And the questions flow like water. There is almost nothing that comes from our government in any honesty. So much of our country’s backbone is now politics and who said what about whom. There is nothing that says everyone needs to come together on both sides of the political fence to make sure that the American people are kept alive in order to rebuild the economy in the end. Something tells me that there is much more in the minds of so many of these leaders as to the money that can be regained by putting workers back into meat plants, dairy farms, and other workplaces that may be the most dangerous places of all for our citizens at this point. While we are the country fighting the densest balance of Coronavirus at this time, we have a president who is joyously encouraging every state in the land to return to normal economics and business in order to prove the message that he drives in his electoral campaign.

So, what are the stories of those who have suffered, both directly and indirectly from this disease? Nearly 100% of this country has suffered in at least one way or another, whether it comes from personal illness, taking care of a loved one, losing a job, being furloughed, having to stay home to combine work with teaching the kids, or much more. Think about it, I am a writer who so incredibly appreciates the online and remote work that I have taken upon myself for many years now. However, there is something about the fact of the weekly schedule I typically have outside the house is suddenly forced into the online world.

I had only been teaching Freshman composition at a local community college for about three weeks into my second semester when the bomb was dropped on me that we would be forced into online classes. I hadn’t even had much of a chance to get to know my students and really only had one class session to prepare them for the changes we were going to have to make in regard to our class sessions, assignments, and grading. It was horrible. And I have certainly seen an incredible drop in effort and communication within my class. 

At the very same time, I was already about halfway into the final semester of my Master’s Degree in English. Facing such an incredible time of excitement and flair for learning it was like being whipped with a tree switch when I found out that there was no longer a library to go to or actual class meetings with other students for discussion. So many of these higher-level classes are based upon student activity and classroom activity, and there is almost no real way to learn the content without interaction with the instructor and other students. 

Quite honestly, there was one required class that I became afraid of failing because of the way that things so suddenly changed. There was basically no interaction with the teacher and he started assigning online quizzes even though there was no real way to deeply memorize the long books that we were required to read in two weeks or less. It was hard to picture myself passing a class that had already been so scattered and difficult before things got worse from the reliance on the internet.