"It Will Probably Be OK" Journal entry number 20210108
Henry: [00:00:00] [00:00:00]This "It Will Probably Be OK" Journal Entry was recorded on January 8th, 2021. 


[00:00:08]Gabe: [00:00:08] I talk about a lot of things, but the thing I want to talk about most of all is this:
[00:00:13]We don't know what we're doing to these kids. We don't, we really don't. We think we're doing them a service. We think we're helping them. By pretending that there's nothing wrong, we're not giving them the chance to learn the problem isn't them.  A nd we're killing them. I mean, they're just, they're beating themselves up about how they just can't learn. 
[00:00:39] It's unrealistic to expect a kid who's never had to be responsible for anything in his life to, all of a sudden, be expected to thrive in a half-assed poorly conceived, [00:01:00] poorly executed online learning environment.
[00:01:02]
[00:01:02]The way we deliver our educational content in the room or across the internet is really  irrelevant. So long as  (you and your student are)  speaking the same language. And what I mean by that is  you're not going to be able to learn from a screen until you've experienced learning from a screen--  that's redundant, but you get my point.
[00:01:30] Learning from a screen is a thing that professionals and adults and grown ass people with broken hearts have learned over time. And everybody says, yeah, but these kids are digital natives and they are,  their digital  experience is based on  entertainment .
[00:01:52] Their interactions with screens are fun.  They're about hanging out. It's like the mall . And so [00:02:00] if we're asking  kids to do the work of turning their screens into learning devices, of course, they're going to reject it. The screens are the last thing they have left. They don't have anything else anymore. We kicked him out of the mall. We don't let him go out in the park. All they have is their little family of snapchat friends and tiktoks and little things that, that tickled their brains in ways that are so much more than we could ever do. Like the dopamine hits that these kids get  (from each other) are not something that we can reproduce by just saying, "Hey guys, sign on to the Google Classroom."
[00:02:52] I saw a Tiktok right at the start of lockdown. I saw this kid posted on his TikTok, where he holds up his phone and he shows [00:03:00] the screen,  (and he says) Hey, look at this: my teacher thinks that he can email me or text me on this phone. And he reaches over and he pushes block and then laughs at the screen cause he just blocked his teacher from sending him any texts.
[00:03:15] And that's that kid's right. That kid is right to do that. He is 100% correct. He gets to decide who texts him on his phone . We cannot expect that  (students)  going to willingly participate in an invasion into their lives, their spaces, their private world. We are literally inside their bedrooms right now.
[00:03:47]That's not normal. That's not good.
[00:03:52]The truth is it's not the kid's fault. We're asking them to [00:04:00] behave extraordinarily. We're asking them to respond to extraordinary circumstances with extraordinary behaviors, and we've never taught them what those behaviors are. And then all of a sudden, 301 days later, we're all standing around going, why is everybody failing? And the kids are like, I don't know. I guess I'm dumb. 
[00:04:29] Kids, it's not, you that's failing. It's just not all right. Well, some of you it's you, but for the most part kids you're not failing. The system has failed you.
[00:04:40] I have experienced this pandemic alongside. Our children, my child, your child, the children at my school district and every single kid has reacted and responded to an extraordinary circumstance in [00:05:00] extraordinary ways. And not one of them is at fault. Not one.
[00:05:09]The only fault--  the only one to blame is the one pointing fingers.
[00:05:16]There is no right way to respond to , this pandemic, not in the educational sense. There's no right way to respond to it because we've never done it before. And to pretend that we did everything right, is a disservice to the experiences that we went through, learning how to get through this pandemic.
[00:05:44] And so I stand with every student in America who tried new things. I stand with every student in America who refused to try new things. And I stand with every [00:06:00] student in America who stood up and said, this doesn't feel right to me. Get out of my bedroom. 
[00:06:07] And those of you who did enjoy it, like good on you. There's a lot of career opportunities out there for you, but it's not your fault.
[00:06:16]Your reaction is not wrong. However you reacted is how you reacted and there's nothing wrong with that.  At the end of the semester, when everything is said and done, if there's any justice in this world... it will probably be ok.