A Canadian teacher writes about how the school system’s pandemic reaction has hurt children psychologically
It’s incredibly sad, tremendously frustrating, and infuriating because it didn’t have to be and it was foreseeable. If you close schools for this long and require remote learning, as well as drilling into children the idea that disease is all around them and everyone can be dangerous to them, it can be easily predicted that there will be grave psychological repercussions.
And so:
Our students were taught to think of their schools as hubs for infection and themselves as vectors of disease. This has fundamentally altered their understanding of themselves…
When we were physically in school, it felt like there was no longer life in the building. Maybe it was the masks that made it so no one wanted to engage in lessons, or even talk about how they spent their weekend. But it felt cold and soulless. My students weren’t allowed to gather in the halls or chat between classes. They still aren’t. Sporting events, clubs and graduation were all cancelled. These may sound like small things, but these losses were a huge deal to the students. These are rites of passages that can’t be made up.
In my classroom, the learning loss is noticeable. My students can’t concentrate and they aren’t doing the work that I assign to them. They have way less motivation compared to before the pandemic began. Some of my students chose not to come back at all, either because of fear of the virus, or because they are debilitated by social anxiety. And now they have the option to do virtual schooling from home…
My older students (grades 11 and 12) aren’t even allowed a lunch break, and are expected to come to school, go to class for five and a half hours and then go home. Children in 9th and 10th grades have to face the front of the classroom while they eat lunch during their second period class. My students used to be able to eat in the halls or the cafeteria; now that’s forbidden. Younger children are expected to follow the “mask off, voices off” rule, and are made to wear their masks outside, where they can only play with other kids in their class. Of course, outside of school, kids are going to restaurants with their families and to each other’s houses, making the rules at school feel punitive and nonsensical.
That’s part of the anger, isn’t it? That so many of the rules – and this isn’t limited to Canada or to schools – are nonsensical on their face, and are inconsistent as well.
I think this is a key point – and not just for students and young people [my emphasis]:
They are anxious and depressed. Previously outgoing students are now terrified at the prospect of being singled out to stand in front of the class and speak. And many of my students seem to have found comfort behind their masks. They feel exposed when their peers can see their whole face.
Please read the whole thing.
Related.
This has been going around the last couple of days from the UK.
Young woman talking about the effects on kids in school.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOgL1sF0x-A
And of course this piece mainly deals with primary and high schools but the outrages imposed on college students is almost as bad and it is continuing right now after triple vaxxed etc.
All of this is quickly climbing the charts of non war evils ever inflicted on the world.
“Our students were taught to think of their schools as hubs for infection and themselves as vectors of disease.”
Please also consider that for the past several decades people have also been taught that they are a cancer on the face of the innocent earth, and that they are more evil than any other force on the earth that they are destroying. How do people even function with these toxic ideas firmly rooted in their mindsets?
Here’s a link to the article in JAMA Pediatrics referenced by the Substack author. It’s highly technical but still worth reading:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2788069?guestAccessKey=47a0f129-4bc0-45d3-b2bb-b9c227e1313f&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=011822
Apropos of Canada, I have a friend in Ann Arbor whose son wanted to go to university in Toronto after finishing high school. He’s lost at least two years of his life, first because of the closing of the U.S./Canada border in 2020. Then, after Trudeau graciously allowed American students to cross the border for university study in 2021, provided they and their parents passed at least two COVID tests before entering Trudeaupia, my friend’s son was able to complete his first semester– he liked the city of Toronto as well as his school, so all seemed to be going well. Then (but of course!) Quebec and then Ontario imposed a new round of lockdowns, curfews, and other restrictions on university students at the end of 2021. My friend said that her son decided to stay in Michigan when he came home for Christmas rather than return to Canada only to be a prisoner in his dorm room.
He’s thinking of taking courses at Georgetown in the spring. While I’m not sure that a university located in The Swamp is a whole lot better (but hey, the Second Gentleman of the United States [SGOTUS], aka Kamala’s spouse, is a distinguished visiting professor at Georgetown Law, what’s not to like?) than a Canadian university for the time being, at least it’s on this side of the border. In any case my friend’s son is struggling with the same issues of depression and aimlessness that the writer of the Substack article noted in her students.
More of this. Almost as important if not more are school board, county council and city council elections.
https://twitter.com/bethanyshondark/status/1483469209128607744/video/1
This is two minutes of righteousness.
leavingliberty…”“Our students were taught to think of their schools as hubs for infection and themselves as vectors of disease.” Please also consider that for the past several decades people have also been taught that they are a cancer on the face of the innocent earth, and that they are more evil than any other force on the earth that they are destroying.”
