Coronavirus Closing

Coronavirus Closing

I was in an elementary classroom for over 20 years and then worked in schools and with schools for another ten years.  I always knew to expect to have a few colds and a couple of bouts of the flue each winter.  Now, when my grandchildren are home sick with something, I comment on the fact that is what comes from having kids in day care and in school. What is happening at school, comes home with the kids. But when I used to say that, it was meant in a lighthearted fashion.  However, today, this is hardly a joking matter but only now am I realizing why that is a truism.  Kids in classrooms and in schools are walking petrie dishes for diseases.  If one child gets a flue or a cold or the measles, they are all bound to end up, at  one point or another, developing the same illnesses.  I think it is obvious that they are in close contract with one another in every class. Schools seldom have windows open so the germs in the air circulate freely.  Kids have no sense of social distance and are often on top of one another, holding hands, putting arms on one another, sharing physical space without any thought that they ought not to.  Today, more so than a generation ago, they are coming together on buses too which is another breeding ground for germs.  During the winter, the kids are not made to get outside for fresh air and to run around and kill any germs just by playing.  So is it any wonder that governments are now shutting down schools for prolonged periods in the hope that by keeping kids away from the buildings they feel most at home in, the deadly virus will be halted more easily.  It's not that the kids will get sick.  It is that they will carry the germs with them home and out to other places.  However, by merely closing the schools, the door gets opened to lots of other issues. The biggest one yet to come, that the Americans for instance are totally unprepared for, is virtual school classes or online learning.  The U. S. has left those kinds of investments up to the states and many of them have not made those investments.  So there are huge discrepancies among and between the various states meaning the kids will suffer more in some than in others.  The Harris government might have had its problems with Education in Ontario but it is through them that the school boards were forced to amalgamate and that led to greater ease in extending technology more equitably.  Technological tools will be key to keeping kids safe and preoccupied and happy enough even though the schools will be closed.  However, the crucial thing is the germs will be kept isolated hopefully....and community spread will be diminished. That is all that matters now.