My thoughts about Covid in schools-
Our studies are crap. We haven't put appropriate resources into studying this. Merging "in-person school" v "remote school" across the country makes little sense since there's so much heterogeneity in what "in-person school" looks like. 🧵

A teacher in Louisiana in an area with high rates of covid & in-person school, has a class with just 2 students in it. The entire school has 37 students and 12 staff, in a building that can hold hundreds.
Should this school's data be merged with a school that's fully open?
How would merging such disparate data, and everything in-between impact our understanding of Covid in schools? What about when we compare it to the rates in children who are in virtual school?
Things often not considered that should be... Are kids in pods? Are kids doing virtual school in community centers/ churches/ other group settings? Are youth sports or other extracurricular school activities (music, etc) happening in-person. Heterogeneity exist in this group too.
What's asymptomatic testing of children in the community like? We know that children are under-tested, how can we say something is safe if we are NOT TESTING children at the same rate as the rest of the population. We can't embrace the "don't ask (test) don't tell" apprach here.
The US has not adequately funding research on this topic so that we can have good data to support policy decisions on this front. Makes me wonder if we really want to have a scientifically sound answer.
Without typing the virus, near complete contact tracing, and routine testing, we won't have the data you all are hoping for.
Until then, we must rely on what we know on where the virus spreads best, and admit that schools have many of those qualities.
Here's places that are looking at the virus spreading and closing schools. We should follow suit. And yes, it is nearly impossible to be a parent and have children in virtual school. I get the stress. Let's work to decrease community spread so we can get back to school.
https://t.co/8XEXxM7bdy
https://t.co/j0e3Xa0L9P
Sorry about the typos, it's after midnight where I am. You don't have to spell correctly or match word tenses after midnight. Isn't that a rule somewhere? 😆

More from Education

Working on a newsletter edition about deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is crucial if you want to reach expert level in any skill, but what is it, and how can it help you learn more precisely?

A thread based on @augustbradley's conversation with the late Anders Ericsson.

You can find my complete notes from the conversation in my public Roam graph:
https://t.co/Z5bXHsg3oc

The entire conversation is on

The 10,000-hour 'rule' was based on Ericsson's research, but simple practice is not enough for mastery.

We need teachers and coaches to give us feedback on how we're doing to adjust our actions effectively. Technology can help us by providing short feedback loops.

There's purposeful and deliberate practice.

In purposeful practice, you gain breakthroughs by trying out different techniques you find on your own.

In deliberate practice, an expert tells you what to improve on and how to do it, and then you do that (while getting feedback).

It's possible to come to powerful techniques through purposeful practice, but it's always a gamble.

Deliberate practice is possible with a map of the domain and a recommended way to move through it. This makes success more likely.

You May Also Like