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No Way to Grow Up

nytimes.com

21–30 of 714 posts

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#21
post #15

I am very thankful that my youngest graduated high school in 2020. The last couple of months were screwed up, but there wasn't much real education lost by then; most seniors pretty much check out after Spring Break anyway. I really feel for the kids who are younger. The effects of this are going to be with us for decades.

Quoted post unavailable.

what was your nephews mask made out of? that sounds very unusual

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#22
You can't have a years-long pandemic without consequences, good and bad. My state of Texas has had schools open almost all of this time--and we're not doing better than the other states. Where are all the folks in the United States who say that parents are the best teachers of their children, that home-schooling should rule the day, that the best care comes from families? That would imply that children would be better than ever, right? They will never believe that it takes a village.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#23

Are there any teachers who can really talk about solutions to the problems covid presents? Rather seriously, of what I can find anecdotally online (as I know no teachers IRL) that even trying to have in-person classes haven't really helped, because parents pull their kids out of class or a significant chunk misses school due to being out sick/quarantine and now the entire lesson plan is screwed up.

There's a lot of talk about this in parent's groups on FB. Basically, parents all want their kids in school as daycare. Schools have logistics problems due to students/teachers/support staff/bus drivers/etc. being sick. I think if some parents could enlist the police to drag sick teachers to school, they would do that.

In my area, schools are combining classes across grade levels because teachers are sick but parents are demanding that schools be open. This accomplishes the daycare aspect of school, but to pretend it's about enhancing learning is fanciful.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#24

> For the past two years, Americans have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults. At first we didn't know how much harm the virus would cause to children. But now that we see it is much less dangerous for them we shouldn't be preventing them from learning because we are afraid of getting sick. The children are the future, and in order to secure a positive growth in society it is our obligat…

Counterpoint: at first it was extremely obvious that this virus was affecting you harder the older you are, with 60+ populations starting to be at risk. Nobody thought it was harming children.

The reasoning here is flawed: we had early positive evidence that COVID-19 was particularly dangerous for the elderly and those with a variety of medical preconditions. We didn't have positive or negative evidence that children weren't an at-risk group (for any number of reasons: lack of case evidence, the fact that children can't be modeled medically as adults, etc.).

Instead, we applied the lessons of the common flu[1]: children do get more sick from the common flu than young and middle-aged adults and so, in light of a novel severe respiratory disease, it doesn't make sense to take chances.

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/keyfacts.htm

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#25

> For the past two years, Americans have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults. At first we didn't know how much harm the virus would cause to children. But now that we see it is much less dangerous for them we shouldn't be preventing them from learning because we are afraid of getting sick. The children are the future, and in order to secure a positive growth in society it is our obligat…

Counterpoint: at first it was extremely obvious that this virus was affecting you harder the older you are, with 60+ populations starting to be at risk. Nobody thought it was harming children.

Counterpoint: It was extremely obvious that this virus was hitting old folks hard because nursing homes were concentrating them in recirculated air. It wasn't completely obvious that the same thing wouldn't happen in schools.

It should be obvious by now, however.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#26

> For the past two years, Americans have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults. At first we didn't know how much harm the virus would cause to children. But now that we see it is much less dangerous for them we shouldn't be preventing them from learning because we are afraid of getting sick. The children are the future, and in order to secure a positive growth in society it is our obligat…

Human nature. Harm through inaction is more palatable than risky action.

[deleted]

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#27

I am very thankful that my youngest graduated high school in 2020. The last couple of months were screwed up, but there wasn't much real education lost by then; most seniors pretty much check out after Spring Break anyway. I really feel for the kids who are younger. The effects of this are going to be with us for decades.

Did your kid go on to college? My two kids did and it's a pretty lousy experience. Classes are mostly online still, cafeterias are take out only, socialization opportunities are mostly gone.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#29

You can't have a years-long pandemic without consequences, good and bad. My state of Texas has had schools open almost all of this time--and we're not doing better than the other states. Where are all the folks in the United States who say that parents are the best teachers of their children, that home-schooling should rule the day, that the best care comes from families? That would imply that children would be bette…

Pandemic homeschooling is definitely not homeschooling at its best.

Homeschooling by choice has a great academic record with students doing well on standardized exams and in college. Kids who were sent home for “virtual school” on the other hand have a lot of learning loss on average.

Especially when parents still had to work and just put their kid in front of a TV, that’s not home schooling.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#30

> For the past two years, Americans have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults. At first we didn't know how much harm the virus would cause to children. But now that we see it is much less dangerous for them we shouldn't be preventing them from learning because we are afraid of getting sick. The children are the future, and in order to secure a positive growth in society it is our obligat…

Counterpoint: at first it was extremely obvious that this virus was affecting you harder the older you are, with 60+ populations starting to be at risk. Nobody thought it was harming children.

From the very start children were considered essentially immune to COVID. I remember in 2020, well into the pandemic, that there was huge news coverage the first time a kid ended up hospitalized.
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