
I’m a Nurse in New York. Teachers Should Do Their Jobs, Just Like I Did - jawns
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/im-nurse-teachers-should-do-their-jobs-like-i-did/614902/
======
neaden
This is an awful and irresponsible article. This is not a war, nurses are not
soldiers and shouldn't have been put at such risk. The fact that they were was
the result of a complete abdication of duty of our nations leadership. In
regards to schools, based on recent outbreaks at schools that have reopened
and summer camps it seems pretty clear that with the US's current level of
transmission, trying to open schools is incredibly irresponsible. If we really
wanted to have schools open as a priority we should have gotten our
transmission down in the summer. We failed, and this is the result.

~~~
gameswithgo
>This is not a war,

Feeling like this is not a war is a big reason we have all had to endure so
much risk. We have been unwilling to make the tough decisions, unwilling to
move ahead with imperfect information, unwilling to sacrifice trivial liberty
to do what is clearly safer for our fellow humans.

~~~
neaden
That is seriously wrongheaded thinking. This is just plain not a war, it is a
plague. We do need to make sacrifices, but the ideals expoused in this
article, needlessly throwing people into danger out of some misguided ideal of
lionizing sacrifice is just going to get more people sick.

------
callinyouin
These two sentences, I think, best summarize the article's position on the
topic:

> Instead of taking the summer to hone arguments against returning to the
> classroom, administrators and teachers should be thinking about how they can
> best support children and their families through a turbulent time. Schools
> are essential to the functioning of our society, and that makes teachers
> essential workers.

Yes, and many teachers think that the best way to support children and their
families is to not put them in a position where they might die. Part of their
"essential" function here is in advocating for the safest and most effective
learning environment possible. Right now that seems to be attending lessons
remotely until it's safe to go back to schools.

That the author thinks it's the duty of teachers to unnecessarily put children
in harm's way as if there is no alternative is nothing short of bizarre and
I'm disappointed to see it published by the Atlantic.

~~~
thedrbrian
>put them in a position where they might die?

Children or teachers? In the uk we’ve recorded no deaths for the under 15s
from corona and only 339 in the 15 to 44 range. The kids will be fine.
[https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending24july2020)

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
I would argue that a child with one or more dead parents due to Corona would
be harmful

------
DavidVoid
Is there any good data on what impact opening schools[1] actually has on the
spread of the virus?

Here in Sweden schools were kept open so that essential workers wouldn't have
to stay home from work to take care of their children, and that decision
doesn't seem to have impacted us negatively [2]. So it seems to me that,
unless a child is in an at-risk group, there shouldn't be a negative impact
from sending them to school.

The U.S. and Sweden are of course _very different_ countries, so there might
be some other factors at play that I haven't thought of.

[1] by schools I mean for kids up to the age of about 15, not universities and
the like

[2] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-
sweden...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden-
schools-idUSKCN24G2IS)

~~~
zhobbs
We need to be making more science based risk decisions here. The commentary I
see on this topic, like this article, are justifications of whatever viewpoint
the person is anchored in (due to emotions, political leadership, or personal
home situation). HN should be linking to meta-studies on the topic, not
opinion pieces.

------
travisjungroth
This is disgusting. It's just a "I went through it, so they should, too."
argument.

The completely legitimate concerns of teachers are being waved away as
emotions.

> It’s going to be hard; it’s going to be stressful; it’s not going to be
> perfect.

It's not just going to be "stressful". People are going to die! And she's
missing the huge differences between hospitals and schools. Patients don't go
back and forth between the hospital and school every day. Students don't have
to go to school to avoid death.

Teachers doing their part means refusing to participate in a system that will
cause more deaths just so someone else can score political points.

~~~
johnnyb9
Just because their argument appeals to emotion doesn't make the argument for
school closure any more valid. There will always be a risk of death in life...
what if a child gets the flu? These are remote risks that we accept may
happen, we accept them and move on with our lives.

166 children died from the flu in 2019-2020 season, so far there have been 86
child covid deaths.
[https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/04/10/fluupdate041...](https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/04/10/fluupdate041020)
[https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20and%20CHA%20-%20Chil...](https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20and%20CHA%20-%20Children%20and%20COVID-19%20State%20Data%20Report%207.30.20%20FINAL.pdf)

~~~
travisjungroth
I’m not saying her argument appeals to emotion. I’m saying it dismisses
teachers’ reasoning as emotion. It says that teachers are “nervous”, not that
they think that reopening schools will put themselves, their students and
community at risk.

~~~
ryathal
It dismisses their arguments as emotion, because that seems to be the primary
argument. Based on the evidence we currently have:

>there is little to no danger for the kids themselves

>they are unlikely to spread to adults if they are infected

>Online doesn't work with teachers not trained to do it

>there are significant dangers to keeping kids out of school, socially and
developmentally

------
hprotagonist
Does "doing your job" involve the requirement to be willfully complicit in a
situation that will guarantee that some of the children you teach and the
coworkers you work with will die when they otherwise would not have done?

That might be unavoidably true in medicine; there is no sane justification for
why that might be true in education.

~~~
commandlinefan
If that's your standard, then you can never open up schools (or restaurants,
or movie theaters, or parks, or beaches) again, at least not until all disease
is eradicated. People, including children, have died of the seasonal flu every
single year that there have been schools, and many of them contracted it at
school.

