Closure of schools. There’s a mountain of evidence that taking kids out of school is harmful. It’s not just the loss of education—although that doesn’t help—but also the loss of socialisation. Less education is directly correlated with shorter life expectancy—a US study found that just that effect was enough to mean that closing schools would cost more years of life than it saved, with 98% probability. That’s before adding in the burden from significantly higher rates of mental health problems in children who have been deprived of school.
Close of schools is disproportionately harmful to those who already come from deprived backgrounds—think about the difference between a middle-class family where every child has their own iPad and the educated parents will help with homework, compared to a lower-class family which has one phone to share among everyone and the single-parent doesn’t have time to help kids and also work. Then consider that closure of schools means loss of free school meal schemes—this caused chaos and serious hardship even in the UK and will have been worse in less developed countries.
Then there’s the extreme cases: school is an escape for kids who live in homes where there’s domestic violence. Teachers can also look for signs that kids need help or are suffering for abuse—if they’re physically present. Closure of schools means that kids in abusive situations are trapped 24⁄7 with their abusers—whose own behaviour may become worse due to stress of unemployment or isolation.
Closure of schools. There’s a mountain of evidence that taking kids out of school is harmful. It’s not just the loss of education—although that doesn’t help—but also the loss of socialisation.
Closure of schools. There’s a mountain of evidence that taking kids out of school is harmful. It’s not just the loss of education—although that doesn’t help—but also the loss of socialisation. Less education is directly correlated with shorter life expectancy—a US study found that just that effect was enough to mean that closing schools would cost more years of life than it saved, with 98% probability. That’s before adding in the burden from significantly higher rates of mental health problems in children who have been deprived of school.
Close of schools is disproportionately harmful to those who already come from deprived backgrounds—think about the difference between a middle-class family where every child has their own iPad and the educated parents will help with homework, compared to a lower-class family which has one phone to share among everyone and the single-parent doesn’t have time to help kids and also work. Then consider that closure of schools means loss of free school meal schemes—this caused chaos and serious hardship even in the UK and will have been worse in less developed countries.
Then there’s the extreme cases: school is an escape for kids who live in homes where there’s domestic violence. Teachers can also look for signs that kids need help or are suffering for abuse—if they’re physically present. Closure of schools means that kids in abusive situations are trapped 24⁄7 with their abusers—whose own behaviour may become worse due to stress of unemployment or isolation.
What if socialization is relative?