As the summer in the US draws to a close and school districts across the country struggle to find a responsible way to reopen during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, I have noticed a strange trend developing on social media: posts supposedly supporting educators while forcing a lopsided comparison between teachers and healthcare workers.
Many of these posts are coming from essential workers or their allies. I’m not particulary surprised by posts complaining about protesting teachers, especially in a time when teachers unions are actively attacked and the convoluted narrative of “failing schools” is persuasive in public discourse. However, I’m troubled by the well-meaning, but flawed logic of telling teachers everything is “going to be ok”, because it ultimately dismisses teacher concerns while simultaneously telling them to stop worrying and get back to work.
The main point of these social media posts is that other essential workers, specifically healthcare workers, were able to continue or go back to work during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. Even though the labor was extremely difficult and often dangerous, essential workers persevered, adapted and rose to the challenge. Posts on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere argue that teachers should be able to do the same. These messages are masked as encouragement, but present an inappropriate comparison. Hearts may be in the right place, but the comparions the posts set up are unfair, unrealistic, and condescending.
Bevacqua 