144. Schools

I’ve been thinking. Years from now, when this pandemic is behind us or we are living in some kind of standoff with it, that we will look back and say that our biggest early mistake was in closing schools. We’ll say that we should have hired more teachers and raised the wages of teachers and counselors and teachers’ aides immediately, and paid engineers and architects and social workers, to design distance and masking programs. And then tested the hell out of everyone and kept kids in schools. 

 

The school tsar in New York kept kids in school during the great 1918 flu pandemic. He said that his students lived in crowded and poor conditions, and that school meant respite and food and some strength for the poorest. 

 

This current pandemic showed fractured lines between rich and poor right away. It meant less food for many students, and, we now know, left millions of students behind academically. My nephew, who teaches in Oakland, spent part of the early pandemic finding hot spots and lining at-home students up with digital access. Covid 19 did early and still does leave thousands of students depressed and some big number suicidal. Will they catch up?

 

Teachers too (and nurses, but that is another story) have become worried and exhausted. Would that we had hired more of them and supported the hell out of them, made their classes smaller and raised their salaries by 20 or 50 percent, and then made them first in line when the vaccines hit. I’m guessing that such early valuation of their importance would have led to wide-spread and eager vaccine takers. As it is, we are losing teachers—and bus drivers and school nurses and counselors. 

 

But, years from now, when Covid is subdued or a constant and controlled companion, we will look back at how hard this whole damned thing was on moms. Yes, dads have had to adjust, spend more time with children and help at home, but moms have carried the biggest burdens. They have become teachers and playmates and confidants of children away from peers. They’ve left jobs they loved and/or jobs they’ve needed to compensate for closed schools. Those who couldn’t quit have overworked and had to leave children on their own; those who’ve left work voluntarily—and often left the husband continue working—have sometimes spiraled into resentment and depression. 

 

Hindsight is easy. But there are lessons.

 

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