Trudgery: teaching in COVID at the brittle edge

 I've been struggling to reflect my way out of another double cohorted double class semester with no breaks to plan, mark or otherwise manage a radical change in time tabling.  In the face of this I'm trying to describe the situation in the hopes that verbalizing it more clearly defines it for me and helps me figure out a way to survive another quadmester of maximum COVID-classroomness.

In order to keep face to face class sizes below 21 students we are running a split day where half the class is face to face and the other half is remote, then they switch.  This exhausting system has me trying to respond to remote student questions while teaching face to face all day every day.  It has all the challenges of a face to face technology classroom with all the headaches of remote teaching.

The term for it when you have two double cohort classes in a single quadmester is a double-double (ala Tim Hortons).  It basically means you're teaching in two places at once all day every day.

All of my classes this year are double cohort classes.  I appear to be a minority in this even though I'm one of few teachers in the school who has unique qualifications that no one else has or can teach.  This means any 'online support' teacher I get has no facility with what we're teaching, leaving me with the job of managing both cohorts simultaneously.  Piling on this lack of equity in the workplace are the covering teachers we're supplied with in class.  They are supposed to free us from the classroom so we have some prep time to completely re-write the curriculum to suit this new format, but none of those teachers are tech qualified which means if I leave students should be taken off hands-on work (only tech teachers are qualified to cover tech safety requirements in class).  Further cutting hands-on work in a year where we've already cut instructional time in half is problematic.

Because that's not enough, I'm also teaching a double-double with a senior stacked class of two different grades (a double-double-double?).  I'm currently unable to sleep very well and I'm frequently up at 3am, which is when I'm doing all my planning and marking because I have no other time to do it when I'm at work.

We're not given any data on our students so I dig it all up myself.  I've started this double-double-double with a stacked to maximum capacity of 31 students in two grades (20 in the maxed out morning cohort and the other 11 in the afternoon) senior class.  This is an 'M' level senior technology class.  In other places these are capped much lower, but my hands-on technology class is capped the same as a grade 12 university bound calculus or English class even though we're hands on with live electricity, power tools and 400 degree soldering irons.  Out of those 31 students, 26% are applied level students and 10% are essential level.  52% of students in the class have an individual education plan that demands differentiation of instruction (both online and f2f - simultaneously).

Ontario high school classes are supposed to be 110 hours long.  I only get 52.5 hours of face to face instruction with my students in our pandemic quadmesters.  The other 52.5 hours I'm unable to support them online because I'm face to face with the other cohort of the same class.  I suggested we use the empty room next door and spread out across two classes.  My non-shop regular classroom packed with technology makes six foot separation even in cohorts of 20 impossible, but spreading out across two classrooms would allow us to maintain social distancing while also providing a qualified instructor for online learning since we'd be a single cohort class (all 31 students in but spread across two classrooms means smaller cohorts in each room than with the class cut into morning and afternoon cohorts), and I'd be supporting my own students in the afternoon online.

This seemed like a reasonable ask but I got a hard "no" from above.  Evidently what I teach is too dangerous for  me to be able to manage students in two rooms at the same time.  Not too dangerous to stuff 31 students of every skill level into a stacked class, but too dangerous to work in two rooms at the same time.

Our media arts room and even our metal shop full of lathes and other metal cutting tools that can chop your fingers off operate in two spaces walled off into two separate rooms where the teachers have to be in two places at once, but evidently I'm a special case.  My students don't warrant qualified teachers for the remote half of their class, or a safely distanced space to work in.

While I was trying to sort out a pedagogically sensible and safer solution for my senior students I'm also juggling another double cohort of grade 9s in the other week.  That class is more academically leaning than my previous two classes but still rocks a 26% applied, 9% essential mix (including one DD student who is occupying almost all our in-class and remote support).  Over a quarter of that class has IEPs as well.

I'm trying to keep the hands-on aspects of the course alive but finding parts in a pandemic isn't getting any easier as we stagger through another quadmester.  I have only a few PCs left for grade 9s to learn building on and what I do have is in rough shape.  When I'm up at 4am I'm also contacting my usual suppliers to see if I can get any more parts in.  They're moving mountains for me but I'll have to drive down to Brampton to pick them up because I'm not allowed to charge for shipping suddenly.  Not sure when I'm going to do that.

I'm still left wearing the same mask as everyone else.  The other morning I was walking down the hallway with two colleagues.  If you put both of them together I'm still bigger, but we're all handed the same mask, though I half swallow mine because it's much too small for me.  Every day I finish with a cracking sinus headache from the constant pressure.  I offered to bring in my own PPE but I'm not allowed.

