Meritorious Promotion...

 "Lance Corporal Kirby, what is the Max Effective Range of your M16?"

 - The Max Effective Range of my M16A2 service rifle is 550 meters at a Point Target and 800 meters at an Area Target, Sir.

Back in the bootbrush days, I could rattle off weaponry knowledge like it was nobody's business but mine. Indoctrinated in to the educational ways of Uncle Sam's Motorcyle Club - I was drinking the KoolAid and well versed on the knowledge necessary to impress the high brass. I knew the Max Effective Range of a number of really cool weapons of mass destruction. 

Since then, I've been able to avoid weekly haircuts and chilled out a bit. I shoot a shotgun now and again; have my deer rifle sighted in and even pull the trigger on a few pistols from time to time. I am familiar with their effectiveness and my capabilities. What I'm struggling with now is....

the Max Effective RANGE of my Teaching Ability.

Year 20 - yep, been doing this thing for 20 years already. It blows my mind. I still feel like the new guy in town but my name is listed on the front page of the seniority list and creeping closer and closer to the top with each retirement of those lucky bastards ahead of me. Yet, even with all this experience, nothing could have prepared me for Distance Learning. 

The gaps in education expose weakness. I serve on the frontlines in a community with poverty gaps that create inequalities in access to technology. Our district has made promises to provide devices and internet access to everyone and have fallen short of that promise. Yet the mandate remains unchanged.

The Good Marine in me just wants to follow orders and do what the High Brass says. In my heart I struggle with the morality of marking someone "absent" or counting school work against them knowing that if they were able to sit in my classroom, they'd be doing the work. It's the DISTANCE in Distance Learning that is the "Windage Compensation" that I can't adjust for. 

We're trying. We all are. We are reaching out to families. I'm wearing out my sneakers, marching from colleague to colleague to listen to their frustrations and vent mine. 

I'm regularly questioning the effectiveness of my delivery...just go away COVID and give me back my classroom!

I want to do a good job...I really do.