Victorian Students to Study from Home for The Foreseable Future

• 

  p1 ama on 07/04/2020 - 15:35

  -1

  This is what happens when you let the pundits and soccer mums make decisions that should be informed by scientists and the actual research evidence. From a public policy perspective, it's very clear that schools have very little impact on COVID-19 transmission.

  Here are some actual research papers (not simply worried parents yelling and screaming).

  1) https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30095-X/fulltext (from the UK)

  Data from the SARS outbreak in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore suggest that school closures did not contribute to the control of the epidemic. Modelling studies of SARS produced conflicting results. Recent modelling studies of COVID-19 predict that school closures alone would prevent only 2–4% of deaths, much less than other social distancing interventions.

  2) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200404155613.h… (from the US)

  The authors note some important limitations of the study, including that the authors informed their model based on the influenza virus, to which children are particularly vulnerable — however, early data on COVID-19 suggests children may be less vulnerable, so the benefits of school closures may be smaller than expected

  Policymakers have been very successful in containing the spread so far in Australia. This is thanks to quite an early and fast response to the increase in cases. In many ways, we have learned from the experience of the US, UK and other areas of Europe in how not to respond. However, we are still in the very early stages of thinking about how to progress out of lockdown.

  The problem that the general public in AU haven't realised yet is that our lockdown is very different to the sort of lockdown that we see in Europe. Ours was very much preventative, whereas the European lockdowns were an "emergency stop" button that was used to ease the pressure on the medical system. That's why we're seeing many European countries, e.g. Italy and Germany beginning to transition out of lockdown within the coming weeks.

  What we can learn from their experience in transitioning out will be extremely important. It's increasingly likely that COVID-19 will become seasonal, and it's still very unlikely that we'll see a vaccine until late-2021. At some point, the costs of social distancing measures will come into question. Should we allow people to crowd restaurants and bars and go to the footy right now? No. Should we be disadvantaging an entire generation of students when the scientific evidence supporting a school shutdown is sparse? No.

  For the people who are afraid of their kid contracting COVID-19, take a moment to spare a thought for parents in the US. Myself and a colleague (we're currently working on modelling COVID-19 at a major Australian university) found that a child in the US is over 100 times more likely to die from a mass shooting or gun homicide than COVID-19.

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 07/04/2020 - 15:50

    -1

    I agree with everything you've said. I am just waiting for a clarification on the definition of "essential worker" from the school before sending them back.

    • 

      p1 ama on 07/04/2020 - 15:52

      The problem is that it seems the state governments, federal governments and health officers are all giving conflicting advice.

      Federal CMO Brendan Murphy (who's probably done the best in terms of guiding the public so far) said this morning:

      On Tuesday, chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said health officials were developing advice on how to make schools safer, including improving hygiene measures, reducing gatherings and cleaning playgrounds. "But we believe there is not an evidence base to say that keeping children from [school] is a strong public health measure on the current evidence that we have," Professor Murphy said.

      • 

        [Deactivated] on 07/04/2020 - 15:58

        -1

        Add to that the peer pressure from other parents to do "the right thing" and the attitude from the teaching staff who don't want to be on the school premises.

  • 

    mtr on 07/04/2020 - 15:56

    +9

    And your reply betrays a complete lack of understanding of what schools actually look like and how COVID-19 has already impacted them well before this decision.

    Namely, in a secondary context:
    * School attendance was down markedly across the state, to the point that classrooms had already become half empty in many schools. This left schools and educators in an impossible position of trying to deliver standard curricula to half a class, and frantically preparing remote learning for the other half. A completely unsustainable model.
    * Schools are, by their very structure, places where it is impossible to maintain social distancing guidelines. This is true for both students (who, yes, are less susceptible) and staff. This led to highly anxious staff and students, to the point where very little learning was done in the last two weeks of Term 1.

    Thankfully, the state government has responded to the overwhelming call of educators to allow them to implement a learning-from-home model that will still allow students to learn (albeit in a modified way). Yes, it won't be perfect, but it will be a whole lot better than it was prior to the closures when neither at-school nor at-home students were doing much learning.

