Interesting article about teachers and Covid (degree, business, educators, class)
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Most public schools in the US are closed for the foreseeable future. Interesting article by syndicated columnist David brooks about how the teachers inventing facts, denying evidence and living in a fantasyland. Sound familiar?
My grandson is in face-to-face learning in his high school in Pearland, Tx and they started back in late August. Some parents chose the remote option, but not most.
Most public schools in the US are closed for the foreseeable future.
80% of Ohio schools have "in person" school at least one day of the week.
But I agree with the sentiment of the author - the very folks who are supposed to teach children science, math, data, critical thinking, and other skills...are using the opposite of that approach to justify NOT having "in person" schools. There is no "extra" danger to teachers or students - the chance of either dying from COVID is quite low, probably about the same as dying in the car on the way there.
HOWEVER the chance that a teacher gives it to gramma or something like that - well, it's a bit hard to calculate, but - now you're in a weird position where you'll have to explain why the risk of a Teacher giving it to gramma is reason enough to cancel schools...but not reason enough to stop tons of other businesses.
I've spoken with several math and science teachers during this pandemic, as well as administrators and policy makers. Most have one thing in common: A poor understanding of data and statistics, and, to a lesser degree, a great reliance on "all sides" of the story - where they're giving equal weight to the CDC information AND to the internet trolls. They don't have the tools to determine where reality is - so they treat them as equal. Apologies to all the competent STEM teachers out there - but you must know by now that many of your colleagues are in the wrong field.
I hope - moving forward - that future educators (today's children) learn from this that details matter, math matters, learning to read and write and understand matters, learning to use complete sentences matters.
Most public schools in the US are closed for the foreseeable future. Interesting article by syndicated columnist David brooks about how the teachers inventing facts, denying evidence and living in a fantasyland. Sound familiar?
In Western PA, the only school district that is closed for the foreseeable future is the Pittsburgh Public Schools. All other schools have been only been totally online for a couple weeks at a time since the beginning of the year. Many have been hybrid where students are typically in class two days a week and online two days a week.
Most public schools in the US are closed for the foreseeable future. Interesting article by syndicated columnist David brooks about how the teachers inventing facts, denying evidence and living in a fantasyland. Sound familiar?
What was interesting about his column in the New York Times were the comments, which overwhelmingly supported the teachers. They are the ones who know their schools, the staff members, and the students and how likely the guidelines will be followed. Many of the commentators invited Mr. Brooks to get out of his home office where he does his weekly PBS Newshour segment and go substitute in a public school, preferably one that is old, moldy, and has no ventilation.
Depends on your goals. If "wrong" means - a teacher gets sick or dies - statistically, it's simply unlikely, based on the average age of all teachers and the average age of the worst covid cases. Is it impossible? Of course not. We're not trying to stop the impossible. We're trying to play the odds - because no solution is fool proof.
Is it possible the same teacher gets sick while NOT in school? Of course. Is one way more common than the other? Who knows. Maybe the teacher NOT in school travels and mingles daily instead. Just with adults in stead of kids. It's very - very - hard to tease out the data for increased infections among teachers in or out of schools.
But it ain't that hard to determine if IN or OUT of school is damaging to children.
... statistically ... We're trying to play the odds ...
Which "we" are we talking about. Certainly not everyone.
I do not know one single human being whose name is "statistic".
As a practical matter, as a matter of math and science, human individuals live anecdotally one individual at a time.
Statistics come as a static abstraction way, way, way later looking, distortedly, into the past that individual humans manipulate to make best guesses about the future.
Useful, of course, but no guarantee of anything.
That's why we diversify risk with as many options as possible.
The statistical window for CoVid-19 right now looking backwards and forwards is too small for some people to comfortably make a reasonable, well-informed decision, in spite of self-styled experts based on a few months of uncertain data.
Again, it is somewhat comforting to have as many choices as possible, and I do have some sympathy for teachers who may be "forced", on pain of losing their job, to teach in classroom when there are other realistic viable options, at least for this entire school year.
I've read a few different articles lately about Covid transmission and schools because teachers in my state are not prioritized for vaccines. They are angry. After vaccinating healthcare workers and emergency workers, the state has prioritized based on age because older people are more likely to require hospitalization and to die. Yesterday vaccines were opened to those 65 and older.
When hard decisions must be made all we can do is look at the available science and data. Right now the research is showing teachers are not as high risk as the elderly. This is one of the articles I've read recently: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...-person-school
Another piece I read a few days ago showed that general community spread was 37% higher than spread in schools.
I sympathize with teachers. I was one in the past. I've long been a supporter of unions as most people belonged to a union where I grew up. Right now though I think teachers and their unions are not looking at the data and depending on sentimentality and their large union voices.
There is no perfect answer to prioritizing vaccines. All one can do is look at the data about spread, hospitalizations and death.
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