A few days ago, Claire Lehmann linked a tweet by Elon Musk re his concerns about the falling fertility rates. Many of the comments (I believe they were on Elon’s thread, not Claire’s) were pretty disturbing, along the lines of ‘cancer on the face of the innocent earth,’ the old line ‘why would you want to bring children in a world which is so awful’ (environmental destruction, lack of social justice, etc etc)
In college debate (policy debate, to be specific), a couple of decades ago, the ‘Voluntary Human Extinction case showed up…the idea is that Team A’s opponent is arguing for some policy…higher minimum wages, for example…instead of Team B doing the classical debate thing of arguing why higher min wages would be harmful, they propose an alternative–voluntary human extinction–and argue that would solve *all* problems and thus be the best solution.
What’s been done to, and is being done to, children is so damaging to them that I consider it criminal. Teachers have thought of themselves first, and children hardly at all, and parents have been bullied and frightened into playing along.
The kids in my neighborhood attend a variety of schools. Some were in-person from fall 2020 on, and some continued to be online. All of the kids have played together outside, without masks and without restrictions, throughout. Only one child has caught COVID. He got it from his teacher. He recovered in 48 hours.
The only bright spot I can point to is the growth in registration of kids at private schools or homeschooling. Eventually I’d like to think that parents will choose to place their kids somewhere not permeated with soul-crushing lies. The whole thing might almost have been worth it if it led to the destruction of the Woke Educational Babysitting Complex.
I listened to a dude on Youtube recently about how virtual reality and the Metaverse is going to be the thing that essentially sedates a generation of young men to keep them from being disruptive or rebelling against the system. I had the same thought in response to that as I do to this post about kids, COVID, and masks.
A functioning economy needs functional human beings. A mass-market, consumer-driven economy especially needs lots of human beings capable of earning the money to buy lots of stuff.
Mike
Interesting. Not much of that nonsense here. Even the local International School down the road seems fairly sane regarding Covid (if nothing else) — and the staff are your usual Western Mid Wit Degenerates who were fit only for Education degrees and the further brain-shredding which takes place during their training. There’s a bit of government-mandated Covid Theatre, but I see little evidence of the kids being developmentally warped by the Great Covid Fear.
Might be related to more pervasive parental involvement keeping them on their toes. Or no union.
MBunge…re the Metaverse….life in the metaverse is being justified as desirable in order to Save the Planet. A post at the investment site Seeking Alpha argued for this explicitly…looks like signing required, but for any SA members:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4476384-metaverse-fights-climate-crisis
See also my post To Disappear in Dreams:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/65522.html
Zaphod,
‘or no union’
Nailed it.
Of the groups most damaged by our nation’s reaction to the pandemic, High school aged students have to be the most negatively impacted, along with those over the age of 70. The pandemic has damaged and disrupted all of our lives, but the teen-agers may never fully recover from what they have lost. Something like this may have killed me when I was in High School. The loss of my social network and sports, as well as books and academics… So many kids have spiraled into deep depression and are losing hope.
Nice job, adults!
“Unvaccinated students segregated behind caution tape…” https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/la-high-school-segregates-unvaccinated-students-behind-caution-tape/
“Never forget what they did to children…”
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/i-watched-and-felt-like-my-entire-life-was-falling-apart/
“It’s incredibly sad, tremendously frustrating, and infuriating because it didn’t have to be and it was foreseeable.” neo
Yes but for me infuriating barely suffices. But most of all, I blame the
teachersindoctrinators.“What’s been done to, and is being done to, children is so damaging to them that I consider it criminal.” Kate
It’s inhumane.
“Dec 10, 2021 — CHILD ABUSE: Kindergartners are forced to eat lunch outside in 40 degree weather at Capitol Hill Elementary School in Portland, Oregon.”
To this day one can finds scores of shrieking harpies on social media, furious that any K-12 schools are in person, and demanding to know what difference it makes to have in person education.
My assumption is most of these women (and yes, they’re almost exclusively women over 55) never had kids or, if they did, have forgotten what it’s like to parent a school age child. After all, they’re content sitting inside guzzling chardonnay and binge watching ‘The Crown’. What’s the big deal? Aren’t you pro-SCIENCE????
@RTF
“…High school aged students have to be the most negatively impacted”
How many high schoolers never got their first summer jobs, and have lost the basis for a start in the workplace?
My niece, my best friend’s niece, and my neighbor down the street’s daughter had their college experience ruined by these policies.
And paid a fortune for it. Hope they realize who did this to them.
The left hates, hates, HATES, children.