Voluntary Selective Social Distancing . March 26, 2020

Copyright © 2020                               John F. Oyler

March 26, 2020

Voluntary Selective Social Distancing

These certainly are unique times. Who could have predicted the complete suspension of all major sporting events, the transition of education from classroom to on-line, the proliferation of working-at-home, and the disappearance of toilet paper from the super market shelves?

I must admit I agree with the logic of “social distancing”. Certainly, minimizing the contact between individuals will dramatically reduce the rapid transmission of this frightening virus, hopefully enough that our existing medical facilities will be able to adequately care for all of us who are infected.

The emphasis on washing one’s hands frequently reminded me of the social onus years ago of “dishpan hands”, and the series of Palmolive ads featuring Madge, the manicurist designed to eliminate them.

My children are concerned with my fragility and are encouraging me to “hunker down” and wait out the storm. At this point I appear to be well stocked for at least the next few weeks. The contents of my freezer include one serving of salmon, three Italian sausages, three Trader Joe’s “steak and stout pies”, three slices of ham, four Vegetarian “burgers”, four Vegetarian sausages, and enough frozen vegetables and potatoes to provide me with eighteen dinners.

I hope I can replenish my meat and fish stock before I get into the Vegetarian items. They are there for my grand-daughter Rachael. I admire her commitment to healthy cuisine, but do not envy it. After all I did try to eat one of the burgers – its taste was somewhere between corrugated cardboard and Styrofoam.

I am committed to self-quarantine for the near future. So far I have missed one lunch with Don Toney, my semi-monthly brunch with my high school friends, the second Osher class on Johann Sebastian Bach at the local library, a Pittsburgh Symphony concert (Brahms’ First Symphony), and a Civil War lecture in Carnegie.

Unfortunately other folks have suffered more severely. Rachael was looking forward to participating in two major concerts, both of which have been cancelled. First was a “Side by Side” concert at Heinz Hall where youth musicians are paired with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Even more disappointing is her trip to Carnegie Hall in New York City with the Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestra; we were planning to go along as well.

There is concern that self-quarantined folks will quickly get “cabin fever”. Fortunately the weather has broken and I permit myself to take my walks in the woods, morning and afternoon, as long as I take along my walking stick to ensure that I maintain a safe (six feet?) distance from anyone I encounter.

The University has extended Spring Break a week so instructors can work out the logistics of conducting courses on-line from their homes. I am envious of them – it would be great fun to have the challenge of figuring out how to accomplish that. My daughter Elizabeth disagrees with me; she is in the midst of doing just that for two courses and doesn’t consider it fun.

It isn’t clear yet how we will handle Senior Design. It is a particularly difficult course to handle on-line. However the experience of sorting this out may be very advantageous to our students, as it may well be a precursor to the way they will cooperate in projects once they enter the “real world”.

I share Elizabeth’s concern that society may see on-line education, also called “distance learning” as a low-cost alternative to our conventional approach, which profits from the face-to face dialogue between students and teacher.  I have frequently told the story of President Garfield in his retirement being involved in an alumni organization from Williams College.

Mark Hopkins served as President of Williams from 1836 to 1872 and was recognized as one of the ablest teachers of his time. At some point the Williams administration was seeking funding for construction of some expensive modern college building, an absolute necessity for proper education. Garfield is reported to have said “The perfect college is a log with Mark Hopkins on one end and a willing student on the other”.

I certainly believe my most effective teaching was done in my office with a group of students seeking help with homework. Rather than walk them through the solution I would send one student to the blackboard and have him demonstrate his thought process, and comment on it so he would eventually find a solution. I don’t think there is an on-line equivalent for that.

It will be interesting to see if this experience will have an effect on elementary and secondary school education. Do we really need Taj Mahals if it is possible to handle much of the teaching remotely? I have long been an advocate to a return to neighborhood schools, linked electronically to specialty schools.

I wonder what the duration of my self-quarantine will be. According to my son John things are slowly returning to normal in China. His company, which is based in Beijing, has been operating, apparently effectively, on-line for the past month or so. He and his family are self-quarantined in California.

Elizabeth is particularly worried about the effect social distancing is having on low-income workers, like our favorite waiter in the University Club restaurant where we normally have lunch together once a week. It is difficult to work from home when one is a waiter.

A consequence of families self-sequestering could be a return to simple pleasures that have disappeared in our current society. Our children have fond memories of a cold winter week during the Oil Crisis in the mid-1970s when their schools were closed and we entertained them by reading “Lord of the Rings”.

One hopes society will learn from this crisis and make the necessary investment to make certain we are able to cope with crises like pandemics in the future.