While all that's all going on I also helped a science teacher get the cables she needed to run her smartboard in class, helped another with speakers so they could play things out loud in class, explained to multiple people how to get tech working online and helped yet another whose VR pc we'd previous built for them stopped working.  It had stopped working because someone had gone into the PC and taken one of the memory sticks out of it - the other one was half hanging out of the motherboard (likely in the process of being stolen when someone walked in).  So I'm helping that teacher get the RAM they need to get the machine working again.

I've also got a coop student this semester, but I can't get her out into the school doing the usual IT repairs we do because there's a pandemic.  She's actually a life saver in terms of being an extra set of hands in the classroom because we've had a number of technical issues with our DIY lab because many of the grade 9s have never used a desktop computer before and have caused many intermittent crashes that we're trying to diagnose on the fly.

I'm one of the only teachers in the school to keep extracurriculars alive as many students depend on them, and I'm still trying to chase down awards and monetary support for our poor graduates who are trying to navigate this deepening crisis at a critical point in their lives.  Even that has come back to bite me.

Last Friday I discovered that my support of female students pushing back against sexism in technology pathways was so wrong that the higher ups who said no to a more socially distanced and qualified teacher supported classroom wanted me reprimanded.  Only local administration's focus on rebuilding relationships in our school prevented that from happening.  I guess I should be happy for the little things.

Last Tuesday we had a blizzard that shut down the area and caused a number of blackouts.  We don't live in an place with public transit or timely road clearing; weather can still stop things here, but that doesn't stop the always-more treadmill we seem to be running on.  Online the message was, "All students are to shift to remote learning for the day. Staff are not to report to their workplace and are to work remotely."  Meanwhile the telephone message from school said, " school is closed and all buses are cancelled. Students and staff should not report to school, thanks and have a great day."  This mixed messaging resulted in low online engagement.

I got to spend a day I would usually be catching up on the two weeks of marking I'm behind on or trying to recreate entire courses to suit a never-before-seen timetable babysitting students with the socio-economic advantage (who are predominantly 'academic' level students because we stream as much by privilege as we do intellectual ability) online.  The kids who didn't have the tech or connectivity or home life conducive to online learning, or were just unlucky enough to live in the parts of town where infrastructure failed all got to come to school Wednesday already a day behind.  I'm going to be the hammer for that kind of inequity any more.

I keep trying to find ways to make this work but the answer always seems to involve disrespecting the ever deepening difficulties we're drowning in.  I've quit being the school CBC rep because our local OSSTF district won't reply to any questions about working conditions, even when I'm asking on behalf of other members.  It's difficult to not take this personally and I know everyone is struggling to make things work under difficult circumstances, but I'd love to know just how much of a minority I am in terms of teaching load when I'm the only one in the building qualified to teach what I teach.  I'm beginning to see why unicorns died out; it's not easy being unique.

Talking to super-students who at any other time are the epitome of initiative and drive, they tell me that they are exhausted and just don't care any more.  If the go-getters are feeling that way then I'm sure the students without that resilience and drive are in tatters.  Parents of students with IEPs are asking me why their child's grades are falling in all their classes, but saying anything about systemic inequity got me a reprimand.  I'm no longer willing to be the hammer that grinds children into paste so that a broken system can pretend everything is business as usual.

If you're a teacher and you're reading this, everyone is exhausted.  Keeping up the fiction that schools are running as usual is hurting people.  Consider rewiring your classes so that you preserve and protect the children in your care.  You can't possibly expect to cover what you normally do in courses that are half the usual face to face instructional time, especially when that half is full of COVID paperwork, muzzled, frightened faces and demoralized, socially distanced lack of collaboration.  The people who claim that kids need to be face to face in class haven't been in a COVID classroom, no one is face to face.  Getting students through this is now my focus.  It's also how I'll get myself through this without ending up in hospital.

Unmasking The Truth

I've been teaching the engineering design process for the past two weeks to grade 9s in very difficult circumstances.  The engineering process underlies all the work we do in our stochastic, tactile technology/engineering program.  We aren't rote learning to the same standardized answer, so blind obedience to processes won't get us working results. We need to be organized, agile and able to step back and gain perspective in our non-linear problem solving circumstances like any good technician or engineer would when solving a complex, arbitrary problem.

I'm struggling with the half-baked safety plan we seem determined to follow at all costs.  Rather than get more frustrated with the optics, politics and bureaucracy that drive it, I thought, "why not apply the engineering process to my intolerable situation?"  

