I'm I alone in thinking that we're not doomed? And other unpopular thoughts...

[GalesThisMorning]

Here is a list of my unpopular opinions. I'll list them now and then do everyone a favour and stop engaging on these threads!

Lockdown needed to happen. It may need to happen again
We have a lot to learn from countries like Vietnam, but we probably won't.
Teachers are employees with the same rights of safety in the workplace as anyone.
Children, for the most part, will cope.
A few months of disrupted formal education is not a catastrophe for most children.
Humans are resilient creatures
It's ok to enjoy the sun while furloughed.It doesn't mean you want the crisis to continue.
We've survived worse things than recessions
We should follow the rules of lockdown.
We will have a very high death toll at the end of this. Probably among the world's highest. This is not proof that lockdown didn't work and wasn't needed.

@HeadSpin5 yeah the school as childcare factor is obviously really difficult to figure out. I think its really interesting the Jacinda Arden has posited a 4 day work week to help NZ economy. That is so progressive and family friendly, as probably a lot of jobs could be better managed that way.

I don't have the answers unfortunately but I wish we could be more forward thinking as we look for a solution, instead of thinking that the we need to decide who 'loses' - teachers or parents

Agreed

We need to go back to work and school or the economy will be fucked and people's lives will be ruined.

While we do that and wait for a vacine and/or effective treatments, we need to continue the shield the truly clinically vulnerable (but not everyone who has decided they are vulerable, as if we do that we will never get the train back on the tracks).

I expect this is an unpopular opinion.

Agree, these are all v difficult scenarios. And teachers v parents isn’t right - but it’s not just parents who benefit from schools opening. I’m assuming teachers will want to be paid/furloughed if they don’t? I would. But who pays? It’s not that easy as ‘parents find another job’ in a global recession. Again I’m not talking temporarily, eg til Sep - some could stumble through til then with forgiving employers, furlough etc. But that’s not what I think this thread is about (unless I’ve misunderstood.

Yes. Its all difficult. I will be working and getting paid in September, some of that work may be online though. I work with FE learners with additional learning needs and many of them benefit from remote learning and appreciate not being in busy classrooms, being able to speak to their tutors 1-1 from home etc...

As far as how it will work long term... fuck knows. It will be really really hard to work this way long term as I'm working around a 4 year old. My husband's job is not secure. My eldest is meant to be having a wonderful gap year in America and now will be lucky if he manages to get his old job as a potwash back.

So yeah it's a lot of shit to wade through. But I still think it's not the end of days. We'll just get through it the way people always have.

Why are you blaming teachers?

Well, technically I'm not blaming them am I? I said I was dismayed by their actions. But they have a role in all this given many are on here saying they won't go back to work as it isn't safe. If the majority were saying they would, the unions wouldn't then have much clout. There are many teachers who are wonderful human beings and brilliant at their jobs, particularly the ones who are assessing the evidence and saying they are happy to go back to work. It's not black and white.

@RedRosie I agree with what you've said wholeheartedly.

I agree OP.

Well, technically I'm not blaming them am I? I said I was dismayed by their actions.

What actions? Their actions have so far involved doing what they're told: i.e. setting distance learning work for their pupils and going into school to look after key workers' children if asked to do so.

And I expect that pretty much all of them will do as they are told and go back when schools re-open too, even if they have serious misgivings about the safety of doing so.

So... which actions of teachers are dismaying you?

Well, technically I'm not blaming them am I? I said I was dismayed by their actions. But they have a role in all this given many are on here saying they won't go back to work as it isn't safe

You can't be dismayed by people not wanting to work in an unsafe environment. Or, you can, but it's not a persuasive argument.

Teachers, like most other employees, will go to work as and when they are told. They dont wield as much power as you're giving them credit for.

Anyway I'm really not interested in a thread that makes teachers justifying themselves as there's a lot of that on here already

I agree OP,
This is the bloody Best Case Scenario for when a unknown virus goes global

Theres a lot to be said for fashioned notions like counting your blessings

@7Days yes I agree

Seems sensible enough to me, Gales.
I don't think we're all doomed, this will end eventually.

I'll go further and say your opinions are not unpopular ones, they are reasonable.

@Viviennemary
Completely agree with you. Lockdown needs to end immediately. It should have never happened. There was an article out recently in which Michael Levitt, a Nobel prize winning scientist, said its been a huge mistake. Many doctors, scientists and epidemiologists have stated the same, but unfortunately only doomsday predictions get air time. well, doomsday has arrived, not in the form of a virus, but in economic and societal destruction due to lockdown.

particularly the ones who are assessing the evidence and saying they are happy to go back to work

Ah so the good ones are the ones who agree with you? Not the ones who say they are willing to abide by their employers instructions, which are made using scientific information about the working environment.

Theres a lot to be said for fashioned notions like counting your blessings

I couldn't agree more!

Agree. All makes perfect sense

Agree with everything you’ve said op

There is very little that will cause doom for a whole society. If half the population can be wiped out from the plague and we can still carry on this is a mere hiccup.
However as pointed out individually this can be pretty harrowing if your partner has succumbed, or you've lost your job, or your business has collapsed, or your apprenticeship has been cancelled etc.
My daughter is in Y10 and she is going back to school physically part time next week while continuing a full online schedule, as are the y12s, and hopefully they will increase the in school time as they work through it. I think it's fairly essential for these two groups to go back asap, not so much the younger years, especially if their schools can do a decent job remotely. I also think it's a good time to review having GCSEs and A levels at all and instead have the children take a wider range of courses with some electives for specialisation and grade them as in other years.

@missyB1

I agree with you. I think we'll see some flare ups in hot spots. Then, I agree, after the vaccine it will kind of hover in the background.

I think we'll be dealing with the social/emotional/financial fallout for much longer. However, I don't think it will be all bad.

Yep.

I agree as well OP. I’m worried that the conservatives will push an exaggeratedly gloomy message about the economy to introduce another round of ineffective and unnecessarily harsh austerity measures. I’m not saying things aren’t going to be rough, I just don’t think we should automatically assume that austerity is inevitable