For people who say "school is not for childcare"...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope what this pandemic teaches all of us is that parents need to taught how to actually parent. So many people have absolutely no idea how to do this, and so "parenting" becomes a responsibility of schools.

This such asinine crap. The whole point of society is that we rely to one another to some degree. For example, there are blackouts in parts of California right now because of the wildfires, which has put some people in serious danger because of the hot weather and their AC being out. What if the electric company refused to fix the problem but instead told those folks that electricity is actually their responsibility and they have been prepared to live off the grid? See how totally ridiculous you are?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't know why it's society's problem, or why it needs a government solution. You had the kids. Their care is your responsibility. "Parents" relying on others to raise their family needs to stop.

Large families (I’m talking people with 3 or more kids) specifically kept popping out these babies thinking someone else would take care of them for 18 years.

I’m glad America is waking up to how stupid this is and parents continually complaining about taking care of their own kids are getting no sympathy for a reason.

Racist dog whistle. You're disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher with kids here.

Terrible analogy alert:

I am a dog mom, too.
When I was solo parenting (DH was deployed) some stuff was harder. I ordered more pizzas. A friend helped me shop. I hired a dog walker. My older kid used Uber a lot.
All of this was "on me". I HAD the kids. I adopted the dog. I was hungry for pizza and lacked the bandwidth to defrost chicken in time.


The dogs were better behaved when they had a dog walker.

In the fall, if I am in the classroom full-time (a possibility), who takes care of my dogs? Should doggy care be free?
When I bring them to the vet, it is a drop off situation, and I pick them up when I am called. Should the vet keep my dog all day so I don't have to worry about them eating my shoes or pooping in the wrong place?

Of course not.

Schools are for learning. By default, they have become the place where children spend the day. Our society has evolved into 2-income households and single parent households because we are used to our kids being so busy from 8-4 that it makes sense to earn money. We don't have to sit around all day and beat the rugs or make bread from scratch so working is productive.

We also are used to many luxuries that were not part of the "bills" 50 years ago, like smart phones, wifi, cable, travel soccer, a 2nd car....

It seems like people expect teachers to put their health at risk so other families can have more money.

FWIW, I have HAD Covid. I got it from a child whose parent did not enforce mask use.
It was three weeks in bed, in total isolation, with some after effects. My children got it too.

It is mean to expect a sub-set of adults who trained to, for example, teach HS Geometry, to perform a secondary service, keep your kids busy and safe for 8 hours, during a pandemic so others can have more things, in my opinion, when that task could be done online.

Daycare is different, and is another service.
If people want to open camps this fall, good for you.
Maybe they can staff them with people who already have had Covid.

Your entire argument is based on the false premise that all students can learn effectively online. The youngest cannot. I am so, so tired of hearing this from teachers. I am literally an expert on online teaching and I know its strengths and limitations. It is suboptimal for older kids and downright ineffective for the youngest. If you are so cynical as to believe that parents only want their kids in school for childcare, maybe you need to look for a new profession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope what this pandemic teaches all of us is that parents need to taught how to actually parent. So many people have absolutely no idea how to do this, and so "parenting" becomes a responsibility of schools.

This such asinine crap. The whole point of society is that we rely to one another to some degree. For example, there are blackouts in parts of California right now because of the wildfires, which has put some people in serious danger because of the hot weather and their AC being out. What if the electric company refused to fix the problem but instead told those folks that electricity is actually their responsibility and they have been prepared to live off the grid? See how totally ridiculous you are?

This hyper-individualistic crap the PP is spouting is killing our country. Literally.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We can only even have this argument because technology allows for "distance learning". A few decades ago, schools would just have closed, and then they wouldn't have been providing education OR child care. Before now, the child care and education were inseparable because kids had to be in person to do it.

Right, and I think that's clouding the discussion. I have an incoming kindergartener who can't read. (We're working on it, he knows some sight words and is getting better at sounding them out, but he isn't a comfortable, fluent, independent reader.) I'm frankly quite skeptical that they ARE separable. I suspect the parents or whoever is doing the childcare will also be doing an equal amount of the education as the teacher, if not more. I suspect kids will not learn as much if they have working parents, which would indicate that education is not something you can deliver at arm's reach. These are just my suspicions. I'd like to be wrong.

