(几个星期以来,白宫和许多州政府都在指示秋季开学。一石激起千层浪,有学生的家庭无限纠结。一位朋友今天问我,到底应该如何做,去学校有没有危险。我一向对朋友直言。但由于我已经没有子女在校读书,由我回答这个问题,可能会有隔靴搔痒之嫌。所以我在这里改写一篇大约10天前一位朋友送来的帖子。原帖是英文,我改写成中文。希望能帮助一些朋友在做决定时,有个参考。
这是杜克大学医学院附属医院一位医生的观点,她针对由于许多父母不得不做出艰难的学校决定,说出自己的心里话和打算。这位医生亲身救治COVID-19病人,又有两个年幼的孩子。她能够在人人似乎自顾不暇之时,直抒胸臆,给广大家长提供了有益的参考,感谢感谢。同时我也要感谢在第一时间转发这个帖子让我读到的一位杰城朋友,因为有这样的朋友,我们的社区好很多)。
这位医生说-----
关于秋季开学,将会有很多讨论和辩论。今天,2020年7月2日,北卡的威克县宣布,他们将安排儿童一周实体课堂教学,两周远程教学。我希望杜克大学所在地点教堂山学区很快就会效仿,或者制定一些类似的混合计划。有朋友一直不断地问我这个问题,“哎,你是一名治疗COVID的医生,您如何考虑将您的孩子送回学校呢?” 这里,我的回答只代表我自己的,非常个人化的意见,不反映我的雇主,也和杜克无关。我了解并赞赏与我处于同一职位的许多同事,他们各自有不同的看法。但是既然有很多人不停地问我,下面就是我作为父母和一线医生的答案。大致如下。
我为我的孩子下学期选择远程学习,不去实体学校。原因是多方面的:
我承认我非常幸运,我的工作使我能够仅用一部分时间在临床看病,而另一部分时间能够远程完成我的研究工作,并照顾到孩子在家学习。我的父母住在附近,愿意帮我,在我必须在医院工作的几周里,他们愿意并全心全意地帮助我的孩子在家上学。
对于任何一个单亲家庭,或者两人都不能在家里工作的职业父母,或者没有大家庭支持的家庭,有ESL的家庭,有IEP的孩子,孩子需要特殊照顾的家庭等,留家还是返校,这无疑像是一个可怕的噩梦。
至于怎样能够更好地兼顾安全和学习进度,我真的没有答案。我不希望孩子因为父母负担不起家庭教育,不能聘请所需要的老师而过分地在学习上落后。但是我也不想看到孩子患COVID,更不希望老师因为必须在疫情下面对面地授课而患病身亡。
必须看到,这些不能面面俱到的方案,似乎会加剧贫富之间的差距,也可能会加大成绩好坏的差距。
但是,显而易见,任何涉及到增加面授时间的计划,一定会使孩子和老师面临更大染病的风险。坦率地说,这些老师的薪水不足以逼迫他们去赴死,不足以弥补他们的损失,让他们的家人去冒生命危险。
我个人不能回答这个问题。我觉得这个问题现在无解。
(学习这位医生的帖子后的想法:在疫情没有有效控制的时期,如果可能,家长要想尽办法减少孩子去学校面授的时间,或直接不去学校,改成网上教学,可以减少孩子生病的危险。这样做,对减轻学校的负担,老师和其他同学的负担,也是有好处的。所有的家长,都要尽自己最大的力量保护自己,保护孩子,保护家庭。对英语是第二语言的家长,也可以用google translate了解本地法案的大概。)
附上英文原文。
7/2: SCHOOL. There has been much discussion and debate about what school will look like next year. Today, Wake county announced that they will have kids in a rotation of 1 week in person/ 2 weeks remote. I expect Chapel hill will shortly follow suit,
Or have some similar hybrid plan. I keep getting asked this question repeatedly from friends — “well, you are a COVID Doctor. What do YOU think about sending your kids back to school”. My answer is my own, deeply personal, and not reflective of my employer. And I recognize and appreciate that many of my colleagues in the same position as me have different views. BUT. Since so many keep asking me, here is my answer, as both a parent and a frontline covid doctor. Do with it as you choose:
My family is electing to remote school next year. The reasons for this are multi-factorial:
-this disease scares the shit out of me. After 4 months caring for covid patients, we certainly know a lot more. But a lot of it isn’t reassuring. Covid is now known to cause lung, heart, kidney, brain, and clotting system complications. And that’s just what we know about the immediate effects. We have no idea — NONE — what the longer term effects might be. I am not willling to risk the health and vitality of my kids to find out what those long term side effects might be
-morbidity vs mortality. I’ve talked about this in prior posts. Yes, very few children actually die of covid. BUT many young people still get very very sick. Intubated. Put on ecmo. Pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome. Kawasaki-like illness with coronary artery aneurysms. These are serious issues with long term effects. Just because covid doesnt kill you; it doesn’t mean you will ever be quite the same either.
-the teachers and staff. My god, how can we ask this of them? After cautiously sheltering in place for months, we are now asking them to basically jump into the lions den and interact with hundreds of children with thousands of household contacts. The more exposure you have, the more risk you have. Trust me, we WILL see teachers and bus drivers and cafeteria workers and other staff — and their family members— who get sick and die.
-I want to continue having my parents involved in my kids life. If we strictly isolate, I feel safe doing so. But If the kids go back to school and interact with dozens of kids from dozens of homes, the risk to my parents increases exponentially.
-I do strongly believe that since we CAN keep our kids home without significant detrimental effects, we SHOULD. There are so, so many people in our community whose lives and careers and finances will be devastated by having to do remote learning. We will not be. We can do so for a year without undue harm to my kids or our careers or our finances. I choose to keep my kids home so that families who absolutely cannot do so have just a little bit more safety at school.
I acknowledge that we are EXTREMELY privileged for me to only work part-time clinically and am able to do my non-clinical work remotely and help home school. And my parents live here and are willing and fully engaged to help us home school during the weeks I absolutely have to be in the hospital.
This seems like a goddamn nightmare for any family with a single parent, two working parents who cannot work from home, families with out extended family support, and families with ESL, kids with IEPs, exceptional children, etc etc.
I have zero answers as to how to make it better. Zero. I don’t want kids falling behind disproportionally because their parents cannot afford to home school or hire tutors. I also don’t want to see kids sick from covid and dead teachers.
Any plan than is less than 100% not in-person seems doomed to only worsen and exacerbate the achievement gap between the haves/have nots.
But — Any plan that involves more in person time also puts kids and teachers more at risk. And these teachers quite frankly do not get paid enough to risk their and their families lives.
I have no answer. It is impossible.
(####Many thanks to this respectaful and honest unknown doctor).
宵枚:谢谢阅读。疫情肆虐,多多保重!