Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
I think its a fair statement to say that Canada fared better than other countries when it comes to schooling, though there are countries that fared even better, but also we truly don't know yet how much development was set back.
A few things. The COVID risk factor for kids is essentially non-existent. Despite the paranoia, I think it was quite clear to see that early on. The Swedish or Nordic model for education during the pandemic proved to work much better than the shut everything down model. You can say that 'oh we didn't know', but not sure that is fair if they had access to the same info we did, and made different decisions in regards to schooling.
This is from Dec 2020.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/12/1079462
So again, not sure its fair to say, 'oh we didn't know.' It was pretty obvious already by Oct - Dec of 2020 that the decisions being made around schools being closed, or learning being restricted were a disaster, and were almost certainly not being made to 'protect the children.' We are now 1.5 years later, and it is still a mess in many, many countries.
Secondly, early studies about COVID spread on airplanes proved that proper air filtration could reduce COVID spread dramatically, and such methods should have been used in schools. Before everyone wants to run and say it takes time & money to do that, go look up the tons of examples of home made filters that were proven to be effective in reducing spread and providing effective filtration.
Were these methods used to get kids back into schools? No. Here on CP and everywhere else fear & paranoia over ruled practical and effective solutions against COVID spread. And to be clear, that is what we were fighting against. Schools spreading COVID. Not kids getting COVID, because we all knew the extremely limited risk factor. Important point that conveniently got ignored by the lock everything down crowd. |
So who are you upset with? The "lock it down crowd" or the government? Or both? I'm struggling to understand the issue. Schools in Alberta were closed from March 2020 to end of June 2020. You're quoting an article from December 2020. After December of 2020, I believe schools in Alberta were only closed for 2 weeks in one schools year and 1 week in the next school year. Some classes faced closures due to outbreaks in those classes. Also, some schools closed due to staffing issues, as I mentioned in my post above.
So schools were closed for about 15-16 weeks in 2020, but you're upset with the couple of weeks (2-3) in the two previous schools years? And I'm struggling to understand who you're upset with? "The lock it down crowd" as you put it, doesn't make government policy or spending. Thus, you must be upset with Kenney and the UCP?
Because ultimately they're the ones that didn't offer more funding for ventilation, or follow schools guidelines you wanted.
Ultimately, I'll stick with this: the March 2020-June 2020 closure was the early days of the pandemic and yes it had a negative impact on learning. But as I said in my long post above (which you seemed to have ignored) the VAST majority of kids are okay and will be come out of it okay. Beyond that there were only a couple extra weeks in each of the next two schools years.
If a 2 week shutdown of school is this devastating then really we need to seriously look at getting rid of spring break, Christmas break and summer holidays, because they must be devastating for the kids and learning. The kids should just be in school constantly, for their own good.