pandemic

After 11 Weeks of ‘Distance Learning,’ This Teacher Is Glad to Be Retiring

A Veteran High School English Teacher Describes the Limits of Online Classes

After 11 Weeks of ‘Distance Learning,’ This Teacher Is Glad to Be Retiring | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

“Have a good spring break!”

Who knew that those words would be the last I would ever say to my students in a classroom?

After that final class on Friday, March 13, my high school in Glendale, like other schools, would close and never reopen. We would finish out the Spring, 11 weeks of it, via distance learning.

That meant no graduation ceremonies for seniors. And for me—another type of senior, 55 work days shy of retiring from teaching—that meant no retirement parties, and no celebratory moments of saying final goodbyes to colleagues …

by Brian Crosby |

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A Letter From Beijing, Where There Is No Normal to Go Back to | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

A Letter From Beijing, Where There Is No Normal to Go Back to

During Months in Lockdown, a Family Grows Closer and Gets Better at Taking Disappointments in Stride 

Interview by Peter Hong |

In China, people have recently emerged after spending months in their homes. Ching-Ching Ni, editor-in-chief of the New York Times Chinese website, explained to Zócalo how being stuck at home …

COVID-19 Is Magnifying the ‘Politics of Division’ | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

COVID-19 Is Magnifying the ‘Politics of Division’

Zócalo’s 2019 Book Prize Winner Warns That Democracies Must Embrace the Politics of Hope and Unity 

by Omer Bartov |

The COVID-19 pandemic has come at a critical historical moment. For the last two decades or so—since the collapse of the Soviet Union and communist rule in Eastern Europe—we have …

Your Neighbors Can Help You Battle Adversity and Disaster | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Your Neighbors Can Help You Battle Adversity and Disaster

Zócalo’s First Book Prize Winner Reflects on the Power of the People Nearby to Ease Both Pandemics and Politics

by Peter Lovenheim |

My book, In the Neighborhood, published 10 years ago this spring, asked how Americans live as neighbors—and what we lose when the people next door are strangers.

These questions …

How Warren Harding’s Campaign for ‘Normalcy’ Led to Catastrophe | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

How Warren Harding’s Campaign for ‘Normalcy’ Led to Catastrophe

The 29th President’s Promise of Safety to a Nation Shaken by WWI and the 1918 Flu Led to Freewheeling Consumption and Giddy Speculation

by William Deverell |

What is normalcy? And what does it mean when we tell ourselves that we want to get back to it?

When American historians hear talk of “normalcy,” we think of Warren …

A Letter From Beirut, Where the Taxis Have Resumed Honking | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

A Letter From Beirut, Where the Taxis Have Resumed Honking

Amid Lebanon’s Economic Collapse, Fear of the Virus Briefly Amended the Social Contract

by Abby Sewell |

The eeriest thing about Beirut’s streets during the first weeks of the quarantine—the lull between two storms, before the protesters returned to the streets and started throwing Molotov cocktails at …


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