    Finally, with respect to the "I am not an essential worker but I think they will miss out by being homeschooled" option in the poll. Hopefully people understand that sending your child to school in this environment will mean they get put in a room and babysat while they do exactly the same learning-from-home (but, in this case, at school) as everyone else. There are no classes that will be running in the traditional sense. So please, keep your child at home unless you really can't.

    • 

      p1 ama on 07/04/2020 - 16:39

      -1

      And your reply betrays a complete lack of understanding of what schools actually look like and how COVID-19 has already impacted them well before this decision.

      Then why don't you write your own research article, submit it to The Lancet for peer review? You can have an opinion, but just because you believe something doesn't mean that it supersedes the scientific research. I'm not saying that parents should be forced to send their kids to school. However, if the evidence says that closing schools may bring more harm than good, public policy should reflect that.

      School attendance was down markedly across the state, to the point that classrooms had already become half empty in many schools. This left schools and educators in an impossible position of trying to deliver standard curricula to half a class, and frantically preparing remote learning for the other half. A completely unsustainable model.

      Yes, so the solution is now to send every student home and make sure that no student gets an education. How does that make sense?

      Schools are, by their very structure, places where it is impossible to maintain social distancing guidelines. This is true for both students (who, yes, are less susceptible) and staff. This led to highly anxious staff and students, to the point where very little learning was done in the last two weeks of Term 1.

      I actually agree with you here. However, the problem is that I feel this has been particularly poorly thought out. In the very best schools, I have no doubt that they will continue to provide a quality education. However, I attended some of the poorest schools in the state when I was young and I had teachers who could barely do arithmetic let alone be trusted to deliver online classes to students. My fear is that the situation is only going to get worse for students and teachers.

      If we were to close schools, what we needed was a centralised online schooling system delivered by the state government, where they have expert educators who have pre-recorded videos or something to that effect which can be used as an educational tool. Shutting down schools without appropriate substitutes means that students will suffer.

      For the record, Andrews said this morning that horse racing will be allowed to continue. So horses running around are more important than kids' schooling now.

      • 

        mtr on 07/04/2020 - 18:38

        +3

        You can have an opinion, but just because you believe something doesn't mean that it supersedes the scientific research.

        Hold on, I am giving you an insight into the actual Victorian school context. You're sharing a study from the SARS outbreak in completely different schooling contexts. I am not disputing the generally established scientific fact that children are less likely to both contract and shed; however, we're talking about something like half a million students in Victorian schools and tens of thousands of adult staff, many of whom belong to or are adjacent to a high risk group. Even at very low percentage, keeping schools open jeopardises a significant number of Australians. All that said though, that isn't even the main driver here…

        Yes, so the solution is now to send every student home and make sure that no student gets an education. How does that make sense?

        It doesn't. You're presenting a false dichotomy. Yes, remote learning won't be as good as face-to-face learning under normal circumstance. It will, however, be better than face-to-face learning under the current circumstances, for the reasons I outlined earlier.

        I actually agree with you here. However, the problem is that I feel this has been particularly poorly thought out. In the very best schools, I have no doubt that they will continue to provide a quality education. However, I attended some of the poorest schools in the state when I was young and I had teachers who could barely do arithmetic let alone be trusted to deliver online classes to students. My fear is that the situation is only going to get worse for students and teachers.

        But if the problem is that teachers generally suck, what's the difference whether they suck at school or remotely? I mean, come on. The idea that teachers are lazy or incompetent and cannot "be trusted" is a tired trope. It's also been well established in the research that there is no correlation between wealth of a school and the quality of teaching. Yes, you probably had some bad teachers, me too. They were the exception. To the more nuanced point I hope you were making, which is that some teachers are ill-equipped to deliver remote learning right this minute, sure, that's true to some extent. It's also true of the people in my partner's corporate environment who are trying to navigate the work-from-home thing and are using tools like Slack or whatever for the first time and feeling overwhelmed. Teachers will adapt, it's a core part of the job.

        If we were to close schools, what we needed was a centralised online schooling system delivered by the state government, where they have expert educators who have pre-recorded videos or something to that effect which can be used as an educational tool. Shutting down schools without appropriate substitutes means that students will suffer.

