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No Way to Grow Up

nytimes.com

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Re: No Way to Grow Up

#371

Post by op00to »

dv_dt wrote: post #216
datavirtue wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a dangerous level of cognitive dissonance around school closures that effects nearly everyone. I have to filter arguments by finding out if the people making them have or do not have kids in school. People with kids in school just want schools open. Teachers and administrators want schools open. ...and therefore politicians want schools open. There are a lot of vested interests that bias toward opening schoo…

I have kids in school. I don’t want them open during this kind of Covid surge. I also think the attribution of poor learning in the previous surges to remote learning, ignores a whole set of coincident factors and has more to do with wanting everyone to get back to work with kids in care.

“But our schools are safe!” say the administrators! “The virus doesn’t spread in schools! We’ll keep them masked!”

I’m planning my work schedule to get sick this week.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#372

Post by throwaway0a5e »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #85
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.

Not just journalists. There's a handful of people around here who are highly prolific at that behavior.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#373

Post by rdtwo »

p_j_w wrote: post #323
rdtwo wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it is. Schools are run poorly because they fail to acknowledge that they are child care and as such it needs to be consistent and reliable. If school closes for 6 months where is childcare plan b going to come from. How do you replace a skilled teacher that can handle 20-30 kids with one that does 2-3 and not cause huge pain for a family’s finances?

I'm only 40, but for my entire life school systems have been told that their number 1 job is education. Every time they're given performance metrics to hit, they're in regards to education. We as a society are telling our school system that they're an educational institution, not a child care one, and if the school system started to behave like a child care institution, we'd collectively be pissed off at them. Sorry,…

The performance metric always includes number of open days. That’s why they add days if you get too many snow days. Those extra days have no impact on education.

The goal is set with the legacy expectation that women will stay home and do childcare but that isn’t a reality for many folks. So schools have an equally important child care role. For many folks the problem of unreliable child care can be worse than no child care. If i knew there wasn’t going to be school for 3 months I can plan for that business can open that provider the service. If schools randomly open and close for 3 months nobody knows what to do and few new business will risk start up costs too fill the gap.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#374

Post by biscottigelato »

wayoutthere wrote: post #52
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 problem isn’t the kids getting sick, it’s the adults teaching them getting sick and dying. We’ve treated teachers like shit for so long that many are just saying “nope, not dying for a job” because they can go make more money doing literally anything else. We were scraping the bottom of the barrel even before Covid. If kids education were really a priority, the right time to invest was 20 years ago. The system ha…

"The problem isn’t the kids getting sick, it’s the adults teaching them getting sick and dying"

Isn't this exactly what the article is talking about? I think recognizing that we are doing this trade is a step in the right direction. Only then can we proceed to discuss how we should make that trade, instead of throwing kids whom have no say, and their future, right under the bus.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#375

Post by colinmhayes »

shmel wrote: post #233
yupper32 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah see this is why we can't have a real conversation about this. Every time I bring up this topic I'm bombarded with "ThEy'Re tAkInG YoUr FreEdOm!!" and "VaCcInEs DoN'T EvEn WorK" type people. I'm not part of that group.

I didn't say they don't work. They clearly work to significantly reduce deaths and hospitalizations. I totally agree on this. But they didn't stop the spread anywhere in the world. If you want to paint me with your stereotypes, go ahead.

They absolutely slowed the spread before Delta and Omicron hit the scene.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#376

Post by op00to »

chmod600 wrote: post #227

It seems like this is a case where science doesn't tell the whole story. The pro-science stance is very numbers-focused, but ignores hard-to-quantify things that really do matter. People see their kids suffering. Masks do have a cost. Millions of years of evolution say that facial expressions are really important, especially for adolescents. Fear has a cost. And quality of life matters. Everyone knows this. Even the…

Literally no one in my child’s class have problems wearing masks. They’re making friends, learning social skills, thriving, etc. I have seen kids grow socially over the past few months.

I don’t think you’re a science denier, I don’t see in real life what you seem to take as fact.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#377

Post by n8cpdx »

yupper32 wrote: post #357
pb7 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that maybe at some point, especially 6+ months after a highly effective vaccine has been available to everyone that wants it, that people are going to want to go back to living their lives? Get vaccinated, get boosted, take precautions if it makes you feel better, but the show will go on.

Who are we to make that decision? I'm not an immunologist or infectious disease expert, and I'm assuming you're not either.

It is ok to have critical thinking. Especially after the experts have shown time and again that they aren’t great at making sociopolitical choices. The experts were telling you not to wear masks in March and not to get booster shots in August and not to vaccinate children in September.

You live your life. You are the one to make your own choices. COVID is on its way to being flu 2.0 (the experts will tell you this if you ask the right questions). Compare it to the flu (especially if vaccinated) and ask yourself if not living your life for a minuscule risk is really worth it. Especially when most of the people actually at risk of death (the unvaccinated in the rich world) have been going out of their way to be at risk for many months.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#378

Post by biscottigelato »

cardamomo wrote: post #127
wayoutthere wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn’t the kids getting sick, it’s the adults teaching them getting sick and dying. We’ve treated teachers like shit for so long that many are just saying “nope, not dying for a job” because they can go make more money doing literally anything else. We were scraping the bottom of the barrel even before Covid. If kids education were really a priority, the right time to invest was 20 years ago. The system ha…

I couldn't agree with you more. Teachers and other school workers were not even mentioned in this article.

Not mentioned in the article - but definitely already being prioritized for 2 years based on most policy decisions.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#379

Post by op00to »

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…

- The kindergartners who haven't seen a teacher's face in 24 months

What is that even supposed to mean?

- The grade schoolers forced to eat outside in the cold.

This is not harmful, but is also not universal. I have not seen that personally. Hell, in Nordic countries people leave their infants outside in freezing temperatures to nap.

- The high schoolers who unofficially "dropped out" when their schools closed and will never return to receive their diploma.

No one cared about high school drop outs before. Why the sudden concern now?

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#380

Post by walshemj »

Really compare that to my dad and my uncles having to evacuated as the family house got hit by the Luftwaffe (lived near the biggest spitfire plant in the UK)

Oh and my Paternal Grandfather was a headmaster and had to evacuate his entire dam school.

I think a lot of right wing commentators and journalists have got to close to the hard right.

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