NM needs real plan for reopening school

THINGS TO think about before possibly seesawing children in and out of school: Children demand consistency, which is highly advantageous when trying to maintain order. The apparent no plan or just-punt plan means the students will face uncertainty every day as to what tomorrow holds. Parents, too. Oh, sure, teachers have a plan B, but do the minds of young children or even adolescents?

One huge aspect of structured K-12 education is the socialization of children. After over 6 months of being denied that interaction, attempting to maintain any order in a classroom will take (Herculean) efforts. Then top that off with schools being opened, then closed, and then reopened maybe — the socialization factor demand by the children will far outweigh any efforts made to actually teach.

The format of how educating children is done is a completely new metric. Requiring the taxpayer to re-educate the teachers is not realistic. If wanting to stay employed, they, themselves, need to return to school on their own dime. Most other professionals do this. Colleges of education need to take the reins and begin immediately changing the format as to how they equate children’s learning into fostering of that learning through modern methods.

This new normal has been fought for years by state boards of education that license educators (and) teacher union rules that maintain mediocrity and below that undermine the cream of teachers’ ability, to all our benefit, to rise to the top and be compensated accordingly. If not now, when?

ROB WOOD Las Cruces