Simply watching the morning headlines, reading about the fight to stop the Equal Rights Amendment, and observing flags and bumper stickers on travelers’ cars on the highway was enough to activate a tiny bit throbbing bulb of misanthropy within me. Misanthropy and grief: a toxic cocktail.
Which makes me realize that one way I’ve always broken that bulb in the socket is through being in the midst of young folks across four decades. Most of my fellow public school teachers would agree, I think, though outsiders might think we’re crazy. Daily exposure to a cross-section of the public as their coming into their own, as you’re challenging them and they you, as they find their place in a group, talk about their lives and connect them to subjects under discussion–it’s a pretty good antidote to the humans-are-a-virus malady.
But that’s just another reason why this pandemic sucks, because daily exposure is viral roulette.
Streaming for Strivers:
On that hopeful note?
The Overeem Farewell Tour: Dispatches from the Public School Trenches 