Posts

© Catherine Haslag

Un

/in , /by

I live life by the semester as a college teacher: fall, spring, and summer.

It’s generally an excellent rhythm for me. I have time and space to work on new ideas for my classes in the summer. This is important because it’s hard to work on new ideas for courses while teaching. Then, in the fall and spring, I put those ideas to use and focus on working with my students.

This fall was the first time I wasn’t giddy about going back to school. It wasn’t the usual fresh start I previously relished. Usually, I enjoy the buzz and energy of the new school year, but not this year. This August felt more like a trudge into the repetitive and mundane. I wasn’t starting as my usual, fresh from summer self.

This semester has been one of the hardest of my career. I see the exhaustion in my students and feel that same exhaustion in myself. So many mornings, I have said “Good morning” at the start of class and received silence in return. The students I see are shell-shocked and burned, even at 9am. This doesn’t bode well if they have later classes. It’s hard to keep students motivated when they are already running at less than half a tank. It’s even more complicated when your tank is low as well.

I know my students and I aren’t the only ones who feel the weight of it all. We are about to enter year 3 of a pandemic with no unified approach and no definite end in sight. Our country is divided as it has been for more than 150 years. Misinformation runs through the internet and cable wires like wildfire, adding to the mess. We went on as best we could with life as usual, but this is a time of the unusual, the uncertain, the unsettled, the uncomfortable, the unrest…this is a time of the un.

There is no semester rhythm in the time of the un.

Next week, I will give finals, figure grades, and make a game plan for the short break between the fall and spring semesters. This is a time to rest and prepare for the spring semester – when I will do my best to deal with the un of life…and hope my students will too.

Turning Points

/in , /by

Image purchased from iStock by Getty Images.
Designed by nazlisart.

I woke up to the conversation on the radio. In my bleary state, I heard the voices say two planes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. I was instantly awake and across the apartment to turn on the TV. The scenes were horrific. Straight out a disaster flick starring Bruce Willis. Moments later, the South Tower collapsed. I quickly showered and dressed for my day. Before I left my apartment for the Southwest Missouri State University campus, the North Tower Collapsed.

I canceled everything for the day and was glued to the TVs on campus and in apartments with friends. Silence and disbelief filled every space.

I sat with friends at their apartment in the afternoon and watched as Dan Rather aired a video for the first time showing people jumping from the buildings prior to their collapse.

I witnessed the wreckage of Flight 93, which passengers forced down in a field in Pennsylvania. Later, It was determined the plane’s likely final target was in Washington DC.

I observed the crumbled side of the Pentagon, where Flight 77 crashed into the building.

I heard the phone calls made by loved ones on the four planes the crashed that day. All sending one last message of love.

For the following year, there were cars everywhere sporting the American flag, Toby Keith and Alan Jackson played on repeat on country stations, and the U.S. collectively mourned the 2,996 people who died on that day in the towers and crashed flights. We were united in our grief and patriotism.

In a matter of minutes, we all lived in a different world. One that grew to include Homeland Security, full-body scans, no-fly lists, and a whole new meaning to the numbers 9 and 11.

In March of 2020, another major event struck the world – the Coronavirus.

All of the college classes I taught went online. Employees and students were sent home to help stop the spread.

Social distancing. Lessons on handwashing. Teams of sewers making masks out of every scrap of fabric they could find.

Zoom became the place to meet for class, meetings, and happy hour. Some of the world made a shift to baking bread at home, wearing PJs or yoga pants for everything, and drive-thru grocery pick-up. Alcohol sales skyrocketed.

Again, the world changed quickly and will be forever different. Finding the “new normal” was a common topic of conversation. Some accepted this reality, others chose to deny it.

Rather than coming together as we did nearly 20 years earlier when the towers fell, we split into groups. Maskers and anti-maskers and eventually vaxxers and anti-vaxxers. People who listened to the experts and believed what science was learning and people who didn’t. Conspiracy theories and misinformation spread faster than the virus thanks to social media.

The turning point we are facing now is more than a virus. More than masking, vaccinations, and the changing way we move and work in the world. We no longer agree on reality. We live in different news bubbles, worlds driven by whatever we chose to take as fact even if it’s really a falsehood. Lives where we get to deny reality because it makes us feel better, even if that denial kills others.

The turning point we face now is the division in our society. It’s an internal threat that can’t be addressed by invading another country. It has to start within each of us. We are our own worst enemies now. We are the hijackers, the terrorists in our nation. We are also the healers, the uniters if we so choose to be.

The question then is “Which do you choose?”

© Catherine Haslag

Living On the Edge of Science

/in , /by

I teach chemistry. One of the first things I teach my students is about the scientific method, the systematic process by which scientists learn about the world. I wrote the following back in April near the start of the pandemic. I wanted to share it here for your consideration.

