A SECOND OPINION: Students preparing to have ‘virtual classes” in the Fall

I say open the schools to learning and be done with it. We just have to go on with our lives.
Social isolation, lack of monitoring for parental abuse, lack of nutrition, lack of activity
and other reasons why online learning isn’t the best solution for children means
that it is paramount to open the schools again as quickly as possible.

by Mary Foran

President Trump wants the schools to open for in-person classes in the Fall, but Administrators are listening to Public Health officials and preparing to serve students online. And that includes students from kindergarten to the University level.

The Trump Administration, however, has rescinded a ruling that caused a slew of controversy, namely a rule that would have required international university students to transfer or leave the country if their schools held classes entirely online because of the pandemic. Trump had been facing eight federal lawsuits and opposition from hundreds of universities, mainly from Boston’s Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Friends since their first year gathered on the steps of  Widener Libary, the centerpìece of the Harvard Libary system, before leaving campus on their senior year. Out of a total 31,000+ enrollment in Harvard, 10,000+ are international students from 155 countries.*

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said federal immigration authorities agreed to pull the July 6th directive and “return to the status quo”. The announcement brings relief to thousands of foreign students who had been at risk of being deported. And in light of the policy, many universities were scrambling to reassess their Fall plans. The idea behind the edict was to make sure that international students were signed up for at least one in-person class instead of taking all online classes.

In the lower grades, parents have had to pitch in to in-home-school their children, and online learning has become popular, even though, as a study in Germany has shown, children are less likely to contract the Covid-19 virus.

For various reasons, online learning isn’t the best solution for children. That is why it is paramount to open the schools again as quickly as possible.

Social isolation, lack of monitoring for parental abuse, lack of nutrition, lack of activity and other reasons why online learning isn’t the best solution for children means that it is paramount to open the schools again as quickly as possible.

In the days before Covid-19, we could play at recess with abandon with our friends. Now children are restricted and without the many freedoms we knew.

And a professor as mentor is a thing of the past.

I say open the schools to learning and be done with it. We just have to go on with our lives.

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Images
Featured image: laptop/Rawpixel Ltd, CC BY2.0; pencils & Post-its/Sydneyewing1, CC BY2.0
Harvard friends on their senior year, posted on Harvard Facebook 23 May 2020. (Stat sources as of 7/21/2020: https://hio.harvard.edu/statistics; https://www.harvard.edu/media-relations/quick-facts; https://datausa.io/profile/university/harvard-university#enrollment )
Classroom/Eugene Kim, CC BY2.0