Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters is standing up for teachers as the U.S. grapples with how, and if, to send children back to school in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Teachers want to teach, not die,” the 51-year-old rocker said in his latest Dave’s True Stories, (listen below or check out the written version at The Atlantic). “We should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are.”
Grohl’s mother Virginia is a retired public school English teacher. Now 82, she told her famous son that, “for the time being,” remote learning is the way to go. Grohl calls it “an inconvenient and hopefully temporary solution.”
Grohl gushed about the value of educators. “It takes a certain kind of person to devote their life to this difficult and often-thankless job,” he opined, pointing out they are faced with unique challenges. “Today, those challenges could mean life or death for some.”
He accused U.S. president Donald Trump of pushing for schools to reopen “in the name of rosy optics” ahead of the November election but said it would be “foolish to do so at the expense of our children, teachers, and schools.”
The former Nirvana drummer added: “I wouldn’t trust the U.S. secretary of percussion to tell me how to play ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ if they had never sat behind a drum set, so why should any teacher trust Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to tell them how to teach, without her ever having sat at the head of a class?”
Acknowledging the challenges of keeping children at home, Grohl urged parents to make the right decision.
“Until you have spent countless days in a classroom devoting your time and energy to becoming that lifelong mentor to generations of otherwise disengaged students, you must listen to those who have,” he said.
“May we show these tireless altruists a little altruism in return. I would for my favourite teacher. Wouldn’t you?”
Listen to Grohl making his case below: