Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by Avicebron » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #480

core-questions wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for parents like myself that are really, really trying to make it work, it's a nonstarter. I have a 7 year old, and his computer is right next to mine where I am working remote, and I can supervise, except I'm in meetings often and it's hard to keep him on track. There's no peer pressure from other students to behave, the teacher has poor equipment and is barely intelligible sometimes, and there's every incentiv…

The alternative option is hybrid remote/on-site schooling, where the kids are on campus half-day, rotating groups a few days a week, on an alternating week schedule. That gets critical face-to-face time, albeit with social distancing, that is necessary (particularly for elementary) to support a workable remote learning plan on the other days. This is what my school district, for example, was planning on doing until t…

I have mixed feelings about how effective this approach could be, especially in younger populations that don't have the best grasp on what is happening and where the boundaries are in terms of playing together or interacting. I hate to say it but I think it's all or nothing, either no one goes in or everyone goes in. Even if a smaller portion of people get sick, they still have the option of spreading it..especially if they don't work remotely which many people can't.

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

#562

Post by RestlessMind » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #488

RestlessMind wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see - US government instituted reasonably prompt lockdowns. They mailed one-time stimulus checks to everyone, gave 600$ unemployment insurance boosts, ramped up hospital capacities, opened up other support measures for businesses and allowed 50 parallel experiments (at state level) to see what works and what doesn't. Was the response perfect? Certainly not. Did some other countries do better? I'm sure we could…

The US has handled the pandemic worse than any country in the world, except maybe Brazil. Otherwise, I can't think of a country that has handled it worse. Which countries are doing a worse job than the US in handling Coronavirus, in your opinion?

Apart from Brazil (which you mentioned), the US is doing a far better job than India and Bangladesh in terms of supporting the economy and social safety nets like one time stimulus payments, boosting unemployment benefits, aid to businesses etc. [Source: close families / friends living in those two countries].

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

#563

Post by fnovd » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

analbumcover wrote: post #503

vlunkr wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument really doesn't work for me because you have nothing to compare the system to. > Our civilization and systems are set up for failure. I mean, it's succeeded so far. There have been and will be growing pains, but so far the standard of living has increased over time. To declare failure is just speculation. > fragile global supply chain Fragile compared to what? > Every one of those require money and parti…

> I mean, it's succeeded so far. There have been and will be growing pains, but so far the standard of living has increased over time. To declare failure is just speculation. Industrialized society has been reducing the long-term carrying capacity of the earth for over a century. These effects, until recently, have been masked by intensification i.e. continually increasing consumption of resources for use as inputs o…

> Hunter-gatherer societies have routinely been found to be happier and involve significantly less work than industrialized societies.

Yes, grasshoppers are typically happier and less hardworking than ants. There's an old fable that comes to mind...

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

#564

Post by watwut » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #411

mikeg8 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - this never really occurred to me either. My girlfriend's mother is a preschool teacher who just had to go back to in-person sessions and she believes some of these kids will have trauma's from being young and terrified. One little girl is afraid to touch anything and constantly asks if objects have been cleaned/safe to touch? it's heartbreaking to her.

I really struggled with this with my toddler. In the end I decided to chill out and take whatever comes as a consequence rather than traumatise my child for life.

Typically kids are more resilient then that. The kid that ends up as scared had those tendencies before. If your toddler don't tend to be paranoid, you taking precautions and talking about them as normal thing to do won't harm him at all.

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

#565

Post by newacct583 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

usaar333 wrote: post #481

politelemon wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do they have the budget for counseling when students and teachers pass away? It pains me to admit that this didn't even occur to me as part of the topic of teachers being sent back. The human aspects of students-teacher relationships. I feel I've been desensitized to this after exposing myself to a constant stream of news, and now I'm thinking further about what other aspects lie behind other headlines. Thank you f…

It's a human aspect, but to be blunt, it's not a significant consideration as long as you aren't opening schools in an area with high community transfer (e.g. Houston today). IF you additionally filter out high risk-group teaches (known pre-existing health conditions, older than 65, etc.) excess death risk is quite low. (e.g. in the Bay Area, dying in a car crash remains far more likely (~10x) if you meet the criteri…

How does one isolate "high risk group" teachers, though? What's the plan for that? Is it a volunteer thing? Are you going to lay people off? How do you fill the void in the resulting empty positions? What about the family members of those not-high-risk teachers?

I'm not a zealot on this. Areas with low infection rates should definitely be looking at schools as an early candidate for reopening.

But I genuinely can't understand the outrageous partisanship on this subject that says we have to pick a fight with everyone, right now, on this subject. Why schools? Seriously? Why schools? Why now? What focus group told who this was the hill to die on?

