Of course students have been damaged by school closures due to COVID
No surprise here, but very sad nonetheless:
School closings and "remote learning" have caused a massive mental health crisis among teenagers. This, and the disruption to their intellectual development, will be enduring and severe.https://t.co/Q3mtWJ9MnR pic.twitter.com/ONrnYIWBPI
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 26, 2021
So apparently even the NY Times is acknowledging the situation.
At the very beginning of the COVID pandemic when we knew less about it, closing schools very temporarily seemed arguably prudent. But it rather quickly emerged that it really wasn’t going to matter, and that such closings would be detrimental in a host of ways, chief among them psychological damage to the students involved. And yet many states and cities (blue) continued the closings for a long time, mostly in order to placate the leftist teacher’s unions. It has been quite obvious for a long time that teacher’s unions are not interested in the well-being of students.
Someone might want to tell the non-stop Democratic-Party operatives at the NYT that it’s not just the teacher’s unions….
https://nypost.com/2021/12/27/im-leaving-nyc-to-protect-my-children/
Let’s not forget that the teachers’ unions successfully bullied the CDC last May about school reopening: “The powerful teachers union’s full-court press preceded the federal agency putting the brakes on a full re-opening of in-person classrooms, emails between top CDC, AFT and White House officials show.” The union’s senior director for health issues refers to the union as the CDC’s “thought partner.”
https://nypost.com/2021/05/01/teachers-union-collaborated-with-cdc-on-school-reopening-emails/
Not to quibble but the school closures were NOT due to COVID. They were due to the left’s propaganda outlets, which we’ve discovered includes the medical establishment.
“School closings and “remote learning” have caused a massive mental health crisis among teenagers.”
Given that the left’s goal is America’s destruction, an unexpected, beneficial side effect for the left?
“many states and cities (blue) continued the closings for a long time, mostly in order to placate the leftist teacher’s unions.”
Which will lead to a disproportionate effect among teenagers in blue cities. Liberals outnumbering leftists by a considerable percentage, in their support for the democrats they’ve condemned their children to mental health crises…
Ya seriously think sending them to school is good for their mental health? 😀
I found this link inside a link at Instapundit and it is about the ‘experts’ and how they are so often wrong but then just blithely move on to the next wrong.
Compares autism ‘experts’ to COVID experts.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/i-have-been-through-this-before-bauer
I’m not sure if it’s really the school closings that have led to declining mental health among teenagers or just the completely hysterical and incompetent reaction of our society as a whole to Covid. As a teenager who would have rather been anywhere else than school, I would have been overjoyed if they had closed schools. As it was, I only made it halfway through 10th grade before I had had enough.
Students should take this opportunity to learn something useful, like carpentry or welding. For those, like me, who are not adept at such pursuits there are always books to be read. Losing the socialization aspect of school is not good but opportunities for socialization have been sacrificed across the board.
They were due to the left’s propaganda outlets
Yep.
I’m not sure if it’s really the school closings that have led to declining mental health among teenagers or just the completely hysterical and incompetent reaction of our society as a whole to Covid.
My grand children (Those of my younger son) are fine. None will agree to vaccination and all are ready to leave California if vaccination is mandated for schools. The oldest is at U of Alabama and has finagled a Vaxx card. Their mental health is fine.
I have a left wing trial lawyer son who has Covid now (very mild symptoms) and his two little daughters (fully vaxxed) are freaking out. I make no promises about their mental health.
He, of course, had vaxxed and boosted.
r/teachers on Reddit is full of whiners and crybabies. Apparently vast majority work too hard and are paid too little.
It’s hilarious.
The government would not have been able to do this if half the country would wake up to the media’s game. I think many of these people could literally be in a city that had widespread riot damage , see it with their own eyes, and still believe that the BLM protest were “ mostly peaceful” because “ experts” told them so.
@JonBaker:
So you mean to say that close scrutiny of media ownership and the ranks of ‘authoritative’ sources would be in order?
Tsk… tsk… Next thing you’ll be holding a torchlight procession and burning piles of NAMBLA tracts or something. Slippery slope!
Hi, Greg. I was glad to see that you have a blog. I just stopped by and commented.
I think you’re right that it’s more a question of the overall societal response, or at least the bureaucratic/political response in a lot of places. But on the other hand, I have no children, so have had little incentive to follow the school developments closely.
Phillip:
Thanks for reading and commenting on my blog. As you probably noticed I haven’t written much lately but maybe I will start again.
In general I think we place too much importance on the influence of schools on the development of our kids. I tend to think the schools follow the culture more than drive it. I’ve got a couple of kids (now grown) and their formal education has had very little influence on their development (and since they spent many years in the public schools of Prince George’s County, MD, this is a good thing.
