Dupage Policy Journal

Science teacher Dr. Peter Dong recently used his Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy senior banquet address to school the audience on how he thinks leaders fouled up in their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

“I want you to consider what happened last year and decide for yourself, did we as a society make the right choices?” Dong said in a video posted to YouTube. “You’re the ones affected by the decision so you need to think about it.”

Dong leaves no doubt about how he comes down on the issue.

“There’s a phrase people keep using and it’s 'an abundance of caution,'” he said. “We have a word for that in the dictionary, and it’s called fear. What happened was the pandemic happened a long time ago and soon the fear became habitual. It sank into our psyche. It told us to be afraid of other people, to treat every other human being as a threat. The fear remains long after we’ve been vaccinated from the virus.”

Dong laments it’s actually spread to other segments of society.

“Everything we see has been governed by fear,” he said. “You end up evolving to the most frightened common denominator. Whoever is the most terrified ends up determining what happens next. This just doesn’t happen when you’re getting together with your friends. It affects all policy making; it affects things at the CDC and it affects decisions about whether to reopen schools."

Through it all, Dong reasons one thing has become crystal clear.

“Remote learning is terrible, and the teachers know it too,” he said. “It’s really hard to be motivated by a blank, talking screen. We can see the number of failures and at-risk students.”

Dong said it all goes back to the level of fear he thinks has now permeated much of society.

“Because we allowed the fear to take over, we made the decision as an institution to turn our backs on the people that we could have helped right then,” he said. “What happened last April was an act of man, an act of human beings making a decision based on their fears. It was a betrayal of our students, an abdication of our admission statement and a mockery in the name science.”

Dong implored the students to remember the times.

“I want you to remember what happens to a society when it falls into a downward spiral of fear,” he said. “The reason I bring this all up is because this is not your last catastrophe. We have a national catastrophe every 20 or 30 years. You’re going to be the one in the driver’s seat with influence. When that happens, I want you to remember what happens when you allow fear to dominate your thinking.”

See the full transcript of Dong's speech below:

Honored guests, coworkers, administrators, parents, relatives, siblings, I am totally not talking to any of you. Go ahead and get a taco. Be fine. 

Seniors, class of 21. It is so good to see you again. Like,  I know. I mean, I'm using 'see' kind of with air quotes because, like, I can't actually see you, like that would require high definition binoculars. Right? But somewhere off in the distance, I can sense that there are some students there and even that is better than Zoom.

 Now,  I have to worry about, like, the sound delay reaching  the back of you. But, I mean, those of you who are over in like another county, you'll hear this by tomorrow and then you'll like it, right? It is so much better to be here than to be on Zoom, you know, like weird things happen when you spend too much time on Zoom. 

Is Sachen here? Sachen, I just, I don't know what you look like when I think of your name. I think of a picture of what looks like blue siding on a house because that's your profile picture. And that's really all I can think of. I think I can visualize Aaron's face, but usually what I think of it, with Aaron, is that weird one with what appears to be a football player holding a loaf of bread. And Arthur, I think I could pick you out of a crowd, but maybe not with a mask. But all I think of is this weird picture, what appears to be a cat eating another cat. 

And I don't know what you guys are going to do without your virtual backgrounds. You know, like Ming always has this giant fireball behind him, which really makes every conversation with him much more apocalyptic. And of course, Ellen always has weird, alt- Ellen walking behind her and doing creepy things, snooping in our conversations. 

So it's weird being here, like we're actually in person. That means that when you're not listening, I can see you're not listening. It's great. By the way, we can tell anyway. We always know you're not listening. And, you know, there are some downsides. Like normally when on Zoom when Jimmy starts talking, I can just push the mute button. But now, we have to figure out another way to get him to shut up. 

So so it is really, really nice to see you again. I can't tell you how much I missed the chance to see you. And even when it's this far away. I am still really missing you. OK, seniors, like Docter Eysturlid, I have something I want to say to you that is utterly inappropriate for the current environment, which is a really relaxed one with lots of noise and people getting up to get tacos. And I decided I'm going to say it anyway because I think it's important. 

