Would you send your bundle of joy into harm’s way? Of course not. The instinct of a parent is to protect your child at all costs even if that means sacrificing your own life in the process. So why on earth does our increasingly authoritarian government think it can open schools in the middle of a pandemic and assume that parents would rush off their children to school?
Simple, actually. Our department of basic education is obsessed with one thing only — completing the academic year at all costs and that means covering the curriculum (even if it means “trimming” it down somewhat) and administering the final examinations.
In the rush to reopen, our education department officials flounder badly in full view of a nervous public. Notice how the dates for reopening have been changed four times depending on which official you spoke to on which day of the week. This partly reflects the ineptitude of the department and partly their own uncertainties about when it would be safe to return.
One thing is clear: they really don’t care that much about the mental health of returning teachers or the emotional health of frightened pupils.
Unlikely that parents will rush their children back to school
Columnist
Would you send your bundle of joy into harm’s way? Of course not. The instinct of a parent is to protect your child at all costs even if that means sacrificing your own life in the process. So why on earth does our increasingly authoritarian government think it can open schools in the middle of a pandemic and assume that parents would rush off their children to school?
Simple, actually. Our department of basic education is obsessed with one thing only — completing the academic year at all costs and that means covering the curriculum (even if it means “trimming” it down somewhat) and administering the final examinations.
In the rush to reopen, our education department officials flounder badly in full view of a nervous public. Notice how the dates for reopening have been changed four times depending on which official you spoke to on which day of the week. This partly reflects the ineptitude of the department and partly their own uncertainties about when it would be safe to return.
One thing is clear: they really don’t care that much about the mental health of returning teachers or the emotional health of frightened pupils.
So here are 10 reasons why you should not send your child back to school — yet.
We do well to heed the experts, as in the NYT article cited above: “Closing schools is not enough on its own to stop an outbreak, but it can reduce the surge by about 40% to 60% and slow the epidemic’s course.”
My advice to you as parents is simple. Do not risk your child’s health with all these uncertainties in the air.
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