Opinion

Let’s try to avoid pitfalls when school reopens

North Carolina public schools will reopen while the COVID-19 Pandemic is still with us and it is impossible to predict what will happen as we try to cope with the complexity of it all. Parents, educators and students are learning to adjust day by day to changing conditions.

The pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities for the education system and our overall infrastructure and laid bare what we already knew about the divide among those with advantages and those in poverty. Children of poverty have less access to opportunities, and we don’t need test scores to determine where schools and their students struggle — schools with more children of poverty experience less success than those with fewer children of poverty.

North Carolina is also not a state with a surplus supply of licensed teachers; we still rely on importing teachers from other states to work in hard-to-staff schools. We should be aware of two predictable challenges as we reopen schools and avoid tempting solutions that may not be in our best interests.

Pitfall 1: During the pandemic, children who have access to the internet and adults at home who have helped them to remain engaged and active in learning will likely be ready. They have participated in Zoom sessions with teachers, taken advantage of the increasing education resource base online of video lessons, skill development programs, exploration activities and guides for parents. They have had adults who have the time, education and wherewithal to provide stimulating and educational experiences. They are clearly at an advantage over those who lack similar access to the internet and adults at home to teach and facilitate learning.

Children with increased needs such as those eligible for special education and those not yet fluent in English may also be behind some of their more advantaged peers. How will we try to educate them in the reopening of brick-and-mortar schools? Let’s avoid asking more of them and their families because they may need more. Dale Carpenter Guest Columnist They are victims of the circumstances and should not be treated like being “behind” is their choice. Let’s accept them where they are without assigning blame and asking them to “work harder” to make up for what they missed. Sure, we should provide them with opportunities to succeed like educators are inclined to do, but let’s not blame them for not having internet, for not having adults with ample resources to teach and guide them, for having a disability or for not being fluent in English. It’s not their fault; take them as they are and give them all we have to help them succeed.

Pitfall 2: The second pitfall concerns what to do when the supply of well-qualified teachers is tight or runs dry as educators either contract the virus or are unwilling to risk exposure. Students and educators will continue to contract COVID-19 until we have an effective and available vaccine. What will we do when teachers get the virus? It was already difficult for some schools to find substitutes before the pandemic. It will be more difficult to find qualified and trained substitutes during the pandemic, when expectations and risks are increased.

There is likely to be a temptation in desperate times to waive our standards for hiring teachers. Let’s not accept any “warm-bodied” individual to educate our children. We now have highly trained professionals, albeit undercompensated, who showed in the last third of the past school year that they can pivot on a dime and still provide education. Let’s plan to keep up the momentum when schools reopen and some of these professionals get sick.

Retirees who are often part of the substitute teacher pool may not be willing to risk exposure. Schools are likely already planning to use school administrators who are in most cases successful and experienced teachers, but that is not a big group. Let’s train more teachers, increase the pay and develop a plan to staff classrooms with the best possible educators and not rely on unprepared adults to care for and teach our most precious resource — our children — when they need us most. Dale Carpenter is a professor of special education and former dean of the College of Education and Allied Professions at Western Carolina University.

Political opinion, not common sense

To the Editor:

The Oxford dictionary has a couple of different definitions of common sense; my favorite being “good judgment and behavior in practical matters,” like checking the tires on my car once a week or wearing a face mask in public until a vaccine can be had.

However, the definition being used by Jeff Minick and author Robert Curry in last week's book review is different in that they are talking about the common opinions of citizens unfettered by education and well-reasoned factbased thinking. Even further, they are referencing typical Republican talking points; thus, Curry and his sycophant Minick lambast the efforts of government, declaring that. “Giving money and power to the government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”

Along the way, they manage to promote other Republican attack points, from promoting Trump’s deficit destroying and pointless — from a practical point of view — southern border wall, ridiculing the recommendations of well-educated and experienced health experts in combating the Coronavirus Pandemic, subtly denigrating scientific efforts and research to address the very real gender identity crisis that many people suffer, equating “socialism” and dictatorship as if anyone wishes to go down that road (the important political discussion going on now is about how far we take our country toward democratic socialism, a

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quite different animal), and even slip in a subtle attack on the VA. Of course there is a scapegoat; the “progressive elite,” a cabal of folks so well educated that they are, by some unnamed and unknown process, rendered unable to recognize reality on its face and at the same time viewing the ordinary citizen as stupid and needing the nanny state.

