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Teachers aren’t in an ideal position to say stuff in public. I no longer teach but I did so for seventeen years, so let me make a few observations that *may* but also *may not* reflect the thoughts of teachers right now regarding going back to school in a pandemic:
1) No
1) No
2) Elementary teachers have classes of 15-35 kids, maybe more if they teach electives and the kids come and go. That’s 15-35 adorable potential infection vectors
3) High school teachers have 5 classes of 25-35 kids a day, so that’s 125-175 kids in your box of a classroom per day
3) High school teachers have 5 classes of 25-35 kids a day, so that’s 125-175 kids in your box of a classroom per day
4) My experience is high school so I’m speaking from that. 35 kids per class HAPPENS. Because Arizona. And there’s 3 feet of space between them if you’re lucky, but more likely 2. So. Even if they’re wearing masks, droplets are gonna escape those masks and linger all day. Eek.
5) Keep this in mind if your school was built after 1994: It was most likely designed with fewer exits/entrances, so *everyone* has to file through those—not just your students, but everyone. Why were they designed like that, to look and function more like a prison? Because...
6) ...that was how the US decided to “solve” school shootings. Make it more difficult for a shooter to enter a school by reducing ten entrances (or whatever) to three. The result is architecture that...well, we’ve all heard how well prisons are doing with the pandemic, right?
7) Anyway—anyone who’s been following the science on airborne transmission knows that indoor crowding is not a good idea regardless of how old the school is. But teachers can do...what, exactly? Their options are limited if they’re told to return. Quit and lose health insurance?
8) Early retirement or outright retirement is an option for some, but not for most. If the district says they have to go back and can’t teach remotely, they have a big decision to make. Districts will do what the state says and if the state is governed by an anti-science dude...
9) ...then they are basically going to throw teachers and students into a plague box for the sake of the economy. Cause parents gotta work!
No easy solutions here and plenty of chances to make a bad situation worse. I hope y’all will stay safe, whatever happens.
No easy solutions here and plenty of chances to make a bad situation worse. I hope y’all will stay safe, whatever happens.
The problem in short:
Teachy McTeacher’s district says TEACH IN PERSON, OR BUH-BYE.
Teachy now must choose: Return to school and face probability of getting COVID before semester ends with CRAP INSURANCE, OMG, or have no job and no insurance.
(Happening in other jobs too)
Teachy McTeacher’s district says TEACH IN PERSON, OR BUH-BYE.
Teachy now must choose: Return to school and face probability of getting COVID before semester ends with CRAP INSURANCE, OMG, or have no job and no insurance.
(Happening in other jobs too)