So class of 2021, if you could, please listen for a little bit. I'll give you a reading assignment. I have an assignment for you as well. It's interesting. We kind of went in the wrong order, actually, Doctor Eysturlid, he talked a lot about the future. I want to talk about the past. I want to talk about this last year. And my assignment for you is I want you to consider what happened last year and decide for yourself. Did we as a society make the right choices? Did we handle the coronavirus pandemic the right way? 

I want to ask you to do this and not like the older people, because the older people are the ones making decisions. So people who make the decisions are like, did you make the right decision?. Yeah, we did. Well, what do you do? Of course they say that. Right? But you're the one who was affected by the decision, so you need to think about it. Was it the right decision? Because soon enough, sooner than you like, you're going to be the one making those decisions. So let's talk a little bit about what happened in the last year. 

You know, what was the defining characteristic of this pandemic? You know, back when we were starting back in May, you were talking about just two weeks to flatten the curve. There's a phrase people kept on using, 'an abundance of caution' 'an abundance of caution.' You remember that phrase. You know, that means we don't need to say that. We actually have a word for that in the dictionary, right? It's called fear. Fear was the defining factor of the pandemic. And you might say, well, yeah, I mean, we are afraid of dying. And so like and fear is a good motivating factor. It's used to keep people from doing dumb stuff and to help people keep people inside and not spreading the virus. So that's reasonable. It's true up to a point.

But what happened was that the pandemic lasted a long time and the fear that was originally just focused on a novel coronavirus soon became habitual and sink into our psyche. And we began to be afraid, be afraid just because we're always afraid. So one thing that happened is it taught us to be afraid of other people simply because of their humanity. It taught us that we treat every other human being as a threat. It taught us to fear the sight of someone's unmasked smile. It taught us to fear personal contact with other people. 

I know there are medical reasons for this, but the fear remains long after we've been vaccinated from the virus. And, you know, it's not just that, but the fear kind of sinks in and metastasizes. It spreads into fears of other things. 

I don't know if you've noticed, but this entire last year has been marked by remarkable fear of all sorts of things: fear of other people, especially people of other races, people of other political persuasions, people from other countries. And everything we see has been governed by fear. 

And you know what I think is the primary fear that affects us is not actually the fear of the coronavirus, but the fear of what other people think about us. You know that thing when you're walking into a group of people and it's outside. So masking isn't required and you're trying to figure out whether or not I need to put on a mask because you're like, well, I don't think I need to put on a mask, but there's that other person, whoever is going to be there, and they seem kind of conservative, like maybe they would want to put on a mask. So I should probably bring a mask with me just in case and put it on. 

You know, what always happens, right? You're like, oh, I'm  comfortable without mask but my friends might be bothered. So I'm going to put on a mask to make sure they're not bothered. And then your friend sees you and your friends are like, oh, he wears a mask, I guess I better put on a mask, too. And so, even though neither of you actually want to wear a mask, or think it's necessary, you're both sitting there wearing masks. 

And the thing is – I have a place I'm going with this. I promise – The thing about this is that it goes the same direction. That is to say, you have ten people  they're all comfortable, but one of them wants to wear a mask. Well, then everyone else wants to put on a mask to make that person feel comfortable. But if you have ten people and all of them want to wear masks but one person doesn't, well, that person still has to put on a mask to make everyone else feel comfortable, right? So what always happens is you end up wearing a mask, right? So what I would say, as happens, is you end up evolving to the most frightened common denominator. Whoever is the most terrified determines what happens next. 

And you might say, well, big deal, Doctor Dong. So what? So we wear a mask. Good point, it doesn't make a big deal there, but, this doesn't happen when you're getting  together with your friends, this affects all sort of different places. It affects policy making it affects things with the CDC and it  affects decisions about whether to reopen schools. 

So let me talk about that for a moment. Here's one for you. Do you know in the year and a half since the coronavirus was detected, how many people in the United States have died of coronavirus who are under 18 years old? We have almost 600,000 deaths in the United States. How many of them are people under 18? Some of you might be saying answers, but of course, I can't hear you or anything over the generator that Dr. Kessler mentioned. So I'll just tell you the answer. I looked it up this morning on the CDC's website, as of today, 309. You didn't hear that wrong. I didn't say 309,000. I didn't even say 3,009. I said 309. 