Then teach your kid to read like the rest of us did. You still need to supplement at home.

I'm working on it, thanks. My point in mentioning that was that my kid can't even do the first step in DL on his own, which is read the schedule. This is going to take intensive parental involvement. Did you "supplement at home" by leaving your workplace, showing up at your kid's school, finding the right workbook, and turning to the right page for every lesson, every day? Supplementing at home is practicing sounding out words after school and work. This is not the same at all and you're being totally disingenuous.

Yes it takes intensive parental involvement but most people do. Would I do that, absolutely and I did. My child ended up with SN and I ended up quitting to make sure he got to daily (sometimes multiple times a day therapies) and we did tons of supplementing at home. My husband took off on days I could not do it and he now does the main part of DL making sure the kids are on, supplementing things like math (beyond me at this point) and much more. We taught are kids to read and have always supplemented math heavily to keep them on track. But, the difference between you and us is we are heavily involved parents and our kids needs come first. Supplementing at home is teaching your kids to read and basic math, not 5 minutes before bed of sounding out words while you tuck them in. You make it work or you hire someone.

Wow, this is mean. I'm sorry you have had to quit your job due to helping with SN stuff. I have an autistic sibling and my mom had to do the same. It was very very intense. I respect it a lot.

However, SN is not the standard situation. Most parents do not stop working to get their kids through elementary school. Most kids do not require one on one attention throughout the standard school day. For instance, my other sibling with ADHD and I with no SN got help from our parents after school when we needed it, which did not constitute 4-6 hours a day at any point, and definitely not in kindergarten. I think if that is your bar for "heavily involved," and you think 5 year olds are behind if they are not independently reading far beyond grade level before kindergarten, then yes, all dual income households have bad parents who don't care about their kids, don't consider their kids' needs to be a priority, and should be pushing their kids much harder. I still think it's unreasonable to expect that ALL parents of school aged children should either quit their jobs or somehow find the money for private household help. If that's the expectation why even have public schools?

I'm not sorry at all for quitting my job. I love being home and my child is doing well so it was all worth it. I wouldn't have otherwise and my life is much better for it. I had no idea how much joy being home would bring me. Dual income families in your situation can probably afford child care but made life choices to spend their money on houses, cars and other things so there isn't much extra money in the budget now for child care. We live way under our means so if we had to pay for child care now we could have. You need to teach your 5 year old to read. It has nothing to do with working or not, its a basic parenting task. And, school is no longer free child care. You've had since March to figure it out. Public school is to educate but parents also need to be involved and not just hand their kids off to school and let the school deal with it. Public schools are still educating but from now on that education will be different. So, now you need to rearrange your lives and figure it out. One parent may need to stay home or get a more flexible job or hire child care.

I'm glad you are happy with how it worked out. Rest assured, we are not leaving our 5 year old home alone or refusing to help with school; we are using the maximum flexibility our employers allow, and pausing career advancement for now because we can't manage more demanding promotion opportunities. I'm sorry he's not advanced enough for your standards as a preschooler though. He probably won't make it to Harvard.

THAT SAID, my original post wasn't saying parents should be completely uninvolved in their kids' education, my point was that you can't separate the childcare and education functions of school through virtual learning because the childcare providers will also be providing education. Very young kids can't direct and supervise themselves through online learning. That was why I mentioned that reading is a work in progress, which you are doubling down on in the most unkind way possible. So we actually agree on my fundamental point, I think.

Also, you make a lot of assumptions but we are renters in an old building with no washer or dishwasher and drive a 15 year old car, so we actually truly cannot afford a nanny. I maintain that "so quit your job" is simply not a reasonable ask for every dual income family in the US. It's just not! "Have a kid or have a job" is not okay! If you think we should be FINE with that as the setup for society, and not as an extreme hardship for many, we have no common ground to work from.

[Anonymous]

If distance education is perfectly acceptable, we can simply hire teachers occasionally to update videotaped lectures. We do not need to have or support physical school buildings which will safe a bunch of infrastructure costs. Those can be restricted for those few students who need in-person interaction like occupation therapy, hand-over-hand instructions, and similar. Parents will know going in to having children that they will have access to the videotaped lessons, but if their child needs anything else, including supervision or tutoring, those will need to provided at their expense. We will also save a small fortune on teachers, because one standard videotaped lesson can be shared with unlimited children. Also, we can outsource to cheaper teachers, which means even if we do need to provide synchronous educational opportunities we can save money.