 

ENGINEERING DESIGN: COVID MASKS

•  ASK:how do we resolve physically untenable policies around masks?
• IMAGINE: a Heath Unit/Canada COVID19 compliant masking system that is effective and comfortable (if it isn't comfortable it isn't effective)
• PLAN: collect data, research how COVID actually works, find existing solutions to best mitigate its spread
• CREATE: build a testing system, create a solution based process
• EXPERIMENT:  try different mask types and materials
• IMPROVE: deliver an improved masking policy that is constantly in review
  

 

PLANNING:  DATA COLLECTION

It was a 15°C day today, it's still tropical in the mask.

It got up to 30°C/70% humidity in our it-has-never-worked-properly incorrectly ventilated classroom on Friday, which equates to a humidex temperature feeling like 41°C (that's 106°F if you're old school). I was rotating grade 9s outside to demask and breathe. It's hard to learn when you're seeing spots and can't think straight... during a pandemic.

We were building circuits with Arduinos so I built a temperature/humidity sensor, which is how we captured data. Just for giggles I put the sensor on longer wires and put it up inside my mask while I was instructing. Curious about the results?

Inside the too small and tight, restrictive masks we're required to wear all day every day at school the temperature is 4-5 degrees warmer than the outside air. I was getting readings of 33-35°C inside the mask depending on whether I was breathing in or out. But what gets you is the humidity. Inside the mask it was ranging between 92-97% humidity. Run that through the Canadian Humidex calculator and I'm stewing in what feels like 54°C all day, every day.

If I were in a climate controlled environment like the medical people who wear masks are this would probably be much more manageable, but I'm not.

CONCLUSION:  the small, restrictive medical grade ASTM Level 1 masks we're required to wear might work in a well ventilated hospital, but they don't work in schools where climate control is a distant dream.  When temperatures rise medical grade masks quickly become a liability more than a protection.

 

 

PLANNING:  ASTM Level 1 Mask RESEARCH:

 

WHERE & WHY ASTM1 MASKS WORK:  If you're a medical professional working in a dentist, doctor's office or hospital you're working in a climate controlled environment that must follow strict guidelines.  In that context ASTM1 masks work effectively because the environment is supporting mask use rather than fighting it.

 

In an uncontrolled environment medical masks are restrictive and can cause discomfort which makes them a liability because people start fidgeting with them.

 

Staff struggling in uncontrolled climates (ie: most classrooms) resolve their breathing difficulties by breaking many of the rules for safe mask use:

 

I regularly see staff having to move restrictive medical grade masks around or wearing them with gaps or incorrectly just to get a breath.  Wearing a medical grade mask incorrectly is less safe than wearing a properly fitted non-medical grade mask correctly.  Discomfort from an improperly mandated masking policy drives this misuse.

PLANNING/RESEARCH: WHEN TO USE ASTM1 MEDICAL MASKS

ASTM1 surgical masks, such as are being provided to teachers, are medical usage masks that work in concert with a variety of other PPE options that teachers haven't been provided with.  This video gives you an example of how medically focused these masks are:

What do ASTM1 medical masks do that a more comfortable, properly fitted non-medical option doesn't?  Not much in the context of a classroom.  In a medical environment where a professional is working with COVID19 positive patients, a medical mask would be used in conjunction with a face shield to keep the medical worker safe in a known high risk situation.

 

"Medical masks are designed to protect against large droplets, splashes or sprays of bodily fluid or other type of fluid." (Health News Hub.org).  In a medical context these masks provide a valuable level of protection, but an ASTM1 mask by itself isn't a better barrier to COVID transmission, especially when worn incorrectly.

 

"It’s unlikely you’ll be infected in public by airborne viral particles. The real threat is touching an infected surface and then putting your hand to your face: Frequent hand-washing is a sure way to avoid COVID-19"  (Health News Hub.org)  A focus on cleaning surfaces and regular hand-washing would be far more effective than the false protection of a single layer of PPE/incorrectly applied medical mask.

 

Smaller class sizes, reduced bus loads and more frequent spot cleaning is a far more effective barrier to COVID19 transmission than stipulating a medical grade mask with no other PPE, but it does provide the appearance of greater diligence without the effectiveness and makes uneducated jumpy people think things are being handled diligently.

