When Life Imitates The Classroom

A pandemic is defined by the World Health Organization as a "worldwide spread" of a disease. The Center for Disease Control defines it as "an epidemic that has spread over several countries or continents, usually affecting large numbers of people." An epidemic, by comparison, is "an increase, often sudden, in the number of cases of a disease above that is normally expected." (This kind of shoots down the whole "but what about the flu" argument, but that's not what I wanted to write about.) But I know this for an assortment of reasons, the most significant being that just before winter break two weeks ago, I finished a unit on pandemics in my 12th grade English class. Despite the fact that it was the first time I'd ever done it and I created it from scratch, it was one of the best units I've ever taught. It was rough and needs some smoothing, but it was also wildly creepy. Because while we were talking and writing about pandemics in my classroom, there was a real one going on in the world. 

These are strange moments, but they have been remarkably satisfying. My students were kind of excited about the coronavirus. There's a feeling of "holy shit, I did some real teaching there....can I get an administrator to come evaluate me please??? I had students tell me that when family members talked about what was going on they were telling them basic information about how diseases like this are spread and that it's happened before here in the United States. (I'm sure they were a little clearer than what we heard on television tonight.) The basic theme of the unit was learning how to write informational texts in the APA style. Most of my students will likely wind up on a community college campus in the fall taking the requisite pschyes and sociologies with no idea how to write or cite them, so this was a crash course attempt at that. We read loads of informational texts about pandemics, several that sound a lot like what we're experiencing now. I've thought of a hundred ways to fix that the next time, but it worked well this time. We looked at "pandemic" fiction as well, folding in a healthy dose of zombie fiction into the mix. They read excerpts from THE STAND and WORLD WAR Z. These are books you should read (or not if you don't want to get scared about what's going on). 

WORLD WAR Z is intense, scary and unsettling, mostly because it's told as an oral history and that's scary as hell. I've never read a more troublesome book as THE STAND. What King does right in that book is incredible and life changing. What he does bad is so bad it makes you wonder how much coke he had snorted the day he wrote it. Both are terrifying because we are seeing the early beats of each novel unfolding before us and those of us with knowledge of fiction know where this is headed. The media battling one another over which information is more correct. Corrupt leaders, both public and private, taking advantage of the situation to grab power at any cost. Ill-prepared government response to a crisis because of either said corruption or just general ineptitude. (Or both in this case.) Zealots using this opportunity to sell their brand of crazy vodka (there's ALOT of H1N1 experts on social media today...and I was only checking my union's group page for some information, I'm still on a Lenten fast.) It's not hard to see why, some of us are starting to wonder when Captain Tripps is going to get us. 

These are things we talked about as story elements. As things that prop up in these types of story and how authors develop them into elements that express themes. We learned that the scariest type of horror fiction is the one that is not only plausible but possible. My students are still marveling that as we were learning about pandemics, a real one was happening right in front of our eyes and before we knew it, it was at our doorstep. And, they are scared, so every so often I have to take my teacher hat off and don the dad hat. Telling them to relax and that they just have to remain calm. Keep an even head. Wash your hands. Lay low for a while. It's not a hat I'm comfortable with in that setting. But being a teacher is all about wearing different hats.