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andrewvc | 2 years ago

Whether we want that to be true or not it is. If every school were to close the immediate emergency would be that people would have no one to watch their kids.

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shadowgovt|2 years ago

We actually have strong, immediate evidence of this as a result of COVID, where a prominent issue that even parents working from home encountered was a sudden new need to find stable work-life balance in an environment where the two had been ram-rodded together, happening in the same room. For a lot of parents, it was a disaster.

gretch|2 years ago

> If every school were to close the immediate emergency would be that people would have no one to watch their kids.

If the pipes in your house burst right now, your immediate emergency would be to pretty much stop everything and stop your house from completely flooding.

That doesn't mean that the primary purpose of your life is a pipe-fixer.

I think you made the classic mistake of confusing urgency with importance.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF|2 years ago

> pipes in your house burst right now

> primary purpose of your life

In this thread, we're not talking about the primary purpose of one's life, we're talking about the primary purpose of school as it relates to parents. In that way, the pipes are analogous to the school and, as you said:

> If the pipes in your house burst right now, your immediate emergency would be to pretty much stop everything and stop your house from completely flooding.

Just like

> If every school were to close the immediate emergency would be that people would have no one to watch their kids.

Specifically because the schools are as important to watching kids as pipes are to moving and containing water.

AnimalMuppet|2 years ago

A function, certainly. Your argument does nothing to assert that it's the primary function, however.

ysavir|2 years ago

True, but the purpose of schools isn't the immediate problems/outcomes. It's the long term outcomes of having an educated society.

We could argue about whether the schooling system is sufficiently meeting those long term goals, but that doesn't mean they take a back seat to the immediate consequences of school closures.

wharvle|2 years ago

Schools would work very differently if this were truly the primary reason they exist.