A child will spend about 10 percent of their waking hours from birth until they reach 18 being instructed in school. I think what they do in the remaining 90 percent is much more important to their development.
Solution is easy: outlaw teacher’s unions.
A novel virus, maybe, perhaps evolved, perhaps designed, planned parent/hood that was neither a good nor exclusive Choice, social contagion, and marginal mandates with collateral damage. Nice (pun intended).
Heading toward 80, I don’t know how many older people I have met, or whose comments I have read on the Internet who have said how glad they are that they will soon be gone from the scene, and not have to live through much of or have to deal with the whole rotten mess that the U.S./Western civilization has become.
Mark Steyn wittily sums up that whole ghastly mess at https://www.steynonline.com/12011/america-sticks-out-its-tush
Two striking quotes from Steyn’s article:
” In 2004, shortly before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger made a similar observation about the future of Europe:
‘There is a strange lack of desire for a future…'”
and
“To come back to where we came in – the dearth of children in the remnants of Christendom – ex-Pope Benedict observed a decade and a half ago:
” Children, who are the future, are seen as a threat for the present; the idea is that they take something away from our life. They are not felt as a hope, but rather as a limitation of the present.””
P.S. And that is the mindset behind far too many of the horrendous number of abortions–for far too many children are a burden, a nuisance, and impediment to living, in that horrible current phrase, “your best life,” supposed “freedom” and the ideal life you want to live.
Well, I may be pessimistic but I have 5 children and five grandchildren. I tried.
I have a DiL and her sister who are high school teachers. Last year was nuts, not knowing how the coming week would be run, depending on which case counts spooked the super. All virtual, alternated something or other, half days and…half virtual. Got to be a strain.
Our daughter teaches at a Christian el ed and the most they did was mask. Lot less strain. Worked.
Should say that I keep an eye on the grandkids’ (fourth grade and eighth grade) education. Satisfied. Talking to the older about the constitution and BoR. I said, don’t you think the Third is kind of…not connected? Have you heard of the Quartering Acts? She had. Color me surprised. Knew all about them. Sort of a proof against the Founders as selfish, ungrateful greedheads who hadn’t wanted to pay for the Brits’ protection. Eighth grade….not expecting that.
Their math is good.
Last year, the family set up a learning pod for half a dozen middle school kids–extra tables and chairs, electrical outlets, hired a tech-savvy young lady to keep things on task. Worked for a while until it got blown up by a false positive test.
Kids seem socially okay. The softball leagues haven’t taken any time off, nor have the volleyball teams.
As my fourth grader–hot shot pitcher–said of her good friend and catcher, “Me and Cam carry this team!”. Thought about the grammar but kept my peace.
Thing is, it takes effort on the parents’ part. And on the part of their friends’ parents.
Our family has two young adults, both with mental health issues before the pandemic, but both went completely off the rails during it. One spent nearly 2 weeks in hospital for an eating disorder (followed by an additional 5 months of intensive day programs, to be followed by years of therapists, dieticians, etc. still with a high probability of relapse.) The other has OCD which is out of control but the kid is refusing treatment.
Pain all around.
One kind of harm government covid response (NOT covid itself) done to children that I rarely see mentioned, since most people focus on school closings, are caused by masking requirements. There are young children born during the pandemic or perhaps a few months prior who have never seen anyone outside of immediate family without a mask.
Children need to learn to recognize people’s faces. They need to be able to recognize facial expressions. It’s just basic childhood development. And they can’t pick up on those non-verbal cues if people are wearing masks. I’ve read that these children may end up with an IQ 20 to 25 points lower than if their development hadn’t been deliberately sabotaged.
I found a reference for my last comment. There’s a link to the original WSJ article in this Daily Wire post. But it’s behind the paywall. Still, you can read enough of it to know that this is an accurate quote.
“…Pediatricians and prominent medicine professors, such as Dr. Marty Makarty of Johns Hopkins University, have argued that children are extremely low-risk transmission-wise and can be psychologically harmed. As Makarty and H. Cody Meissner, a professor of Pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine and a former Food and Drug Administration employee, wrote in The Wall Street Journal:
‘The possible psychological harm of widespread masking is an even greater worry. Facial expressions are integral to human connection, particularly for young children, who are only learning how to signal fear, confusion, and happiness. Covering a child’s face mutes these nonverbal forms of communication and can result in robotic and emotionless interactions, anxiety and depression. Seeing people speak is a building block of phonetic development. It is especially important for children with disabilities such as hearing impairment.'”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/still-defying-governor-austin-schools-implore-kids-to-double-mask
I forgot to mention the part about how it’s important to see people speak for a child’s phonetic development. But that’s an excellent point as well.