Teachers: do you trust the families in your school to take COVID seriously?

[Anonymous]

Like seriously, it’s not a reasonable way to discriminate. “Jane’s mom works at a grocery store. Good. Safe enough. Chris’s mom went to the grocery store. Bad. Unnecessary. Dangerous.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The amazing part of public school is that it doesn’t matter. You get to teach those who are taking COVID seriously and ones who aren’t. Occupational hazard. Some kids come into school without brushing their teeth or hair too. Some even eat processed foods.
How can we force all families to be like us? The responsible ones?

Uh...no. This is not actually what we signed up for. This isn’t like a healthcare profession where you need to expect to be exposed to viruses during a pandemic. I know I never would have become a teacher had I known there would be a pandemic during my career.

You are sorely mistaken if you believe that doctors and nurses signed up to do healthcare during a pandemic. Have you tried listening to any of them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parent here, and no, I don’t. But then, I also don’t trust teachers to take it seriously, either.

I do have faith in masks, though, so at least if the adults in the buildings will be diligent about those, and the kids at least pretty good, that’s enough for me.

+1. I don't particularly trust everyone at the school, nor do I expect that all other parents or teachers are even able to keep their baseline risk levels as low as I can as a remote worker.

But it seems like masks and other mitigation measures do help. They're not perfect but they provide real protection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Taking it back to the original topic…I’m an educator who’s been tutoring some children with learning disabilities throughout the pandemic. One family assured me that they took things seriously, but when I worked with their child, the kid never had a mask that fit properly, and the whole family was venturing out often for meals and snacks. I declined to work with them in-person any longer. Not long after that, I met with the child online. Poor kiddo could not stop coughing and complaining of feeling cold. I met with another student in-person in a different household that was taking things “seriously.” At the end of our hour together (one of several meetings over a few weeks), this child said they were excited because a household employee was coming back to work soon after having been absent with “flu.” Days later I fell ill, and the family never mentioned their viral exposure to me.

These families know I am not meeting with many people in-person right now. They see me taking steps to mitigate everyone’s risk, like quarantining and moving appointments online after seeing my elderly parents at the holidays. They haven’t been willing to take additional safety measures. I’d don’t have a lot of faith that behavior will magically change when more schools re-open.

Yes, people have very different meanings behind being "careful." This is sort of like the kids who don't always use condoms but are "really careful" or adults who drink and drive because their "tolerance is really high." Or maybe even sort of like the parents who don't "supplement" like tiger moms, but then you find out they have a private tutor or do workbooks or math problems almost ever night. In their minds they are not even lying - the words mean different things to them, and that's not "supplementing" or what they think it is. Or have their kid compete play on multiple sports teams of the same sport but "we're not super competitive and we don't take sports that seriously."

We know someone who was adamant that in person is not safe but her kids were playing unmasked outside with many kids, unsupervised, closely all summer, then puts the kids in indoor sports and is traveling to ski and do those types of things. In their minds, they are behaving more safely than others who want to return to school.

I think this is it. Careful means different things to different people. I want to keep my kids' teachers as safe as possible until they can get vaccinated, but I also want to send the older one to hybrid K and the younger one to the day care we've been paying for but not using due to the holiday spike. That is two in person indoor activities right there. They are the ONLY ones, but should either the day care teacher or the public school teacher feel we're dishonest and unsafe if we send the kids before mid-April when all teachers will have had opportunities for full vaccination? Maybe. I don't know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The amazing part of public school is that it doesn’t matter. You get to teach those who are taking COVID seriously and ones who aren’t. Occupational hazard. Some kids come into school without brushing their teeth or hair too. Some even eat processed foods.
How can we force all families to be like us? The responsible ones?

Uh...no. This is not actually what we signed up for. This isn’t like a healthcare profession where you need to expect to be exposed to viruses during a pandemic. I know I never would have become a teacher had I known there would be a pandemic during my career.

You are sorely mistaken if you believe that doctors and nurses signed up to do healthcare during a pandemic. Have you tried listening to any of them?