I think this is a win for everyone. Except maybe teachers, and the people who support physical school buildings, and those who benefit from proximity to physical school buildings.

And children. But if teachers are going to argue that distance learning is fine, who am I to quibble. I'll look on the bright side. We can take the money we have been pouring into public education and put it into crumbling infrastructure.

[Anonymous]

So, I have childcare. I have a full time nanny. Who is great at being a nanny - we've had her for a very long time. But as we learned in the spring - she's not great at teaching, nor assisting with distance learning activities. We didn't hire her for her technical skills - we hired her for her care giving skills.

What I don't currently have is access to education for my children. I am so sick of hearing school isn't childcare. Fine. But distance learning is terrible. It doesn't fulfill it'ls primary purpose of education. You simply cannot say that the purpose of school is to educate, and then fail to do that very thing. It has to educate children - in whatever format it's in. It has to be effective. And distance learning for young children is not effective, and simply does not work.

So yes, generally, children that require childcare ALSO happen to require an in person education. You win - school isn't childcare - but younger elementary children need to be taught in person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher with kids here.

Terrible analogy alert:

I am a dog mom, too.
When I was solo parenting (DH was deployed) some stuff was harder. I ordered more pizzas. A friend helped me shop. I hired a dog walker. My older kid used Uber a lot.
All of this was "on me". I HAD the kids. I adopted the dog. I was hungry for pizza and lacked the bandwidth to defrost chicken in time.


The dogs were better behaved when they had a dog walker.

In the fall, if I am in the classroom full-time (a possibility), who takes care of my dogs? Should doggy care be free?
When I bring them to the vet, it is a drop off situation, and I pick them up when I am called. Should the vet keep my dog all day so I don't have to worry about them eating my shoes or pooping in the wrong place?

Of course not.

Schools are for learning. By default, they have become the place where children spend the day. Our society has evolved into 2-income households and single parent households because we are used to our kids being so busy from 8-4 that it makes sense to earn money. We don't have to sit around all day and beat the rugs or make bread from scratch so working is productive.

We also are used to many luxuries that were not part of the "bills" 50 years ago, like smart phones, wifi, cable, travel soccer, a 2nd car....

It seems like people expect teachers to put their health at risk so other families can have more money.

FWIW, I have HAD Covid. I got it from a child whose parent did not enforce mask use.
It was three weeks in bed, in total isolation, with some after effects. My children got it too.

It is mean to expect a sub-set of adults who trained to, for example, teach HS Geometry, to perform a secondary service, keep your kids busy and safe for 8 hours, during a pandemic so others can have more things, in my opinion, when that task could be done online.

Daycare is different, and is another service.
If people want to open camps this fall, good for you.
Maybe they can staff them with people who already have had Covid.

The vet analogy is pretty weak. Modern society hasn't evolved for the last 70 years with the expectation that children will be taken care of for a large portion of the year.

Call it whatever you want, but parents legitimately and reasonably expected that they would not need to find child care services during school hours. The pandemic obviously and understandably through a wrench in that, but outside pandemics and other emergencies, I think few would argue that expectation was unreasonable.

The frustration I feel about this debate is that it often seems like teachers are reluctant to acknowledge that other workers in similar situations are expected to go in to do their jobs. My wife, for instance, is a medical provider in a specialty area generally at low risk for infectious diseases. She is considered high-risk due to being immunosuppressed. She never signed up to treat people during a pandemic. The office switch to telemedicine for a while, but the simple fact is that it's not nearly as effective as in-person visits. So, several months agos she went back into the office.

Then there's a variety of jobs that simply can't be done at home at all- manufacturing, grocery stores, etc. Those people didn't up for a pandemic any more than a teacher did.

There's obviously some notion of an unreasonable risk to employees, including teachers. I don't know where that is, and perhaps we're still at that point. But a reasonable risk certainly doesn't mean zero risk. We certainly expect teachers to work during flu season, for instance.

The importance of the job does play into what that acceptable risk level is, just as it has for essential jobs that continued earlier in the pandemic. I think few would argue distance learning is equally effective for most students, so the value of in-person instruction needs to be considered. And yes, I think the importance to society as a whole is a factor as well, which includes how it impacts working families.