Margot Day Henshaw thinks students should make up lost education time by going back to school in June or July, but she knows that will never happen.
She shared her thoughts the day after Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued an executive order ending in-school instruction on April 17. Illinois school systems were told previously to switch to remote learning.
“Vacation plans have been cancelled for this summer anyway,” she told the Du Page Policy Journal. “It will not happen, because it would be unpopular and give the media plenty of complaint to work with, but the structure of education was abruptly terminated, picking up and continuing the lesson plans a few months later would make sense if we were not in such a contentious era.”
Pritzker said in a Facebook post that his decisions followed the science, which said students can’t go back to their normal routine.
While Henshaw would like students to catch up on missed education time, but that’s not what she expects will happen with schools closed.
“I fear this time will be lost on video games and silliness. We have no time to be silly and this generation cannot afford to indulge in it. But the course we have taken indicates that there is no confidence they will rise to the occasion and be able to abide by rules that would keep them productive as well as safe,” she said.
The owner of The Prince’s Table and Liberty Luxury in Glen Ellyn, Henshaw expects students to have a tougher time going back to school.
“When the students go back to school in the fall, there is normally a period where they have to get back in the swing of things because many of them have put their brains on ice for the summer. This fall it may take them even longer to recalibrate themselves,” she said.
Henshaw said she wonders if a teachable moment has been lost. She said hindsight will be 20/20. But as it seems the coronavirus was active in California since November, and herd immunity may have set in, schools might have stayed open. Children could have learned about hygiene and how critical it is in saving lives.
“They might have been taught to understand that they would endanger Grandma and Grandpa or that relative on chemotherapy if they were not following guidelines regarding the proper way of washing their hands,” Henshaw said.
She thinks some of them might even have started to think how to conduct themselves in a biowarfare event – or the 7th Domain, as the Chinese call it – “because certainly any weaponized virus or germ would need to be spread through the air, have some serious staying power outside a host, as well as a long incubation period of contagiousness.”
These are all properties true of the coronavirus.
“And now President Xi, as well as other sociopathic despots, have seen how easily they can destroy our economy and they do not need a large standing army to do it,” Henshaw said, “it can be accomplished on the cheap, with little effort and because Americans are in general kind and gullible we will accept any apology, forget and forgive quickly, just in case the contagion does not leave us too weak to retaliate. If you doubt this, wait and see how quickly our populace goes back to purchasing lower quality merchandise rendered by slave labor.”
She labels workers in China as slave labor because they have no real minimum wage, no unemployment compensation, no disability, no workman’s compensation, no Medicaid, no Social Security and no liberty.
“That is the real reason that all the jobs go there – our labor laws preclude Americans and Europeans from competing on a global scale,” Henshaw said.
Young Americans need to be taught to be intrepid because the world is a dangerous and ever changing place.
“If they do not learn this and quickly, we will have damned our children to be the Eloi, because the Morlocks are busy setting the table all around the globe,” she said.
"The Chinese government builds military bases on man-made islands in the South China Sea. In Africa, they built airports and roads that to satisfy their debt to the Chinese, the Africans will surrender collateral such as copper mines. And they’ve bought companies and real estate in Northern Italy – and Italy is not the only place," she said.
Henshaw said children should be prepared to survive. They can use this time to read about others who endured hardship and whose characters were forged by the experience. She suggests “The Childhood of Famous Americans” as a great series for second graders on up. Other books she suggests for young people include “The Great Earth,” “Five Years to Freedom,” “A Man Called Intrepid” and “Unbroken.”
“And ‘Atlas Shrugged’, since we are living it.”
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