Somehow grocery stores managed to stay open. So did tire repair centers, auto shops, home depots, uber drivers, pot shop employees, pharmacy employees... what makes teachers so damn special?
Adults sacrifice for children. Asking children, none of whom are at risk, to sacrifice for more than a year for a bunch of frightened adults... it is so disgustingly immoral I can't even.
If teachers were scared, they should have quit and let somebody else teach the kids. Covid isn't and never was some modern black plague. The median age of death was higher than the average life expectancy of a human.
Ridiculous. None of those jobs can be performed remotely.
> Adults sacrifice for children [...] If teachers were scared, they should have quit and let somebody else teach the kids.
So you recognise the need for teachers, but not their right to live? Laughable. Also, there is a teacher shortage in the US. It's not like there are people queuing up to become teachers, so your point is moot.
> The median age of death was higher than the average life expectancy of a human.
Disregarding the fact that comparing medians and averages makes no sense, what does this matter? Lung cancer disproportionally kills more old than young people, does that mean that youngsters should be allowed to work in an asbestos infested environment?
Regardless, the average age of teachers in the US is 42 years, and ~20% of them are 55 years or older [1]. COVID-19 deaths are 4% in the 40-49 age range, and 19% in the 50-64 age range [2]. On top of that, 60% of Americans have one or more comorbidities that increase COVID-19 risk [3], and long term COVID-19 is definitely a thing [4]. In comparison, if we were to accept that not going to school made children suicidal, which is quite a leap, still puts suicide rates hundreds of times below COVID-19 mortality rate.
So what exactly is your standing here? That we need healthier teachers? More reckless ones? That teachers should be trained to disregard their own safety in order to satisfy your demands? What exactly are the risks in children development that would justify all this, by the way?
> Your own data says teachers aren’t the largest risk group.
Of course they aren't, because the largest risk group is likely retired already. What's your point here, then?
Frankly, it seems that you are arguing that playing Russian roulette is fine with up to three bullets, and that we should be only slightly careful when going over that. For the children, that's it.
What is your point? I said that children making sacrifices for adults is pretty craptastic. Especially given Covid isn’t some Super Ebola or something… it’s a respiratory virus in line with the 1956 pandemic flu. They had Woodstock in the middle of that…
> I said that children making sacrifices for adults is pretty craptastic.
Unless you can quantify such “sacrifices”, this point is also moot. There is a quantifiable risk of death among teachers, a risk objectively deadlier than kids not seeing their friends for a while.
> it’s a respiratory virus in line with the 1956 pandemic flu. They had Woodstock in the middle of that…
What are you even talking about?
COVID-19 killed 10 times more people, so far, in the US than the 1957-1958 flu. Also, Woodstock happened 10 years later.
Is your statistic adjusted for population and age group?
It doesn’t matter if i cannot quantify the impact of keeping kids out of school. You are the one arguing for dramatic changes to their short childhood. You need to prove that the sacrifice is worth the cost, including all the second and third order effects. I don’t have to prove anything, that’s not how this works.
Thus far, I see no evidence that says we ever should have closed schools and other stuff for kids. We absolutely fucked kids in our myopic obsession with one very specific illness. And one must be willfully blind to not see the damage we caused our kids. Not cool.
> It doesn’t matter if i cannot quantify the impact of keeping kids out of school.
COVID-19 had a quantifiable harmful impact among teachers, and society as a whole, and you are unable to produce any evidence of temporary online learning being “worse” than a million death and tens of millions suffering long term from the illness.
It seems to me then, that you are in the “my feelings don’t care about your facts” camp, so we are done here.
Although I’m genuinely curious about your interest in this. I myself am a parent, and some of my relatives happen to be teachers. Both my kids and my relatives are doing fine. I didn’t mind having my kids around at home for a while either, and they seem to have enjoyed it.
So are you a parent and you couldn’t take care of your kids? A kid bothered for not being able to see your friends for a while? You also seemed to profess an absolute disdain for teacher’s right to protect themselves. Do you truly believe that COVID-19 impact is overblown, even after almost one million people have died in the US so far? Maybe you care more about “the economy” than any of that?
I’m asking because I cannot see your angle in any other way that using some nebulous risk to children to obfuscate some unmentionable personal interest, and, frankly, that would be borderline sociopathic.
Thanks for agreeing that the teacher's union pursued an agenda contrary to the needs of our children.
It won't be shocking given this activity to undermine our children's health that parents will work to re-orient the teacher's union to a mission that is actually useful to society.
> Thanks for agreeing that the teacher's union pursued an agenda contrary to the needs of our children.
That’s the (far) reaching conclusion from the NYP, that not going to school made kids depressed.
The reality is that the only obvious consequence was that schools were closed during the pandemic for health reasons.
Now, children mental health treatment have been on the rise for the past 30 years or so. Teen suicide grew by 60% between 2007 and 2018. I doubt that you can blame that to the pandemic too.
> It won't be shocking given this activity to undermine our children's health that parents will work to re-orient the teacher's union to a mission that is actually useful to society.
Here’s the thing: teachers didn’t sign up to be expendable babysitters. They are supposed to teach, not to risk their lives or keep your kids under supervision. If you would like that, schools may be as well served by the National Guard.
They are “anti-parent” only if they are viewed as babysitters.
I think that this idea has been pushed by right wing media as part of their “open for business” rhetoric. They claim to be concerned about children wellbeing, when the actual goal is to get kids out of their homes and parents back to the offices.
Unfortunately, the CDC policies were captive to the teacher's unions, who are anti-child and anti-parent.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/01/teachers-union-collaborated-wi...