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

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

#171

Post by enraged_camel »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #165
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.

> The federal government is worse than useless It's the government that the collective beliefs and cultural assumptions of this country have built. Maybe there's a cause-effect link in there, somewhere, you would think?

No, the federal government we have is the result of our outdated, quirky and flawed electoral system, where the votes of certain states are much more valuable than others.

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

#172

Post by cool_dude85 »

eaandkw wrote: post #150

I have pretty much given up on everybody at this point. I have already pulled my kid from school and will not send them back. I am in a single income family and I am now working from home. All actions and purchases at this point are to help us to become more independant from the system. Society and government at large has shown itself to be unreliable and undependable. I am also making longer term plans to move out o…

Not sure where you're from, but in many places, "society and government" has not failed people the same way it has in the US. Even within the US there are some places where local and state government have performed much better than places like Florida or NYC.

That is to say, the problem is not, conceptually, "society and government", but instead, the American society and American government we have today. Don't give up! Don't withdraw! Organize and fight to improve the systems that are exacerbating this crisis.

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

#173

Post by AnimalMuppet »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #102
collegecamp293 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are nurses and grocery workers working then? How are they less at risk than teachers?

They aren't, but they are necessary to sustain life unlike teachers.

Teachers are necessary to sustain civilization, at least in the medium to long term.

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

#174

Post by tgv »

tomohawk wrote: post #119

In Iceland, they did extensive testing, and genetic tracing of infections. Children infecting other children was extremely rare. In almost all cases, it was adults infecting them. There was only a single case of a child infecting an adult. https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/hunting-down-covi... Now that we have actual experience with the disease, hospitalization rates for children with covid is 5x lower than…

Iceland, of course, has only 360.000 inhabitants.

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

#175

Post by enraged_camel »

rpiguy wrote: post #163
gremlinsinc wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 800 healthcare workers have died since this began. https://khn.org/news/lost-on-the-frontline-health-care-worke... It takes time and effort to create new ventilators, masks, ppe's, etc... but it takes like 20-30 years to create a new doctor or nurse, they're in limited supply - the more we lose the harder this virus will be to defeat long-term. Likewise the hit to public schools if we lose janitorial, bussing, t…

This is ridiculous fear mongering. There are 5.1 million people working in hospitals. https://datausa.io/profile/naics/hospitals 800/5100000 = .00016 They are therefore three times less likely to die from Covid than the general population. Schools across Europe have opened. Children rarely spread the disease. Doctors recommend schools open. Twenty times as many children died of the flu last year than from COVID. Deat…

>> Schools across Europe have opened. Children rarely spread the disease. Doctors recommend schools open.

False on all three counts. Stop spreading misinformation and propaganda, thanks.

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

#176

Post by xnyan »

yonaguska wrote: post #156
leetrout wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no good economic argument made to become an elementary school teacher. AMEN. I would NEVER recommend ANYONE become a teacher based on my wife's experiences. You used to be able to write off expenses as "non-reimbursed employee expenses" but they cut that out so teachers get the token $200 writeoff. We spend almost 10x that annually supporting her in the classroom. It really is glorified day care in most pe…

My mother briefly taught middle schoolers as a side job to her cleaning business she was running. One year in, she decided the money and the admin politics and low-key racism was not worth the stress. She is black and was working in a very rural white area. She made a lot more money pushing a mop than teaching.

You can't say "you should clean for the future of these kids, not money" or similar with as much support from society for cleaning as easily as one can for teaching.

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

#177

Post by hosh »

For the teachers whose calling is teaching, I can see them moving to this part-time: https://outschool.com

My wife and I were concerned about our daughter getting isolated. We don't want her on social media, but we do think it is important for her to connect with her affinity group, and explore her passions. I found out about outschool recently, and it looked like exactly what we needed to address this.

The classes and activities on outschool don't conform to any national standard. Instead, teachers, both accredited and non-accredited, can teach subjects they are interested in teaching. In turn, technology is used to connect interested students together with the teacher.

There are some really unusual things that connects different disciplines together in a more wholistic way. Such as a class on world architecture using Mindcraft.

Teacher set their own pricing at a minimum of $10 for a course, and the platform takes 30%. Some are prerecorded and some are live. The intended audience if k-12.

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

#178

Post by dv_dt »

eaandkw wrote: post #150

I have pretty much given up on everybody at this point. I have already pulled my kid from school and will not send them back. I am in a single income family and I am now working from home. All actions and purchases at this point are to help us to become more independant from the system. Society and government at large has shown itself to be unreliable and undependable. I am also making longer term plans to move out o…

I am lucky enough that the local school district and university my kids go to are either outright online, or offering online options. But if that were not the case, I would be where you are, and I would also support teachers striking over the lack of fundamental workplace safety of in person teaching right now. From the rough impressions of my reading of research, indoor transmission in groups is the easiest way to pass an infection.

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

#179

Post by mrlala »

collegecamp293 wrote: post #70
3pt14159 wrote: post #3

This is exactly why all the people that said "choosing to protect life is also choosing to protect the economy" were right. It sucks, but people with savings can choose to quit over having to risk their lives. So if there is an appreciable risk (and associated hazard, which, for many of our older educators there is) then that is what is going to happen and you still get the disruptions to the economy.

Why are nurses and grocery workers working then? How are they less at risk than teachers?

Well I would say even a grocery worker is safer because

* They are generally working in a much larger space like a big store, so not confined into a small classroom * The small space teachers are in are filled with kids that are obviously the most unhygienic. Try as they will, it's way more risky than being filled with adults(ok lots of adults that are less responsible than a 5 year old, I know) who are wearing masks and attempting to keep distancing

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

#180

Post by Florin_Andrei »

enraged_camel wrote: post #171
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The federal government is worse than useless It's the government that the collective beliefs and cultural assumptions of this country have built. Maybe there's a cause-effect link in there, somewhere, you would think?

No, the federal government we have is the result of our outdated, quirky and flawed electoral system, where the votes of certain states are much more valuable than others.

I agree that's a major part of the problem.
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