7/8/2020

Friend DJT,     

            I appreciate your concerns for the mental health and well-being of our children. Like all the folk at your “National Panel on Safely Reopening of America’s Schools” I think in-person learning is better than distance learning. Communications scholars have coined the term, “immediacy behaviors” as they theorize about why some teachers are more engaging then others. These include things teachers can’t do remotely like walking around the room to get close to students, making eye contact and smiling at people, but they also include things that can be done on Zoom, like calling students by name, inquiring about their activities and soliciting their opinions. My hope for the opening of our academic year is that teachers practice as many of these “immediacy behaviors” as they can whether they are on-line or in-person so students are as engaged as possible.

            I got a smile out of one of your statements during the dialogue which is as follows, “he mentioned a number which is a very high number, but it's a -- it's a number nevertheless -- thousands of people.” You have to admit that’s a quirky way of talking about numbers. I tend to talk like that sometimes, too.

            Did you see the op-ed about Susan Collins (SMC) in the NYT this morning? The author, Jennifer Finney Boylan, laments that SMC has disappointed ME by not standing up to you. She harkened back to my grandma’s favorite Senator, Margaret Chase Smith (MCS) of ME, & her famous Declaration of Conscience made 70 years ago where she stood up to Joe McCarthy. MCS’s remarks were prescient including this sentence:

The … administration has completely confused the American people by its daily contradictory grave warnings and optimistic assurances, which show the people that our … administration has no idea of where it is going.

Maybe you can call SMC & give her some encouragement. I’m sure that article was a blow.

            HYITL,