So that means in the past year and a half, CDC reports over 45,000 children have died of various reasons. And of those, 300 have died of the coronavirus. This is not a primary concern. In fact, in that same period of time, twice as many children had died of drowning and 10 times as many children had died in car accidents. If you are under 18, which most of you are, or just recently were, then you are more likely this year to die of knife wounds, to die of burns, to die of suicide, to die of homicide, to die of poisoning, to die of overdose, to die of cancer. In fact, just about every single cause of death is more likely for someone under 18 than the coronavirus. 

Another interesting tidbit to note is that the vaccines by Pfizer, Moderna are incredibly effective. In fact, we have accumulated very good data now. And it tells us that your risk of death – if you're fully vaccinated – is still there. But the risk works out to be approximately the same risk as dying from the flu, which everyone always uses as a benchmark. 

So the reason I bring this all this up is because there's a question now of what to do about schools, whether to reopen schools. And if so, that's kind of a special case when it comes to reopening schools because you're coming from all over the place. But the fact is, there's something that ... we've had to do, but I don't want to say it out here. In case you weren't clear, remote learning is terrible. It's so bad. (Audience applauds) Let's give it up for how much we're all learning is terrible. 

OK, like the teachers know it, too. It is really bad. Like I had it easy. Like physics. You can make it work. Even trying to do like biolabs. Give me a break. Learning a new language! And don't even talk about remote choir, right? Like trying to do this remote thing. We did it because we had to but it was really bad. And listen, we did the surveys. I've looked over the data and I've talked to a good number of students. And I find that some of you like it this way. And the reason you like it is because you don't have so many people bothering you. You have a lot of time to concentrate on work. That's cool. Good for you. A much larger chunk don't like it, but you can make it, right? and you can tolerate it. It's not fun. It's not as easy as it would be. Certain things are harder, but you make your way through. 

But the other thing that's true is that (for) a good chunk of people, that includes people here, it was really, really hard. And we knew that. It was really, really hard for a variety of reasons. It was hard because there are economic constraints, there are physical constraints. You have things, you have babysitting responsibilities, you had to take jobs.

 It was also hard for simple emotional reasons, like it's really hard to be motivated by a plain talking screen. It's hard to do your homework when you're surrounded by your screaming family and you have other things you'd rather do. It is hard and it was hard for a lot of people. And we knew it. We can all see, you know, we all see you can see all this data. You can see all the number of failures and at-risk students. We can see how many students need ed. plans, how many students needed to drop out or take breaks. Like we can see, it is really hard for the students. 

And I am not the only teacher who had emails in my inbox that said things like the student is having a lot of difficulty. We think things will be better when he is on campus, or Dr. Dong, when I'm coming back on campus, I want to meet with you weekly and such and such a time. Or the students are saying things are going poorly, but we think a better environment will help. We look forward to having them on campus. 

We know that there are people here who needed our help and that would be helped by being back on campus.

 And yet when it came down to it, even though it seemed like everyone was moving along fine and was working towards it, somehow, somewhere there are some people who are scared and the terror didn't stop with them, but somehow spread throughout the administration. And as what happened before, it wasn't just an issue with everyone and it wasn't just fear of coronavirus. It got mixed in with all the other fears we had, fears of losing our jobs, fears of losing power, fears of planning not being good, fears of change, fears of losing influence. Fears of not being able to teach your classes right. Fear of administration. Fear of unions. Ultimately fear of each other and fear of you. And so because we allowed the fear to take over, we decided as an institution, we made the decision to turn our back on the people who needed us most, the people that we could have helped right then. And we refused to. (Audience applauds) You really shouldn't applaud for that, like even if you agree, I understand you might be in agreement, but that's not something you applaud for. 

And so I feel like no one else has said it. And I'm hardly an institutional representative. It's just me. But I'm going to say it  because no one else has said it. People have been treating this year as some kind of act of God. Well, you look, you know, the coronavirus may be an act of God, maybe. But then what happened last April was an act of man. It was an act of human beings who made a decision based on their fears. And so I want to say it for everyone. What we did as an institution last April was a betrayal of our students and abdication of our mission statement and a mockery of the science in the name of our school. 

