2018 Online Schooling Op-Ed
Two things that happen as one gets older:
Like all its predecessors, the recent school shooting in Florida has people talking about how to prevent such tragedies from happening again. The conversation tends to focus on gun control and mental healthcare, ignoring a far more obvious and foolproof solution. School shootings couldn’t happen without schools.
Moving our public school system to the Internet would eliminate some of the shooting galleries we currently provide for mentally ill gun owners. It could also have saved the life of another Florida youth that died unnecessarily a few weeks earlier. Dylan Winnik was one of at least 97 U.S. children killed by the flu this season, and 97 is far from a record high.
Countless school districts across the country closed for illness this winter, and it makes perfect sense. Public schools are one of the primary places that disease is spread in our country. Sick children pass the flu to other kids and teachers, who subsequently take it home to their families, who take it to their places of business. Their coworkers and customers then take it home to their children, who take it back to school. Even if absolutely every U.S. citizen got the flu shot, the highest estimates for its effectiveness are about 60%, meaning four of every ten kids is going to get the flu no matter what. Wouldn’t it make more sense not to put those four kids in a confined space with twenty others every day? Wouldn’t it make more sense not to gather them like sitting ducks to be picked off by assault rifles? Wouldn’t it make more sense for our public schools to be online instead of being a public health hazard?
I must confess, though, that I have entirely separate reasons for wanting to see education reformed in this way. I explained them in an op-ed I started writing months ago but never completed. Here’s an excerpt:
“Consider the work that goes into owning a home. There’s a roof to maintain and grass to cut. You’ve got a floor to vacuum and a bathroom to clean. The plumbing and the furnace both need attention sometimes, and maybe you have to remove snow from the driveway. Then there’s the bills---electricity, gas, garbage, possibly water.”
“Now imagine that your home has 21 acres of roof, 35 acres of floor, 183 acres of grass, and miles of pipes and wire. Barely a day goes by without a leak or a light bulb that needs to be changed. The garbage truck comes twice a week and the bills are thousands of dollars a month. All told, it takes dozens of custodians and millions in taxpayer money to run even the smallest school district (these figures are approximations from a city of 50,000), and it’s only getting worse. But there’s a way out of this.”
“Nearly every child in America has two homes: the one they sleep in and the one where we force them to spend most of their waking hours. The Internet has made it possible to change this. If children did all of their schooling online from home, only one home would have to be maintained for them.”
I wrote these words as a school janitor who found the job overwhelming . I was overwhelmed despite the fact that I’m only a contract cleaner, hired because the schools can't afford skilled maintenance men in every building. I was overwhelmed before the flu season, before my school district invested $5000 in a high-tech “electrostatic sprayer” for mass sanitizing, and before I started working double shifts because so few people will do the job. I wanted to see schooling move online before the Florida shooting, and I won’t rest until it does; somebody has to clean these blood stains off the wall.
- Becoming complacent about things you used to feel strongly about, like my fears about technology, as expressed in the untitled singularity story.
- Developing the uncontrollable urge to write cranky, rambling letters to news publications about everything that's wrong with society.
Like all its predecessors, the recent school shooting in Florida has people talking about how to prevent such tragedies from happening again. The conversation tends to focus on gun control and mental healthcare, ignoring a far more obvious and foolproof solution. School shootings couldn’t happen without schools.
Moving our public school system to the Internet would eliminate some of the shooting galleries we currently provide for mentally ill gun owners. It could also have saved the life of another Florida youth that died unnecessarily a few weeks earlier. Dylan Winnik was one of at least 97 U.S. children killed by the flu this season, and 97 is far from a record high.
Countless school districts across the country closed for illness this winter, and it makes perfect sense. Public schools are one of the primary places that disease is spread in our country. Sick children pass the flu to other kids and teachers, who subsequently take it home to their families, who take it to their places of business. Their coworkers and customers then take it home to their children, who take it back to school. Even if absolutely every U.S. citizen got the flu shot, the highest estimates for its effectiveness are about 60%, meaning four of every ten kids is going to get the flu no matter what. Wouldn’t it make more sense not to put those four kids in a confined space with twenty others every day? Wouldn’t it make more sense not to gather them like sitting ducks to be picked off by assault rifles? Wouldn’t it make more sense for our public schools to be online instead of being a public health hazard?
I must confess, though, that I have entirely separate reasons for wanting to see education reformed in this way. I explained them in an op-ed I started writing months ago but never completed. Here’s an excerpt:
“Consider the work that goes into owning a home. There’s a roof to maintain and grass to cut. You’ve got a floor to vacuum and a bathroom to clean. The plumbing and the furnace both need attention sometimes, and maybe you have to remove snow from the driveway. Then there’s the bills---electricity, gas, garbage, possibly water.”
“Now imagine that your home has 21 acres of roof, 35 acres of floor, 183 acres of grass, and miles of pipes and wire. Barely a day goes by without a leak or a light bulb that needs to be changed. The garbage truck comes twice a week and the bills are thousands of dollars a month. All told, it takes dozens of custodians and millions in taxpayer money to run even the smallest school district (these figures are approximations from a city of 50,000), and it’s only getting worse. But there’s a way out of this.”
“Nearly every child in America has two homes: the one they sleep in and the one where we force them to spend most of their waking hours. The Internet has made it possible to change this. If children did all of their schooling online from home, only one home would have to be maintained for them.”
I wrote these words as a school janitor who found the job overwhelming . I was overwhelmed despite the fact that I’m only a contract cleaner, hired because the schools can't afford skilled maintenance men in every building. I was overwhelmed before the flu season, before my school district invested $5000 in a high-tech “electrostatic sprayer” for mass sanitizing, and before I started working double shifts because so few people will do the job. I wanted to see schooling move online before the Florida shooting, and I won’t rest until it does; somebody has to clean these blood stains off the wall.
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