Thread by @WillMcAvoyACN

I’ve been talking about this all morning, and I’ve got to move on to other things, but first I have an observation from today that I just cannot escape:

A lot of people seem to think the problem with remote learning is remote learning isn’t working for their kids.

But a lot of these people don’t seem to care if their child’s teacher(s) live or die, so I think that maybe the problem begins there.

I have talked (and heard from) plenty of parents and teachers on this subject. Most of them acknowledge that this isn’t ideal. Some bring up the mental health of our youth; which of course is something I am attuned to and aware of, but I’m not convinced reopening schools helps.

The things kids miss the most are playing with their friends, and that’s not going to be possible, at least not in the way it was before, even if schools are reopened. Being in a different building isn’t a cure for mental health issues in most cases.

It does seem like a good time to advocate for public schools to have far more mental health resources than they have now, which (again) teachers have been saying for years and years and years and yet there’s still no widespread advocacy from parents for.

It’s also important to note that the teachers I spoke to overwhelmingly said that the ‘hybrid’ model that so many people seem to advocate is the absolute worst model for classroom effectiveness. It forces teachers to divide their attention and basically teach everything twice.

And the hybrid model will have to be implemented until all parents feel comfortable sending their children to school, which isn’t going to happen anytime soon. These are conversations we should be having with teachers about what the next school year will be like.

The fact is that in order for schools to work there’s a bunch of people who need to be safe—including students. Reopening schools isn’t going to solve the problems of educating people during a pandemic. It may help some students with some problems; it’s also going to create some.

The idea that reopening schools is going to be a panacea is just absurd, and the people who are promoting reopening the schools as such don’t want teachers, they want babysitters.

Oh and some of them just hate teachers unions. Cant forget that.

Anyway, that’s it on this subject for me today, I think I’ve said (and RT’d) everything on the subject worth saying.

I’ve never had a lower tolerance for disingenuous arguments than I have right now.