Only logged in members can reply and interact with the post.
Join SimilarWorlds for FREE ยป

How do you feel about coming back to work?

I wonder how fellow teachers who have already come back to work or about to feel about it.

Here students will come back to school on September 10th. It looks like in order to make smaller groups, secondary students will go one day to class and take online lessons the next day (not the best way to do it in my opinion, doing it in a weekly basis would have been better).

We do not anything yet about disinfection, ventilation (a very important yet often neglected point), how kids will move inside school, how recess will be, if all students (there are more than one thousand where I teach) will enter and leave school at the same time ๐Ÿคฏ, what will happen if a student or teacher is tested positive or has Covid symptoms. We do not either if students or teachers will be tested either. Or whether students, and from what age, will have to wear masks.

I am not scared. There is a risk, but living is taking risks. I am angry. Angry at the stupid policians who wasted the whole summer not thinking about it, and will take hurried decisions these days. Angry at how often they say 'there is no money to hire new teachers'. Angry at how little education matters.
Elessar ยท 26-30, M
Similar concerns are being raised also over here.

I would've personally kept schools physically closed for another 4-6 months, the time for vaccination campaigns to start at least for the most at risk sub-populations (assuming clinical trials keep giving positive results as they've been doing so far) and preventing another massive saturation of hospitals, new lockdowns, and pretty much a new reiteration of the same sh*t-storm happened in Spring.

Lessons can be streamed at the very least for high school and college students. For lower levels of education, the rooms normally dedicated to high-schoolers could be reassigned in order to have better distributed and distanced students; maybe even restricting physical participation only to families where both parents are workers, or where the parent/tutor is only one.

The lessons (laboratory for HS and college) that can't be held virtually, split in multiple days, with a small number of participants each session.

It doesn't really take a genius to come up with a better plan than what they're proposing. ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™‚๏ธ If the entire economy and healthcare goes to shit (again) because they have to re-open schools (/child parking) at all costs I'll be pissed to say the least.
Cierzo ยท M
@Elessar In my opinion online teaching (at least until university) is shortchanging for students, and re-opening schools has to be tried, but under certain conditions. Large crowds have to be avoided, and environment must be ventilated. Measures like the installation of HEPS filters or webcams (half of the class may be present, the other half would stream class from home) could have been a solution, but of course they mean money.

About the vaccines, I really doubt that in 4-6 months we will have reliable vaccines. 4-6 years looks like a more reasonable time lapse.
Elessar ยท 26-30, M
@Cierzo Online can be good at lower levels in my opinion if implemented well, but definitely not if improvised like this year. If I recall correctly in some countries (Australia?) it was already a thing long before this pandemic, and I haven't read the quality of service to be significantly lower. The could've also taken a chance to modernize the current education system that (for us in Italy at least) is 50-years behind. Recorded lessons (not live-streamed, but recorded - so that you can rewatch, pause, and skip parts of them) would be a pretty good practice even *after* the pandemic (think of those who go to school with 39ยฐC temperatures not to miss out on something), platforms like Moodle and alike, or something like a Discord/Slack thing to allow discussions/deepening of topics on a on-demand, case-by-case basis (and retain the discussion for later consultation), too. And yeah, all the measures you've suggested, first and foremost the re-circulation of air, and even bringing students more often out of those Petri dishes that are classrooms (I think I've read they do it min North Europe, when winter temperatures are even lower, paradoxically).

About the vaccine(s), for at least critical workers (healthcare, police, etc.) and high-risk populations (65 and older with two or more co-morbidities) it will come out long before than that, also keep in min keep in mind that in ordinary times clinical trials and mass production are performed sequentially and in this order, in this dire situation mass-production has already began in parallel, and if clinical trials go bad they'll have to throw away a few million doses (and invested euros/pounds/dollars) and start from scratch. Also, there are multiple candidates based on multiple technologies/platforms, for many of which the safety profile is known, it's effectiveness (neutralizing) and the risk of ADE is what they're studying at the moment (and for both of which, preliminary studies look promising), as far as I know.
JustNik ยท 51-55, F
I feel pretty good about my daughterโ€™s school, but itโ€™s quite small. I worry about bigger ones like yours. ๐Ÿ˜– Stay safe Cierzo! ๐Ÿค—
Cierzo ยท M
@JustNik I will try my best. I am not scared. Going to work is my duty, and a necessity to keep our society, or what remains of it, working. I feel neglected, feel that neither education nor our health really matter.
novembermoon ยท 51-55
I hope you keep yourself safe. Isnโ€™t it the job of leaders to look ahead and make plans? It sucks to have to wait for instructions and then these people hastily put together something that they have not thought through thoroughly.
It is not fair for both teachers and students.
Elessar ยท 26-30, M
@Cierzo p.s. Another fact, if we want to try to see more positively and not imply that the 70% of people are helpless political wh*res, is that a non quantifiable portion of the population doesn't feel represented. And end up not voting, voting for the perceived "less disastrous" choice, or rarely founding movements/parties that initially even start well but eventually rot and become part of the problem (you probably heard of our "M5S")
Cierzo ยท M
@Elessar I belong in that group. Those parties or movements act like vaccines. You vote one of them thinking it is different, until you are proven wrong, and you end up not voting again.
Elessar ยท 26-30, M
@Cierzo They give you neutralizing immunity from the intention to vote ๐Ÿ˜…
Mugin16 ยท 46-50, M
Why do you politicians to take decisions? Take matter in your own hands.

Ventilation is absolutely crucial. Open the windows after every lesson.
Cierzo ยท M
@Mugin16 There are things I cannot do anything about, like the number of students I will have in my classrooms.
Cierzo ยท M
@Mugin16 If I did not pay the high taxes I pay, I would get my own air purifier and bring it with me to every classroom, among other things.

 
Post Comment