Lockdown tragedy (suicide mentioned)

amother

Mistyrose

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:35 pm

amother [ Purple ] wrote:

Anyone positive for coronavirus is supposed to be in quarantine. Masks are so that you won't spread coronavirus to others if you are asymptomatic or presymptomatic and aren't aware of it.

You’re missing the point.

gold21

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:36 pm

I linked this article on another thread earlier today:

https://thefederalist.com/2020.....over/

For those who don't click links, here's the article:

As report cards begin to roll out for fall, public schools across the nation are reporting a massive increase in children failing classes, due to the majority going online and the chaos of rolling COVID closures. In Fairfax, Virginia, one of the nation’s largest districts, “the percentage of middle school and high school students earning F’s in at least two classes jumped by 83 percent: from 6 percent to 11 percent,” the Washington Post reported Tuesday. That’s nearly 10,000 children.

Saint Paul, Minnesota, reported recently that 40 percent of high school students are failing, “about double what we might expect in a typical year,” said the large district’s superintendent. It’s even worse for younger children.

In Houston, Texas, the superintendent says 42 percent of students failed two or more classes this fall, up from 11 percent in a typical year. In Alabama, 5,000 children have never shown up for class this school year, either in-person or online.

In October, 79 percent of U.S. parents of school-age children told Pew their children were receiving either entirely or partially online instruction this school year. Only 20 percent of U.S. kids were reported as receiving fully in-person instruction this school year.

In-person instruction decreased further in November due to media panic over increasing COVID cases, even though research shows children are at lower risk of a bad case of COVID than from the seasonal flu, and most teachers are also young and in the low-risk category. Foreign countries that kept schools open found they did not significantly contribute to COVID spread. The United States is a first-world outlier in continuing to keep children online now for nearly an entire school year.

Data showing children are at low risk from COVID was available by early summer 2020, yet most public schools have kept or increased online activities after shutting down in the spring then providing chaotic, poor-quality instruction until the school year ended. Joe Biden’s plan would keep rolling school blackouts going indefinitely.

Ninety percent of parents whose children were getting exclusively in-person instruction were satisfied with it, while three-quarters of parents whose children had some or all online instruction told Pew they were satisfied. There is a clear disconnect between parents’ claims of satisfaction with online offerings and children’s actual performance.

Besides reinforcing that online instruction is clearly inferior to personal instruction, which was well-established long before COVID, all of these reports show that the children who are most harmed are the most at-risk: poor and struggling learners. This matches the large amount of other research that finds that the pre-COVID mediocrity of American public education handicaps all children and taxpayers, which is most visible in children whose families cannot or will not compensate for schooling failures.

Once children fall behind in school, they rarely ever recover. U.S. public schools are extremely poor at remediation, largely because the leftist ideology controlling it despises the core curriculum that most strongly propels achievement for all. The left’s war on norms, normality, and a common culture makes closing education gaps almost impossible — even though that’s precisely what America’s educationally abused COVID generation needs more than ever.

The Post says the spike in fail rates “confirm[s] fears about how the pandemic is driving an equity gap in American education that may prove impossible to close. Fairfax’s data shows that children who are engaged and care deeply about school — children in stable home situations, whose parents have sufficient resources — will stay engaged in an online environment, while children whose temperament, socioeconomic status or home situation have historically barred them from academic achievement will slip further and further behind.”

This is terrible news for taxpayers, as children like this graduate into economic dependence on their fellow citizens and the United States is facing the largest debt crisis in human history.

“More than 70% of Black students are learning entirely remotely right now, compared to about 40% of white students and about 60% Hispanic or Latinx students,” according to Marketplace Edison Research. The firm says this is partly because more black parents chose online learning because higher percentages of African Americans suffer from COVID infections.

Teachers of children who have stable families with a non-working parent free to fill in instruction schools are refusing to provide also privately report many such children are also not doing well. They also have been forced into the constant chaos of changing school situations, high rates of isolation, the distractions of screen-centered interaction, and a lack of professional in-person instruction. Like America’s “good” school districts, the middle-class kids with stable families look better in comparison to the devastated children. But they’re being seriously hurt, too.

As researchers such as E.D. Hirsch and Jay P. Greene have demonstrated, America’s middle-class students and highly rated schools have been at best mediocre for decades when compared to peers in other highly developed nations. The United States’ free economy helps compensate for its academic decrepitude, but that advantage is narrowing. The U.S. economy is increasingly saddled with government and consumer debt, and the U.S.’s high numbers of unstable homes and schools that aren’t capable of compensating for them produce increasing numbers of adults unfit for work. COVID instability increases the pressure on this already weak social infrastructure.