I'm tired of the "this isn't what we signed up for." As teacher keep pointing out, there's a pandemic. None of us signed up for this, least of all the lowest paid among us who have taken on the most risk and suffered the most. But there has been suffering at all levels of society. The pandemic requires making bad choices that force all of us to take on responsibilities and risk we didn't sign up for. People didn't sign up for having their businesses completely shut down for long period of time or for their children to learn at home for more than a year.

Sacrifices have to be made all around, which at some point is going to have to include risks with the best possible mitigation measures in place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like seriously, it’s not a reasonable way to discriminate. “Jane’s mom works at a grocery store. Good. Safe enough. Chris’s mom went to the grocery store. Bad. Unnecessary. Dangerous.”

+1

[Anonymous]

At a certain point, to keep my sanity, I just had to decide there was a non-zero risk of getting Covid and carry on. I know people who profess to be complete isolationists who've had Covid, and I know people who work in customer-facing indoors service professions who haven't had it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At a certain point, to keep my sanity, I just had to decide there was a non-zero risk of getting Covid and carry on. I know people who profess to be complete isolationists who've had Covid, and I know people who work in customer-facing indoors service professions who haven't had it.

Two of my kids attend private school. At the beginning of the year, I kept them home. When we had the opportunity to send them several half days, we decided to give it a try. What I found was that although I still worry every day, the strong protocols, my kids' commitment to them, and how second nature the measures quickly became were empowering. For instance, while the kids were initially grumpy about eating in silence, they got over that in about a day. They happily accept the masks (mine wear N-95), distancing, silent lunches, and other measures in exchange for the opportunity to go to school.

As a person prone to anxiety, I can attest that the hysterical tone of this debate over schools is not doing anyone any favors. I don't want any teachers to get sick or die, must as I don't want my own kid to get sick or die. I know many people who refuse to do anything, claiming martyrdom for their contribution to stopping community spread. The truth is that they aren't all sacrificing for the greater good, they are staying in for purely selfish reasons - their own fear of sick. In many cases, it is fear and anxiety that is more harmful than the actual risk of COVID-19.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll get my second vaccine dose one week before the kids come back to school. So I don't really care much about trusting families "to take COVID seriously." (I teach HS.)

Lucky you. Most teachers in my district have not yet secured the first dose.

People with shoes worry less about walking a mile than people without shoes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At a certain point, to keep my sanity, I just had to decide there was a non-zero risk of getting Covid and carry on. I know people who profess to be complete isolationists who've had Covid, and I know people who work in customer-facing indoors service professions who haven't had it.

Two of my kids attend private school. At the beginning of the year, I kept them home. When we had the opportunity to send them several half days, we decided to give it a try. What I found was that although I still worry every day, the strong protocols, my kids' commitment to them, and how second nature the measures quickly became were empowering. For instance, while the kids were initially grumpy about eating in silence, they got over that in about a day. They happily accept the masks (mine wear N-95), distancing, silent lunches, and other measures in exchange for the opportunity to go to school.

As a person prone to anxiety, I can attest that the hysterical tone of this debate over schools is not doing anyone any favors. I don't want any teachers to get sick or die, must as I don't want my own kid to get sick or die. I know many people who refuse to do anything, claiming martyrdom for their contribution to stopping community spread. The truth is that they aren't all sacrificing for the greater good, they are staying in for purely selfish reasons - their own fear of sick. In many cases, it is fear and anxiety that is more harmful than the actual risk of COVID-19.

News flash: fear of catching a potentially deadly, highly contagious disease that you can spread to others by breathing is NOT selfish. If more people had this fear back in 2020, we wouldn’t be here now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At a certain point, to keep my sanity, I just had to decide there was a non-zero risk of getting Covid and carry on. I know people who profess to be complete isolationists who've had Covid, and I know people who work in customer-facing indoors service professions who haven't had it.

