The World’s Greatest Infrastructure (TM) met a cold front on the evening of the Vice Presidential debate. (Did the candidates talk about underground power lines or self-healing “smart grids” that will route around a downed line? (the technology has been available for more than a decade, e.g., from Hitachi ABB))
Power came back around 1:00 am, but #AbundanceOfCaution dictated that our local public school be closed. Email at11 pm from the superintendent:
Dear Lincoln School Families and Staff,
The power outage on the Lincoln campus has not yet been resolved. In addition, there are multiple trees down and road closures. As a result, we must cancel school on Thursday, October 8, 2020. The Lincoln campus will be closed. All employees excluding facilities staff and IT staff should not report to work.
The teachers purportedly had three months of experience in the spring providing online education (one email on Monday morning with some assignments; hosting a couple of video chats during the week). The teachers union negotiated a multi-week delay to the start of the school year here in Maskachusetts so that teachers could receive training on how to deliver online education #EvenBetter.
So… when the school building is closed, as it would be on a snow day, education soldiers on via Internet, right? The teachers and students work together from their respective homes? The answer turns out to be… No!
(The morning after this email was received, Senior Management noted that my failure to take a plate from the table to the dishwasher. I responded that I was following the lead of our public employees and that I would work only if conditions were ideal, e.g., if the plate did not need to be scraped and the dishwasher door were already open. She then asked why she could not use the same criteria for her own domestic efforts. I responded that, in the U.S., only about half of the adults could work for the government and therefore she had to be one of the private sector workers exposed to COVID-19, working 70 hours/week, etc. She replied that soon the U.S. would transition to socialism and everyone would be a government employee and thus we had to share kitchen tasks equally.)
Related:
- If the construction that began in June proceeds on schedule, this group of innovators will in 2023 be occupying the most expensive, per student, school building ever constructed in the United States.
This is an excellent point. With both parents and teachers now knowing how to use zoom tech, and the school districts giving computers to the poorer parents, there is no need to have a snow day ever again. This is even with in person learning (which I think is better).
Sick teachers could also stay homeand give lessons via a video hookup. However, there are valid reasons for absences, like doctors appointments, that would require someone to stay away from the workplace and still leave home.
If we are going online, than wouldn’t it be cheaper and more efficient to hire teachers outside the US to teach our kids? You can hire multiple tutor online from India, China, Russia, etc for far less than the cost of a child care. When will parents smarten enough to do this? Heck, a group of families can get together and organize this IF they want what’s best for their kids.
“Texas School Districts Are Ending Remote Learning – 40-70% of Students Were Failing”
Whatever happened with the dishwasher? Or was that the washing machine?
I remember. The dishwasher still works, correct? What did you wind up choosing to prevent having to pick up an old wringer on Craigslist?
I got a conventional agitator-based Maytag washer that has a huge capacity compared to the Speed Queen.