It is already possible to see what the long-term consequences will be for the nation. It was possible to see that back in March when schools were first closed. As I wrote in April:

Since the typical public school is extremely poor at remedial education and lifting children above their demographics, it’s likely that millions of American children will never recover from the educational and thus economic setbacks of shutting down their schools this year. Kids who fall behind in U.S. public schools very rarely recover. Plus, the Common Core era has already seen a decline in U.S. education quality. As always, these compounded setbacks will be worst for the children who can least afford them.

The Post paraphrases Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, as saying: “the United States has reached a tipping point: The damage done to schoolchildren with scarce resources is likely to be irreparable.” U.S. governors, school superintendents, legislatures who refused to check pandemic excesses, and other leaders who failed this generation cannot say they weren’t warned. But by the time the evils they have caused can no longer be hidden, they will be out of office with a nice retirement fund, still assuaging their guilt with the lie that lockdowns “saved lives.”

There are only a few strategies possible to help children overcome the damage our society has done to them. Most importantly, state legislatures must immediately grant parents the power to microtarget effective in-person instruction to their children through education savings accounts. The only schools that have a track record of overcoming education gaps as a sector are charter, Christian, and home schools.

Second, states must end the “college to nowhere” reality with drastically improved secondary trades apprenticeships. As Stanley Kurtz writes, the right must “build up a competing, quicker and cheaper apprenticeship sector that serves the upper-middle class as well as blue-collar workers.” Ideology has ruined K-16 education in America, and kids handicapped by COVID closures cannot afford that. They need paths to self-sufficiency that won’t make them mental and financial slaves.

Democrats aren’t going to do this — school closures were their demand in the first place, and education’s ideological corruption serves their interests by creating economic and mental dependents. If Republicans don’t stop sitting on their hands in their moms’ basements like Biden and start helping the kids and our nation effectively address this, they don’t deserve to exist. This is an existential crisis for America.

Last edited by gold21 on Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:41 pm; edited 2 times in total

amother

Purple

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:38 pm

amother [ Khaki ] wrote:

.

Um, what about cyber bullying? My son never had any issues when they were in school full time. Now they spend a lot of time on the computer and my son became a victim of cyber bullying on Google hangouts

Cyberbullying has been around for a long time, and affects kids when school is in session for many years.

amother

Purple

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:40 pm

amother [ Mauve ] wrote:

Heartbreaking
I don't agree that kids staying home is healthier. Kids need to leave the house. You can't protect them from everything. If they don't learn how to deal with people (even sadly bullies) when they are young how do you expect them to integrate to society when they get older. People need interaction with humans not just screens. Depression is no joke.

There's a huge gap between kids in school full time and kids not being able to leave the house. There is a middle ground.

Bullies will bully and kids will commit suicide. Some kids will commit suicide because there is no school, others will commit suicide because there is school. You never cared about the kids who committed suicide because they were forced to attend school even though it wasn't good for them, why do you suddenly care about kids who commit suicide because they can't attend school even though it's not good for them? You care about the ones who prove your point, that what you want is good and what you don't want is bad. You care about the ones who committed suicide when there was no school because you believe your kids are happy in school and fear that your kids will commit suicide next, or because you sympathize with the desire to commit suicide because of lockdown. You care about YOU and your life. Not about the suicidal kids themselves.

amother

Purple

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:43 pm

gold21 wrote:

If YOU wear masks and YOU social distance, how is a group of teens who oppose SD and make different choices, going to affect you? They're young, and therefore low risk, so they are not going to be flooding hospitals as a group.

Forcing virtual learning on a child is very impactful on that child's life.

A child choosing to hang out with friends won't actually impact anyone outside his friend group & their contacts who DON'T social distance and DON'T wear masks.

Just common sense.

They are one of the largest groups contracting coronavirus. And they are careless and spread it to everyone else. Of course they are spreading it and impacting everyone else. They spread it to their friend groups and contacts, who spread it to their parents and siblings, the parents spread it to their coworkers...

gold21

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:44 pm

amother [ Purple ] wrote:

That's the wrong approach.

Why not actually address BOTH issues? Let's shed more light on issues of bullying in schools. Let's shed more light on the impact of lockdown on mental health.

Don't shrug off either one. Shed light on both, tackle both.

Hey, corona is no big deal because the number one killer in the US is heart disease. Lo aleinu.

That's the wrong approach. Kind of twisted, actually.

gold21

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:46 pm

amother [ Purple ] wrote:

Do YOU protect yourself with masks and social distancing?

amother

Purple

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:52 pm

gold21 wrote:

Do YOU protect yourself with masks and social distancing?

We wear masks and SD. DH still has to go to work, we still need to go to the supermarket and doctor appointments, we don't have a car, and it's hard to keep six feet away from everyone if people around you are ignoring it and push up against you, bump into you, stand right beside or behind you, etc. Also my mask doesn't protect me, it protects everyone else from my germs. If no one else is wearing a mask then it doesn't matter much that I am. I'm not a hypocrite but I have a right to life, safety, and health, just like everyone else. People who won't wear masks are trampling my right to life, safety, and health.

amother

Cyan

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:54 pm

gold21 wrote:

Do YOU protect yourself with masks and social distancing?