So why do I say all that? Wouldn't it be better to let bygones be bygones, just move on with our lives as everyone wants to do, right? I don't want you to move on. I do, actually. But I don't want you to forget about the last year. I want you to remember what happens to an institution, to a society when it falls into a downward spiral of fear. It happened just like Master Yoda said it would. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to suffering. Our fear, your suffering

So what do we do about it? What is the solution to fear? You know, it's human. The opposite of fear would be bravery, but I don't think it's quite right. Bravery is the opposite of cowardice. They're both responses to fear, really. If you want the opposite of fear, I would quote from the first epistle of John of the Apostle, who says, or suggest perhaps that the antidote to fear is love. He says there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. 

Now, love is one of those words that through overuse has become largely irrelevant to people. They don't even know what it means. But when Jesus was on the Earth, he said that the greatest love was to lay down one's life for one's friends. What I mean by love is to risk something for the sake of someone else. 

We talk to you guys about risk, right? Like, oh, yeah, you should take a risk, go out and take chances. Taking a risk. OK, most of the stuff we talk about is like really dumb, like you say, oh yeah, I took a risk. I invest in this stuff and then the investment paid off. And so I had a lot of money. Well,  good for you. That's cool and all. But this isn't very impressive. It's basically like you won the lottery. Well, good for you. But that's not a real risk.

 A real risk means you put  yourself on the line for someone else. You risk things that you care about, even your life, for the sake of other people. That is what we call love. And it's something that I feel like this year we have found ourselves short of. And I think the reason for that is it's hard to love those little squares on the screen. But here there's real people and we should care about each other. And care doesn't mean like we've said so much. Oh, well, I wish there was something we could do, because this time there was something we could do, but we refused. So, you know, those of you who want to be doctors and nurses, we've come quite clear this year. The doctors and nurses risked their lives when they go to treat patients. And we know, of course soldiers always risk their lives. And this year we begin to realize even grocery workers, mail clerks, meat packers risk their lives in order to make sure everyone else can be fed. The teachers, we sit at home eating and binge watching Netflix. 

So the reason I bring all this up is because this is not your last catastrophe. We have a national catastrophe every 20 to 30 years, and the next one, when it comes along, most likely you'll be close to my age. Now that's scary, right? You're going to be close to my age and you're going to be the ones in the driver's seat, or at least with an influence on the decisions that you're making.

 I don't think it's going to be another pandemic. I think it's going to be one of those things that people said was the problem, but no one really listened and it was unthinkable until it became reality. It will happen again, just like it happened with major terrorist attacks, nuclear weapons and world war. So when that happens, I want you to remember what it did to you this year. And I want you to remember what happens when you allow fear to dominate your thinking and to crowd out the love that brought you here in the first place. 

It's going to be tough. Obviously, our whole generation seems to have, at least here, seems to have failed this test. So, you know, there's not much I can do for you except to give you my blessing. But as you go forth and do all the things that are going to happen in the world in the future, then you would also find the ability to love, that you find the the peace that surpasses every man's understanding. But when you fail, as we have, you know the forgiveness that you don't deserve, and that you would discover the perfect love that casts out fear. Or to put it in the words of an ancient Hebrew writer, class of 2021, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord, lift up his face upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord, lift up his confidence upon you and give you peace. And the rest from here is up to you. 

Frankly, we screwed up. I'm happy to leave the future in your hands. I hope you do a better job. And you know what? Tomorrow's graduation. Congratulations. And if you see me around, I'll just clear this up right now. You're welcome to just wave if you want, but if you want to shake hands, go ahead. I'm vaccinated. Shake my hand. And if you really want to go ahead and give me a hug, it's fine.  And you know what? I have to admit, it's possible even with the vaccine, there's still a risk that you might be casting a fatal virus on to me. And as long as you don't do it on purpose, I'll forgive you. There are some things that are worth the risk for someone you love. See you around.