It is the end of Summer, a time when lots of kids dread going back to school.
This year, however, after spending the past five months cooped up at home with Mom and Dad, children are begging to attend class in a real bricks-and-mortar school. And virtually all parents wish they could. “Can we just get back to normal?” is everyone’s silent prayer.
Evidently God (or the Devil) doesn’t want it that way just yet: Mr. Covid is not done with us.
This “re-opening” school thing is a very difficult dilemma, a societal Sophie’s Choice. On the one hand, parents have got to get their children educated (and, let’s be honest, out of our hair so that they can go to work and make some money!). On the other hand, the pandemic is still out of control and those children represent a “silent spreader” threat to teachers, parents, and relatives.
I hooked up with Charlie and took on her four young boys, ages 2 to 8, when I was 25 years old. Other than a case of mononucleosis (“the kissing disease”!) in college, I had been healthy as a horse since my teen years. I might have gone through high school without missing a day…honest to God.
However, as soon as I became a Daddy to those four school-aged boys, I would catch a cold at least once per year. I’m sure they brought it home from school like they did the measles, chicken pox, and head lice. They couldn’t help it; they were kids. Children don’t have common sense, they don’t cover their noses when they sneeze, they share food, and won’t wash their hands unless forced to do so.
Pre-teens and teenagers hold hands, cuddle, kiss, share joints and vapes, and do just about whatever their parents tell them not to do when no one’s watching. Social distancing, wearing masks, washing hands…not going to happen.
And college kids, “our Nation’s future”, aren’t a lot better.
As soon as these know-it-alls hit the university campus, the party begins. For many of these young adults, it is the first time they have ever lived outside of the family home, their parents can’t see what they’re doing, and pretty much anything goes. A good part of the college experience is social, including group studying, socializing at local bars, restaurants, and clubs, and attending football tailgate parties and fraternity keggers. And then, there are the collegiate sports events with tens of thousands of cheering fans tightly-packed into arenas and stadiums.
Of course, they don’t behave much differently than a lot of “adult” Americans who like to blow off steam in any which way they can, like the hundreds of thousands of bikers who showed up at Sturgis, South Dakota last week to drink, dance on bar tops, and share bodily fluids. They have “the right to do this”, they say.
It is what it is.
For all of these reasons, public health officials and educators are rightly apprehensive about schools at all levels re-opening in the midst of a pandemic where infection rates are still high.
Each day students will enter classrooms having done who-knows-what in the past 24 hours. They could have been infected with Covid-19 and be asymptomatic, intermingling with others and potentially contaminating desks, door handles, papers, pencils, drinking fountains, playground equipment and so forth, spreading coronavirus in their wake.
If you’ve ever been to a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant, you know what I’m talking about.
Sure, K-12 students are less likely than older folk to become very sick from Covid-19, but those who have pre-existing conditions are vulnerable. No one is guaranteed a free pass from this coronavirus; youngsters, teens, and college-age adults alike have died from Covid-19.
Students infected at school then return to their homes and threaten the health of friends, parents, siblings, neighbors, and loved ones.
Many parents are hesitant to allow their K-12 children to return to school even though it places significant hardship on the family unit. Maybe a parent must stay home to babysit and home-school the kids, foregoing his/her job and income. The children will have to “remote learn” if that is possible in their home, and not all families have access to a digital device and Internet hook-up.
More importantly, there may be someone in that household that is particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 and the risk of sending children out into a potential coronavirus hazard zone and then having them re-enter their dwelling, potentially bringing the virus with them, is too risky. Those kids are not going to school.
Many teachers and teachers’ unions are very upset about the hard choice presented to them in the Fall 2020. They have to weigh the risk of Covid-19 infection of themselves and their loved ones against the passion that they have for teaching, which by nature requires human interaction.
Many employees at schools are older folk. That includes administrators, teachers, cafeteria staff, janitors, and bus drivers. Many are “at risk” because of age, physical condition, or have pre-existing health issues. Being in close proximity to potential “silent spreaders” in dangerous to them. Employees who have been exposed return home each day, potentially infecting their spouses, children, and perhaps elderly relatives that live with them.
Politically-charged partisans are now throwing shade on the teaching community, as if our teachers are trying to undermine the Nation, the economy, and the President. More importantly, these partisans are implying that teachers do not want to do their jobs.
That is unfair, to treat these fine people as villains.
Most people who teach have a passion for their profession. They do not do it for the money but, rather, because of the sense of satisfaction and fulfillment it gives them. As much as artists, mathematicians, and career criminals are what they are, teachers are wired to educate. They cannot help it and thank goodness for that.
I did some teaching back in the day and it was very satisfying. I was a swimming instructor for several of my college years, teaching little tykes all the way up to senior citizens how to negotiate pools, lakes and oceans. I also taught Water Safety Instruction, which is the program that schools and licenses lifeguards. Sure, I got paid to do it, but there was a very real award in observing the progression of skills in a student, knowing that you had a role in that. I was proud to know that my pupils were less likely to drown or perhaps might save someone else from doing so in the future.
Responding to political pressure to re-open, many schools throughout the Nation have done so in the past month. Despite all manner of efforts to safeguard students and teachers, a number of them have already had to shut down because of Covid-19 outbreaks. The most-publicized of these openings-then-closures have been prestigious universities where massive dorm parties and off-campus events brought together hundreds of mask-less students to do what fun-loving college kids do.
The bottom line in this dilemma we face is that biology trumps beliefs and attitudes.
It was hoped that the coronavirus would simply “go away” in the Spring (or Summer). We are now nearing the end of August and 1,000 people are dying each day from this plague. Mr. Covid is doing fine because we Americans have not unified to defeat him.
Our society thinks it is “exceptional” and smarter than others, but what we’ve actually shown the world is that we are dumber and more stubborn than most other societies. Fully one-quarter of the deaths due to Covid-19 have happened in the United States while we only account for 4 percent of the world’s population.
The death toll in U.S. is 175,000 as of today.
In a nutshell, we have not taken the biologic threat seriously, while most other nations have.
The only way that our Nation will move beyond the coronavirus will be an “all hands on deck” group effort. The longer that our leaders employ half-measures and our citizens cop stubborn attitudes, the longer and more severe the pandemic (and economic depression) will plague us here in America.
If we go to war for two weeks, perhaps undergoing a nationwide quarantine with mandatory participation, the coronavirus will be knocked down and we can re-open society and move forward. And…get our kids back into school!
Anything less will result in prolonged misery.