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This just places even more burden on teachers to do everything. This is like keeping the troops but removing the supply lines.
by npunt 6y ago
This just places even more burden on teachers to do everything. This is like keeping the troops but removing the supply lines.
- lettergram 6y agoExcept, the janitors and / or lunch servers can be hired within a couple weeks and don't require training. Teachers are harder to hire because they have expertise, unions, and have years of experience.
- npunt 6y agoAnd what about the instructional aides and other staff that do have significant training? And what about the web of relationships formed between the staff and students, including those between the janitors, lunch servers, etc and students? And what about the capacities and institutional knowledge that staff have about school operations? Schools are complex operations, made simple only by those who don't understand them.
- M5x7wI3CmbEem10 6y agojanitor-student relationships? server-student relationships?
- npunt 6y agoYes. Maybe not for you, or for all students, but for some, yes. It takes a village to raise a kid, not just those formally designated 'teachers'.
- ticviking 6y agoThe lunch lady is a time honored and well known source of wisdom for those who get to know her.
- Godel_unicode 6y agoEven if that's true, why would it not be true about the new school cook? Kids get new teachers every year and seem perfectly able to bond with them.
- npunt 6y agoConsider perhaps part of the reason kids can adapt to new teachers each year is because there's consistency among the other members of the community, and that swapping the entire community out each year might be detrimental to their experience. Also, not all kids adapt that well to new teachers.
- bradlys 6y agoMaybe I'm out of touch here but what support staff do teachers need when they're teaching remotely? I'd imagine a few administrative staff, maybe some counselors, and that's about it? Maybe I'm completely out of touch since I went to such a poor school that we couldn't even afford 5 days a week (I know a little something about budget cuts). Janitors, cooks, nurses, even certain types of teachers that rely on in-person instruction (gym, woodshop, metals, etc.), facilities workers, and more are all not particularly needed when online only.
- npunt 6y agoTrue, they're also not needed as much in the summer. Question is how quickly should we dismantle our institutions, and what are the long term costs of that? Were schools better funded, they would be able to absorb some disruptions in the world without immediately falling apart. If we build our core institutions of society on a kind of just-in-time efficiency economic model, they become weak and fragile, and getting back to prior operational capacity takes years. The long term costs of that in general outweigh the short term savings. Education's ROI is $7+ for every $1 invested, but for a variety of cultural and legal reasons it is chronically underfunded. https://www.impact.upenn.edu/our-analysis/opportunities-to-achieve-impact/early-childhood-toolkit/why-invest/what-is-the-return-on-investment/ https://www.impact.upenn.edu/our-analysis/opportunities-to-a...