 

ASTM1 mask compliance in non-medical settings also puts Ontario's public education systems at odds with the public health unit and Health Canada masking stipulations: "Due to critical shortages during the COVID-19 response, we are implementing and/or proposing a range of strategies to respond to the increased demand for medical masks"  Bins full of them outside every public school in Ontario every day isn't helping to solve this world-wide shortage, especially when it's done for optics rather than efficacy.

 

There are numerous well researched sources of information on mask usage this far into the COVID19 pandemic.  Its modes of transmission are known and technology is on hand to mitigate them, yet myths persist, like the idea that a medical mask is somehow a cure-all and significantly 'safer' than a correctly fitted cloth mask.  Every health agency in the world wouldn't be advocating non-medical masks if they didn't work.

 

 

PLANNING: RESEARCH: THE LIMITATIONS OF MASK ONLY PPE

"The coronavirus can spread through eyes, just as it can through nose and mouth" (American Academy of Ophthalmology) so demanding medical grade nose and throat protection while requiring no eye protection is wildly inconsistent and dangerously disingenuous.  The droplets that a properly sized and fitted cloth mask would stop and that an ATSM1 medical mask is designed to specifically stop 95% of would happen in a situation when a COVID19 positive person coughed or sneezed in your face without wearing a mask themselves, but with no eye protection you're going to contract it anyway.  Rather than pretending to act from a sense of greater protection, more logical and consistent masking policies from the provincial government would not only make educational staff more comfortable but also less likely to contract the virus.

 

The appearance of medical safety, without the efficacy..

That educational staff are being required to wear poorly fitted and environmentally damaging ATSM1 medical masks at a time when they are vitally needed by people who would be wearing them with a complete set of PPE in an appropriately controlled environment is problematic.  The education system seems incapable of understanding or providing a masking solution that aligns with masking requirements everywhere else.  We need to stop acting like this is a marketing gimmick and start acting like it's a medical emergency.

PLANNING: RESEARCH:  LACK OF CLARITY AROUND EFFECTIVE MASK USE

 

All medical mask directions stress a smooth seal with your face to ensure effectiveness, but another wildly inconsistent piece of Ontario education's approach to mask adoption is demanding ATSM1 medically compliant masks with no direction around facial hair.  A beard or moustache that prevents a seal around the nose and mouth makes the mask all but useless, but there has been zero direction on the mandatory removal of facial hair.  The CDC as well as other health groups have made suggestions on facial hair that allows for a proper mask fit, which is a challenge.  CBC's piece on it suggests a larger cloth mask would actually be more effective than smaller medical grade mask that won't cover the beard. Another piece suggests COVID19 droplets spat onto your beard from a virus carrier can live for hours, but wear an ATSM1 mask incorrectly and the powers that be are happy.  The only conclusion that can be drawn is that ATSM1 mask usage by Ontario educators is a marketing move and not a medically viable choice.  That so many teachers seem to be buying into it is astonishing.

 

You'll find a lot of panicky accusations saying this is a conspiracy theory from early in COVID19, but it should be fairly obvious that a beard would prevent a 'tight seal' as required in any surgical mask directions.CDC has always recommended shaving for medical professionals wearing medical grade gear.

 

CONCLUSION:

 

It appears Ontario public education is using ASTM1 level masks to produce a sense of false protection in the education system.  By ignoring the more difficult and expensive medically proven ways of preventing COVID19 spread, such as resolving decades long HVAC issues in schools and not providing the full range of PPE required to provide medical levels of protection, Ontario's pick-and-choose safety approach with an emphasis on medical mask use without any other criteria is both ineffective and misleading.

CREATE/EXPERIMENT/IMPROVE: FINDING A MORE EFFECTIVE MASKING SOLUTION

For staff with breathing and size issues the Chinese manufactured disposable ATSM1 masks are all but ineffective.  A policy that allows for public health/Health Canada compliant masks would not only produce staff in less physical distress, but also provide greater safety for everyone at this difficult time.

 

SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS FOR MASKS:

1.  Must fit the wearer's face (current one size fits all masks do not fit all user faces)
2. Masks must be comfortable enough for 150 minute continuous usage scenarios
3. Masks must be breathable enough that users aren't constantly pulling them away to breathe

EXPERIMENT:

Purchase a variety of mask types and sizes and experiment with them to find effective fit and duration results.  In a  medical situation professionals choose a mask from a selection of sizes and types.  They aren't all handed the same sized and shaped mask as educators have been.  By experimenting with appropriate fit and breath-ability options a more effective masking solution would reveal itself.  None of this happened in preparing for the new school year.  This doesn't appear to be happening now either.

