Issue 33: Getting beyond "Back to School"
The prison-like conditions under which some elementary schools are re-opening is just another example of our inability to think creatively about our pandemic response
Today’s briefing is by Andrew Potter (AP), associate professor at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.
ONE OF THE ONGOING FRUSTRATIONS I HAVE HAD with how the COVID-19 pandemic has been handled in Canada is the relative lack of creative, push-the-envelope thinking. Part of the ambition of this newsletter has been to try to help change that, most obviously through my briefings on the need for a Plan B for managing the outbreak, and Daniel Weinstock’s call for a “Harm Reduction” approach to social distancing requirements.
We’ve reached a similar situation with the conundrum of when, and how, to re-open the schools. The school question is tricky, because, on the one hand, they are one of the most massively social institutions in our society -- their very nature is a repudiation of the social distancing requirements that have become second nature to most of us over the past two months. But on the other hand, getting some significant portion of kids back in school is seen as a precondition for re-opening other parts of the economy.
That at least seems to be at least part of the thinking behind the push in Quebec to reopen the elementary schools. Teachers across the province were asked to report back to work on May 4, and according to the current schedule, classes are to resume across the province outside of Montreal on May 11, with schools reopening in Montreal on May 19. But while premier François Legault has made it clear that sending kids to class will be totally voluntary, the plan hasn’t been welcomed in all quarters. A parent-initiated petition to keep the schools closed until September has received almost 300 000 signatures. Meanwhile, some of the teachers unions are pushing back pretty hard against what they consider to be a dangerous plan.
Public health officials have laid out the safety guidelines the schools must follow, which include a maximum of 15 students per class, children keeping two metres apart, and no staff over the age of 60. But when some of the affected schools sent a note to parents earlier this week outlining just what to expect, the tone and stringency of the safety measures looked a lot like what amounts to very vicious compliance. Here is part of the guidelines sent to parents from one EMSB school (emphases in the original):
Teachers will be wearing masks and other protective gear as necessary
Parents are asked to speak to their children about the importance of complying with the safety and social distancing rules
Students who purposefully break the physical distancing rules will be removed from the school for the remainder of the school year
Students will use one room for classes and lunch periods
The library, computer lab and school gymnasium will remain closed
After school and lunch-time activities have been cancelled
There will not be Physical Education, Music or Science classes until the end of the school year
There will be staggered recesses during the day, with no access to playground equipment
Children cannot share manipulatives (toys or books) and sporting equipment
Handwashing will be frequent and compulsory upon entry, after going to the bathroom, before lunch, and prior to departure
Whether or not the intended message here is “please don’t send your kid back to school,” one thing is clear: As far as all sides are concerned, the back-to-school agenda has very little to do with education. In fact, Legault himself has explicitly argued that one of the primary reasons for re-opening the schools is to start to build “herd immunity,” a position that is supported by Quebec’s association of paediatricians.
So, the conundrum: The government wants the kids back in school, for reasons that have almost nothing to do with pedagogy. The teachers unions are clearly unhappy, and the schools promising something bearing only a passing resemblance to education. Yet because we’re stuck in the box that says if kids aren’t at home then they must be in school, we’re committed to opening the schools under conditions that most closely resemble prison.
In the Globe and Mail yesterday, I proposed an alternative solution, namely, that we should forget about schools and open the summer camps in the spring:
Camps are the solution to many of the problems the school reopening is designed to solve, while significantly mitigating the risks of exposure and transmission. Going to camp gets children out of the house and lets their parents return to work. To the extent that we want to enable some limited exposure to the virus, outside is better than inside. And unlike schools, which are staffed by adults who, because of age and pre-existing conditions, might be more or less at risk from COVID-19, camps are staffed largely by much lower-risk teenagers.
The column generated a great deal of reaction. A lot of it was frankly enthusiastic, but a fair amount of it was critical, with readers writing or commenting on social media with concerns over the risk to kids, to staff, and so on. Others wondered who would pay for it, and some asked what would happen to special needs kids.
These are good questions, but solvable. But here’s the key point that gets lost with these sorts of criticisms: this proposal doesn’t promise to eliminate the risks to staff, or meet every child’s needs. What it almost certainly does is reduce the risks relative to the government’s plan.
But the main obstacle to something like this happening is not about risk, or money, or the inability to meet everyone’s needs -- it’s about the mental models we live in. We have these built-in notions of what kids are supposed to be doing at this time of year, or what getting “back to normal” is supposed to look like, and we have a very hard time thinking outside of those models.
In these pandemic times, these mental models have become cognitive cages. It has made us enormously risk averse, while ignoring the fact that keeping our heads down and staying resolutely inside the box is itself a highly risky strategy. (AP)
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Related: Were school closings effective? We really don’t know. In Norway, some researchers are proposing to answer that with a randomized clinical trial of school re-openings.
Food: One mom’s mantra for pandemic cooking? #stonerfoodoftheapocalypse
Music: Alanis at Zaphod’s? Nirvana at the Commodore Ballroom? A chart of big bands that played small venues in Canada
Read: One of my favourite blogposts ever, Shuffleboard at McMurdo, about Antartic tourism
Watch: A movie about Alan Turing, the genius prophet of the Information Age
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Policy for Pandemics is produced and edited by Andrew Potter and co-edited by Charlotte Reboul and Paisley Sim (bios here) If you have any feedback or would like to contribute to this newsletter, please send an email to andrew2.potter@mcgill.ca