Coronavirus

[WaryWarren]

Jesus, 954 deaths in Poland today. That's the equivalent of 8,400 deaths in the US.

 

[OSUmetstud]

3 hours ago, TimB84 said:

On the flip side of that coin, a quick Google search turns up the fact that as of January there were 530 US teachers who died as a result of covid (that we know of, so the number is likely higher). And the fact is, given that teachers are usually able to retire before the age of 60, very few of them are in the vulnerable age group. So there’s a delicate balance between death and how much we’re willing to let students “fall behind” their peers in other states and countries that are mostly doing the same thing.

Pretty sure I've seen evidence that teachers are far more likely to get covid outside of schools than in the school...just like kids are catching more covid outside of school than in school. School doesn't have to be perfectly safe to be in favor of mostly open school given the obvious negative effects of long term school closures. 

[StormfanaticInd]

10 minutes ago, WaryWarren said:

Jesus, 954 deaths in Poland today. That's the equivalent of 8,400 deaths in the US.

 

Yeah their population is only 38 million

[TimB]

10 minutes ago, OSUmetstud said:

Pretty sure I've seen evidence that teachers are far more likely to get covid outside of schools than in the school...just like kids are catching more covid outside of school than in school. School doesn't have to be perfectly safe to be in favor of mostly open school given the obvious negative effects of long term school closures. 

It would not surprise me at all if that evidence is true, my comment was more devil’s advocate. However, I still think that calculation is a little different for elementary/middle vs. high school. If high schools are still conducted virtually until it is safer (i.e. through the end of the school year, I’m hoping most of the population will be vaccinated before school starts up again), it doesn’t prevent the parents from working outside of the home if their job requires them to do so because a 14 1/2 to 18 year old can be left at home to learn virtually. Maybe even 7th-8th graders, isn’t 12 the age when kids are allowed to be left at home by themselves? This time of the school year, most of the instruction being done in middle and high schools is preparing students for, and taking, standardized tests and state-mandated bull***t anyway. 

[Santa Clause]

15 minutes ago, OSUmetstud said:

Pretty sure I've seen evidence that teachers are far more likely to get covid outside of schools than in the school...just like kids are catching more covid outside of school than in school. School doesn't have to be perfectly safe to be in favor of mostly open school given the obvious negative effects of long term school closures. 

Schools should all be open, extracurriculars have been spreaders around here and have been cut down on, or have many rules to stop spreading from getting out of hand.

[schoeppeya]

38 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

It would not surprise me at all if that evidence is true, my comment was more devil’s advocate. However, I still think that calculation is a little different for elementary/middle vs. high school. If high schools are still conducted virtually until it is safer (i.e. through the end of the school year, I’m hoping most of the population will be vaccinated before school starts up again), it doesn’t prevent the parents from working outside of the home if their job requires them to do so because a 14 1/2 to 18 year old can be left at home to learn virtually. Maybe even 7th-8th graders, isn’t 12 the age when kids are allowed to be left at home by themselves? This time of the school year, most of the instruction being done in middle and high schools is preparing students for, and taking, standardized tests and state-mandated bull***t anyway. 

What is your justification for high school kids staying home?

[TimB]

22 minutes ago, schoeppeya said:

What is your justification for high school kids staying home?

The pros outweigh the cons, at least from now until the end of the school year, when fewer people are vaccinated and as stated above, all that’s going on in high schools is state-mandated bull***t like standardized tests. I have a totally different opinion for the fall when the covid risk is (hopefully) much lower and there’s actual curriculum to be learned and not just end-of-year nonsense.

[TimB]

8 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

The pros outweigh the cons, at least from now until the end of the school year, when fewer people are vaccinated and as stated above, all that’s going on in high schools is state-mandated bull***t like standardized tests. I have a totally different opinion for the fall when the covid risk is (hopefully) much lower and there’s actual curriculum to be learned and not just end-of-year nonsense.

Though, admittedly, this is very dependent on location and socioeconomic status and things like that. Leaving a 15 year old at home to go to school while the parents go to work is a completely different ballgame in an low crime, upper middle class suburban neighborhood where everyone has internet access vs. a high-crime, poorer urban area where not everyone has internet access.

[OSUmetstud]

17 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

Though, admittedly, this is very dependent on location and socioeconomic status and things like that. Leaving a 15 year old at home to go to school while the parents go to work is a completely different ballgame in an low crime, upper middle class suburban neighborhood where everyone has internet access vs. a high-crime, poorer urban area where not everyone has internet access.

