The teachers' strikes feel like a personal attack on parents 💬 via ipaperviews
My children started school that September. Us parents were on edge every day; we held our breaths as we were forced to twirl swabs around our children’s noses, mixing and dipping to see if they had caught the virus, and weigh up what the impact would be if they had. We waited anxiously each day to hear about new outbreaks in class, and if our children were safe. We taught them to wash their hands while singing “Happy Birthday” so they could stay as sanitised as possible.
This was, no doubt, bad for the children. Mixing Zoom calls with stressed parents attempting to teach what they barely understand isn’t a good combination. A lot of my work had been cancelled and I was desperately trying to pivot between working from home and becoming a makeshift teacher. It was insanely hard. Many of my friends, who are employed, felt the same; the terror of our children falling behind was sobering.