I normally try to stick to learning design and civics and citizenship on these blogs, with occasional forays into computer games and so on, but I felt compelled to write what about the arguments that I am seeing play out in the media and especially across social media in relation to teachers, schools and the pandemic. This is not going to be a particularly fact-heavy post; there are people with a far better understanding of the facts than I to make the case for or against schools being re-opened. What it will do is consider the way that teachers are being treated, and suggest some possible reasons for that treatment.
I should say that I am speaking from a comfortable distance; that is, I am no longer in the classroom and, indeed, I have not worked as a full time teacher for more than five years. However, I have worked with education unions and now universities engaged in teacher education and training, and of course, I am married to a high school teacher, so I think my point of view is still reasonably current.
The bottom line is that it appears that teaches are expendable to some people. The desperation of some governments to keep schools open – and now to return to face to face classes as soon as possible suggests that there appears to be little concern for the safety of teachers. I’m specifically focusing on teachers, because I don’t think that the government has talked about teachers enough. While they might have an argument about children not being as at-risk to the virus as older people, that doesn’t apply to teachers, who are not children. And, in fact, many of the sectors I’ve worked with in education are part of an ageing population, and there are plenty of teachers that I know personally that have there own health risks and concerns.
So, when people say, ‘It’s safe for children to go back to school’, they are making the argument that it’s safe for children. They’re deliberately avoiding making any comment on whether it’s safe for the adults charged with the care of those children – and that possibly means that it’s not entirely safe. I know that some journalists have explained that there is some evidence suggesting that there is very little evidence of adult to student transmission, and therefore that means that it’s safe for schools to open, but I have to question the level of inquiry that these journalists have engaged in. After all, such a report – even putting aside what appears to be a lack of peer review and a very small sample space – is one case, and science isn’t made that way. Instead, this is a contribution to an ongoing discussion- and based on what we know from other scientific organisations and other countries, we simply do not appear to know enough about Coronavirus to determine how and whether it is safe for schools to reopen. Surely, in that case, the sensible thing would be to keep the learning online for the foreseeable future?