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Unfortunately, you got the Missouri story completely wrong. It happened in Cape Girardeau, a smallish university town and hometown of Rush Limbaugh. A local dance studio was livestreaming a street performance, and I expect the fact that it was live-streamed contributed to its becoming a national story. A car drove up, a black man got out, danced over to the 12-year-old white kid who was dancing, and decked him.
https://www.semissourian.com/story/2820741.html
During all the recent unrest, our town has been relatively quiet. We had a few peaceful protests, plus a petition to remove a Confederate memorial, which the city council immediately approved and carried out. Thus, a senseless, random, violent, presumably racist attack on a child is pretty big news here.
OK, this is the second time I’ve heard John Podhoretz float his idea to keep (presumably) older, at risk teachers out of the classroom, teaching remotely (via Zoom or other video technology) while younger people are hired to proctor the classrooms, thus enabling students to return to the classroom while at the same time buying time for either better treatments, vaccine development, or herd immunity.
I think the idea is brilliant. Older at risk teachers are at home, students are in school, well-supervised (no guarantee of this if schools are closed), student teachers are getting hands-on experience (maybe earning $$ or college credit or both).
However, in my mind, I took it a step further and visualized this plan working in tandem with teacher credentialing programs. In other words, don’t just “hire kids” to proctor. Rather, hire or assign aspiring teachers, ideally those still earning their degrees or credentials, into the classroom. Their in-class hours could be applied toward college credit or student teaching hours. Student teachers might be asked to write papers about their experience, or design activities, etc. in tandem with the (absent) teacher.
Teacher unions are now suggesting we may need to shut down schools again in the fall. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Children need to be “going” to school, for all kinds of reasons, not just academic (social, emotional, physical). So we need to be working towards creative solutions that begin with that underlying assumption.
Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is, rather than retreating to our caves “until these calamities be overpast” (Psalm 57), we–they–should be putting their collective brains to work and coming up with creative solutions.