Yeah that exactly right. It increases the disparities that already exist. It's also another reason why lockdowns are only quasi-effective in the short term. The government didnt/doesn't help the front line workers enough in impoverished areas all that much and they can't work from home. So you end up shifting the infection burden on an already relatively unhealthy cohort in multigenerational households while middle and upper class mostly white people can work from home and order Uber eats. Then, everyone focuses (including the government to shift blame on to the individual) on maybe the 20% of spread that is actually caused by "bad behavior" all the while ignoring the systemic issues behind the majority of the spread. 

[TimB]

2 minutes ago, OSUmetstud said:

Yeah that exactly right. It increases the disparities that already exist. It's also another reason why lockdowns are only quasi-effective in the short term. The government didnt/doesn't help the front line workers enough in impoverished areas all that much and they can't work from home. So you end up shifting the infection burden on an already relatively unhealthy cohort in multigenerational households while middle and upper class mostly white people can work from home and order Uber eats. Then, everyone focuses (including the government to shift blame on to the individual) on maybe the 20% of spread that is actually caused by "bad behavior" all the while ignoring the systemic issues behind the majority of the spread. 

Guilty as charged, unfortunately I’m a middle class white person working from home and ordering Uber eats. Hence the reason I had to remind myself why it won’t really work out to have kids of any age going to school virtually for any real length of time.

[schoeppeya]

Just now, TimB84 said:

Guilty as charged, unfortunately I’m a middle class white person working from home and ordering Uber eats. Hence the reason I had to remind myself why it won’t really work out to have kids of any age going to school virtually for any real length of time.

 

8 minutes ago, OSUmetstud said:

Yeah that exactly right. It increases the disparities that already exist. It's also another reason why lockdowns are only quasi-effective in the short term. The government didnt/doesn't help the front line workers enough in impoverished areas all that much and they can't work from home. So you end up shifting the infection burden on an already relatively unhealthy cohort in multigenerational households while middle and upper class mostly white people can work from home and order Uber eats. Then, everyone focuses (including the government to shift blame on to the individual) on maybe the 20% of spread that is actually caused by "bad behavior" all the while ignoring the systemic issues behind the majority of the spread. 

This is such a good conversation to be having. There are so many consequences to having kids staying home from school that almost exclusively effect people without enough money to pay for arrangements for their kids. 

[TimB]

2 minutes ago, schoeppeya said:

 

This is such a good conversation to be having. There are so many consequences to having kids staying home from school that almost exclusively effect people without enough money to pay for arrangements for their kids. 

That’s exactly it. The kids who are suffering from this are not kids like I was, or kids like my hypothetical, not-yet-existent kids will be. Those kids will be fine regardless of how school is conducted. But there are a lot more places where kids will fall through the cracks as a result of this pandemic, and a lot more kids will fall through the cracks than otherwise would have.

[OSUmetstud]

[dta1984]

Here's a new one (just reports, not a study)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9446907/Some-women-report-heavier-painful-PERIODS-getting-COVID-19-vaccine.html

[sojitodd]

2 hours ago, WaryWarren said:

Jesus, 954 deaths in Poland today. That's the equivalent of 8,400 deaths in the US.

 

Yesterday it was 640, but the day before that it was only 60 so it might be updating the numbers a bit. It looks like there are huge variations there if you look at the graph so it is probably related to inconsistent day to day reporting.

[UMB WX]

On the flip side there appears to be a population of all aged student personalities  excelling with virtual learning. I have to believe I would have benefited from online learning  for many reasons when I was in school during the 80's/early 90's.  The social part of school can be very damaging.  It just goes to show that education needs to expand its instructional methods so that all students can benefit from the learning style that best suits them.

[TimB]

6 minutes ago, UMB WX said:

On the flip side there appears to be a population of all aged student personalities  excelling with virtual learning. I have to believe I would have benefited from online learning  for many reasons when I was in school during the 80's/early 90's.  The social part of school can be very damaging.  It just goes to show that education needs to expand its instructional methods so that all students can benefit from the learning style that best suits them.

Agreed. Even if this population probably skews white/upper middle class, if that’s how a student learns best, that option should be available through the public school system and kids shouldn’t be forced to go to a charter school or something for it.

[schoeppeya]

15 minutes ago, UMB WX said:

On the flip side there appears to be a population of all aged student personalities  excelling with virtual learning. I have to believe I would have benefited from online learning  for many reasons when I was in school during the 80's/early 90's.  The social part of school can be very damaging.  It just goes to show that education needs to expand its instructional methods so that all students can benefit from the learning style that best suits them.