Two of my kids attend private school. At the beginning of the year, I kept them home. When we had the opportunity to send them several half days, we decided to give it a try. What I found was that although I still worry every day, the strong protocols, my kids' commitment to them, and how second nature the measures quickly became were empowering. For instance, while the kids were initially grumpy about eating in silence, they got over that in about a day. They happily accept the masks (mine wear N-95), distancing, silent lunches, and other measures in exchange for the opportunity to go to school.

As a person prone to anxiety, I can attest that the hysterical tone of this debate over schools is not doing anyone any favors. I don't want any teachers to get sick or die, must as I don't want my own kid to get sick or die. I know many people who refuse to do anything, claiming martyrdom for their contribution to stopping community spread. The truth is that they aren't all sacrificing for the greater good, they are staying in for purely selfish reasons - their own fear of sick. In many cases, it is fear and anxiety that is more harmful than the actual risk of COVID-19.

News flash: fear of catching a potentially deadly, highly contagious disease that you can spread to others by breathing is NOT selfish. If more people had this fear back in 2020, we wouldn’t be here now.

Refusing to help any other human being on earth so that you can stay safe is not unselfish, regardless of what you think. The greater good is served by some people being unselfish enough to accept risk to help others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll get my second vaccine dose one week before the kids come back to school. So I don't really care much about trusting families "to take COVID seriously." (I teach HS.)

Lucky you. Most teachers in my district have not yet secured the first dose.

People with shoes worry less about walking a mile than people without shoes.

What a weird truism. Did you make this up? It doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny if you think about the tons of people around the world who don't wear shoes. There's got to be a better way to make your bad point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At a certain point, to keep my sanity, I just had to decide there was a non-zero risk of getting Covid and carry on. I know people who profess to be complete isolationists who've had Covid, and I know people who work in customer-facing indoors service professions who haven't had it.

Two of my kids attend private school. At the beginning of the year, I kept them home. When we had the opportunity to send them several half days, we decided to give it a try. What I found was that although I still worry every day, the strong protocols, my kids' commitment to them, and how second nature the measures quickly became were empowering. For instance, while the kids were initially grumpy about eating in silence, they got over that in about a day. They happily accept the masks (mine wear N-95), distancing, silent lunches, and other measures in exchange for the opportunity to go to school.

As a person prone to anxiety, I can attest that the hysterical tone of this debate over schools is not doing anyone any favors. I don't want any teachers to get sick or die, must as I don't want my own kid to get sick or die. I know many people who refuse to do anything, claiming martyrdom for their contribution to stopping community spread. The truth is that they aren't all sacrificing for the greater good, they are staying in for purely selfish reasons - their own fear of sick. In many cases, it is fear and anxiety that is more harmful than the actual risk of COVID-19.

News flash: fear of catching a potentially deadly, highly contagious disease that you can spread to others by breathing is NOT selfish. If more people had this fear back in 2020, we wouldn’t be here now.

Refusing to help any other human being on earth so that you can stay safe is not unselfish, regardless of what you think. The greater good is served by some people being unselfish enough to accept risk to help others.

Especially when you're relying on people to take risk so you can live--like grocery workers, warehouse workers, the people who are maintaining water, sewer, electrical service, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll get my second vaccine dose one week before the kids come back to school. So I don't really care much about trusting families "to take COVID seriously." (I teach HS.)

Lucky you. Most teachers in my district have not yet secured the first dose.

People with shoes worry less about walking a mile than people without shoes.

What a weird truism. Did you make this up? It doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny if you think about the tons of people around the world who don't wear shoes. There's got to be a better way to make your bad point.

...i think they might have started out with the "walk a mile in your shoes" cliche and then it went horribly awry from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like seriously, it’s not a reasonable way to discriminate. “Jane’s mom works at a grocery store. Good. Safe enough. Chris’s mom went to the grocery store. Bad. Unnecessary. Dangerous.”

+1

Consider that the two moms may not have the same risk factors. That muddies looking just at behavior. It may not seem risky to a non-Lupus patient to spend a day in the winter sun.