Thread - LOTS has been said about how a particular segment of the population has been sounding the clarion call for school resuming face to face instruction in the fall and how they have used marginalized children and concern for the well being and mental health of children as 1/

Their argument along with their own children missing school. Now while the easy, smarmy & petty response would be to say "Hey Karen, just say you're sick of your kids and want them out of the house so you can drink wine at the country club all day and go. And keep low income 2/

Kids of color out of your mouth while you're at it" but, that's not productive. But, overwhelmingly white upper and middle class women have been the forefront of voices for F2F instruction to resume, women who would have the means and resources to remain virtual. Whereas 3/

Black, Latinx students are choosing virtual despite the inequities that will be there. So, to deny the privileged slant that is behind this push is near sighted. But, let's look deeper at the main argument used, "mental health and socialization". We've been a hybris model for 4/

Almost 2 weeks now at my high school. And I can tell you, there is minimal socialization going on. Classes lively with discussions and experiments are quiet & everyone is on a screen, the raucous cafeteria has students sitting in one direction, barely speaking above a whisper 5/

And among the students (except for 9th grade because they've never been in high school before), a palpable sense of "this isn't what I thought/signed up for" because it wasn't "school" they missed as much as the abstract of "last school year before lockdown" & everything that 6/

Comes with it; pep rallies, dances, football games, cutting up in the cafeteria, the fun experiments in chemistry, the socratic seminars and lively discussions, the project based learning. And that's all gone because those are high contact highly social activities. Replaced w/ 7/

Rows, lectures and notes. Nothing normal, nothing is like it was a year ago. The silence feels like a dystopian Science fiction novel. Extracurriculars bring some sense of what was, but seeing masks and temp checks show me it's not. So that brings me to the "mental health" 8/

Strawman. Young people are resilient and in time adapt when adults are there to help them navigate, but this is going to be a hard one, because as they figure out that this isn't what they thought it would be, & they really could have done all of this at home, they're going to 9/

Wonder why did their parents REALLY push for F2F. Why are their friends safe at home, learning the same content, and they're in the building risking the health of their teachers, their families and themselves? They see firsthand nothing is like last year, and NO ONE is being 10/

Social. So.....did my mom just send me because she was sick of me and she wanted me out of the house? That sounds like more of a trauma than a virtual learning environment.