10 Things the Pandemic Taught Me

1. School classes are way too overcrowded. There are thirty students for every teacher in a standard 1st grade public school class. How is this even acceptable? I'll tell you why. None of us are disrupting the system enough to demand a balanced community and budget focused on the things we need most, like education (more teachers, smaller classes, available technology). You can’t possibly get the proper attention from a teacher with that kind of teacher/child ratio. I can barely handle distributing my attention among two kids. Imagine having to teach reading and math to thirty. It's alarming. Not to mention the fact that every single animal gets sick from being in overcrowded conditions. Kids in grade school notoriously get sick, then they infect their parents, who, in turn, infect their co-workers. Not good for society nor productivity. Children also end up rebelling from the unrealistic and exhausting situation. And, if they aren't refusing to do their homework, they dream of skipping class, or endlessly complain to the point where school is never associated with fun because 5 days a week around 30 people for 5-8 hours a day simply sucks. Think about it. Children need time to play. In fact, they need hours to play. They also need some quiet alone time and they need nature. This pandemic taught many working parents just how painful it is to be in school again for hours on end with a 15 or 30 minute break here and there. Why do we continue to let our children suffer through the same unbearable system? It's time for change. I'm looking forward to EdTech paving the way. Now that I've seen the work that goes into being a 1st grade teacher (the patience alone!), they definitely deserve a raise. They also need the tools. And I don't mean every single tool available. We have a plethora of digital tools available, but schools need to build easy, simple digital strategies so that we don't suffer like every company today... with martech sprawl. Simplicity matters. Investing in experts matter, especially when it comes to the public sector. Education needs to evolve.
2. Offices are also crowded and unhealthy. You can’t truly be physically and/or mentally healthy working 5 days a week indoors for 8 hours a day. (see #1) In fact, employees are now expecting flexibility and the companies that demand their employees sit in an office will lose good talent. The writing is on the wall.
3. Working hours and school hours are not conducive to a healthy life. They are antiquated based on only one member of the family working outside of the home. This is not today’s reality and it causes unnecessary stress on families who can’t afford juggling the childcare pick up and drop off issues that arise as a result. Work hours need to mirror or complement school hours. We need to start looking at different work coverage models to account for flexibility; a model that produces outcomes tied to objectives achieved, not the amount of hours you sat on conference calls.
4. “Stuff” doesn’t matter nearly as much as experiences. This was the "millennial motto." It was probably annoying for those of us that had to hear it for years, but here's the thing. It’s true for millennials and it's true for all of us. The pandemic has shown us that athleisure is always more comfortable, heels go unworn, and closets full of clothes go unused (and seem downright excessive) when essential means: toilet paper, grocery stores with no lines, and spending time with your closest friends and family. We work to obtain too much “stuff” and, when we have to make a choice, we’ve found that we don’t need much at all. The stuff owns us. How many bags of crap have you donated this year? I'm on nine bags and I don't miss whatever it was I gave away. I don't even remember it. What we need: essential items like a roof over our heads, healthy available food, help with our kids and our elderly, a comfortable bed, a working car (or not these days), and outdoor living/recreational space.
5. Our city’s budgets are severely unbalanced. When the bulk of my city's budget goes toward policing (ps. my grandfather was a cop and even he would agree), but not social services, affordable housing, and education, you put a band-aid on a brain injury. It’s not about eliminating police, it’s about balancing the budget to fund what society needs and what society is straight up telling us loudly we need. Listen to the language of the unheard, as MLK taught us.
6. Technology is critical. Computers and internet connectivity aren’t a luxury. They are a critical service. Internet access and computers need to be properly funded and accessible to all. They are infrastructure - just like our roads. What are children without rich parents doing when everything requires having a $1,000 device? This shouldn't be something we have to raise money for with donations. We have taxpayer money. We need to allocate it properly.
7. Travel needs to be reinvented. Specialized carriers and services are needed for smaller groups and individual needs (not only for the wealthy). People want options that aren't overpriced, but are still specialized. Plus, we can’t keep bailing out companies like airlines who didn't have a continuity plan in place and made decisions based solely on shareholder value. No more bail outs for companies that took advantage of the consumer. After 9/11, airlines slowly, and methodically, took advantage of consumers and their staff to push for the unrealistic. To raise shareholder profits, they charged us for every dry sandwich, inch, and bag. Bring back the days when air travel was worth it!! Many of us would pay for it too.
8. Secondary care for retiring populations and the elderly needs to be disrupted. Care for our aging population is insanely expensive. We need a middle ground. I'd like to see pods and communities of health and wellness flourish with places that are affordable and exicting for those that made it that far in life... but this will never happen if we don’t address #9.
9. In challenging times, people are extremely susceptible to fear and propaganda. None of the above will improve if we continue to fall for divisive rhetoric. We need to shake awake those susceptible to enemy narratives, conspiracy theories, and cult-like mentalities. We need to remind ourselves of the lessons we learned in grade school where we focused on compassion, community, health, and nature. Go back to our roots because we've moved too far away from them. We need to demand well researched, impartial news. We need to hold Wall Street accountable when the rules favor the hedge funds and the billionaires and not the retail investor. We must improve our educational systems, adhere to our constitution which explicitly states a separation of church and state, and remember the country of unity America was founded upon. Otherwise, we will continue to degrade our democracy and make life miserable, even for the wealthy. We have to get our priorities in order. 
10. We need to stop celebrating excessive consumption and excessive work. Almost a year has passed since we (in the Bay Area) have been able to go out to a nice dinner or see people outside of our immediate families or one to two friends. It's taught us a lot, but mainly it's taught us that the Sisyphean task of trying to be the perfect employee, the perfect teacher, the perfect partner, and the perfect parent with the perfectly clean house, is simply not achievable. And, frankly, if we do manage to get it right for a week or two, we're downright exhausted and not happy in the process. I think about this frequently. During Covid, my dad nearly died. I was forced to be a parent to him, a parent to two children at home, a teacher, and a full-time corporate executive. Sometimes, I would look at my closet of fancy handbags and miss the day I carried them around feeling oh so fancy. But most of the time I looked at them and wondered, "If I were gone tomorrow, who would I give these to? Who would even care?" Suddenly, when I asked that question and ran my hand over my DVF silk shirts and fancy handbags it seemed wasteful and actually kind of pathetic. It certainly didn't seem like a very good reason to be miserable working 14 hour days just to earn another Louis Vuitton.

So yeah... that's what I learned. What about you?