Coronavirus Remote Education and Dancing 

Day Ten March 31, 2020 Tuesday

This has been the roughest day so far. I guess because I thought I was finally getting the hang of things and I had a schedule down, including self-care and food shopping. I got up at 7 had breakfast and went online to check in and be available for my students and colleagues. Because not only am I helping my students, our Arts, PE, Science and Computer Science Group are all helping each other.

So after 3 hours of sitting at my computer, grading assignments, fielding questions, assisting and being assisted by colleagues I needed to get up and do something. Mind you no one should be sitting for more than 20-25 minutes. It is simply not good for you. So I took my lunch hour to give myself a dance class, which felt great. Then back to the computer.

There was so much to do that I just got overwhelmed and depressed. The only thing that would give me relief was when I got a video from a student showing them doing the assignment I sent them and doing it with sheer exuberance and joy and fun. Just like in my classroom.

Funny thing about classrooms. Over the past 10 days when I talk to colleagues I don’t picture them in their homes, or driving in their cars, I picture them in their classroom. If someone mentions a member of the office staff I picture them at their desk. If I e-mail someone I imagine they are in their classroom prepping for their next class. After 10 years in the same building the sense memory of space has become part of my psyche, part of my being. I can’t think of someone without associating them with the space that they occupy, where I am most familiar with them. It is just something that I observed that I was doing.

So after another 2 and a half hours Ken and I went for a walk and to go food shopping. The line was so long at Whole Foods we decided to go for a longer walk around the neighborhood and loop back. It is a ghost town here, It is so quiet and lacking in human activity that it is disturbing and very disquieting, We looped around and wound up back at Whole Foods to a much shorter line. Traversing the neighborhood just made me more depressed. The number of homeless people on the street was alarming and homeless people that I have never seen before.

We live right around the corner from a shelter so I am used to seeing homeless people and very often the same ones and some who I know by name. I have been in the shelter to donate clothes and equipment so I am not new to homelessness, but I guess I’ve become unaware of the sheer numbers when there are many more people hustling and bustling around the neighborhood. We are usually a very busy neighborhood with lines waiting to get into the pizza place or the latest clothing store. Living here for forty years gives you a perspective that others just don’t have and can’t because they didn’t live through the same time and space.

So today reminded me of when I first moved here. When the homeless were more visible, when it was eerily quiet at night and scary at times because of how deserted it was. So all of that made me more depressed because I realized how far we hadn’t come in the past forty years and how unequal the social economic divide has become and even though I am an aware and compassionate person what have I done to effect a more positive society.

Then I get back home, go on my computer, and see another video that was sent to me from one of my Pre-K students dancing his heart out in front of the video class I sent to him and then he says I love you Mr. Jannetti, thank you for your video. Then, I realized I make a difference because of what I love to do: I am a NYC Dance Teacher.