I’ve been talking a lot lately, with my middle school math teacher daughter, about school reopening and the dangers to entire communities, not to say teachers and staff, of sending kids into classrooms in the middle of unrestrained community spread of COVID-19. She moved in with us when her school went to distance learning back in March, and finished the school year teaching from our dining room table. But her school has been rushing headlong into planning to place children into exactly the sort of distanced, masked and immobilized setting that none of them and none of us would recognize as a classroom. My daughter ordinarily lives almost 1,000 miles away and she must leave in a few days so that she can be available on site if classroom instruction resumes at the commencement of the school year.
She teaches at a private school in Texas, and the pressure on the Headmistress to plan for brick and mortar instruction has come from two directions: a proportion of parents who think they are being short changed in a distance teaching environment, and from some board members concerned that parents of younger students will elect to homeschool rather than pay tuition.
But she has taught in public schools, too, and understands the somewhat different influences there. However, whether a school is public or private, there are genuine and serious costs to students, of all the precautions meant to supposedly reduce risk of transmission of the coronavirus in classrooms. Consequently, it immediately engaged my attention when my daughter texted me a link to a blog post on Medium.com by a teacher and parent, explaining the reality of trying to open school buildings, saying, “This says everything I want to say.” The post? Parents: You’re Being Lied To.
Some thought provoking excerpts lie below the fold.
For parents who are struggling without in-person school, any solution that puts their kid in a classroom seems like a welcome reprieve. And because administrators want to please you, they’re dressing their in-person plans up in their Sunday best, marketing them as spectacularly as they can in emails and at board meetings. But here’s the unfortunate truth, the reality that superintendents aren’t bragging about on social media, and parents really need to hear it as soon as possible: you’re being lied to. This is a bait and switch.
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The author of the post explains the reality of Covid safeguards being proposed for classrooms, in a series of bullet points:
- There will be no socialization.
- Your kids are going to be unhappy.
- Your kids will likely be taught by someone who is unqualified.
- If your school doesn’t have air conditioning, your kids are going to cook.
- Your kid is still going to be staring at a screen all day.
- You’re about to have a teacher shortage.
- The teachers aren’t on board.
- This isn’t going to last.
The author elaborates on each of these bullet points with cogent and well informed explanations of classroom realities.
If you are a teacher, have close family who teach, or if you are a parent of school age children, this blog post has insights worthy of your consideration.