        Again, this is where, with all due respect, I say it is clear you do not understand the Victorian school context at all. These centralised resources already exist across most subjects. There are videos, there are exercises, there are self-marking tools etc. Literally swimming in this stuff, many of which have been made free by the companies throughout COVID. This is not the job of a teacher. The job of a teacher is to know exactly what his/her students know, support them at that level, and show them how to get to the next level of progress. If it was just about delivering content, as you seem to suggest, teaching would be obsolete. Fortunately, that's not the job.

        For the record, Andrews said this morning that horse racing will be allowed to continue. So horses running around are more important than kids' schooling now.

        Probably because horse racing clubs will have sufficient space to meet social distancing guidelines and the horses' parents haven't pulled half of them out of the races already anyway :)

      • 

        leiiv on 08/04/2020 - 22:58

        However, I attended some of the poorest schools in the state when I was young and I had teachers who could barely do arithmetic let alone be trusted to deliver online classes to students.

        In such cases, homeschooling would be even better as students can learn from more competent sources online.

        If we were to close schools, what we needed was a centralised online schooling system delivered by the state government, where they have expert educators who have pre-recorded videos or something to that effect which can be used as an educational tool.

        Or just use Khan Academy. Teachers should be available online to answer questions.

  • 

    leiiv on 08/04/2020 - 22:49

    It defies logic when you close everything else and implement strict social distancing, while keeping schools open, where hundreds if not thousands of students mingle together in one place.

• 

  chumlee on 07/04/2020 - 16:10

  +3

  Seems i will not get to see my kid's hot teacher for 3 months now.

  Thanks for nothing Daniel Andrews

  • 

    JimmyF on 07/04/2020 - 16:49

    +1

    If its 'essential' for you to see them, then you'll have to send your kids as its part of 'essential work' and you know, drop them off.

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 07/04/2020 - 16:55

    Or do it like my mate did. He asked her out and they are now officially dating :D

    • 

      elgrande on 07/04/2020 - 17:03

      +1

      Your mate is dating Chumlee's kid's teacher?.. small world!

      • 

        [Deactivated] on 07/04/2020 - 17:06

        No, he's dating one of my kid's teacher. In my son's words when he saw them together "totes awks!" He's come around now that it's official.

        • 

          kahn on 07/04/2020 - 17:24

          +2

          @[Deactivated]:

          "totes awks!"

          I assume this was a "special" school.

          • 

            [Deactivated] on 07/04/2020 - 17:29

            @kahn: Private school :/

    • 

      chumlee on 07/04/2020 - 17:43

      Mrs Chumlee may have an issue with that. I say "may as I'm too scared to ask Mrs Chumlee

  • 

    bdl on 07/04/2020 - 18:09

    Set up a zoom meeting instead when Mrs Chumlee is in the shower

• 

  burningrage on 07/04/2020 - 17:31

  Many parents aren't qualified teachers and now have to home-school while at the same time working from home.

  How the hell is this going to be good for children's education?

  • 

    JimmyF on 07/04/2020 - 17:40

    +2

    now have to home-school while at the same time working from home.

    While its great idea to have kids homeschooled, the fact is most parent(s) are not sitting around all day with nothing to do, waiting for the kids to come home from school. Sure for a few weeks they can do it, but long term, they too are working either from home or at a workplace.

    It also doesn't work if you have 2 or 3 kids at home, trying to balance a day job working at home and trying to get 3 kids to 'learn'.

    • 

      burningrage on 08/04/2020 - 14:55

      Precisely.

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  alexr98 on 15/04/2020 - 17:12

  It seems to me that the compromise reached in the national cabinet of having both distance learning and keeping schools physically open for kids of essential workers was about the best pragmatic outcome that could be achieved. The problem is that the teachers unions around Australia want to keep walking backwards until all schools are totally closed.

  A reporter/commentator on SkyNews this morning pointed out that in the course of the pandemic so far in Australia, the only profession/occupation that has consistently and strongly fought to be ordered to stop providing their normal services to society has been the teachers. An interesting viewpoint…