A brief rant, posted for posterity

[sabotabby]

Teachers in Ontario really need to get it out in the news that we have been teaching, and students have been learning, this whole time. I’m seeing ostensibly “progressive” groups like People For Education pushing this narrative that if we don’t get kids back in school ASAP (sitting in desks in rows with masks strapped to their faces and in mortal danger, which as we know is the best way to learn) that they will somehow “lose their year.”

Meanwhile our instructional minutes have increased and besides, didn’t Lecce say that online learning was so awesome it needs to be mandatory?

I'm used to being loathed and gaslit by the right, but I'll never get used to being thrown under the bus by the left. I had to request that folks on FB filter me out of their pro-school-reopening posts because it's causing me anxiety attacks on a daily basis to know just how many people are happy to risk my life.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I hear you. I wish I could say more that wasn't expletives.

[sabotabby]

Oh it's been all swearing from me all day.

[lapinlunaire]

But like... even if they lost their year, wouldn't it be better than losing friends/families/teachers? That's got to be way worse.

I'm sure that if the idea of kids maybe losing a year or two because of the pandemic became normalised, it wouldn't really matter in terms of their future because any universities and employers would take this into account. Heck, I think a lot of people my age will have a hard enough time because most places aren't hiring so we're losing employment time, which is way worse but I still prefer having a living family.

[sabotabby]

Right? Universities can't even really get foreign students right now, so it's not like there's such a massive influx of kids from Vietnam or Rwanda or New Zealand to compete with the Canadian students who are all in the same boat.

I'm starting to think that people just don't like their families much and want them to die.

[dewline]

I'm thinking of displaced resentment of the teachers from our own respective childhoods.

It's part of what got Mike Harris two terms as Ontario premier, right?

[sabotabby]

That definitely plays a role!

[frenzy]

We've all lost a year. Yes, it sucks for students, youth, developing. Yes, online learning probably isnt as good as face-to-face. WE'VE ALL LOST A YEAR. WE'RE ALL STRUGGLING. THE KIDS ARE NO EXCEPTION. god. We're so close to geting folks vaccinated. Just wait for the next school year in september. it'll probably be possible in sept. Or close to possible, anyway.

[sabotabby]

Right??? That's what I keep saying. It sucks but almost every other person on the planet has had to put their lives on hold for a year.

[dewline]

Including our financial collapses.

Well...some of us, anyway. Others had them accelerated unfairly.

[dragonlady7]

Even as someone who doesn't have a kid it's weird AF to me to see all these people like "ah kids are missing this year!" because like.
I taught my BFF's 7-year-old to read and caught him up with his grade level. He wasn't getting the individual attention he needed at school, and being home let him focus enough to really buckle down and catch up.
I taught his 5-yo sister at the same time.
Both of them are suffering severely without the socialization they so badly need, but now that they're both reading, their academics are fine.

my sister's kid is thriving with remote instruction, and has gotten extremely good at multitasking, because remote instruction means that her natural inclination to wiggle while she learns doesn't distract her classmates and she's much more free to move than in a classroom setting. She's doing fantastically well; she was already ahead and now she's miles ahead of her benchmarks. Meanwhile her BFF who is co-isolating and is doing the remote sessions alongside her gets to be like a herding dog and focus her anxiety on my niece, and the two of them are dragging one another along to very good outcomes.

My other sister's kids are a mixed bag, but the oldest boy, who has always struggled with falling in with bad crowds and clowning around, is also absolutely blossoming with remote instruction. There's no one to egg him on to bad behavior. His mother has invested in tutoring for the subjects he still has trouble with, but other subjects he's really doing well in on his own because he's free to follow his interest. He's also free to spend a lot more time doing things like learning to weld and do metalworking, because he's home anyway and his parents are around so they'll let him fire up the dangerous equipment and practice.

The kids who are in trouble academically are, sure, the kids who don't have good home supports. Sending them back to school will endanger them and their families, who also don't have good health supports. Those are the parents who don't have paid sick leave and can't work remote. Those are also the parents, surveys in the US have found, who DON'T want their kids going back, because they know it's not safe! They never had that much faith in the system anyway and would rather their children be safe than shepherded.

The ones pushing for kids to go back are the rich ones who don't want to do childcare, and they're latching onto this "the kids are getting left behind" narrative to make themselves feel better.

[sabotabby]

Yup. Nearly everyone I see advocating for a return to in-person classes are middle-class white people, some of whom are able to work from home. They are perfectly content to risk my life so that their kid stops annoying them.

[dragonlady7]

Oop. There it is.

A Discord server buddy is a sixth-grade teacher in Florida and just survived COVID. She was horrified to discover that after her diagnosis they declined to isolate or quarantine any of the students in her classroom except the actively symptomatic one she'd clearly caught it from.
Her first day back was parent-teacher conferences and she was like what am I even supposed to say? hey i didn't die? keep your actively symptomatic sick children at home please? wtf.
(She spent ten days locked in her bedroom, since she shares a 1BR with her husband who wasn't sick. She was mostly just excited to get to sit in a chair again, at the end.)

[robin_iamar]

UGH. I'm sorry. I have colleagues who are *ecstatic* the schools are open and all I hear in their voices is "thank god, I can't stand my kids" and I just. I just can't. They HAVE to know they're risking teachers' lives by pushing for this. And that it also makes the situation look less bad than it actually is: like we're locked down but reopen the schools? WTAF?

[sabotabby]

I think I would probably hate my kids if I had them enough that I'd murder someone to not be around them all the time, but that's why I didn't have kids.

[franklanguage]

Cats are great that way; they'll love you at mealtimes, and stay the fuck away all the rest of the time.

For the record, I never had kids because I knew it was a bad deal. (I know I'm going to offend someone with my last remark, but I'm ready.)

[sabotabby]

Nah, my cats love me most of the time. Bed time, TV time, and lying on the ground time are all preferable to meal times.