.
People are too tired from having insufficient prep time to be prepared to teach, to be thinking about how the entire system needs to adapt to keep people safe. Or to even think it’s possible to.
And if I am feeling that any action I take is a drop in the bucket, having come to own my new bold identity as a #bummer, imagine the #dropinbucket feelings of all the folks eating together unmasked in their classrooms that have been full of 30 kids for the entire morning...
People have accepted HUGE levels of risk, and I think it’s because the job wouldn’t feel sustainable if they thought too hard about it or let themself be cynical, or listen to me LOL
I exist all day at school in a sort of semi-dream state, intentionally disconnecting myself from some aspects of reality in order to get through it and be there for/with kids.
I bike home and am so easily upset, as things come back to me that I couldn't think about in the moment because if I did I would lose all my spoons, cursing at all the cars who don't see [look for] me in Bensonhurst, cursing at Bensonhurst period, cursing at all the bumps along the Ocean Parkway bike path and all the humans that randomly stand in the middle of the path in small or large groups instead of being on the walking path for pedestrians. All the ways that we have to be pre-defensive in this world in order to survive because no one is looking out for us.
I get home and try to disconnect and can't, because I'm suspended in this soup of unbelievable circumstances that our lives look like now, and let the thoughts and angers and sadnesses roll in as they do. And if I resist letting my brain process things as they come through once I have separated myself from the context aka AM HOME, then I will become further and further suspended in soup and maybe even get lost in it....
When I am home, I exist in a totally different landscape, affirming and centered in disability and equity, where my partner is working to support all the just causes grounded in science that I wish were being acknowledged in schools. It is completely shocking -- that day-in day-out shift, and seems to make both states feel more tenuous.
I try to compensate proactively for this mess… I schedule massages to take care of my physical body that is unable to relax and is often in great pain. I am trying to build a habit of daily journaling. My stepkid is DMing my partner and I’s first game of Dungeons and Dragons every other weekend. I get in a bath and put on an album that gives me all the feels. I surround myself with music that enlivens me and keep art out and present that I can sink into periodically because it is accessible.
When I feel furious about complacency in schools, I am reminded of something Shira Hassan said in a video our school played for our first *restorative justice* professional development (PD) session (in which we were mistakenly assured that restorative and transformative justice were basically the same🙄), that "transformative justice is something that happens outside of the state, so this is not something that you can take into schools".
Of course teachers did not like the sound of this, but I don’t understand why we can’t swallow this pill.
We need to swallow it, such that we can defend ourselves and the kids and communities we serve on a grassroots level by creating our own safety plans and contingencies when the state is actively preventing us from being safe.
But I also have to swallow my own pill: I do not have control, and the actions I CAN and DO take are enough, no matter how sad things feel.
it is REALLY important for me to have access to water…and these aren’t times I feel good about going out and swigging a bunch of water from a fountain in these halls…you can’t get blood sugar to go down if you’re not drinking water…
A brilliant straightforward (and animated!) set of slides created by the Aerosol Science Research Center that breaks down the importance of focusing on aerosol transmission pathways…share widely!
definitely not all kids, and my heart goes out to those who are scared and feel unprotected and it’s true and it’s awful