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

#566

Post by morelisp » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

usaar333 wrote: post #481

politelemon wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do they have the budget for counseling when students and teachers pass away? It pains me to admit that this didn't even occur to me as part of the topic of teachers being sent back. The human aspects of students-teacher relationships. I feel I've been desensitized to this after exposing myself to a constant stream of news, and now I'm thinking further about what other aspects lie behind other headlines. Thank you f…

It's a human aspect, but to be blunt, it's not a significant consideration as long as you aren't opening schools in an area with high community transfer (e.g. Houston today). IF you additionally filter out high risk-group teaches (known pre-existing health conditions, older than 65, etc.) excess death risk is quite low. (e.g. in the Bay Area, dying in a car crash remains far more likely (~10x) if you meet the criteri…

> You shouldn't be having high risk-group teachers

Uh, why? What specifically about diabetes, high blood pressure, or the still largely random distribution of many types of cancer, prevents one from being a teacher?

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

#567

Post by jyounker » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #239

cheerlessbog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The sad part is that it isn't like there isn't a budget to pay teachers more. We spend more per kid than we ever have, but now any budget increases get absorbed by growth in the administration. Administration in education and healthcare is a cancer.

> We spend more per kid than we ever have.

While true in absolute dollars, it doesn't really seem to be true in inflation adjusted dollars.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZbUD16t4aaM6rCOmFogjxkVhRpJ...

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

#568

Post by watwut » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #333

MattGaiser wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even on the outside, it seems like pushing kids back into the classroom is poorly thought out. I can't imagine the shitshow it must seem like on the inside.

The problem is, remote education has been a complete disaster. I know a few teachers. Apparently their students found out that the state was unwilling to hold anyone back a year during the pandemic, they shared this information with each other, and now a substantial amount of them are not doing any work. In some classes, more than half the students are permanently absent! Either their parents don't know, or don't car…

Being hold back a year was not serious threat for the years already. Literally no one worried about that, except maybe few kids with actual learning issues.

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

#569

Post by usaar333 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

morelisp wrote: post #566

usaar333 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a human aspect, but to be blunt, it's not a significant consideration as long as you aren't opening schools in an area with high community transfer (e.g. Houston today). IF you additionally filter out high risk-group teaches (known pre-existing health conditions, older than 65, etc.) excess death risk is quite low. (e.g. in the Bay Area, dying in a car crash remains far more likely (~10x) if you meet the criteri…

> You shouldn't be having high risk-group teachers Uh, why? What specifically about diabetes, high blood pressure, or the still largely random distribution of many types of cancer, prevents one from being a teacher?

(In the context of in-person teaching during a pandemic, because of the risk to them. )

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

#570

Post by sfteus » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

mtgp1000 wrote: post #479

oramit wrote: post #358

What we currently have going on right now is a complete collapse in confidence. So many commenters are debating the death rate, case counts, hospitalizations, etc, which is all besides the point. Heres the thing: even if you believe people are being irrationally afraid, telling people they are stupid and should just suck it up isn't going to get people to cooperate. Do you want to be smugly right, or do you want thin…

>Telling people that only 1% of them will die so it's all okay is telling people you don't care about them - they notice, they're not dumb. No no no no no. It's high time we stop treating everything as black and white in this country. It's not just callously disregarding the dead - it's about determining whether the literal and figurative loss of life caused by a lockdown is worth the loss of life caused by the virus…

> if you compare per capital rates ours were actually on par with most other first world nations

Not true, we're squarely between several 2nd and 3rd world countries: https://www.statista.com/chart/21176/covid-19-infection-dens...

> until the recent protests (both left and right) began

Not true, current research does not link any outbreaks to protests (BLM protests at least), mostly due to the fact that protesters were wearing masks and were outside: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/07/01/research-d...

> Let's also not forget that a number of other countries like Sweden didn't lock down at all and are doing fine.

Not true, Sweden is sitting about 150 deaths / million higher than the US right now: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data?country=USA~SWE#...

> What percent of nurses and doctors in COVID wards have gotten sick? And what is their CFR?

Largely irrelevant, because nurses and doctors should be wearing PPE, are trained to work in infectious environments, work in buildings designed to prevent disease vectors, and places that are sanitized regularly. You should see significantly less cases in healthcare than you would elsewhere.

And just in general, the economic impact of letting the virus run rampant would be astronomical. Even outside of deaths, those with severe cases are ending up with likely permanent damage to their hearts, lungs, or kidneys, which will require increased medical costs and likely people who can no longer work.