Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl has taken to narrative writing over the past few months via his Dave’s True Stories Instagram account, on which he has penned essays about his life and career. Yesterday, though, instead of his Instagram page, Grohl published an essay titled “In Defense of Our Teachers” in The Atlantic. Now, Grohl has shared an audio version of the piece, as read by himself.
He begins, “I hate to break it to you, but I was a terrible student. Each day, I desperately waited for the final bell to ring so that I could be released from the confines of my stuffy, windowless classroom and run home to my guitar. It was no fault of the Fairfax County Public Schools system, mind you; it did the best it could. I was just stubbornly disengaged, impeded by a raging case of ADD, and an insatiable desire to play music.”
Elsewhere in the piece, Grohl discusses the complicated issue of re-opening schools during the pandemic and remote learning, with help from the perspective of his mother, Virginia Grohl, a retired teacher:
“Over the years, I have come to notice that teachers share a special bond, because there aren’t too many people who truly understand their unique challenges — challenges that go far beyond just pen and paper. Today, those challenges could mean life or death for some.
When it comes to the daunting — and ever more politicized — question of reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic, the worry for our children’s well-being is paramount. Yet teachers are also confronted with a whole new set of dilemmas that most people would not consider. ‘There’s so much more to be addressed than just opening the doors and sending them back home,’ my mother tells me over the phone. Now 82 and retired, she runs down a list of concerns based on her 35 years of experience: ‘masks and distancing, temperature checks, crowded busing, crowded hallways, sports, air-conditioning systems, lunchrooms, public restrooms, janitorial staff.’ Most schools already struggle from a lack of resources; how could they possibly afford the mountain of safety measures that will need to be in place? And although the average age of a schoolteacher in the United States is in the early 40s, putting them in a lower-risk group, many career teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers, nurses, and janitors are older and at higher risk. Every school’s working faculty is a considerable percentage of its population, and should be safeguarded appropriately. I can only imagine if my mother were now forced to return to a stuffy, windowless classroom. What would we learn from that lesson? When I ask what she would do, my mother replies, ‘Remote learning for the time being.’
Remote learning comes with more than a few of its own complications, especially for working-class and single parents who are dealing with the logistical problem of balancing jobs with children at home. […] Remote learning is an inconvenient and hopefully temporary solution. But as much as Donald Trump’s conductor-less orchestra would love to see the country prematurely open schools in the name of rosy optics (ask a science teacher what they think about White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s comment that ‘science should not stand in the way’), it would be foolish to do so at the expense of our children, teachers, and schools.”
Grohl also praised his mom’s abilities and impact as an educator:
“As a single mother of two, she tirelessly devoted her life to the service of others, both at home and at work. From rising before dawn to ensure that my sister and I were bathed, dressed, and fed in time to catch the bus to grading papers well into the night, long after her dinner had gone cold, she rarely had a moment to herself. […] She was one of those teachers who became a mentor to many, and her students remembered her long after they had graduated, often bumping into her at the grocery store and erupting into a full recitation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, like a flash mob in the produce aisle. I can’t tell you how many of her former students I’ve met over the years who offer anecdotes from my mother’s classroom. Every kid should be so lucky to have that favorite teacher, the one who changes your life for the better. She helped generations of children learn how to learn, and, like most other teachers, exhibited a selfless concern for others. Though I was never her student, she will forever be my favorite teacher.”
Listen to the essay above and read it here.