IMPROVE:  COVID19 IS STILL BEING UNDERSTOOD SO RESPONSIVE CHANGE SHOULD BE BUILT INTO ANY PLAN

 

With COVID19's transmission still under review by major players like the CDC, the safest route would have been to provide remote learning for the majority of families so that social isolation bubbles could persist.  Schools should have only been opened up to students in need or for specific classes that require face to face instruction.

A more cautious and medically researched approach to this school year would have prevented the current increases in cases, but the provincial government picked what it liked in terms of medical advice and ignored the rest, while using medical mask usage to whitewash any questions of efficacy.

 

The latest data suggests that droplet transmission happens when people are in close proximity to one another.  In this scenario it is much more important that staff and students have properly fitted, comfortable masks than it is to have a splash ready ATSM1 medical grade mask.

Beyond a metre the droplets tend to fall out of the air, though this is in question too.  If airborne transmission can happen from infected droplets that hang in the air for hours, the only logical choice would be to shut down face to face schooling again as a single infected person in any school would be spreading COVID19 indiscriminately anywhere they travel whenever they remove or incorrectly wear their mask.  Even a properly fitted mask is up to 95% efficient so COVID19 transmission would occur anyway with enough exposure.

Following WHO's current understanding that COVID19 is most easily spread in close quarters, it's vitally important that staff and students have comfortable, properly fitted masks that they aren't constantly touching and making ineffective.

IMPROVE: A FLEXIBLE, MEDICALLY DRIVEN MASK POLICY FOR ONTARIO SCHOOLS

By experimenting with a variety of sizes and types of masks Ontario education could create a more effective masking policy that better protects its staff and students.

 

By closely following medical research on transmission and management, Ontario education could provide timely updates to its masking and PPE policies that keep people safe.

Larger, systemic issues like poor classroom ventilation and class sizes will have far more efficacy than a simplistic and misleading one-size-doesn't-fit-all masking policy.  Some boards (mine included) have taken steps to reduce class sizes but in some cases the Ministry intervened and prevented boards from creating smaller class sizes.  In our case the cohorted solution to class sizes has downloaded all of the effort in making it work on classroom teachers which is creating marathon sessions of face to face classes while teachers are simultaneously expected to manage the other half of the class online.  This is twice the preparation and work along with the impossible expectations of being in two places at once - all day, every day.  Doing this while wearing an ill-fitting mask with breath-ability issues in a poorly ventilated classroom is a combination that will hurt many employees.  Rather than enforcing a misleading, half-finished medical masking policy, a focus on these other urgent matters would produce better outcomes for all involved.

NOTES & LINKS:

Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19:  https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/advice-on-the-use-of-masks-in-the-community-during-home-care-and-in-healthcare-settings-in-the-context-of-the-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)-outbreak

https://news.lvhn.org/fact-or-myth-facial-hair-and-covid-19/

https://nymag.com/strategist/article/face-masks-for-beards.html 

"Dr. Sten Vermund, infectious-disease epidemiologist and dean of the Yale School of Public Health, he told us he trimmed his own facial hair down “so that the mask could completely cover my beard.” The key, he added, is to make sure there are no gaps and that the mask is hugging your skin, not your facial hair." 

https://virologydownunder.com/flight-of-the-aerosol/

A well written article by a pile of doctors that explains how viral transmission happens.  An airborne virus is a terrible thing.  Whether or not COVID19 is airborne is still in contention, but the latest from CDC suggests it is. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-coronavirus-spreads-through-the-air-what-we-know-so-far1/

"Currently, WHO guidance considers surgical masks to be adequately protective for healthcare staffers working with potential COVID-19 patients, and advises using N95 masks in limited situations, such as when intubating patients, which is known to generate small particles from deep in the lungs. Healthcare workers who follow these recommendations have been generally protected against the virus, WHO notes."

Medical masks for medical work...

 

https://healthnewshub.org/cloth-mask-vs-surgical-mask-vs-n95-how-effective-is-each/

"A dual-layered cloth mask is sufficient to protect people in public settings. It’s unlikely you’ll be infected in public by airborne viral particles. The real threat is touching an infected surface and then putting your hand to your face: Frequent hand-washing is a sure way to avoid COVID-19"

"medical masks protect people from the wearer’s respiratory emissions. But it’s designed to protect against large droplets, splashes or sprays of bodily fluid or other type of fluid."

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7293495/

"The challenge before many healthcare workers in combatting the disease would be a daunting task unless proper administrative, clinical, and physical measures are taken within the healthcare settings"

- wouldn't hurt if educational administration followed proper measures too...