Well, I am one of those well-educated progressive folks, but even with those twin debilitating conditions I know that the stuff these guys are talking about is not reality, as they would have you believe. It is not reality that the border wall will work for any important purpose except to waste tax dollars, divert military funding and satisfy Trumpian political ambition. It is not reality that the Covid-19 crisis will abate without masks, social distancing, and quarantines. It is not reality that gender identity problems are solved once one simply identifies oneself as being biologically of one sex or the other. It is not reality to claim that our country is in danger of becoming a dictatorship unless progressive thinkers are ignored. Furthermore, it is insulting and damaging to disparage the learning, brains and opinions of those who are a direct important result of our collective commitment to education, which provides our citizenry the best hope to achieve our ideals.

I have had enough experience in life to be able to see this kind of thing for what it truly is, an “angry right-wing bit of bombast,” (Exactly what Minick denies, not surprisingly). Stating their opinions are fine by me, since I have a deep respect for the First Amendment, but I do not tolerate without challenge folks who cover up their very real lack of understanding and appreciation of the complexity of human and societal dilemmas, and what is necessary in education and training to deal with those dilemmas. Promoting common sense, as done by these writers, turns out to be an empty attempt to elevate the status of conservative partisan opinions, and to lower the status of educated and researched opinions, all for the purpose of having their favorite political opinions prevail. Rick Wirth Bryson City

Superintendent Nolte should resign

To the Editor:

Haywood County’s School Superintendent Dr. Bill Nolte sent shock waves through a decent percentage of the community by posting a tone deaf racially charged meme on Facebook. By now I’d say followers of news and social media have seen the depiction of a rural white family picking cotton suggesting that not everyone who picked cotton was not black. Sure, lots of farming families picked cotton. We’re in Appalachia. Plenty of us grew up in families where self-sufficiency was the only means of survival. But it does not invalidate the struggles of the Black community. Nor does it erase history. It is easy to see through coded language. White people were never enslaved on American soil or forced to pick cotton (refusal was violence, even death). The fact that Dr. Nolte even feels comfortable in posting such a meme is troubling.

Dr. Nolte is a well-educated man who holds a position of great responsibility. Leaders should be held to a higher standard. Perception is everything. I do not know what is in Dr. Nolte’s heart nor do I pretend to understand his logic or where his reasoning springs from in regards to his choice.

Though many educators, administrators and members of the community seem to stand in support of Dr. Nolte, I’m completely disappointed that he has not been asked by the school board to tender his resignation. This choice he made is dangerous. Despite his years of service to our school system, this is the dawning of a new day. We need a superintendent who will evaluate the weight of their thoughts and opinions before freely posting on social media.

The Haywood County School Board needs new blood. We need a leader who understands diversity, encourages Black history education, and isn’t afraid to develop a comprehensive training and education program on race in America.

Some say Dr. Nolte has a right to free speech. He absolutely does. However, free speech does not come without consequences. If we’re to allow Dr. Nolte’s indiscretion, what example are we teaching our children? Our

As consultants, beach week is a bit calmer these days

Edisto Beach, SC — As if this year coverage. One of them suddenly bolted for weren’t already weird enough, my son the ocean, a little girl shrieking as she ran, is in the bathroom of our rented house her mom just a step behind, hands outshaving for the first time. His mom has stretched. been onto him about needing to shave and That was us not long ago, delirious from for reasons known lack of sleep, overwhelmed in just about only to a teenage boy every way but also exhilarated, living on — or maybe not adrenaline and black coffee and protein even known to him bars. We learned pretty quickly that vaca— he has chosen this tions at the beach were not really vacations moment, just after a as much as extended photo shoots for our twilight walk on Steamboat Landing to look for little frogs and then watch dolphins from the pier, Chris Cox Columnist young children. We learned that the real vacation is the week you come home, when you can finally slip back into routines as comfortable as old pajamas and find some time to rest and for this milestone. relax, which you can never seem to do while

I’m wearing blue plaid golf shorts that at the beach, since your children need your my grandpa would have said are a little undivided attention every minute that they “loud,” the very same shorts I wore on our are awake. first golf outing here 11 years ago when Jack Being parents of small children at the was 4 years old and about the same height beach is like being in a play on opening as my putter. There’s a picture of us in front night, having barely read the script, much of our golf cart that has always been one of less memorized or rehearsed it. You may my favorites, both of us grinning, just about think you understand your role, but you to head to the first tee. don’t really. People expect you to know