You’re missing the point. What about the healthcare workers that have to take care of the parents and grandparents who got covid from the irresponsible young adults? You put them at risk and their families at risk. The workers who deliver groceries and their families are at risk. Because of the way this virus spreads, it’s not just your little bubble that’s impacted. Because your little bubble isn’t little.

amother

White

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:54 pm

amother [ Khaki ] wrote:

While that is a concern, there are other children who were bullied IRL with threats of physical violence and finally felt safe when they started doing school at home.

amother

Purple

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:56 pm

gold21 wrote:

That's nice, but it's been done halfheartedly for decades with no change. So let's just admit that. Bullying is there, depression is there, suicide is there, and no one is dealing with it. The pandemic has raised awareness and put different people at risk, that's all. I would love for these issues to be dealt with but they're not being dealt with. They were ignored till now and now they are being held up as reasons not to lock down, wear masks, or SD. It's kind of yuck to use other people's problems to further your own goals, and showcase only the parts that help your case, know what I mean?

gold21

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 1:59 pm

amother [ Purple ] wrote:

An N95 mask is protective to the wearer, and is something you have the option of wearing.

As for people bumping into you as they pass by- the CDC does not count that as covid exposure. The CDC states that 15 minutes of exposure to someone carrying covid is enough to transmit the virus. Follow the science.

Anyway, that's kind of weird that people are so touchy and pushy in your neighborhood, covid or not. It's just rude regardless. Interesting.

So your doctors offices don't have safety protocols in place? My doctor's offices do.

You have options to protect yourself from covid- a kid whose forced to learn virtually does not have options to protect himself if he cannot succeed without in-person learning.

If you cannot see your own (selfish?) bias coming through on this thread, well....

gold21

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 2:00 pm

amother [ Purple ] wrote:

I definitely agree with your last sentence- that's exactly what you're doing. Hard to see your own flaws, eh?

gold21

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 2:03 pm

amother [ Cyan ] wrote:

Your viewpoint is narrow and limited.

Healthcare systems are busy even in areas where schools are closed.

Next.

amother

Cyan

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 2:06 pm

gold21 wrote:

Your viewpoint is narrow and limited.

Healthcare systems are busy even in areas where schools are closed.

Next.

Sorry, nope. I’m a healthcare worker. I know what I’m talking about. What are your credentials?

amother

Purple

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 2:07 pm

gold21 wrote:

I don't know if CDC says this, but five minutes of exposure here and five minutes there and five minutes there can create a viral load that can make you sick. This is fact.

No one has the right to take N95s from healthcare workers on the front lines and that includes me. There is a shortage and they need to go to the ones who need it most. So everyone else needs to take responsibility and wear their own regular masks so that they won't spread germs.

Every place has safety protocols but there is no enforcement because the people who refuse to follow them become violent very easily so everyone is afraid to enforce. And what about public transportation? Or should we go into debt so that we can go to the doctor by cab?

The kid is supposed to have a supportive family and if he is struggling he can make a pod and they can meet safely, and he can do therapy or find an outlet that will help him. He has choices, just like the rest of us. Generations before us have lived through pandemics and quarantines and we will make it through too, but we need to stop the spread. I'm sorry but this child's suicide - like the suicides when school is operating in person - have more to do with failures on the part of the parents and school, and failures on the part of the bullies' parents, than with actual lockdown itself.

gold21

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 2:10 pm

amother [ Cyan ] wrote:

Sorry, nope. I’m a healthcare worker. I know what I’m talking about. What are your credentials?

I love the operative assumption that I have no credentials.

Like you're the only frum healthcare worker in the world, so therefore nobody else can be.

It's one of the most common fields for frum women to go into.

Tell me your credentials (details please), then I'll tell you mine. Fair?

amother

Purple

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 2:11 pm

gold21 wrote:

I definitely agree with your last sentence- that's exactly what you're doing. Hard to see your own flaws, eh?

Really? How?

Do you know what my goals are? Do you know what I've been through? It's nice that you're judging me but you are so wrong.

gold21

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 2:11 pm

amother [ Purple ] wrote:

So why not check the CDC website?

Anyway, there is no shortage of N95 masks. Don't worry. Go buy some.

And someone bumping into you would not create five minutes of exposure.

Last edited by gold21 on Thu, Dec 03 2020, 2:12 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Cyan

Thu, Dec 03 2020, 2:12 pm

gold21 wrote:

I love the assumption that I have no credentials. Like you're the only frum healthcare worker in the world.

It's one of the most common fields for frum women to go into.

Tell me your credentials (details please), then I'll tell you mine. Fair?

Sure! Many yrs experience as a public health RN, masters trained. You work in healthcare? What do you do? Are you taking care of covid patients and suspected covid patients like I am?