As someone who is young enough to have taken online classes-it's because online classes and virtual learning is easier, and easier to cheat (you can google answers, even for math problems). 

[TimB]

20 minutes ago, schoeppeya said:

As someone who is young enough to have taken online classes-it's because online classes and virtual learning is easier, and easier to cheat (you can google answers, even for math problems). 

But haven’t students been cheating since the dawn of time?

[schoeppeya]

10 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

But haven’t students been cheating since the dawn of time?

Listen I am not arguing that there aren't kids who benefit from online classes, but its a whole lot easier to get a higher grade while putting in less work from remote learning and that's a fact. I even agree with you that standardized testing is malarkey (and that's coming from an above average standardized test taker), but there still has to be some kind of merit based system where not everyone gets an A because everyone knows how to use google. 

[TimB]

20 minutes ago, schoeppeya said:

Listen I am not arguing that there aren't kids who benefit from online classes, but its a whole lot easier to get a higher grade while putting in less work from remote learning and that's a fact. I even agree with you that standardized testing is malarkey (and that's coming from an above average standardized test taker), but there still has to be some kind of merit based system where not everyone gets an A because everyone knows how to use google. 

Grade inflation has been going on since the Vietnam days when professors didn’t want to flunk students because they wanted to make sure they stayed in school so they didn’t get sent to Vietnam. (And probably before that)

[BuffaloWeather]

24 minutes ago, schoeppeya said:

Listen I am not arguing that there aren't kids who benefit from online classes, but its a whole lot easier to get a higher grade while putting in less work from remote learning and that's a fact. I even agree with you that standardized testing is malarkey (and that's coming from an above average standardized test taker), but there still has to be some kind of merit based system where not everyone gets an A because everyone knows how to use google. 

I've done both and I 100% agree. It's hard to argue this point actually, google is one click away and no teacher watching you take your test. 

[schoeppeya]

15 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

Grade inflation has been going on since the Vietnam days when professors didn’t want to flunk students because they wanted to make sure they stayed in school so they didn’t get sent to Vietnam. (And probably before that)

Well as of 8 months ago it took me about a quarter of the workload and time to get an A online as it did attending in person.

[TimB]

16 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

I've done both and I 100% agree. It's hard to argue this point actually, google is one click away and no teacher watching you take your test. 

So every single person on this earth would throw integrity to the wayside in that situation?

[Malacka11]

Imo easily the biggest issue with remote learning is that it prevents children from learning crucial social skills like they would in-class. Sure, the course material is important too, but I'd argue that learning to interact with other people in a group setting is easily the "real" bread and butter of public schools.

[BuffaloWeather]

1 minute ago, TimB84 said:

So every single person on this earth would throw integrity to the wayside in that situation?

Of course. Most people take the easy way out if given the opportunity. That's especially true in college, where you're paying to get a degree. Can you imagine not cheating and failing and still paying $40k for not getting your Bachelors degree. 

[Malacka11]

One could also argue that remote learning has removed a lot of the stress of constantly having to get good grades, which has been beneficial to the mental health of many. 

[TimB]

Just now, BuffaloWeather said:

Of course. Most people take the easy way out if given the opportunity. That's especially true in college, where you're paying to get a degree. Can you imagine not cheating and failing and still paying $40k for a Bachelors degree. 

I would argue that if someone cheats to get a bachelor’s degree, it will ultimately either catch up to them when they fail professionally where cheating isn’t an option, and they’ll get what they deserved, or it won’t catch up to them and they’ll be successful in the adult world so their cheating in college would become irrelevant. But ultimately we’re talking about high school, where people have cheated since the beginning of time and there’s never been much if any student integrity, so little would change.

[schoeppeya]

6 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

So every single person on this earth would throw integrity to the wayside in that situation?

If you're relying on integrity to get a 15-18 year old to do school work vs literally almost anything else in the world.... you're in trouble. 

 

6 minutes ago, Malacka11 said:

Imo easily the biggest issue with remote learning is that it prevents children from learning crucial social skills like they would in-class. Sure, the course material is important too, but I'd argue that learning to interact with other people in a group setting is easily the "real" bread and butter of public schools.

Hey look we agree on something!! 

[TimB]

2 minutes ago, schoeppeya said:

If you're relying on integrity to get a 15-18 year old to do school work vs literally almost anything else in the world.... you're in trouble. 

I would argue that “people are going to cheat in school when learning remotely” is below at least 1,000 other issues to be worried about during the pandemic, maybe even 10,000.