Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

buzzfeednews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 954 posts

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#51

Post by coldcode »

engineer_22 wrote: post #11

It's too late to put the genie back in the bottle. Whether we like it or not we're going with the Sweden Model. I've got school age kids myself, and I understand the risk. This is going to be a situation that could become hard to manage but our society's economy is constructed in such a way that relies on daytime programming for children and teens outside of their home. The teachers are going to have to help bear the…

Are you willing to die for the economy? Ask your kids, are they OK with you dying so that money can be made, maybe collect on some life insurance money? Are you OK with your kids potentially dying (rare but not zero) just to keep them busy during the day? I bet not.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#52

Post by cheerlessbog »

koop123 wrote: post #17
hobs wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should take better measures to protect both incredibly valuable professions instead of making snarky comments that imply they should just go get sick and die because someone else decided making bad calls is good.

No, I think everyone should overreact and quit their jobs because covid-19 killed around 150,000 Americans in a country of 300,000,000 people. (Except I would actually totally understand nurses quitting.)

Many or most of whom are social distancing or at home rather then in a room full of kids from different households. Plus very disproportionate effect on older people, a group that includes many teachers. Plus the extended effects in some cases even if you survive. Then consider how little they get paid and that there’s potentially alternatives (delay or virtual)

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#53

Post by ceejayoz »

koop123 wrote: post #37
Kapura wrote: post #13

My mother is an elementary school teacher, and I don't want her to go back to school this year. The federal government is worse than useless, and the state government is feckless and unwilling to make the tough calls to protect people's lives. She's been a teacher for ~15 years and still makes less than $30k a year teaching. She loves helping the kids, but her life isn't worth it.

My parents are both nurses and they went to work and they were fine.

I've never died of cancer, therefore it doesn't exist.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#54

Post by Phillips126 »

doopy-loopy2 wrote: post #34
leetrout wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong statement: dumb kids are better than dead kids.

Deaths in children are essentially 0

I partly believe this is because thus far kids have been mostly shielded - in my experience anyway. Schools and businesses (daycare, etc) closed as the virus gained traction. Now we are opening back up and throwing the kids headfirst into an uncertain future. It is worrisome to say the least.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#55

Post by dragonwriter »

One should note that the safety risks are not one sided, as the American Academy of Pediatrics has pointed out in strongly urging planning centered around means to reopen in-person schooling, there are risks to health and lives at issue with not returning to school:

> the AAP strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school. [...] Lengthy time away from school and associated interruption of supportive services often results in social isolation, making it difficult for schools to identify and address important learning deficits as well as child and adolescent physical or sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal ideation. This, in turn, places children and adolescents at considerable risk of morbidity and, in some cases, mortality

https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-cov...

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#56

Post by war1025 »

I believe the old FDR phrase, "There's nothing to fear but fear itself," is becoming more and more accurate with our situation.

The risk from this virus goes down dramatically the younger you are. Kids are young. That's obvious. Their parents also tend to be young, at least young enough to not be in the high risk groups.

These groups are also accustomed to being sick or dealing with sick people.

If there were no vaccine in the pipeline, our only option would be herd immunity. If we were shooting for herd immunity, the groups exposed by going back to school would be exactly who we'd want to put at risk from a statistical standpoint.

So it's really a question of do we want to continue hiding out in hopes that they truly are able to fast track a vaccine, or do we want to just deal with a couple hard months and get our lives back?

Most of the alarmism at the beginning of all this was centered around it being a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic. It's not.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#57

Post by leetrout »

cheerlessbog wrote: post #31
Kapura wrote: post #13

My mother is an elementary school teacher, and I don't want her to go back to school this year. The federal government is worse than useless, and the state government is feckless and unwilling to make the tough calls to protect people's lives. She's been a teacher for ~15 years and still makes less than $30k a year teaching. She loves helping the kids, but her life isn't worth it.

Where does she work that pays $30k for an experienced teacher? Teacher pay sucks

My wife has worked in rural TN and NC and my mom was a speech language pathologist for 30+ years in KY.

Pretty much everywhere rural starts under $40k (or under $30k in some cases) and stays under $40k for 5-10 years of experience.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#59

Post by flatline »

leetrout wrote: post #18
_ea1k wrote: post #6

I feel like there is too much emphasis on these and not enough on the ones that earnestly want to go back to work. There should be a balance here, as we really do need a lot of students to have access to schools in the fall. Remote learning doesn't work for everyone and leaves a lot of people behind. The overall consequences of another lost semester may be far worse than the consequences of reopening.

Strong statement: dumb kids are better than dead kids.

I'd say that's a false dichotomy. Lots of kids won't have access to a safe environment during the day without school. There will be no visibility for those suffering abuse. Physical abuse will be worse with a kid at home with an abusive parent all day, under stress. There will be less access to food for many children. The virus holds the potential of devastating effects on school children and their families if kids go back. We don't have any good way of quantifying the trade-offs. With everything else, we've been running large-scale social experiments to see what works to keep rates at a level the hospitals can manage. I don't see why we shouldn't do the same with schools: let them re-open on a restricted basis, attempt to cater to those most in need, and see what happens.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#60

Post by devalgo »

doopy-loopy2 wrote: post #34
leetrout wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong statement: dumb kids are better than dead kids.

Deaths in children are essentially 0

It's not 0 and putting every kid in the country into a worst case scenario location for spread of the disease you are running an evil experiment.
Post reply on HN