Teachers: Refuse to Return to Campus

[dweller]

Last edited Tue Jul 7, 2020, 05:36 PM - Edit history (2)

The legend of the self-sacrificial teacher is a fantasy that lets you pretend we were summoned by some higher calling to lives of poverty, endless toil, or martyrdom. It obscures how elected officials leverage teachers’ visceral concern for our students, because they know that teachers will spend the little time and money they have to cover much of the difference between what governments are willing to pay for and what students deserve. It glorifies teachers whose unpaid labor fills gaps in underfunded public services that should have been filled by other professionals, such as academic counselors, therapists, after-school program coordinators, coaches, or custodians. Like the fantasy written to sacrifice nurses and grocery store workers to COVID-19, it lets you off the hook for failing to protect and support the workers you depend on. And during this pandemic, it lets you pretend we signed up to die in service of you.
We didn’t.
Neither did our students.
Neither did you

https://tinyurl.com/TeachersStayHomeCovid

don't know if this has been posted before, a very good read imo

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[Alex4Martinez]

1. Here is a tiny URL to take readers right to the page. K and R

https://tinyurl.com/TeachersStayHomeCovid



Quote from article:

Politicians celebrating the reopening of businesses over the bodies of 120,000 dead Americans teach us that elected officials will carelessly let us die if it means they can resume their “fairy tales of eternal economic growth,” to borrow Greta Thunberg’s words.

[dweller]

2. thanks

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[yuiyoshida]

3. We know

Most Teachers will do the right thing. Frankly, fck school if you have a good possibity of dying. Even survivors end up with badly scared lungs and limited lung capacity.

[lark]

4. I know for many teachers not working is probably not an option.

So sad that working will put them in extreme danger that drumpf is driving for his own political gain with no thought at all to others' safety. He is fine if they die, as long as mothers can go back to work, the inhuman piece of shit.

[Music Man]

5. This country does a lot to shame teachers.

"Want higher wages? I guess you don't love your kids and are just doing it for the money. Want your pension to stay in tact? Why are you already thinking about retirement? I guess teachers just don't care."

I feel like teachers are being forced to play nice right now. Especially if you teach an elective subject, you're constantly trying to justify your job, let alone in these circumstances. Teachers always want to show that they can "make it work," regardless of whether the plans coming down from on high are bad ones.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. The school year should be cancelled nationally

All students should stay home for a year of math and reading. Being able to do 2 things well is better than 300 bits of this and that augmented by football and band practice.

Read 6 classics. And the Constitution. Tom Paine's Common Sense. Some Poetry. One Shakespeare play. US History to 1870. And three free online college courses of their choice.

Education would never be the same. But I suspect that's a bus that left 2 months ago.

[onetexan]

9. +1 K&R

[Amishman]

7. No, kids are the lowest risk class and they need their education

Kids, particularly young ones, don't learn as well virtually. What reasonable precautions CNA be made, should be made. we can't just stop education until this goes away. It will be be a year or two (if it ever goes away at all).

[niyad]

11. Kids may be at lower risk, but what about everyone else? Teachers? Admin? Support staff??

How much do you think that f'n asshole Education commissioner in FL for example, is willing to fund ALL the necessary precautions in the brick and mortar schools that he insists be open "at least five days per week"?

Our schools are underfunded in normal times, so where is the money going to come from?

[dweller]

8. the author refers to another article he wrote for another online site

https://thebolditalic.com/we-cannot-return-to-campus-this-fall-1ad91b8a65e0

he imagines the scenario of opening schools August 10 ...

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[BigmanPigman]

10. Teachers are not fools or guinea pigs...

"It is completely unrealistic to expect schools to open and to stay open without interruption in 2020-21. What is realistic is that schools may open and may have to close if they cannot function due teacher, admin, and staff shortages from their contracting COVID, or if the threat of such contracting is deemed imminent and schools are shuttered proactively, or even if too many adults are exposed to a person with COVID and therefore must quarantine for a couple of weeks per instance. Think about that. It is possible that a student in my room contracts COVID. One student. Let’s say that student has been in contact with at least one classroom of 10 students (small, I know, but stay with me) and rides a bus with 20 other students (and with a bus driver) and has class with six teachers per day. So, right there, we have at least 37 individuals needing to be quarantined– six of whom are responsible for instruction."

Furthermore, if a teacher contracts COVID, then all of that teacher’s students (and likely some colleagues) must be quarantined in order to curtail a super-spreader situation. Add to all of that the possibility for a teacher or student returning from quarantine to be exposed yet again and to have to head right back into quarantine."

We haven’t even touched on what happens if the entire admin and office staff of a school are exposed and the heart of school operations must be quarantined."

https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2020/06/25/parents-need-to-go-to-work-does-not-stop-covid-at-the-school-door/

[dweller]

12. thank you all for the recs !!

never had so many recs, but i knew this info/article needed your attention

look what happened today as fatnixon denies all common sense and demands
schools reopen ...

a general strike to bolster a teacher's strike is looming ...

stay tuned

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