Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl champions teachers and slams Trump’s move to open schools
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl is taking a stand for teachers as the Trump administration pushes schools to reopen amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
“America’s teachers are caught in a trap set by indecisive and conflicting sectors of failed leadership that have never been in their position and can’t possibly relate to the unique challenges they face,” Grohl said Wednesday in a new audio edition of his series “Dave’s True Stories.”
In the clip, titled “In Defense of Our Teachers,” Grohl detailed his mother’s sacrifices as “an engaging educator” and advocated for the continuation of remote learning in order to protect “career teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers, nurses, janitors” and other school staff.
“I wouldn’t trust the U.S. Secretary of Percussion to tell me how to play ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ if they’d never sat behind a drum set,” he continued. “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. Maybe she should switch to the drums.”
Grohl acknowledged the “complications” and “logistical” problems that come with the “inconvenient, hopefully temporary solution” of educating kids from home, but argued that schools don’t have access to proper resources needed to keep students and faculty safe.
“Until you’ve 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.
“Teachers want to teach, not die. And we should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are. For without them, where would we be?”
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“In Defense of Our Teachers” is a continuation of an Instagram page and Medium blog launched by Grohl in March, featuring personal essays about his family, childhood and experiences with other famous musicians, from David Bowie to Prince.
“May we show these tireless altruists a little altruism in return,” he concluded his latest entry. “I would for my favorite teacher. Wouldn’t you?
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