"We don't live in normal times."
This cliche has become the catchphrase of our strange new norm in these times of COVID-19.
We ain't in your grandma's school days anymore.
For the first time that anyone can remember, classes will be held via Zoom with teachers standing in an empty classroom and addressing a camera which in turn will be broadcast to the personal computers, tablets, or notebooks of students at their homes.
Will it be successful given the digital divide in Brownsville's poorer subdivisions and barrios? Or will it be the same with the Haves participating and the Have Nots in the dead zones being left out? We already know that the BISD has been juggling the distribution of computers, just this week taking them from the first-graders to hand them to kids in the higher elementary grades to make up the shortage there.
Then there is the insistence of the BISD schools and the charters that students wear at least their uniform tops while Zooming (is that a verb now?) for their daily classes. No, the administrators say, they don't have to be new uniforms, last year's uniforms will do as well since there's no P.E. and won't get dirty.
Is it a subliminal way to build the bonds of this cyber social group?
Some BISD parents were skeptical on the motives and suspect the district's schools want to make sure the parents purchased the uniforms for this year.
Since when have such questions arisen at the beginning of a school year? These are very different times, indeed.
(Notice that among the apples and roses on the teacher's desk brought for her by the students are included a bottle of hand sanitizer and wipes.)