Science is the systematic process by which we learn about the world. Scientists are basically professional students and explorers. They are constantly investigating the world around us to learn more about how and why it works as it does.

When you first started learning something, did you instantly know everything about it? At your first piano lesson, were you able to play Ragtime by Scott Joplin? On the first day of Spanish, were you able to speak and read fluently to your classmates and teacher? When you first got behind the wheel of a car, were you able to brake without jerking, shift smoothly, and merge on and off the interstate without concern?

The answer to all of these questions is no. You needed time to learn the keys and the notes on the piano, to learn vocabulary and how to conjugate verbs, and how to coordinate your hand, eye, and foot to smoothly maneuver the car and navigate traffic.

This is what scientists do on a daily basis. They learn, share the knowledge they have obtained, and continue to study so they can learn more. They work with what they know, understanding that tomorrow, they will know more and that may change their working hypotheses/theories about a concept. Scientists are on the frontier of what we know. This is the difference between a scientist and a Spanish teacher – the teacher already knows the vocabulary and how to conjugate the verbs. When they teach their classes, they are regurgitating what they already know. Scientists are not only speaking the language but also expanding the vocabulary and trying to teach others what they know as they learn it. They are on the edge of knowledge.

Most of the science we learn in school and see in the world around us is tried and true. It’s already gone through the process of rigorous testing and investigation. We missed the learning and changing that went along with that process. Coronavirus is on the edge of the science we know. It is still being studied and we are learning new things about it every day. This is why the information changes so quickly. It’s not that science doesn’t know what it’s doing but rather that it is constantly learning new details and getting a better picture of coronavirus. Humans just aren’t used to this rapid change in information and behavior. We like certainty and we don’t have all the information yet about coronavirus to be certain in the situation.

 

© Catherine Haslag

What Happened to Flattening the Curve?

/in , , /by

I have been following the data on the spread of the coronavirus updated daily by the New York Times since I was made aware of this resource sometime in late March/early April 2020.

On April 9, near the first peak observed, 34,699 new cases were recorded and the 7-day average was 31,544 cases (obtained from the NYT page on coronavirus cases linked above). I am writing this blog post on December 2, 2020, though I am not sure when I will be ready to share it online. The most recent data posted on the NYT page is for December 1. It states that 184,294 new cases were reported yesterday (December 1) with a 7-day average of 161,245 cases. As I write this, the NYT reports that more than 13,888,300 people have been infected by COVID-19 and at least 272,100 people have died due to this virus.

Hospitals are overwhelmed and healthcare workers are struggling to keep up with the demand for care.

These are just a few of the stories I found about how hospitals and healthcare workers are currently stretched because of coronavirus. If you do your own search, you are likely to find many, many more.

How did this happen? Back in March and April, the goal was to “flatten the curve.” According to the graph of coronavirus cases reported per day since March, not only have we not flattened the curve, but we don’t seem concerned regarding what the curve looks like at all.

Back in March when the US first began to respond to the pandemic, I realized that there were going to be people who died not because they caught coronavirus but because they had a medical issue and didn’t receive the treatment they needed because of the coronavirus. The person who had a heart attack or stroke and weren’t treated in time because there wasn’t a bed available or enough doctors/nurses to care for them. The woman who’s tumor went undetected because her mammogram was postponed due to all medical staff being needed to treat COVID patients. If our hospitals and healthcare workers are overwhelmed, there may be no help available if you get sick at all, be it from COVID-19 or not.

This is exactly where we are now – if you become ill for any reason, our medical system is so overwhelmed that the help you need may not be available to you. Preventing the spread of the virus isn’t just about keeping people from getting sick from COVID, it’s also about preventing our medical system from being overall so medical services available for all those who need it.

I know everyone is tired, including me. The only things I have really succeeded in doing is putting on the COVID-19 (actually 15 pounds, but still more than I would have liked) and hosting some wonderful Zoom happy hours. I also manage to shower and cloth myself on a daily basis, usually in stretchy, comfy pants. I totally understand the grind that is living in this COVID Groundhog’s day. It sucks the big one, but I believe we need to keep going. Masking. Washing our hands. Social distancing. It’s our only choice if we want to curb the spread of this virus.

2020 has been the longest decade most of us have ever experienced, but I also know we can pull together and beat this. I saw the nation’s reaction after 9-11 and the unity that came out of a horrible tragedy. I experienced incredible acts of kindness, compassion, and community when my hometown was ravaged by massive flooding in 1993. I have seen in my own lifetime how people can pull together and overcome.

When did we lose sight of how to care for each other?

I know we are capable of better than I have seen from us in 2020. I am disappointed that so many aren’t coming together for the safety of their neighbors and community. So many who can’t see the big picture of how to care for each other.

We are capable of better than this.