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No Way to Grow Up

nytimes.com

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Re: No Way to Grow Up

#81

Post by benjaminwootton »

The audacity. The NYT have been constantly supportive of more restrictions and barely asked a single journalistic question with regards to if they actually work and the impacts of them. “No Way To Grow Up”? You don’t say!

Here’s a thought with less hot air than the NYT: If Covid doesn’t impact kids and the vaccine barely moves the needle on transmission, how about let them go to school, remove the masks, stop jabbing them etc and let them live a normal life. It’s disgusting what we have done to them and the US seems to be one of the worst offenders.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#82

Post by barry-cotter »

throwawayboise wrote: post #4

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.

> The effects of this are going to be with us for decades.

Unlikely. The evidence from kids who get sick enough to miss a lot of school is that at worst it takes three years for them to be indistinguishable from those with uninterrupted school attendance. Even unstructured homeschoolers, who have little to no explicit instruction of any kind, are only on average a grade level behind average children[1]. The last historically comparable school closures, for the 1918 flu pandemic, had no detectable long run effects[2].

[1] The Impact of Schooling on Academic Achievement: Evidence From Homeschooled and Traditionally Schooled Students

http://zoleerjemeer.nl/files/1313/9109/4391/The_Impact_of_Sc...

[2]School Closures During the 1918 Flu Pandemic https://www.nber.org/papers/w28246

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#83

Post by ajmurmann »

superfrank wrote: post #18

I'm not sure I like this article. They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. For example the article says > Some researchers are skeptical that school closures reduce Covid cases in most instances. But when you go to the study they link, it says > Although school closures reduce the number of contacts children have, and may decrease transmission, a study of 12 million adults in the UK found no diffe…

"For the past two years, large parts of American society have decided harming children was an unavoidable side effect of Covid-19."

This sentence also implied that there had been consensus about what the trade-off is which I don't think everyone would agree with. I definitely know some parents who are afraid if their children returning to badly ventilated classrooms

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#84

Post by animal_spirits »

Alex3917 wrote: post #43
animal_spirits wrote: post #5

> 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…

> The children are the future, and in order to secure a positive growth in society it is our obligation to give them their very important education. Great, so just set up a fund to compensate teachers and daycare workers who get long covid in order to pay their salary and medical expenses for the rest of their lives if they're unable to work.

Our taxation system is already set up for these kinds of transactions, and we definitely should be putting more money into teacher salaries and education.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#85

Post by AlwaysRock »

superfrank wrote: post #18

I'm not sure I like this article. They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. For example the article says > Some researchers are skeptical that school closures reduce Covid cases in most instances. But when you go to the study they link, it says > Although school closures reduce the number of contacts children have, and may decrease transmission, a study of 12 million adults in the UK found no diffe…

Welcome to link "citations". Journalists use links as a way to back up their statements because almost no one will click on a the link and even less will actually read it. Link "citations" are used a lot.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#86

Post by ctyc »

sanedigital wrote: post #58
librarianscott wrote: post #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 bette…

You have your groups backwards. Those of us who homeschool (or whose children attend small, alternative private schools) understand fully that it takes a village. That's why we went to great pains to keep that village active, pandemic or no pandemic. Our specific community has accepted the additional risk to us adults in order to keep some level of normalcy for our children. This article is about the other kids. The…

So Perfectly said. We are in the exact same situation with our children. I would happily accept a nasty bout of COVID (and did so last week in fact!) in exchange for letting my children experience a proper childhood, complete with friends, education and experiences.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#87

Post by wizzwizz4 »

wayoutthere wrote: post #35
superfrank wrote: post #18

I'm not sure I like this article. They seems to overstate what the sources they link to claim. For example the article says > Some researchers are skeptical that school closures reduce Covid cases in most instances. But when you go to the study they link, it says > Although school closures reduce the number of contacts children have, and may decrease transmission, a study of 12 million adults in the UK found no diffe…

This is an attempt at manufacturing consensus by making it seem like these arguments are coming “from the adults in the room” because it’s in the NYTimes. They’re so good at gaslighting their readers (and I say this coming from the left of the NYT, not the right). You’ll start to see liberal politicians using these same talking points in the coming weeks, guaranteed.

> (and I say this coming from the left of the NYT, not the right)

If politics is one-dimensional, that suggests that there is only one (main) political issue. History suggests that there's more to politics than one main issue, so what were you trying to convey by saying this?

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#88

Post by Jtsummers »

amelius wrote: post #66
Jtsummers wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they have neither power nor authority. First, kids don't have a vote so they really have no direct influence in a democratic/representative republic system. Second, they have no money, so they have limited ability to exert financial/economic pressure. What are they supposed to bargain with? They are (as a population, individuals may be exceptions to this) fundamentally dependent upon the adult population for…

The main problem I see is that kids are not (yet) organized. There is a pandemic going on. Kids can "vote" with their behavior.

> There is a pandemic going on. Kids can "vote" with their behavior.

So, is your suggestion the kids should get organized to deliberately spread or threaten to spread COVID in order to control adult behavior?

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#89

Post by [deleted] »

titanomachy wrote: post #56
VeninVidiaVicii wrote: post #6

The last half century or so was not as calm as all these rose-colored articles would have you believe -- at least on a global scale. Even still, we need to realign our expectations to a world that's going to be much more turbulent than we'd like.

This article is about the impact on kids of partially shutting down schools for two years due to covid. What part of the article is your comment responding to?

[deleted]

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#90

Post by giraffe_lady »

xwdv wrote: post #39
monkeybutton wrote: post #14

So, is Covid the shock that leads to the education system being reinvented for the better or do school boards just keep bumbling along like before? Do zero-tolerance policies really work? Why are students falling behind in mathematics compared to the rest of the world? Does overloading of take home work produce better test scores, or does it just consume free time and stress out kids? Are teachers ever going to be pa…

It is obvious what will happen. The education system will crumble, inequality will grow, and to make up for having a poorly educated work force we will adopt more automation or AI-assisted tasks with very structured workflows to reduce cognitive requirements. Only elites will be able to afford giving their children strong educations and social experiences, presumably with other elite children. This will allow some ch…

I was with you until you got to the... breeding... thing.
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