Now he’s 6’1”, almost as tall as I am. what you’re doing, but you don’t. When Now he drives us around the island in the your children need something or want Subaru piling up the hours he needs to something or misbehave at the grocery qualify for his driver’s license in the spring store, you should say something, but you of next year. He used to beg me to let him don’t really know what. You can’t rememdrive the golf cart. I’d let him sit on my lap ber your lines. and steer, with my index finger surreptiYou’re performing in front of a crowd, tiously on the bottom of the wheel, out of trying to be convincing, trying to pull it off, his view. trying to get through the damn thing with

Parenting is still kind of like that, though out embarrassing yourself, trying not to it’s all I can do anymore to keep one finger poison your children, trying not to print on the wheel. Pretty soon, he’ll have to take some trauma on their blank little slates that total control and we’ll have to let him go. We will have to be examined in therapy sesboth pretend that this is exactly what we sions in 30 years. It’s not so much applause want. Well, at least I am pretending. With you seek. No, your standards are not that him, I think it varies from day to day. high. You’d just like to avoid being revealed

We’ve already been through this with as a complete fraud, to have the hospital our daughter, who left for college about a nurse materialize on the beach right in year ago and is now dealing with all kinds front of you demanding the return of this of life decisions that are hers alone to make. child. As a wise person informed us a while back, We remember these days with fondness, our role has shifted to that of “consultant” but also with fear and trembling. We’re in her life. Sometimes she consults with us, happy to go back in pictures and in stories sometimes not. Uncharted territory, you remembered, but not in reality. We’re plenknow. ty content to enjoy the people they’ve

Our first day on the beach, we put up become, even when they get on our nerves our canopy, set up our chairs, and pulled or we get on theirs. out our books, headphones and bottled In short, we’re fine with being consultwaters, just as we have for so many years ants. It’s nice to be able to read novels and here. By now, setting up at the beach is an contemplate the undulating formations of art form for us. We don’t need a list of what pelicans for minutes at a time without joltto bring. We can set up or tear down the ing yourself back awake in a panic to see entire shebang in less than five minutes, where your son got off to. Because he’s right where it once took us a full hour. there in his own chair, feet propped up,

Right away, we saw a family with small headphones on, in need of a shave. children, the parents fussing over their (Chris Cox is a writer and teacher. swimsuits and checking their sunscreen jchriscox@live.com)

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Also, in his hollow “apology,” he points to the fact he had a Black friend once. This myth that proximity to blackness somehow immunizes him from doing racists things is absurd. It’s a short and weak denial of bigotry. A punchline in our conversations about racism. It’s a problem steeped in a number of factors such as a reluctance to have uncomfortable conversations about race and a failure to acknowledge racial differences. Dr. Nolte’s proclamation that he has a Black friend insists he doesn’t see color which in itself is a problem. Without having difficult, deep conversations with your friends of color about race, many white people have superficial relationships. There is a difference in having Black friends and having black acquaintances — one cannot have true comprehension of how race impacts a person of color’s daily life without striving to host uncomfortable discussions.

The Black friend narrative is similar to a slave owner speaking on how beloved he was by his African slaves. One assumes Dr. Nolte’s Black friend does not appreciate being the pawn in a manipulative face-save public relations narrative.

Martin Luther King Jr said, “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” I think we all can take note of Dr. King’s

Moe Davis qualified to serve in Congress

To the Editor:

As a long-time resident of Haywood County and former contributor to your paper now residing in an Asheville retirement home, I write to commend Moe Davis as a candidate seeking to represent the people of the 11th District in Congress. I recently had opportunity to engage with Moe (he is OK with us calling him that) in a small-group “face-to-face” (on Zoom) conversation and found him to be a remarkably well-qualified candidate. He came across as intelligent, articulate, wellinformed on issues, open to listen and committed to a high purpose. A retired military officer who served with distinction, he at the same time is a man of conscience who resigned from his post at Guantanamo in protest against the torture being carried out there. There are few among us who could serve us in NC-11 — and in our country as a whole — as well as can Moe Davis. Let us elect him! Doug Wingeier Asheville

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