Quebec schools shouldn’t put kids on front lines

Don’t put children on front lines, Alison Hopper says.

As an elementary school teacher and a mother of young children, I am struggling to understand the rationale behind the hasty decision to open Quebec elementary schools, during the midst of a worldwide pandemic.

This has been a difficult time. At every turn, we have been on edge. It has been a roller-coaster of emotions for everyone. Right now, my roller-coaster cart is dropping fast.

Throughout this pandemic, the message has been clear: Stay home and you will be safe.

Now, teachers and support staff are being told to leave our homes and go back into the classroom. There seems to be one message for teachers and support staff and a completely different message for the general public. Evidentially, research on the virus is in its early stages and we clearly do not fully understand how it operates. So, why risk the health of children, teachers, support staff and their families? I hate to think of us as guinea pigs.

Before the pandemic, schools were suffering. Teachers and parents funding school supplies. Teachers having to buy basic necessities like soap and cleaning products for their classroom. Janitors having the amount of cleaning solution they used monitored. Many students in regular classrooms with individualized education plans and special needs not being able to access services that they need. A lack of support staff for maintenance and cleaning of schools. Students squashed into classrooms like sardines in a can. And, finally, the shortage of teachers and substitute teachers.

Political ministers mention the importance of “learning,” but how can this be learning?

The environment you are asking us to set up is clearly not conducive to learning. It will be a melting pot of anxiety and stress. We won’t be teaching; we will be managing how students move (and don’t move), and keeping up with constant disinfecting. All our best teaching practices are taken away with physical distancing.

The environment you are asking us to set up ... will be a melting pot of anxiety and stress.

As teachers, we do not stand in front of the classroom and lecture to rows. This teaching method is ineffective and outdated. To ask young students to conform to the two-metre distancing rule will be impossible. Children are naturally tactile and social little people. I question how all of this will affect the mental health of students and staff.

Similar to the health-care sector, the education sector has been suffering a lack of funding. The lack of investment in schools has made conditions bad, but during a crisis like this it will make conditions dire.

We are fighting a contagious virus that has no vaccine or cure. Take a look at the front-line fighters: teachers and nurses. Teachers and nurses are predominantly women (Statistics Canada shows that 84 per cent of elementary school teachers are women). When it comes to an actual physical war, women are discouraged from being on the front line. In the case of a worldwide pandemic, we are forced to be there, and to fight without any of the correct protective equipment.

Let’s call this what it really is: a strategy to babysit young children whilst Premier François Legault desperately tries to get the economy restarted. This is not teaching.

I am not pulling the victim card here; I am angry. Angry that ministers think it is OK to put students, staff and their families at risk. We have been offered no PPE or reassurance. The only thing that we have been given is an ill-conceived plan.

I understand the economic harm of keeping school closed is significant, but it is calculable. We do not know about the harms of reopening schools. It’s gambling.

I want to get back into the classroom. I want to see my students. I love my profession. However, we are human beings with feelings and legitimate concerns. To drop us into an ocean of uncertainty is cruel and unfair. To tell us not to worry because the hospital beds are ready to receive us is disgusting.

I am asking for more time. Time for all concerned to develop a thorough and clear plan that will keep us all safe.