------
notacoward
This article is one big strawman. It assumes that teachers' only concern is
_their own_ safety, and then attacks that as insufficient reason to threaten
"safety strikes" etc. In the process it totally ignores arguments based on the
epidemiological effect of premature school openings. Granted, there has been
much coverage of the teachers' (and other staff's) own risks, but only because
that issue had previously been given insufficient attention. It was never
because the risks to the surrounding community didn't matter.

It also ignores a fundamental difference between the roles of nurses and
teachers in this pandemic. Nurses have been caring for people who are _already
sick_ , and furthermore in an environment where majority of the people in a
room understand about infection control. Teachers are trying to _prevent_
spread before it occurs, in an environment where the vast majority of people
in the room are kids who can't be expected to follow infection-control
protocols. Hospitals also have different HVAC systems than schools do, and by
now we should all know why that matters.

Overall, this comes across as a very slanted and ultimately false comparison,
more grounded in a sense of grievance over the author's own burdens (which she
took on voluntarily) than in any epidemiological or other necessity. It's the
"Blue Lives Matter" of school-reopening rhetoric.

------
roenxi
In addition to the other concerns raised - this article seems to be glossing
over the fact that nurses are given extensive training, experience and
equipment in how to avoid getting infected by airborne respiratory diseases.

The relation between nurses and diseases is expected to be different from
teachers and disease.

------
devteambravo
What a dystopian morning read. This is what happens when leadership fails.

------
jkingsbery
I'm in the NJ suburbs, living outside of NY by 30 minutes. The school board
recently had a debate and vote about which of a couple different plans should
they adopt for the year - whether to do some in person or whether to do all
remote. Of course, they did this vote over video conference. If a dozen or so
grown adults can't space themselves out in a room for an hour or two and avoid
transmission, I don't see how we think that many classrooms consisting of
small children will be able to do the same. I agree with other commenters,
that the comparisons between the demands on nurses and teachers are quite
different and thus not helpful in this case.

------
cascom
Are Teachers requesting that they be furloughed without pay or that school
district taxes be refunded to tax payers? If not, it seems a bit rich to ask
taxpayers to pay for a service they are not receiving.

Additionally - part of that service is not only the academic instruction, but
SUPERVISED instruction, breakfast/lunch and sports. Moving classes online
comes nowhere close to replacing the original services contracted for.

~~~
Junk_Collector
This comes across as callous but it's not wrong.

More to the point, the sad state of affairs is that for many children, being
in school is the only time they are well fed, have social interaction, or
escape an abusive household. There is a real human cost to closing schools,
just as there will be a real human cost if we open them. The question should
be what are the relative costs.

------
kemiller2002
What saddens me is that she thinks so little of her abilities. Admittedly, I
am not a teacher, but I am pretty sure I know as much as them as far as health
and infection diseases go. (which is pretty much none) Have nurses and doctors
been put at an unnecessary risk through all of this? Absolutely. We should
have treated them better, given them better equipment, etc., but that is not
the point of this article. What I do know is their knowledge of controlling
dangerous diseases and such is vastly superior to mine. They know how to
handle themselves to minimize risk way better than teachers or myself do. For
one of them to say, "everyone else should just suck it up," greatly diminishes
the understanding they have superior knowledge in the field of health and
medicine.

~~~
WalterSear
Nurses acquire a halo effect by their proximity to other medical
professionals. Their training doesn't prepare them for processing or
understanding the science that underlies their profession, it involves
teaching procedures and protocols. Medical professionals in my family have
complained about rampant antivaxxism, religiosity (belief in faith healing,
etc) and other superstitions in the nurses they work with.

------
ewams
Do teachers takes oaths? Do nurses? I was under the impression the medical
profession was held to a much higher standard on ethics, assistance, and duty?

~~~
andreareina
One of the phrases that's used around this is "duty of care", and teachers
(and other members of the educational profession) definitely have one towards
their students[1]. It's not a trivial thing, regardless of how (or even if)
the two are ordered.

[1] [https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/duty-of-
care/policy](https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/duty-of-care/policy)

------
nkrebs13
How is this a comparison in risk?? It's literally her job to deal with
potentially dangerous situations from sick people.

Most elementary and high schools are underfunded, overcrowded, and probably
half full of people who do not take COVID seriously at all.

"But kids can't get it!!" Being asymptomatic != not getting it. The fact that
kids are often asymptomatic makes it WORSE not better. Kids are just going to
unknowingly spread amongst themselves, amongst their families, and their
communities.

Opening the schools is a good way to make her job a lot harder for a lot
longer.

------
senectus1
here in Australia we had home schooling with the support of the teachers. it
sucked but it was do-able and it worked.

Much of the US could do that as well, but the real problem i see is that in
the US, School is how many children get the only meal of the day they'll get.

that is fucked. the Us let their children and future down in the name of cost
cutting and individual responsibility years and years ago.

~~~
hackeraccount
I don't think food is why people want schools to re-open. I'd guess the two
reasons are not believing that kids are learning remotely and wanting to be
able to go to work.

~~~
happytoexplain
>I don't think food is why people want schools to re-open

It is absolutely one reason.

------
swiley
Meh, childcare and education really need to be decoupled. By combining them we
have something that effectively provides neither.

Teaching is something that absolutely can be done remotely, the Australians
have been doing it forever.

------
happytoexplain
Regardless of how quickly we should open schools, this article is thoughtless,
immoral, and makes a wildly fallacious analogy.

